At the very least, wouldn't this keep the creationists happy and make the
issue more interesting than the current creationism versus evolution debate
which isn't moving forward at all?
_
Stephen

"Ron O" <pokemoto@aol.com> wrote

All of this would come to light if one of these "teach alternative"
bills ever got passed. Even the IDiots would have to admit under oath
in court that they don't have an alternative that they can support
teaching at this time.

The problem for Creationists and/or Intelligent Design theorists is not that
they don't have any alternatives, rather it is that they have too many
alternatives. (Though I should point out that the "Intelligent Design"
theory is probably best thought of as an attempt to bring as many people as
possible under a single umbrella.)

The creation story of a tribal commuity in Siberia is likely to be quite
different from the creation story adhered to by a tribal community somewhere
in South America. And the creation stories of predominantly Western
Hemisphere religions (Judaism, Islam, Christianity, etc.,) are, again, quite
different from predominantly Eastern Hemisphere religions (Buddhism,
Hinduism, etc.,) Even the non-religious views of "deism" and "panentheism"
are diametrically opposed.

What appears to be behind the motive for advocating the inclusion of
Intelligent Design in the textbooks is a belief that underneath the pushing
of evolution in schools there is an "atheist agenda" in the background - an
accusation that is sometimes hard to deny. I myself, am a 'panentheist';
which is to say that I'm non-religious but believing in a supreme being that
is both immanent within and transendental to the Universe/Creation. For
this reason alone I will never be considered a true evolutionist because my
beliefs contain ideas of a "Creator" and thus, by extension of
"Creationism". And in our world of black and white you cannot both be a
creationist and a evolutionist at the same time (even though I would
describe myself as being very firmly in the evolution camp).

So what does this actually mean for the textbook debate? Well, we can't
possibly teach all of the religions, faiths and philosophies about creation
that exist (and that have existed?) so the evolutionists argue that only
evolution should be taught in biology class - an argument which clearly has
some merit.

But is there not also some merit to the arguement that
scientists should learn the moral and ethical implications of their
research? (Let's not be too hasty to forget that from the right we've had
eugenics and from the left we've had gender therapy that, for one tragic
individual, proved especially disasterous.)

Agenda driven science should be questioned, and taken to its inneviable end,
evolution and materialism in isolation do exorcise "God" out of sight and
mind.

As a panentheist, I can think of at least one rational argument as to
why that is premature: the as yet unexplained reason for the existence of
conscious awareness.

Some may try to say that consciousness and/or
awareness is simply an emergent property of neurons but that's wrong for two
reasons: first, it is actually information processing that is an emergent
property of neurones and, secondly, emergent phenomena are largely
psychological in origin. (They are certainly psychological in origin when
it comes to rendering the letters "c", "t" and "a" as the words "act" or
"cat" but almost certainly not psychological in origin when it comes to
molecular chemistry or architecture. However, we can explain (fairly well)
why individual elements bond to form molecules and why (well designed!)
arches become stronger as weight is placed upon them. But we can't explain
the transition from neurons to conscious awareness *at all*.)