"The Requirement"

Tell me, Ziggy, did they try to ban the teaching of evolution in either Kansas or Dover, or did they merely allow the teaching of the alternative view as well?

I may well be incorrect here, but I do not recall the Kansas and Dover, PA situations being related to the banning of evolution teaching. The Scopes trial was, what, 1925?

I've also given you an example of an evangelical Christian with power (I can give grades) and not using it to punish unorthodoxy or reward faithfulness. And if you don't think that professors can and do act in that fashion and get away with it, then you are clearly a product of the public schools.

SheikBen wrote:Tell me, Ziggy, did they try to ban the teaching of evolution in either Kansas or Dover, or did they merely allow the teaching of the alternative view as well?

I may well be incorrect here, but I do not recall the Kansas and Dover, PA situations being related to the banning of evolution teaching. The Scopes trial was, what, 1925?

When we require the teaching of supernatural religious doctrines as science, the effect is to dilute the science and to elevate the supernatural religious doctrine- to substitute supernatural fantasy for study and natural observations.

SheikBen wrote:I've also given you an example of an evangelical Christian with power (I can give grades) and not using it to punish unorthodoxy or reward faithfulness. And if you don't think that professors can and do act in that fashion and get away with it, then you are clearly a product of the public schools.

Of course professors have power to "reward" learning the curriculum and to "punish" non-learning of the curriculum. That's what the grade system is all about. So what's your point? This part of the discussion is about whether the science curriculum ought to be about observable science, or about supernatural religious doctrines.

Well, Zig, you accused evangelicals of stifling intellectual freedom, and then said that in Kansas and Dover Christians tried to prevent the teaching of evolution. That is not correct.

You may well decree that science teachers are not to have intellectual freedom (or that they are to have it as long as you like what they believe/say), and that may well be in keeping with the scientific orthodoxy of the day; however, it still remains that it is your side of the debate that is presently doing the censoring and not the conservative side.

I see no real advantage in teaching intelligent design in the science classroom, just as I see no reason for materialist implications, either. People can and should be trusted to make their own inference to the best explanation, whether evolution can be trusted on back, or whether an intelligent designer is somewhere necessary.

I find it odd that you try to play, simultaneously, the role of Inquisitor and Martyr. Either you are in favor of intellectual disagreement or you are not. To say that one point of you ought to be stifled and then go on about "intellectual freedom" is, well, inconsistent. I'll repeat again that I do not see much use in using intelligent design in a science classroom, as both the materialist and Theistic positions are neither observable nor falsifiable. However, to not only legally oppose the presentation of the side with which you agree, but then add the description "intellectual freedom" to it, is, well, see above.

Whether John Scopes was fined $100 or $100,000 is of little moment. The intent was still the same, and just as debilitating to humanity - to stifle scientific teaching, study and learning.

And had the Scopes lower court verdict not been reversed on appeal, supernaturalists all over would have been emboldened to once again mute scientific study and learning everywhere- as Christians had done successfully over the many centuries, i.e.- Galileo.

Galileo was muted by the Catholic church. His contemporaries Descartes and Bacon began an "intellectual revolution" that has effectively replaced Catholic scholasticism, and that almost 400 years ago.

Anyways the actions of the Catholic Church in the 1600s, and of the Tennessee State Legislature in the 1920s (the latter in which nobody was tortured or imprisoned for any length of time) are pretty shoddy examples of this great anti-intellectual conspiracy that you are indicting 400 million or so evangelical Christians of in 2008.

SheikBen wrote:Galileo was muted by the Catholic church.

You conveniently ignore that the government of Italy was the tool used by the Catholic Church to mute heretics. Without that church-government fascist cartel of organized crimes against human dignity, the Popes would have been but impotent screamers from the steeples- which is all they deserved to be.

Anyways the actions of the Catholic Church in the 1600s, and of the Tennessee State Legislature in the 1920s (the latter in which nobody was tortured or imprisoned for any length of time) are pretty shoddy examples of this great anti-intellectual conspiracy that you are indicting 400 million or so evangelical Christians of in 2008.

No, they are perfect examples of the lengths to which doctrinal Christians will go in stiffling the dissenting ideas of the Gospel heretics- when they can gain sufficient control of government to accomplish that purpose. Currently it is the application of the Bill of Rights of the COTUS that effectively roadblocks more recent attempts in America to use the power of government to promote the Gospel of supernatural God-ghosts over theological neutrality, agnosticism, skeptism and scientific inguiry.

We no longer have churches with effective government powers for enforcement of the Gospel and the muting of heretics for the same reason we no longer have debtor's prisons- the U.S. Constitution does not allow them.

ziggy wrote:
We no longer have churches with effective government powers for enforcement of the Gospel and the muting of heretics for the same reason we no longer have debtor's prisons- the U.S. Constitution does not allow them.

We being the United States of America never has allowed the church to have power over the state.

ziggy wrote:

SheikBen wrote:Galileo was muted by the Catholic church.

You conveniently ignore that the government of Italy was the tool used by the Catholic Church to mute heretics.

DUH, and the government of West Virginia is the tool used by the Democrats to keep the citizens barefoot, dumb and clueless.

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From a century before Columbus and for centuries after Columbus there was a white European genocide against western "Indian" culture and populations that far eclipses even Stalin and his "atheistic" cohorts.

I disagree. The natives made a passel of mistakes in dealing with the interlopers. But I do not believe there was a concerted monolithic effort to eradicate the natives here. The Six Nations negotiated the settlement to the French and Indian War (Queen Anne's War). The Six Nations consisted of the Oneidas, the Onandagas, the Mohawks, the Iroquois, the Senecas, and the Cayugas and they negotiated for all Natives by virtue of "strength of arms" meaning they had conquered the Shawnees, among others. This came as a great revelation to the Shawnees who were never conquered, only beaten down and dispersed. The Shawnees were prevalent from present-day Pittsburgh to Mobile, AL to Chicago. They were never beaten by the Six Nations and yet the Six Nations bartered away the land of the Shawnees.

That the white settlers continued their western migration in violation of the settlement was not quite the same as the Tsar's pogroms. It was inexorable. It was trespassing. It was unfortunate. But there was no single, coordinated malevolence. It was only after Mad Anthony Wayne's campaign after 1800 that went as far west as Ft. Wayne, IN that the Shawnees ever had any agreement with the white man.

It may have been Jackson's Trail of Tears that was the closest to directed genocide.

But to characterize the whole of the relationship as genocidal is, I think, reaching.

It may have been Jackson's Trail of Tears that was the closest to directed genocide.

Depends on what you mean by genocide. To me the word implies intent. I don't think European colonization and subsequent expansion of America intended to destroy the Amerindians or wipe them out.

I do, however, believe that we tried to destroy their nasty, heathenistic culture. Case in point, the Indian Boarding Schools.

We treated them as little more than animals. I don't dispute any of that. But these were the people who enumerated black slaves as having 3/5 the value of white folk. To impose our current values historically is problematic at best. My point was in agreement with yours. I don't think the goal was to wipe them out from the outset. The goal was simply to acquire lots of cheap land. Daniel Boone was cheated out of his entire claim at Boonesboro, KY. He was literally lawyered out of his own land. He lived in Mason County before leaving, finally, for Missouri. So far as I am aware, he was not a native American Indian.