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meridianday meridianday is a Female
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A court in the US has ruled against the teaching of "intelligent design" alongside Darwin's theory of evolution.

A group of parents in the Pennsylvania town of Dover had taken the school board to court for demanding biology classes not teach evolution as fact.

The authorities wanted to introduce the idea that Earth's life was too complicated to have evolved on its own.

Judge John Jones ruled the school board had violated the constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.

The 11 parents who brought the case argued that teaching intelligent design (ID) was effectively teaching creationism, which is banned.

They complained that ID - which argues life must have been helped to develop by an unseen power - was tantamount to religious education.

The separation of church and state is enshrined in the US constitution.

The school board argued they had sought to improve science education by exposing pupils to alternatives to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

But Judge Jones said he had determined that ID was not science and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents".

In a 139-page written ruling, the judge said: "Our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."

He accused school board members of disguising their true motives for introducing the ID policy.

"We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom," he said.

He banned any future implementation of the policy in Dover schools.

The case, the first of its kind, sets an important precedent in a country where several states have adopted the teaching of ID, reports the BBC's James Coomerasamy in Washington.

Ironically, he adds, it is a somewhat academic ruling in the Dover area since parents there voted last month to replace the school board members who brought in the policy.

That move provoked US TV evangelist Pat Robertson to warn the town was invoking the wrath of God.

A lawyer for the parents said the ruling was a "real vindication" for those families who challenged the school board.

I have been frequenting a forum that's full of US teenagers, and it's quite bizarre how many of them believe that evolution is total rubbish. There have been several polls put up where the votes have been 50% or more for ID over evolution. The posts backing those votes up say that ID is true because the bible is true.

It's quite peculiar looking at this sort of strongly held christianity from over here in the UK because there's such a lot of atheism/agnosticism/general not-botheredness. For example, there has been a lot of criticism of the narnia film among left wing media because of its US marketing, which apparently pushes the christian allegory side of the story (I believe C S Lewis denied his story was meant as an allegory), and that aspect of the story has hardly been mentioned in the movie's publicity here.

The only fuss I've seen of a religious education type thing (as religion is taught in schools here, but meant to be on the basis of covering many religions rather than just one) is where people of some religious groups, eg jehovas witnesses, will not permit their children to join those lessons or to attend school assemblies with religious content. ID isn't taught here, at least not in any mainstream schools.

But what if the theory of evolution doesn't explain everything? I recall a thread some time ago where lyon had posted some information on the relationships between parasitic insects and their prey, and how dependant the parasites are on their prey animals. I find the whole business of insects transforming themselves from one form to another, developing and losing organs as well as growing wings and so on, to be so risky a step to take as to be hard to fit into evolution.

What do you think should be taught? Evolution, as it is the currently most accepted theory? ID as an alternative? Evolution with disclaimers but ignoring ID?

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When I was in college a few years ago some of us got into a discussion about religion. One of our friends had a great story about Sunday School. The teacher asked him what he thought of the Bible and his response was that it was the greatest piece of fiction ever written.

I don't know what forum you were in, nor do I know where any of these teens were from, but I can tell you that they are not the majority of the country. These groups of people are one of the ones that make me the most furious. They would have us ruled by what the Bible says rather than what science has proven. Funny how the Bible preaches peace, tolerance and love and yet the most devote followers are the first to bash gays or "cast the first stone".

Intelligent Design is another word for Creationism. Creationism is Religion. And Religion has NO BUSINESS being taught in public schools. I wouldn't be there to learn about religion. If I wanted to talk about creation I'd go to church and since I've been in high school up through this moment I personally have had no use for church. There are two types of people in my opinion that go to church. The first are the people who actually enjoy going because they truly get something out of it and that's perfectly fine. The second group are all the people out there that either are forced to go (children who don't want to go or the man being dragged there when he would rather be watching football) or the people who feel that they have to go. Now that could be because they feel if they don't go they'll go to hell or because they will be mocked by others if they don't go. I don't have to go to church to prove that I believe in something and honestly I find it sad that some people fine it necessary to go to church as a means to prove they believe in God.

