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_course
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 [email protected]
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.
