Different camps weighing in on the debate on whether Florida schools should teach evolution said at a public hearing that the other has no proof on how life originated.
Speakers that included local educators, parents and students made their final arguments Tuesday in favor of and against the teaching of evolutionary theory in science classes at Everglades High School in Miramar.
It was the last of three public hearings before the Florida School Board votes the issue on Feb. 19. Just last week, a meeting was held in Jacksonville.
Among other revisions in the state science standards, the board is expected to decide whether to mandate the use of the word "evolution" in place of "biological changes over time," which is used now.
"We're in opposition to teaching evolution as a fact. Evolution continues to be a theory," said Oscar Howard Jr., superintendent of Taylor County school district, according to the Associated Press.
Howard’s district is officially opposed to teaching evolution as a fact after a resolution on the topic was passed by the Taylor County School Board.
If the state approves the new standard regarding evolution, Howard indicated that there will be backlash. He said he has heard from hundreds of parents who promise to pull their children out of the school system and put them in private schools.
While he has nothing personal against supporters of evolution, the superintendent contended that "they can't prove a darn thing they're saying."
Laura Lopez, a parent who has three children in the Palm Beach County school system, took a more direct swipe at evolution, calling it "a lie."
"Satan is telling people these lies and people are believing them," she told the crowd of about 75, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Representing supporters of the new changes, Shawn Greene, a senior at South Broward High School, argued that it was creationism – a biblical view that God created the universe – that lacked evidence.
"Evolution, although it has been said to be a theory, it is basically been proven. Creationism is a religious concept, an abstract one at that."
Those favoring the revised standards believe they would help students perform better in science classes.
State Rep. Shelley Vana (D-Lantana), who has taught Advanced Placement Biology, said, "You can't even teach that and have your kids pass the test if you don't teach evolution," according to the Sun-Sentinel.
But Richard Wilbar, an English teacher at North Miami Senior High School, said the wording doesn't need to change as long as all the facts are taught.
"Keep the language as it is," he stated. "Evolution, you know and I know, is a loaded word, and we don't need it." Children should be taught biological facts but not theories about "an organizing force for life."
Members of the State Board of Education have yet to fully disclose their positions although at least one said he will vote for the standards and one has expressed dissent.
In addition to comments made at the public hearings, the Board is also expected to consider the views reflected in over 10,000 online comments to its website.
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Detailing Darwin
My muse is clothed is sackcloth
Like sunglasses in a dark place
The Paleozoic need
Sleeping with a light in your face
Memoirs detailing Darwin
Madame Tussauds waxing cold
Hunting phantasmagoria
Persons of that serpent of old
Like some post Freudian slip
Darwin’s recantation at death
He said as he held his Bible
“That my theories were just a guess!”
His book, “My Life and Letters”
“My ideas were uninformed”
And I quote him verbatim
“Not one species has evolved!”
“And to my astonishment
The ideas took like wild fire
Made into a religion”
Of which the atheists admire!
The ‘fairy tale’ graveyard lift
The mortal theory held dear
Pray tell, will you answer then
When will our replacements get here??
Nothing real can be threatened
Just as nothing unreal exists
Science can’t prove evolution
Yet the uninformed still persist!
God created man from ‘dust’
To rule over fish in the ‘sea’
Darwin died citing Creation
And he begged God’s message be preached!
Tragedian Bete Noire
www.rapturealert.com
2-10-08
“he comes up with the idea that we need to stop wars because we are insignificant.”
Chris, I guarantee that wasn’t what Sagan was implying. Rather, he views our history as part of a small anomaly in terms of everything else in the history of our Universe. His eagerness for humanity to realize that in only a few 1000 years we have already produced the means to destroy ourselves means we should operate in the most rationale means and drawdown and remove our nuclear weapons aimed at each other.
I think the absolute opposite is inferred, in that in all the cosmos our own existence is up to us to decide. As he put it succinctly, we have discovered the power to use as we will and must decide if we will use it to spread our seed amongst the stars, or to destroy ourselves
“If evolution theory has nothing to do with the origin of life, then it surely cannot comment on theism. Yet we see two hypocricies here. The first is that "atheistic" evolutionists do comment on theism,”
Chris, Evolution can’t describe theism or god, but science and all it’s realms of study can to an extent touch on it, more so as it relates to miracles and the like.
“My statement was that the random side of evolution (which is necessary for evolution) is not supported by evidence”
What Random side of evolution? Mutations are the only ‘random’ thing involved with natural selection and evolution. If you think evolution is random, you've not read it in depth enough.
“So you say, "Miracles do not exist, because God does not exist, because miracles do not exist. SEE YOU THEISTS ARE STUPID AND ILLOGICAL!!!"”