I never liked science class anyway, but if I were in High School now and some science teacher even mentioned Intelligent Design while he was teaching Evolution I would get up and walk out of the classroom. There are too many religions with different beliefs to choose one idea by one religion and force it down someone’s throat. So if I follow a religion where it said the Universe was created when a cosmic spaceman named Hugo let out an enormous fart thus creating all life as we know it, would that be taught? Or even worse if I was a Scientologist would my beliefs be reflected in the class, because you know damn well Tom Cruise is pounding at the door just dying to brainwash all those High School students just like he did to Katie Holmes. Now look at her. She's going to give birth to some alien baby that was implanted in her. The point is I don't want to hear the views of some science fiction writer, I don't want to hear about Hugo farting, and I don't want to hear from the Christian nut jobs that are trying to turn Public Schools into a ground for teaching their viewpoints. If you want your kids to learn Intelligent Design or Creationism send them to Catholic Schools and leave the rest of us alone!

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Narnia, they're trying to get the Christian money. Look how much Gibson's Passion of Christ made -- turns out Christians have lots of money.

ID now has too many interpretations to keep straight. Both evolutionists and creationists can love or hate it, depending on which version they know, and how firmly they hold to the specifics of their own beliefs.

Evolution does happen. There are too many cases where, over the generations, species have changed to better survive in their environment. The Old Testament even recognizes it; something about two different coloured flocks of sheep mixing, and the lambs being of different or mixed colours. And I suspect there are rules about which characteristics should be bred for, and which animals eaten before they breed.

Evolution doesn't mean there isn't a God. God may very well use evolution as his main tool. Or he may use it and load the dice; I'll throw an alpha particle at this gene so the kid will have feathers, rather than that gene which will give him an extra toe, and I'll kill off the kid with the gills before he has kids. Or he may have thrown it in just to confuse us.

I do think ID should be taught in science class; it's another option. It wouldn't take more than ten minutes to describe the theory AND that we can't rule it out.

Good science includes having multiple theories, and weeding out the ones that don't work, and refining the ones that do.

Science should be taught in a way that does not exclude religion. Religion should be taught in a way that does not exclude science.

I think the basics of most religions [2] should be taught in school. It doesn't have to be a lot, but it does have to be respectful and cover the key similarities and differences. I want my kids to know enough to be comfortable in a multi-faith world, and to not make assumptions. Otherwise, they'll believe the first thing they hear about Hugoists, and it might be something derogatory or insensitive, or that applies only to the extemists.

Cracker's concert included a song about a miracle that happenned long long ago (Haunekkah), a sheppherd boy singing a lullaby, and a freedom song (Kwanza). And a song about Santa, who has been recast as representing the spirit of giving. He's eaten latkes and made a unity cup and a tree ornament. (They mentioned Ramadan briefly, but it's not over the solstice this year; they'll learn about it when it rolls around.) Pretty good for seven year olds.

[2] I'd say 'all religions', but that wouldn't leave time for anything else. So, the major ones and the ones of the kids in the class.

The leaders of the respectful religions [1] should be given the opportunity to provide and/or approve their part of the cirriculum. And older kids should be made aware that even those religions have their outliers: KKK's calling themselves Christians, terrorists calling themselves Muslims. The schools should teach respect for all religions, and do their best to counter parents who preach intolerence.

If the parents want to say, "This road is the one we use," that's up to them.

[1] Those that say, "Here's one road to God / salvation / nirvannah -- whatever you call where you want to get. And there are many roads, equally as good. You're welcome to join my road if you like, but I'll understand if you prefer your own. Peace and understanding and working together and charity are all good, regardless of whose name it is done in. And we can even worship / pray / meditate / have a retreat together; I won't get upset if you don't know to take your hat off in my building, if you don't get upset when I ask you to wear one while in mine. And if your religion says you can't eat at a time mine says we have to have a feast, we'll work something out." Basically, the ones who make good neighbours.

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I like the idea of this god called Hugo fart and created the universe. Must have been smelly though. Laugh2

Religon and science can't be taught in the same class. It's virtually impossible I think and and both should be taught in 2 subjects, religon should be taught in RE (Religon Education) and science in er science education.

