This is the Comment of the Week, something that I’m going to start blogging. Have you ever read the comments to a news story or article and thought to yourself, “damn, that was a good comment”?. Well, I do.
THE FOLLOWING COMMENT WAS POSTED ON WIRED.COM IN RESPONSE TO THE “McCain’s VP Wants Creationism Taught in School” ARTICLE.
“This should have nothing to do with being a Republican or a Democrat, because this issue is, no question, NOT political, but they insist on making it political. This is religion, which IS SUPPOSED TO BE SEPARATE FROM THE GOVERNMENT, and education, which is, when publically provided, an extension of that government. It is simply not acceptable that our government bodies be given the right to dictate the religious education of our children.
Advocating religion be taught in schools is a violation of a foundation of our country – lack of government mandated religion. That’s why we left the island across the pond in the first place. They have no place to decide what children should be taught with regards to beliefs that should be the decision of themselves and their parents, not what their government decides.
To teach creationism as science is also an affront to science itself. Not because it’s bad, or unimportant to the people who believe it, but because it just isn’t science. This is far past mentioning the belief (I will not use the word “theory” as it is not a theory) as an alternate viewpoint of the origins of man, maybe giving a brief synopsis of what it is: “Some people believe that God created the entire world in 6 24-hour days, culminating in man’s creation. They deny evolutionary theory,” and informing them that if they wish to learn more about this idea, to ask their parents or a preacher, and moving on. This is calling creationism science. This is subjecting all students to an idea that is not at all related to the scientific prinicples and telling them it’s valid as a theory. That undermines their education, because it is teaching a complete lie – that the scientific community accepts creationism as a valid scientific theory.
If you believe creationsim is the truth of the matter, so be it, there is nothing at all wrong with that. But it cannot be claimed that it is science. It is clearly a religious belief. Thus it is not up to the public schools (ie, government) to educate our children on it. My children will be taught matters of faith in the manner that I see fit, not on how the administration sees fit.
And I’m going to defend Brandon, this is a completely ridiculous stance for a potentially high-ranking government official to be taking, as it is 100% unconstitutional. Haven’t we already had enough of this? Haven’t we lost enough rights without opening to door to government sanctioned faith as well? This is positively abhorrent. And it would be just as disgusting a proposition were it the Democrats trying it.