No, we look at the evidence for and against miracles and determine how miraculous they all are in the abstract and form a conclusion that they don’t occur. If miracles don’t occur it doesn’t mean ‘no god’ either as Deists and Pantheists whom believe in god don’t believe in miracles
I considered copying and pasting from my past arguments to re-refute every point you brought up, but I think I would be wasting my time. If you are interested, you can go back and reread them. And if you are interested, you can actually deal with the points I made and come up with real arguments against them, if not and you want to keep positing circular arguments and name-calling then I am done.
There have never been any miracles because miracles are impossible. You don't seem to understand the concept called "reality". The idea there's a creature with unlimited powers is a man-made fantasy.
People invented zeus, god, judaism, christianity, and islam. Man invented every miracle, including the muslim story about the moon splitting into two pieces and the disgusting christian story about the jesus zombie. People wrote the Bible. There was no god whispering in their ear when they wrote it. Just like the fiction writers of today, they made things up. They had strong imaginations, and from what I have seen in the Bible, their imaginations were disgusting.
Every single detail of every single religion is an invention. Mental child abuse is required to keep these myths alive. Believers in this nonsense are victims. Their belief is a disease but they refuse to admit how sick they are.
The people who lived 2,000 years ago thought the stars they could see was the entire universe. They thought the earth was the center of that universe, and they thought our sun orbited the earth. They knew nothing about evolution. They didn't know people were apes. They didn't know how stars and planets form. They thought everything was magically created. These were the kind of people who were willing to believe anything, even something as idiotic as the Resurrection.
How convenient that you explain the Resurrection by saying god can do anything. This is the problem. The answer to every question is god-did-it. There is no answer more boring and more worthless than invoking a magic man who can do anything. Totally unlimited powers. He can destroy or create, whatever he feels like doing, he does it. It's totally a fantasy. Totally man-made.
I thank the people who laughed at my idiotic religious beliefs 42 years ago. They made me realize how sick in the head I was. Accepting reality and rejecting the insanity of supernatural nonsense is the best thing that ever happened to me.
Yes I watched it,
It was very moving. And I couldn't agree more with him, except that somehow he comes up with the idea that we need to stop wars because we are insignificant. I was expecting him to say something in the end like, "After all the wars suffering and death, we can see that none of it really makes a difference, and only we care, but we are going to fade into nothingness" He made good points, except he didn't give a reason for the end which seemed to be the point he was trying to make. I think if you took that off, then his speech would have made more sense.
I will look at your link though
"every reference to god it makes, and every single miracle, has to be a made up story."
This is circular reasoning, it says "Miracles can't be true, because miracles aren't true"
You seem to have the view that the universe was always here, and then God "picked" our solar system arbitrarily. This goes against reason. First of all no matter what planet God chose, you would still complain that He could have done it some other way.If you keep at this argument you end up saying, why didn't God create a universe the size of our planet and just have everything in it? Yet this is a double standard, you question me as to why things are the way they are, but if I ask you, scientifically, why things are the way they are, you say, "They just are, accept it!" If I took the same line I could just say with the exact same veracity as you say, "This is just the way God wanted it, accept it!" Nonetheless, as John Polkinghorne puts it well, I believe this planet and universe, at least from the knowledge we have, is highly specified and likely to be the best possible universe for life as we know it. (I wouldn't make a claim like this on my own, but he is a quantum physicist so I trust him).
Also, you claim that the body of Christ must have been this maggoty corpse or some such nonsense. So you say, well even if God could resurrect someone, He surely could not preserve a body. Or you say that He couldn't just reproduce the body's pattern from the existent materials. (Yes I copied from my argument below, it is sufficient to re-answer your propositions)
"Another question is why did god perform his magic during a time when people were most likely to believe anything, no matter how crazy and impossible it is?"
You assume ancient people were ignorant, and we are somehow smarter. This is not a fair assumption. Also there were several reasons why Christ came when He did, (various prophecies in the Bible and what not). Besides that, I highly doubt that if you heard tomorrow that a man had been resurrected and 500 people saw it, that you would believe it anyways. You don't believe anything except for science (blindly if necessary).
My attempt to make a link didn't work. If you want to watch the video you could copy and paste this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M
I highly recommend it. The music is excellent, Sagan's words are beautiful, and his message is extremely important.
Chris333, to help you understand the point I was trying to make about the insignificance of our planet, I suggest you watch this 3 minute YouTube video.
Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M
I'm going to try to make it so you can just click on it. I hope this works.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M">Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot</a>
Hello Chris333. Think how boring it would be if we agreed about these things.
If there's anything in the Bible that isn't about god or miracles then I don't care if it's true or not, but every reference to god it makes, and every single miracle, has to be a made up story. Then there's the disgusting violence in the Bible, which makes me wonder why children are exposed to this nonsense.
What's most interesting to me is why so many people think their planet is so special. I was at the bookstore earlier today looking at a book of pictures from the Hubble Telescope. One large photo was almost completely filled with stars. There must have been millions of stars in just that one photo. The 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 estimate of the number of stars I talked about earlier has to be an underestimate because the light from millions of stars hasn't reached earth yet, because they are so far away. More stars than grains of sand on all our deserts and beaches. A number so large it's impossible to imagine it. Yet people think god chose this place for his magic tricks.
