KFC -

Would you accept that Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, 7th Day Adventism and Zorastrianism be required courses in public schools?  Because what you are asking/demanding is that religious doctrine be required teaching.

no, I just told you you can teach origins without getting into religion.  You can teach it as an alternative theory like evolution is just a theory.  You can just take the bible as historical literature and teach the creation part in Genesis and not even get into religion at all. 

I just picked my jaw up from the floor.  Fortunately, no serious injuries.  It is mind-boggling that you could write that with no sense of irony whatsoever.

LIke I said Daiwa...the debate rages on. 

All those religions you posted above all believe in some sort of outside force that created mankind that we call God and some call ID.   They are pretty much in agreement.   That's not what the difference in religions are. That usually involves alot more than just a theory on origins because they would all agree.   That's why I said it can be taught without teaching about worshipping God.  So it has nothing to do with anyone demanding religion being taught in Science Class. 

Remember creation was taught in public schools for many many years before the Scopes Trial with no adverse affects.  Can you say the same about evolution being taught in school sans creation? 

and just for your information...I am against teaching religion in public schools!  I believe it should be taught in the homes and churches. 

It can't be taught without teaching about religion/God.

Evolution/creationism is a false dichotomy.  Teaching one does not legitimize teaching the other.

Yes, you can. But you cannot do it if the "origin" is a "creator".

Belief in a creator is religion.

Incidentally, evolution doesn't teach the "origin". But I told you that before.

(I am still trying to find an essay written by someone denouncing evolution who actually understood that evolution is not about "origins". "Origins of species" is like "origins of differences" not like "origins of things that can be different".)

No, you cannot. A belief in a creator is not a theory.

But if you find something else that actually qualifies as "just a theory", I'd support teaching it. Anything that doesn't require belief in a creator would do. (And no, it doesn't matter if the "creator" is a god or another created being.)

Actually, alternative theories to Darwin's evolution are being taught at school. I learned Lamarckian inheritance as well. (But I also learned how it was ultimately discredited because it didn't fit the facts.)

THAT is religion.

Genesis wasn't written by peopel who observed it happen, it was written by Moses based on what he was told.

I totally accept using the Bible as historical literature for the time periods where it was actually written by people who saw what was happening, but not for time periods thousands of years before that written down as hearsay no matter the source.

But the Creationist people don't believe that the Earth is that old, or did I misunderstand?

You had to say that so you can justify wanting Creationism taught as science instead of religion.

Some do.

However, they do not usually believe that Genesis was written while it "happened" by people who "saw it happening".

Even the shortest timeline puts Exodus at least 2000 years after Genesis.

According to even the most fundamentalist belief that part of the Bible was told to Moses by G-d on Mount Sinai. It was not written by Adam in paradise.

That means simply that it isn't a primary source, just like a book written today about ancient Israel is not a primary source.

However, the Bible after Moses is a primary source for the history of Israel as it was definitely written during that time period by actual people who lived there and saw things happening.

(Note that not all primary sources are true. But there is a difference between accepting a primary source of attributable authorship and accepting a secondary source of dubious authorship.)

Belief in a creator of any type is already religion. It cannot be taught in science class. (And since the US are a secular country it cannot be taught in religion class either since there cannot be a religion class.)

Explaining how life branches into different species over time (with or without a creator) is science.

Belief in a creator (or no creator) of any kind is religion.

I don't see why this is difficult.

It isn't. They're just blowing smoke.

'Religion' can be taught in public schools - I took Biblical Lit & History of Religions in high school.  Religion can't be ignored in the  course of secular education.  It is enmeshed in our history.  But there is a difference between the study of religions and the presentation of religious doctrine or dogma as scientific theory.

there is no Science that backs this up.  There is no proof that one species turns into another.  That's just it.  It's just a theory which we believe is nothing more than teaching secular humanism. 

and I can't see why people can't see that the Evoultionary Theory is just as much as a religion.  That's where the debate lies.  We believe the creation story has been replaced with a theory that cannot be proven and is nothing more than secular humanism.  Neither can creation be proven or reenacted.  One theory is just as plausible as the other.   

