Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

"A faith that requires you to close your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all."

Most of the signatories to the project and those preaching on Sunday were from the mainline Protestant denominations. Their congregations have shrunk sharply over the last 30 years.

The Clergy Letter Project said that 441 congregations in 48 states and the District of Columbia were taking part in Evolution Sunday, but that was impossible to verify independently. Around Chicago, two churches that were listed on the project's Web site as participants in the event said they were in fact not planning to deliver sermons on the subject.

"Sermons like this are exactly the reason we came to this church,"

"Critically analyze" evolution, panel advises
(BILL ROBINSON, Charlotte Observer, February 14, 2006)

South Carolina's Education Oversight Committee recommended Monday that theories other than evolution -- such as "intelligent design" -- be taught in high school biology classes.
The 10-2 vote, after months of wrangling, handed a victory to state Sen. Mike Fair and allies who have pushed education policymakers to include alternatives to evolution.
State Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum, a Democrat who is not seeking re-election this year, said the vote would water down the quality of science education in public schools.
The EOC, the state's school reform watchdog agency, took a stand in the months-long debate between evolution theorists and those who think there are other explanations about how humans came into being.
Teachers, the EOC said, should instruct students to "critically analyze" lessons presented about evolution.
Most scientists and science educators say "critically analyze" is surrogate language for instruction emphasizing "intelligent design," whose believers credit a larger intelligence -- perhaps a divine hand -- with influencing the diversity of life.
Monday's EOC vote is strictly advisory. The state Department of Education is responsible for writing the standards that teachers should follow when designing lessons, and those standards must get the Board of Education's OK.
The earliest the state board can take up the issue again is March.
Once the state board approves teaching standards, the Education Oversight Committee gets to vote them up or down. It cannot amend the standards.
Tenenbaum urged the EOC on Monday to reject the adopted recommendation crafted as a compromise by businessman Bob Staton of Lexington.
" `Critically analyze' is not just wordsmithing," Tenenbaum said. "It carries with it a whole campaign against evolution."
She suggested biblical lessons about life can be taught legally "as an historical document" in a separate class.
"Science is not up for debate," she said.
Fair, R-Greenville, took issue with Tenenbaum, saying, "When you run out of facts, you beat up on religion."
"We've worked hard at coming up with some balance," Fair said. "We're doing something that will strengthen the science classrooms in South Carolina."
Staton, a Republican candidate for state superintendent of education, suggested putting "critically analyze" in the first sentence of the document to emphasize it as a theme for the guidelines that follow.
Staton said he offered the compromise "to move the discussion forward. We need to be thinking about what will benefit children instead of it becoming an obstacle."

The "Rev Patricia" eh?

Quote:

Quote:

"A faith that requires you to close your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all."

Would someone be good enough to explain what that is supposed to mean?

Yes. I will explain what "A faith that requires you to close your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all." means.

It means exactly what it says. It is as simple a statement as could be made without being poetic.

spendi has been consistent in his belief that half the planets population should be kept barefoot and pregnant.

State drops analysis of evolution
(Catherine Candisky, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH, February 15, 2006)

The State Board of Education yesterday stripped controversial provisions from science standards that critics said promoted the teaching of intelligent design.

After narrowly rejecting a similar attempt last month, the board voted 11-4 to eliminate portions of its curriculum guidelines for 10 th-grade biology and an accompanying lesson plan that called for the critical analysis of evolution. It also directed a committee to determine whether a replacement lesson is necessary.

The reversal marked another setback for the intelligent-design movement, which holds that some life forms are too complex to be explained by Darwin's theory of evolution and that a higher authority must have played a role. In December, a federal judge ruled that the Dover, Pa., school board violated the constitutional separation of church and state by ordering that students be taught intelligent design.

Also last year, a federal judge ordered the school system in suburban Atlanta's Cobb County to remove from biology textbooks stickers that called evolution a theory, not a fact.

"The (Ohio) board has protected itself from legal action," Patricia Princehouse, a biology professor at Case Western Reserve University and a leading critic of Ohio's curriculum guidelines, said after yesterday's vote.

"We (now) have science standards that do not try and indoctrinate students."

Although the guidelines did not mention intelligent design except for a disclaimer, critics said information came from intelligent-design and creationist literature. Singling out evolution for critical analysis unfairly undermines Darwin's theory and invites religion into the classroom, they said.

your attempts at argument are "precious" to say the least.

_________________
Ill purge all my hatred(or try to)
Live as a free man again
Do as I like when I want to
go where I choose to and when