[_ Old Earth _] Is ID science?

[Catholic Crusader]

Well, when I look at the world around me compared to what it was when I was young, I pray to God that the courts don't continue to reflect societal change. In my lifetime Ive seen much of America turn into a cesspool.

 

[Snidey]

What does it matter to you? God is clearly utilizing said cesspool to achieve some glorious objective, right? It is the direct or indirect handiwork of God, is it not? Sexual liberation, gay rights, etc. are all ultimately going to be defeated regardless of how hard any secular forces attempt to spread them, in your opinion, so your concern is a direct result of your lack of trust in Him.

 

[Barbarian]

Then tell me: If it is so bad and illegal, how did the good ol' U S of A manage to survive from 1776 until the 1960's with prayer in school

Most often, didn't. The "Under God" phrase, for example, is a modern addition, from the late 50s, and early currency didn't have "In God We Trust." At the Constitutional convention, Ben Franklin moved to have a prayer, and the motion was defeated.

It happened in some places, but when I was in public school in the 50s and 60s, there was no prayer but those individual children chose to say themselves privately. As it should be.

Was a state religion established over those 200 years?

And we didn't fully grant freedom to one and all until after the Civil War, and so on. The fact that we have sometimes not lived up to the ideals of America is not license to continue to break the law.

AND: I see a direct timeline correlation from the 60's anti-religious court decisions and onward, and the sinking of our society into all manner of filth and perversity.

Turns out that things are actually better. Back then, illiteracy was high, people were often unable to even attend school or vote, or be considered for jobs just because they were the wrong color or religion. Violence was a major problem. The last few decades have seen a dramatic decrease in violent crime and drug use. Even adjusted for the number of young males, it's down. And more people than ever say that God is important in their daily lives.

These seem like good things to me. You may have forgotten that in the 1960s, child pornography was legal, women could legally be paid less than men for the same work, and death rates from all sorts of diseases were much higher. Those don't seem like good things to me.

How about you?

 

[Catholic Crusader]

Turns out that things are actually better. Back then, illiteracy was high.....

WHAT?!! Kids are MORONS these days. In the 50's, kids would actually learn Latin in school. Today, they kind find France on a map! Today we give kids diploma's who can barely write. You have GOT to be kidding me. Thats one of the reasons we bring in foreign workers from certain counties where education is still valued, because our kids are learning how to "feel good" in school rather than becoming engineers or scientists. They are too busy peircing their noses and listening to Snoop Dog.

I will grant you the bit about the racism. That was bad. But even then, most familes - including black families despite their troubles - stuck together and had a moral foundation. Now you have pregnant girls in high schools, kids carrying guns, their pants falling off their arses, cities that look like war zones, crack babies, broken families..... please

 

[Snidey]

What basis are you using for education? Education is clearly superior today. It's only the very latest college generation that is dumbed down thanks to text messaging and the like, and that's almost entirely confined to English.

 

[Catholic Crusader]

How many inner city teenagers do you know? I lived in Oakland, CA for a long time, and I've seen it all.

 

[Snidey]

I live in DC.

 

[Barbarian]

WHAT?!! Kids are MORONS these days.

You have that one wrong. It's called the "Flynn Effect."

The average rate of rise seems to be around three IQ points per decade. Because children attend school longer now and have become much more familiar with the testing of school-related material, one might expect the greatest gains to occur on such school content-related tests as vocabulary, arithmetic or general information. Just the opposite is the case: abilities such as these have experienced relatively small gains and even occasional declines over the years. The largest Flynn effects appear instead on culture reduced highly general intelligence factor loaded (g-loaded) tests such as Raven's Progressive Matrices. For example, Dutch conscripts gained 21 points in only 30 years, or 7 points per decade, between 1952 and 1982.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

In the 50's, kids would actually learn Latin in school.

Turns out that they can reason better than most people of previous generations. They don't know a lot of things that were important decades ago, but they know a lot more about things that are important to get along today.

Today, they kind find France on a map! Today we give kids diploma's who can barely write. You have GOT to be kidding me. Thats one of the reasons we bring in foreign workers from certain counties where education is still valued, because our kids are learning how to "feel good" in school rather than becoming engineers or scientists.

