Cosh;
… that what is about to happen to Tory is somewhat unjust. He may, after all, end up as the first Conservative party leader anywhere in Canada to lose an election because he advocated relativism and multiculturalism. These are twin creeds that Liberals and public-school teachers are happy to profess when the subject is government or sexual morality, but just watch how quickly they are abandoned when someone challenges the science curriculum.
I was living in Toronto when the Liberals were elected, so I have a pretty good idea how ridiculous they are as a party. But if Tory wants creationism taught in schools, even if it’s in religious classes, then he is a buffoon.
How does Cosh make the mistake of calling Tory a Conservative rather than a Progressive Conservative?
Why tarnish Canada’s New Government for the failings of their softer, pinker cousins? Surely it has nothing to do with the fact that the guy running the Liberal war room is a freaking National Post columnist, and formerly a registered lobbyist for the Aspers too?
Bay Street hates conservatism of any flavour, and John Tory is as Bay Street as it gets. I’m not the only one to suggest Tory doesn’t appear to be giving his best effort.
Anyway, this election is between John Tory and the insanely hostile media, some of which are owned by the Ontario Teacher’s pension fund. Here is what Tory actually said:
“Under the Conservative (sic) plan for fully funded faith-based schools, teaching of the Darwinian theory of evolution in science classes would remain an absolute requirement, as per the Ontario curriculum guidelines.”
Remember back when Kate posted the “Tobacco is good for you” post? I saw Health Canada paying for creationism. Here’s how tobacco evolved as per the federal government and Ernie the Elder:
“Sky Woman began to fall to earth, and as she fell she brought with her two main plants of Tobacco and Strawberry. The water animals watched her descend. In preparation for her, the muskrat took bits of dirt and carried them to the surface of the water. The dirt was placed on the back of the sea turtle, and it is here where Sky Woman landed. The plants she was carrying took seed and continued to grow as Strawberry and Tobacco on what is now known as Turtle Island.”
http://www.tobaccowise.com/traditional/elders
I guess Indian creationism is OK, sort of like Indian terrorism is OK, at least to the Canadian media.
Hey chip. How about Native creation stories? Hindu? Aboriginal Australian? Greek myths? Norse myths? Those are all fascinating stories, and many of them shaped our world as we know it (names of days of the week and months of the year, many literary expressions, etc.). The Bible’s Creation story is a huge part of our culture. We even have a 7-day week (with one of them being a day of rest) because of it. We should let kids clue in to the background of the culture they’re in.
This Creation bug-a-boo is so annoying. What makes people so intolerant of even hearing it or about it? Is it just that it’s Christian?
sorry . . . Judeo-Christian?
.
Ann,
Yes
.
Ok. That’s a succint answer. Let’s clarify why then.
So . . . why is a Judeo-Christian creation story anathema, but all the other stories so cute and multi-culti and acceptable?
Someone just articulate it. Maybe a lefty.
Why is it unacceptable to tell our youth about Judeo-Christian creation story?
I am in one of the ridings that Tory is targetting….and 10 years ago I would have been totally ok with the proposal…not because I am religous but because anything that breaks a monopoly delivery system is fine with me especially when you have the funding of one religous sect, RC schools and not others.
Now I am against mostly because I think the regulation of religous schools is something that wont happen as a practical matter. Will they really go into a madrassa and pull out the crap that has been used as school books, all from Saudi no less.
ENd the madness and go back to a single publically funded system.
I look forward to Greg Sorbrara and Dalton McGuinty either defending why their religons schools get funded and nobody else….warren K for that matter…want to see that pretzel defence….or I look forward to seeing the new liberal policy on elimination of RC funding, consitutional ammendment and all….
If the Liberals propose that I will vote for them, it would require major nose holding but I would do it…I can confidently predict my bet will not be called.
The MSM are Liberal propaganda mouthpieces – and they are grossly misinforming the public about what John Tory really said.
As noted – he specifically said that these schools would be teaching the Ontario curriculum. What he is doing is bringing them into the curriculum, ensuring that ‘far-out’ themes are not taught as ‘ultimate truth’.
