Jump to content
Seriously No Politics ×

Option of teaching creationism in science classes is establishing a state religion


Recommended Posts

I see the issue more in terms of what is taught on Sunday School and Seminary, rather than trying to legislate what is taught in state schools.  Creationism has a history, as does fundamentalism.  Neither of those "isms" should be mistaken for the teaching of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Indeed, one of the series of books written in the early 20th century to define what the authors supposed were The Fundamentals was expressly anti-Mormon.  And the radical atheists LOVE using Fundamentalist arguents as representing all religion, a convenient straw man to knock over, rather than just a narrow-minded segment from one narrow bit of world history.  Genesis is not a history, but is a transmitted, translated, and interpreted version of a temple drama.  Barker notes that the story of the creation of the tabernacle in Exodus directly parallels the creation of the world depicted in Genesis.  How do you create a world in six days, or six periods unspecified duration taking "until" in a drama?  Not by re-enacting the original, but dramatizing it in a symbolic ritual.  Day one, before time, The Holy of Holies.   Second day, the Veil separating the visible from the invisible.   Third day, the table for the bread, representing the vegetation of the earth, the wine, and incense.    Day four, the seven branched lamp, representing the sun, moon, and five known planets.  Day five, the alter for the burnt offering, representing animal life.  Day 6, the Human High priest.  It's easy to create a world in six days, if the world you re-create is not the original, but a model.  And one of the things modeled through dramatic representation is time.

Nibley's last major essay was called Abraham's Creation Drama, which made the case that the text we have even includes stage directions.  And it sets up our expectations in ways that radically differ from those offered by fundamentalists and creationists.  That is the theme of his 1980 talk, Before Adam:  Worlds without number, and ongoing going creation before this.  Let us take of these materials, rather than creato ex nihilo... No specified length for the set times.  The periods take "until", which means, all the time you need.  Each land is called "earth" and Adam is "many".  The degree to which creatures are obedient to the charge to reproduce after their own kind is "very" obedient, which permits variation and variety which gives beauty.  "And the Gods prepared the waters that they might bring forth great whales and every living creature...."  Nibley points out that the language is "future potential tense", not to create whales at once, but to initiate a process that takes "until" we get to the results for that period.  "No death before the fall" in the garden, but the garden is not the entire earth, but a set off place of initiation from which the inhabitants must leave and enter a very different place in which other things are going on.  Only there, does the couple get garments of skins, which represent our taking on mortal, animal nature,  only after much happens does Adam get a book and is appointed his reckoning of time.  And a path to regain our divine nature.

The problem with the Saints has ever been the tendency to ignore the potentialities of our scripture, and take sides in a debate that should not worry us at all.  The toxic supposition is that if the earth is old and evolution takes a long time, that undermines God and those notions must be opposed in order to defend the possibility of faith.  The supposition is wrong.  In the LDS view, the earth is one of many in an ongoing process, things take until, variation is possible and even part of what gives beauty.  If we better teach what we have, we won't be at all disturbed by what we learn from science texts and won't try to legislate them, won't be sucked into the fundamentalist reactionary world view.  That is exactly the history of a book called "Man, His Origin and Destiny."   Seek out of the best books, words of wisdom.   Not approved, or orthodox, but best.   No official list, because things change.  And over time, we learn that interpretation of both science and scripture is open-ended and subject to change in light of further knowledge.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited by Kevin Christensen
Link to comment
3 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

The problem with the Saints has ever been the tendency to ignore the potentialities of our scripture, and take sides in a debate that should not worry us at all. 

The problem isn't that we LDS have no issue with science, the problem is that those who wish to teach religious views of creation in the schools, are not going to stop at simply advocating for a generic form of Christianity. I doubt the Mormon teachings on creation would fare very well in a course on creationism taught in Arkansas. It isn't just a secular view of the origins of the universe that would be attacked. This debate should worry us.

Link to comment
On 4/17/2021 at 1:03 AM, Calm said:

I am not pro teaching creationism in detail in science classes as I don’t see it as science (“the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment”), but am simply wondering about the reasoning offered in the quote below that teaching it is unconstitutional.

