accept our curriculum of sex education, condom distribution and
homosexual enlightened textbooks.
Are these really such major elements of the curriculum? Why do you find the ideas of understanding basic sexual biology, practicing safe sex, and accepting homosexuals as equals so horrifying?
Can't have freedom of choice now can we?
What we can't have is tax money subsidizing religious evangelism. Unless, of course, equal subsidies are provided to all religious and non-religious groups to press their ideas. I have no objection to parents choosing the schools they like, but it seems a bit much to ask the government to subsidize religious education.
The whole evolution fuss seems a bit curious to me. Every broad-based scientific theory is subject to constant criticism, challenge, and refinement. We don't expect students to be brought up to date on all current challenges to the theory of plate tectonics. We are perfectly content to teach the basic outline of the generally accepted scientific model. When they get to the stage where they are considering majoring in geology, they are introduced to the current challenges and refinements that are in progress. But when we teach evolution, which is unquestionably the generally accepted scientific model, suddenly people are up in arms, simply because it challenges their favored mythology.
The theory of evolution is far from perfect. Many flaws will be found, many clarifications made. But it is a whole hell of a lot better than the Biblical account, which is demonstrably false in virtually every detail.
I haven't looked at the Johnson book, but I red several chapters of Behe's, at the house of a friend who cares about these things, and it struck me as farcical. His entire argument, concealed in a vast welter of admittedly fascinating detail, is simply that anything too complex to be explained by current scientific knowledge must be the work of a creator. The cavemen said the same thing, albeit less elegantly.
There are cultures that believe that the world sits on the back of a giant turtle. Shall we teach that too?
some people have imposed a false idea on us that religion is at
one end of the spectrum while a bland kind of neutrality is at the other.
The opposite end of the spectrum from teaching Christianity would be teaching my personal belief, which is that people invented God to explain natural phenomena, and kept Him around because human leaders found Him an effective billyclub with which to keep people threatened, docile, and subservient.
I don't think either should be taught in school. |
