[Winstonm]

 luke warm, on 2011-February-10, 04:54, said:

yeah, he was a tad extreme... but there are a lot of people who hold reprehensible personal ideologies whose scholarship is otherwise authoritative (to some degree)

I would venture that Luther's stance on Jews was more of a blurring of personal beliefs and scholarship, as he used rejection of Christianity to make his case for treatment of Jews. But this type thinking is certainly more than just Luther and Christianity.

This type action is the hallmark of the fundamentalist, the certaintist who is convinced beyond any doubt his beliefs align with some unalterable absolute authority, and any conflicting belief is not only wrong but an insult of rejection to god himself. When this certainty of fundamentalism is combined with state power, you get incredibly dangerous situations - from the Inquisition to modern-day Iran.

[hrothgar]

 luke warm, on 2011-February-10, 04:54, said:

yeah, he was a tad extreme... but there are a lot of people who hold reprehensible personal ideologies whose scholarship is otherwise authoritative (to some degree)

Bobby Fischer was a phenomenal chess player.
He was also an extreme anti-semite.
I find it quite easy to differentiate between a relatively pure intellectual pursuit like chess and his more usbjective views like morality.

Martin Luther was much more than a "scholar". His life's work was describing the relationship between man and god (and how men lived with other men). I don't think that you causally divorce his anti-Semitist from his "scholarship". The two are integrally linked.

FWIW, I'm German on my mother's side, come from a long line of Lutherans, and even got confirmed in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (because it made my Nana happy)

[PassedOut]

 phil_20686, on 2011-February-08, 08:02, said:

Spoken like a philospoher or mathematician. They always want the minimal explanation. Well I want the *best* explanation. Indeed, there is so much that atheism does not explain that I feel justified in referring to it as a "content free" explanation.

Let's examine this a bit.

An atheist says that all reliable explanations are natural. A theist says that some reliable explanations are supernatural. Not much difference in content so far.

When offering actual explanations, though, the theist has a lot more latitude: he or she can always play the supernatural wild card. And if the set of all natural explanations is "content free" as Phil feels justified in saying, then all explanations with actual content spring from the theist's playing of the supernatural wild card.

But is that really content?

Suppose that a natural explanation and a supernatural explanation conflict. The historical position of theists was that such conflicts should be resolved by punishing those who offered the natural explanations. And often that punishment was severe.

Over time, though, so many people could see that the natural explanations were correct that most theists conceded. However, you still have sad situations like the one that started this thread in which less sophisticated (and less honest) theists continue to press the supernatural explanation over the natural explanation.

But Phil is more thoughtful and more honest than that. As I understand it, sophisticated theists search for supernatural answers to questions not amenable to natural explanations. Questions, perhaps, like "What is the purpose of life?" and "Why do horrible things happen to some people and not others?" and "How do I obtain 'salvation?'"

And I can understand some of the motivation behind that search, as I think most of us can. But by playing the supernatural wild card here and there, theists can and do build elaborate theologies that provide conflicting answers. We saw an example in this thread with two Christians -- equally sincere and equally confident in their positions -- disagreeing about the means of "salvation."

Because that wild card can be played whenever a theist feels like it, all such supernatural explanations are inevitably, in my opinion, "content free."

[luke warm]

 hrothgar, on 2011-February-10, 09:13, said:

Bobby Fischer was a phenomenal chess player. He was also an extreme anti-semite.

I find it quite easy to differentiate between a relatively pure intellectual pursuit like chess and his more usbjective views like morality.

Martin Luther was much more than a "scholar". His life's work was describing the relationship between man and god (and how men lived with other men). I don't think that you causally divorce his anti-Semitist from his "scholarship". The two are integrally linked.