Can someone explain to me how a science teacher having the option to mention that some people believe deity created the earth establishes a state religion?  I can see if it is the only theory that is presented there would be a problem and I believe that it isn’t actually science, so it IMO isn’t an appropriate subject for any detail in a science class....though I can see it being discussed in terms of ‘we don’t know what started the part of the process we have evidence for, some people assume a “first cause”’ or as part of a history or philosophy of science section.  I just don’t get the jump from “an idea is religious in nature” to “this is state religion” especially if the Christian version isn’t specified, but rather a generic version summarizing the basic belief of deity somehow triggering chaos to transform into organized forms.

Question arose for me due to this article:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/04/arkansas-representatives-passes-a-bill-to-allow-creationism-in-schools/

No need to debate whether the law is unconstitutional or not and please don’t turn this into a debate about evolution or young earth vs old earth, just looking for the reasoning of the bolder part.  Teaching geometry does not establish geometry as a state institution or belief system, so why would teaching creationism do so?

Asking @smac97 and @Bob Crockett to offer an explanation for the legal reasoning supporting the OP quote.

 

Link to comment
5 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

Um, that article doesn’t say anything about Marxism or godlessness... 

Marxism, racism, it's all the same to me. We are falling behind as a nation in the basics. We need more kids interested in the hard sciences. It's the only way to combat global warming. China will beat us to orbital solar collection. Teaching our children to divide us by race, religion or economic system is just going to create tension. Teaching Creation Science has no place in a science class. I suppose it could get a paragraph or 2 as an alternate theory but that would be about it.

From what I see of you on here you make a great teacher but the scale is long and wide. There are many at the bottom.

Link to comment
3 hours ago, CV75 said:

Asking @smac97 and @Bob Crockett to offer an explanation for the legal reasoning supporting the OP quote.

 

Here is the original quote:

Quote

In a key case that involved Arkansas itself, McLean V. Arkansas Board of Education, a group of plaintiffs banded together to challenge a state law that mandated the teaching of "creation science" in public schools. The judge in that case correctly recognized that creation science was actually religious in nature, and it therefore violated the constitution's prohibition against the establishment of state religion.

The ACLU challenged the following statutory statement:  "Public schools within this State shall give balanced treatment to creation-science and to evolution-science."

The plaintiffs challenging the statement were:  Arkansas Bishops of the United Methodist, Episcopal, Roman Catholic and African Methodist Episcopal Churches, the principal official of the Presbyterian Churches in Arkansas, other United Methodist, Southern Baptist and Presbyterian clergy, as well as several persons who sue as parents and next friends of minor children attending Arkansas public schools. One plaintiff is a high school biology teacher. All are also Arkansas taxpayers. Among the organizational plaintiffs are the American Jewish Congress, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the American Jewish Committee, the Arkansas Education Association, the National Association [**3]  of Biology Teachers and the National Coalition for Public Education and Religious Liberty.

The Establishment Clause has been interpreted  say:  "Neither can [the state] pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another."

The Court traced the development of "creation science" to Christian fundamentalism.   Creation science teaches:  "Evolution is thus not only anti-Biblical and anti-Christian, but it is utterly unscientific and impossible as well. But it has served effectively as the pseudo-scientific basis of atheism, agnosticism, socialism, fascism, and numerous other false and dangerous philosophies over the past century."

The Court said:  "the evidence is overwhelming that both the purpose and effect of Act 590 is the advancement of religion in the public schools." In particular, creation science advanced the Genesis theory of creation.  

The Court defined "science" as

"(1) It is guided by natural law;

(2) It has to be explanatory by reference to natural law;

(3) It is testable against the empirical world;

(4) Its conclusions are tentative, i.e., are not necessarily the final word; and

(5) It is falsifiable."

The court held that creation science advances religion, and does not constitute science.  Furthermore, the court rejected the argument that evolution was a religion. 