If you believe in whatever religon you believe in and were taught/want to send you kids to relgious school that teaches you relgion as science, then that's fine by me though I personally think that's stupid.

I know a bit about the various main religons, eg Christianty, Islam, etc and am amazed that Christians call themselves Christans even though there's so many Christain religons out there, eg Prostant and Catholic.

Also, religon to me is another word for power and how poeple should be forced to live by whatever religon. For example, the Taliban wanted people in Afaghanistan to worship their version of Islam only which is also their politcal law.

These Dover people in the US believe that God exists, created the universe in 6 days (does this mean that he had Sunday off?) and anything that is older than the universe, eg dinosaur bones, are fake and God will protect his flock from everything. Well he's not doing a good job of protecting his believers from very nasty storms, terrorist attacks, wars, diease, etc.

Science says that the universe started in a big bang and nothing existed before that big bang. Well if that's true then if nothing existed before the big bang then the gases which started off the big bang couldn't have cuased it in the first place and if they did exist then something must have existed before the big bang.

I don't think we will ever find out how the universe started at all with the way we are destroy this planet and ourselves and I don't believe or have faith in any gods, whether they be ET, Allah or the Hugo the Farter at all because these gods aren't doing their job correctly at all.

The only thing I believe in is beer because if you drink enough of it then the pain of seeing and hearing the rest of the human kind running around forcing people to believe in whatever and hating and killing those we don't like.

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The confusion rumbles onwards - this article is from the Guardian (hardly an unbiased source but I like the inclusion of other religious fads and frauds).

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Last week a high school in Lebec, a small town in the Tehachapi mountains, some 70 miles north of Los Angeles, began a course called Philosophy of Design. The course curriculum was approved by a three-to-two vote at a secretive-sounding meeting of the school board held on New Year's Day.

The course teacher, Sharon Lemburg, is a special education teacher with a degree in physical education and the social sciences. Philosophy does not feature on her resume, but her marriage to a minister of the Assembly of God church does. The Assembly of God is a Christian fundamentalist, pro-creationist church, and Lebec, home to 1,300 souls, has become the latest frontline in the debate over intelligent design.

While the debate rumbles away in Kansas, North Dakota and Pennsylvania, it has found its spiritual home in southern California. For the last hundred years or so, as Carey McWilliams chronicles in the admirable collection of his writings Fool's Paradise, southern California has provided a welcoming home for all manner of religious offshoots, wacky beliefs, cults, messiahs and worse.

The Mighty I AM movement, with its deity Saint Germain and his earthly messengers Guy Ballard and his wife Edna, took hold in the 1930s before ending in his death and her conviction on fraud. Modern astrology also came of age in southern California, and can still be seen today with the ubiquitous roadside fortune-tellers. Annie Besant established a home to await the next coming of the Messiah, but she was some years after the coming of the next best thing, Sister Aimee McPherson. Arriving penniless in 1922, so the legend goes, in three years she collected more than $1m from her congregation and owned property worth $250,000. She built the Angelus Temple, with an auditorium capable of holding 5,000 people, and her revivalist meetings attracted thousands of people and thousands of dollars. But her rise ended with a faked disappearance in 1926 and her arrest on charges of having given false information. The charges were subsequently dropped and she died from an overdose of sleeping powder in 1944. Today southern California is the spiritual home to a movement with a deity to match anything from the past, Scientology.

The southern Californian manifestation of intelligent design is no straightforward matter. While a group of parents has filed a lawsuit alleging that the school is violating the separation between church and state by teaching intelligent design, its advocates are unhappy too. Smarting from their defeat last month at the hands of a Pennsylvania judge who dismissed the theory as "an interesting theological argument but ... not science", supporters of intelligent design have argued that the course is misleading because it suggests a philosophical rather than a scientific debate. Their intention to present intelligent design within the mainstream of scientific debate is being stymied by the creationists' insistence on seeing everything through the eyes of God.

"It's clear that the course wrongly mixes intelligent design with ... biblical creationism," said a letter from the Discovery Institute to the school board. Intelligent design, the letter continued, "is based upon empirical data, rather than religious scripture" and "does not try to inject itself into religious discussions about the identity of the intelligence responsible for life."

