Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

This isa bit like the situation that applies to the Amish schools here in US. They must meet state mandated testing but can end the schooling at grade 8.
However the great Amish schooling experiment is showing some signs of the times (at least here in PA) When the kids go through their Rumspringe, now they are often involved in drugs and crimes of violence . (Like the public schools are free of drugs and crime)

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No, no wande. Not good.

I meant parents breaking the law not any of that squish you offered. Could you see mass sit-ins in some areas with all the usual tactics being employed to attract the cameras. I think rl would be a natural leader and get to do the interviews.

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No no spendi, you mush-head, you are talking about the infield fly-rule .

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Go on. I'll buy it.

What's the infield fly-rule?

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wandeljw wrote:

Setanta wrote:
I sent a PM to Thomas to ask him to comment--i believe he is resident in Bavaria. Walter is in Westphalia.

I sent a PM to Walter, however he may not be posting for a while. He is in France this week.

(i am also from nordrhein-westphalia and most of my relatives still live there)

I never heard of a sect called "Die zwölf Stämme", and this article is the first time I hear about a German homeschooling movement. This means that on this specific case, I'm exactly as well-informed as you are.

But on a more general level, there is a constitutional background that may not be obvious to Americans, and that "Deutsche Welle" did not provide in its article. ("Deutsche Welle" is primarily a radio and TV station for expatriate Germans. Even its English content is targeted at people somewhat familiar with Germany.) The two important points are: (1) Germany's constitution regulates religious affairs differently than America's. (2) Under article 7 of our constitution, the German school system is entirely under state supervision.

Let's start with Article 4 of our constitution, which defines the scope of religious freedom in Germany. (Translation courtesy of the Comparative Law Society)

[b]Article 4 [Freedom of faith, conscience, and creed][/b] (1) Freedom of faith and of conscience, and freedom to profess a religious or philosophical creed, shall be inviolable. (2) The undisturbed practice of religion shall be guaranteed. (3) No person shall be compelled against his conscience to render military service involving the use of arms. Details shall be regulated by a federal law.
Note that this article does not contain a non-establishment clause. You won't find one in the rest of our constitution either.

This has important consequences: While the government may not discriminate against individuals on account of their religion, it may (and does) prosecute sects it considers dangerous. It may (and does) collect church taxes from curch members on behalf of some churches but not others. (Also, the government may not keep the money it collects in church taxes -- that would be discrimination for belonging to that particular church.) Another thing it may do is to permit religious instruction in the public schools. In fact, it requires schools to offer it as an elective. This brings us to Article 7 , which lays out the framework for the school system. (Translation here.)

[b]Article 7 [School education][/b] (1) The entire school system shall be under the supervision of the state. (2) Parents and guardians shall have the right to decide whether children shall receive religious instruction. (3) Religious instruction shall form part of the regular curriculum in state schools, with the exception of non-denominational schools. Without prejudice to the state's right of supervision, religious instruction shall be given in accordance with the tenets of the religious community concerned. Teachers may not be obliged against their will to give religious instruction. (4) The right to establish private schools shall be guaranteed. Private schools that serve as alternatives to state schools shall require the approval of the State and shall be subject to the laws of the Länder. Such approval shall be given when private schools are not inferior to the state schools in terms of their educational aims, their facilities, or the professional training of their teaching staff, and when segregation of pupils according to the means of their parents will not be encouraged thereby. Approval shall be withheld if the economic and legal position of the teaching staff is not adequately assured. (5) A private elementary school shall be approved only if the educational authority finds that it serves a special pedagogical interest or if, on the application of parents or guardians, it is to be established as a denominational or interdenominational school or as a school based on a particular philosophy and no state elementary school of that type exists in the municipality. (6) Preparatory schools shall remain abolished.
As a consequence of this constitutional framework, there is no legal homeschooling in Germany. What little homeschooling occurs here is illegal, and the fact that I first heard about it in this thread is some indication of how rare it is. Private religious schools exist -- the Catholic Church operates most of them. But they, too, are much less common in Germany than they are in America. And a state government can shut down any of them for any reason. In practice they do this when they think the school turns too extreme.

