Bill Allowing The Teaching Of Creationism In Public School Science Classes Is Passed In Arkansas House 72-21

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Bill Allowing The Teaching Of Creationism In Public School Science Classes Is Passed In Arkansas House 72-21

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Post by Miles »

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A bill to allow Christian beliefs to be taught in Arkansas classrooms easily passed the state House Wednesday. House Bill 1701 now heads to the Senate side for a vote.

The bill will allow kindergarten through 12th grade teachers to teach students about the Christian theory of creationism, which claims that a divine being conjured the universe and all things in it in six days. The bill specifies that creationism can be taught not only in religion and philosophy classes, but “as a theory of how the Earth came to exist.”

As with so many pieces of legislation churning out of the Arkansas Capitol this session, if HB 1701 passes, a quick court challenge on this blatant mixing of church and state is all but inevitable. The United States Supreme Court already considered this issue in 1987 and ruled in no uncertain terms that teaching creationism in public school classrooms is unconstitutional. But blatant unconstitutionality hasn’t dissuaded Arkansas lawmakers so far this session. One Senate bill that passed recently, for example, declared all federal gun laws null and void within our state’s borders, in clear opposition to the Supremacy Clause that says federal laws take precedence over state laws.

Rep. Mary Bentley (R-Perryville), sponsor of House Bill 1701 “TO ALLOW CREATIONISM AS A THEORY OF HOW THE EARTH CAME TO EXIST TO BE TAUGHT IN KINDERGARTEN THROUGH GRADE TWELVE CLASSES IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND OPEN–ENROLLMENT PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOLS,” said she put forth the bill at the request of science teachers in her district.

“There are phenomena in our nature that evolution cannot explain,” Bentley said. She emphasized that science teachers may teach creationism under this bill, but they don’t have to.
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Stupid beyond belief, but what's your opinion?

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Re: Bill Allowing The Teaching Of Creationism In Public School Science Classes Is Passed In Arkansas House 72-21

Post #141

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to Athetotheist in post #140]
It isn't taught as moral in Muslim or Christian schools, is it? And teaching it as moral isn't an "atheist" position; there are religions such as Wicca which accept same-sex attractions. And as far as "most of the world's population" being this or that, a tyranny of the majority is one of the things Madison warns against.
Tyranny is still tyranny whether it is by the majority or the minority. In the case of public education today, tyranny is being instituted by the minority.

In this age of moral relativism who has the right to decide what is moral?

Why are the courts deciding what is moral?

If the courts are deciding what is moral then that means the government is deciding what is moral. I guess we will see how that works out. It did not work out so well for Germany or the USSR but I am sure it will work out much better for the US.

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Re: Bill Allowing The Teaching Of Creationism In Public School Science Classes Is Passed In Arkansas House 72-21

Post #142

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to Difflugia in post #138]
First, how the courts have decided the question isn't an argument against anything I said, which was simply that there is a constitutional question.
In a representative government in which we can vote legislature can enact law or change law and change the makeup of the courts. The way the 14th amendment is interpreted is an important issue. As far as I know, men can still work to change laws enacted by the Government. Or have totally crossed the line into Marxism?

Just because the courts have interpreted the 14th amendment in one way does not mean the interpretation of the cannot change. Why do you think Biden is trying to pact the court? Why do you think FDR tried to pact the court? To change the interpretation of the constitution that the supreme court was making. In the case of FDR, it worked and the court backed down and started to change its view on FDR's new deal.
Second, allowing parents the latitude of providing religious education does not allow them carte blanche to do "as they see fit." The courts do, in fact, place limitations on parental conduct. While thus far, the courts have consistently ruled in favor of religious education, they have equally consistently ruled that children are, indeed, covered by the Equal Protection clause, which is used to justify statutes against other forms of abuse. Though most states have stricter laws, the Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 places distinct limitations on what parents may legally "see fit" to inflict upon their children.
The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 says:
In 1974, Congress enacted the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA, P.L. 93-247) to create a single federal focus for preventing and responding to child abuse and neglect. As a condition of receiving state grant funds under that act, states are required to have procedures in place for receiving and responding to allegations of abuse or neglect and for ensuring children’s safety. Further, they must define child abuse and neglect in a way that is consistent with CAPTA, which defines the term as “ at a minimum, any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.
So I am assuming that you are arguing the point that religious education and or affiliation amounts to child abuse. But Havard found the exact opposite to be the case in the study that they did.
Raising our kids with faith obviously gives them many spiritual benefits, but a recent study by Harvard has also shown that children with a religious upbringing benefit physically and mentally, too, especially as young adults.

