I agree that public schools should not "teach" religion but I also
think that the ban on even mentioning Christmas or the ban on school
kids from mentioning God has gone too far.
I don't know, I've read the constitution and I can't find a lot of the
stuff that the ACLU says is in there. School boards are running scared
of ACLU threats so they aren't a good source of what's right either.
I suppose the Dover case you're mentioning has to do with intelligent
design. The way I heard it, there was no "teaching" of it. A
4-paragraph statement was to be read at the start of the year's
science
class stating that there was another theory of origins and if anyone
was interested they could check out a certain book.
Now the good judge apparently called this "teaching of religion" but I
personally think he was out to lunch. Atheism is also a religion of
sorts but schools don't mind teaching that.

GW

Schools don't teach Atheism, Atheism isn't a religion, and if you don't
understand why the court disallowed the ID people from giving their
statement at the beginning of biology class you should read the judge's
decision, all 139 pages of it. It explains very clearly why the people
supporting ID, i.e. Creationism were completely wrong in what they were
insisting the school do. After reading that decision you ought to
understand
what it was about and why the judge, even though he was a Bush
appointee,
ruled against the Creationists.

Hawke

If the judge had come up with 139 pages of the opposite conclusion
would you have thought it was so good?

Webster says that religion is a cause, principle, or system of beliefs
held to with ardor and faith. I think that the way some people hold to
atheism it could qualify as some sort of religion.

Don't atheists claim to "know" what does not exist in every nook and
cranny of the universe? Although they are stuck on this tiny speck of a
planet and they haven't been any place else they still know that God
doesn't exist anywhere in time and space and beyond. Knowing everything
is called being omniscient. So I guess that if they are omniscient,
they must be god. If they don't know everything then they must be
sticking by their beliefs by some kind of faith.

Look at it this way. Say that you are convinced that there are extra
terrestrials and that they visit, and have visited the earth many times over
thousands of years. Say that you and thousands or even millions of other
people believed the same thing. Now I come along and say no, there are no
ETs and there is no evidence there are any. While you and your fellow ET
believers may qualify as a religion but as for me, who simply does not
accept the truth of your belief, not agreeing with your group doesn't make
me and people who also disagree with your group part of a religion. We
simply don't believe in a concept there is no evidence which supports it.
It's the same with Atheism. People saying they don't think there is a God
simply see no evidence proving that belief and reject it's veracity. That
hardly makes one part of an organized religion, does it.

As to the creation case, I would accept any ruling by a judge that was based
on empirical facts and sound reasoning that was not impeded by any kind of
personal bias. In this case the judge was a Bush appointee and I believe a
churchgoer. But after seeing very easily through the phony assertions of the
ID advocates his only choice was to reject their claims. That's why I would
accept his analysis of the case at face value. Don't you?

Hawke