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to what extent is religion important at education
theory of evolution
Interaction between religion and education
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Church and State
The theory of evolution is at odds with the views of many religions, and
many people want to allow a religious view of creationism to be taught in the
public school system. The foundation of evolution is based upon the belief that
the origin of all ordered complex systems, including living creatures, can be
explained by natural laws without the initiation or intervention of God. A
person who believes in the biblical model of creation is viewed by some non-
believers as a naive, narrow-minded religious fanatic who is not willing to look
at the observable evidence with an open mind. Because the evolutionary idea of
origins has been so widely accepted by the scientific community, many people
have reasoned that the creation model should be completely rejected without
fairly examining its claims. Even many Christians who have deep trust and faith
in the Bible have never really understood the claims of the creation account
(McLean 11).
Over the past several years, a great deal of controversy surrounding the
creation-evolution issue has been generated by scientists who have based their
claims on the creation model and have been willing to let their reputations
stand. Creationists have openly requested that when the discussion of origins
occurs in the public school system, both the model of creation and evolution be
presented side by side.
Initially, scientists and educators who have accepted the theory of
evolution without question were reluctant to pay any serious attention to
creationism; however, it has now become apparent that substantial numbers of
people are taking creationism seriously. Many evolutionists view this trend as
a serious threat to the advancement of science and have vowed to do everything
in their power to stop the teaching of creation in the public school system.
Most evolutionists now view creationism as nothing more than a particular
version of fundamentalist Christianity with no valid scientific content. One
hundred-fifty years ago such a theory for the origin and history of the earth
and life would have been termed absurd. Today, however, those who reject the
idea of random evolutionary processes being responsible for designing life and
shaping the geological features of the earth are termed religious, unscientific
fanatics.
Today, throughout the industrialized world, the moment children are able
to respond to their environment, they are constantly bombarded with the doctrine
of evolution. Faith in the biblical concept of creation by the hand of God is
ridiculed and rejected by the secular system of education. Humanistic thinking
widely accepts evolution as fact, even though "The all-too frequent picture of
evolution as a progression from ameba to man, is, and always has been, utterly
Robert Root-Bernstein and Donald L. McEachron, “Teaching Theories: The Evolution-Creation Controversy,” The American Biology Teacher, Vol. 44, No. 7 (Oct…1982). This article, written by Robert Root-Bernstein and Donald L. McEachron sheds light on the controversy of evolution vs creationism in schools and the validity of each being called a scientific theory. The work was created to answer the questions, “Which of these theories is truly scientific and which is a religious belief? Which should be taught in schools?” The article concluded in favor of evolution as a valid scientific theory that should be taught rather than creationism, but also mentioned the worth of understanding the latter.
The First Amendment and Dealing with the Separation of Church and State. Is it unconstitutional for local, state or federal governments to favor one religion over another? another. Then what about the sand? Government can show favoritism toward religion by displaying religious symbols in public places at taxpayer expense, by sponsoring events like Christmas. concerts, caroling, by supporting the teaching of religious ideas, or even by supporting the teaching of creationism in public schools.
These days, most of the textbook only presents evolution theory as a fact to interpret the origin of life and the earth. More and more people get to reject creation unconsciously because they had no opportunity to compare and evaluate both worldview in same degree. I interviewed my three close acquaintances and heard a various responses from many people including my interviewees. Some of them had same belief with me, but some people had significantly different opinion with me. As a consequence of evolution theory’s monopoly in education, non-believers and Christians are unconsciously influenced by this secular worldview.
It has been suggested that there is currently a culture war taking place in the United States. Depending on who you listen to, you will get vastly different descriptions of the two sides. Some will insist that the fight is between the upholders of strong Christian, moral values and godless, secular-minded, moral relativists. Others will tell you that defenders of religious freedom and rational thought are battling religious fundamentalists who wish to impose their radically conservative views on the whole of the American populace. Regardless of which way you view the debate, the entire so-called “culture war” boils down to a basic disagreement over the place of religion in public life. In light of President Bush’s recent nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, I believe it is prudent to have a thorough discussion of the Constitutional principle of separation of church and state, because how the Supreme Court rules on issues related to this principle in the future will have a profound impact on how we define ourselves as a country. In order to conduct a thorough inquiry into this debate, I believe it is necessary to start at the beginning and attempt to discern how our founding fathers viewed religion’s place in public life, and how they relayed this view in the First Amendment. After I have done this, I will try to apply some of the principles I have gathered to current hot-button social issues which are likely to come before the Supreme Court in the not too distant future.
"Prayer has been banished from schools and the ACLU rampages to remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. Moreover, “Separation of Church and State” is nowhere found in the Constitution or any other founding legislation. Our forefathers would never countenance the restrictions on religion exacted today." -- Bill Flax, Forbes, 2011
Church-state relations in America has been widely discussed and hotly debated. One school of thought holds that the church should be absolutely separated from the state, while another holds that the church plays a moral role in state building and its sanctity, without which the state risks falling apart. In my discussion of the church-state relations, I state that the history of church-state relations has a Constitutional basis. Next, I discuss the two schools of thought in context and how they have shaped contemporary American political thought. Finally, I argue that the two schools of thought have a common ground. This is followed by a summary of my key arguments and a conclusion to my essay.
