What if they succeed? (Creationism) . .

[GreenPoet64]

If the RW succeeds in forcing science teachers to teach evolution as a theory along with creationism in the public schools, which creation myths shall we include in the curriculum? I say we include all of these:

http://www.magictails.com/creationlinks.html

Students should be required to explore the validity of each myth (including the Adam & Eve myth) using the scientific method, requiring students to rely on geological research etc. The geological record speaks for itself. What do you think?

[patrice]

1. I was just reading Karen Armstrong in the Utne Reader.

I personally love your idea, and it really is pertinent to what is going on here in Kansas, but Karen Armstrong says attacking Fundamentalists is exactly the wrong thing to do.

[ananda]

3. so, what is...

... exactly the -right- thing to do?

Go right and you'll be wrong.

Go left and you'll be right.

Fundie views need to be attacked, continuously and en masse with many many voices....

Sue

[patrice]

6. I like what George Lakoff recommends in Don't Think of an Elephant

and intuitively I know it works, because I've taken a similar approach with "problem" students when I taught high school. I think of it as prevention. You get ahead of them, don't use their terms, and keep things headed in the direction you want them to go, by talking about your stuff, not theirs.

I'm going to have to think about how this would apply to a discussion of Creationism compared to Evolution, because we are coming up on that arena fast here.

[earthboundmisfit]

9. I agree - they need to be told they're WRONG, loudly & publicly & OFTEN.

Being polite with them does NOT work. They're not going away, and by not bringing into light the WRONGNESS of what they're doing, we're enabling them to continue to damage our country - indeed the whole planet. These bullies have been enabled far too long, and they have no problem whatsoever disparaging those who don't agree with them. So those of us who don't agree with them need to say "ENOUGH" good & loud & often. If we don't, they'll continue to run roughshod over everything.

[renaissanceguy]

14. Yeah, being polite does NOT work

with them. They'll just keep persisting and never shut up.

[FreedomAngel82]

16. If the fundies can't handle critcism

they shouldn't be involved in politics and all that. If these people don't get their way they just kick, scream and whine. They're a bunch of asses.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. Yup, we're LICE.

In the beginning , the heavens and earth were still one and all was chaos. The universe was like a big black egg, carrying Pan Gu inside itself. After 18 thousand years Pan Gu woke from a long sleep. He felt suffocated, so he took up a broadax and wielded it with all his might to crack open the egg. The light, clear part of it floated up and formed the heavens, the cold, turbid matter stayed below to form earth. Pan Gu stood in the middle, his head touching the sky, his feet planted on the earth. The heavens and the earth began to grow at a rate of ten feet per day, and Pan Gu grew along with them. After another 18 thousand years, the sky was higher, the earth thicker, and Pan Gu stood between them like a pillar 9 million li in height so that they would never join again.

When Pan Gu died, his breath became the wind and clouds, his voice the rolling thunder. One eye became the sun and on the moon. His body and limbs turned to five big mountains and his blood formed the roaring water. His veins became far-stretching roads and his muscles fertile land. The innumerable stars in the sky came from his hair and beard, and flowers and trees from his skin and the fine hairs on his body. His marrow turned to jade and pearls. His sweat flowed like the good rain and sweet dew that nurtured all things on earth. According to some versions of the Pan Gu legend, his tears flowed to make rivers and radiance of his eyes turned into thunder and lighting. When he was happy the sun shone, but when he was angry black clouds gathered in the sky. One version of the legend has it that the fleas and lice on his body became the ancestors of mankind.

http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/ariel.htm#CHINESE

[GreenPoet64]

5. What an interesting myth!

I can't see how creationism can be taught in the public schools without including a broad selection of creation myths to respect the cultural (religious) diversity in the school. (Unless of course they want a Christian theocracy--and it appears that they do.)

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[flamin lib]

15. Yes and 57% believe in the biblical version of creation, 44%

believe the earth was created in 6 days.

How do you fight this kind of ignorance?

[GreenPoet64]

19. Maybe by exploring similar but non-threatening myths? n/t

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

29. Yo, I have some info for you:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3463563

[kliljedahl]

4. Excellent site

and a great suggestion too. I'm afraid that unfortunately Fundies don't see their beliefs as mythology any more than the believers in these others think theirs are. Its only a myth if its different than your beliefs,


http://www.kliljedahl.net

[GreenPoet64]

8. I do understand your point . . . however, they are arguing

that evolution is just a theory--and that creationism is a valid theory too. In order to be culturally fair, we must include all theories--not just the Christian one.

Why can't Native American creation "theory" be included along with the Christian one?

[BrainRants]

17. Evolution is a theory. Creationism is a hypothesis.

Provable vs. not yet proven.

[flamin lib]

18. There in lies the problem.

Recent conversation with my born again Shiite baptist neighbor: Neighbor,"If your belief is wrong would you want to be told?" Me, "I can turn the same question to you. If you are wrong would you want to be told?" Neighbor, "But I'm not wrong." Me, "That's exactly what the men who flew airplanes into buildings thought." Neighbor, "Yes, but they were wrong."

Where do you go from here?

Faith, by definition is belief in the face of doubt. What these people have isn't faith, it's conviction.

