Comment by Christoffel Jacobus Bezuidenhout on June 7, 2011 at 7:01pm

Brilliant. Really great idea. The only thing you really need people to do is think about what they are being taught.

Comment by IEatDinosaurMeat on June 7, 2011 at 7:49pm

True Scroggins. That can not be remedied very easily at all. I think that critical thinking, logic, and the like should be taught at least in basic levels from elementary school. In middle school some of the easier to understand fallacies should be taught... However, the American education system has a lot of other things to improve on before that can be done.

Comment by oneinfinity on June 7, 2011 at 7:57pm

just IMAGINE if kids were actually taught critical thinking, logic, comparative religion and a survey of philosophy! what a difference that would make

Comment by Caesar MacEntire on June 7, 2011 at 8:08pm

This is how the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" came to be.

 

Have you been touched by His noodley appendage?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

Comment by IEatDinosaurMeat on June 7, 2011 at 10:07pm

Dead on Adrienne, I wasn't considering that excuse to be used by ID people. However, assuming one where to learn critical thinking, logic, and other basics for responsible belief forming, I would hope it would be more difficult to find a fundamentalist believer in anything... I do recognize the is vs. ought situation that arises.

I wouldn't say your cynical, I'd call it realistic.

Comment by Grux on June 7, 2011 at 11:07pm

I'm studying to become a social studies/history teacher in Tennessee. You bring up a great point that we discussed in my diversity class. The Christian Conservative majority argued that creation, or intelligent design, should be taught in Science class with evolution. I explained that we have evidence, that we can touch, showing evolution at work and that creationism falls into the realm of religion which is a social belief and should be kept in social studies to be studied with other ideas from different cultures. They didn't like the answer but stopped the discussion after that because they couldn't come up with anything else.

Comment by IEatDinosaurMeat on June 7, 2011 at 11:51pm

I don't mind being called an ass, but are you saying that I'm an ass for assuming they do learn critical thinking or that they could learn critical thinking. The difference being very slim but the former  would be you letting me know that my generalization that creationists are critical thinkers, which I didn't say is a generalization and not necessarily the case, whereas the latter would be you making a generalization that creationists are incapable of learning critical thinking or that to teach them critical thinking would be to give them ammunition for them to defend themselves. Either way Reductio ad absurdum is not the main purpose of this idea. It's also because equality ought to cover everything. It's a false Dichotomy to imagine the debate is between ID and Evolution, there are plenty of other cosmologies. Perhaps it was foolish to add the mythological ones but alas I am not very well studied on all cosmologies, but only a select few. Either way to imagine ID or creationism should get equal scientific study to evolution is to also admit that other cosmologies that are held by people today ought to get equal study to ID.

 

You are right, I am an ass.

Comment by Nathan Palo on June 8, 2011 at 12:07am

This is how FSM got started. But it wouldn't be a good idea. Science should be taught in science classrooms.

 

I wouldn't mind at all if a comparative religion or comparative philosophy taught the basics of the major religions, and it would be perfectly appropriate, and not unconstitutional, provided it was kept as unbiased as possible. It would probably lead to a significant rise in atheism.

Comment by IEatDinosaurMeat on June 8, 2011 at 9:25am

Not sure what your saying about the donkey thing, but I see your point about creationists and their pseudoscience thing. It makes me sad that there would be such a strong cling to something regardless of what the truth is. Truth is more important than being right, or there being a god.... Why can't everyone understand that?!?

Comment by Bryan B on June 8, 2011 at 9:37am

Interesting you should say this. Here in Ontario the official position of creation in public schools is that teachers are allowed to teach it if they want but the must give equal time to all religious views on creation and origins. Since no teacher has the time for that it is just never done.

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