Andrée Seu Peterson on the "Time" cover 
Click to Print
Include Comments
CA court condemns “improper disapproval of religion”
A California court has ruled: “improper disapproval of religion” in a public school classroom does indeed violate the First Amendment’s clause against establishing a religion.
Public school teacher James Corbett told his AP European history class that creationism was “superstitious nonsense.” He also told them, “When you put on your Jesus glasses, you can’t see the truth” and taught a correlation between high religious attendance and high crime in America. Sophomore high school student, Chad Farnan, objected to more than 20 of his teacher’s statements and sued Corbett for violating the Establishment clause by making comments hostile to religion and Christianity.
The court applied the Lemon test — a test that says the statute in question 1) must have a secular legislative purpose; 2) its primary effect must neither advance or inhibit religion; 3) it must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.
The court dismissed all but one of Farnan’s objections, but found that Corbett’s statement calling creationism “superstitious nonsense” did violate the First Amendment clause against establishing a religion. Read the final ruling here.
back to top100 Comments to “CA court condemns “improper disapproval of religion””
We hashed this out briefly last Saturday. I am opposed to any constraints of freedom of speech except for obvious threats, character assinaton, public profanity/obscenity, etc.
If we take this to the conclusions to which they are headed, it will be illegal to tell the truth about Islam. (Mark Styen has encountered that in Canada.) It would be illegal for pastors or teachers to speak against homosexual marriage or against abortion.
We’ve seen the rediculious extent the restrictions against display of religion on government property (i.e. the court house) has gone.
This is not a victory for religion.
Report comment to moderator
Good points, Chas. Though I can’t help but feel good for the student’s efforts here.
Report comment to moderator
I do agree that he passed the bounds of propriety and should be disciplined by the school; possibly removed from teaching. I just worry about this becoming an issue for the courts. Everytime the courts or congress touch something, they mess it up. We will see unintended consequences from this.
Report comment to moderator
I agree that teachers should not attack religions as part of their teaching.
However, what is “the truth about Islam?” There are many different Muslims just as there are many different Christians. Anybody who uses a public school classroom setting to “tell the truth about Islam,” is speaking very carelessly and using careless generalizations.
I know that “careless generalizations” are a stock in trade at worldmagblog, but I would hope that a public school would strive to do a little better than this web site, though it’s probably a foolish hope on my part.
In a social studies class there are plenty of factual statements that could be made about Christians and about Muslims without engaging in wild accusations and generalizations toward one or the other. This will probably be news to many here.
Report comment to moderator
“Islam” and “Muslims” are two different things, just as Christianity and Christians are two different things. It’s an essential distinction.
Report comment to moderator
BY Victoria 05.02.09 AT 5:53 PM
High school teacher found guilty of insulting Christians ?
Mission Viejo history teacher James Corbett violated the First Amendment, a federal court rules.
Friday, May 1, 2009
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
SANTA ANA – A Mission Viejo high school history teacher violated the First Amendment by disparaging Christians during a classroom lecture, a federal judge ruled today.
James Corbett, a 20-year teacher at Capistrano Valley High School, was found guilty of referring to Creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense” during a 2007 classroom lecture, denigrating his former Advanced Placement European history student, Chad Farnan.
The decision is the culmination of a 16-month legal battle between Corbett and Farnan – a conflict the judge said should remind teachers of their legal “boundaries” as public school employees.
“Corbett states an unequivocal belief that Creationism is ’superstitious nonsense,” U.S. District Court Judge James Selna said in a 37-page ruling released from his Santa Ana courtroom. “The court cannot discern a legitimate secular purpose in this statement, even when considered in context.”
In a December 2007 lawsuit, Farnan, then a sophomore, accused Corbett of repeatedly promoting hostility toward Christians in class and advocating “irreligion over religion” in violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.
The establishment clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion” and has been interpreted by U.S. courts to also prohibit government employees from displaying religious hostility.
______________Another excerpt
Farnan’s lawsuit had cited more than 20 inflammatory statements attributed to Corbett, including “Conservatives don’t want women to avoid pregnancies – that’s interfering with God’s work” and “When you pray for divine intervention, you’re hoping that the spaghetti monster will help you get what you want.”
Report comment to moderator
I think Michael Ruse almost predicted this. I’m too lazy to figure out if it was actually him. What he (or whoever) actually wrote is that to the extent that people like Dawkins are successful in showing that evolution entails atheism, public schools in the US will not be allowed to teach it.
(Ruse, btw, is an atheist and a philosopher of biology. In my understanding, he also spoke for the majority of sophisticated atheistic thinkers when he called Dawkins’ arguments an embarrassment.)
Report comment to moderator
I believe that NO teacher has the right to make the statements this teacher made to students. It’s too bad the school has not terminated his position as teacher.
Report comment to moderator
To me, it seams an establishment of religion to declare, “When you put on your Jesus glasses, you can’t see the truth.”
However, the truth of evolution and the correlation between crime rates and religious belief are empirical conclusions about reality.
If the judge’s test permits the former and forbids the latter, then it’s not a good test, in my view.
Report comment to moderator
The establishment of religion meant to the founding fathers that they didn’t want the government to start a “church of the United States” like they had the “church of England” that was tied in with the government. They saw the problems this caused and wanted religion to be something that was outside government control and jurisdiction.
For someone who happens to work for a government funded position to give an opinion about religion (no matter how ignorant the opinion is) is no more establishing a religion than renting a high school auditorium to a group for worship.
I think the issue should have been dealt with by simply arguing that a teacher in that position should not take advantage of his power to insult people’s beliefs. This is certainly not what the founding fathers had in mind when they were trying to keep government from establishing a national religion.
Report comment to moderator
Good points, Outdeep. (#10)
Report comment to moderator
“Corbett states an unequivocal belief that creationism is “superstitious nonsense.” The Court cannot discern a legitimate secular purpose in this statement, even when considered in context. The statement therefore constitutes improper disapproval of religion in violation of the Establishment Clause.”
That’s ridiculous! There is absolutely an important secular purpose in teaching against superstition and nonsense and superstitious nonsense!
I hope they’re appealing!
Report comment to moderator
Spinoza: Nailed it. Creationism is a bizarre fairy tail which has no place in any curriculum. I can certainly see that deriding folks for “putting on Jesus glasses” may be questionable, but debunking and even deriding the suggestion that some sky fairy created the earth and all its creatures is a perfectly legitimate and undisputable scientific statement.
ALL of the creation myths are equally bizarre and I can’t believe that any court could view such a statement as discriminatory.
Report comment to moderator
This is not a victory for the Consitution.
A responsible school district would have disciplined the teacher, but it should not have gone to court. Nobody’s rights are violated by hearing something that they disagree with. That is, the students in the classroom were not harmed by this teacher’s comments any more than an atheist is harmed by hearing a Bible verse or an invocation.
Report comment to moderator
Many of the teacher’s other statements did border on infringement (not “establishment”), but they were dismissed. Instead, this idiot judge singled out the most unimpeachable statement in the case. I guess that goes in keeping with a comment on the The Robing Room: Where Judges are Judged
Bush appointee. Friendly, not particularly scholarly. Appears not to fully grasp issues and favors government defendants.
Report comment to moderator
This ruling is tantamount to throwing all science classes out of education, because they are deemed “religion” and not found to have a “secular purpose.”
Report comment to moderator
It seems to me that the court was especially cognizant of the teacher’s use of the word “nonsense” as derogatory. Here is the full context.