By the way – neodarwinism, with its insistence that all evolution is due to random mutations and a resultant fight-to-the-death natural selection, is being more and more criticized in biological and chemical scientific studies. These studies are examining dev’t and evolution, and concluding that randomness isn’t a strong enough value to ensure robustness of a type.
That is, if a species required an adaptive strategy to deal with changes in the env’t, then, waiting for a random event to come up with the solution – well, it would be like waiting for the lottery to pay your bills. Won’t happen. By the time a random solution came up – the species would be long, long, long extinct.
I don’t think that creationism is the solution, but it should be taught as an answer developed by us, by we humans. But, there’s more to the strategies of evolution than random mutation and natural selection.
Oh – and McGuinty now has offered 71 new promises. Is the Ontario public that dumb not to realize exactly how many of his previous promises he broke? Almost all of them.
And McGuinty, like Paul Martin, is flinging taxpayer money around like crazy – buying votes left and right.
He’s offered full day kindergarten – essentially state-funded day care…
Stephen:
There should just be a voucher system or a tax-break plan. Everyone goes their own way. The free market always works. If you’re Jewish, Muslim, Christian or whatever, and your religious affiliation makes a crappy school, you won’t send your children there if you want them to succeed when they’re older. If the school churns out excellent students who will be a credit to Canadian society, I couldn’t care what religion they have, and whether they think the world is young or old. If they don’t break the laws, and are good Canadian citizens — good on ’em.
Voucher system — that gets my vote.
Ann, I believe it is a form of ABC…Anything But Christianity. Look around…everything else is defended and celebrated, while Christianity is assailed.
If I weren’t post-Christian, I would think that the Revelations are starting to play out.
E.T. makes a good point about evolution’s issues. Even science has its accepted dogma, that frequently only goes away after the generation or two that held to it so doggedly finally dies off. It’s seldom fantastic new insights that totally change a scientific paradigm — it’s usually the older generation’s passing and the younger’s acceptance of new thoughts.Happened when the Newtonian era changed to Einstein’s for example. Everyone should read Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.”
He says that what generally happens when a discovery contradicts a paradigm is that the paradigm is not discarded but modified, usually by making secondary assumptions, to accommodate the new evidence. So let’s say a modern day fossil is discovered (supposed to be long gone millions of years ago). Everyone’s so mired in their paradigm that the assumption is not: “Evolution is wrong.” The assumption is: “that species did not change one bit over millions of years. Next!” This cycle only ends as those clinging to the old paradigm pass on.
Wonder what’s after evolution? Aliens made us? It’s all so fascinating.
I gotta go away for the rest of the day but I look forward to reading everyone’s imput on this later — this topic really fascinates me. Wish I could stick around to take part! You SDAers have given me so much food for thought this past year, before I finally dared to join in . . .
Kate’s the best.
Christians might agree to not teaching the theory of intelligent design in schools if teachers would stop teaching the non-scientific belief of materialism in science classes.
Materialism posits that the material universe is all that exists. All science is currently built around this non-scientific, unproveable philoshical assumption.
Materialism is a philosophical belief, not science.
Let the evidence point where it may. The evidence of apparent design in the universe, the evidence of an unextinguishable moral stamp on the human heart, and the persistent belief that humans have value, purpose and destiny (as seen in the secular belief in “human rights”), all point to both design and a Creator.
Without a Creator, a belief in human rights is absurd, and the moral stamp within the human heart nothing more than a cruel joke of mindless, uncaring evolution.
Ann,
Normally I would agree with you, and in the past I would have agreed with you 100%.
I like voucher, haveadvocated it in the past. My concern today comes from thinking about whether there really will be enforcement, not in CHristian, Jewish or Hindu shchools but in Muslim schools.
Sorry to be politically incorrect but we all know how that will play out when the regulators try to shut down a Muslim school.
That is what is driving my concern. If I felt the government would have the cohones to enforce the curriculum in ALL circumstances then I would be ok with it.
I just dont think they will, so I fear that means a single system….or it means alternative schools are allowed but not allowed to be religously based. The religous base is the issue…
This is a recent change for me. I just really dont see Ontario politicians standing up to “Muslim Wrath”
stephen – you are concerned that IF we go to funding all schools, private and public, religous and secular, then, the administration won’t stand up to Muslim schools who might be teaching fanaticism.