So when the Bavarian state government permits the "Twelve Tribes" sect to open its own school and regulates its curriculum, nothing forces it to do that. It could continue to force these people to put their children in public schools; it could continue to imprison any parents who resist. If it agreed to compromise, that decision rested on political expediency. The decision did not rest on any obligation it had under the federal constitution of Germany, or under the state constitution of Bavaria.

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Thank you, Thomas! I had heard from relatives that the German government does collect "steuer" (taxes) for certain churches. Also, two major political parties in Germany use "Christian" in their party's name. Therefore, I am not surprised that the German constitution does not include an establishment clause.

One factor that may balance the absence of an establishment clause is that Germany allows less "freedom of speech" than the United States. This may somehow account for restrictions on religions establishing private schools.

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Thomas wrote:

wandeljw wrote:
Setanta wrote:
I sent a PM to Thomas to ask him to comment--i believe he is resident in Bavaria. Walter is in Westphalia.

I sent a PM to Walter, however he may not be posting for a while. He is in France this week.

(i am also from nordrhein-westphalia and most of my relatives still live there)

.....So when the Bavarian state government permits the "Twelve Tribes" sect to open its own school and regulates its curriculum, nothing forces it to do that. It could continue to force these people to put their children in public schools; it could continue to imprison any parents who resist. If it agreed to compromise, that decision rested on political expediency. The decision did not rest on any obligation it had under the federal constitution of Germany, or under the state constitution of Bavaria.

Yeah no kidding.

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(4)The right to establish private schools shall be guaranteed. Private schools that serve as alternatives to state schools shall require the approval of the State

You have the guaranteed right to do whatever the State shall deign to permit. Rolling Eyes

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rosborne979 wrote:

Setanta wrote:
If someone has told you that entropy does not apply in the "real universe," or that it is only theoretic, that someone was not saying as much in this thread, so your attempt to object here is based upon an irrelevant reference.

Hi Set,

Wolf and I are the ones who gave RL this needle to poke us with.

Believe me, Ros, neither you nor Wolf are the first to lean on this broken reed. I've heard it for years.

rosborne979 wrote:

I'm not sure if it was this thread or another, but you may remember a point at which RL was asking us to given a real world example of a perfectly closed system. A perfectly closed system would allow no observation within because that would imply the movement of photons or other energy out of the system.

OK, so all systems are 'open' . Not a problem. The problem arises when you state that the law of entropy doesn't apply to open systems, meaning it never applies.

rosborne979 wrote:

This doesn't mean however that SLT is "only theoretical" any more than gravity is "only theoretical". It only means that the theory itself relates to conditions in a theoretical construct.

I am sure you'll admit that gravity applies to the real universe. You haven't been willing to admit as much for entropy.

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wandeljw wrote:

spendius wrote:
wande quoted-

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This latest example in Bavaria highlights the difficult position state authorities are in when parents simply refuse to obey the law.

Is there any likelihood of such things happening in the US? Such things do have psychological motivations as well as the surface reasons.

Good, spendi. That is a relevant question. In the United States, "home schooling" is allowed. Some parents use home schooling so that their children do not need to hear about evolution. In Germany, home schooling is not allowed.

(say hello to Gromit for me)

True, wandeljw. (Some parents also use home schooling so that their children do not need to hear about how to take a bong hit in the restroom stall between classes.)

Do you know any families that homeschool?

I know lots of them. Around here, the county that has the three 'highest rated ' government school districts, (at least one of which has it's own police force. Not security guards, these are school district police.) also has over 1000 families that homeschool.

Evolution may be a factor for some; but poor academic results, lax discipline, moral homogenization (just 'accept' everything. ) , drugs, violence and teachers sleeping with students are probably a greater factor.

I can understand if the German families have similar motivation.

Fixing those problems would go a long way toward improving science education, and all education in the government schools.

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real life wrote:

The problem arises when you state that the law of entropy doesn't apply to open systems, meaning it never applies.

I never said it doesn't apply to open systems, it just doesn't apply the way you are implying. Entropy as a concept applies everywhere, all the time, but it can be overcome by external energy. Therefor it is necessary to understand to what degree a system is "open" or "closed" when applying SLT. In the case of Earth, it's a VERY open system.