The study, released in 2018 by the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, found that children who attended Mass weekly, or had an active prayer life, were more positive and had greater life satisfaction once they reached their twenties. These young adults had a tendency to choose a healthier lifestyle — avoiding drinking, smoking, drug use, and sexual promiscuity.

Using a sample of 5,000 children over a period of 8-14 years, the study revealed some impressive findings: At least 18% of regular churchgoers reported higher levels of happiness in their twenties than their non-religious peers. And more importantly, out of the same sample, 29% tended to join in community causes, and 33% stayed away from illicit drugs.

One of the study’s authors, Ying Chen, said of the findings in a press release: “Many children are raised religiously, and our study shows that this can powerfully affect their health behaviors, mental health, and overall happiness and well-being.”

This isn’t the first study to demonstrate the advantages of a religious upbringing, and as the director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation, Emilie Kao, shares in Stream.org, these findings are consistent with other studies that find “religious beliefs give people spiritual strengths that lead to healthy habits and build their social networks and gives them the ability to overcome obstacles in their lives.” https://aleteia.org/2019/06/17/harvard- ... rch-going/
What could be defined as child abuse are the children of divorce and cohabitation.
How Does Divorce Affect Children?
5. Children are more likely to experience behavior issues when parents divorce when the child is between the age of 7 and 14-years-old.
According to research carried out in the University College London, children are more likely to experience behavioral and emotional problems if their parents divorce when the child is between the age of 7 and 14-years-old. These children of divorce statistics 2019 reveal that there is a 16% increase in behavioral and emotional problems amongst this age range when compared to other ages.

6. Children with divorced parents are twice as likely to drop out of high school.
There are also some interesting children of divorce stats relating to the effects of divorce on teenagers. This stat from the Harvard University Press indicates that kids with divorced parents are twice as likely to end up dropping out of high school than their peers who have parents who have not divorced.

This indicates that you need to pay extra special attention to your child’s performance in school if you are going through a divorce. It may even be worth talking to their teacher to explain the situation at home.

7. Children with divorced parents are more likely to get cancer.
Broken family statistics also show that children with divorced parents are more likely to get cancer. The reason for this is that they are more likely to participate in activities such as drinking too much alcohol, smoking, and having unprotected sex. These are all activities that have been shown to heighten the risks associated with developing cancer.

8. Children with divorced parents are twice as likely to attempt suicide.
This is one of the most worrying effects of divorce on children. Now, this does not mean that you should stay with someone you no longer love because of an increased risk of suicide. What it does mean, though, is that you need to pay extra special attention to your child and how they’re behaving. It can be beneficial for children of divorce to see a therapist during this difficult period to help them understand the situation and talk to someone who is not directly involved in the marriage breakdown.

9. Children with divorced parents are four times as likely to have social problems.
Another of the children of divorce stats we’re going to take a look at relates to how divorce impacts a child’s life. This statistic indicates that children from broken homes tend to have more difficulty with their peers. It shows that growing up with divorced parents means that they are four times more likely to experience problems with their friends and peers than children whose parents are still together.

When children are frustrated, confused, or unhappy with the situation at home, they can act out and take it out on their friends. They may even feel resentment towards children whose parents are still together.

10. 70% of prison inmates incarcerated on long-term sentences grew up in a broken home, family separation statistics reveal.
More than two-thirds of prison inmates who are incarcerated on a long-term basis, which indicates more serious crimes, have grown up in a broken home.