(FWIW, I'm German on my mother's side and come from a long line of Lutherans)

let me make it clear that i believe that his view of jews was based on his understanding of the new testament... that same brand of anti-semitism is still held by some today (i think mel gibson is one)... other christians, and i am one, have a different interpretation of the new testament as it relates to the jews... i find it as easy to dispute his reasoning on this subject, through my own studies, as you might with a recognized authority on a subject with which you are familiar... i don't find it as easy to dispute his conclusions regarding james and paul...

 PassedOut, on 2011-February-10, 09:34, said:

But by playing the supernatural wild card here and there, theists can and do build elaborate theologies that provide conflicting answers. We saw an example in this thread with two Christians -- equally sincere and equally confident in their positions -- disagreeing about the means of "salvation."

i don't think phil and i disagree on the supernatural aspect of salvation, just the degree to which it is of God and of man... but maybe i'm wrong

[Winstonm]

Quote

However, you still have sad situations like the one that started this thread in which less sophisticated (and less honest) theists continue to press the supernatural explanation over the natural explanation

.

And the reasoning behind the continued pressure for supernatural explanations can be found in some of the more sophistated writing of the brighter believers. From William Lane Craig's book, Reasonable Faith 2007. (emphasis mine)

Quote

I think Martin Luther correctly distinguished between what he called the magisterial and ministerial uses of reason. The magisterial use of reason occurs when reason stands over and above the gospel like a magistrate and judges it on the basis of argument and evidence. The ministerial use of reason occurs when reason submits to and serves the gospel.... Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it is the former which must take precedence over the latter

[PassedOut]

 luke warm, on 2011-February-10, 09:55, said:

i don't think phil and i disagree on the supernatural aspect of salvation

I'd be surprised if you did. But starting from there, people can always develop conflicting theologies, as happened.

[PassedOut]

 Winstonm, on 2011-February-10, 11:27, said:

And the reasoning behind the continued pressure for supernatural explanations can be found in some of the more sophistated writing of the brighter believers. From William Lane Craig's book, Reasonable Faith 2007. (emphasis mine)

Looks like some theists would still like to punish us if they could get away with it. Keep up the good fight!

[hrothgar]

 luke warm, on 2011-February-10, 09:55, said:

let me make it clear that i believe that his view of jews was based on his understanding of the new testament... that same brand of anti-semitism is still held by some today (i think mel gibson is one)... other christians, and i am one, have a different interpretation of the new testament as it relates to the jews... i find it as easy to dispute his reasoning on this subject, through my own studies, as you might with a recognized authority on a subject with which you are familiar... i don't find it as easy to dispute his conclusions regarding james and paul...

My own gut feeling is that Luther's view towards the Jews was a function of the culture that he lived in.
Luther may very well have tried to use the New Testament to justify his pre-existing biases, however, I'd be very surprised to discover a real causal link.

As an analogy:

Many Muslim's claim that Islam and/or the Koran require that women (variously)

1. Keep their heads covered
2. Are circumsized
3. Wear the hijab
4. ...

In actuality, what seems to happen is that various cultures impose/project their own beliefs on the Koran. Accordingly, in areas in Africa where muslims and non-muslims both practice female genital mutilation thieir seems to be a widespread belief that this practice is required by Islam. In much the same manner, the practice of wearing head scarves predates Islam and was largely class based. Over time, the Koran's dicussions about "modesty" became confounded with existing cultural imperatives around head coverings. Eventually, you end up with hijabs...

Personally, I think Luther behaved in much the same manner...

[Winstonm]

Quote

Over time, the Koran's dicussions about "modesty" became confounded with existing cultural imperatives around head coverings. Eventually, you end up with hijabs

I think there is a basis here for the argument that cultural influences led to religious ideology, that god was an invention of man rather than man being god's creation.

[luke warm]

 hrothgar, on 2011-February-10, 12:21, said:

My own gut feeling is that Luther's view towards the Jews was a function of the culture that he lived in. Luther may very well have tried to use the New Testament to justify his pre-existing biases, however, I'd be very surprised to discover a real causal link.

you may be right...