Standard creationist dogma regarding the SLT is usually aimed at demonstrating that the Earth could not have evolved anything due to entropy. However, since the Earth clearly gets energy (and lots of it) from at least one external source, as well as internal sources, that argument is obviously false, so let's just leave it at that.

I'm surprised you haven't asked the obvious question; since the Universe itself is a closed system, how could anything evolve in it (given SLT)? A far more interesting question.

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real life wrote:

Quote:
(4)The right to establish private schools shall be guaranteed. Private schools that serve as alternatives to state schools shall require the approval of the State

You have the guaranteed right to do whatever the State shall deign to permit.

I prefer the American constitution too.

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I don't. Too many conflicting freedoms.

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spendius wrote:

What's the matter Wolf. Anti-IDarians have done plenty of smearing in their time. Am I not allowed a go.

Well, you complain so much about it, any rational person would have thought you were highly against it, which would make your attempts to do the same rather hypocritical.

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If you say I'm a troll I must be a troll because an Anti-IDarian said so and they are scientists and can't be wrong because they have empirical data which stand no rebuttal.

No, you're a troll because you offer no evidence for your beliefs, deny anything that you're accussed of saying or doing, and generally bring no real discussion points to the table.

I mean, I had to cut out a huge amount of your post because, well, none of it had any relevance to the topic at hand.

P.S. Real life, I stated that there the Laws of Thermodynamics apply to ideal situations and since there are no ideal situations, the Laws of Thermodynamics aren't 100% accurate. I never said they didn't apply at all.

It's like Newton's Principia. Much of his stuff is inaccurate and also applies to perfectly ideal situations, but that doesn't mean his Laws are completely useless. After all, they're only inaccurate at speeds close to the Speed of Light and they're good enough for use by people living on the Earth.

You are in effect, trying to attack a strawman.

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Wolf wrote-

Quote:

No, you're a troll because you offer no evidence for your beliefs, deny anything that you're accussed of saying or doing, and generally bring no real discussion points to the table.

I mean, I had to cut out a huge amount of your post because, well, none of it had any relevance to the topic at hand.

In post 2238704 I responded to a poster's suggestion of a vote and showed that your idea of science was actually just "suck it and see".I also raised the idea of an esoteric language in science excluding the rest of us and possibly taking over all modes of thinking and injuring the human faculty of imagination which is the ground base of true science.

In post 2238714 I gave you the essence of 1984 which is a description of a society based on scientific hegemony.

In post 2238789 I reminded you that Christianity is a grass roots movement and that facts are not everything.

In post 223889 I asked wande about the possibilty of civil disobedience in the US after hints of it had been mentioned by Thomas in Germany.

In post 2233869 I raised the difference between science and art and the idea that science may be a form of escapism and that one of the results of the decline of morality is the increasing use of TV as a shakedown machine.

In post 2238740 I discussed how a word like "remnance" might be used in the service of the exclusion of the rest of us and offered a purely literary use of it which is a usage we no longer have for the word "gay" which once was a fine poetic word now stolen from us resulting in Shakespeare being devalued.

And that is not all from the last four pages of the thread.

So if an Anti-IDarian's take on my posts is that they bring no points to the discussion and that is after admitting not reading them properly I think readers can take heed of more of this to come on a grand scale when we have wall-to-wall Anti-IDarianism which is what you are in favour of.

With all due respect Wolf I suggest that for your own good you go back to school where you might learn to keep your unruly trap shut about things you haven't read or the bits you have but don't understand.

Education is in a bad enough state as it is without your infantile input into it which is likely based on attempting to justify homosexuality. It most certainly isn't based on any scientific principles.

Have you not voted yet. You need to vote to establish your Anti-IDarian credentials and join the "fm et al" cabal of six like-minded gents. (That's if you've noticed you were invited to.

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wandeljw wrote:

One factor that may balance the absence of an establishment clause is that Germany allows less "freedom of speech" than the United States.

