Posted on 06/01/2005 9:24:53 AM PDT by Fester Chugabrew
It's a common claim of libertarians, liberals, atheists and skeptics that religious conservatives use the public schools to promote creationism. I believe that claim is incorrect. The truth is that libertarians, liberals, atheists and skeptics use the public schools to promote atheism. Public schools are bad of course, and all schools should be private. But if there are going to be public schools anyway, they should be for all people, for evolutionists and creationists, for atheists and theists. Public schools should teach both evolution and creationism, and students should be given the choice which of those courses they want to take. It's the libertarians, liberals, atheists and skeptics that want to take away people's free choice, in the name of religious freedom, so as to make sure that everybody is forced to learn scientific truth and nobody gets exposed to pseudo-scientific heresy. That idea is based on a mistaken view of what separation between Church and State means.
Separation between Church and State means, or at least should mean, that government will not takes sides promoting one religion over the other. Or religion over nonreligion. Or nonreligion over religion. Forbidding creationism in public schools is itself an attack on the separation between Church and State. It means the the State promotes education the way atheists want it and hampers eduction the way theists want it. My opponents will counter that public schools do not promote atheism. They're supposedly neutral and teach only science, while they teach neither atheism nor theism. Nonsense. What a school teaches is never neutral and can never be neutral. Every choice a school makes on what courses to give and how is a value jugdement on what is good. Therefore, the conflicts public schools create about what to teach can never be solved. They're inherent in the very idea of a public school and can only be solved by privatizing all public schools. The best public schools can do for now is cater to as many needs as possible, especially needs carried by large proportions of students. Not doing that, for example by teaching evolution and not creationism, is not a neutral choice.
If one interprets the Separation between Church and State more strictly, so as to mean government must not even have any indirect connection to religion, then one might indeed argue that public schools should not teach creationism. (One might then even be able to argue that people on welfare should be forbidden to spend their welfare money on religious goods or services.) But such a strict interpretation would be unfair as long as there is no Separation between School and State. For if there is this kind of a separation between Church and State, while there is no general separation between School and State, religious education is put at a severe disadvantage to any kind of other education. Why should all schools of thought about what kind of education is appropriate get a say in the public school system, except if there is a religious connection? Separation between School and State is a great idea, which would depolitisize education, via privatization. But a very strictly interpreted separation between Church and State is simply not possible or desirable, as long as government controls public schools. If they control public schools they should try to cater equally to all education needs and education philosophies, whether they be scientific, atheist, religious, or whatever.
In this regard it's the religious right that stands on the side of freedom of religion and free scientific inquiry. They fully respect the rights of atheists to teach evolution in public schools, even though they think it incorrect. Their opponents, on the other hand, do no respect the rights of theist to teach creationism in public schools, because they think it incorrect. It may be that strictly speaking evolution is not atheism while creationism is theism. That doesn't remove the unfairness of the public schools in that they do teach what many atheist want taught (evolution) while they do not teach what many theist want taught (creationism). One might argue that the principle involved is that public schools should teach science and that therefore evolution is an appropriate subject to teach while creationism is not. There are two problems with that view:
1. Many creationists believe creationism is scientific.
2. It's not true that public schools only teach science.
As to 1, I agree that creationism is bad science, or nonscience, while evolution is good science. But it's not appropriate for government to make judgements about what is science or not science. For government to do that is a violation of well established principes of free scientific inquiry. The fact that evolution is true and creationism is false is besides the point. Government shouldn't decide what scientific truth is and tell people what to do or learn based on that judgement. Using government power against religious scientism is just as bad as when the Church used force against Galileo's secular science, and this is so for the same reasons. Therefore, the most neutral position to take is that everything should be taught in public schools if there is a big enough demand for it being taught.
As to 2. Most people think public schools should teach certain things other than science, such as physical education, moral education, sexual conduct, political ideas, social skills. Therefore one may not disallow the teaching of creationism on the grounds that it's not science, even putting aside the fact that not everybody agrees creationism isn't science. The same argument would disallow many things that are currently being taught in public schools. If we single out religion as something nonscientific that cannot be taught, while say political correctness can be taught, then we are using the first amendment in a way opposite to how it was intended. Instead of protecting religion now it's being used as a bias against religion.
Creationism is just one of many subjects that could be taught by public schools. And if that's what many people want taught, it should be taught, at least as an optional subject. Allowing creationism taught does not require any law which would respect an establishment of religion nor does it prohibit the free exercise of religion, and so there's no first amendment conflict. Quite the opposite. Taxing people to pay for public schools, and then forbidding them to teach religion, limits people's funds and options for exercising religion. Precisely a law forbidding creationism in public schools prohibits to some extent, or at least hampers, the free exercise of religion.
