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Quote by: gallo  The old foot in the door ploy, huh? Let's just try to poke some god into science just a little bit and then maybe later we can use that as a wedge to cram the whole theology down children's throats by pretending it is science. The concept of god is not based on science and therefore does not belong in science classes. Your moral duty is also irrelevant as are your concepts of some unspecified error.
By the way, the closest that anyone has ever come to testing the efficacy of prayer found that prayer mattered only if the person being prayed for knew he was being prayed for and believed it would help. (Seems like a reasonable reason to pray for someone, doesn't it?)
We should not teach religion in science classes. We should not teach pro or con. There is no place in science class for theology. And since there is no evidence that any god exists or doesn't exist, there would be no point in pretending to teach something meaningful in a science class.
Maybe where you live, but not in my country. I'm in the U.S. and what you suggest would be Constitutionally prohibited by the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment. Since schools and school boards are divisions of state government, they are bound by the 1st Amendment as incorporated under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, to neither endorse nor support religion. Our government cannot show preference for one religion over another, for religion over non-religion, or for non-religion over religion. Our government must, as much as is possible, remain neutral on the question of religion. Thus, the existance of god that is without scientific evidence one way or the other may not be presented. |
I'm not a wedge strategist but an atheist.I can see your point though - no religion in science class. Howzabout we teach evolution, cosmology and geological time as opinions against young earth creationism in comparative religion class? I don't know if that is already done. As for teaching about prayer, well for instance scientists do publicise both positive and negative outcomes in drug trials.
Parapsychology is a science IMHO, and I believe that youths are easily lead by tales of levitation, magic, psychic spoon bending powers etc all of which have been shown not to exist, or based on hoax, as far as we can tell (I believe - (I say "believe" because I'm not a parapsychology scollar but as far as I've read thats what the experiments show)).
Prayer, in double blind studies, doesn't work. As far as I know. (
http://www.cosmeta.com/_Forums/view_...25&forum_id=51)
I did have a link to another article but can't find it. It was mentioned therein that the studies showing positive outcomes had been seriously flawed. As for your case example where prayer worked, couldn't the benifits be explained better by the placebo effect of people knowing they were being prayed for and believing in it's efficacy?
I hiope I'm not being too antagonistic here as you are a reasonable and well educated individual.
Neutrality with regards to religion? Well when
people think that trees are going to tell muslims to kill jews, and the voice of reason is "censored", how can we hope to advance and live in peace? Although again I can see the advantage in neutrality. Where I live there are faith schools, but I believe in a secular system. I just don't see why one ought to leave the faiths alone in science class - scientology is a good example in the present context - criticism and evidence based reasoning could be applied to issues that effect young and developing minds like "should we rely on prayer alone or talk to the doctor as well?". There are of course also some tentatively proven effects and aspects of religion like insight meditation affecting brain structure over time and working for others making you happy.(source new scientist articles on buddhism). And it's all 'science'. So why not teach it in a secular classroom?