Well, yes and no. Ed's examples are all cases where religions make claims about the natural world: claims within the domain of science to investigate and within the domain of government to respond to. When religion makes claims that are more exclusively religious -- claims about the supernatural, about the existence and nature of God, about God's desires for humans -- then it is true that government cannot say those claims are false. I well recognize that the examples between the dashes are a first approximation and not an adequate definition.
Douglas Laycock University of Texas Law School 727 E. Dean Keeton St. Austin, TX 78705 512-232-1341 (phone) 512-471-6988 (fax) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Brayton Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 3:01 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: Kansas and Intelligent Design: A Twist Christopher C. Lund wrote: > The University of Kansas is planning to teach a course on intelligent > design next semester. But it's not a science class. It is a > religious-studies class, and it's titled, "Special Topics in Religion: > Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies." > (The chairman of the department, in explaining the class, said this, > "Creationism is mythology . . . Intelligent design is mythology. It's > not science. They try to make it sound like science. It clearly is > not.") It's the next step in the intelligent design/evolution fight. > > http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051122/ap_on_re_us/intelligent_design_cou > rse > > Does anyone on the listserv see a potential Establishment Clause > problem here? Let me be provocative. Surely, the University of > Kansas cannot teach that intelligent design is false, right? > Government cannot pass directly on the truth or falsity of religious > teaching. Hey, that works for me. That means that ID is, in fact, a religious teaching and not a scientific theory and means it cannot be taught in public school science classrooms. ID advocates can't have it both ways, claiming that it's not religious idea but a scientific theory when trying to get around establishment clause problems on one level, then claiming it is a religious idea and not a scientific theory to claim an establishment clause violation at another level. Of course, the entire question is based upon a false premise. Of course a public university can teach that religious ideas are false. The Noahic global flood is a religious claim, but any geology course at any public university in the nation will teach that no such global flood ever took place. Belief in a flat earth is a religious belief based upon interpretation of the bible, and so is geocentrism; both of those religious ideas are debunked in public university classrooms every day, as well they should be. The germ theory of disease completely negates the religious views of the Christian Science Church and Mary Baker Eddy; that doesn't mean that university hospitals are violating the establishment clause by teaching it. Ed Brayton _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