But, allege opponents of the school's actions, the school board described its course as philosophy precisely to avoid the potential illegality of teaching intelligent design or creationism as science following the Pennsylvania ruling.

A description of the course circulated to parents in December said: "The class will take a close look at evolution as a theory and will discuss the scientific, biological and biblical aspects that suggest why Darwin's philosophy is not rock solid. The class will discuss intelligent design as an alternative response to evolution. Physical and chemical evidence will be presented suggesting the earth is thousands of years old, not billions."

Most of the evidence comes from videos. The original syllabus for the course listed 24 videos that would be used for instruction, 23 of them produced by religious groups. One, made by a group called Answers in Genesis, is titled Chemicals to Living Cells: Fantasy or Science.

In a letter to lawyers representing parents opposed to the class, the school superintendent, John Wright, wrote: "Our legal advisers have pointed out they are unaware of any court or California statute which has forbidden public schools to explore cultural phenomena, including history, religion or creation myths."

He would, he said, "promptly intervene if anyone should stray into teaching or advocating the tenets of any religion or creed, including intelligent design."

Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which has brought the lawsuit on behalf of the parents, believes that the course is a blatant attempt to teach intelligent design, but under the auspices of philosophy instead of science.

"There is a national crusade under way to inject religion into our public schools, and it must not succeed," said Mr Lynn. "Religious Right activists are looking for every opportunity to proselytise students into their doctrines."

All of which brings us to the 15 teenagers enrolled in the Philosophy of Design course. "Personally, I don't know what to think," 15-year-old Jeremy Hurst, told the Los Angeles Times. Hurst's father is a scientist and one of the parents involved in the lawsuit. His mother takes him to Baptist church every Sunday.


So, Intelligent Design is legally not science, and the Intelligent Design advocates don't like it being taught as philosophy.

I dunno, when I've seen this discussed on Gaia (a forum full of school age teens), just about every teen posting that they believed in Intelligent Design rather than Evolution used the bible as proof. I didn't see any posting to say that they thought it was perhaps aliens seeding the earth or anything other than the christian god.

So as much as I quite fancy the idea that in some cases evolution doesn't cover everything, in whatever way Intelligent Design is being taught in these schools, it looks like the majority of kids who believe it are coming out with the bible message not a message of viewing the world and the current state of life upon it with open mindedness.

As for the religious thing about different sects of christians calling themselves christian, different sects of muslim also call themselves muslim (eg Sunni and Shia), different sects of jews still call themselves jews, and in India many many different groups of people worshipping different favourite gods still respond to the blanket title of Hindu.

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No new posts 14-01-2006 12:41 meridianday is offline Send an Email to meridianday Homepage of meridianday Search for Posts by meridianday Add meridianday to your Buddy List
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I still like the idea of Hugo creating the universe by farting. Laugh2

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Uh, if we humans and our Earth are so complex we had to be created, then how did our creator come to exist?

In other words, who designed the designer?

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Ooh, that is a good question.

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A theory I heard (can't remember where) says that the universe was created when the previous universe was destroyed, or died, or whatever and that started the Big Bang which created the universe. If so, thenhow many universes have been created before ours and how many will be created after ours?

Another theory is that humans may orignally come from Mars when some bacteria was flung into space and hit Earth, millions of years ago. If true, then why God, Hugo or Designer threw us off Mars?

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huh. good memory Meridian. here it is again, for your reading pleasure - excerpted from Lifetide by Lyall Watson.

________

Evolution makes mistakes. As Arthur Koestler puts it, 'For every existing species hundreds have perished in the past; the fossil record is a waste-basket of the Chief Designer's discarded models.' True, but evolution also gets things incredibly, almost unbelievably, right.

The transparent cornea of our eye could hardly have evolved through progressive trial and error by natural selection. You can either see through it, or you can't. Such an innovation has to be right the first time, or else it just doesn't happen again, because the blind owner gets eaten. Darwin himself admitted that the perfection of the vertebrate eye sent cold shivers down his spine.

