RELIGION vs. SCIENCE:
It doesn’t have to be a debate
More stories from EDITORIAL
Religion has been deeply ingrained in human culture as far back as history can record, and very likely earlier than that. In some parts of the world, where religious debate leads to bloodshed, men and women are willing to give their lives for their beliefs. In America, religion is thankfully not a source of bloodshed, but it is certainly prevalent enough to cause controversy.
One debate that seems to continuously pop up is whether creationism, which suggests that all life is the result of intelligent design, should be taught in schools to replace the academically cemented theory of evolution. Scientists, of course, reject this notion, while creationists (a.k.a. Christians) fervently push their agenda at every opportunity.
The problem is that both viewpoints operate under the assumption that one belief is correct and the other is not. Although evolution seems like a logical belief, one that is based on more than 150 years of scientific study and research, it is still just a theory. Christianity is simply a collection of beliefs based on an old book written by unknown authors.
If both creationism and the theory of evolution are explained in this way, there is no reason why both cannot be taught in schools. Neither of these beliefs should be taught as anything more than what they are. Kids should be educated that some people believe in one thing, and the reason for that belief and the rationale behind it should be presented as such.
So, what happens if a child asks if God is real? The response is simple: some people believe he is. If a child asks if Jesus is the son of God, tell that child historians know there was a man named Jesus who was crucified by the Romans early in the first century, but the only document that claims him to be divine is a book written by an anonymous source.
The same can be said of evolution. If a child asks if evolution is real, the answer is that some people think so, and here is why. Present facts, not beliefs, and let the students decide for themselves what they believe.
Both religion and science are part of human culture and should be taught to expand a child’s knowledge of the world around them. It is when the classroom becomes a church, and the blackboard an altar, that a teacher deprives a student of the gift of original thought. That is not education, it is coercion. A child’s mind is very impressionable; forcing ideas into a child’s head is not only unethical, it is abusive. A parent may choose to raise his or her child how they wish, but the public school system should be more responsible.
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Steen Goddik • Jan 25, 2015 at 6:47 pm
The “just a theory” shows the problem with this article. Science teaches the Scientific Method. The results, \the evidence, the data, all is generated through the application of the Scientific Method. And, for those who actually remember the Scientific Method, or have studied up on it, it would be clear that in Science, “Theory” is not speculation, it is not guess, it is not belief. It is the best explanation that fits all the data that has been generated on a subject, through the application of the Scientific Method. The author(s) equates this with belief, essentially a guess, having apparently no clue what “Theory” means in Science. That shows a stark ignorance of how Science works, and how the scientific data is generated, and therefore, how a Scientific Theory is generated and tested. The Scientific Theory is the END of scientific research, it is what puts it all together. Evolution itself is a fact. IT has been documented and verified through the Scientific Method, culminating in putting all the observations together into the Scientific Theory of Evolution.
So when the editor/editorial board try to imply that both Evolution and ID are “still just a theory,” what they really are saying is, that they don’t know what Science is to begin with. And therefore, their description, their attempt at putting speculation (and outright fabrication, as documented in the Wedge Document) on par with the culmination of more than a million studies over more than a century, that is simply a result of their ignorance of the issue. Claiming the two concepts are equal, while demonstrating near-total ignorance of one of these concepts, THAT is why you will never be taken serious in Science, and why scientists won’t give you the time of the day.
Because either you have no clue of what you are talking about, or you are misrepresenting Science, and you are branded as liars, lumped together with all the people so desperate to “defend” their faith that they outright lie (you know the types, the “no transitional fossils, no new species ever” crowd, who yell loudly, until the evidence for both are presented, and they slink away, only to prop up somewhere else. These people are deliberate liars, and I hope you don’t fall in that category.
So until you get that fixed, and show some understanding of what you are arguing against, you will simply be brushed off as ignorant yahoos. You may not care about this. You may just try to push the religious view into the sphere of Science, with no regard to Science itself, in which case you are just a part of the liars working from the Wedge Document. But if you DO care, if you do want a dialog, and any form of common ground, then you must show some understanding of Science.
The choice is yours. Do you want to be taken serious, or be seen as crackpot ignoramuses that are bearing false witness, “lying for Jesus”?
Robert Landbeck • Jan 23, 2015 at 6:22 am
“Religion has been deeply ingrained in human culture as far back as history can record, and very likely earlier than that.” But too often religion exposes its dark, corrupt and violent side. So the question is: does it have anything to do with God? We are about to find out! For what science and religion, not to mention the rest of us, thought impossible has now happened. History has its first literal, testable and fully demonstrable proof for faith and it’s on the web.
The first wholly new interpretation for two thousand years of the moral teachings of Christ has been published. Radically different from anything else we know of from theology or history, this new teaching is predicated upon the ‘promise’ of a precise, predefined, predictable and repeatable experience of transcendent omnipotence and called ‘the first Resurrection’ in the sense that the Resurrection of Jesus was intended to demonstrate Gods’ willingness to reveal Himself and intervene directly into the natural world for those obedient to His Command, paving the way for access, by faith, to the power of divine Will and ultimate proof!
Thus ‘faith’ becomes an act of trust in action, the search along a defined path of strict self discipline, [a test of the human heart] to discover His ‘Word’ of a direct individual intervention into the natural world by omnipotent power that confirms divine will, law, command and covenant, which at the same time, realigns our mortal moral compass with the Divine, “correcting human nature by a change in natural law, altering biology, consciousness and human ethical perception beyond all natural evolutionary boundaries.” Thus is a man ‘created’ in the image and likeness of his Creator.
So like it or no, a new religious teaching, a wisdom not of human intellectual origin, empirical and transcendent, testable by faith, meeting all Enlightenment criteria of evidence based causation and definitive proof now exists. Nothing short of an intellectual, moral and religious revolution is getting under way. To test or not to test, that is the question? More info at http://www.energon.org.uk