Public Education

[Dr. Shane]

There are two issues that Americans don't like about public schools. Poll after poll shows Americans don't like the extreames of sex education being taught (and they are not taught in their extreames in many school districts). Polls also show over 70% of Americans believe that biology teachers that evolution should also teach the scientific evidence against it. Over 50% believe specifically that Interlligent Design should be taught in the classroom.

The issues are these. The taxpayer pays for the schools and wants to have a voice in what is taught. For the most part, school boards listen to the taxpayer. However Anti-American organizations that hate have a secular agenda (like the ACLU) continually try to thrwart the democratic process and force their will on the individual schools. It is the height of arrogance for these groups to tell the people what can and cannot be taught to their children with their money. In private education this problem doesn't exist. Private schools teach Intelligent Design or its distant cousin, Creation, and their students do quite well.

As Seventh-day Adventists we are charged specifically to warn the world of the coming return of Christ and our need to worship the Creator. The first of the Three Angels' Message is to worship the Creator. It is not by mistake that God called forth the Adventist church just before the devil started the widespread teaching of evolution. Wouldn't it be the responsible thing for any Adventist to support school board canidates that support teaching Intelligent Design in the classroom?

[Bravus]

There are a few different issues here, but the one that jumped out at me is that it seems odd for Adventists, who are mostly recent creationists or creationists of other stripes, to support Intelligent Design theory, which includes an earth billions of years old and life millions of years old, and supports virtually all of evolutionary theory, with a few minor tweaks. It certainly includes death before Eden and no 7 day creation week, the two stumbling blocks most Adventists have with a less literal creation story. Where's the percentage for Adventists in supporting something that shares all the features they don't like about evolution? I guess it sneaks the idea of God into the picture, but only as the tweaker who built DNA and eyeballs, not as the creator of all.

Bottom line - if you want your kids to be taught creationism at school, as well as at home, send them to an Adventist school.

[Dr. Shane]

I absolutely do not support teaching Intelligent Design in Adventist schools. However Adventists, who desire to preach the Three Angels' Message to the world, certainly do not want evolution being taught to the public in a manner that makes it seem to be fact. By teaching Intelligent Design along side of Evolution, the public schools are not brain washing the public into believing the false premise by which Satan hopes to decieve the multitudes.

What the entire debate highlights, which the mainstream press is slow to reveal, is that Intelligent Designs sets evolutionists against those that embrace democracy. When the people elect a school board and a state legislature and the state legislature approves various science textbooks and then the school board chooses which of those they we to use, we see democracy in action. The people, indirectly, have choosen what is to be taught in the classroom.

Evolutionists then hire lawyers to race off to a group of men in black to reverse the people's decision. They try to get the courts to reverse the will of the people. And the people are paying for the schools!

[Gregory Matthews]

Re: "Wouldn't it be the responsible thing for any Adventist to support school board canidates that support teaching Intelligent Design in the classroom?"

As Bravus has pointed out, ID disputes much of what many creationists believe. I suspect that many creationists do not really understand ID, but are simply reacting out of emotion.

Should creationists support School Board candidates who support teaching ID. I do not know, or at least I am not responding to that question. I am simply pointing out that ID is commonly missunderstood by many creationists.

[Dr. Shane]

That may be true, but when our choices are to teach evolution alone or along with Intelligent Design, I would think it a no-brainer.

If the courts over-rule the local school boards, this is another reason we need educational vouchers. Poor parents can't afford to send their children to private school but they can make a difference in who sits on their public school board. Yet if the courts over-rule what the school board does, that really makes poor parents powerless.

[Bravus]

So, separate from the issue of ID - the discussion could just as easily be about boards who advocate the teaching of creationism, or of critique of evolutionism - the main issue Shane is concerned about is the right of parents to have their children taught what the parents believe they should be taught.

I'm quite sympathetic to this view: the primary responsibility for children's development and education lies with their parents. But the issue then becomes difficult in any situation in which there is not a single faith with a monopoly. What happens if in a California school near Berkeley (just as a humorous example) all the parents want their children to be taught a Wiccan theory of the creation of the world, and choose their school board appropriately? Wouldn't mainstream Christians scream at the top of their lungs about tax funds being used for that purpose? The reason for avoiding establishing religion in publicly funded schools is the 'whose religion' problem.