[Winstonm]

Quote

Didn't it take the Council of Chalcedon (http://en.wikipedia....il_of_Chalcedon) 451 to get the existing Christian churches to reach some fundamental consent, about the nature of Jesus, building the base of the separation of the East European church at the same time?

A late clarification here, but I am pretty sure you are talking about the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E., which was called by Constantine. It was in this council that divinity of Jesus was adopted as the orthodox view.

[mike777]

 Winstonm, on 2011-February-10, 21:40, said:

A late clarification here, but I am pretty sure you are talking about the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E., which was called by Constantine. It was in this council that divinity of Jesus was adopted as the orthodox view.

I think this is a bit too strong of a statement........In fact...Jesus as divinity common/orthodox way before 325.......

I fully grant before 325 Roman Catholic orthodox.....in flux.....but 325 ad does mean something.

[phil_20686]

 Winstonm, on 2011-February-09, 11:32, said:

Has anyone read Bart Ehrman's NYT bestsellers "Misquoting Jesus" and "Jesus Interrupted"?

The conflict to which Phil alludes between Jewish Law adherence and no adherence only came about as far as can be determined by the opinions of Paul. According to Dr. Erhman, no actual teaching from Jesus himself contradicted Jewish Law, and that there is (my paraphrase here) a theological evolutionary pattern of change that was implemented by succeeding men who wrote their understanding of the oral traditions of their times and places, going from oldest gospel, Mark, to latest, John.

As Ehrman points out, the book of Mark is apocraphyl, teaching the Jewish understanding to Jews of a messiah who would return to earth within the lives of the then living generation to resolve forever the dichotomy of good/evil and establish an earthly kingdom.

65-years later, when it became obvious that the messiah wasn't coming as promised, a new idea of a divine (meaning having been with god all along) Jesus (as the word in John) who promised a future heavenly reward, not an earthly kingdom, was introduced.

Even the idea of when and how Jesus became the son of god changed with each version, with retellings. From an adopted son in Mark who became the son by baptism of John the Baptist, to son by means of virgin birth and direct interaction of god/man in Matthew and Luke, to John's Jesus divinity who was there at creation and who was both with god and also was god, in the beggining was the word, etc.

This is always the danger of people who read just a few books. Some of these points are easy to dispute, some of them rather harder. In particular, the idea that Jesus did not contradict Jewish law is (mostly) true, although he did repudiate the Mosaic Law's sanction of divorce and polygamy, though I believe that polygamy had died out as a cultural practice by then anyway. However, Jesus definitely expanded upon Jewish law, and made it appear in a wholly different light. Indeed, he espoused an entirely new way of looking at the covenant. From a Christian perspective, Jewish Law foreshadows Christian ethics, so the share almost all the same ideas, but often are different in implementation. Still, that is a long long long conversation.

More importantly, he has based it on a chronology of the Gospel writing that does not fall in line with modern historical finds. When he wrote this I presume people still had the earliest finds of gospel of John placing it authorship in the 3rd century. This was a massive dispute between historical exegetes and the Catholic Church in the seventies, when the church maintained that they had all been "substantially written within living memory of the crucifixion". New historical finds place the authorship of the Gospel of John as well inside the first century, and certainly no later than ad 90. This puts it fairly contemporary with the other gospels were written, probably no more than ten years later at the outside. It is unclear what its provenance is with respect to the Apostle John. A theory gaining credence seems to be that John may have founded some kind of school (in the old sense) of theology to thrash out some questions in the early church, and that the gospel of John may be an accurate recounting of his theology and thought, if not actually his writing.

