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From: faustus@ucbcad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.origins,net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Education of creationists' children
Message-ID: <2835@ucbcad.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 1-Dec-84 13:01:44 EST
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Posted: Sat Dec  1 13:01:44 1984
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Xref: watmath net.origins:557 net.politics:5986

> Children ought to learn the lesson that different people have
> different opinions and tell them as if they were known facts as soon
> as possible in life.  Keeping pseudo-science out of the classroom
> won't keep it off of the front page of every magazine in the
> checkout line in the grocery store (probably far more influential on
> young minds just learning to read it -:), and parents bent on
> keeping the evil influence of evolution away from their kids in
> school won't protect them from TV, printed media, friends, etc. 
> People have to learn to reason for themselves who and what they are
> going to believe, whether the process is by scientific reasoning or
> blind faith.  Religion versus science is not the only issue where
> judgement is needed.  What about history texts and teachers that
> belittle or ignore the contributions of large groups of people or
> exaggerate others?  (One of my most vivid childhood memories of
> school is the fit my very conservative father threw over a
> composition I wrote outlining the glorious accomplishments of FDR as
> taught to us in school).  How many of us never heard a teacher
> express a political opinion, directly or indirectly?  My advice to
> concerned parents is to focus on teaching people HOW to think, not
> WHAT to think.

But this is the basic difference between the creationists and the 
evolutionist's positions. The evolutionists believe that the proper
way to think is to look at the facts and form a theory consistent
and supportive of them, and the creationists believe that the proper
way to think is to accept the "word of God", and trust what people
have been thinking for thousands of years. Their respective theories
follow from this. Presumably your disagreement about FDR arose from
another difference in ways of thinking -- judging somebody on the basis
of what he did, and judging him on the basis of his political party.

	Wayne