The Court turns first to Corbett’s statement regarding John Peloza
(“Peloza”). (Farnan’s Ex. I, pp. 222-25.) This statement presents the closest
question for the Court in assessing secular purpose. Peloza apparently brought suit
against Corbett because Corbett was the advisor to a student newspaper which ran
an article suggesting that Peloza was teaching religion rather than science in his
classroom. (Id.) Corbett explained to his class that Peloza, a teacher, “was not
telling the kids [Peloza’s students] the scientific truth about evolution.” (Id.)
Corbett also told his students that, in response to a request to give Peloza space in
the newspaper to present his point of view, Corbett stated, “I will not leave John
Peloza alone to propagandize kids with this religious, superstitious nonsense.”
(Id.) One could argue that Corbett meant that Peloza should not be presenting his
religious ideas to students or that Peloza was presenting faulty science to the
students. But there is more to the statement: Corbett states an unequivocal belief
that creationism is “superstitious nonsense.” The Court cannot discern a legitimate
secular purpose in this statement, even when considered in context. The statement
therefore constitutes improper disapproval of religion in violation of the
Establishment Clause.
It seems from this that he could have said creationism was utterly, totally and completely wrong and has been conclusively rejected by almmost every person with a PhD in the appropriate discipline (not to mention a Judge in Pennsylvania whom this judge has apparently never heard of), but since instead the teacher used the word “nonsense” he is personally liable.
I seriously doubt any appellate court will agree.
Report comment to moderator
However, the truth of evolution and the correlation between crime rates and religious belief are empirical conclusions about reality.
What exactly does “empirical conclusions about reality” mean? I thought I knew, but it doesn’t fit the context of this sentence. (For the record, Christians who are involved in their church have a much lower crime rate, and there’s at least as much evidence for creation as for evolution–more if you add in the Bible as eyewitness testimony–it really simply depends on your starting point on origins, whether or not you’re willing to accept the possibility of God’s involvement. If you’re not, no evidence will convince you, and you’ll be left using stupid phrases like “superstitious nonsense” about your own Creator.)
Report comment to moderator
#17 – I read it to mean Selna had more problems with the word “superstitious” than “nonsense.” He points out elsewhere that religious people will not like their beliefs described as “magic,” i.e., he considered that to be denigrating. I suspect his kids are allowed to read Harry Potter.
I seriously doubt any appellate court will agree.
But are they mounting an appeal? I can’t find any reference to one in online news. Please somebody tell me there will be an appeal!
The raging atheist community (e.g., PZ Myers) is already posting their indignation. It’s not very nuanced!
Report comment to moderator
Intelligent design is backed by as many scientific facts as evolution has unexplainable holes. Intelligent Design just tries to fill in the holes. How did life start? Where did the first energy come from to start it all? How does something as complicated at the universe work with without a designer?
You have to more FAITH to believe evolution, than to believe in a universal designer!
Report comment to moderator
Well, I read the entire ruling and Alisa’s headline and story is wholly inadequate, distorted even. The Court found one statement out of many that violated 2 prongs of the “Lemon” test. It’s hardly the smashing victory that Alisa’s attempting to turn it into.
Report comment to moderator
Intelligent design is backed by as many scientific facts as evolution has unexplainable holes.
Not true – there are no facts that support intelligent design, but we are still filling in some of the details in evolutionary theory.
How did life start?
Where did the first energy come from to start it all?
How does something as complicated at the universe work with without a designer?
Those questions have nothing to do with biological evolution theory. Intelligent design may purport to address them, but it has resolved none of them in any case.
Report comment to moderator
Evolution is just a theory. Many want to teach it as fact!
Intelligent design is also a theory. You are correct that it does not have proof. It just uses scientific theory to back up it points, just like evolution.
Report comment to moderator
I find it extremely discouraging that a student would try to silence a teacher who made, what I consider, real adult conversation on the subject. Clearly this child wasn’t ready to be treated like an adult, and be confronted with ideas that might make him uncomfortable. If Chad where a little more mature and knowledgeable perhaps he could have entered into discussion with his teacher regarding the facts, or the appropriateness of the conversation, instead of surreptitiously recording his teacher hoping to amass enough evidence to take him to court.
Considering Chad’s lack of worldliness, I’m surprised that the adults in his life didn’t tell him man up and stop this reckless assault on free speech.
If Christians believe that this teacher stepped over the line, then they should agree that any positive affirmation of Jesus or Christianity also steps over the line. If Christians want to continue to allow a degree of religious freedom in schools, they need to accept the occasional irreligious comment or teacher. If you want you kids to lead a totally cloistered life without any Ideas that you don’t control, then by all means, home school them, but please don’t use the courts to attack a teacher who doesn’t share your religion.
Report comment to moderator
Kwatson,
The teacher was rude and condescending to his students. Just because he has faith in evolution and not in a intelligent designer.
Report comment to moderator
Evolutionist just says we don’t know and probably never will know how things got started, how life began. We have no idea of the answers.
Intelligent designer say, look at this possibility. This is how we think it MIGHT have happened and this is why we believe it.
Report comment to moderator
#23 Evolution is a theory supported by facts – that makes it a bigger scientific concept than a mere “fact” – which is just an empirical observation and can be wrong.
Intelligent design is not a scientific theory. It’s just a notion. It has no testable propositions. It is not a theory. It is not a fact. It *is* however, a religious idea.
Report comment to moderator
I am also against a court making a decision about religion in a public school or work place.
The reported comments sure sound childish. Not in what was said, (Let us leave the evolution thing out of the discussion.) but in the very fact that the comments sound like a childish response. Shouldn’t the teacher have been more adult?
When the student and parents first came to the school to complain about the teacher, the teacher and the administration should have backed off. What’s up with that?
The teacher sure deserved a reprimand. The student and parent should have received an apology. The student and parents should never have gone to court. By my lights, all involved look bad.
Report comment to moderator
#25 Most students didn’t think the teacher was offensive; just the twirpy Chad Farnan who sat in the back with a tape recording, sleeping through class occasionally, and never speaking directly to the teacher about his objections.
The law suit did get him and his lawyer a nice spot on O’Reilly, however:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdRGo5rAm54
Report comment to moderator
Spinoza,
Have you read intelligent design or just the creation story?
What facts do we have on how life began? What observation to the changes in species (fish to birds)? Where did the first energy come from? Do you have the faith that something as complicated at the universe happened by accident?
What observation do you have that it WASN’T
Report comment to moderator
Sorry,
Last comment.
What observation do you have that it WASN’T designed.
Report comment to moderator
#31 “Have you read intelligent design or just the creation story?” Read ‘em all Lloyd …
What facts do we have on how life began?
Origin of life is a vigorous research area, but it has no conclusive theory. So what? In Darwin’s book, “Origin of Species”, he allowed for creation by a deity. His theory was about what happened after
What observation to the changes in species (fish to birds)?
This is an area of evolutionary biology with volumes of empirical support. Too much to list here – and this thread is not about that anyway.
Where did the first energy come from?
The total energy in the universe is probably ZERO – since potential energy has a negative sign. So there’s not really a big problem with energy conservation and big bang theory. But maybe you mean the more general question – Why is there something and not nothing? I don’t know – could be God. Why is there God and not nothing? I don’t know – maybe man made Him up. All of this speculation is completely irrelevant to science curricula.
Do you have the faith that something as complicated at the universe happened by accident?
No – I don’t know if the universe in toto was caused by a ‘Mind’ or just happened because all possibilities are actualized and we could only be in one that was favorable to us. I wouldn’t refer to either case as an “accident”, though.
Again – this is completely irrelevant to this particular case.
Report comment to moderator
#32 A theory is not scientific if it cannot be tested. That doesn’t mean it is or isn’t *true*. It just means it is NOT SCIENTIFIC. To show that ID is a scientific theory, you must give me at least one example of how it can be tested against empirical observations.