Remember, in order to be funded, they have to teach the Ontario curriculum. If they chose to reject that curriculum and registered teachers, then, they are not funded.
AND – at the moment, without such funding, there is no way that we can observe or critique Muslim fanaticism in their current schools. So – your fear that ‘IF we fund, we won’t stand up to them’ – well, we aren’t funding them now, and we aren’t standing up to them now.
A lot of what we are seeing is just whining from the Christians as they lose market share to other ideas. They have to do better than Creationism though, if they want to take on science. Evolution has evidence and makes testable predictions while Creationism is intellectually vacuous.
Stephen, I agree with you that the only religious schools that will be regulated will be those–especially, Christian ones–that are NOT Muslim.
Of course, I had to painstakingly restate this thesis to a dear lefty friend–who’s been thoroughly shafted by the PC outfit for which she works–who expressed SHOCK that the PC enforcers would play favourites with religious schools. What is it about the lefty brain? (Otherwise, my friend is an intelligent person.)
I’m really conflicted on this issue.
ann, whoever you are, I’ve appreciated your recent contributions. Keep them coming and have a fine day!
Many people seem to forget that we’re talking about SCIENCE class … not philosophy or ethics or religion. Science classes, and here we’re specifically focused on biology, are intended to teach scientific knowledge and theory based on evidence. You can believe whatever you want about the origin of the fundamental laws of the universe and about whether or not a “designer” directed the evolutionary path we can observe in the fossil record. However, the teaching of that has no place in a science class.
I taught biology in university. One of the assignments was to choose a side on a topic and to support that opinion using scientific evidence. Each religion has a “creation story.” None of them are equivalent to scientific evidence.
I told my students that I was not going to discuss their philosophical beliefs; the class was to learn what science tells us about living things.
“Intelligent design” has no place in science classes. It’s religion and belongs in places of religion not in public schools.
This is what the Muslim Canadian Congress is saying about Tory’s ideas. Now, this group is about as “moderate” as any Islamic group in the world. I’m not sure how many they actually represent, but at laest by words, they would be the “good muslims” we are all lookning for. Here is what they say:
http://www.muslimcanadiancongress.org/
TORONTO – The Muslim Canadian Congress has criticized the proposal by the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario to fund private religious schools by diverting funds away from the public education system.
The MCC stands for the separation of religion and state. Religious organizations have no role to play when government services are provided to the public. In every sphere of life where government interacts with its citizens—in law making and law enforcement, in utilities, transit, public recreation, social services, and above all, in education—religion is as irrelevant as gender or race.
For this reason the MCC demands that every province in Canada should have a single public school system, available to every child. We believe that only a single unified school systems should be supported by tax dollars.
END QUOTE:
If you look at their positions on many issues, they would be quite in line with many people who post on this site. Look at what they said about John Tory in the comment which follows the one I mention. I think they are on the money. He is just trying to buy the religious vote.
So, my reading of this is that Canadian Muslims who fear the excessive Islamization of society also recognize that promoting faith-based schooling is a threat. All the reassurances that the government will somehow “control” the curriculum are just hot air.
And again… just look at England. Excessive accomondation WILL NEVER WORK. We need to force integration on these people. Letting them segregate in their schools where the girls will feel peer pressure to wear Hijabs, and the boys will gravitate to the voices of violence that will never be silenced, will be a disaster. John Tory has totally misread the situation.
Oh – and McGuinty now has offered 71 new promises. Is the Ontario public that dumb not to realize exactly how many of his previous promises he broke?
Some are. Some aren’t. The majority are so wrapped up in their yuppy lifestyles that they don’t even know an election is slated for October 10th.
Hey, I’m not religious but I support the conservatives. Am I bad in one way but good in another?
Do you hate the sin but not the sinner? Must I be converted?
Alberta has had fudning for faith based schools for years. I think there are 6 provinces who have the same.
Isn’t it a shame that “progressive” Ontario is so behind the times.
Before provincial funding these schools existed anyways but there was no ability to standardize and enforce provincial curriculum standards.
For a province like Ontario that always seems to vote for “the nanny state” it seems mighty strange they would balk at the province having more say in these private schools WHICH ALREADY EXIST!
