Evolution classes optional under proposed Alberta law

[Outta here]

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There are hundreds of cases where the church has amalgamated doctrines of other religions in order to win over converts. And it was all done in the name of the almighty dollar. The church is not a religion so much as it is a political entity and land holding company. Over the last few decades they have had to sell off some of their holdings to pay for all the child molestation charges and the dwindeling attendence (read dwindeling revenue).

This has always troubled me. I can still recall my mother talking to me about religion when I was quite young and telling me that if a truth is in fact a truth, it should be able to withstand the test of time. Religions that change the same doctrine they previously punished followers for questioning cannot be taken seriously, and should have absolutely NO hand in determining what education should be provided to children.
On the flip side, religions that refuse to change doctrine to reflect a growing body of scientific evidence as well as with the evolution (sorry, there's that damn word again) of social mores and ethics also can't be taken seriously.

This pretty much encapsulates why I can't take any religion seriously. No matter which angle you come at it, there doesn't seem to be room for that crucial middle ground when discernment is applied. All religion, by it's very nature is extreme to me. I've yet to see an example of where that's a good thing.
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[Niflmir]

Measuring something as intangible as the speed of light is heavily based on assumptions and other (accepted theories)... this is the most glaring fact that is associated with the above.

The notion of manipulation of the existing and accepted mathematical principles can yield that 1+1= 0,1 or 2 exposes the Achilles-Heel in the argument.

You just have no clue about science, do you?

 

[Tonington]

They haven't been helped financially by the bill.

There hasn't been any cost to the school boards. In fact, they have help been help financially by this bill.

So which is it:?:

 

[L Gilbert]

Do you really think that these beliefs have been proven wrong? Not if you talk to people who believe that tomatoes are poisonous, that earth is flat, or that earth is the centre of the universe.

I don't think that those beliefs are proven wrong, I know they are wrong. People eat tomatoes by the ton everyday. I suppose it is possible to overdose on tomatoes but then overdosing on anything is poisonous. If you look across the ocean you can see with the naked eye the world isn't flat. Go up in a plane and it's even more evident that it isn't flat. Have a telescope? you can use a little math along with sightings and prove to yourself the Earth isn't the center of thew solar system let alone the universe. Get a grip. And I don't care if some people still believe those things, they are dead wrong and what good is an erroneous belief?

 

[L Gilbert]

That is the problem, Toro, that is the reason why I am reluctant to use quote many times. I prefer to copy and paste what other person has said. It is quicker that way and has more flexibility.

Cut & paste is quicker than clicking on the "quote this" button? I tried it, cutting and pasting is slower for me.

 

[Niflmir]

what I have been trying to get across to you brainiacs....something none of you seem to be able to comprehend......mainly because your minds are like a steel trap....closed f*ckin tight....... The average person knows sweet f*ck all about physics.....astronomy....palientology...... not much more than the basics of biology....... They take the word of great men like Hawkings....they have "faith" that this man knows what he is talking about.... growing up they take the word of their teachers and the text books they learn from....they have "faith" that what they are being taught is the truth.

EVERYBODY takes somethings on faith...because NOBODY can know everything personally....NOBODY has the ability to learn all things about everything. EVERYBODY relies on others to know what we personally do not or can not know.

No. Scientists do not take things on faith. We take things on empirical grounds. I study relativity, I have looked into the things that Hawking said, I know the limitations of his various theorems. Growing up, I challenged things that were said to me, such as Newton's second law.

Knowing something about physics does not make me any smarter than anybody else. All that it means is that I have spent more time than others studying it, and that is not something to be proud of any more than someone who learns how to pave a road. If you have a genuine interest in knowing about some aspect of reality, than hey, scientists have looked into it and can give you the same understanding that they possess based on empirical evidence.

But you are showing a genuine lack of interest in possessing this knowledge. We are not asking you to take anything on faith. The evidence is there and if you ask for it, it will be given to you. Science is not opinion or belief, science is observation and model, it is prediction and verification and falsification.

 

[captain morgan]

You just have no clue about science, do you?

I'd appreciate if you would identify the flaw(s) in the logic and reasoning I high-lighted.