11. There are links between divorce and a child’s academic performance.
Amongst all of the children and divorce facts, you will see that there are a lot of statistics on broken families that relate to a child’s academic performance. Earlier, we mentioned that teenagers are more likely to drop out of high school when their parents get divorced. This is not simply an expression of teenagers’ rebellious spirit. It can often happen because teenagers drop out of school so they can get a job and help their family to pay for rent and food.

Aside from this, children who were young when their parents separated are twice as likely to drop out of school later in life and have a fear of commitment and a low-paying job. What’s more, children who have been through a number of different divorces with their parents usually have lower grade scores when compared with children who have not experienced divorce in their home life.

12. Teenagers whose parents divorce are 300% more likely to experience mental health issues.
There is no denying that there is a link between divorce and the increased risk of mental and physical health problems, as well as behavioral issues. There are a number of divorced parents statistics that show this is the case. In fact, teenagers with divorced parents are a lot more likely to experience mental health problems that will require medication, counseling, or both.

And that’s not all...

There are some other divorce statistics in America that relate to children and their health that we should look at. Children living with both of their biological parents are 35% healthier than children with divorced parents. Moreover, children are 50% more likely to become seriously ill after experiencing their parents’ divorce. Overall, kids that come from broken homes tend to experience more speech issues, as well as headaches, asthma, illnesses, and injuries.

13. Children are at a greater risk of living in poverty if their parents get a divorce.
This is one of those children of divorced parents statistics that may not come as a surprise when you consider the fact that getting a divorce can often mean that households have to make ends meet on a single income. Because of this, children with divorced parents are five times more likely to end up living in poverty than children who still live with both of their parents.
https://legaljobs.io/blog/children-of-d ... 20and%2014.
Cohabitation I would also think is abuse according to your definition.
For children, the differences between cohabiting and married parents extend far beyond the lack of a marriage license. Compared to children of married parents, those with cohabiting parents are more likely to experience the breakup of their families, be exposed to “complex” family forms, live in poverty, suffer abuse, and have negative psychological and educational outcomes.

Unstable Unions: One of the major sources of inequality between cohabiting and married parenthood is that cohabiting couples tend to split up at higher rates than married couples. According to the 2013 National Marriage Project report, Knot Yet, children of cohabiting parents in their twenties are three times more likely to experience the dissolution of their family than children born to married parents. The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCW), meanwhile, finds that “nearly half of parents who are cohabiting at the time of their child’s birth break up within five years, compared to only 20 percent of married parents.”

Complex Families: Because of the fragile nature of cohabiting unions, children born to cohabiting parents are also more likely to transition in and out of new—and often confusing—family forms after their parents split up. According to the FFCW study, nearly 40 percent of unmarried mothers will cohabit with a new partner after their relationship with their child’s father ends, and 14 percent will have another child with a new partner. As Sara McLanahan and Christopher Jencks explain in a recent article, the instability and complexity of cohabiting unions “have important consequences for children’s home environment and the quality of the parenting they receive. Both the departure of a father and the arrival of a mother’s new partner disrupt family routines and are stressful for most children, regardless of whether the father is married to their mother or merely cohabiting with her.”

Child Poverty: Children raised in cohabiting unions are significantly more likely to experience poverty than those whose parents are married. In fact, cohabiting parents are second only to single mothers in terms of child poverty rates. According to a study by the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University, children in married-couple households have a poverty rate of 11 percent, compared to a 47 percent poverty rate for children in cohabiting opposite-sex couple households, and a 48 percent child poverty rate in single-mother households.

One reason for the higher poverty rates among children in cohabiting unions has to do with pre-existing differences between cohabiting and married parents. According to a Child Trends analysis, cohabiting parents tend to have less education, lower incomes, and less secure employment than married parents. Also, because cohabiting unions are more likely to dissolve than marriages, children in cohabiting unions are at a greater risk of spending time in a single-parent family, which significantly increases their poverty risk.