I remember story time from elementary school. Creationism, among other mythologies belongs there. Not in a science class. Do people really want to handicap their children like this?
Pettit says, “A lot of what we are seeing is just whining from the Christians as they lose market share to other ideas.” Wrong tense, Pettit.
While being forced to pay for it, via the exorbitant taxes we hand over, Christians have not only LOST market share in the public square for at least the last five decades or so, we’re being actively kicked around by the jackboots of the Canadian state. (Think Charter.)
And if Pettit isn’t aware of what I’m talking about, (s)he, might consider being informed before serving up “cutting edge” (only in his/her self-congratulatory brain), pap propaganda.
John Tory is in over his head on this one. He could get past this mess right now if he’d promise to have a referendum on Faith School funding if elected.
That’s the only way to go with such a contentious issue.
Newfoundland had two referendums before they dropped all religious school funding. They now have all public schools.
Yep, daily I find myself at odds with this new conservatism.
Here’s what he said
“They teach evolution in the Ontario curriculum, but they also could teach the fact to the children that there are other theories that people have out there that are part of some Christian beliefs,” Mr. Tory said at the Kamin Education Centre.”
6 days to make the earth is not a theory, it’s a myth. This is why he’s getting flack. If you want to posit that there was some divine spark, it then becomes necessary to describe the nature of that divine being. Yes, you have to. And you can’t. This is why ID is not science.
Was it God, Brahma, Midichlorians or the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Who knows! Ah, but that isn’t the point of the Intelligent Design movement, is it? The being who started it all was, specifically, the Judeo Christian God.
There’s a reason that people are wary of the conservative movement, and John Tory has proven to be a perfect example as to why that is.
Posted by: Richard Ball at September 8, 2007 11:44 AM
Without a Creator, a belief in human rights is absurd, and the moral stamp within the human heart nothing more than a cruel joke of mindless, uncaring evolution.
Excuse me? Are you suggesting that non-religious people like to torture small animals and torment peers just for the evilness of it all?
The reason kids are taught to behave nicely and not be belligerent is because to not do so would be anarchy.
It’s not really necessary to have religion for teaching this, is it.
If the only reason “you” don’t punch people in the face randomly is due to your religion, well, you have a lack of empathy. All children learn empathy but some get it beaten out of them.
ET said
“That is, if a species required an adaptive strategy to deal with changes in the env’t, then, waiting for a random event to come up with the solution – well, it would be like waiting for the lottery to pay your bills. Won’t happen. By the time a random solution came up – the species would be long, long, long extinct.”
Spoken like a true follower of intelligent design (intelligent design is neither).
If you want to teach your kids your religious beliefs then fine, but do it in your places of worship, you are free to do that. If as an atheist I am supposed to help fund schools, which I have no problem with, then I want my money being spent on education, not superstition.
Don’t let your dogma follow your kid to school.
This atheist doesn’t want his taxpayer dollars used to indoctrinate kids with the religion of Glowball Warmening, the worst kind of superstition in existence.
And I’d like the evils of socialism to be taught in its place.
Tory is plainly not yet ready for prime time. Perhaps next election. Too bad-McGuinty is a curse on the province.
Concerning Darwinism, Darwin’s theory never rested solely on natural selection. He wrote an entire treatise on sexual selection, for example, which most people overlook. His theories, in fact, have been strengthened with the discovery of new gene functions (regulatory genes, multiple copies, etc.). Darwin, of course, did not have the benefit of knowledge of DNA and his theories have been more refined and amplified by newer discoveries.
I feel sorry for people who need superstitious beliefs in order to feel like acting morally or find a purpose in life. Be assured, many of us do not need superstitions. Nor would most of us want to undermine you needs, lest you quit acting morally and lose a sense of purpose.
“Without a Creator, a belief in human rights is absurd, and the moral stamp within the human heart nothing more than a cruel joke of mindless, uncaring evolution.”
He’s smokin’ hot today! Seriously, Richard, that was well said.
I’ve always felt sorry for people whose view of the world is so narrow minded and earthbound they can’t imagine anything greater.
@Paul at September 8, 2007 1:02 PM
“Excuse me? Are you suggesting that non-religious people like to torture small animals and torment peers just for the evilness of it all?”
