welcome to the cultural revolution (aka what the FUCK is wrong with the florida legislature?)

A Chistian can be many different types of things from Morman to Catholic to whatever. Many of which have opposite views. Sometimes It's nessicary to call someone a "biblical christian" to take the emphesis away from the culture surrounding their denomination or cult or whatever and put the emphesis on the Bible.

This is just semantics. Xtian sects don't go around saying, 'Yeah we read the Bible and made some of it up.' There have been Xtian 'fundies' killing each other for at least 1700 years and they all thought that they were right, had interpreted the Bible correctly, and were the only ones on their way to go sit at God's right hand side. The ingorance with which some people treat even the history of their own religion simply shocks me. I don't see any of those people speaking in Hebrew, or Aramaic or Greek, and I'm unlikely to meet many, though the theist who wrote the mofuxorin' Dec. of Independence and enshrined religious tolerance in Virginia law could speak two of the above.

thank you. I agree, I am not good at articulating my argument. But maybe to someone or at least myself it can have hints of clarity.

The interpretations and moments of ignorance are part of the culture surrounding those sects.

petulant student: i know i'm right but i can't find the words to say it
better teacher: well until you can, it's holding everything up, which isn't fair on the others - return to my class when you've maybe found a way the rest of us understand and can use and discuss

that's a good point. I'd call that zeal God bringing me towards Truth or the Holy Spirit.

AMEN. My grandfather (who's funeral I just attended on Tuesday) was both a devout Christian and a scientist, and I had no problem respecting and admiring both his intellectual acumen and religious beliefs because a) he was well-read and could cogently argue his beliefs and b) he didn't waste his time vilifying or silencing opposing points of view (as he saw this as antithetical to both science AND christianity).

he can only deflect questions, not answer them.

that's only b/c i don't teach!

this is dotty in one sense - occam's razor blah blah - but it remains a perfectly neat way of reconciling intelligent design and evolution (give or take necessary extrapolations to fit info discovered since 1857)

this one: define 'persecute' plz?

mark says here:

petulant student: i know i'm right but i can't find the words to say it
bad teacher: that's how i know you're wrong, please leave my class

I'm not assuming persecute = challenge. To persecute is to not allow the person to be challenged.

this does not make any sense.

if evolution had generally been BETTER taught (say) 50 years ago, this situation would never have arisen --- (such better teaching wd have included understanding and heading off at the pass the counter-position) (it's because it HASN'T been well engaged with - because not taken seriously politically - that it's taken such root, and become such a big political issue)

(of course strictly speaking, bad teaching isn't the cause of the problem, though it doesn't help - it's a bad thing in itself)

i think a.nairn means the persecuted isn't allowed to challenge the persecutor

however as a user of ilx i can't believe he isn't familiar with the situation where the pseudo-persecuted sets up a situation where a thread is derailed by bogus protests about unfairness and not being "allowed to speak", except then s/he IS "allowed to speak", nothing of consequence is said

(the main problem biologists have with "intelligent design" is that it's a totally unfruitful theory: it leads to NO research programmes, NO new ideas, nothing that might actually interest a biologist - though actually it HAS led to some good work tightening up and improving darwinist explanations)

(part of the teacher's job - in fact a LOT of it - is to say to people, even people who are entirely WITH him in such and such a theory, that they are explaining it badly or stating it unclearly or whatever: and if they challenge him unbendingly on THIS, then they might as well find a new teacher)

humiliation is always a poor tactic: but bad pupils - and more to the point, manipulative pupils - also exist, who can engineer "situations of apparent humiliation"

Bullshit. I seriously doubt that any teacher at a public university institutions in this country tells students to leave their class. Ridicule, maybe (even that I am skeptical of--ridicule is so broadly defined these days.) Ignore, definitely. But dismiss from class. I don't buy it.

whoops double-post