Actually, I haven't studied this at length but do know that there is a strong belief that the creation story was handed down from one generation to another and that Adam did write it down.  If you study the geneologies you can see a huge overlap.  Adam lived almost all the way to Noah who would have carried that story with him and passed it onto his three sons.  Moses was credited with the writings but there is some that believe that Moses had in his possession words directly written down from Adam.  Remember Adam lived for 930 years and lived almost to the flood.  With everything else in the Hebrew and Gk scriptures as being written down by eyewittnesses I can't see that the creation story would be any different.  It's a very precise description and to me and millions of others thru the centuries makes logical sense. 

I meant any one religion cannot be taught as fact.

That is "religion" as in "faith".

Public schools in a secular state cannot teach any faith as fact, neither atheism nor Hinduism or Christianity.

KFC, I have said this before.

Darwinian evolution does NOT claim that "one species turns into another". In fact, finding proof that that they do would disprove Darwin's theory. But as you say, no such proof has been found yet.

What has been shown to be correct is that animals change.

And yes, animals can change into different species by branching into them. There is no reason why they wouldn't. That's already enough for it to be scientific.

I gave the example with languages.

German and English have a common ancestor.

German and English are different species of language.

But at no point did the ancestor of German and English "turn into" English (or German). There was no such moment in time and there couldn't have been any such moment in time.

Evolution works the same for lifeforms.

As long as you keep believing that evolution is about species "turning into" other species, I'm afraid what you say about evolution and its validity as a scientific theory is entirely without value. You don't even know what evolution is (and refuse to learn), so how could you possible judge it?

That's because you don't understand what the theory of evolution says.

There is no faith evolved. And a scientist can reject it if he likes. And maybe one day somebody will find proof that Darwin's theory is wrong. But that hasn't happened yet.

The point is that Darwin's theory can be proven wrong and that's why it's science.

Creationism cannot be proven wrong and hence it is faith. That's the difference. That's the entire difference.

You think it's about how certain one can be and compare Creationism (which you believe) and evolution (which you don't understand) and arrive at the conclusion that both are essentially the same type of thing. But in reality it's the other way around. Science is not what it is more certain than religion, science is what we know how to disprove.

Present a theory of  "creationism" that includes instructions for what must happen for it to be proven wrong, and you have a scientific theory. But Creationism doesn't have such instructions. It's impossible for Creationism to be wrong. It's religion.

Darwin's theory is quite clear and can be disproven very easily, for example by showing how "one species turns into another". If that ever happens (and cannot be dismissed as a total freak occurence, so maybe we observe it twice to be sure), Darwin's theory will be disproven. And scientists, in contrast to religious authorities, will accept it, just like they accepted that the alternative theories (like Lamarck's) were eventually proven wrong.

I can't imagine how anyone who has learned about evolution from actual biology books (and not Creationist Web sites) could possibly believe that Darwin argues that one species turns into another. He didn't.

Again, and I think this is really the best example, it's like how languages evolve. German and English are two different languages and they have a common ancestor (call it "Germanic" if you want). But German never turned into English or vice versa and Germanic never turned into either. Yet the result is two different languages, quite without "turning into". And this is also how Darwin's theory explains different species.

Yes, but we have no evidence apart from the Bible that any of these people really grew that old and a story handed down is still not a primary source (it's as n-ty as it has been handed down, i.e. if it has handed down three times, it's a tertiary source).

So we don't even have a primary source that those people really grew that old.

But even if they did, we still have no primary source (because of the handing down) of what really happened in Genesis.

The creation story was obviously handed down, not only to Moses but also to other peoples. And it was finally (again) written down in the Bible. But it is never a primary source by its own admission.

This is different from Exodus and later where the Bible clearly claims to be a primary source, written by the people who were there. (Of course the oldest actual example of the text we have is a mere 2300 years old).