It is certainly true that the Gospel of John seems to espouse a certain theology, rather than aiming to be a biographical account. It appears to have re-ordered some of the events in Jesus' life so that sometimes parables on the same theme appear together. However it is also possible that Jesus simply told the same parables multiple times, such that the "ordering" in the synoptic gospels simply refers to particularly memorable events, and that the apostles may often have known these stories prior to their public dissemination. Also, it is easy to forget that in the old days writing was a massively difficult and time consuming task. One estimate that I have seen in a catholic publication was that to write the Pauline epistles on papyrus with old style quills (if you include a couple of drafts for each letter) represented a decade of 7 days a week work. Just to produce a copy of the new testament by hand might take as long as 5 years. Thus there was a really strong impetus to be as brief as possible, and therefore every author had to judge what he thought matters. In this age we are spoiled not only by computers, but even by the humble pencil.

As regarding the apocryphal nature of the synoptic gospels, many many books have been written. I tend to believe that that the simplest explanation is that the apostles simply misunderstood the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven at first. And the growing awareness that this was to be a spiritual rather than temporal kingdom. Later in the Gospels Jesus certainly appears to rebuke the disciples for worrying about temporal kingdoms, eg, in acts 1:6-8. "It is not for you to know the dates the Father has decided by his own authority". Certainly, there is no evidence that Paul believed in an immanent eschatology. He rebukes the Thessalonians for worrying about it.

Finally, as regards questions about Christ's divinity. It is true that there was much confusion in the early church, and it is also definitely true that the gospel of John was designed to address that confusion, at least in part. Nevertheless, this doesn't pose any kind of a problem for Christians. All the gospels, and the witness of the Apostles, was that Christ claimed to be God. It has been a popular claim in some quarters that nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus come out and say it, but this is completely wrong. I can provide an epically long list of quotes if necessary. You also seem to imply that the idea of a future heavenly reward was "new" in some sense, and created after Jesus' death. But this is definitely untrue. You don't have to look any further than the crucifixion for that. Jesus Tells the prisinor that "Today you will be with me in heaven" which seems to imply heavenly reward for faith.

If you were looking for a book about Jesus that is easy to understand and represents an authentic Christian outlook, you can do no better than the Pope's, "Jesus of Nazareth".

[Winstonm]

 phil_20686, on 2011-February-11, 08:11, said:

This is always the danger of people who read just a few books. Some of these points are easy to dispute, some of them rather harder. In particular, the idea that Jesus did not contradict Jewish law is (mostly) true, although he did repudiate the Mosaic Law's sanction of divorce and polygamy, though I believe that polygamy had died out as a cultural practice by then anyway. However, Jesus definitely expanded upon Jewish law, and made it appear in a wholly different light. Indeed, he espoused an entirely new way of looking at the covenant. From a Christian perspective, Jewish Law foreshadows Christian ethics, so the share almost all the same ideas, but often are different in implementation. Still, that is a long long long conversation.

More importantly, he has based it on a chronology of the Gospel writing that does not fall in line with modern historical finds. When he wrote this I presume people still had the earliest finds of gospel of John placing it authorship in the 3rd century. This was a massive dispute between historical exegetes and the Catholic Church in the seventies, when the church maintained that they had all been "substantially written within living memory of the crucifixion". New historical finds place the authorship of the Gospel of John as well inside the first century, and certainly no later than ad 90. This puts it fairly contemporary with the other gospels were written, probably no more than ten years later at the outside. It is unclear what its provenance is with respect to the Apostle John. A theory gaining credence seems to be that John may have founded some kind of school (in the old sense) of theology to thrash out some questions in the early church, and that the gospel of John may be an accurate recounting of his theology and thought, if not actually his writing.

It is certainly true that the Gospel of John seems to espouse a certain theology, rather than aiming to be a biographical account. It appears to have re-ordered some of the events in Jesus' life so that sometimes parables on the same theme appear together. However it is also possible that Jesus simply told the same parables multiple times, such that the "ordering" in the synoptic gospels simply refers to particularly memorable events, and that the apostles may often have known these stories prior to their public dissemination. Also, it is easy to forget that in the old days writing was a massively difficult and time consuming task. One estimate that I have seen in a catholic publication was that to write the Pauline epistles on papyrus with old style quills (if you include a couple of drafts for each letter) represented a decade of 7 days a week work. Just to produce a copy of the new testament by hand might take as long as 5 years. Thus there was a really strong impetus to be as brief as possible, and therefore every author had to judge what he thought matters. In this age we are spoiled not only by computers, but even by the humble pencil.

