Re: Judge Jones again

Thanks for posting, David. I had forgotten about Burgy's post of Judge Jones'
comments. I agree with you, and read Judge Jones' comments with considerable
discomfort. While I agree that religious dogma has no place in a science class
(with a few obvious exceptions such as the ethics governing treatment of
experimental animals), I believe we are creating the seeds of destruction of
our society by keeping religion out of the public schools. I'm not arguing for
teaching religion in the public schools, but public school teachers should be
careful that they do not give students the impression that religion is
irrelevant -- which they do by suppressing all mention of religion. Somehow
students in the public schools must learn to understand the value of religion
without being indoctrinated in a particular religion. Obviously the schools
can't teach religion, but they should support the efforts of family and
church/synagogue/temple/mosue to instill religious values in students.

--- David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:

> Oh dear, where to begin. I despise "Christian America" rhetoric, but I
> despise this sort of revisionism even more. Some of the "founders" were
> rationalists, many were Deists, and a few outright rejected traditional
> religion. But most were Christians, and though they intended to establish a
> secular republic and not a "Christian nation," they surely would never have
> accepted the trope that "true religion" is reason freed from the tyranny of
> quaint artifacts like churches and Bibles.
>
> Nor would they have recognized "religious freedom" as "barring any alliance
> between church and state." They viewed the church as fundamentally the ally
> of the state because they understood that a republican democracy is doomed
> without an informed, virtuous public, and they further understood that
> knowledge and virtue come fundamentally from institutions like the church
> and the home, and not from the government (or from government-run schools).
> They would have been horrified to learn that the first amendment, which was
> intended to secure religious freedom in part by prohibiting an official
> state religion, has been read to require the establishment of a state-run
> education system scoured of references to God and religion.
>
> More and more it's clear to me that Judge Jones is no friend of anyone who
> believes religion and science need not exist in perpetual conflict.
>
>
> On 5/22/06, Carol or John Burgeson <burgytwo@juno.com> wrote:
> >
> > Judge Jones again.
> >
> > "The founders believed that true religion was not something handed down
> > by a church or contained in a Bible, but was to be found through free,
> > rational inquiry. They possessed a great confidence in an individual's
> > ability to understand the world and its most fundamental laws through the
> > exercise of his or her reason. This core set of beliefs led the founders,
> > who constantly engaged and questioned things, to secure their idea of
> > religious freedom by barring any alliance between church and state."
> >
> > --U.S. District Judge John E. Jones, who outlawed the teaching of
> > "intelligent design" in science class, in his commencement address Sunday
> > to 500 graduates at Dickinson College, his alma mater.
> >
> > More and more I am coming to believe that church-state separation and the
> > best teaching of science are inextricably intertwined.
> >
> > Burgy
> >
>

Bill Hamilton
William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
248.652.4148 (home) 248.821.8156 (mobile)
"...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31

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Received on Wed May 24 15:33:21 2006