Posted on 06/24/2010 9:15:19 AM PDT by tlb
Austin federal judge Sam Sparks dismissed a suit by the Dallas-based Institute of Creation Research, which seeks the right to grant a master’s degree in science from a biblical perspective. And by “dismissed,” we mean the judge tore it apart.
But first, a summary of the suit, as reported today by the San Antonio Express-News. The Institute seeks to offer a masters degree that critiques evolution and champions a literal interpretation of the biblical account of creation. Texas’s higher education board nixed the group’s application, because of the proposed program’s creationist slant. This, the Institute contended, was a violation of its First Amendment Rights.
That claim was dismissed by Sparks in an opinion that criticized the Institute’s arguments as incoherent. At one point he writes that he will address the group’s concerns “to the extent [he] is able to understand them.” At another, he describes the group’s filings as “overly verbose, disjointed, incoherent, maundering and full of irrelevant information.” Click here for the judge’s opinion.
“Religious belief is not science,” Texas Commissioner of Higher Education Raymund Paredes said. “Science and religious belief are surely reconcilable, but they are not the same thing.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
I agree with Post #10. However, remember that without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man cannot believe the creation account in Genesis. Just like evolution to a believer, it doesn’t make sense to them. “The God of this world (Satan) has blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them.”
He can do that in his own spare time, off the clock, but when acting in his guise as a mild mannered Constitutional scholar it is a tad beyond his authority to determine what is or is not truly religious belief.
We've been having this problem with both the Executive and the Judicial branches of government, at both state and federal levels, ever since the first guy thought up the idea of New York state public schools having the exact same prayer said at the same time every school day. That was the "Regent's prayer" that became subject of the USSC decision in "Regents v....." also known as the School Prayer ruling.
First of all the Regent's had no Constitutional authority to write a prayer. Secondly the Supreme Court had no authority to determine if it was truly religious. Things have gone down hill ever since.
Now we have Sam Sparks, whose knowledge of religion is unknown, and is probably incomplete at best, telling everyone what is or is not a religious belief.
I reject Sam's authority as a government employee to tell me such things. He can tell me the time of day, or whether or not I'm on or off one of his juries, or something else in his competence, but not the religious items. Not his job.
It’s irrelevant if it’s truly a religious belief or a dramatic presentation. We are speaking of a federal judge and the limits of his authority. The judges themselves have private lives which should be left at home when they sit on the bench. They operate within the limits of constitutional law. Nowhere in that law are judges given the power to determine what is or is not religious in nature.
It necessarily follows, then, that evolution, which is a religious belief, is not science.
Creationism is not, and never will be, science. It rejects the scientific method in favor of a particular interpretation of scripture.
Judges rule on what is religious in nature all the time, how else would they ever determine if a law is “respecting the establishment of religion” if they were somehow unable to discern what “religion” even was?
Another reason for the separation of School & State.
Thank God!
The logic is simple.
If anything is biblical based, it is therefore not true and only a fairy tail because it is impossible for God to use man to communicate truths.
And
The only things that are true are those that are not biblical based and those which have been accepted as true by the people whose knowledge is limited to what they all agree on.
“Why do these people continue to ignore the obvious fact that genesis was allegorical????”
Uh maybe because it’s NOT allegorical? God said what he meant and meant what he said, also the science fits better with it than it does with Darwin.
There is no reason the state should accredit them for this degree. If some one wants to attend and get a degree from them, then by all means, do so. The state isn’t stopping anyone from doing that.
I am afraid my commonsense observation just can't get through the heads of people bound and determined to use the federal judiciary as a sort of Sanhedron. It's not designed that way and eventually that ambition is going to result in the total disestablishment and reconstruction of the judiciary ~ and possibly in ways the religious fanatics who want the judges to rule on their personal beliefs don't count on.
Are you saying that ruling on what is or is not religion is in itself establishing a religion?
And that drawing a line between what is science and what is religion can only be done by defining religion either directly or indirectly and therefore the judiciary is taking control over areas that our government should not be involved with?
Nowhere does the Constitution demand that religion is something that a judge cannot discern. That there will be no “religious test” as a requirement for political office also makes incumbent upon a judge a determination of what is a religion, and what would constitute a religious test.
Your supposedly commonsense observation that Judges somehow cannot determine what a religion is, is not sensible. Neither is disagreement with your statement tantamount to a determination to use the judiciary as the ultimate arbiter of all things.
Why do the “other kind of people” deny the deeper more fantastic reality that allegories can only “hint” at? The mistake being made is to hold to a view alledging that allegory holds no real truth of fact only myth, and there-fore must be disscounted from true logical scientific discussuion. If the creation accounts can be seen as allegorical, one must consider that God used allegory in order to to explain to our simplistic materialistic mindsets, truths too fantastic for our limited intellects to otherwise grasp! Christ was said to have thanked the father for, “Hiding His wisdom from the wise of this world and revealing it to Babes”.
"Still laughing over this."
Maybe you're only "still laughing" because you've been indoctrinated into thinking the clownish / fundie biblical perspective is the only "biblical perspective".
Then again, you, too, may actually be a believer in fractured fairy tales.
Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
"....Intellectual intuition (nous) involves the direct perception of Truth.
"Logic (dianoia), on the other hand, is merely a mental operation that can lead to true or false conclusions, depending upon the data provided it.
"Logic is particularly useless -- even dangerous -- without the a priori intuition of Truth, without which logic alone eventually leads one over the abyss.
"The most important truths are indeed "self evident," that is, evident to the higher self.
"Clearly they are not necessarily evident to the lower self, which is why liberty and human dignity are a tough sell in the Islamic world, which awaits the day when its progress is not thwarted by the infrahuman majority in its midst.
"In America, the anti-progressive forces are represented by secular progressives, anti-religious Liztards, and other spiritual medullards.
"The application of mere logic would dismiss as silly superstition those transcendent truths that are known directly by the higher mind.
"This is why you cannot prove the existence of God to such a logic-bound individual, any more than you could prove it to a dog.
"Religious truths are conveyed through symbolism and analogy (with the assistance of grace), more like a great work of art than a mathematical equation.
"Although not merely logical, it would be a grave and simplistic error to suggest that the great revelations are illogical, any more than a Shakespearean sonnet or one of Beethoven’s symphonies are illogical.
"Rather, they are translogical. [...........snip............]"
I say let’s call Creationism science and make it stand up to the scientific method. For example, Creationism says the Earth was created roughly 6,000 years ago. Let’s test that hypothesis. Using the tools we have available to science at this time (radiometric dating, Pb/Pb isochron dating), indications are that the Earth was formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago. Hypothesis rejected.
The specific religious test outlawed by that clause was the one in Pennsylvania that REQUIRED you to be a Quaker to run for office.
Yes, the Quakers were still denying others the right to hold public office right down to 1790, and at that time the NO RELIGIOUS TEST standard was for federal offices only.
No judge needed to determine the validity of Quakerism as a true religion or a false religion. Prohibition of that test was sufficient to eliminate the problem.
Judges, to be equinanimous, must be totally neutral, and even determining if one element of belief or declaration is truly religions is beyond their authority.
The courts have no jurisdiction on how communion is administered nor if the cup is made of gold or silver, or wood. No judge in our system can dictate the number of candles to be lit in a Buddhist temple either on the basis of 79 being truly religious and 80 being a work of demons.
I do believe we still have people who think it's within the jurisdiction of our courts to determine the validity of religious beliefs.
They are wrong!
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