As regarding the apocryphal nature of the synoptic gospels, many many books have been written. I tend to believe that that the simplest explanation is that the apostles simply misunderstood the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven at first. And the growing awareness that this was to be a spiritual rather than temporal kingdom. Later in the Gospels Jesus certainly appears to rebuke the disciples for worrying about temporal kingdoms, eg, in acts 1:6-8. "It is not for you to know the dates the Father has decided by his own authority". Certainly, there is no evidence that Paul believed in an immanent eschatology. He rebukes the Thessalonians for worrying about it.

Finally, as regards questions about Christ's divinity. It is true that there was much confusion in the early church, and it is also definitely true that the gospel of John was designed to address that confusion, at least in part. Nevertheless, this doesn't pose any kind of a problem for Christians. All the gospels, and the witness of the Apostles, was that Christ claimed to be God. It has been a popular claim in some quarters that nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus come out and say it, but this is completely wrong. I can provide an epically long list of quotes if necessary. You also seem to imply that the idea of a future heavenly reward was "new" in some sense, and created after Jesus' death. But this is definitely untrue. You don't have to look any further than the crucifixion for that. Jesus Tells the prisinor that "Today you will be with me in heaven" which seems to imply heavenly reward for faith.

If you were looking for a book about Jesus that is easy to understand and represents an authentic Christian outlook, you can do no better than the Pope's, "Jesus of Nazareth".

Ehrman's book was published in 2009. He cites 90-95 Common Era as the date for the book of John. What Ehrman does is write about the historical-critical method of viewing the bible.

The issue of divinity is explained as being the equal to god, the same as god, with god at creation. That is certainly not the same thing as Jesus saying, today you will be with me in paradise.

Beside, as the historical-critical method points out, the accounts of the crucifition are different between the gospels, even so far as on what day it occured.

[phil_20686]

 PassedOut, on 2011-February-10, 09:34, said:

Let's examine this a bit.

An atheist says that all reliable explanations are natural. A theist says that some reliable explanations are supernatural. Not much difference in content so far.

When offering actual explanations, though, the theist has a lot more latitude: he or she can always play the supernatural wild card. And if the set of all natural explanations is "content free" as Phil feels justified in saying, then all explanations with actual content spring from the theist's playing of the supernatural wild card.

But is that really content?

Suppose that a natural explanation and a supernatural explanation conflict. The historical position of theists was that such conflicts should be resolved by punishing those who offered the natural explanations. And often that punishment was severe.

Over time, though, so many people could see that the natural explanations were correct that most theists conceded. However, you still have sad situations like the one that started this thread in which less sophisticated (and less honest) theists continue to press the supernatural explanation over the natural explanation.

But Phil is more thoughtful and more honest than that. As I understand it, sophisticated theists search for supernatural answers to questions not amenable to natural explanations. Questions, perhaps, like "What is the purpose of life?" and "Why do horrible things happen to some people and not others?" and "How do I obtain 'salvation?'"

Because that wild card can be played whenever a theist feels like it, all such supernatural explanations are inevitably, in my opinion, "content free."

I'm not sure this really accurate representation of what I said, but maybe I was not as clear as I would like to think. . We all agree that the set of natural explanations represents at least "almost all" phenomena. Whether you think God exists or not, we all agree that the natural world exists! The point is more that there should be some explanation as to why our world is the way that it is. Indeed, it is hard to understand why it is that human reason and the natural laws seem to correlate so well, in the sense that conceptual insights can provide such powerful tools in understanding nature, if, as Winstonm contends, the concepts are not in any sense real.