You got that wrong, too. The United States is a participant in the TIMSS studies, in which the kids from about 40 other nations take standard science and math tests. We've always been above average, but we've been improving relative to the rest of the world:
http://nces.ed.gov/timss/TIMSS03Tables. ... 3&Figure=6
http://nces.ed.gov/timss/TIMSS03Tables. ... 3&Figure=6

Both are slightly up from 1995 testing. (8th grade is the last grade most nations put all students in an academic tracking; many then track the less accomplished students into vocational training after that) Their biggest problem is that we need to teach them to use different writing styles appropriately. One thing I do is make them do a lab report in SMS (txtspk, texting jargon) and then ask them to read each others, and to share it with a parent or other adult. That usually brings the point home.

They are too busy peircing their noses and listening to Snoop Dog.

Apparently, they're getting something. I teach science to 13 y/0s. And trust me, what worked with us won't work with them. They are uncredibly bright and willing to learn, but they are more inclined to technology than we will ever be. That's the world they got; they didn't ask for it. So I teach them to make contour maps of data on excel instead of graph paper. It works,and that is what their bosses will be expecting of them. I show them how to use a slide rule mostly to ground them in the kind of world it used to be, and to understand the discoveries that made the world they have.

If you knew kids today, you would never call them morons. They are different. They are sometimes inexplicable, and sometimes they don't get what's obvious to us. But they are at least as bright as we were.

I will grant you the bit about the racism. That was bad. But even then, most familes - including black families despite their troubles - stuck together and had a moral foundation. Now you have pregnant girls in high schools, kids carrying guns, their pants falling off their arses, cities that look like war zones, crack babies, broken families..... please

Violence is down. Drug use is down. And until recently, teen pregnancy was down. Bad times make bad societies.

I'm old, but I'm not too old to know that kids are a marvel today. You might want to get to know some of them. Even the bad ones. I teach my share of those, too. I fear for many of them, and hope for all of them.

And most of them grow up to be OK. As it always has been.

 

[Snidey]

Yeah but teens are having more sex! Ahhhhh!!!!1!!

 

[Catholic Crusader]

.....As it always has been.

Pregnant girls in high schools, kids carrying guns, their pants falling off their arses, cities that look like war zones, crack babies, broken families..... thats "As it always has been" ?

Violence is down. Drug use is down

Down from what? Why don't you go back to the 50's, then make your comparison. One step forward means nothing when you are constantly taking two steps backwards.

 

[freeway]

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=32430&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=metal+detectors&start=15[/url]

 

[Snidey]

The 1950s? You mean before most of these drugs were even available? Yeah, that's a solid comparison, it MUST be the lack of prayer in schools.

 

[Barbarian]

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.â€Â

So said Plato. So whining about the young folks is an old vice, indeed. But it's no more realistic now, than it was then.

(stuff offered to "prove" schools are downhill)
Just look at the stats since God has been removed from school in 1962..

My daughter and her friends did "at the flagpole" prayers at school regularly, and no one could stop them. It's a myth that "God and prayer" are gone from schools. What's gone is the government telling kids what prayer to say. And that's a very good thing. As James Madison wrote, that is destructive to Christianity and to freedom.

killings, rape, drugs, fights, break down of the family structure.. oh but the question is what can Creationism do for us... just look around and look what science+personal atheistic input that somehow we just evolved has done for us... and just reverse that... pre 1962

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=32430&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=metal+detectors&start=15

Let's take a look at the facts instead...

Violent Deaths at School

From July 1, 2005, through June 30, 2006, there were 14 homicides and 3 suicides of school-age youth (ages 5–18) at school. Combined, this number translates into 1 homicide or suicide of a school-age youth at school per 3.2 million students enrolled during the 2005–06 school year. The most recent data available for the total number of homicides of school-age youth are from the 2004–05 school year, during which there were 1,534 homicides. In the 2004 calendar year, there were 1,471 suicides of school-age youth. In each school year, youth were over 50 times more likely to be murdered and were over 150 times more likely to commit suicide when they were away from school than at school.

Nonfatal Student Victimizationâ€â€Student Reports

Between 1992 and 2005, the total crime victimization rates for students age 12 to 18 generally declined both at school and away from school; this pattern held for the total crime rate as well as for thefts (purse snatching, pick pocketing, and all attempted and completed thefts except motor vehicle thefts), violent crimes (serious violent crimes and simple assault), and serious violent crimes (rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault). At school, total crime and theft victimization rates for students were not measurably different between 2004 and 2005. For example, the victimization rate of students age 12 to 18 at school was 55 victimizations per 1,000 students in 2004 and 57 victimizations in 2005.
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=49

Imagination and story-telling is hardly an adequate replacement for the facts. You're a victim only so long as you uncritically accept those stories. Start checking for yourself, and you'll be free.