Also interesting to me is the magic trick the christians think god performed. You didn't seem to like my description of the dead body of jesus. I could have went into a lot more detail about what a 3 day old corpse looks like. It really is disgusting and the smell would be unbearable. So why did god choose this magic trick? Is god really that perverted?
So we got two major problems with the Resurrection. Why here, and why choose the most repulsive magic trick possible?
Another question is why did god perform his magic during a time when people were most likely to believe anything, no matter how crazy and impossible it is?
It all adds up to be the biggest hoax in human history. This con job continues today, thanks to the religious indoctrination of gullible 5 year olds. I'm glad I have nothing to do with a religion that requires mental child abuse to survive. I can't imagine anything more immoral than teaching children that what are obviously made up stories are facts. There can be no crime greater than lying to children.
Then you seem to have the view that the universe was always here, and then God "picked" our solar system arbitrarily. This goes against reason. First of all no matter what planet God chose, you would still complain that He could have done it some other way. If you keep at this argument you end up saying, why didn't God create a universe the size of our planet and just have everything in it? Yet this is a double standard, you question me as to why things are the way they are, but if I ask you, scientifically, why things are the way they are, you say, "They just are, accept it!" If I took the same line I could just say with the exact same veracity as you say, "This is just the way God wanted it, accept it!" Nonetheless, as John Polkinghorne puts it well, I believe this planet and universe, at least from the knowledge we have, is highly specified and likely to be the best possible universe for life as we know it. (I wouldn't make a claim like this on my own, but he is a quantum physicist so I trust him). Also, you claim that the body of Christ must have been this maggoty corpse or some such nonsense. So you say, well even if God could resurrect someone, He surely could not preserve a body. Or you say that He couldn't just reproduce the body's pattern from the existent materials. Of course these claims are ridiculous, so you back up and say "Magic, magic, it's all just magic!". Which really isn't an argument, it is the equivalent of saying, "Miracles cannot be true, because they are magic (not true but for sake of argument I will accept it), and then we know magic is silly and childish (how do we "know" this? Not that I am denying it), and since if God did miracles, which are really magic, then that makes God a big magician in heaven (also not true, or even a logically coherent argument, it is just playing with words) this makes God silly and childish, so only silly and childish people believe in God!" This is not an effective argument on any level. Change the words and it says, "Believing in God is silly, because miracles are silly, and since God performs miracles it makes Him silly" The argument is just silly.
By the way, you say science allows us to communicate this far, I say it is the God who gave us life and the ability that allows us to communicate. This is only a matter of interpretation.
Bob, you are twisting my statement. I didn't even suggest that atheists were evil. I made a statement, and you didn't answer it. I hope you are doing this unknowingly and not intentionally, but if you are doing it unknowingly, then you might want to think about your whole argument, because it might be possible that you are misinterpreting the facts there also. If you are doing it intentionally, then I have no reason to debate any longer.
Also, I didn't say the Bible was correct because it says it is correct. I said the Bible is a trustworthy book (more appropriately a trustworthy collection of documents). Time and again the Old and New Testaments are corroborated by archeaology, and only the fringe liberal scholars would deny this. There is just overwhelming evidence for its historical accuracy, at least to the time of Abraham. The NT is overwhelmingly supported by historical accuracy as well. Take in mind the Bible was written over 1500 years and by around 40 authors from all walks of life. This kind of accuracy and diversity is unheard of, anywhere.
July 23, 2003 CNN news article: "Ever wanted to wish upon a star? Well, you have 70,000 million million million to choose from. That's the total number of stars in the known universe, according to a study by Australian astronomers. It's also about 10 times as many stars as grains of sand on all the world's beaches and deserts."
Chris333: "we have the Bible, and we have the resurrection."
Of course the Bible, written by ancient ignorant people who didn't know anything about science and who were likely to believe any nonsense, certainly could not have any made up stories in it. After all, the Bible says the Bible is correct, so the Bible must be correct. That sure makes sense to me.
And of course a god would choose our solar system, out of 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 solar systems, to perform his disgusting magic trick, turning the stinking maggot infested corpse of jesus into a zombie. Yeah, right, that makes sense. Of course the jesus zombie then flew up to the clouds. That's so easy to believe I wonder why more than 4 billion people think the Resurrection is an insane idea.
Isn't it interesting, Chris333, that we have been having this conversation even though we live on opposite sides of our planet. What made this possible, science or god?
If someone can derive satisfaction from murdering 7 year olds then he has found meaning for his life. In fact, that's the meaning of my life. There's nothing I enjoy more than murdering children. Virtually all atheists find meaning this way, from killing for the fun of it. We must be pretty good at getting away with it, because there's virtually no atheists in American prisons. There's 30 million atheists in America, every single one of them is a serial killer, and not one of them has been caught yet. If only we had an invisible friend called Jesus. Then we could have the same moral values only a Christian could have.