ID nutcases claim that the absence of a scientific explanation for something proves ID. That’s illogical and unscientific. It is just a “god of the gaps” argument, and it is completely inadmissible in any field of science.
What does ID propose about how the “designer” made the world (nothing)? What observations does ID propose that can show that a designer intervened to implement something? NOTHING
Science does not support or rule out the general existence of God or a “designer” – but that doesn’t prove anything. It just means that religious belief is outside science….
Report comment to moderator
Jesus Glasses and Bloggers for Chad Farnan
Much like Rosa Parks, Chad Farnan sat in the back of the bus too many times. Only with Farnan, it’s not about a bus, such as the ones during Parks’ era in which blacks were told they could only sit in the back seats….
more at TheScroogeReport:
http://thescroogereport.wordpress.com/2007/12/27/jesus-glasses-and-bloggers-for-chad-farnan/
Report comment to moderator
Lloyd, you are yet another of the legions of Creationists and ID proponents who have no idea what the word “theory” means in scientific terms.
Evolution is “just” a theory in the same way that gravity is.
Report comment to moderator
By your explanation, most of the theory of evolution is not scientific. We have no transitional animals and have never observed MAJOR changes in animals. We haven’t seen a fish give birth to anything other than a fish. A dog gives birth to dogs, not a new cat.
Report comment to moderator
STEVEG,
We can see the effects of gravity.
We cannot see the effects of evolution. It is just a guess about how thing evolved. It is not a fact like gravity!!
Report comment to moderator
Just a reminder to all of you:
There are no un-interpreted “facts”. All of them are interpreted.
Report comment to moderator
And Steve, evolution would more appropriately be called a hypothesis. It surely hasn’t been “proven,” and more questions than answers are coming into play these days.
Report comment to moderator
lloyd: The teacher was rude and condescending to his students. Just because he has faith in evolution and not in a intelligent designer.
The teacher could have been rude to the kid about his manner of dress, his appearance, his intelligence or just about anything else, and he could not have been sued. But because this piece of rudeness impinged on religion’s demand to be treated with ridiculous sensitivity and an absurd degree of respect, and poor little Johnny (in an honors course, no less) couldn’t handle it, every teacher in California must now kow-tow to the idiots, mullahs, priests and thought-police who claim to know what the sky-fairy did.
Victoria, with all due respect, if religion can’t handle being spoken of disparagingly, it doesn’t deserve any respect whatsoever.
One last note: At least the intelligent design folks, in order to avoid this trap desperately try to claim that their doctrine is really NOT religiously derived.
Report comment to moderator
#40 That’s “superstitious nonsense”
Evolution is not merely a hypothesis. It has withstood countless tests and earned its status as the guiding theoretical framework for the biological sciences.
#41 I still can’t get over how this judge passed over far more incendiary remarks toward religion and picked on the most innocuous statement about another teacher’s promulgation of the religion of creationism! The context for the discussion was the history of a court ruling about creationism. That makes it even more justifiable.
Creationism is superstitious nonsense. I think this may just become a new motto for science educators. Where can I buy the T-shirt?
Report comment to moderator
#35 Excuse me – I have to barf – just a little …
Report comment to moderator
From the OC Weekly:
“The single statement that moved Selna to find that Corbett had violated the Establishment Clause had to do with a previous lawsuit involving a former Capistrano Valley teacher who taught creationism as fact and evolution as a fraud in his biology classes back in the early 1990s. The teacher, John Peloza, sued the district, claiming his First Amendment rights were violated when he was forced to teach what he called “the religion” of evolution. Corbett was included in the suit because he was the adviser to the student newspaper at the time, which Peloza alleged had run an article suggesting he was teaching religion rather than science.
The lawsuit was dismissed in 1992, after a U.S. district judge agreed with the school district’s position that Peloza improperly violated state-mandated science curricula by teaching creationist theory. When Corbett explained the suit in Farnan’s class, he made a statement with regard to Peloza teaching “religious, superstitious nonsense,” according to the suit.
“The court cannot discern a legitimate secular purpose in this statement, even when considered in context,” Selna writes. “The statement therefore constitutes improper disapproval of religion in violation of the Establishment Clause.”
The Farnans’ lawyer, Jennifer Monk, told the Weekly that the single ruling against Corbett was enough for them to consider the suit victorious. “The judge determined that Corbett violated the Establishment Clause with the statement. From my perspective, that’s all we need, whether it was one statement or a lot of statements, from my persepective it was favorable and we’re ecstatic,” she said.
Corbett, who has declined to speak with all media except for the Weekly, said he was still thinking about and digesting the ruling, and had no further comment. The case could continue if Corbett and the district decide to file an appeal with the 9th Circuit District Court, which Corbett has indicated may be a possibility.“
Report comment to moderator
Spin
How ‘DRAMATIC’ – hope you’re over whatever mess you caused. LOL
Report comment to moderator
#45 Chad Farnan = Rosa Parks? – I’m afraid I’m gonna need the bucket again …
Report comment to moderator
I agree with several of you here that the government has no jurisdiction here. The courts should not regulate what a teacher says in a classroom unless it is hostile or threatening.
The idea that we need the courts to regulate what people can and cannot say is ridiculous and unconstitutional.
As for the teacher, he should be regulated by the school itself and the students and parents. He simply shows himself to be a bad teacher and they should dock his pay and remove him.
In a college class, the teacher asked if anyone was a Christian. My son raised his hand. The teacher made him stand and the teacher spent several minutes telling him what an idiot he was for believe that (expletive) (expletive) (expletive).
The teacher has since been removed for hitting on female students. In our circles we call that sowing and reaping.
Report comment to moderator
I dunno. When the mighty “philosophy” of Christianity which ruled the entire Western World for centuries has to resort to the courts to protect itself from a harsh word by a high school teacher, perhaps that says a great deal more about the religion than it does the teacher.
And when self-styled “conservatives” rise to defend the civil rights of a high school honors student whose feelings were hurt by a reference to what he believes sacred, perhaps that says a great deal about them as well.
Anyway, I don’t see anything for anybody to celebrate in this screwball decision.
Report comment to moderator
Cheryl: And Steve, evolution would more appropriately be called a hypothesis. It surely hasn’t been “proven,” and more questions than answers are coming into play these days.
No, it would not. It was a hypothesis maybe 150 years ago. Since then it’s been confirmed over and over again. That’s how science works. When a hypothesis gets confirmed through testing and additional information, it becomes more and more certain. A theory is a hypothesis that has passed a lot of such tests.
Those transitional forms that Lloyd insists don’t exist are actually abundant in the fossil record. The discovery of genes and what we’ve learned about how the function was an enormous piece on confirmatory evidence. Those are both things that Darwin knew nothing of, and they’ve only shown that his ideas were on target.
I’ve been through this topic with you before, and while I have no doubt of your sincerity, you really do not know what you’re talking about. You keep insisting there are “more questions than answers,” but you’ve not offered one valid example yet.
Report comment to moderator
Steve, I have yet to see any such “confirmation,” but I sure have seen a lot of things that Darwin didn’t know and that make the level of necessary evidence higher . . . so it’s getting farther from being proven, not closer. But so is the desire to keep God out of it getting stronger, and that bias is really what drives evolutionary science. But I had a longer answer to this on Saturday’s Whirled Views, and I don’t think you saw it.
I’m not a scientist, but it’s not true that I “don’t know what I’m talking about.” I’ve seen much that’s absolutely compelling confirmation that God really is our Creator, much of which we’ve already been over. But I would appreciate it if you’d check out my answer on the other thread.
