Creationism and Education

[SaggyBalls]

While this issue has continued to creep into our lives, I believe that much of this is a knee jerk reaction to the social ills of the world.

I do not attest to knowing more about life than anyone else, or that i 'get' things that other people don't but I'm tired of going around and around and around again. I wish I were in a big old wooden carousel instead of this same old tired go-nowhere song and dance.

so...What about sharing an understanding of the syntheses of creation and evolution? Although it can be a bit heavy; to think of science as an explanation of how the universe works and the universe being god - manifested from the unmanifest through resonance and harmonic vibrations. While to many it's a chicken/egg debate, to many it would be 'did the chicken intend to lay this egg?'

Could it be blasphemous to suggest that we can decipher the true language of God or to liken it to a chicken/egg debate? Perhaps God is above this trite delusion. Either way, the true nature of creation has either been lost on or kept from so many in an attack on this as an issue.

To accurately teach our children about the nature of the universe would be: difficult to measure with grades, difficult to introduce to most children with decreased attention spans, and difficult to overcome protests of weary parents.

Although this shift in explanation and description could easily border religious doctrine in many peoples' eyes, I believe that hardline christians and muslims would protest before the Atheists, even though the underlying essence of the message would be that:

1. god/love/consciousness/life/energy is the universe

2. all is not necessarily as it seems

3. the absolute attainment of spirit matters only to - a)one's own experience and one's relationship with themselves c) and the world around them

4. call it God or love or energy or spirit or consciousness, Clapton or what you will or what you refuse to, life strives to exist even under the harshest of circumstances

5. the laws of science are our understanding and attempt to share and strengthen our deepest understandings and realizations of the workings of existence through the language of mathematics;

This message and set of lessons could prove to ultimately be a useful tool for educators, parents, and childrens' imaginations everywhere.

Now, to explain the universe accurately and in a pallatable way to small children would be a huge task but could bridge the secular and religious to get past all the petty squabbles and differences that are holding our children and communities back.

I understand that this would be very difficult to implement and that it may seem unpractical but I hope that someone has some ideas about how we can break our entirely self-serving, negative cycles of egoism and stubbornness on at least this issue.

While I am no theist, political scientist, or expert in education, I am trying to think and communicate constructively and I hope that I'm not the only one on this.

Maybe this isn't the best forum for this kind of discussion, but maybe it is at this time for you or someone you know to take a break from gooing about how cool the garaj mahal run or the ryan adams concert's gonna be.

:susel:

[SmoothedShredder]

You say you're being constructive. What are you trying to construct?

You got god, children, Clapton, a chicken, an egg, Garaj Mahal, and some personal opinions... all stuffed into a 500 word intro document... where should I begin?!

[SaggyBalls]

I guess constructive is a weighted term...

[color:purple]I guess I'm trying to attract. 2 words come to mind - intentional community.

now SS...you COULD cut me to shreds, but you also COULD tell me how I miss the mark (which is slightly different) while suggesting simpler, more attainable small goals to bring polarized social and cultural groups together.

You could also try to direct this thread to reflect a general theme of approaching touchy while personal issues and maybe even keep in mind itse proponents' and opponents'potentially polarized emotions surrounding said issue if applicable.

I'm thinking about ways one could incite a more communal atmosphere that transcends religion and politics while still appealing to those that want to have a reason to think about their personal alignments. One aspect of sustainable community.

This is a discussion forum and I must say that I often don't feel entirely engaged by many other aspects of my media experience.

I admit it's heavily personal opinion, but I was thinking of finding a way to bridge sensibilities...i should probably stop posting on the internet late at night, as too often I try to say too much with too little in places where less than what I have written is already more than people care to read.

Edited September 15, 2008 by Guest

[phishtaper]

why do you want to 'teach' children about the nature of the universe in school?

learned adults cannot even agree on this, so why fuck up little kids heads so early?

let their parents take them to church if they wanna fuck up their heads. i, for one, do not support that sort of rhetoric in a publicly financed institution.

[bradm]

I admit it's heavily personal opinion, but I was thinking of finding a way to bridge sensibilities.

I think the problem is that the two sensibilities (let's call them science and religion) have a fundamental incompatibility: science is based on objective demonstrable observations of the real world, while religion is based on "what's in the book", fixed for all time.

There are those who look at science (or, more particularly, a particular scientific theory/model) and say, "See? That theory was discarded by scientists. Therefore science doesn't fully explain the world." But, again, this shows the key difference between science and religion: the scientific process has built-in mechanisms to alter (or replace) a theory when it's shown, objectively and quantitatively, not to match observations in the real world; religion lacks these mechanisms. (Thus there's a difference between the scientific process [which is a better term than just science, IMO] and a particular scientific theory. This or that theory can easily be supplanted by something better [e.g., Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which gives more accurate predictions of what goes on in the real world than, say, Newton's Theory of Gravity], but that's the nature of the scientific process.)

There are those who believe that because science doesn't deal with "life energy", or "god" (note the lower case 'g'), or similar things (most of which are undefined terms, even by those who use them), it then denies their existence. It does no such thing; it just leaves them out*, which it should, because those things (largely due to their undefinied nature) are inherently unobservable, and unquantifiable.

If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion.

I have no problem with various opinions being discussed (or taught) in a course dedicated to them, but they need to be kept out of a science class.

Aloha,

Brad

* Also note that another characteristic of scientific theories is that each one inherently includes a clear definition of its scope, i.e., the things and phenomena (and range of things and phenomena) with which it deals. A lot (not all, certainly) of religions claim to cover everything, which no scientific theory does.

[Thorgnor]

I'm with Brad.

[SaggyBalls]

I wasn't saying that religion and science are interchangeable - I was referring to the overlap of the 2 and being more inclusive.

Is there a way to present metaphysics to kids that can be embraced by the public?

(wasn't that easier?)

is it safe to say that if children were exposed to aspects of astronomy, physics (vibrations, waves, matter etc.), and information about our planet, that young people might get a more positive example of learning about science?

Anyhow...

Can anybody think of anyone who is trying to bring people together on divisive issues, trying to get people past their own rhetoric-creating argumentative devices?

(should I have waited for this thread to illustrate this point more effectively? feels like it was getting there on its own already)

[bradm]

Is there a way to present metaphysics to kids that can be embraced by the public?

(wasn't that easier?)

Yes, it was; I think I know what you're getting at.

is it safe to say that if children were exposed to aspects of astronomy, physics (vibrations, waves, matter etc.), and information about our planet, that young people might get a more positive example of learning about science?

Maybe, but I think a better approach would be to base a course (or a set of courses) around the history of "discovering how the world works," using, for example, some of the stuff James Burke has done, especially his first Connections series, and also his The Day the Universe Changed. If such a course was augmented with other things (like lab work, or even social and economic studies), it'd work even better, I think.

Aloha,

Brad

[SaggyBalls]

Thanks, Brad.