I meant atheism is content free in the sense that it is impossible to make a link between the philosophy of atheism, and any explanation of why the natural world is the way it is. In fact, one should not even try, but only accept the natural world as something that is an accident, and not in need of any explanation. It is in this sense that atheism is content free. Now I chose to focus on reason as something that exists in our universe, but cannot be explained by material causes, but I could have focused on different things. Many have done the same with the concept of beauty. Others with truth, or justice. All these are concepts that we perceive as real, without them having any material basis. I perceive atheism and materialism to be incapable of providing an explanation for these crucial aspects of our world. Winstonm's counter argument is to merely contend that discussions about these things have no meaning, precisely because they are not firmly rooted in reality. This is the counterargument advanced by many philosophers of language. Probably Foucault produced it in its most sensible form. (Archaeology of knowledge). However, the standard counter argument to this is that we should start our epistemological investigations from the assumption that we can obtain reliable information from our experience of reality, because otherwise you are entering a maze from which there is no way out. A broken epistemology that cannot even justify itself. I half-jokingly referred to Chesterton, but I also really think that he nailed the essence of this kind of thinking, which is that one should not try to ignore things that you experience, just because they do not fit into your concepts of reality. I content that is precisely what the Wimstomn, and the post-modernist model of language, has done.

Also, the characterisation as a wild card, is somewhat unfair. I was not suggesting that one should not search for natural explanations. Only suggesting that natural science renders some things impossible, even as it renders others possible. When one claims that the impossible has happened, eg Miracle of the Sun, you should, of course, search for a reasonable explanation. As Dr House would say, "People lie". Nevertheless, one should not start with the assumption that it is impossible that it is genuine. In any case, an example such as the one given is as miraculous for its timing as it was for its events. No matter the theory that *may* be advanced to explain it, it still does not explain how small children were able to predict it. There remains something here that needs to be explained, that cannot be explained by science. In any case, it is more that there are two possible (from your point of view bad) explanations. One that "hundreds of people and otherwise reliable observers were duped by 3 small children in an illusion seen up to 18 miles, and it just happened that these 3 small children were devout and claimed that they had visions," or "God really exists, and in this case chose to perform a miracle so that people might improve their lives by believing in Him". Since it seems clear that probability for the first one must be vanishingly small, one only has to consult with your prior's to establish whether the second is slightly larger than vanishingly small, in which case you should regard it as most likely. Since I give the second statement a probability of 1, this is a no brainer for me.

In any case, positing Gods existence as the "best of possible explanations" is not positing a wild card in the sense of ignoring a perfectly good natural explanation.

[phil_20686]

 Winstonm, on 2011-February-11, 08:36, said:

Ehrman's book was published in 2009. He cites 90-95 Common Era as the date for the book of John. What Ehrman does is write about the historical-critical method of viewing the bible.

The issue of divinity is explained as being the equal to god, the same as god, with god at creation. That is certainly not the same thing as Jesus saying, today you will be with me in paradise.

Beside, as the historical-critical method points out, the accounts of the crucifition are different between the gospels, even so far as on what day it occured.

Ok, I don't know much about Ehrman, but I assumed he was one of the late seventies bunch who basically thought that Christians made up the gospel of John in ad 250 to lend credence to ecumenical councils that had already happened.

In your previous post you seemed to posit that the idea of a heavenly reward after death was only "created" some years after Jesus's death after the failure of the second coming to happen. I wasn't supplying that quote in reference to the argument about divinity. Sorry if we have had a misunderstanding.