 

[Catholic Crusader]

The 1950s? You mean before most of these drugs were even available? Yeah, that's a solid comparison, it MUST be the lack of prayer in schools.

Oh, they didn't have booze, or marijuana back then? Had sex not been invented yet? Had not the gun been invented then? They were around, but not in schools, because families consisted of a mother and a father, and kids were disciplined and taught right from wrong in those days.

You are so awashed in this filthy modern society that you don't even have a compass point to see what a moral society looks like.

 

[Snidey]

The 1950s? You mean before most of these drugs were even available? Yeah, that's a solid comparison, it MUST be the lack of prayer in schools.

Oh, they didn't have booze, or marijuana back then? Had sex not been invented yet? Had not the gun been invented then? They were around, but not in schools, because families consisted of a mother and a father, and kids were disciplined and taught right from wrong in those days.

You are so awashed in this filthy modern society that you don't even have a compass point to see what a moral society looks like.

Um, COCAINE was not being widely distributed then. HEROIN was not being widely distributed then. Inner cities, as they exist today, were only beginning to exist. That might explain some differences. But nice job cherry picking marijuana, the least harmful illegal drug in existence (which, ironically, was just prior to the 1950s subject to a massive propaganda campaign full of nonsense and scare tactics).

Your idea of a moral society and mine are not the same. I see individual choices that don't harm others as a good thing. I see civil rights and human equality as good things. Your idea of a moral society was the disgusting, Communism-obsessed, racist society of the 1950s? Get a grip. It's not about having morals or not, it's about what your morals actually are, and what ground they stand on. Mine revolve around things that are demonstrably deleterious to human beings. Choose another moral standard if you'd like, but don't taut it as superior when it couldn't possibly be measured as such.

 

[Barbarian]

I was in school in the 50s. And there was booze freely available then, and a lot of drinking, for those who wanted it. It seems there was a lot of sex going on, too.

And when marijuana became generally available in the early sixties, it was also used by some.

Anyone who thinks that was an age of innocence wasn't a kid then.

 

[Catholic Crusader]

....Your idea of a moral society and mine are not the same. I see individual choices that don't harm others as a good thing.....

So, should people have sex with animals, perhaps even marry them? After all, that doesnt hurt you, right? Or is there any line you would draw?

That fact that the younger generation is so fouled up is a DIRECT result of such ridiculous points of views as yours. People and your ilk, more than anyone else, are to blame for the vicious behaviors that many kids display these days. Whern man becomes the decider of what is right and wrong instead of God, the results are decadent societies which will eventually colapse under the weight of their own perversity.

 

[Catholic Crusader]

I was in school in the 50s. And there was booze freely available then, and a lot of drinking, for those who wanted it. It seems there was a lot of sex going on, too.

And when marijuana became generally available in the early sixties, it was also used by some.

Anyone who thinks that was an age of innocence wasn't a kid then.

I was a kid of the late 60's and 70's, and no one ever got shot at my schools. No teacher ever got raped. I never saw a pregnant schoolmate. I'm not saying we were innocent, but compared to todays world, we were angels. And if the curve continues, 50 years from now there will be no sense or morality at all. It will be bad for those in live in those days to come.

 

[Snidey]

....Your idea of a moral society and mine are not the same. I see individual choices that don't harm others as a good thing.....

So, should people have sex with animals, perhaps even marry them? After all, that doesnt hurt you, right? Or is there any line you would draw?

That fact that the younger generation is so fouled up is a DIRECT result of such ridiculous points of views as yours. People and your ilk, more than anyone else, are to blame for the vicious behaviors that many kids display these days. Whern man becomes the decider of what is right and wrong instead of God, the results are decadent societies which will eventually colapse under the weight of their own perversity.

Thanks for ignoring the core point of my post, that the primary drugs that have direct ties to crime were not available in the 50s.

Marriage to animals? How would that work? How does an animal give consent?

The rest of your post is without any merit, merely because it provides no evidence of any sort, nor does it justify your basis for morality. I have a moral standard that can be measured. Harm to others can be measured. Everyone tries to justify their morality on the same basis. That's why anti-gay rights activists try to make it seem as if there is some negative effect on society as a whole when gays can marry. The development of "kids these days" (find me a generation of adults who didn't find the youngest generations immoral) is the result of a huge amount of different conditions. While you take personal offense at kids having safe sex, I do not. There has been no negative impact upon society from such activity unless you take such activity as a negative in and of itself.

 

[Catholic Crusader]

...Thanks for ignoring the core point of my post....

I did try my best.
And with that, I withdraw from this thread. Enjoy yourselves