Child Abuse: While children living with their unmarried biological mother and her live-in boyfriend face a higher risk of suffering child abuse than kids in any other type of family, children who live with their own cohabiting parents are more likely to be abused than children of married parents. Data from the Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect shows that children living with biological cohabiting parents are over four times as likely to be physically, sexually, and emotionally abused as those living with their own married parents.

Negative Life Outcomes: On average, children living with cohabiting biological parents fare worse on several social, psychological, and educational outcomes than children born to married parents, even after controlling for factors like race, household income, and parental education. According to the National Marriage Project, children in cohabiting families are more likely to use drugs, suffer from depression, and drop out of school than children from married-parent families. While some of the negative effects of cohabitation on children can be partly explained by their parents’ lack of resources, according to W. Bradford Wilcox, “cohabitation has an independent negative impact on children.”
https://ifstudies.org/blog/for-kids-par ... changeable
So how are you trying to define abuse, because if you were really concerned about children and not some political agenda, then you would be in support of religion, and fidelity in marriage?
Third, there is a current trend of courts ruling more in favor of children's rights over parental rights, especially in cases involving religion, than they have in the past. A number of states (Minnesota, Oregon, and Massachussetts, for example) have laws that explicitly excuse religiously-motivated medical neglect or murder, but recent cases have resulted in sustained abuse and murder convictions that in the past would either have been acquitted or overturned on appeal. The fact that certain abusive behavior has been allowed in the past is no guarantee that it will be allowed in the future, let alone an argument against it being considered a valid constitutional question.
What are you trying to argue here? Who are you saying should be raising children the parents or the state?

The distinction between children and adult needs to be expressed. Children go from being totally dependent on another human being for survival to being self-sufficient. Or at least that should be the goal. To get from point A to point B philosophies about the world around them are inputted so that they can make sense of the world around them. These philosophies of how to interpret the world around them will define how successful they are in the future. And as indicated above there is ample evidence to show that children that are inputted with Biblical principles are more successful and happy.

So how are you defining "religiously motivated medical neglect and murder. People die every day from accidents that happen.
I suspect that the improved performance of religious homeschoolers is simply because their parents, however misguided, are taking an active interest in their children's education. If you want to compare apples with apples, then you'd need to compare creationist homeschoolers with homeschoolers whose education also includes science.
Homeschoolers perform better on standardized tests, like SAT and ACT. How is that not apples to apples? The SAT and ACT have an anti-religious bious in which homeschoolers have to recognize and give the answer that is desired not necessarily the correct answer and they still do better than their public school counterparts. Their ability to think and to reason is why both colleges and employers actively recruit homeschoolers.

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Re: Bill Allowing The Teaching Of Creationism In Public School Science Classes Is Passed In Arkansas House 72-21

Post #143

Post by Kenisaw »

