You don't understand the difference between "edcuation" and
"indoctrination."

Indoctrination is what you get in church.

Indoctrination is what you get in church.

where do such eccentric views as Rep. Chisum's, that the
Copernican model of the Solar System is wrong and derives from a
Jewish Kabbalistic Conspiracy, come from ?

Maybe he isn't a right-wing fundamentalist Christian Republican.

He could be black, and a Rastafarian. Then these unfortunate views
would simply be tenets of his faith, and we should leave him alone.

He had better have such an excuse. Unless, of course, you're making
all this up, as a previous poster seems to believe for some reason.

Unfortunately, he's NOT making this up. And the guy in question dang
shore ain't a Rastaman, either. ;-)

A Texas lawmaker _is_ apparently pushing this. What's next? I imagine
that will be demands that geocentrism must be taught alongside
heliocentrism in public schools in order to be FAIR?

I personally find Christianity a deeply offensive and dangerous belief
system. But in a religious studies class, I'm not offended by what is
taught; that's the point of the class. I can study it without believing
there is any truth. Similarly, there is no reason for anybody to be
offended by what is taught in science, whether they choose to believe it
or not.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatoryhttp://www.cloudbait.com

On Feb 17, 10:14 am, Chris L Peterson <c...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:

I personally find Christianity a deeply offensive and dangerous belief
system.

Every so often the issue of Christianity and science pops up in this
group, and it usually leads to three things:
1) condemnation of a creationist/ID position
2) assumptions that this is a standard Christian belief and
3) therefore, Christianity is dangerous.

I could at this point go on an extended apology for Christianity, but
I want to focus on the points relevant to the posts I see in this
group. I am a Christian. Pause. I can take a good guess what you
are thinking. Conservative, close-minded, creationist, idiotic,
apocalyptic, anti-intellecutal and so on. Please, PLEASE understand
that creationists (much less conservative, fundamentalist,
dispensationalist Christians) do not represent all of us. In fact,
world-wide, they are a far too vocal minority. How do these threads
make me feel? Think if outsiders saw Min as typical of this group.

Every so often the issue of Christianity and science pops up in this
group, and it usually leads to three things:
1) condemnation of a creationist/ID position

2) assumptions that this is a standard Christian belief and

3) therefore, Christianity is dangerous.

I am a Christian. Pause. I can take a good guess what you
are thinking. Conservative, close-minded, creationist, idiotic,
apocalyptic, anti-intellecutal and so on.

On the other hand, I am concerned at reading posts like Chris's above,
because my belief is that they are based upon they type of posts and
statements that are all too often made by conservative creationists.
The LeHaye series of books (based upon rather sketchy, fringe
theology) are not doing the rest of us any favors. Chris, I am not
here to prosthelytize, but rather to ask you to reconsider your
position.

My position is based upon years of study of many systems of mythology
and religion. As noted above, my issues go to deep fundamentals and are
largely unrelated to more superficial practice. If you'd like to discuss
it off-list, I'd be happy to explain. My more topical concern here (and
the point of my comment) is with science education, and it sounds like
we have no disagreement there.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatoryhttp://www.cloudbait.com

That's good, since the Theory of Evolution has absolutely nothing to
do with how life began. ;-)

Unk Rod,

What, you never heard of *survival of the fittest molecular form*?

Errol

On Feb 17, 4:45 pm, "Starboard" <errol_w...@yahoo.com> wrote:

That's good, since the Theory of Evolution has absolutely nothing to
do with how life began. ;-)

Unk Rod,

What, you never heard of *survival of the fittest molecular form*?

Errol

Uh..."no." ;-)

