foxfyre
Quote: think at this point that the debate should now shift to a compromise between the two camps. From my perspective, a compromise should be a very simple thing: the parents will agree that science class will include science and only science and the teacher, as appropriate, will concede that ID is one of many unproven theories for the origin and development of the universe including biological evolution.
You arent too informed on this subject at all there foxy. Your "compromise" was exactly the tack taken by the school board in DOver Pa. They "merely" read an announcement that there were problems with Darwin and that ID is available as an alternative , and the school is providing resources to enable the students to better understand these issues.
"Understanding these issues "is not the proper responsibility of the school because it violates the Constitution's establishment clause . The points of ID are Fundamentalist motivated, In other words, Its really being driven by a small group of religious Fundamentalists who are clandestinely pushing this entire agenda.
SPIN that as you wish , but please dont garland the ID movement as a "competent theory" that is non-religious.
Foxy-you have insisted that religion need not be part of the ID "theory". Its true, IT NEED NOT BE. However, that is NOT the case in the American ID movement. Its position was started via Phil Johnsons book "Darwin on Trial". The book is a total apologia of ID as a "vehicle of Societal and Moral Renewal " (Of US society)
Its unfortunate for youre naive belief that its NOT universally a-religious, because the tracks of the ID movement in the US are clearly those of a religious beast seeking to get its nose under the education tent.
I thought that you were aware of the self revealed strategy Of the DIscovery Institute's Center for the Renewal.of SCience and Culture.. (THE WEDGE DOCUMENT). The wedge plan was posted in secret for Discovery's movers and planners but was cleverly uncovered by the press, it was never denied by Discovery and was embraced and defended. This document was a call to replace the "Godless materialistic values that are behind our education system "
Quote:The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western Civilization was built. Its influence can be detected in most, if not all, of the Wests greatest achievements, including representative democracy, human rights (NO ****) , free enterprise, and progress in the arts and sciences.... The Center seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies.
You owe yourself the treat of becoming better informed of what youve allied yourself with. I really think that , in your mind you are being objective and I will defend your right to belive the tenets of ID. However, presenting it as an "alternative" to scientific thought , in any fashion that, like Dover, attemted to subvert the standard learning process by presenting itself as valid (even though ID was neither mentioned in classes), is the line where Ill fight you all the way up the system.
You are merely a tool of a bunch of hucksters who want nothing but their brand of "science" (which is no science at all) to be taught as truth.
I reccomend that you get and read a copy of the preamble to the Wedge Document (Its in a tiny little book called "
A FLOCK OF DODOS" written by a scientist and a humor magazine writer. Its written with the strait on factual deductive basis as Thomas Paines
"COMMON SENSE", a document that , almost single handedly assured the US revolution.
I think that, with a little more education into the strategic perfidy of the ID movement in the US, you will understand why many of us are not so quick to just "let you be", and further, you will see why there can never be an accomodation . I, and sevearl others of us, just dont trust the positions that IDers have taken. ie, they want us to believe that their position is logical , reasonable, and worthy of consideration, when , all along, all they wish to do is to wrest control over the First Amendment's protection FROM religious interpretations of everything.
So, in conclusion (and I wont bother you any further), You may really believe that religion can be obviated to an ID viewpoint, unfortunately,thats not what the movement has been about in the US, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar.