Let me be clear that I don't think it's good that schools teach creationism, intelligent design, or other pseudoscience such as astrology, withchraft, ESP, etc. If I were to create or fund or support a school, I would argue against it doing those things. So it's not that I think it's appropriate for schools to teach falsehoods and pseudoscience. My point is that it is not for me to judge what is appropriate or not for other people. When I own my own private school, it's my own business to make those judgements. But when it's a public school, the school should serve the purposes of everybody. Not only should it serve the purposes of both those in favour of pseudoscience and those in favour of science. But, more importantly, it should recognize that not everybody will agree on what is science and what is pseudoscience. In a free society everybody is allowed to make his own judgement on that. For goverment to make that judgement for people is authoritarian. Therefore, governments should not forbid subjects being tought based on the fact that they are pseudoscience. If you give government the power to forbid something because it's pseudoscience, then they are bound also to forbid something genuinely scientific and true at some point, on the arguement that it is pseudoscience. We are all fallible, and so is the government. Power given to government to protect us against illness, unhapiness and bad ideas, even with the best of intentions, will eventually turn against us and control us.
The state is used to supply education the way atheists want it, while it cannot be used to supply education the way theists want it, but they do pay part of the taxes. The reason this is done is not because atheists value religious freedom. I'm not saying atheists don't value religious freedom. I assume they do, I'm saying that's not the reason they control the public schools in this manner. Atheists do this for the same reason that in Islamic states all education is religious. They do it because they want to force people to live wholesome lives and do and learn what is good for them. Science is good, religion is bad, ergo people must learn science and the teaching of religion must be made difficult. Every group uses state power to enforce their way of life on others. This will be so as long as there is a state. Only the theists are more honest about it. These conflicts can never be solved except by privatization of schools. But as long as there are public schools any special restrictions on any kind of teaching, whether such teachings are defended on religious, scientific, cultural or moral grounds, is inappropriate and in conflict with the spirit of the first amendment. I'm an atheist, by the way.
Appreciate it.
Christians and Jews alike need to wake up to the none-to-subtle assault that has been going on for years, and is gaining new vigor and adherents. And I say this as a not particulary observant Episcopalian/Honorary Jew- whatever doubts I may harbor personally pale beside the organized attempt to silence, demean, marginalize, and segregate people of faith.
Everyone who believes in religious freedom, freedom of speech, and the right to live in peace as they see fit needs to wake up, and resist this nasty trend.
"The available historical citations of the era just don't back this assertion."
The 2nd President, of the United States of America, John Adams made the following statements:
"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God."
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people . It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
Upon his Father's passing, President John Quincy Adams stated the following:
"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this, it connected in one indissoluble bond, principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."
President George Washington stated:
"You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ ."
"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars."
"Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education of minds, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle ."
I believe the Word of God is the only foundation our Nation should have. A sound democracy can not be built on a Nation with no morals or religious convictions.
I've read his profile. At least he understands biology.
Who was the real Dashwood?
bassmaner is correct. Jefferson was an old shcool "liberal". When it came to social issues he was a staunch conservitave. For example...
Nobody with a sane understanding of our constitution can seriously believe that homosexual marriage is a civil right; after all, sodomy was then illegal everywhere and remained so for the next 200 years. The Virginia statutes, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, went so far as to specify that male homosexuals should be castrated, and that holes should be drilled through the nose of female homosexuals.
Laws mean what their authors intend for them to mean, and the authors of the United States constitution uniformly regarded homosexuality as an unspeakable perversion; it was not their idea to protect it.
Jefferson drafted a bill concerning Virginia’s criminal law providing that the penalty for sodomy should be castration. See Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew A. Lipscomb, ed. (Washington, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904) Vol. I, pp.226-27, from Jefferson’s “For Proportioning Crimes and Punishments.”
The bill read: “Whosoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or sodomy with a man or woman, shall be punished; if a man, by castration, a woman, by boring through the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch in diameter at the least.” (Virginia Bill number 64; authored by Jefferson; 18 June 1779)
And it is in violation of their own sacred cow, Roe v. Wade...
'Padlock the doors and fumigate the building.'
The word education is not in the Constitution...
Neither is the word marriage...
Neither does any person have a "right" to them...
With the perversions and piercings today, that might encourage them!
He hasn't the slightest comprehension of biology.
As to the real Dashwood, do the google search yourself. THIS is the man the FR Dashboard wants to be associated with. He is playing you. And laughing at you, as I laugh at him. You're a means to his ends.
"The bill read: “Whosoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or sodomy with a man or woman, shall be punished; if a man, by castration, a woman, by boring through the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch in diameter at the least.” (Virginia Bill number 64; authored by Jefferson; 18 June 1779)"
Another reason not to deify the founding fathers.
As to his understanding of biology, form designates function.
As to his namesake, pretty despicable. Doesn't nullify whatever truth in his arguments.
If he doesn't mean what he says, that's his loss.
What the 'historian' was saying was, that the words seperation of church and state, were never found in that order in the Dansbery letter from T Jefferson. They are found in the Communist Manifesto. I am not saying that is correct, but the T Jefferson letter did not have that phrase in it.
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