Unk Rod

An emergent scandal over a Texas Republican Party politician's
distribution of a memo citing a "fixed Earth" website alleging the
Earth to be non-rotating and at the center of the universe has raised
the question; where do such eccentric views as Rep. Chisum's, that the
Copernican model of the Solar System is wrong and derives from a
Jewish Kabbalistic Conspiracy, come from ? Until recently, it's been
generally assumed that the debate over heliocentric vs. geocentric
models of the universe, that raged up until the advent of Copernicus,
had been well resolved. Lately though, an American movement has sought
to restore the Earth to a central position in the grand cosmological
scheme... Since the existence of the "Flat Earth Society" became a
widely traveled joke, it has become hard to determine if card-carrying
flat-earthers really exist any more; many join the society for
amusement. But, there are real geocentrists who dream of spheres
within spheres and orreries, speculate that Copernicus killed Tycho
Brahe and write dense, arcane mathematical proofs placing the Earth at
the center of it all. Variants of such views apparently can be found
in the Texas State legislature and, in 1999, Tom Willis --head of the
Mid-Atlantic Creation Research Association-- was " intrumental in
revising the Kansas elementary school curriculum to remove references
to evolution, earth history, and science methodology". Willis was also
a "geocentrist" and wrote, in 2000, a bold manifesto for both Young-
Earth Creationism and Geocentrism:

"...all experiments to demonstrate that the earth moves at all have
failed. All seem to indicate the earth does not move at all. There is
much evidence that the earth is young and cannot possibly be millions,
much less billions of years old but we will not treat that herein....
The Bible does not say that the earth is at the center of the
universe. But, anyone looking up can see that the sun, planets and
stars are moving. Galileo argued that this motion was relative, that
really the earth was spinning and it only looks like these other
objects move. But, both the observations and the Bible indicate quite
strongly that the earth does not move." - Tom Willis

Tom Willis wasn't the only geocentrist toiling away to reverse
scientific theories that had been accepted for centuries. Indeed,
geocentrists could be found in orbit, frolicking and also fighting
with Copernicans, around a key ideological and theological
gravitational center of the Christian right : the Chalcedon
Foundation.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/#48148

John Savard thoughtfully opined:

in the same sense, from a First Amendment perspective,
*even when it is empirically valid*.

I am not just talking about the freedom of Creationists to speak. I am
talking about their freedom not to have their children indoctrinated
by their opponents. That *is* a valid complaint, although this is lost
in the debate over their demands to indoctrinate everyone else's
children.

They can always opt out of the system, John. But I agree with you in
principle.



You don't understand the difference between "edcuation" and
"indoctrination."

Sure he does. What you don't understand is constitutional law. On what
legal and constitutional grounds can you force someone to have their
children taught something that categorically disagrees with their
religion? Religion is constitutionally protected. Science and education
are not.

Indoctrination is what you get in church.

Whatever.

I hope my kids never have a science teacher who thinks that way. When
kids in my classes bring up creationism, I tell them their beliefs
aren't supported by evidence. Period. There is no room for "cultural
sensitivity" in science. You teach the theories, you teach what evidence
allows us to place a certain level of confidence in those theories, when
there is more than one major theory you teach them all. If any of those
theories conflict with non-scientific beliefs held by some students,
tough. It's science class.

I personally find Christianity a deeply offensive and dangerous belief
system. But in a religious studies class, I'm not offended by what is
taught; that's the point of the class. I can study it without believing
there is any truth. Similarly, there is no reason for anybody to be
offended by what is taught in science, whether they choose to believe it
or not.

Evolution is just a theory as is intelligent design. Both should be taught
in schools. How many of you (over 45 folks) had to worry about kids bringing
guns to school when you were growing-up? Why do we have this problem today?
Did you ever ponder that question? The answer is simple, however, it will
most likely offend the staunch atheists in this group. It is due to the lack
of spirituality of today's youth. Kids today worship the MTV Rapper as God
rather than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Many of today's youth have no
moral values. Teaching them that they are the descendants of Monkeys only
reinforces their already warped view of the world, lack of spirituality,
self-centeredness, and lack of respect for other folks. I don't have any
children, but most of my friends and family send their children to Christian
Schools because they teach creationism rather than evolution and impart
moral values. The lack of spirituality that is currently rampant in this
country was predicted by the Bible. Open your bible and more importantly,
"open your mind to the concept of faith" and you will be enlightened.

Regards,

-mij

That's one way to answer that question. Another way is "This might be a
good time to pause and tell you about a really amazing thing called
'the scientific method,' which is the way in which scientists..." My
personal experience tells me that curt dismissal is not a good weapon
in the battle for kids' hearts and minds.

It pains me to say this -- truly -- but you have beaten your old record
for pedantry, rudeness, smugness, condescension, and wrongness -- and
quite a record it was!