Report comment to moderator
Steve,
In the context of the other thread it was more clear what I was answering, but since much has been written since I posted, I decided to bring it over here:
I think this will be the century when the religious presupposition of origins without God will be harder and harder to maintain. We know so much more about the complex design of the cell. In Darwin’s day, it was easy to imagine a one-celled life form arising by chance, since the cell was believed to be simple. Now we know about DNA and so much more . . . and evolutionists have responded by saying they don’t deal with how life began (because they can’t), but only with how it evolved (which actually they aren’t finding much easier to prove). The greater complexity discovered all the time isn’t helping evolutionists one iota; they’re losing ground.
Meanwhile, the fossil record matches a worldwide Flood easier than it matches earlier hypotheses that it was a record of life from all eras. Something will “give” soon on this one, the same way neo-Darwinism is having to argue with intelligent design today.
The “Eyewitness,” of course, is God. In court room evidence we have eyewitnesses and we have other evidence. The theistic side has both; the atheistic side has only crumbling physical evidence (not crumbling as in aging, but crumbling as in being undermined). Really and truly, I think atheistic scientists will be screaming louder and louder as the century goes on, but it will be because they’re losing.
(Where, BTW, are all these transitional forms? If they’re at the microbe level, I may or may not be able to follow the details, but I’ve sure never seen birds with scales-turning-to-feathers or any such clear transitional forms. In fact, interestingly many “old” species have recently been found still living, so they can hardly be seen as transitional! What we need to see are species that really don’t function well in their present form, so they’re obviously on their way to being something else.)
Report comment to moderator
Scientists are not impeccable about instantly adjusting to new evidence (read about continental drift some time) but they do adjust fairly quickly. It comes with the territory of scientific inquiry.
Religious believers, unlike continents, do not drift. They remain firmly stuck in the mud no matter what. They stay with the territory they imagine.
Report comment to moderator
#42 Spinoza
“Evolution is not merely a hypothesis. It has withstood countless tests and earned its status as the guiding theoretical framework for the biological sciences.”
I don’t remember any of those countless tests of the hypothesis of evolution. Please refresh my memory.
Report comment to moderator
Read the whole opinion? Really? Here’s why the case is important:
“To entertain an exception for conduct that might be characterized as isolated or de minimis undermines the basic right in issue: to be free of a government that directly expresses disapproval of religion. The Supreme Court’s comments with regard to governmental promotion of religion apply with equal force where the government disapproves of religion:
[I]t is no defense to urge that the religious practices here may be relatively minor encroachments on the First Amendment. The breach of neutrality that is today a trickling stream may all too soon become a raging torrent and, in the words of Madison, ‘it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.’”
I’d capitalize the Madison quote, but the people who understand what happened here don’t need it, and the people who think this is nothing don’t get it.
Report comment to moderator
Ridiculous thing to spend time arguing about.
1. The best thing for the student to do is to realize that the teacher is a bitter, ignorant man who does not deserve to be afforded respect as an educator. However, our system makes him a captive audience in many ways. Thus the problem…
2. If I, in my class, state that Islam is “superstitious nonsense”, is that acceptable? Do Muslim students have the right to complain or sue? In fact if Chad had been Muslim and complained would the Left be behind him?
Just a note…I as an educator, am required to show respect for my students. Arcadia stated that,”The teacher could have been rude to the kid about his manner of dress, his appearance, his intelligence or just about anything else, and he could not have been sued.” Not even close! Not only would that result in extreme disciplinary action by the administration and probably unemployment, but teachers HAVE been sued for inappropriate comments to students.
Report comment to moderator
The court dismissed all but one of Farnan’s objections, but found that Corbett’s statement calling creationism “superstitious nonsense” did violate the First Amendment clause against establishing a religion.
I agree with the court’s decision, even though Corbett’s statement about magical creation was correct. Everyone must respect the Establishment Clause. There can be no exceptions.
A related question – how to teach evolution without insulting the stupidity of Christianity? That’s simple. Just talk about the science. If a Christian retard complains about evolution’s religious implications, the student just needs to be told this is a science class and we discuss only science here.
Report comment to moderator
Just a quick addition…
For those who are saddened daily by the state of education and the apparent choke hold the secular left has on it…just letting you know that they aren’t always winning.
I was able to see an inspiring sight last week…well over a hundred students, of all denominations, gathered every morning to pray for a fellow student who is in the hospital. The crowd has diminished a little this week but that did my heart good. By the way, I have taught evolution, many students learn the material well, pass the mandatory state tests, and still laugh and joke about how ridiculous it is as a theory.
Report comment to moderator
BOB BUCKLES: “I don’t remember any of those countless tests of the hypothesis of evolution. Please refresh my memory.”
No Buckles. Do your homework. Don’t be a lazy Christian pig. Grow up and educate yourself. Don’t be afraid. You can study science without somebody holding your hand.
Report comment to moderator
“By the way, I have taught evolution, many students learn the material well, pass the mandatory state tests, and still laugh and joke about how ridiculous it is as a theory.”
Which proves beyond any doubt, INBUTNOTOF, you’re incompetent and you should be fired immediately.
Report comment to moderator
“gathered every morning to pray for a fellow student who is in the hospital.”
And did the magic fairy listen to those retards talking to themselves, and did the fairy wave its magic wand to cure the patient?
No, of course not.
You people are incredibly childish. Grow up.
Report comment to moderator
#60 Bobxxxx
“You people are incredibly childish. Grow up.”
Bobxxxx acts gown up.
“And did the magic fairy listen to those retards talking to themselves, and did the fairy wave its magic wand to cure the patient?”
Report comment to moderator
Bob quadruple x has improved, Buckles.
After all, he no longer feels the need to use all caps or bold lettering.
Congratulations, Bob.
Report comment to moderator
Arcadia:
“if religion can’t handle being spoken of disparagingly, it doesn’t deserve any respect whatsoever”
I agree with that statement completely, but do you? If I disparaged evolution as a theory for ignorant fools would you have anything other than an insult for a reply? More realilisticly, suppose I started making racist comments. Would you support stifling such remarks?
Perhaps religious groups are upset because libel based on a superfucial criterion are more subject to condemnation than a true difference.
Report comment to moderator
Meanwhile, the fossil record matches a worldwide Flood easier than it matches earlier hypotheses that it was a record of life from all eras.
Cheryl – Steve is right – you really do NOT know what your are talking about!
The fossil record contradicts a worldwide thread a bazillion time over (bazillion >>> millions)
What are you talking about? I know the sedimentary record moderately well – lead field trip classes for students that must learn the entire colorado plateau section from the bottom of the grand canyon to the top of bryce canyon. These rocks absolutely contradict creationist flood geology. It is “superstitious nonsense”. If you think otherwise, you’ve been completely lied to!
Report comment to moderator
BBPlease refresh my memory.
No point BB – you’d forget as soon as I told ya anyway – I’m sorry there’s no cure for evolutionary alzheimers.
Report comment to moderator
#55 I think it’s important to realize that the only point of conviction was a remark the teacher made about a former teacher (Peloza) who lost a legal suit against him and the district. The suit alleged the Peloza had the right to teach creationism and against evolution. The guy LOST. This remark was not made about or directly to the student, so all charges about the teacher being “mean” to the student (or whatever) fail on the only count for which the judge ruled against the teacher. This remark was not even specifically directed against the student’s religion (Christianity), but simply against the Young Earth creationism of Peloza.
All of the rest of the charges – which are the ones most often referred to in the “offended” Christian and right-wing media – were thrown out.
Report comment to moderator
#64 typing too fast – “Worldwide thread” = “Worldwide flood”
(flood? thread? – I have no idea …
)
Report comment to moderator
#65 – and “BB” is supposed to be BOBXXXXXXXXXXXX
I should go wake up again …
Report comment to moderator
#57 – “By the way, I have taught evolution, many students learn the material well, pass the mandatory state tests, and still laugh and joke about how ridiculous it is as a theory.”