Justice Felix Frankfurter stated in his opinion in McCollum v. Board of Education, "We have staked the very existence of our country on the faith that complete separation between the state and religion is best for the state and best for religion. If nowhere else, in the relation between Church and State, good fences make good neighbors." (Moore 1) For the last century in America and ideological war has been fought in our legislatures, courts, and schools. Some parts of the fundamentalist Christian movement have tried repeatedly to prevent the teaching of the Darwinian theory of evolution in public schools because they see it as a threat to their religious beliefs. Darwin's theory posits that species evolve over eons of time, changing in ancestor-descendant relationships from one species to another. This is often perceived as standing in direct conflict with the Bible account of the creation of the world as told in Genesis, which states that the world is only a few millennia old and that god created man and all of the species of animals in a single epoch. The latest battle in this conflict is over the theory of Intelligent Design (ID). Robert Weitzel states that "IDers maintain that life is too complex to have developed solely by evolutionary mechanisms. They believe this complexity could only have been engineered by an intelligent designer. Strategically, they refrain from identifying the nature of the designer. This tactic is designed to give their notion of creation a patina of scientific credibility and protection from First Amendment challenges" (1). Intelligent Design advocates have pushed forward on many fronts to try and introduce it into school curricula all over the country and they are meeting with a measure of success and a good deal of popular support. While the ID movement enjoys wide support from the populace, especially in traditionally conservative areas, it is imperative that the teaching of Intelligent Design is kept out of public school curricula because of the separation that must be maintained between religion and state.
Teaching of evolution has several issues. One of the main issue is that it is unfair to some students with a background of Christianity. Christians believe in Creationism, meaning God created the whole world or if not, most of the world. Darwin's theory of Evolution is complete contradictory of this. In the Bible, it is stated that God made humans in His image while Darwin's theory says that Humans evolved from monkeys. It is basically proving that God, does not exist, violating the first amendment, Freedom of Belief. The first amendment states "..respecting the establishment of religion..." When Christian students listen and are forced to learn the theory of Evolution, it is restricting them to worship without obstacles and is therefore, disrespecting the establishment of religion by defying the existence of God. "If Genesis were interpreted as symbolic, as a myth, fable or fantasy, then the entire role of Jesus would have to be reinterpreted."(http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_school.htm)
On January 1, 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut in which he stated:
Without a God how do we know what is right from wrong. What is good or bad? The Ten Commandments tell us what is right or wrong and good or bad, but the constitution says the church has to be separate. If there is no God in our government we cannot have our Ten Commandments, how do we know what is right or wrong? The current opinion of courts is that the First Amendment bans religion in our government to protect the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from the government. The first amendment does not say church and state should be separate since our founders understood if church and state were completely separate, our government would fall apart.
America is constantly evolving and redefining itself. We have come to the point where we are less inclined to criticize individuals that are different from us and more inclined to embrace eachother’s eccentricities. Those who oppose a separation between church and state claim that because this country was founded on religious principles, our government should continue to base its laws on Christianity. An article entitled, “Standing up for Church-State Separation in Difficult Times,” states that, “Religious Right groups are crowing and insisting that they have some sort of mandated to make their repressive agenda the law of the land,” however, we no longer live in the 1700’s (13). Times are changing and America is no longer predominantly white, Christians. In order for America to remain the melting pot we are all so proud of, we must accommodate all beliefs. A separation between church and state is necessary if America wants to give all of its citizens their religious rights.
The separation of church and state has been a long debated topic in the history of America. Although founded upon Christian ideals, the framers of the Constitution explicitly outlined the government to function secularly, in what is commonly referred to as the “Establishment Clause”. When interpreting the Constitution in regards to religion, there are two primary philosophies. The first philosophy this paper will explore will be referred to as Positive Toleration. In general, the idea of positive toleration creates an environment that is encouraging of all religions. The second philosophy, which will be referred to as the “Wall of Separation,” encourages government freedom from religion. Although historically these two philosophies have jockey back and forth in public popularity, as America moves into the future, the Wall of Separation philosophy will take a strong-hold and will set the course for how the Establishment Clause will affect local government, schools, and private religious practice.
The question as to whether or not creationism should be taught in public schools is a very emotional and complex question. It can be looked at from several different angles, its validity being one of them. Despite the lack of evidence to support the fundamentalist idea of creationism, that in itself is not enough to warrant its exclusion from the curriculum of public schools in the United States. The question is far more involved and complex.
A major problem in our government right now is the influence that religion has over government laws in the states and the country. Government and religion must always be separate due to the fact that there are multiple religions in the United States and that religious influence favors one over the other and influences laws that can be placed over the people. A major issue of religion and state is same-sex marriage which due to religious rules mainly form Christianity, forbids the act and the influence Christianity has on the States is evident to why it is illegal in more than 50% of the states in America. Another issue is the dealing with Abortion though government rules that this is legal religions tell the people that this is wrong and illegal which are another example of religion attempting to influence government decisions. The religious influence in Government can be eliminated by disallowing the teachings of a religion to directly affect a religious preference or law, to differentiate between religious marriage and state recognized marriage, and to make sure that religious influence does not affect the choosing of government candidates.
Since the time that teaching evolution in public schools was banned as heresy and taboo for contradicting the Bible, most public school systems today take an opposite approach in which creationism is seldom ta...