Should Creationism Be Taught In Schools? - Comments

Kai Valentine.:

@ Ponyess
This was an essay for speech class, so calm yourself.

If I was to calm myself any furhter, I'd be dead.

Seems it is a touchy subject. Now, if you have problems with "Animated" reactions, why post it here?
On the other end of creation, every reaction her, may help you in your cause, as we all pick at your work, from every possible perspective?
Maybe some of the comments and reactions are wrong, but they still may be expected, so you need to prepare for them, when creating your speach?

@ Ponyess
This was an essay for speech class, so calm yourself.

You're mixing subjects here.
Belief has nothing to do with science, since it can by definition never be proven.
If god had been proven, there is no point in the situation?
Actually, in essence, evolution is expressed in the bible, if you care to read it once more, with critical eyes.
That's but a matter of interpretation.
Besides, evolution is at work, right here and now, it's been seen, studied and explained.
Leave the creationism to the religios classes.
There is no place for this in the science class.
Stop groaning, like an impatient kid?

It sounds like you're saying that to be a good, caring person, you must believe in God. I do not believe in God. Yet, I take great care to never hurt anyone else, sometimes putting my own wellbeing at stake. Just because I am an atheist does not mean I have no morality. I believe in Heaven. I just don't believe in God. And evolution isn't a religion. I know people who believe in Chirstian principles and believe in evolution. Not everything is black and white.

And as for he point that it's exposing children to other religions/cultures, well, all I can say is that if you're teaching Christian theories, then you'd better teach Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Shinto and other theories of how life began. To teach Christianity, evolution, and nothing else is showing a clear preference towards one religion and one theory. And seeing as there are so many religions in the world, it would be rather hard to make it fair and teach everything.

I think it should be up to the parents to teach their children about this stuff. Let the children form their own opinions instead of forcing it into their brains and saying "this are the only options." One of the principles the US was founded on was the seperation of church and state. As far as I'm concerned, school is an extension of state. Therefore, Creationism should not be taught in schools.

I noticed in your article that you insinuated that a lack of religion will directly result in a lack of morality. That if we don't think God is watching then we will have no motivation to be good people. I have more faith in mankind than that. I think that we can be good people on our own, and that our desire to be good people and reproduce can also stem from the belief that this is the only life we will get. If this is my only life, I'm going to make it a good one, and I'm going to give life to some people so that they can have the opprotunity to experience the beauty that is life, whether that beauty happened by design or accident.
You also said that society won't keep us from dying and rotting. Well, God hasn't been to big on doing that either.

I get what you're saying, but in my school, a Catholic school, no one really believes in God, and that's all we're taught about. The Creationism theory. And if that's what it's like in Catholic schools, why bother with Public schools?

So I understand what you're saying, but I, personally, don't think it would change anything.

On a happy not, this article is very well written and edited. =]

I think that it really depends. But the thing is, if your going to teach a religion/creationism in a science class, where there are theories or facts to prove it wrong or bridge gaps, do it in a religion class.
Religion classes and Science classes should be kept separate and due to the fact that there are people out there who don't want their child exposed to other religions pushed on them I think if a school does offer Religion classes there should be multiple and/or optional for the parent of said child to choose.
Just my two cents :)

I believe it's either: teach Creationism and the Theory of Evolution, or just neither at all.

Both are theories so why should one be left out?

also I think everyone should get to decide,because religion is a choice.I believe that everyone has a choice to believe it or not and if they dont they shouldn't have to go to school and hear it everyday,just like evoltion.Overall theres always a reason to fight over whats in the schools so we might as well just let them choose what they want to learn and live our lives.remember God gave us a choice.So if they choose evolution or mixtures of religions let them.its their choice.We dont have to keep telling them what they should believe.We have no right to judge remember?It's God's right alone,so this disucion could go on forever,but I'll just shutup,and let everyone else choose.I know what I believe,and what I've chosen.

I see where your coming from,because my parents believe the same thing,but I kinda think that your article was a little more of a argument than a article,and I love that your trying to make this point,because my parents pulled me out of public school because they taught a bunch of evolution stuff.Just like creationism isn't a provin fact neither os evolution.we weren't there to see it.soo I believe creationism has just as much right to be taught in schools as evolusion.So ya you make a good point,but i think you kinda had some unnessesary stuff that can be taken offensive to people who don't believe the same thing.

The picture in his article shows the first lines of genesis. it's a mystery why no one tends to question this:
In the beginning god created heaven and the earth. - what was before this? where did god come from? who created god? very vague, and causes more questions than answers.
But then god created light afterwards. - that means he created heaven and earth in the dark! no common sense. i'd have gone, right, lets have a bit of light and see what we've got to work with. plus, light waves originate from stars and the sun. a more modern version should state god created the sun. but this was not known at the point of writing. the bible is an outdated piece of writing, in terms of explaining human existence and creation, and should not be taught in schools as firm truth, because it is not. it is a was of explaining unanswered questions 2000 years ago, when we had little knowledge of how the world and universe around us works. why has no one checked the validity of the bible? a book does not prove the existence of god, much like harry potter does not prove the existence of magic.

v Just because you can't understand something doesn't make creationism true.

I agree with you.

Hard.

Sadly though, most people these days are just too blind and/or stubborn to see what's staring them in the face. The whole theory of evolution makes me laugh.... hysterically. (Yes, I've read up on it plenty, if anyone feels the need to comment back on that part.)

I mostly feel bad though. So many base their entire belief system and so-called "morals" on things that aren't even true. They're being fooled and they can't begin to understand what's in store for them. Ugh.

Forget everyone who has been insulting you for this. Even better than that, [i]pray[/i] for them. They need it....