 

[Cliffy]

what good is an erroneous belief?

Precisely. That is why we have no use for religion.

 

[L Gilbert]

ger, I get what you're saying, and I'll try to keep my post respectful towards those of religious beliefs... but you know I struggle with the whole idea of organized religion and this subject is one of the key reasons why... so bear with me if you can...

The suggestion that the state should allow parents to exclude certain scientific information from their children's education for religious reasons raises at least 2 concerns for me. (btw, I do believe that allowing parents to pull kids from class for these reasons is just a PC tap dance around actually dropping curriculum - the end result is the same)

First of all, this will open a hell of a Pandora's box in terms of setting precedents. What else will religion be allowed to block from a child's education? With the proliferation of various religions within Canada, it's not at all outside the realm of possibility that allowing this could be a prelude to a flood of objections to other material that is currently taught. To my eyes, this is looking an awful lot like another huge slide downhill under the umbrella of that bastion of human rights gone awry: Political Correctness... another good idea taken so far to the extreme, it's a complete bastardization of it's original intent. IMO.

ahem... anyway, back to education and religion lolll....

In Canada, we have determined a curriculum of education that we have deemed as a nation of educators, is a minimum standard of knowledge with which we should be arming our children to go forth and become productive and informed members of society. Arbitrarily pulling significant chunks of fact from curricula not only negates our rights as a society to insist upon a full and complete education for our children, it rather nicely creates fertile ground for the social malady of ignorance to flourish - lacking the information needed to make informed decisions when religious doctrine and science disagree is robbing children of the arena in which they will acquire those critical thinking skills I raised in my first post.

I've been taught that keeping people in the dark is one of the first tenets of crowd control. If a religion - ANY religion is to stand on its' own merit, it should be able to easily withstand a full education in any subject - without eliminating key and fundamental aspects.

The main question this raises for me is why on earth any one that's raising their kids in this country is unable or unwilling to sit their kids down at the kitchen table and discuss with them why their specific religion does not support what they've been taught in school. If a child, once armed with facts, is able to effectively refute information based on doctrine .... well, you see how I struggle with not only religion, but the methods it has to resort to if it's to stay alive in today's society...

Right on the money, Hunny.
It's why a few religious organisations burned books, kept information away from their sheep, etc. If you don't want to deal with your subjects questioning you, if you don't have any reasonable explanations about your beliefs, etc. avoid it and keep your subjects heads in the sand.

And Cliffy's dead right about the integrity of religious orgs. that "borrow" stuff from others.

 

[L Gilbert]

........ science is observation and model, it is prediction and verification and falsification.

Good science is not falsification. That's a Michael Mann kind of science. It isn't acceptible.

 

[gerryh]

I'll show ya's God.....after you show me an actuall black hole.....dark matter....dark energy.......you know....all that crap that scientists "say" is there but can't se it....or prove it...... the "stuff" that makes up at least 95% of the "known" universe.......

 

[Cannuck]

So which is it:?:

The bill legitimizes what is being done. The school boards have been operating outside provincial policy. The bill, in essence, guarantees the money flow.

This probably would have been clear had you bothered to read the entire thread instead of cherry picking comments. Anal people can be so entertaining.

 

[gerryh]

[FONT=&quot]This has always troubled me. I can still recall my mother talking to me about religion when I was quite young and telling me that if a truth is in fact a truth, it should be able to withstand the test of time. Religions that change the same doctrine they previously punished followers for questioning cannot be taken seriously, and should have absolutely NO hand in determining what education should be provided to children. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]On the flip side, religions that refuse to change doctrine to reflect a growing body of scientific evidence as well as with the evolution (sorry, there's that damn word again) of social mores and ethics also can't be taken seriously.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]This pretty much encapsulates why I can't take any religion seriously. No matter which angle you come at it, there doesn't seem to be room for that crucial middle ground when discernment is applied. All religion, by it's very nature is extreme to me. I've yet to see an example of where that's a good thing. [/FONT]

SO....they're damned if they do, and damned if they don't.....stick to your guns and you're wrong...... change with the times....you're wrong...... funny how science can change their minds about how things work and that's a-ok....... I'm sensing just a lil bit of hypocrisy here.