Something else which disturbed him as the elaborate life cycle of certain insects, 'in which we cannot see how an instinct could possibly have originated' and 'in which no intermediate gradations are known to exist'. The lyric French entymologist Jean Henri Fabre, who worked all his life alone on the sandy stretches of southern France, put his fingers right on such a sore spot on the theory of natural selection, when he raised the controversial matter of the giant wasps.

Adult wasps are vegetarian, but the larvae of many are carnivores. So in these species the survival of the young depends on the mother's correct choice of food which she herself does not eat. This much can be under instinctive control, but there are refinements in the relationships between the predatory wasps and their prey which are almost impossible to squeeze into an evolutionary or instinctive model.

To take just one example, the wasp Pepsis marginata feeds its young only on the tarantula Cyrtopholis portoricae. The female wasp produces very few eggs but for each one she has to provide an adult tarantula, alive but paralysed. When an egg in her ovary is almost ready to be laid she goes out hunting, flying over the ground late on a sunny afternoon looking for a spider out early in search of its own insect food. The tarantula has poor sight and little or no sense of hearing, relying on an extremely delicate sense of touch to locate its prey. The lightest contact with any of the body hair on a hungry tarantula and the spider whirls and sinks its long fangs into any cricket or millipede that gets too close. Yet when spider and wasp meet, and the wasp starts to explore with her antennae to make certain she is dealing with the right species, the tarantula does nothing. The wasp crawls under the spider and even walks all over it without evoking any hostile response. If the molestation is too great and too persistent, the tarantula sometimes rises up on all eight legs as though it were standing on stilts, but otherwise calmly awaits its fate. 'All is arranged,' muses Loren Eiseley, 'in such a manner as to suggest the victim possesses an innate awareness of his role, but cannot evade it.'

Meanwhile the wasp moves off a few inches to dig its waiting victim's grave. Working vigorously with legs and mouthparts, she digs a hole about ten inches deep and slightly wider than the spider, popping her head out of the excavation every now and then to make sure that the tarantula is still there. Usually, and unaccountably, it is, and when the grave is ready, the wasp returns to complete her ghastly enterprise. First she feels the spider all over once again with her antennae and then slides underneath on her back, working with her wings to get into the right position for a shot at the vital spot. She can penetrate the spider's horny exoskeleton only at the soft hinging membrane where the legs join the body, and only if she stings with surgical precision to the right depth, at the right angle, in precisely the right place, can she be certain of locating the one nerve center which will stun the spider without killing it. And during all this manoeuvring, which can last several minutes, the tarantula makes no move to save itself.

Finally the wasp jabs and the spider tries a desperate but vain defense. The two roll over and over on the ground, but the outcome is always the same. The tarantula falls paralysed on its back. The wasp drags it by one leg down into the waiting tomb where she does another remarkable thing. She packs her big hair larder so masterfully into the hole that, even if it were by some chance to recover, it could never dig its own way out. Each one of the eight hug limbs is literally handcuffed to the earth. Then she lays one egg, attaches it to the side of the spider's abdomen with a sticky secretion, fills in the grave and leaves.

But the extraordinary story doesn't end there. When the wasp larvae hatches, it is many times smaller than its helpless victim, and totally dependent on it. During the long weeks of development it will have no other food, no water and so, working to a complex and gruesome culinary programme, it proceeds to consume the tarantula piece by piece, keeping it alive and fresh by saving the vital organs until last. By the time it has completed its gargantuan meal, and is ready to burst out of the tomb carrying its down surgical instrument, and a map of the operations to be performed on another tarantula, nothing remains of the first one but its indigestible chitinous skeleton.

Mutations in structure or behaviour are, argues Jacques Monod, 'drawn from the realms of pure chance'. But if that were so, we would expect that the tarantula would also by now have accidentally happened upon a defence against its predator. Instead we have a situation in which a spider, quite capable of defending itself against, or even killing a wasp, allows the insect to paralyse it. And we have a wasp who has an uncanny knowledge of the exact location of the nerve centers in its prey. Planted anywhere else, the sting will either kill the spider, rendering it useless as a food store, or fail to have any effect except the probable death of the wasp by retaliation. In neither case is there scope for natural selection. There are no degrees of success in this endeavor. It is an all or nothing situation. You can't go on practicing hypodermic skills on poisonous spiders twice your size. You must get it right the first time.