Apparently you don’t teach it very well!
Report comment to moderator
If I disparaged evolution as a theory for ignorant fools would you have anything other than an insult for a reply?
It’s one thing to reply back critically. It’s quite another to mount a law suit to prevent you from ever saying that again!
Report comment to moderator
Spinoza and Bobxxxxxxxxx
I have no idea how you equate my ability to teach with the fact that students with any modicum of intelligence realize how flawed evolution is as a theory. My job is to present the material. Sorry that so many of our top students don’t buy into the liberal humanist garbage…
Keep trying…there are plenty of sheep out there to confuse!
And thank you both for reminding me how pointless it is to argue with posters like you.
Report comment to moderator
CherylD: I think this will be the century when the religious presupposition of origins without God will be harder and harder to maintain.
Evolution, in fact, says nothing about the involvement or not of God. I will agree that a good number of the loudest defenders of evolutionary theory are also non-believers, but there is nothing about evolution that requires non-belief, and many many people (including many of the less loud scientists) have no trouble reconciling the two.
I think this notion that evolution and religion are mutually exclusive is poisonous on both sides. They are not naturally opposed to one another, but too often the debate comes couched as, if you believe the science then you must hate God, or, if you believe in God then you must be ignorant of science. Neither of those positions are necessary, and they are damaging.
If you could wrap your head around the idea that a person can be a Christian and also accept evolution, would it even seem like a problem to you?
We know so much more about the complex design of the cell. In Darwin’s day, it was easy to imagine a one-celled life form arising by chance, since the cell was believed to be simple. Now we know about DNA and so much more . . . and evolutionists have responded by saying they don’t deal with how life began (because they can’t), but only with how it evolved (which actually they aren’t finding much easier to prove).
Evolution has never been about how life began. Creationists seem to be pointing to that a lot lately as somehow evidence of a weakness, but it’s like criticizing aerodynamics because it doesn’t explain why air exists. Aerodynamics is concerned with how air behaves, not why it exists, and evolution is concerned with how organisms develop.
The question of the ultimate origin is an interesting one, but it properly belongs in another realm of science, abiogenesis. Evolution says, however it is that life came to exist, whether by God’s creation or random chance, let’s examine how it operates.
The greater complexity discovered all the time isn’t helping evolutionists one iota; they’re losing ground.
Not at all. Complexity is not a problem for evolutionary theory, and as I mentioned earlier, the discovery of DNA and the subsequent study of genetics and genomics has been a major point of confirmation for evoution. Darwin postulated that organisms can change in apparently random ways; finally, thanks to genetics, we understand a great deal more about how and why that is true.
Meanwhile, the fossil record matches a worldwide Flood easier than it matches earlier hypotheses that it was a record of life from all eras.
I don’t know where you get this, but it is statements like this that lead me to think you have no idea what you’re talking about. That is categorically not true. There is absolutely NO evidence of any worldwide flood ever happening. There have been floods all over the world, but not simultaneously. And the fossil record is nothing like what one would expect if a single cataclysmic event had created all the fossils at once.
Something will “give” soon on this one, the same way neo-Darwinism is having to argue with intelligent design today.
There is no argument with ID because ID is a god-of-the-gaps set of guesses. It’s bad science and bad theology rolled into one. I really do not understand what Creationists think they would gain if ID gained prominence, because it is no more young-earth sudden creation than standard evolution is.
The “Eyewitness,” of course, is God. In court room evidence we have eyewitnesses and we have other evidence.
However, God does not come to the courtroom to testify. You don’t have eyewitness testimony, you have a story written down long after the fact, based on alleged divine inspiration, that contradict all the physical evidence. It would be disallowed as hearsay by any competent trial judge.
Statements like this just make you look silly, Cheryl. If Creation happened the way the Bible says, the physical evidence would confirm it; it does not.
The theistic side has both; the atheistic side has only crumbling physical evidence (not crumbling as in aging, but crumbling as in being undermined). Really and truly, I think atheistic scientists will be screaming louder and louder as the century goes on, but it will be because they’re losing.
Uh huh. Where do you get your information? I really would like to know.
By the way, there’s your invoking of what I said at the top: Evolution is NOT solely the domain of “atheistic” scientists. Many many religious believers, as I said, have no problem holding both as true. When you talk as if only atheists believe in evolution, you’re creating unneeded and unhelpful divisions.
(Where, BTW, are all these transitional forms? If they’re at the microbe level, I may or may not be able to follow the details, but I’ve sure never seen birds with scales-turning-to-feathers or any such clear transitional forms.
First, you need to understand that ALL forms are “transitional” in a sense. Evolution does not have defined endpoints. Life on earth today is just the current state of things. A million years ago it was very different. A million years from now it will be very different.
But in terms of fossils that show changes, there are a good number. I’ve posted links to articles about them before. One of the more famous is archaeopteryx which has characteristics of both birds (wings, feathers) and reptiles (teeth, fingers with claws, bony tail). For others, once more I will refer you here, and encourage you to spend some real time reading things.
In fact, interestingly many “old” species have recently been found still living, so they can hardly be seen as transitional!
Sure they can, in the way that all species are transitional. Evolution does NOT hold that one species turns into another. It describes the interaction of environment and genetic mutation on particular populations. One of the Darwin’s initial observations had to do with animals that were sequestered on islands in the Galapagos. They started off the same, but over several generations, one population would begin to show traits that were advantageous to survival, while another population on another island did not.
That is, just because the coelocanth, for example, turned out not to be extinct means nothing for evolutionary science.
What we need to see are species that really don’t function well in their present form, so they’re obviously on their way to being something else.)
Umm, no, species that don’t function well are on their way to extinction. You greatly misunderstand things if you think “transitional forms” are bad ones. Any species that survives is by necessity well adapated for its environment.
Report comment to moderator
To clarify a point from #72: Evolution does NOT hold that one species turns into another. It describes the interaction of environment and genetic mutation on particular populations.
Obviously, evolution does hold that species evolve from other species. What I meant was, the theory does not demand that the emergence of a new species means the earlier one no longer exists. It may only mean that one population of the earlier species evolved into a new one, while other populations did not and remain as they were. It’s all about the environmental factors that influence selection.
Report comment to moderator
InButNotOf: If I, in my class, state that Islam is “superstitious nonsense”, is that acceptable? Do Muslim students have the right to complain or sue? In fact if Chad had been Muslim and complained would the Left be behind him?
That’s pretty insulting on two levels.
First, it seems like most of us on the left were behind him anyway. I think discussions of religion in public high school should be limited to fact, not belief. The teacher teaches AP European History, and religion is a crucial part of that, so talk factually about things such as the Protestant Reformation, the emergence of Islam and its influence, the role of the Church (whether RC or Protestant) in various important events, but don’t harangue students with your personal opinions about the rightness or wrongness of it.
And I really don’t know why a history teacher was talking about Creationism anyway.
Secondly, I’m getting really really tired of the insinuation that “the Left” is somehow on board with the Muslims, and in particular, the implications of support for terrorism. Islam, as experienced in the real Islamic theocracies, is brutal, repressive and about as un-left as it gets. Why on earth do you think that, apart from arguing against treating them with prejudice, any freedom-loving American, right or left, would defend that?
Report comment to moderator
A couple of points being repeated in the blogosphere that are wrong about the case.
