Just send 'em to a Christian university.

[cormac]

They're not going to be happy anywhere else.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/12/BAQT129NMG.DTL&tsp=1

A federal judge says the University of California can deny course credit to applicants from Christian high schools whose textbooks declare the Bible infallible and reject evolution.

Rejecting claims of religious discrimination and stifling of free expression, U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles said UC's review committees cited legitimate reasons for rejecting the texts - not because they contained religious viewpoints, but because they omitted important topics in science and history and failed to teach critical thinking.

The Bible may be infallible, but it still says bats are birds, donkeys can talk, the sun can stop its course through the sky, and people can come back from the dead, which makes it a shitty science text.

Comments

[the-celestia.livejournal.com]

Can I PLEASE quote your last paragraph, (with proper attribution, of course!)

t_C

[cormac.livejournal.com]

Quote away, milady.

[penumbren]

WOO! There are definitely times I'm proud of my home state.

Also quoting, btw. And linking. Hee.

[blackbirdsings.livejournal.com]

Hey, I doubt that mess would fly even at most respectable Christian universities. The somewhat sane ones, I mean.

What's tragic to me is that these kids are graduating with such an "education" to begin with. I'm all for religious freedom and educational choice, and even the integration of the two when it's a private school - but it seems like compulsory education should be held to the same standards no matter where you're getting it.

I don't understand why so many religious institutions feel that good science has to be a threat to their beliefs. I was homeschooled by my Christian mother until the 5th grade. We studied the Bible every day, but we also learned about biology and evolution and the universe and the timeline of natural history. I was bloody well never drawing pictures of people farming alongside dinosaurs, but I somehow managed to be a devout Christian for several years, despite having received a decent education.

Bah.

[mistresshuette.livejournal.com]

No, the real Ancient Hebrew bible doesn't say that bats are birds. That is a translation error. In Leviticus 11:13-19, the word that is translated as "birds" is "'owph", which more correctly means "things that fly".

I know of several people who can make donkeys seem to talk. They are called "ventriloquists". I have also known several people who "saw" unusual things happen, either under a drug hallucination or during a stroke. And if you have watched the movie "Babe", you will see pigs and other barnyard animals talk. But then if you don't believe that God is all powerful, donkeys can't be made to talk.

As for the sun, it doesn't scientifically go around the earth. The earth goes around the sun. In the ancient Chinese writings there is a legend of a long day. The Incas of Peru and the Aztecs of Mexico have a like record. There is a Babylonian and Persian legend of a day that was miraculously extended. Herodotus, an ancient historian, recounts that while in Egypt, a priest showed him their temple records, and that he read of a day which was twice the natural length of any day that had ever been recorded. There probably is a reasonable explanation for this perception. It appears to be one that crosses many ancient cultures. I have no idea what could cause this. I doubt that any scientist today could. But my unscientific guess would be that perhaps an asteroid struck the earth and its rotation stopped briefly. Perhaps God sent the asteroid in answer to Joshua's prayer.

As for people coming back from the dead, it happens all the time. Even now. How many times have you read in the paper that someone was sent to the morgue, who wasn't actually dead? I have read that often enough to believe that that to be very plausible. With all of our medical know-how, we still miss that some people haven't died as they were thought to. If we miss these things, how can you expect the ancients to be better at this than we are?

[cormac.livejournal.com]

All of what you have said is correct. However, my initial point stands.

The Bible used in these schools is not in ancient Hebrew; it is most likely the translation done in the early 17th century and attributed in name to James I. In most of said texts, the mistranslation stands. Ergo, not a good science text.

Visions, hoaxes and Disney are all well and good to explain how some animals can seem to talk, but it doesn't make it scientific fact, and the notion that donkeys can talk has no place in a biology class without further proof.

I'm well aware that the sun doesn't go around the earth, but the Bible isn't (strike 1). The Bible doesn't say that the sun seemed to stop in the sky; it said that the sun actually stopped its motion (unless there was some huge magnetic anomaly...strike 2). And it not only says that the sun actually stopped, but that it stopped to help Joshua, implying that such a thing could happen again if some divine entity decided it were necessary (while this would certainly be an appropriate discussion for a religious studies course, it's unverifiable via the scientific method. So Strike 3, it's out).

And again, there's a big difference between perception and scientific fact. While it might seem that people come back from the dead, and indeed there have been people who've recovered after being declared "medically dead," I've yet to hear of such an example of coming back after being properly dead for days. However, if that's the road ID folk want to take, I'm fine with it. But it rejects the belief in the Resurrection and calls into grave question the claims of Jesus's divinity, most of which are based on said belief.

[mistresshuette.livejournal.com]

I wasn't arguing about the Bible's suitability as a scientific text, I was just commenting on your statements. I am just ticked that there is a complete disconnect in schools and universities now that there is more than one way to teach how the world got started and such. There was a time when evolution was anathema to teach. Now it seems that creationism is anathema. I would like a more balanced view taught. I.e.: This is how the evolutionists see things and this is how the creationists see things. You don't have to teach religion in order to do that.

I believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. It belongs in church, not in science classes. I believe that everything that it talks about happened. But I also believe that there are translation errors in it that need to corrected. Like the story of Jonah. He was swallowed by a great fish, in the Old Testament. But the KJV translates the word wrong in the New Testament, when it uses the word "whale" instead.

But I wasn't saying that God doesn't have the power to do all the things that you mentioned. He does. If I didn't believe that, why am I going to church every Sunday? I was just showing that there can be alternative answers if you don't believe in God.

[cormac.livejournal.com]

I figured we were agreeing with each other. The problem isn't that there's a disconnect in teaching how the universe began; there's always been a place for both creationism and evolution in places of higher learning. The former belongs in the department of religious studies, and the latter belongs in the science department. The problem is that there is a rather vocal group out there insisting that the religious studies viewpoint should be discussed in all other fields of study, and particularly in the science department as a credible, viable scientific alternative, when this is clearly not the case.

Such is the issue with the Christian high school students in the court case, whose schools brought the Bible into a so-called science class and said "this book is fact, all else is lies."

[mistresshuette.livejournal.com]

Well, in order to understand me, you have to know that Dr. Walter Lammerts was a close cousin of mine. So close, in fact, that his parents raised my father and had wanted to adopt my father, if my grandfather had allowed it. You also have to know that Dr. Walter Lammerts was one of the founders of the Creation Research Society and its first President. My cousin was not a crackpot or a religious zealot. He was a scientist and a geneticist. He got his doctorate at UC Berkeley and got a research fellowship for several years at CalTech. He felt that the Theory of Evolution was just that, a theory. It has never been "proven". As a geneticist, he was able to show that if left alone, plants, animals and humans will progess, but occasionally regress. He, as a scientist, felt that creationism could be scientific as much as evolution is considered to be. He felt that since there has been no evidence of unplanned regression, that the theory of evolution is errant. He felt that creationism is about intelligent design, with God being the intelligence behind the design. He didn't use the Bible to substantiate his theories. He used science. Although a lot of other scientists poo-pooed him and his stance, they could never prove him wrong.

Should the Bible be used in a science class? No. But Creationism isn't entirely about religion or shouldn't be. It is about proving scientifically that there are errors in the theory of evolution and about proving that Intelligent Design is the better alternative.