Evolution asserts that spectacular adaptations have their origins in myriads of minute mutations, the vast majority of which are harmful to the organism; and that natural selection acts like a ratchet, preserving each useful mutation while new changes are being tried out. Which implies that the wasp's master chart of surgery was not always perfect. But a surgeon cannot learn his trade by indiscriminately chasing and slashing at potential patients with a scalpel. This evolutionary marvel in the wasp could not come about by the sort of slow selection that we know from the fossil record worked on the horse's ancestors to give the living members their larger size and greater speed. In the wasp the entire pattern has to work immediately, or the species become extinct. And how could a pattern as complex as this come about in isolation, on the off-chance, without actually being used? Because, before it was complete in all its details, it could not be used at all.

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If you're going to teach ID in schools, then present it as a theory in the place where it really belongs - Philosophy classes. But, if you are, then you also HAVE to present the creationist theorys of ALL OTHER MAJOR RELIGONS, and allow the kids to decide for theirselves.

I get worried by people who blindly follow the bible without stopping to think about it first. Times and people change, and we don't follow everything that's wrote down there.

...now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to stone my sister to death for commiting adultary.

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Another theory is that humans may orignally come from Mars when some bacteria was flung into space and hit Earth, millions of years ago. If true, then why God, Hugo or Designer threw us off Mars?


well, you see, Adam was pretty old by the time the eager young student came for the Living Memories project. And that student had a hearing problem (and had more enthusiasm than skill). Back then, Mars was called Enamrs, and it got transcribed as Eden.

Same thing with the timing. God dictated "7 billion years", but the student couldn't believe anyone would spend so long on something and decided God had really meant "7 days". (Anyone know Genesis and planetary evolution to confirm this? If you take Genesis and replace "day" with another unit, the creation sequence apparently match up fairly well.)

Lyon, that wasp thing is incredible!

I think you'll love. "Illegal Alien", by RJ Sawyer. Also "Calculating God". They'll give your brain a good workout.

Newtonian physics is a fact. It happens. We use it to build cars and bridges. It's also incomplete; it breaks down spectactularly anywhere near the speed of light. But, no one is recommending not use it or not teach it. We also teach nuclear physics.

Evolution is a fact. It happens. We use it to breed better plants and animals; it's more reliable than prayer. It's also incomplete; Lyon's examples are great! So, we use it and we teach it. We also teach that it breaks down (and where) and that there are other theories that might explain things better.

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Here, here.

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Whoo-hhhooo!!!

They say doing good deeds comes will eventually come around.

So, I was copying and stapling little reading books for my son's teacher (don't get me into the debate on whether it's better to pay a printer or a photo-copier, and how the authors are paid) and I gained another idea for this debate.

Comparative religion can be taught in reading class!

Many faiths have great stories. The non-fiction reading could include descriptions of the buildings, symbols, clothing and holidays.

They seem to be doing a bit of that already, along with tales of Max getting angry and then finding a better way to deal with his feelings, a visit to the doctor, sign language, and a traditional buffalo hunt. The stories connected with many parts of the curriculum.

It's certainly not enough, especially since no kid will read all the stories (they move the kid up to harder books when he's ready, rather than keeping him stuck with the easier ones), but it's a start.

Cricket

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PARIS (Reuters) - The Roman Catholic Church has restated its support for evolution with an article praising a U.S. court decision that rejects the "intelligent design" theory as non-scientific.

The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said that teaching intelligent design -- which argues that life is so complex that it needed a supernatural creator -- alongside Darwin's theory of evolution would only cause confusion.

A court in the state of Pennsylvania last month barred a school from teaching intelligent design (ID), a blow to Christian conservatives who want it to be taught in biology classes along with the Darwinism they oppose.

The ID movement sometimes presents Catholicism, the world's largest Christian denomination, as an ally in its campaign. While the Church is socially conservative, it has a long theological tradition that rejects fundamentalist creationism.

"Intelligent design does not belong to science and there is no justification for the demand it be taught as a scientific theory alongside the Darwinian explanation," said the article in the Tuesday edition of the newspaper.

