Ben Stein's new movie got me thinking about the whole evolution and creationism debate and public schools. Personally, I am a Christian but I do believe in evolution, which is more common than a lot of people would have you think. As for intelligent design, I suppose I actually do believe in it, as I think that it was God's intention for humans to evolve as we did. However, intelligent design specifically states God's role, and therefore should not be taught in public school. Teaching kids evolution allows us to decide whether or not we think that there was a designer. I still think Creationism has a place in public schools, but not in science class. I think that high school education is incomplete without requiring students to take a basic religion class. The Bible is certainly more important historically and as literature than any other work students are expected to know, as it is largely the basis for Western Civilization. If it were a 1 semester course, they could divide it up as 9 weeks on the Bible, Christianity and Judaism, 3 weeks on Islam, and then 6 weeks on other religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Mormonism (I'm not saying they're not Christians, but they have another book), and the various non-theistic thought processes like humanism and materialism, and also some on Shinto, Jainism, Confucianism, various tribal and pagan religions of the past and present, and new religious movements. Not knowing about religion makes one just as ignorant as someone who doesn't know about history, science, literature, or math, and an objective course on religion belongs in public schools. Some people might complain about this, and want it to be optional, but I don't think it is any worse for a parent to request exemption for their kid when they teach evolution than request exemption for a religion class. The class would serve both to help us understand other religions and to teach kids stuff that an educated person just needs to know.
Evolution, Creation, and Religion in Public Schools
By donttreadonme - Posted on April 21st, 2008
Tagged: creation
• Creationism
• Evolution
• Intelligent Design
• public schools
• Religion
• separation of church and state
I agree that learning about religion is important, but I also believe that making it a class is probably not the best option. So, my proposition would not be to have it as a class, but to integrate it into a World History curriculum. That way they learn about the religion in context to the peoples and other influences on religion that is not necessarily part of the religion, but influence it. But I agree that some basic introduction to many different religions would be good. But few people are going to want to take the class or have their children take the class. And the people that don't want to take the class are just going to waste their time and waste the class period. Or maybe instead of one year of this world history class they begin in elementary school so that the ideas are reinforced year after year until they reach high school and learn U.S. History.
"As for intelligent design, I suppose I actually do believe in it, as I think that it was God's intention for humans to evolve as we did."
Thank...Bob... you aren't full of bible-thumping literalism. So many people think that Adam and Eve was how it happened, and everything was just there magically at once.
Can you say incest-party?!?!
Some say dinosaurs never existed... yikes...growl!
I think that if you have religion class in a public school, you might also have to teach that some people are agnostic/atheist, and you should have to treat it with the same respect as all of the religious beliefs out there.
Also, you might have to weave it in through a history course as mentioned above me.
"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." -F.N.
I loved taking Social Studies Survey.
My teacher went over ten to hirteen different religions, and I couldn't get enough. It was his own little side excursion from the lesson plans given by state, but I'll never forget it. I would love to have religion classes at high school. We had a month to cover the five major religions and a few lesser known ones. That is hardly time to understand the culture and reasons for these peoples beliefs. Thank you for this blog.
-Monica