Quote:
Originally Posted by KnifeMissile
Finally, the age of the Earth is a little over four billion years old. It's the Universe that's more than sixteen billion years old... |
Wow, my sincerest apologies for that, there must have been a serious disconnect between my head and fingers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KnifeMissile
If your religion believes in silly stuff then there's nothing that reality can do about that. If your religion believed that the Earth is flat, would you advocate not teaching that it's round because some religious group will be offended? Freedom of Religion means that you may practice any religion you want. It doesn't mean that you must be told what you want to hear...
Teaching a scientific viewpoint isn't "bullying," that's just a scientific education. In what manner does science "squash" other "worldviews?"
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I'm going to try to this again, but more thoroughly. There are two related challenges to the teach of 'old earth' and 'old universe' in schools. For the sake of brevity, I tried to express them simultaneously and garbled it all up. So, I'll try again from the top in a more lengthy, (hopefully) clear attempt.
Firstly, if we look at the teaching of ID theory in public schools in the US, it has been disallowed, correctly, on the basis that it imposes religion through the 'designer' component of the theory. When we talk about freedom of religion, and separation of church/state, the gist from where I sit is: we can't state religious views as facts in state institutions (schools). By extension, because several sects preach a literal interpretation of the book of genesis and that the earth is only 6000 years old, any statement about the age of the earth that conflicts with religious views is also disallowed.
When you state that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, you directly dispute a religious claim in schools, violating separation. The street runs both ways, so to speak.
Now, I know already what the entirely logical response to this is.
'...But then anyone can say any old thing conflicts with their religion and pretty soon we'll have to stop teaching anything at all because it conflicts with their religion.'
And you'd be right on target, At this point there are two options, one is to reject the statement and assert only 'scientific truth', or accept a 'subjectivist truth' where all ways of knowing are acceptable and none is more valuable or 'truthful' than any other. A great many people do not have any problem with asserting 'scientific truth', but that great many aren't politicians. As a politician if you reject all 'subjectivist truth' in favor of 'scientific truth' that means rejecting 'religious truth' also, and thus you commit political suicide.
This development in Texas highlights how this movement is becoming successful, school boards and state standards setting committees, which have to answer to a voting, overtly religious public (particularly in Texas), would rather sidestep the issue, by say...omitting any mention of it, than taking a stand and promptly losing their jobs in the next election.