Evolution represents "the interpretative key of the history of life on Earth" and the debate in the United States was "polluted by political positions," wrote Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at Italy's Bologna University.

"So the decision by the Pennsylvania judge seems correct."

EVOLUTION CONFUSION

Confusion about the Catholic view of evolution arose last year when both the newly elected Pope Benedict and his former student, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna, said humans were part of an intelligent project designed by God.

An article by Schoenborn in the New York Times in July seemed to signal a Church shift toward intelligent design because it played down a 1996 statement by Pope John Paul that evolution was "more than a hypothesis."

This triggered a wave of "Vatican rejects Darwin" headlines and attacks from scientists, Catholics among them, who argued that had been proved man evolved from lower beings.

Schoenborn later made it clear the Church accepted evolution as solid science but objected to the way some Darwinists concluded that it proved God did not exist and could "explain everything from the Big Bang to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony."

The Church, which has never rejected evolution, teaches that God created the world and the natural laws by which life developed. Even its best-known dissident, Swiss theologian Hans Kueng, echoed this in a recent book in Germany.

Schoenborn said he spoke up because he shared Benedict's concern, stated just before his election last April, that a "dictatorship of relativism" was trying to deny God's existence.

TENET OF FAITH

Pennsylvania Judge John Jones ruled that intelligent design was a version of creationism, the belief that God made the world in six days as told in the Bible, and thus could not be taught without violating a ban on teaching religion in public schools.

It was not science, despite claims by its backers, he said.

This literal reading of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, is a tenet of faith for evangelical Protestants, a group that has become politically influential in the United States.

Many U.S. Catholics may agree with evangelicals politically, but the Church does not share their theology on this point. Intelligent design has few supporters outside the United States.

While not an official document, the article in L'Osservatore Romano had to be vetted in advance to reflect Vatican thinking.

The Seattle-based Discovery Institute -- the main think tank of the ID movement -- said on its website that reading the Osservatore article that way amounted to an attempt "to put words in the Vatican's mouth."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060119/ts_nm/religion_catholic_evolution_dc - Thu Jan 19, 10:52 AM ET

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It's nice to know where the catholics stand on this.

Having done a bit more searching around today (and found lots of information about creationist theme parks - picture Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden with dinosaurs, they all ate fruit of course Rolleyes And apparently there was room on Noah's ark for some baby dinosaurs - surely it would have been full to overflowing with all the animals that the biblical writers at that time would have known about. And when Adam and Eve got thrown out of Eden, suddenly the dinosaurs with pointy teeth got fed up of eating fruit and started chasing Adam. I'm picturing some kind of 70s caveman movie here.) it seems that it causes great embarrassment to proponents of Intelligent Design to be associated with Creationists. Probably because creationism got discredited and banned, and the IDers don't want to be tarred with that brush.

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You have now put that image of baby dinosaurs chasing Adam now with Benny Hill music playing. OH MY GOD.

Also has anybody mention that if God created Adam and then took a rib out of Adam and created Eve, how did he manage to create the whole human race as their 2 sons met 2 women who came from well no where. Or did God just took a rib each out of Able and Cain and created those women?

Also, Adam must be really happy as he never had a mother in law. Lol

quote:
Originally posted by meridianday
It's nice to know where the catholics stand on this.

Having done a bit more searching around today (and found lots of information about creationist theme parks - picture Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden with dinosaurs, they all ate fruit of course Rolleyes And apparently there was room on Noah's ark for some baby dinosaurs - surely it would have been full to overflowing with all the animals that the biblical writers at that time would have known about. And when Adam and Eve got thrown out of Eden, suddenly the dinosaurs with pointy teeth got fed up of eating fruit and started chasing Adam. I'm picturing some kind of 70s caveman movie here.) it seems that it causes great embarrassment to proponents of Intelligent Design to be associated with Creationists. Probably because creationism got discredited and banned, and the IDers don't want to be tarred with that brush.

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The bible is full of incest...

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Seems to me one of the kids did go off and find a wife from another tribe.

<Cricket runs off to other site for a moment.>

Yep, Genesis 4.

And God prefered the vegetarian offerings, and bigamy happened at least once in the first five generations.

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