Athetotheist wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:36 pm
Kenisaw wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 10:00 pm
Athetotheist wrote: Fri May 07, 2021 12:52 am
Kenisaw wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 10:59 pm Mathematically speaking, the universe adds up to zero. All the positive energy (mass, light, kinetic, etc) minus the negative energy (gravity) equals zero. All the positive and negative charges cancel each other out. All the spins when brought together equal zero. To put it in equation form, 1+1+1-1-1-1=0. Both sides of that equation are zero, they are just two different forms of zero. So is the universe. This universe adds up to a big fat zero. Technically the universe is nothing, from nothing
I believe this started as a misapplication of the theory that the universe as a whole has no electrical charge, but wherever it's from, taking this version of the idea to its logical conclusion shows it to be devoid of logic.
You believe incorrectly. If you had kept reading that post you would have read: "Conservation of Momentum. Law of Conservation of Charge. Conservation of Angular Momentum. Conservation of Energy. Conservation of Mass. Theory of nothing rejected? Every one of these verified laws (and more) of the universe agree that everything IN the universe cancels out. You can't create or destroy anything in our universe. Which means that when you add the universe up, you get nothing. This isn't controversial. Scientists have done the mathematical calculations on top of that. You don't have to assume anything. It's simple and straightforward."
If you have an old-fashioned balance scale with a pointer in the center, the pointer will indicate zero when the scale is empty. If you place two objects of exactly the same weight on the scale opposite each other at exactly the same time, the pointer will still rest on zero. Does this mean that you haven't added any weight to the scale? No. So why hasn't the pointer moved? Because the weights balance each other out; they don't "cancel" each other out. Because the levels are opposite and equal, "zero" isn't the sum of them; it's the difference between them, meaning there's no surplus and no deficit on either side. It doesn't mean that they don't exist. "Zero" energy isn't "no" energy. For there to be no energy there would have to be no matter, no gravity, no light etc., which would mean no universe. The only reason the opposing levels of energy can be measured in the first place is because they're there. If they weren't, the equation wouldn't be 1+1+1-1-1-1=0; it would be 0+0+0-0-0-0=0.
Your paragraph displays a stunning lack of knowledge about the universe. If you put a negative charge together with a positive charge, you get ZERO charge. Not two charges that are opposite, but ZERO charge. Law of Conservation of Charge. If you put matter and antimatter together (which happens with virtual particles all the time) you get ZERO matter. Not double the matter, but ZERO matter. Conservation of Mass. We will skip the rest of the explanations for the sake of brevity.

The universe is a closed system and, as a whole, cancels itself out. The fact you can weigh something on a scale doesn't disprove this. Put the scale against an antimatter scale and see what happens...
If light doesn't exist, how is the screen you're looking at visible? If gravity as a force doesn't exist, why isn't the device you're looking at floating around in mid-air? The "cancels-out-to-nothing" you're coming up with is number-line math which has no practical application.
Who said light and gravity and air doesn't exist? They obviously do exist, and they exist inside a closed system (the universe). When everything in that universe is added up together, it equals nothing.

A closed, net-zero universe doesn't mean light can't exist. What it does mean is that nothing in the universe can get out, and nothing outside the universe can get in, and that everything in a universe that came from nothing will be nothing again when it is brought back together.

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Re: Bill Allowing The Teaching Of Creationism In Public School Science Classes Is Passed In Arkansas House 72-21

Post #144

Post by Purple Knight »

Kenisaw wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 5:40 pmWho said light and gravity and air doesn't exist? They obviously do exist, and they exist inside a closed system (the universe). When everything in that universe is added up together, it equals nothing.

A closed, net-zero universe doesn't mean light can't exist. What it does mean is that nothing in the universe can get out, and nothing outside the universe can get in, and that everything in a universe that came from nothing will be nothing again when it is brought back together.
I find this an interesting discussion. I do tend to subscribe to this idea but then we have basically three options:
1. What we're living in in unbelievably unique, and will never happen again
2. What caused the nothing to split apart into something was... nothing (in other words, true nothing must have an innate tendency to split like this)
3. Waves that travel backwards through time paradoxed the universe into existence

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Re: Bill Allowing The Teaching Of Creationism In Public School Science Classes Is Passed In Arkansas House 72-21

Post #145

Post by JoeyKnothead »

From Post 141:
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tyranny is still tyranny whether it is by the majority or the minority. In the case of public education today, tyranny is being instituted by the minority.
I don't doubt many a theist considers it a tyranny when they can't get em them their way.
EarthScienceguy wrote: In this age of moral relativism who has the right to decide what is moral?
All morals are relative, regardless of in which age one refers.

I propose we're all us bound to consider us morality in terms of our best thinking about it.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Why are the courts deciding what is moral?
Please present such rulings for analysis.
EarthScienceguy wrote: If the courts are deciding what is moral then that means the government is deciding what is moral.
Please present such rulings for analysis.
EarthScienceguy wrote: I guess we will see how that works out. It did not work out so well for Germany or the USSR but I am sure it will work out much better for the US.
Evidence that morality is subjective - dependent on who thinks what is it, and what ain't it moral.


Of course we, as a society, shouldn't just concede notions of morality to the courts.