The remaining issue, of course, is the claim that Intelligent Design is a scientific rather than a religious theory. Whether we like it or not, the way science advances is through the consensus of the community of scientists, and that consensus currently says ID is not science. To approach it from another direction, IDs claims are metaphysical, and cannot be empirically tested. Some of the 'hand-maiden' ideas that attend evolution are likewise metaphysical, and these shoould be challenged where they are taught in the public schools.

[bevin]

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Intelligent Designs sets evolutionists against those that embrace democracy. When the people elect a school board and a state legislature and the state legislature approves various science textbooks and then the school board chooses which of those they we to use, we see democracy in action. The people, indirectly, have choosen what is to be taught in the classroom.

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Yes, and the people, directly, have chosen to use the school boards and the legislature and the court rooms and the constitution as part of the process to decide what to teach.

It is NOT anti-democracy to use democratically instituted procedures in the manner that they were intended to be used.

Furthermore it is NOT clear that a majority do want ID taught. It appears that a majority actually want the process that they have voted for to decide what to teach.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Public schools cannot teach creationism because it endourses a specific relious view. They can teach the evidence that contradicts evolution and/or Intelligent Design. Furthermore, a subject does not have to meet a consensus in order to be taught in a science class unless the state and local legislatures require it to.

Many subjects overlap. It is not uncommon for a science teacher to get into math and history while teaching science. When my biology teacher taught us evolution, he started by first telling us he didn't believe what he was about to teach us but that he was required to teach it as part of the class. And I went to a public high school.

[Dr. Shane]

The courts are to be referees. Judges are not to make laws. The biggest threat to democracy in the US is the court system.

[bevin]

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The biggest threat to democracy in the US is the court system.

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The biggest threat to democracy in the USA is the people allowing the president to erode the democratic process by a mixture of deliberate lying and propaganda being used to justify the removal of rights.

When the president sincerely believes he has the power to order American's to be held without trial and tortured, Houston - we have a problem.

/Bevin

[Jeannieb43]

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shane said:

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The biggest threat to democracy in the US is the court system.

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The court system is being overused by a radical rightwing fringe. They're purposely telling their members to bring their Bibles to work and place them in full view on the corner of their desks, for instance, in order to invoke a religious tolerance lawsuit. That's MISuse of the court system. But it requires the courts to carefully interpret existing laws. The courts do not legislate. The legislatures have crafted such a plethora of laws that it requires judges to sort them all out and pick the best one for each particular case. It's a bunch of baloney to say the courts are at fault.

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bevin said:

The biggest threat to democracy in the USA is the people allowing the president to erode the democratic process by a mixture of deliberate lying and propaganda being used to justify the removal of rights.

When the president sincerely believes he has the power to order American's to be held without trial and tortured, Houston - we have a problem.

/Bevin

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Hear, hear!

We have such a sick administration right now. Totally.

So-called religious education in public schools is so far down the priority list that I can't get exercised about it. Hopefully the children are being educated in Adventist homes, and in Sabbath school, and in SDA schools. But if not, at least the parents can correct any misinformation they might receive about creation.

We need to educate our young parents! Upon their shoulders rests the burden of educating the next generation of Adventists.

We can't expect the public school boards to do it for us.

[Dr. Shane]

Our system is a system of checks and balances. The President holds Congress in check. The Congress holds the President in check. The Congress, President and States hold the Court system in check through the Ammendment process of the Constitution. A quick review can see the powers are not balanced. While the President can be held in check by the Congress and Congress by him (or her), it takes virtually the entire country to hold the court system in check.

[Dr. Shane]

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The court system is being overused by a radical rightwing fringe.

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It would be incorrect to limit that to the "rightwing". However it is correct to say the court system is being overused by the political extreames or fringes.

<img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/129933-offtopic2.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" />

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They're purposely telling their members to bring their Bibles to work and place them in full view on the corner of their desks

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I was unaware of this instruction but I have a Bible of mine on my desk, in full view, and I often read from it in the morning or on my breaks. This has been my practice since I finished college and no one has ever complained.

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We need to educate our young parents! Upon their shoulders rests the burden of educating the next generation of Adventists.

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Here is an area we agree <img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif" alt="" />

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We can't expect the public school boards to do it for us.

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Hopefully our Adventist children will attend Adventist schools.