 

 

Edited by Bob Crockett
Link to comment

Teaching creationism is way more than expressing that some people believe the world was created by God in seven days literally (or in seven of God's years, each one of which is 1000 of our years, using matter organized from what what already in the universe).   In both the extent of the teaching ,and in the quality of comparison.    I would agree that teaching the bible/scriptural version of creation in public school could absolutely be construed as establishing a state religion.  

Link to comment
19 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

Yeah, right I can teach carpentry with out all the "isms", a bit of geometry and math are involved.

Which would be great if you dwelt exclusively in the rarefied heights of mathematics but you still rant about the “isms” for some reason so......

Link to comment
2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Which would be great if you dwelt exclusively in the rarefied heights of mathematics but you still rant about the “isms” for some reason so......

That's no rant. I'll check out for a while. Perhaps take a class on communication. 

Link to comment
On 4/19/2021 at 1:56 PM, Bob Crockett said:

Here is the original quote:

I see a source of confusion in my original opening post. I was not clear about my thought process and left out crucial details assuming people would read the article and follow my train of thought. Normally I am much more careful about not making assumptions, but it has been a weird week.
 

I provided that quote not as the core of what I was curious about, which is the current bill, but as the reference to compare the current bill to.  The former law that was declared unconstitutional referred to “creation science” ( https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/529/1255/2354824/ ), but the current one does not as one learns in the first few paragraphs of the article I linked to.  I assumed people would read the beginning of the article, but maybe not much more. 

Here is the quote from the article about the current bill:

Quote

A teacher of a kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12) science class at a public school or open-enrollment public charter school may teach creationism as a theory of how the earth came to exist.

This section is permissive and does not require a teacher to teach creationism as a theory of the earth came to exist.

“Creationism”, not “creation science” (the 1982 law had a specific definition for “Creation-Science”).  The author of the article claimed the new law was unconstitutional, meaning in my view they assumed this new law would also be ruled as unconstitutional based on the ruling of the previous law (“As it stands, the act promotes blatantly unconstitutional behavior as made clear by a precedent set in a 1982 case involving the Arkansas Board of Education”), but they are different enough I was wondering if the assumption was premature  

Constrast with the summary given of the older, unconstitutional law:

Quote

In a key case that involved Arkansas itself, McLean V. Arkansas Board of Education, a group of plaintiffs banded together to challenge a state law that mandated the teaching of "creation science" in public schools. The judge in that case correctly recognized that creation science was actually religious in nature, and it therefore violated the constitution's prohibition against the establishment of state religion.

Also:

Quote

Its essential mandate is stated in its first sentence: "Public schools within this State shall give balanced treatment to creation-science and to evolution-science."

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/529/1255/2354824/
 

Since I don’t assume creationism is the same as “creation science” and the new bill is not specific in what it means as teaching as a theory, I see the new law as being potentially inclusive of behaviour that could be constitutional (simply providing context that some believe the origin of existence is divine creation without any attempt at scientific justification or specific claims on how creation took place) as well as behavior that would be unconstitutional (teaching Creation Science as part of the course).

I always understood the likely intent of the law is to allow Creation Science to be taught as a significant part of the course, but I assume rulings of constitutionality are not based on intent, but on the language of the law itself...though intent may be part of the consideration. 
 

Hopefully my own intent and reason for asking as well as my actual question is now clearer. I get and agree with the ruling for the previous law as unconstitutional. I just don’t see why the author is certain the new law is unconstitutional as well. 
 

I would assume if the new law is viewed as constitutional, what would happen is when an attempt was made to teach creation science based on this law, that a lawsuit would be filed and then arguments would be made about trying to make an end run around the ruling on unconstitutionality with vague language in the new law. Whether that would invalidate the new law as well...well, that is another question I have.  If the new law managed to get a pass as constitutional because it was broad enough, that doesn’t invalidate the older ruling about teaching creation science in public schools. 

Added:

Quote

Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another.

Hmmm...for some reason the “aid all religions” implication hadn’t registered in the past with me. This would seem to include even a generic approach to religion. The question for me then would be is explaining and perhaps demonstrating (through biographical material) that religion is part of the worldview of some of those who contributed to the development of science ‘aiding all religions’?

Edited by Calm
Link to comment
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...