Seperation of Church and State?

I read this which made me wonder....

WHY would anyone be against the seperation of church and state? I mean, America is supposed to be all about freedom, including religious freedom. I should not have to be subjected to laws people make based on their religion. And government officials should not be able to spend taxpayers money on airfare to go get blessed at some church!

I totally agree! There are so many people of so many different faiths (and plenty of non-religious or atheistic people! ;D) in this country that it would be ridiculously unjust for the government or parts of the government to promote any specific one. Yet it does happen. I'm doing a report on the teaching of evolution in public schools and how so many religious groups (though not ALL; I'm not implying anything of the sort) advocate the teaching of the Creation. That's great for Catholic schools and such, but PUBLIC schools? Come on now. That's outrageous. =[

Yeah, especially if they want Creationism taught in SCIENCE class. There is nothing SCIENTIFIC about Creationism! In my Sophomore English class we did a unit on "creation stories" and we had to read Genesis and some other cultural/religious stories. That is definitely an acceptable way to teach Creationism. Not in a science class. 

Do not EVEN get me started.  OK, too late.  I already started a thread and addressed my views on this topic.  Here it is, if you're interested: 

http://caloriecount.about.com/unpatriotic-ft1 17520 ; (I hope that works...)

Ditto. I'm glad my church isn't influenced by the state. They don't have what they're going to say dictated by anyone. They don't have to marry who they don't want too. They don't have to allow in who they don't want too. And while I would never attend a church that is so biased and cruel, I'm glad they have that right.

It's beneficial for the church not to be dictated by the state. I wish they would just accept it and leave the state alone. If they're going to dictate what should be taught in schools, the state should be able to dictate what should be taught in church.

It really steams me. I want my children to be taught science. And I want to teach them faith. In my biased way, I want my children to ask ME questions about faith. Not their teachers who could teach them bogus crap. Science, on the other hand, is specific and not open to the interpretation that you can have in faith. (At least, it's not supposed to be.)

They really have nothing to do with each other. And I'm not sure why people keep insistanting that they do.

Original Post by tincognito:

 Science, on the other hand, is specific and not open to the interpretation that you can have in faith. (At least, it's not supposed to be.)

I think you hit the nail on the head with the "At least, it's not supposed to be."  Not everything taught as "fact" in Science class is fact, but rather conclusions that are based preconceived notions of what fact is supposed to be.  Basically interpretations of the facts.  Plenty of what's been taught in science classes in this and other countries over the last 40 or so years has been disproven.  The problem occurs when that disproven information is not removed from texts. 

You can make almost any experiment show what you wish it to show if you know how to work the numbers.  Sometimes the numbers themselves are completely imagined (on purpose because they are unknown, it's just how it works, I know that).  That's why the Large Hadron Collider is so important.  Scientists are hoping it will validate some of the numbers that fit the equations that they say explain the beginning of everything.  What if it doesn't?  We won't know until it's running, has had time to run a while, and then had time to analyze the billions of numbers it collects.  I think I heard it will take some years to analyze.  Oh well, what's a few more years compared to billions of years of existence?  

How will we know what's real and what's fact if we can't have open discussion because one side is "right" and the other is "wrong"?  What if both have validations

I'm sory, this post wasn't this long in my head.  I also think I kind of went off topic... (Sorry OP)

Original Post by tincognito:

Science, on the other hand, is specific and not open to the interpretation that you can have in faith. (At least, it's not supposed to be.) They really have nothing to do with each other. And I'm not sure why people keep insisting that they do.

 I respectfully disagree that science and faith have nothing to do with each other. They have a lot to do with each other. For one, they both answer questions people have been dealing with for thousands of years. Where did we come from? What are we made out of? How does the world work? What is the purpose of life?

The reason people dont like to see them together is that they are parallel systems of explaining the same things, so they can sometimes compete with each other.

I dont know much about the Large Hadron Collider but I doubt that regular people like me will change their whole life view when the results come out. I think the fact that it broke unexpectedly lowered the credibility of the whole thing.

Original Post by azirra:

I dont know much about the Large Hadron Collider but I doubt that regular people like me will change their whole life view when the results come out. I think the fact that it broke unexpectedly lowered the credibility of the whole thing.

This cracked me up (mainly because I agree with you!), and I think is likely true for most everyone.  The things I've learned about it I got from listening to a physicist talk about it on a radio show.  She was VERY excited, and thankfully talked in "regular people" terms.

Original Post by bonjourlaure:

I totally agree! There are so many people of so many different faiths (and plenty of non-religious or atheistic people! ;D) in this country that it would be ridiculously unjust for the government or parts of the government to promote any specific one. Yet it does happen. I'm doing a report on the teaching of evolution in public schools and how so many religious groups (though not ALL; I'm not implying anything of the sort) advocate the teaching of the Creation. That's great for Catholic schools and such, but PUBLIC schools? Come on now. That's outrageous. =[

 

Just a FYI - I was educated in Catholic schools a zillion years ago and we were taught about evolution!  We were also taught that the bible should not be taken literally.  We were also taught that the church and the state should be completely separate.   Fundamentalists are the ones who don't want evolution taught.

I 100% agree that taxpayers should not be funding travel to religious events unless they are completely ecumenical and for public benefit.

azirra - I respectfully disagree back. To you it seems science is a matter of faith. I personally don't think the fact that the Large Hadron Collider broke lowers credibility of anything. Things that humans create break. We're falliable. That is why we should place our faith in God.

Personally, as scientists know more about science then me, I will believe what they say. As I would believe a doctor about my illnesses or a lawyer about my lawsuit. They have education that backs it up. If they realize that things are different then they appear and make a change, I'll believe that as well. Just as doctor's will change opinions based on your symptoms, it really doesn't bother me.

Yes, faith and science are related in that they explain what people are curious about. However, religion was present from the dawn of time. Science, arguably, was not.

As Galileo said, however: "The Bible teaches one how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go." I think they serve distinctly different purposes in life. Science will never fulfill the need for faith completely. (For some people it will, but for many, many others, it will not.) There are things in life that can't be explained that people will turn to faith for. However, in this modern day, science fulfills a completely different one. It fulfills intellectual curiousity to figure things out.

It is very easy for me to say that whatever scientists figure out is only the creation of God. And many scientists agree that they desire to figure out how God set up this world. The earliest scientists came from the Christian community. I wish it had never split.

Original Post by tincognito:

Personally, as scientists know more about science then me, I will believe what they say. As I would believe a doctor about my illnesses or a lawyer about my lawsuit. They have education that backs it up. If they realize that things are different then they appear and make a change, I'll believe that as well. Just as doctor's will change opinions based on your symptoms, it really doesn't bother me.

Just be careful to know from what background the scientists you listen to come from.  Two scientists, with the same amount of experience and education, can look at the same data and tell you a different conclusion.  Why?  Because of the ideological background in the way they think, or, in some cases, who is paying the bill!!!

Original Post by 05edge:

Just be careful to know from what background the scientists you listen to come from.  Two scientists, with the same amount of experience and education, can look at the same data and tell you a different conclusion.  Why?  Because of the ideological background in the way they think, or, in some cases, who is paying the bill!!!

Hahahahaha! True. Just like anything. But evolution has been tested time and again and proven well enough to be taught in schools. Most things that are taught in public schools in primary education aren't "cutting edge."

I'm doing a paper on austim, though, and it's very interesting the findings that are found in relation to who's funding the research. =P But I always find scientific papers fascinating to read, albiet the fact I rarely understand them 100%.