georgeob1 wrote:blatham wrote:
If by "alongside required instruction in science" you don't suggest the two are in opposition, fine. Why consider science and religion in opposition any more than english and science are in opposition or language studies and religious studies? As intellectual pursuits with their own frames of reference and 'proofs' etc, they seem to me quite distinct.
That doesn't mean that there aren't historical oppositions at work here. The framers inherently thought this way too with the wall notion (for the reasons we all recognize). And certainly the church often considers that such an opposition is in play as do those, like your framers, who held enlightenment notions related to those 'reasons' I mention above.
But this opposition seems to be political (by which I mean who is in power) in nature. Who gets to determine 'authority' or who gets to determine group values or that sort of thing. This is the way Bill Bennett thinks, for example.
Is that clear?
Clear? I'm not sure. All I suggested was that if both the philosophic grounding and the science courses were required parts of the curriculum, my particular concerns would be fullyu satisfied. I don't think that Science and the concept of a created universe are in opposition at all. However I do agree that the philosophic groundings of science and thought about our origins should be kept separate from instruction in science itself - they are different, distinct subjects and neither preempts the other.
It is simply unfortunate that this tolerant, balanced, and correct view is not held by many of the protagoniosts on either side of this issue..
There is no such thing anymore as "the Church" -- unless you have become a crypto Catholic. Religion generally, and, in particular Christianity in the United States have become multi-faceted, variable things, some admirable some not so.
I don't profess to know how either the framers or Bill Bennett thinks (or thought). By the way, both Bennett and I (and Pat Buchannan) graduated from the same Jesuit High School in Washungton DC (though I was a few years behind them) - Gonzaga, on North Capitol St, near the Capitol..
george
If you mean that epistemology and fundamentals of philosophic inquiry (thinking about how we think and how we might say we 'know' something) ought to be taught in schools...YES, I yell. Had I stayed in education, my personal project would have involved establishing how to best introduce a study of logic at the elementary level. And I would back a broad study of religious traditions/ideas over much else in common curricula, making room for it by decreasing other subject areas including mathematics. We each have our sense of what is important in education.
By "the church", I was speaking of the historical influences still at work in society. Variability of theology is acknowledged. But it is also the case that contemporary voices like Bork, Bennett, Strauss, Kristol, etc frame the issue we are talking about in terms of "the enlightenment" versus "the church" - in other words, precisely that same historical fight. And there's likely no single element as damaging to the power/influence of 'the church' in intellectual life and in society over the last 150 years as the Darwinian idea. Which is why it is the main target in anti-science dynamics.
Your ex-schoolbrother Bennett is a fellow I have pretty much no use for. In a recent account I read, he explicitly described to a writer (when he was in charge of education under Reagan) that he was pushing for the dismantling of the public school system. And as I expressed here or on another thread in the last day or two, for him to speak of the evils of 'materialism' and the lack of 'virture' and at the same time be tossing down a million bucks in Vegas, the very center of vulgar materialism in the universe, is about as shallow and as elitist as it is perhaps possible to be.
Pat Buchanan is, as we all know, something of a madman but I've read some wonderful letters between him and Hunter Thompson which allow me to forgive some of his nutso corners.
