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Certainly "God created it" is as good an explanation for how the universe started as anything science has (which is pretty much nothing), but, in my experience, ID proponents, or at least the ones who identify themselves as such, and specifically the ones pushing for ID in the classroom have a much larger idea than that of what ID is
This is unfortunate, but not suprising. The idea was to get people talking about God vs no-God, rather than evolution vs. creation. Through evolutionsts not buying the simplicity of the argument and seeing a greater agenda, and creationists not being willing to settle for a lesser argument, it seems we have the same old debate. This is somewhat dissapointing because I think a conversation around the basic ideas of ID (that things we observe in science demonstrate a world crafted by an intelligent designer) would be very interesting if it could get beyond the creation vs. evolution debate.

I also think, however, that the main mission of Christians is to preach the gospel (salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as the solution to our sin problem) and that creation is a decidedly lesser doctrine. I fear we spend too much time talking about creation and let the more important things get away from us.

But my origional point was this- it is impossible to study life and make observation about it apart from our view of faith. How we report science, interpret literature, decide governmental policy, etc. is all influenced, if not directly, by our philosophies.

It is all well and good to say that religion has no place in a science class, but it is impossible to remove. There are those who believe that evolution is false. Many, many people. And they do so on the basis of their religious beliefs. To teach evolution in a public school, suported by the unparital government of these very same non-evolutionists, means making a choice that what these people believe about science is wrong. And if it were to go the other way, the government would be taking a stand against those with a different belief.

Now you can say all you want that what these people believe isn't science, but they think it is. So on what basis are they wrong? To stand on the idea that one person's philosophy wrong because it invovles faith in "fairy tales" is fine for a personal assessment, but should the government make decisions on such a basis? Well, the government has to make SOME decision, because at the end of the day we have all these kids going to school and we'd better teaching them something.

I'm not arguing here that what I believe should be taught it public schools. In fact, for the moment, I'm not even arguing that my beliefs should be given equal press. What I am saying is that it is unavoidable for the government to "take sides", however good the reasoning is, and support one individua's belief above another. But if it is unavoidable, lets not decide against someone and tell them that we aren't favoring one side over another- this might ease the concious of those making such decisions, but to the ones whom this goes against it is just insulting.

I do think it regrettable that my beliefs seem to get a second rate status to the (apparently more popular) ideas of humanism. But I also think it is unavoidable- someone is going to lose out.

I have another point, though- there is no objective truth to measure rightness by, at least for a democratic society. Imagine if suddenly a new concept of math became popular where 6*9=42. Would it be wrong? Not according to society, and against what else can we measure? The teachings of those who have gone before us? We can't always rely on historical truths to be accurate today- many times we reject them, and for good reason.

So how would we feel about this "new math" being taught in our schools, especially if it was nonsensical (rather than something moderatly reasonable, like base 13, which is strange but still makes sense). We'd all be angry for certain. But if it is the popular understanding of mathmatics, what can we do but try to make people understand the grave mistaken being done to our children? And likely, we'd probably all decide the best course is to teach our children ourselves so that they are truly equipped to deal with the real world.

Evolution/ Creation aside, I've noted that humanism creeps up in almost every subject (except for perhaps mathmatics) as a subtle, unspoken assumption. Most obvious is its mark on literary interpretation, but it is there in other subjects. I'll agree that science, like mathmatics, does seem to be less opportunities for takinging philosophical or religious "sides", but it does happen. What can I do about this? Well, someone has to lose, and in these instances it looks like it's me. So what I do is try to make people aware of where I think problems are, and probably put my children in a place where they will learn the truths best to prepare them for their future. It's not what it should be, but a perfect system is unattainable as long as we hold conflicting beliefs.
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.