No. I’m suggesting that good and evil and a moral sense exist whether there is religion or not, and man exercises moral behaviour whether he is religious or not or believes in God or not. And I’m saying that this indwelling moral sense only makes rational sense if we are the products of a divine Creator who has put this moral imprint within us and who Himself possesses moral characteristics.
I’m saying that Christians have a rational explanation for the existence of good and evil and a persisent indwelling moral sense — atheists have none; yet they accuse Christians of being irrational.
“If the only reason “you” don’t punch people in the face randomly is due to your religion, well, you have a lack of empathy.”
I never said or suggested that. I said that a moral imprint within the human heart is persistent. You are witnessing to it. I’m saying that Christianity provides a rational explanation for its existence, atheism doesn’t, and can’t. If there is no God behind the universe, humankind is without intent, design, purpose, value and importance, and, while it might hurt your feelings or offend your sensibilities, if human origins are purely materialistic, as is taught today in science classes across the country, killing a human being is objectively no better or worse than smashing a rock.
So let me see if I got this right.
Conservatives – who in all other instances argue strongly (and often correctly) that “the state” is nothing more than a bunch of incompetent, liberal-minded, power-mongering, PC-loving, multiculturalist-accommodating, brain dead bureaucrats who consistently attempt to circumvent democracy especially if there is a conservative government with their own ideas which are out of step with society and ALWAYS lead to more problems and more wasted tax dollars and no quality service of any kind and therefore can’t be trusted to accomplish ANYTHING – conservatives (mind you, not nearly all of them) want us now to believe that this same bunch of civil servants are suddenly now capabable and ought to be trusted to (a) determine which religious schools should get funding and which not and (b) ensure that religious fundamentalism (especially Islamic fundamentalism) is not taught.
Give heads a shake, folks.
alby:
What bad, exactly, comes from the study of religion?
Like anything else, it is a form of knowledge.
To reject an entire body of wisdom truly is unwise.
There is aboslutely no conflict between religion and science.
There is no conflict between creation and the evolution theory. To create that conflict is just a red herring since it deals with two entirely different topic and forgive the cliche, is like comparing apples to oranges.
The closest competing theory to creation is the big bang theory.
Creation deals with the starting point and, to me, makes much more sense than all live starting with an explosion.
An explosion is such an ugly thing.
Creation, on the other hand, is a thing of beauty created from the love of the creator.
We are now in the seventh day of creation, the time that God sits back and watches what he created … evolve.
Hey Ted, maybe he’s lying. Maybe he’s saying all this crap knowing full-well that once he gets in there’s no way he’s gonna follow through on his promises, suckers be damned.
Oh wait, that’s your guy, isn’t it?
See, that’s the beauty of everyone but McLiar: there’s a good chance they actually mean what they say.
I agree Set You Free. The problem is that there are many who do not. There are many who believe that belief in evolution is the devil’s work, that the universe was created in a period of 144 hours some 4,000 to 10,000 years ago and to believe anything different is not Christian.
While there are many reasons religious schools remain outside the school system, a very very big reason why many of them were created in the first place was a result of the ever ongoing conflicts between what religion wants us to believe and what science documents. That’s not going to change.
LizJ is bang on. Tory should call for a referendum on this contentious issue – ultimately it is unfair for one religion (Catholics) to get public funding while no others are offered it under equal circumstances.
Tory believes that sticking to his guns on this is a test of leadership – a quality in which, with their string of broken promises the McGuinty Liberals are sorely lacking. Ontario needs a change in government and this issue is standing in the way of making that happen. Tory can stick to his position if he calls for a referendum, and Ontarians can vote for a change of government knowing they’ll get a shot at this issue without the other more day-to-day issues of government getting in the way.
Separate but equal is not “multiculturalism”.
And yet there are so many Lefties who are comfortable with the North American Indian nonsense that the world was created on the back of a giant turtle, or the idiocy of a mother gaia.
Our teachers push their religions – Glowball Warmening and socialism – on our kids. If we’re going to get religion out of the classroom, let’s really get it out.
Ted:
The thing I never understood about the big bang theory is how a universe could be created out of an obviously destructive force.