Just as we shouldn't just concede notions of morality to some dude on the internet.


Morality is, I propose, a complex subject that doesn't easily render itself to go / no go thinking.

Morality is forever bound to the subjective.

Otherwise we wouldn't need folks to decide what is it, or ain't it moral.
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Re: Bill Allowing The Teaching Of Creationism In Public School Science Classes Is Passed In Arkansas House 72-21

Post #146

Post by Purple Knight »

JoeyKnothead wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 8:53 pmI don't doubt many a theist considers it a tyranny when they can't get em them their way.
No, you're correct: Just because someone doesn't get their way doesn't mean they have any right to be upset about it. They may have consented to participating in the system and only got upset when the result was that they lost. Too bad.

It's generally atheists that pitch a fit when they lose. Well, did they consent to the system? They may not have, but the truth is that school is free. If you don't like that your free full-time daycare sometimes tells your child things you don't like, either tell them otherwise or don't use it. If you don't like the horse I gifted you, don't use that either.

I also said that it's too much coddling to let theists skip classes and tests on evolution and now I say it's too much coddling to let atheists skip any material on creation theory. And it's too much coddling to let anyone who has a moral objection have special meals made for them at the school. All these things seem a laughable amount of catering for a free service. (If you really don't like the school you should get your taxes returned that you paid into it, however.) You want your child to skip? Have him take the F. You don't like that? You're free not to use the school.

---

Now, up to this point I've been on the side of the religious but let me also tell you why I don't think this teaching of creation will end well.

We have so many religious groups that if this is mainstreamed, every religious group will want its own way. As it is they're a majority Christian state not even teaching anything specifically Christian, just nondenominational creationism: That the world was made by a creator, deliberately. Nothing is wrong with this... yet. But if too many different religions see this as a precedent, they're going to start fighting over who gets their kids taught exactly what they want for free at everyone else's expense, and the fighting is going to use up a lot of energy and resources, which is why it's best for everyone to just stick to the facts that can be discovered independently of any religion.

It's not some enlightened reverence for Almighty Science. It's not for atheists either.

The fact that even near-religious things aren't often taught in school is so the religious people don't kill each other. This is the why of Church and State being separate: They didn't want any one religious group to have disproportionate power, and all the religious people can agree with having that equilibrium and coexist, because that's fair. The second that equilibrium breaks and somebody gets just a little more... it's gonna be a brawl.

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Re: Bill Allowing The Teaching Of Creationism In Public School Science Classes Is Passed In Arkansas House 72-21

Post #147

Post by Kenisaw »

Purple Knight wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 7:53 pm
Kenisaw wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 5:40 pmWho said light and gravity and air doesn't exist? They obviously do exist, and they exist inside a closed system (the universe). When everything in that universe is added up together, it equals nothing.

A closed, net-zero universe doesn't mean light can't exist. What it does mean is that nothing in the universe can get out, and nothing outside the universe can get in, and that everything in a universe that came from nothing will be nothing again when it is brought back together.
I find this an interesting discussion. I do tend to subscribe to this idea but then we have basically three options:
1. What we're living in in unbelievably unique, and will never happen again
2. What caused the nothing to split apart into something was... nothing (in other words, true nothing must have an innate tendency to split like this)
3. Waves that travel backwards through time paradoxed the universe into existence
1) The uniqueness thing is a hot topic. Some think if it can happen, it can happen more than once. Others think that it is a very rare event indeed. I'm not sure where I sit on the question. I think if we figure out how this universe happened we will be more able to tackle the uniqueness question.

2) That's the big question. What happened. Was there something before the universe, or a true nothing? To get a little crazy about it, can "true nothing" even exist? Maybe quantum fields with little bits of vacuum energy is as close to nothing as it gets, inside or outside any universe. It's fascinating to think about.

3) That's a fun idea. Maybe it could be tied into black holes in some way.