[patrice]

24. What they have is Blasphemy.

[kliljedahl]

26. exactly my point

and much better expressed. They won't ever accept any other beliefs because they "know".


http://www.kliljedahl.net

[GreenPoet64]

22. You know . . . you got me thinking . . .

that Christianity should not be included in the curriculum at all because it is a "belief system" and that maybe ancient myths from dead civilizations should be used to study creationism as to not offend anyone?

[kliljedahl]

30. belief system?

It's a mythology like all those others as far as I'm concerned.


http://www.kliljedahl.net

[GreenPoet64]

33. I should have included the little "sarcasm" smiley . . .

:sarcasm:

[CJCRANE]

7. Why stop at evolution?

What about medicine, astronomy, nutrition etc ? Surely these should be taught according to Biblical principles too.

[roguevalley]

10. if they succeed, the world passes us by with a smirk on their face

we will sink even further down the pole of civilized and experimental societies.

The entire chapter of Genesis will be Biology 101.

[LdyGuique]

12. Absofuckinglutely -- Bring it on

They want creationism? I want all creationist theories explored.

[BrainRants]

13. I've been looking for a way to properly frame this debate

This is an excellent idea and should be used forcefully during the entire Intelligent Design debate.

My understanding (and mind you it annoys me to no end to have to try and understand this religion masquerading as pseudo-science) is that one of the tenets of ID is "a supreme being" which loosely can mean anything from a space alien to God.

Perhaps applying the scientific method to prove the existence of aliens would be helpful?

Meanwhile...as we "intellectual elites" waste our time being forced to prove that invisible people in the sky don't exist...the colleges in the rest of the world can laugh at our superstition-based science and instead move on to stem cell research and genetics to work toward curing the worlds diseases.

[flamin lib]

21. Intelligent design?

If there is Intelligent design, why does the largest land dwelling mammal eat with it's nose? Who would design an animal with a neck so tall it can't drink without doing the split? And what, exactly, was God thinking when the duck billed platypus was designed?

[kliljedahl]

28. if he/she/it exists, which I doubt

That's one hell of a sense of humor


http://www.kliljedahl.net

[The River]

31. Evolution IS Intelligent Design

It's just NOT happening on the time line the "creationists" would have us believe.

"From the Big Bang (15 billion years ago) "which was really the roaring laughter of God voluntarily getting lost for the millionth time" through prepersonal "Eden" and personal Ego to transpersonal/nondual Enlightenment, evolution is for Wilber a lila of the "unfolding" of "Spirit" through "increasingly more conscious forms of Spirit's own self actualization and return to itself." Evolution is "Spirit-in-action" or "God in the making." In the beginning, Spirit in sport "forgets itself and empties itself into creation." In line with Schelling, creation for Wilber is a "falling-away" or "maximum self-alienation" of Spirit, and nature is "slumbering Spirit," mind is "self conscious Spirit" and nondual enlightenment is "realized Spirit." Thus the "direction" of evolution is "from nature to humanity to divinity; from subconsciousness to self-consciousness to superconsciousness; from prepersonal to personal to transpersonal; from id to ego to god."

http://207.44.196.94/~wilber/rev/rev_ashok2.html

[EVDebs]

20. It's God as "Mandrake the Magician" ! The devil is truly in the details

...."and now, for my next feat of prestidigitation...."

The Bible verse in Joshua about the earth stopping...and the science behind if it really happened or was exaggeration/alegory/story embellishment, just look at Galileo's response. He still had faith IN THE TRUTH.

As the song goes "No, No, they can't take that away from me, no, they can't take that awaaaaay from meeeee !"

And Darwin kept the faith too.

"Be not afraid, God is not mocked".

[KittyWampus]

23. Evolution Is NOT A THEORY. It's A Fact. Darwinism Is ONE Theory

that tries to explain HOW Evolution occurs.

Creationism is less a theory than a mythology that doesn't really even DEAL with Evolution other than to deny the empirical facts.

Intelligent Design, on the other hand, is also a theory like Darwinism that takes the empirical facts that show Evolution and explains the mechanisms behind the process.

Creationism, IMO, has no place in schools and isn't likely to catch on. Especially if the Left wises up to what ID is really saying and starts supporting it as a valid theory.

Intelligent Design certainly has a place next to Darwinims provided the course doesn't go too far by trying to say that there's a "Designer" or being behind the Intelligence inherent in Nature.

[GreenPoet64]

27. I agree . . . evolution is a fact . . . read my post . . .

I said if the RW succeeds in forcing teachers to teach evolution AS a theory. (And many want to do just that).

I understand your point about intelligent design--but students don't learn the full scope of Darwinism until high school. (And even then it is an over-simplified version--and it rarely focuses on differential reproduction).

If intelligent design makes it way into the school system--some form of Bible-school-like creationism will be forced on elementary students as an attempt to simplify ID.

[One_Life_To_Give]

25. The Myth that man once flew!

Replace science with dogma and in a few hundred years. "Scholars" will be debating weather man ever knew how to make a flying machine. Much less reach for the stars.

[luvLLB]

32. I think I will teach my kids what I want them to know.

[adwon]

34. Just for chuckles

The GOP is big on 'raising standards' for public schools. How does making biology tests phenomenally easier do that? Isn't that just the same kind of lowering the bar that they claim to hate? If the answer to literally every question is "God did it," what's the point of having those classes? Shit, why bother with school? God did it, don't ask questions.

Anyway, this idea made me chuckle. Hope it does the same for you.