1. The teacher only made that one statement and that statement is not bad.
Wrong. Chad Farnan was able to show a pattern of Christian and faith bashing (Southerners bashing BTW, too) that was not appropriate in a public high school classroom setting. You have the legal conclusions which just focuse on a couple of the teachere’s statements. You can argue “legality” till you are blue in the face. Fact is this teacher displayed obvious bias against people of faith.
2. It’s perfectly acceptable to bash Christians like the teacher did.
Wrong. We are not talking about a Starbucks conversation. We are talking about a teacher in a classroom with high schoolers in a public school.
My stuff can be found at:
Jesus Glasses and Bloggers for Chad Farnan
Much like Rosa Parks, Chad Farnan sat in the back of the bus too many times. Only with Farnan, it’s not about a bus, such as the ones during Parks’ era in which blacks were told they could only sit in the back seats….
more at TheScroogeReport:
http://thescroogereport.wordpress.com/2007/12/27/jesus-glasses-and-bloggers-for-chad-farnan/
Report comment to moderator
Chad Farnan was able to show a pattern of Christian and faith bashing (Southerners bashing BTW, too) that was not appropriate in a public high school classroom setting.
Wrong. The court flatly rejected that argument.
Read the ruling.
Report comment to moderator
Steve G.,
1. I apologize if you were insulted by my comment. It was more of a hypothetical question…I was wondering why the obvious bias is always against Fundamental Christianity. I was merely observing that the education establishment as it stands would never stand for the teacher making comments about Islam in that way. I did not mean to imply any other relationship…
2. I am in agreement that evolution and Christianity need not be at war. I have never been arrogant enough to think I understand the method which God uses to create, BUT…so many texts and required curricula DO present macroevolution as a method of abiogenesis. All my students accept adaptation and microevolution…the evidence is there. It’s evolution on the macro scale that doesn’t fly…
Again, I did not mean to smear anyone.
Report comment to moderator
Steve,
I do know that many people hold to belief in God and in evolution–for the life of me I can’t figure out why, but I do know they do.
Yes, I’m very familiar with archaeopteryx–which is specifically why I suggested that a true link would show some kind of transition between scales and feathers. This was a bird with feathers. Does the platypus prove evolution? No, it suggests God’s sense of humor! (It doesn’t exactly match evolutionary hypotheses of which animals turned into which other animals!) The same with archaeopteryx.
The fossil record truly doesn’t show that a million years things were very different–all it shows it that some species have died out and some still survive.
Saying that ID is a “God of the gaps” theory shows that you don’t understand it; that’s a myth that’s easily refuted. It is, rather, looking at extraordinarily complex things that are a “code”–the kind of thing that shows intelligence, not random chance, and saying that the evidence supports this having been brought about by design, not random chance. I understand that many of its proponents aren’t biblical creationists–but that’s an argument all the more in its favor, from a scientific perspective–these are people who ought to be biased in favor of evolution, but find the evidence too strong.
But now it’s time for my lunch, so I’ll come back later with a bit more.
Report comment to moderator
This case seems to be deeply embarrassing to the skeptics and trolls out there, and rightly so.
We have a science teacher in California, who is an outspoken atheist/evolutionist. As such, he has a right, while teaching his subject matter, to communicate what he thinks, so long as he doesn’t “proselytize” them, i.e. force them to accept atheism as their belief system.
Corbett strikes me as a fool…not because of his belief system (he is welcome to believe that all reality, including the DNA making up the cells and molecules of his body, ultimately came into being because of time, chance, and a mysterious explosion at the beginning of history that nobody wants to talk about or discuss), but rather, because he is filled with anger at religion, and doesn’t know how to deal with his anger, and communicate his dissatisfaction in a civilized and dignified manner.
He’s apparently been teaching for a while, which given his history of making biased statements against religion and Christianity, says some folks haven’t had a backbone for confronting him.
It would be acceptable for him to be faculty advisor for a science club or atheist club after school, and make all the inane comments he wants to then, in a more protected setting. Instead, he acts extremely irresponsible, making outrageous comments…during class….insulting a segment of his population. And he is unapologetic about this!
If he were a Christian, creationist teacher, he’d be slammed instantly. The ACLU would be all over him, for not knowing when to shut up, and when to speak appropriately. Some folks may criticize the student as nerdy or “twirpy”, but I suspect the tables would be turned were the teacher Christian and the student atheist. Another point that shames skeptics and atheists.
Skeptics, atheists and trolls may agree with what the teacher said…but this is one teacher who behaved badly, and should be punished for it. Shame on those agreeing with his tactics.
Report comment to moderator
I’m back. I decided it was “safer” to compose in Word than on this blog, lest my Internet connection crash and I lose what I was saying. But continuing the discussion . . .
Regarding the idea that one can believe in God and evolution, yes, many people do. But again, I don’t see the point. It seems to me that these are people who are convinced that the evidence for evolution is so overwhelming that to be honest people they must accept it. But in reality, naturalistic evolution has as a starting point “there is no God,” so naturally it ends up without a God being necessary in the system. For a Christian to accept (uncritically) the “evidence” of unbelieving scientists is as counterintuitive as for that same Christian to accept a Muslim’s description of God.
I’m not saying that scientific evidence should be disregarded; I’m saying that a Christian needs to recognize the presuppositions, biases if you will, of those scientists and not assume that the scientists’ interpretation of the data is unbiased. Since their starting point is “no God,” obviously their ending point will be “no God.” It’s the same kind of limitation on science—yet more serious—that scientists had before the discovery of the table of elements or the invention of a good microscope. If you have limited data, your results will be colored by what you don’t know (or what you refuse to accept). The real question is where the evidence really leads, not whether scientists believe that the sun revolves around the earth; or that the universe is made up of earth, water, fire, and air; or that disease is caused by bad bile in the blood and will be cured by bloodletting; or that the Garden of Eden and the Great Flood are myths and must not be given any credence whatsoever, no matter where the evidence points. Honestly, modern science doesn’t prove that there was no worldwide flood (for example); it merely sneers at the notion and treats ridicule as a good answer. It isn’t.
Meanwhile, the Bible tells us “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament utters His handiwork.” If God is not the Creator, then the whole Bible is undercut. First off, God is claiming glory that doesn’t rightfully belong to Him; He’s also claiming obedience that is not His to demand. I might just as well break into my neighbor’s house and start ordering her kids around, as for God to come into a universe He didn’t create and start claiming it’s His to rule. “Well, but God did get things going before evolution kept it going.” How does this help us? Is God not capable of having done the whole thing Himself, or did He merely choose not to? The whole Bible assumes the historicity of Adam and Eve . . . and the world is set up on a seven-day cycle based on the days of creation; even the Sabbath commandment assumes six days of creation and one of rest. Really, a Christian’s starting point must be that the Bible is true even on Genesis 1-11. It’s only fair to look at both “sides” with an open mind and not give unbelieving scientists the benefit of the doubt. No, God has not entered a literal court room as an eyewitness, but if He is behind the Bible, we certainly ought to be able to trust it. And if He didn’t write it, why bother with it at all? I’m not discounting (for the sake of argument) the possibility that Genesis 1 and 2 are not a literal week, with God actually involved in each step . . . but it makes sense for a Christian to believe that they are unless it is adequately proven otherwise.
Report comment to moderator
Kennethos – 75
Excellent post –
You wrote:…. “Skeptics, atheists and trolls may agree with what the teacher said…but this is one teacher who behaved badly, and should be punished for it. Shame on those agreeing with his tactics.”
They should be ashamed but instead they support the teacher who made the remarks. The young man won in court which proves that this teacher is not above the law even though there are ninny’s out there who’s anger is unjustified.