I am pretty sure that we have had an argument about the crucifixion narratives before. I have contended that they are precisely consistent with having 3 different eyewitnesses who were either there for different parts or stood different distances away and did not necessarily hear all the details of the conversations. I am not really sure what you mean about different days. I am pretty sure that isn't true. Do you have a quotation? I think they all agree that the crucifixion was the day before the Passover Sabbath, hence the leg breaking. I realise there is some confusion in ancient languages about whether "the first day" means today or tomorrow. But we have the same confusion in English about the "first floor" - in Britain that means the floor above ground level, in American it means the ground floor. Thus "On the third day" might mean two or 3 days. This seems consistent with the crucifixion being "the first day" before the "sabbath" which was the second day, and the "third day" being Sunday. Im not sure how americans order sequence of days, but in britian we would intpret "the third day" as being 3 days away (i.e. monday in the gospel narrative) in common English. E.g: one might talk about a holiday as "I arrived on the Saturday, on the first day (monday) I relaxed by the pool...". These kind of details often escape people who are not familiar with the difficulties of assessing biblical texts.

[phil_20686]

 Winstonm, on 2011-February-10, 21:40, said:

A late clarification here, but I am pretty sure you are talking about the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E., which was called by Constantine. It was in this council that divinity of Jesus was adopted as the orthodox view.

Well, there were various aspects of Christ's divinity, but there is no evidence that the idea that Jesus was not God was ever seriously considered by early Christians. The confusion was more about whether Jesus was really a man. Whether he maintained his Godly faculties through the Passion, or surrendered them to become more Human. Whether he maintained his Godly omniscience when he was Human, and could, for example, knew everything about everything from birth, or whether his human limitations restrained him such that he still had to learn to speak like a normal child. Did Jesus exist before being conceived? "Aspects of Divinity" carries a wide range of problems. These were settled in bits an pieces, and some of them are still regarded as somewhat open questions. I read a somewhat humerous article on this called "Did Jesus know Tensor Calculus".

[phil_20686]

 vuroth, on 2011-February-09, 16:25, said:

You're being awfully disingenious. I mean, if the only place anyone is allowed to teach anything is school, then sure, I'm right with you, but of course that's nonsense.

I would hazard a guess that every skeptic and atheist in the country would be happy to have every child in America learn creationism, except possibly their own children. The vocal and constant objection to teaching creationism in schools isn't so much that people are taught it, but that it is taught as being as accepted, as proven, and as likely as evolution.

It's not a matter of taking a head count of voters, and it's not a matter of how popular a belief is. Teaching evolution in some manner in schools is acceptable because of the body of evidence behind it. Teaching creationism, or pastafarianism, in schools is not.

That does not mean that these subjects can not be taught, just that it should be done somewhere OTHER than the taxpayer's bill.

I have always found this argument to be circular. You are basically invoking your authority as a tax payer to decide what children should be taught in schools. That is precisely what they are doing. You have also implicitly assumed that it is necessary that all children in state schools need to be taught the same thing. Whether that is desirable is questionable even in a technical sense, by which I mean that it may well be desirable for schools in certain areas to concentrate on particular areas that are useful to local industries, rather enforce uniformity across a wide and varied country.

I mean, this is an argument that is being fought in other areas. Most notably sex education programs. Who should decide what children should learn about sex, and when? This is even more prickly than evolution since its an inherently moral matter. Anyone who says you can have a "value free" lesson about techniques is lying, since the assumption is that anything that you learn in school is ok to know. You do not teach bomb making in chemistry. Or weapon design in arts and crafts. (Although, in Texas, who knows? )

I think to win this argument you should forget the courts and forget school education, and instead argue on the grounds that Y.E.C. and the fossil record are in conflict, and that the YE explanation is in conflict with God's fundamental attribute of truthfulness. It amazes us British that you havent won this argument ages ago. Biblical literalism and YE creationism are pretty much laughed out of bible study groups in this country! And its not like we have a great education system ourselves!

[hrothgar]

 phil_20686, on 2011-February-11, 09:19, said:

You do not teach bomb making in chemistry. Or weapon design in arts and crafts. (Although, in Texas, who knows? )

My 8th grade physical science / history project was a practical demonstration of the impact of "corning" on the combustion rate of gunpowder...

[kenberg]

And while I didn't make a knife for a project in metal shop, many did. Of course those were different times. Now we would expel the student and/or send him to a shrink, and probably fire the teacher.