Christianity Johnson on 25 Aug 2008 12:01 am
The New York Times has an article on the effects of Christianity on science education:
The article does contain good news:
In February, the Florida Department of Education modified its standards to explicitly require, for the first time, the stateâ€™s public schools to teach evolution, calling it â€œthe organizing principle of life science.â€ Spurred in part by legal rulings against school districts seeking to favor religious versions of natural history, over a dozen other states have also given more emphasis in recent years to what has long been the scientific consensus: that all of the diverse life forms on Earth descended from a common ancestor, through a process of mutation and natural selection, over billions of years.
But it also contains bad news. Religion infects students with nonsense:
But in a nation where evangelical Protestantism and other religious traditions stress a literal reading of the biblical description of Godâ€™s individually creating each species, students often arrive at school fearing that evolution, and perhaps science itself, is hostile to their faith.
Some come armed with â€œTen questions to ask your biology teacher about evolution,â€ a document circulated on the Internet that highlights supposed weaknesses in evolutionary theory. Others scrawl their opposition on homework assignments. Many just tune out.
That’s just great. We find ourselves in the 21st century, where our economy and destiny are inextricably linked to science. Unfortunately, many of the kids who happen to have religious parents “just tune out” in science class, and many more actively oppose science. What an incredible waste.
Here is the document that Christians arm themselves with:
The NYT has been kind enough to provide answers to these ten questions here:
So what is the ultimate solution to this problem? It seems like the simplest path is to state the truth loudly and without compromise. Yes, science is hostile to faith, because “faith” is based on nothing but superstition and mythology. Any intelligent person discards superstition and mythology without question or concern.
Since the whole idea of an education system is to create intelligent people, the education system is actively working to purge superstition and mythology every day. “Faith”, meanwhile, is actively working to make people stupid (by injecting superstition and mythology), and that has no benefit for anyone. Therefore, faith must be expelled. It’s that simple, and that obvious.
What prevents us from speaking the truth, especially when it comes to something this important?