Is this wise to take away the name of God from our school teachings?

You are right about teaching religion. It is something that should be taught, but with no emphasis on the correctness or incorrectness of any in particular. Religion should be very much a personal choice.

I also agree with you about not proclaiming that your religion is true and all non-believers are fools etc. Some people, however, don't see the bigger picture or understand that there are many people, of many faiths, all proclaiming that their own is right. Everyone has a right to personal religion including private prayer if they want to. Even as an atheist, I respect that right.

However, I do not agree with, for example, group prayer in schools, such as that led by a teacher. This is unavoidably biased towards one faith and is disrespectful to those of other faiths or no faith at all. Also, I stand against the intrusion of religion into our science classes. While things such as biblical creationism should be taught, they should be reserved for religious education lessons, along with the creation myths of other religions. Children should indeed be taught to question the prevailing theory, but to take a logical and scientific approach to it.

Creationism however is not scientific in approach- it is based on no historical or observational evidence that supports it, merely assumed to be true through circular reasoning. Therefore it has no place whatsoever in the science classroom.

My personal case against organised religion is that it can be used to indoctrinate people into doing some rather irrational things that noone would normally think of doing. Practices such as routinely removing parts of a child's body (circumcision) for no real reason would have someone marked as a child abuser under normal circumstances. With the label of religion attached though, it's seen as perfectly fine.

I think the vast majority would without hesitation condemn Islamic fundamentalists blowing themselves up in the name of their god. Without relgious indoctrination, noone would ever think of blowing themselves to pieces.

Holy wars, as another example, lead to needless and senseless destruction of entire groups of people 'in the name of god'. This violent, oppressive side of religion has no place in a modern society.

Pete

totoro:

"Many fundies do see the light sometimes when logic becomes too great to ignore anymore."

Let's just say that has not been my experience.

Tralhob: I guess that is a rare exception to the rule, but on some level people do think things through sometimes...I hope I'm not being too delusional.

I just don't care anymore. LOL! I had a real sea change of attitude. It used to irk me to no end seeing the kind of silly, smug, self-assured ignorance that is so uniquely creationist. I'd have to step in and correct them with fact and with logic, and sometimes this compulsion would get me sucked into these huge endless debates. But I just don't care anymore. If owm came back, I'd just chuckle. It is a liberating experience. I used to take these debates so seriously. It wasn't healthy. I also came to realize that of the issues facing the world, this isn't one of the more serious ones. There are far more pressing matters on our hands than where we came from. Finally, it gets tedious after a while simply supporting factual statements; if I'm ever to get into another argument, I'd like it to involve reasoning and logic, and not mere production of facts.

As long as you think it's fun, knock yourself out. I found that you need a pretty strong stomach to deal with creationists. They fight dirty. Happy fighting!

A story about two friends from day one.

Once upon a time there was a Polonium 218 element of the family of radioactive isotopes. Nuclear chemists classify Polonium 218 as radioactive because the nuclei of the atom continually emit alpha, beta and gamma radiation. This radiation loss causes the atom to disintegrate or decay into a smaller atom. Eventually the material will become lead, which we commonly use for fishing weights and lead-acid batteries in our cars.

Polonium 218 would be classified in elementary school as being "hyperactive." It can't sit still very long. In only three minutes, half of the atoms decay into a lighter element, and in only one day it is all changed.

Polonium 218 can be created by the decay of a parent atom such as Uranium 238 or some other element below Uranium 238 in the chain. It can also be created as the parent without having come from the decay of a heavier atom. This is very important, so remember this fact.

Once upon a time there was granite rock. Granite is a very unique rock but at the same time is very common and plentiful. It can easily be found in mountain areas such as the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Granite is easily identified by its hard crystalline structure and light color. The crystals are large enough to be easily seen with the eye. It has an interesting structure with a mixture of light-colored quartz and feldspar crystals, and darker crystals of mica and hornblende. Granite is solid and hard without cracks or seams, and it is very strong.

Granite has another very unique property in that it cannot be created by scientists. It is considered to be an "original" material in the Earth. When melted and allowed to harden, it does not return to the original granite crystalline structure. The new smaller crystalline material is called rhyolite. Granite cannot be made by cooling the initial molten materials. This is very important, so remember this fact.

Granite never contains fossils such as are found in sedimentary rocks. All of these properties have led many scientists to refer to granite as a creation rock, since it could not have solidified from molten material according to the evolutionary theory.

Evolution cannot explain the presence of granite in its present structure. And where is this granite? Everywhere. Granite is the bedrock shell which encloses the entire Earth. Its exact thickness is unknown, but scientists have speculated that it forms a layer about 4.35 miles (7 km) thick, and in some areas possibly 20 miles (32 km) thick. It occurs on every continent.

These are the two friends from day one. We know they were friends because they lived together. The Polonium 218 lived only a very short time (3 minutes), but he left his mark on his friend, granite, in that short time. Polonium emitted alpha particles which left a very distinct mark in the granite. These marks are called Polonium halos. These halos are tiny colored concentric circles which must be viewed with a microscope. The concentric circles are actually concentric spherical marks which appear as circles after the rock is cut open. "How many halos are there?" you may ask. One trillion times 10 billion are present on every continent around the world. They are everywhere.

The Polonium 218 was the parent radioactive isotope because other distinct halos which are created by other isotopes are not present. The Polonium halos are not accompanied by Uranium 238 halos.

One minute there was nothing. The next minute there were parent Polonium 218 radioactive atoms locked in the center of solid granite. The granite rock could not have formed from cooling molten rock. Granite will not form that way. In fact, scientists cannot make granite by any method. They can make diamonds but not granite. Granite is solid. The Polonium could not penetrate existing granite because it is not porous or cracked. This was day one.

These friends are absolute scientific proof that evolution is dead. First, the granite could not have been produced by evolutionary theories, the Earth cooling, etc. Second, the Polonium locks the entire time period into an instantaneous event proven by nuclear chemistry. The time is not "millions and millions and millions" of years. The granite was produced as a solid with the Polonium parent elements inside at that instant. Within the first three minutes, half of the Polonium had decayed into a lower element. The Earth, granite and Polonium were created by God together in an instant.

Yes, my friend, it wasn't a big bang. It was a big AMEN (translated, "So be it.").

So, have we proven that evolution is dead and the Earth was created?

Well, it's faith isn't it? Either you believe in creation which requires a Creator, or you believe in evolution as a theory which ignores a creator. Basically, people who believe in the evolutionary theory either 1) deny scientific fact in order to deny that God exists, or 2) they have not studied well enough to see that evolution is not possible. Science makes it very difficult to believe in evolution because an instantaneous creation is perfectly supported. Evolution cannot be proven.