I'm afraid I don't understand your point here. In what sense does it balance it? It is true that the German constitution gives the government greater power to restrict speech than the American constitution does. But how do you think those restrictions make it harder for German governments to favor some religions over others? If they make any difference at all, I would say they make it easier.

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I think that the statement-

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Germany allows less "freedom of speech" than the United States.

Is just an assertion. One can't have freedom of speech concerning matters one is blissfully unaware of.

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spendius wrote:

I think that the statement-

Quote:
Germany allows less "freedom of speech" than the United States.

Is just an assertion. One can't have freedom of speech concerning matters one is blissfully unaware of.

I think your above statement was just an assertion as well. So we're even. Smile

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Quote:

One can't have freedom of speech concerning matters one is blissfully unaware of.

Is not an assertion at all. It is a statement of an obvious fact. So obvious that I felt a little foolish saying it.

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spendius wrote:

In post 2238704 I responded to a poster's suggestion of a vote and showed that your idea of science was actually just "suck it and see". I also raised the idea of an esoteric language in science excluding the rest of us and possibly taking over all modes of thinking and injuring the human faculty of imagination which is the ground base of true science.

Yes, and you never gave any evidence to prove that this was so.

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In post 2238714 I gave you the essence of 1984 which is a description of a society based on scientific hegemony.

Once again, you outlined the essence, but you never proved that it was happening or that it could happen if ID is not taught in schools.

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In post 2238789 I reminded you that Christianity is a grass roots movement and that facts are not everything.

So what? You're trying to justify the fact that you can spout off nonsense without proving with facts that your nonsense isn't nonsense? That's no justification.

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In post 223889 I asked wande about the possibilty of civil disobedience in the US after hints of it had been mentioned by Thomas in Germany.

Unsure as to how this is relevant at all.

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In post 2233869 I raised the difference between science and art and the idea that science may be a form of escapism and that one of the results of the decline of morality is the increasing use of TV as a shakedown machine.

Irrelevant, unless you're saying that anti-ID is the cause of this, which you have failed to prove time and time again.

Quote:

In post 2238740 I discussed how a word like "remnance" might be used in the service of the exclusion of the rest of us and offered a purely literary use of it which is a usage we no longer have for the word "gay" which once was a fine poetic word now stolen from us resulting in Shakespeare being devalued.

Which is completely irrelevant to the subject at hand.

Quote:

So if an Anti-IDarian's take on my posts is that they bring no points to the discussion and that is after admitting not reading them properly I think readers can take heed of more of this to come on a grand scale when we have wall-to-wall Anti-IDarianism which is what you are in favour of.

You gave us six examples, three of which were completely irrelevant to the original discussion, which was "Is ID a science or religion?" They are also irrelevant to your discussion of "Is Anti-ID responsible for the decline in morality?" which you have tried to change this thread into.

Why is it irrelevant to the latter? Because you have clearly stated ID is not science. You continue to rant on about how anti-ID is responsible for the decline in morality, which you mistakenly equate with Christianity and therefore a religion. Therefore ID is a dogmatic religious tool, which makes it a part of religion.

Your discussion was therefore irrelevant to the original topic. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's an interesting discussion. It was just irrelevant to the original topic, meaning you should have made a new thread on which we could have focused solely on your hypothesis.

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With all due respect Wolf I suggest that for your own good you go back to school where you might learn to keep your unruly trap shut about things you haven't read or the bits you have but don't understand.

With all due respect, Spendi, you're the one that doesn't understand here. You don't understand how anti-ID is not responsible for the decline in morality, because ID does not teach morality and has no bearing on it.

You equate anti-ID with being anti-Christian, which is not true. You equate Christianity with morality, which is not necessarily true and have turned a subject that was about science into a discussion about religion.

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The matter of

Quote:

"Is ID a science or religion?"

was settled before views to this thread had reached double figures. They are now approaching 100,000.

Do you wish to cancel threads like this for pedantic reasons. It's a discussion and discussions usually wander about a lot. Only people stuck for something to say talk about going off topic. Do you not go in pubs?

You don't even know what religion or science or intelligent design concepts actually are. They are simply labels you use for things in your own head. It's an Anti-IDarian mindset which has nothing to do with anybody else.

This thread has been about education for ages.

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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