[b]To the author of this article[/b]:
Look, I get where you're coming from, okay? I'm a Christian, too, but I don't think creationism should be taught in science classes. If it is going to be taught, it needs to be taught in a religion class, not a science one. Creationism deals with religion, not science. I agree that there should be a religion class in all high schools, but it needs to cover many religions, not just one, because schools are secular. Even as Christians, we have to abide by culture. Paul even tells us in the Bible to adapt to our cultures, and in order to do that, we treat schools as secular, because in this culture, they are.

[b]To a few commenters on the article, but no one specific[/b]:
This comment is for Atheists who have been rude about the Christian faith. If you were not, disregard this.
Look, yes, the author made bad comments to Atheists in her article, but making rude comments about Christianity or religion in general is not the way to make your point. I really am sick of Atheists who sit there and complain about Christians and then go and do the same things they accuse Christians of doing. For example, I don't know HOW many times I've heard an Atheist complain about how Christians judge them based on the fact that they're an Atheist and mock their beliefs, and then they sit there and judge Christians for being Christians and mock their beliefs. Yeah, okay, calling a Christian a hypocrite and then being a hypocrite yourself is not the best way to go, okay?
Again, this is NOT directed to all Atheists, just the ones who do things like this. So, don't take offense just because you're Atheist, because I have no problems with Atheists. I have problems with Atheists like I described above.

We should be taught SCIENCE in schools. Not myths and stories. If you want that taught in World History or Social Studies, well that's just fine and dandy. Religion was a huge part of history. But it shouldn't be tuahgt in a science class.

in my school the science teachers dont belive in god and teach the subjects but when questioned their not allowed to say if they belive or not as it could sway our veiws xD

I took a course in college recently concerning the science and religion debate, and what you are asking is impossible. If kids want to take a religions class, then they should attend a private denominational school. And when you say only creationism should be taught in schools, you forget that Christianity and other monotheistic religions are not the only major religions out there.
While the fossil record is not complete, evolution does occur. What people don't realize is that evolution occurs over extremely long periods of time for some organisms and only months for other organisms (bacteria, etc.).
I believe that a world religions class would be a good thing for kids to take so they won't be ignorant about other religions (and thus the chances of hate crimes are decreased) but it shouldn't focus on Christianity and it should most definitely not be taught in a science classroom.
One cannot prove the existence or non existence of a supernatural being or beings using the scientific method. These sorts of philosophical questions lie outside the domain of science. However, the evolutionary theory has evidence to back it up.
Creationism and Intelligent Design (which is really just creationism in disguise) cannot answer scientific questions in a logical way.
I am not knocking on your opinion, because you have a right to your opinion, but you must consider other viewpoints and really think of what the meaning of creationism and science is. They cannot fit into each other neatly like a glove, nor should they.

While I am somewhat religious, I do believe in evolution. Evolution happened, and is still happening. Humans are taller than we were centuries ago. We've built up natural immunities to illnesses that used to kill humans easily.

When I was little, I asked my dad about evolution. He answered saying "God created Adam and Eve and we are descended from them." Then I replied, "Well couldn't Adam and Eve had been Neanderthals?" It still kinda makes sense to me that if they were real they most likely could have been Neanderthals, or an earlier hominid (when I was that young I thought that Neanderthals were the earliest) . Do we know for sure what they looked like? We don't have any pictures, so why not?

I attend a catholic high school and I have attended public school in the past. In the catholic system, we have mandatory religion class and regardless of my own religion, I enjoy the class though it is some time tedious as with school in general sometime. I think if the same program was put as and option for public, it could be beneficial because it is true that many teens do want to learn more about religion. Not necessarily just Catholic but Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, whether they want to learn about different religions in the hope of finding the one that is right for them or to gain religious tolerances through knowledge.

In general, just teaching creationism from one perspective would be a terrible idea, because many different cultural groups go to public school, because they are public schools and they expect that they will not be religious. It would also be ridiculous to teach any creation story with out also teaching about the religion behind the story so I believe that it would be acceptable to have an optional religion course that involve teaching the basics of many different religions along with there particular creation story.


The religion course I take in high school, teaches about atheism and agnostic ways, along with Catholic, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and several other religions. I believe that it could be useful to have this type of program in schools because it does give knowledge about other religions, which is important in this point because of conflicts all over the world that are the result of religious differences. For example knowing that the catholic, Jewish and Muslim holy books share the bulk of the Old Testament, several key stories along with many very important prophets and other religious symbols, would make people less likely to judge and say burn one of the holy books.


Also though I don't agree wholly with the way your article was written as a debate speech, which was more of what you intended it to be I believe, you could have use more facts and less personal opinion, but in general you put up a good argument.

I am an ignostic, not an atheist and I in no way mean to offend you by saying this, but really, isn't this what Catholic and Christian schools are for? So that parents and children can get an education that includes religion without infringing on the religious rights of everyone else. Religion does not belong to the state, therefore it has no right in any of the state's affairs.

"Is this really what we want to know, and want our descendants to know? If so, what is to stop us from going out and committing crimes, causing a massacre or maybe committing suicide? There’s nothing that comes after this life, apparently, so why bother trying to be a good person? Why bring any children into the world? Maybe because that is how society wants us to interact? Well, is society going to keep you from dying and rotting in the ground?"

-> I found this a highly intriguing notion, however it is unfounded. If there was no religion, our morals may be entirely different. I do not argue with the fact that the creation of religion itself was what created our morals, however I am uncertain whether or not "god" had anything to do with it. There is actually a quite famous quote from a very intelligent man on the subject that I think you need to hear.

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
-Steven Weinberg

Once again, I don't intend to offend.