Report comment to moderator
Again, I know there’s debate within the Christian community (and even within my own church) about whether days are literal days, whether the earth is young or ancient. Ultimately I don’t care all that much about those things. But the idea that God didn’t create it at all, or that He just sort of got the ball rolling and let evolution take it from there (guided or unguided) simply doesn’t fit the way Scripture talks, at all.
As to the idea that evolution has never been about origins, just about what happened after life started, that’s demonstrably untrue. Darwin believed life started quite by accident, perhaps in a “little warm pond.” He didn’t see it as a farfetched idea, because he didn’t see cells as very complex things at all. Scientists have done a lot of experiments with variations of the little warm pond; when nothing at all came even close to producing life, they gave up and said, “Oh well, that’s not rightly part of evolution anyway.” But that’s really just a copout. For a naturalistic explanation of life to work, the origin of the universe and the origin of life itself have to be part of the scientists’ problem. (To see evolution as an explanatory worldview, which it is treated as, being a “full” answer to origins really is necessary.)
You asked me about my sources. Well, I can’t be comprehensive, since I’ve been reading about related subjects ever since junior high, and that’s an awfully long time ago. I keep up on reading about animals (especially birds and mammals), so I’m more or less a lay expert on animal life and habits. (I could tell you more than you want to know about elephant reproduction or pretty much any subset of studies of animals, again mostly mammals and birds.) Much of this reading is of course from an evolutionary bias, or else from a neutral standpoint; little of it is explicitly Christian. I’ve also spent hours “in the field” observing wildlife. As to reading, my recent reading is many of the ID authors (Intelligent Design, Darwin’s Black Box, Icons of Evolution, and several more) and multiple issues of Creation magazine (and Creation Illustrated, which is less scientific and more devotional—but it still shows the wonders of creation, and summarizes new research). I’ve watched Expelled, an excellent and recommended video on Mt. St. Helens and another by the same scientist on the Grand Canyon (which gave some information that indicated the Flood’s reach—mostly limited to discussions of the Southwest, but a good starting point as to how flood-based geology can’t be just laughed off), The Privileged Planet (I own the book too, but haven’t yet read it—math gets in my way of having an ideal scientific mind, though science fascinates me), and several more. I have read Origin of Species, too, BTW—I don’t remember whether I read it word for word, but generally I do read entire books, so probably I read the whole thing or at least major portions of it.
Report comment to moderator
A random listing of creation evidences I’ve seen within the last year (not proofs, because I know that origins doesn’t deal with “proofs,” but facts that fit a special creation/ Flood model better than they fit a random-mutations model): the mathematical perfection of spirals in the universe; the fact that butterflies within the chrysalis dissolve into a sort of “goo” with nothing recognizable except a beating heart, and from there assemble from a caterpillar to a butterfly; the formation of canyons and layered rock in short order after Mt. St. Helens, causing geologists to rethink what they thought they knew about rock formation; the embedding of a certain fish-form fossil in limestone in the Grand Canyon (in a wall of limestone where the creation-believing scientist had been told not to bother to look, because the evolution-believing scientists were so sure that he’d waste his time) . . . and continuing across large parts of the Southwest; the fact that the ice locked away in polar regions is in lands that get less precipitation than almost any desert, suggesting massive climate changes happened after they were formed; the limits of change within a species, even when breeders deliberately press for change; the absolutely perfect place of the Earth in the universe, leading not just to life here, but amazingly abundant, various life; several aspects of planetary studies fitting creationist predictions and completely missing evolutionary predictions; erosion principles suggesting that earth’s mountains really can’t be more than a few thousand years old; and the absolutely amazing complexity of even the simplest cell (I’ve learned a lot about cell machinery).
I already knew such amazing detail as that the whitetail deer breeds in the fall (when animals have the greatest store of energy), but the embryo is put “on hold” for several months, and doesn’t start developing until spring, and is born amid the abundance of June. That spares the buck from doing the energy-depleting fighting and mating in the difficult early spring days, while at the same time it keeps the doe from being depleted of energy going to a developing fawn during the lean winter. And then of course the early life of the fawn is a marvel of protection for a vulnerable young animal. The cottontail rabbit is also (famously) a marvel of reproduction. Not only do they reproduce extraordinarily rapidly, in order to fill a low spot in the food chain without becoming extinct (they’re God’s gift to hawks and foxes), but the young are placed underground where they’re unlikely to be found by predators, and they only nurse after dark, possibly as little as once per day (research conflicts on this one). Imagine such tiny helpless young being able to survive for 18-24 hours between feedings, and still grow as fast as rabbits grow—yet such limited feedings also allow the rabbit doe to have litter after litter without having all her own physical resources depleted.
It seems to me that evidence like this points to a wise, loving God—not proof of His existence, no, but something to marvel at if it came from His hand. It leads me to worship and praise, and makes me want to know more about His handiwork, and about Him. Nothing about creation says that all individual species had to have been created in the beginning; mule deer are but a subspecies of white-tailed deer, for instance, and might have branched off from them in the days since creation. Nothing about special creation suggests nothing has ever changed; obviously man has bred great changes into everything from turkeys to dogs, and this has undoubtedly happened in the wild, too. But did amoeba evolve into fish, and so on up till man? No. (The vast leap from apes to man is one that makes me smile, personally.)
And that’s all I have for now. I did compose it offline, so if I missed a question or two, remind me.
Report comment to moderator
Cheryl D – “I’m back. I decided it was “safer” to compose in Word than on this blog,”
I believed that my typos have also proven that definitely above for different reasons than you claim.
Problem is – in Word, one starts writing papers of a length too long for thread interaction. I believe you have proven that! It’s too bad, cause the topic really does deserve that level of discourse.
Best to prioritize topics and pick *one* …
But alas, I must get back to a manuscript that is not for a “thread” …
Report comment to moderator
Spinoza, I was trying to address all the points Steve had raised (most of which, alas, were addressing points I’d raised earlier! each reiteration gets longer). Last time Steve and I dialogued on this issue, he wasn’t willing to assume a God as a starting point, and it’s easier to actually address the issues with someone who has that same reference point.
Report comment to moderator
Cheryl D:
Evolution does not have the idea that there is no god as a starting point. God does not have to do something directly to be in control. When you want to get somewhere you get up and walk(presumably). You do not ask God to teleport you around. This isn’t because He can’t but because he prefers you to move yourself. So why must he make the world in the same way as you or I would lash a boat together?
Report comment to moderator
God created the physical world to operate without direct intervention. It is true that he does sometimes intervene, and that without his upholding hand the world would cease to exist but forces such as gravity, pressure, and lightning are not direct instances of divine power. Neither is the diversity of species.
God’s use of naturalist methods does not lessen his power. He does not make a man, upon his conversion, instantly free from sin (as He could do). Rather he enables us to overcome and fight our sins. We are thus more than conquerors. Could not the physical world in the same way be more than a rather spectacular, but factory ordered cookie cutter, marvel?
Report comment to moderator
Provost, yes, God could have done it that way–but there’s no good reason to believe He did. I know (as I’ve said several times) that many people believe in both God and evolution. To me it seems the worst of both arguments–you don’t really accept Scripture, and you end up with a lot of the difficulties of evolution. And it seems to me that if most evolutionists don’t see God as having a hand in the process, Christians who are willing to accept their evidence over the equally strong evidence for creation and the Word of God are trying to play for the wrong team. A person can keep a foot in both camps that way–but I don’t see what he gains.
Atheistic evolution deals with Genesis by mockery, not by argument, and Christians hang their heads in embarrassment. It seems to me that a Christian should thus be willing to at least consider the evidence his own team has before running to the other, mocking team. Mockery isn’t an argument, but it has won over a lot of people who don’t even dare consider the actual evidence. The evidence that the universe didn’t just happen is growing all the time. (And God’s creation is certainly not “cookie cutter”–for one tiny example, look at the wide variety of human faces God put into the world! I walk out in an area where God’s warblers and mockingbirds and cardinals sing, and nothing at all says “Cookie cutter”!) The heavens declare the glory of God. They really do.