It’s like saying: ‘I’m going to create something by lighting a fuse to a stick of dynamite.’ Totally illogical.
So, if somebody were to convince others that creation of something is actually the destruction of something, it’s no wonder some humans believe marxism made sense.
On some plane, I’m sure there’s a logical connection between the two theories. I haven’t actually examined it, but those two theories appeared and gained a measure of acceptance at roughly the same time.
The evolution example you give comes from the literal interpetations of the Bible.
Yet, most of Christ’s parables were allegorical and to place a specific timeline on the moment of creation, at least to me, is totally disengenious.
One fundamental mistake, in my opinion, is assigning length of time to the allegorical seven days of creation.
Much of the Genesis account deals with a time BEFORE the earth’s creation and therefore to assign a human day value to God’s ‘day’ seems like folly to me and quite worthy of debate.
Seven days of creation. We’re in the seventh day.
Human beings appeared in just a sliver of the final day.
If some are so sure of the exact time of creation, then they must also be able to calcluate when the seventh day will end.
Of course, they do not know the answer to that one, even though some cults masquerading as Christians have already predicted and been proven wrong. In Biblical times, those particular people would have been adjudged false prophets and punished appropriately.
Some political movements even masquerade as Christians, misunderstanding that Christianity is about the salvation of one’s own soul, not to make life better for everybody else.
Enough for now.
Set You Free
“What bad, exactly, comes from the study of religion?”
Nothing at all, within the context you are interested in. However, when it masquerades as science, then there is a problem. That’s exactly what ID is.
Who created the creator???? Until anyone can answer this question, with FACTS, your belief systems are garbage!
Krydor:
When has religion ever masqueraded as science?
Science, which I love, is about knowledge.
Religion is more about wisdom and, to this day is one of the more brilliant books on human psychology every written.
Two different spheres of understanding … yet one every bit as valid as the other.
What good is knowledge without wisdom? That would make sense to a nerdy personality (I’m not saying you are, because I don’t know you).
Gary:
Prove to me how a destructive incident (ie a big bang) can lead to creation of anything.
I happen to like the beauty of a loving creation better than the ugliness of a explosion which somehow led to the complexity of the universe.
As Spock would say about the big bang … illogical.
If Evolution is the way we got here, isn’t it based on survival of the fittest. So, why is everyone concerned about the possible loss of polar bears or other species. Seems these people are for evolution until they are against it, by trying to stop species from dieing and evolving.
I love that ABC, Anything but Christian.
Sorry to tell all those creation deniers, The Judeau-Christain beliefs will survive all your attempts to kill it.
Jason Cherniak: “Separate but equal is not “multiculturalism”.
I agree Jason, while separateness is obviously a key element of multiculturalism, you’d have to be an utter fool to think that equality has anything to do with it.
MaryT:
See how easy it is to discredit the big bang fairy tale?
Obviously, everything has evolved from the moment of creation through a variety of channels.
Creation vs evolution is a totally false comparison.
One (evolution) follows the other (creation) in a natural order.
Evolution, obviously, cannot follow destruction (the big bang).
Human beings are now taller, on the average, than they were in the middle ages. Just one example of evolution.
Christianity will outlive all forms of human’s attempts to control other human beings through deception and the creation/evolution deception is gasping its final breath.
The true on-topic debate is between creation and the big bang.
‘The gates of hell shall not prevail against my church.”
Wow, you guys have a real bunch of kooks dropping by.
It’s no wonder that the science education level is so abysmal in Canada.
anon:
Yeah, stands to reason that somebody is willing to deny the accumulated wisdom of human experience (religion), they’d be quite willing to be ignorant about other sciences.
Quite sad, really, about how human beings succumb to intellectual sloth when they live in such comfort.
Posted by: meesh at September 8, 2007 12:37 PM
“”Intelligent design” has no place in science classes.”
Bingo! 100%! ‘Nuff said!
It’s faith based, and it’s a comforting myth that, it would seem, helps some deal with reality. It may be useful to study religion(s!) in Social Studies. When “study” crosses the line into righteous indoctrination, as it so often does, then I’m against it.
“Christianity will outlive other forms of human’s attempts to control other human beings through deception”
There! Fixed it for you set you free.
Christianity=deception, regardless of what you fundies say!