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Re: Bill Allowing The Teaching Of Creationism In Public School Science Classes Is Passed In Arkansas House 72-21

Post #148

Post by JoeyKnothead »

Purple Knight wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 10:01 pm
JoeyKnothead wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 8:53 pmI don't doubt many a theist considers it a tyranny when they can't get em them their way.
No, you're correct: Just because someone doesn't get their way doesn't mean they have any right to be upset about it. They may have consented to participating in the system and only got upset when the result was that they lost. Too bad.

It's generally atheists that pitch a fit when they lose. Well, did they consent to the system? They may not have, but the truth is that school is free. If you don't like that your free full-time daycare sometimes tells your child things you don't like, either tell them otherwise or don't use it. If you don't like the horse I gifted you, don't use that either.

I also said that it's too much coddling to let theists skip classes and tests on evolution and now I say it's too much coddling to let atheists skip any material on creation theory. And it's too much coddling to let anyone who has a moral objection have special meals made for them at the school. All these things seem a laughable amount of catering for a free service. (If you really don't like the school you should get your taxes returned that you paid into it, however.) You want your child to skip? Have him take the F. You don't like that? You're free not to use the school.

---

Now, up to this point I've been on the side of the religious but let me also tell you why I don't think this teaching of creation will end well.

We have so many religious groups that if this is mainstreamed, every religious group will want its own way. As it is they're a majority Christian state not even teaching anything specifically Christian, just nondenominational creationism: That the world was made by a creator, deliberately. Nothing is wrong with this... yet. But if too many different religions see this as a precedent, they're going to start fighting over who gets their kids taught exactly what they want for free at everyone else's expense, and the fighting is going to use up a lot of energy and resources, which is why it's best for everyone to just stick to the facts that can be discovered independently of any religion.

It's not some enlightened reverence for Almighty Science. It's not for atheists either.

The fact that even near-religious things aren't often taught in school is so the religious people don't kill each other. This is the why of Church and State being separate: They didn't want any one religious group to have disproportionate power, and all the religious people can agree with having that equilibrium and coexist, because that's fair. The second that equilibrium breaks and somebody gets just a little more... it's gonna be a brawl.
This makes me feel awkward, and I pologize if it makes you feel uncomfortable, but can I bring you home to meet my folks?

I'll buy dinner afterwards, but no kissing on the first date. I ain't that kinda girl.


Lotsa food for thought here.
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Re: Bill Allowing The Teaching Of Creationism In Public School Science Classes Is Passed In Arkansas House 72-21

Post #149

Post by Purple Knight »

Kenisaw wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 11:13 pm1) The uniqueness thing is a hot topic. Some think if it can happen, it can happen more than once.
If we're in the closed, net-zero universe, and 2 is not true (if nothing can't cause nothing to split into something), then the universe came into existence in this unique, split state, and it will never split again. If it ever goes back to true nothing, it'll stay there.
Kenisaw wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 11:13 pmWas there something before the universe, or a true nothing?To get a little crazy about it, can "true nothing" even exist?
If it can't, then we don't need to argue about who or what created the universe, because if true nothing can't exist, and someone can prove that, the creationists can still say God created this state of being (from another state of being; he may well have reached into fire and pulled out water or poked a hole in a brick wall and caused doves to shoot out like bullets), and atheists may still say he didn't, but the argument and question is then about something else entirely because nobody created anything. Something has always been. The first law of thermodynamics would seem to support this, but nobody knows what laws were before the laws we have, were.

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Re: Bill Allowing The Teaching Of Creationism In Public School Science Classes Is Passed In Arkansas House 72-21

Post #150

Post by Athetotheist »

Kenisaw wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 5:40 pmWho said light and gravity and air doesn't exist? They obviously do exist, and they exist inside a closed system (the universe). When everything in that universe is added up together, it equals nothing.

A closed, net-zero universe doesn't mean light can't exist. What it does mean is that nothing in the universe can get out, and nothing outside the universe can get in, and that everything in a universe that came from nothing will be nothing again when it is brought back together.
Nothing which exists can be "nothing"; existing makes everything which exists something. If nothing can be destroyed, then something can never become nothing.

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