Report comment to moderator
Christians who are willing to accept their evidence over the equally strong evidence for creation and the Word of God are trying to play for the wrong team
What equally strong evidence? You’ve got one book (the Bible) that not even theologians can agree on what it says about creation, other than “God did it”, which leaves room for evolution.
And if a Christian is “playing for the wrong team”, what exactly does that mean? When they die, does God say “Sorry – you played for the wrong team – can’t let ya into heaven”? Or does God let them in, but everyone boos them as they pass through the pearly gates? Or do they get into heaven, but they have to wear an “Evolution: I was stupid!” t-shirt for a few millennium?
Report comment to moderator
Cheryl: After some thought, I’ve decided not to get into this with you again. We can agree to disagree.
Report comment to moderator
Well, I dislike agreeing with anyone who uses a Bugs Bunny icon, but he is right that theologians do not agree on what Genesis says about creation. That would be because it is one of the more complex regions of scripture.
It is not just liberal heretics who say that the creation account(s) in Genesis may be something other than literal. Not unless you consider B.B. Warfield a heretic.
Anlir,
The important doctrine of creation is that God is ultimately responsible. He’s not going to condemn anyone for making an honest mistake. Either that or the Geocentrists are burning right now…
Report comment to moderator
Cheryl D:
“yes, God could have done it that way–but there’s no good reason to believe He did”
I presume you mean that there is no Biblical reason to believe He did it that way, which is true.
There is also no Biblical reason to believe he did it the other way, in a cloud of smoke with a bang. That’s why there is a disagreement between old earthers and the other type, both Christians. The Bible is not conclusive on the issue. It can, and has been, interpreted either way.
Ultimately, the question of evolution is scientific. The Bible does not adress it, although there are theological repercussions as with Copernicus. After Gallileo, Christians finally realized we did not have to be at the physical center of the world to be important to God, but the scripture does not say so straight out.
If you accept that the Bible allows for either old or new earth then you can accept or judge evolution as science not theology.
Report comment to moderator
Cheryl makes excellent points.
Why is it that Genesis is so hard for those who are Christian Believers to believe? – what is it that you find so disturbing about the Genesis account?
Is GOD not able to create the heavens and the earth in a short span of time? -
Report comment to moderator
Victoria:
Genesis one gives two accounts of creation. One lists plants as being created on the third or fourth day (can’t remember) and man being created on the sixth. The next account says God formed man before any plant grew on the earth.
I suspect that both may be complentary allegorical accounts, rather than conflicting literal histories. Please, understand that I believe Genesis is the word of God, it just seems that our culture is more likely to take it literally than the Hebrews would have. Most of the psalms aren’t literal. David did not intend to have his sins washed away by real hyssop.
Report comment to moderator
Provost, the Jewish people would have taken “evening and morning were the fourth day” as quite literal. And setting creation as the basis for the commandment about honoring the Sabbath day is, again, a suggestion they did in fact take it literally. The plants question is potentially answered by the idea that one refers to the plants being created, one to the Garden of Eden actually being planted. (I’ve heard that explanation and it makes sense to me; I haven’t studied it myself.)
I actually don’t accept evolution as science; I accept it as philosophy, and erroneous philosophy. Yes, there have been changes over time in living creatures (more varieties of dogs and probably more subspecies of tigers, and some animals dying off); that can be observed by science. But microbes to man is philosophy, not science.
BTW, no, I don’t just mean “no biblical reason.” I mean that science with a creationist presupposition really can hold its head up alongside science with an evolutionary presupposition. That might not have been true a few years ago, and there’s still a lot more money and a lot more people in the evolutionary camp, but there’s excellent research coming out that supports the Bible’s historical record, whether in archaeology or biology or any other science on which the Bible touches.
Steve, I do hope you at least read my responses, since I did spend quite a bit of time writing them.
Anlir, obviously I was being tongue in cheek about a Christian who supports evolution “playing for the wrong team.” But when we have one group of scientists mocking believers as ignoramuses, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for believers to jump to their side and mock their fellow believers too. Now, they might respectfully disagree, but too often I see other Christians join in the mocking to prove they’re more sophisticated–and that’s spiritually dangerous to join the other team in such a way. (Not to mention they’ll be the ones who end up looking silly some day.)
Report comment to moderator
We can also look at Exodus, where it firmly states that the GOD created within 6 days, literally.
No matter whether someone chooses to take Genesis literally is up to them, or for that matter Exodus 20:11, now that would include the 10 Commandments. Anyone, including you can twist the Scripture, however if one studies, it isn’t that difficult to understand. Genesis is explicit regarding 6 days, and so is Exodus. I didn’t live in the days of Genesis or Exodus, but it’s clear those who did for the most part, followed Moses – the Jews weren’t uneducated as to the law of GOD. If they hadn’t taken it literally they wouldn’t have followed Moses now would they?
If one can twist six days then what might they do with the entire 10 Commandments?
Report comment to moderator
Will an evolutionist please show beyond proof a missing link between a toad and a person? How about a toad and a butterfly, a toad and a finger?
I’ll even go easier…. a toad to a frog!
Report comment to moderator
“Genesis one gives two accounts of creation. One lists plants as being created on the third or fourth day (can’t remember) and man being created on the sixth. The next account says God formed man before any plant grew on the earth.
I suspect that both may be complentary allegorical accounts, rather than conflicting literal histories”
Or its quite simply two different types of vegetation, which seems to be the implication. Considering the zoomed in version discusses simply the vegetation that would come about by man’s work in the field. The vegetation can also have been created, and yet was awaiting man’s work to cultivate growth.
Your contradiction is ill founded…as there is an obvious distinction.
Btw..where does Genesis ever present an even allegorical notion of billions of years? Its not there.
What does it say? Day, night, morning. God tells man to go forth and fill the earth and subdue it. Fill implies, reproduction and multiplying…well before death/sin was even a notion. In other words, genes are mixing and creating new diversified offspring. My point is that, God can easily create according to kinds, and let an adaptation mechanism, the combination of genes take over, especially in a concentrated environment pre/post fall like the earth was in. In essence, even an unconstrained mechanism of evolution would rapidly produce wide variation and diversity even over a few centuries.
I however, think its constrained, and I think scientific evidence so far only shows this.
In other words, mechanisms such as evolution are not dependent on billions of years…nor was creation, and the Bible certainly implies otherwise.
Report comment to moderator
“I think this notion that evolution and religion are mutually exclusive is poisonous on both sides.”
What makes it poisonous? Time? Would you agree Steve?
“And the fossil record is nothing like what one would expect if a single cataclysmic event had created all the fossils at once.”
For the record, you would expect consistant layering via a world wide flood from sediment/rock to other things like animals.
This is what hte fossil and geological record claims, consistancy.
Not a time issue.
Report comment to moderator
#99 “For the record, you would expect consistant layering via a world wide flood from sediment/rock to other things like animals.”
You would expect only a single FLOOD deposit that contained all known creatures mixed up together.
Instead – you have a sequence of depositional environments – shore, marine, desert, stream, etc., and you have a sequence of fossils from primitive to advanced. This is NOT what creationist flood geology would predict, ergo it was jettisoned well over 100 years ago by professional geologists, many of whom were committed Christians.
Report comment to moderator
back to topJoin The Conversation
You need to be a registered user of WORLDmag.com's Community section to "join the conversation."
If you are not a member yet, what are you waiting for? Register / Login Now!