Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

It is no good arguing Spendi...

Couldn't understand what he was getting at, myself.

Dover Trap in the Pelican State
(Guest Essay by Ken Miller at Panda'sThumb.org, August 4, 2010)

Two years ago, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) into law, as noted on The Panda’s Thumb.

When the law was being considered in the Legislature, its proponents were adamant that it wasn’t about “creationism” or “intelligent design.” Folks from the Louisiana Family Forum and the Discovery Institute backed the LSEA, of course, but all they were interested in was good critical thinking, right?

Well, not so much. Now the Livingston Parish School Board is openly using the LSEA as legal justification to implement the teaching of creationism in their public schools. Barbara Forrest, one of the expert witnesses in Kitzmiller v. Dover exposes the maneuverings and alliances of anti-evolution forces in her state in a post at the Louisiana Coalition for Science.

Predictably, the Discovery Institute is now doing the same thing it did back in 2005 to the Dover School Board. They’re turning on their own supporters, and asking how anyone could possibly confuse their ideas with creationism. In his American Spectator article, Bruce Chapman, President of the Discovery Institute, now states that the very people who supported his efforts to get the LSEA passed are “ignorant” of the content of intelligent design theory. Darn. I wonder how those poor folks managed to think that ID equals creationism?

Somehow, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Could it be that the next Kitzmiller Reunion will be in Louisiana?

There are three epochas in the empire of a French woman.--She is
coquette,--then deist,--then devote: the empire during these is
never lost,--she only changes her subjects when thirty-five years
and more have unpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love, she re-
peoples it with slaves of infidelity,--and then with the slaves of
the church.

Madame de V- was vibrating betwixt the first of those epochas: the
colour of the rose was fading fast away;--she ought to have been a
deist five years before the time I had the honour to pay my first
visit.

She placed me upon the same sofa with her, for the sake of
disputing the point of religion more closely.--In short Madame de
V- told me she believed nothing.--I told Madame de V- it might be
her principle, but I was sure it could not be her interest to level
the outworks, without which I could not conceive how such a citadel
as hers could be defended;--that there was not a more dangerous
thing in the world than for a beauty to be a deist;--that it was a
debt I owed my creed not to conceal it from her;--that I had not
been five minutes sat upon the sofa beside her, but I had begun to
form designs;--and what is it, but the sentiments of religion, and
the persuasion they had excited in her breast, which could have
check'd them as they rose up?

We are not adamant, said I, taking hold of her hand;--and there is
need of all restraints, till age in her own time steals in and lays
them on us.--But my dear lady, said I, kissing her hand,--'tis too-
-too soon.

I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Madame de
V-.--She affirmed to Monsieur D- and the Abbe M-, that in one half
hour I had said more for revealed religion, than all their
Encyclopaedia had said against it.--I was listed directly into
Madame de V-'s coterie;--and she put off the epocha of deism for
two years.

Quote:

Perhaps I might "unpervert" Ms Forrest if I were to have the honour of sitting on a sofa next to her and explaining the implications of the passage, avoiding the reticences Mr Sterne's time demanded of him, as it relates to those of her gender who have only just reached the first "epoch" of their "empires" and who abound in the higher grades of secondary education classrooms.

On here, it is pointless as it is those very "outworks" that our anti-IDers are straining to level with the dirt and thus provide feeding opportunities for media conglomerates and the legal profession to gorge on.

.....the tears trickled down her cheeks.

I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they fell, with my handkerchief.—I then steep’d it in my own—and then in hers—and then in mine—and then I wip’d hers again—and as I did it, I felt such undescribable emotions within me, as I am sure could not be accounted for from any combinations of matter and motion.
I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pester’d the world ever convince me of the contrary.

Quote:

Dover Trap in the Pelican State
(Guest Essay by Ken Miller at Panda'sThumb.org, August 4, 2010)

Somehow, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Could it be that the next Kitzmiller Reunion will be in Louisiana?

Its gonna be a careful road that the Creationists and IDjits will have to tread so that they dont leave their asses exposed like they did in Dover.

The evolution of a Christian creationist
(By Rachel Held Evans, Opinion Essay, The Washington Post, August 6, 2010)

Good News! Young evangelicals are shifting their allegiance.

Much has been said about the mass exodus of young adults from church, with some studies suggesting that seventy percent of Protestants age 18-30 drop out before they turn 23.

While the factors behind the trend are complex, I'm not surprised that young evangelicals like me are feeling less comfortable in the pews these days. Our pastors might not like it, but the world is changing, and we are changing with it. Unless the evangelical church in America can adapt and evolve, it might not survive in a postmodern world.

I know because I almost abandoned it myself.

A child of the culture wars, I knew what abortion was before I knew where babies came from. I grew up scribbling words like "debatable" and "unlikely" in the margins of biology textbooks, fearlessly defending a 6,000-year-old-earth against atheists I only knew in my imagination. When I was in middle school, my family moved to the buckle of the Bible Belt and became residents of Dayton, Tennessee, home of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. There I attended a Christian college, listened to Christian music, and voted my Christian values. People called me "Bible girl."

This faith of mine didn't fall apart all at once, but instead eroded gradually, as I began studying science, interacting with people of other faiths, and experiencing a touch of "voter's remorse" when my pro-life president championed two wars overseas. My questions turned into skepticism, my skepticism into doubt, and I stopped going to church for a while.

My return to faith is something of a survival story that I chronicle in my memoir, "Evolving in Monkey Town" (Zondervan, 2010). The phone calls and emails I've received since its publication confirm what I've suspected all along: I'm not alone. Young evangelicals across the country are experiencing a collective crisis of faith.

Unfortunately, many leave Christianity altogether. But others, like me, simply undergo a change.

At the heart of this change is a shift in allegiance. For so long, evangelical Christianity demanded our allegiance to range of causes--from young earth creationism, to religious nationalism, to Republican politics. Somehow the radical teachings of a first century rabbi got all tangled up with modern political platforms and theological positions that were never essential to Christianity to begin with.

Young evangelicals are in the process of picking apart and deconstructing this tangled mess of ideas in order to get back to the most basic teachings of Jesus. So you shouldn't be surprised to bump into more and more and more oddities like me--a young evangelical Christian who votes for Democrats, has gay friends, and believes in evolution.

But don't be fooled into thinking this shift in allegiance means we're simply jumping from one political platform to another. At its best this change signals an allegiance first and foremost to the Kingdom of God, which knows no political party or geographic boundary, but instead grows outside of these confines through acts of love, humility, and peace. Instead of protesting outside abortion clinics, for example, we're championing adoption and supporting single moms. Instead of reducing our Christian service to a duty at the ballot box, we're looking for practical ways to address hunger, human trafficking, and homelessness.

The bad news for the Religious Right is that young evangelicals are tired of the culture wars. The good news for everyone else is that we're ready to make peace.

Sort of like a spendi fart.

You have forgotten the "controversial issues" which wande quoted the Texas senator as mentioning.

To what do you think he was referring fm? Politicians are not noted for holding off their best arguments.

That last spendi fart has not been answered yet. Perhaps wande should answer it. It was him who quoted the Texas senator.

Here it is again--

Quote:

You have forgotten the "controversial issues" which wande quoted the Texas senator as mentioning.

To what do you think he was referring fm? Politicians are not noted for holding off their best arguments.

Sort of like a spendi fart.

@CalamityJane,
CalamityJane wrote:

Well, despite what everyone says about spendius, his command of the
English language is impeccable and he does use terms that are not too common.

Spendius is ok in my books.