 

[L Gilbert]

Scientific statements change when new evidence is found because it is based on giving correct information describing how the universe works. It does not come up with an idea and stick to that idea even if evidence shows the idea to be wrong. That's not hypocrisy, that's being true to itself. Sticking to an idea in spite of the idea being wrong is just useless.

 

[Cannuck]

The suggestion that the state should allow parents to exclude certain scientific information from their children's education for religious reasons raises at least 2 concerns for me. (btw, I do believe that allowing parents to pull kids from class for these reasons is just a PC tap dance around actually dropping curriculum - the end result is the same)

First of all, this will open a hell of a Pandora's box in terms of setting precedents. What else will religion be allowed to block from a child's education? With the proliferation of various religions within Canada, it's not at all outside the realm of possibility that allowing this could be a prelude to a flood of objections to other material that is currently taught. To my eyes, this is looking an awful lot like another huge slide downhill under the umbrella of that bastion of human rights gone awry: Political Correctness... another good idea taken so far to the extreme, it's a complete bastardization of it's original intent. IMO.

Those could also be an argument against private schools. The issue is really simple and is being clouded by the religious discussion. If the parents are not allowed to determine what their children can and can not learn then, there may as well be public school and public school only and it should be mandatory. If parents have some say in the education of their children then the public school system has to give the parents a means to get involved. If parents are the sole decider of what their kids are taught then the public schools system will most likely collapse in on itself. The first option is the "government knows best" approach and the residential schools fiasco is proof that that system is not the best approach. Assuming that the goal is to have a dynamic, responsive and healthy public school system then the third option is off the table. This leaves the second option. It's called compromising and compromising has been shown to be beneficial in most places where it has been used.

 

[L Gilbert]

Suppose you were one of those people that believed tomatoes were poisonous. You avoided them. Eventually, some people started eating them and developing great recipes that used tomatoes. Yet you still believed they were poisonous. You deprive yourself of chili, lasagna, spaghetti, etc. that everyone esle is feasting on. They aren't being hypocritivcal, they are simply accepting that they were wrong about tomatoes before.

 

[gerryh]

Scientific statements change when new evidence is found because it is based on giving correct information describing how the universe works. It does not come up with an idea and stick to that idea even if evidence shows the idea to be wrong. That's not hypocrisy, that's being true to itself. Sticking to an idea in spite of the idea being wrong is just useless.

Zan just finnished saying that religions are wrong when they don't change....and religions are wrong when they do change...... yet science is allowed to change their minds..... that's hypocracy.

 

[Niflmir]

I'd appreciate if you would identify the flaw(s) in the logic and reasoning I high-lighted.

I think you are insincere, but I will point out that axioms are not assumptions. The minute you define the second and the metre and light and speed, there is no ambiguity left in the speed of light. The same is true of 1+1, you first define the number set over which you are defining addition and then the answer is given.

There are no assumptions here.

 

[L Gilbert]

Zan just finnished saying that religions are wrong when they don't change....and religions are wrong when they do change...... yet science is allowed to change their minds..... that's hypocracy.

Not necessarily. It depends upon where the change is needed. If you are going from point A to point B and come to a junction where the sign says turn left to go to B, you need to change direction but yet you turn right or go straight instead, you won't end up at the right place. So either you accept evidence or you don't. If you portend that you can explain everything yet refuse to accept something contradicting your explanation, you are simply unbelievable. If you accept that you can't explain everything, you are fine, even if you continue trying to explain everything.

 

[Niflmir]

I'll show ya's God.....after you show me an actuall black hole.....dark matter....dark energy.......you know....all that crap that scientists "say" is there but can't se it....or prove it...... the "stuff" that makes up at least 95% of the "known" universe.......

Sure, if you pick the frontiers of science then their will always be a sufficient deficit of evidence.

However, the bounds on Sagittarius A being a black hole are pretty stringent now. But sure, there are respectable scientists who do not believe in black holes (or think we have insufficient evidence).

But your point is moot. Give us more time to increase the sensitivity of our gravitational wave telescopes and we will even measure the quasinormal mode ringing of a black hole. Give you more time, and you still will not show us a god.