Nope. An essay on evolution for biology, or continental drift for geography, or radiometric measurement for chemistry cannot be answered by "religious faith/belief", but by scientific law, theory and fact. Science deals with the intellectual and natural worlds. It strives to explain the workings of universe and define our place within it. Religion deals with both the spiritual and supernatural worlds. Its strives to provide meaning both for the universe and one's individual existence.
As an agnostic atheist I am totally aware that I cannot definitively prove there is no god, but in the absence of definitive evidence of a creators existence I do not believe one exists. We can only speculate on whether there ANY life in the universe beyond this planet, intelligent or not. But given the scale of the universe, probability makes it highly possible there is. No the goal of secular education is to create educated productive people who can function and contribute in society. But even if its just to puke up answers, there's one helluva large % of the populace, where that remains a major life challenge.
This will just require some of the questions to be re-worded. Such as "According to the theory of evolution..." rather than stating things as simple facts.
I don’t have a god. As they are human constructs. Why do you think old books is evidence of the existence of a god? Do you believe zuess is real? I can show you thousand years old books that mention him. Fascinating. In no way relevant to anything at all, but fascinating.
So you should also be fine with the Quran being taught and the Book of Mormon and the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Good so any answer on any test has to be marked correct since I am sure there is a religion SOMWHERE that believes in the most outrageous tripe, like the world was created by some supernatural being some seven thousand years ago On a rainy Tuesday afternoon
No just Christian, since we are a Christian nation Why are you changing the goal post? You're the posting pictures of I assumed was your God.
Yes, Christianity is popular in America. But, we do NOT have a national religion. Suggesting that religious thought has to coincide with Christianity is nonsense. Besides, the OP doesn't suggest that. It suggests people could answer with religious expression - which would include devil worship, paganism, new age crystals and pyramids or whatever.
Within my advanced biology course in a section on evolution, about a year was spent discussing/debating/examining the Theory of Evolution, presenting facts as we know them from observations showing the evolutionary change of various animals up the biological scale showing the relatively steady evolutionary trend from simple life forms to complex life forms, and, ...........to be fair to the religious, about 10 minutes was spent stating the alternative theory that "god did it" (actually is true, not a joke).
Unless at a university (or college) level, I claim the above is crap. No high school biology class spends a year on evolution. I taught science for 8 years, and even the AP classes in the schools I was at didn't do the above.
It's not "being fair" to discuss religion in a science class unless it is oriented to describing why science and religion are two very separate realms, and that science can not address any idea that includes something that is supernatural. I'm not suggesting that all religious ideas are wrong or even that the case in point is wrong - it's just that it doesn't have anything to do with science. Looking at it from the other side, discussing religious creation ideas in a science class implies that science has something to add to religious explanations. There is NO reason to believe that. Religious ideas are NOT limited in any way by what science finds. Pitting religious solutions and science solutions is just plain bogus - leading to no positive end and even confusing both religious methods and the very definition of scientific method. One would hope that any science cirriculum would include the definition of scientific method and the limitations it has when coming to the supernatural.
The syllabus stated that all theories must be included which were Darwinism, Lamarckism and theories based on religion. The lecturer spent about 10 minutes on religion, about a week on Lamarckism and the rest of the year lecturing on the evolutionary tree of plants and animals, in each case starting at the simplest organism showing the progression and simularities up the evolutionary tree
Doh! Apparently you don't understand that it's a figure of speech subject to cultural understanding..
The OP was talking about high school. Of course evolution is an important part of a university biology education. That's not what this thread is about. Why are you talking about your university classes?
