Batjay wrote about a news article that appeared in the Washington Post about the state of Kansas bringing back the teaching Intelligent design in schools to clash head on with Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection
One of the interesting questions man has been trying to answer is where and how we started. Not that scholars of both religion and science had not tried to explain our origin. On the contrary, there are more than three hundred ways by which church scholars explain the existence of a Master Creator, viz., God. You'll find more arguments here. And we all know about Darwin's theory of evolution. And of course, you've heard about the "Monkey trial" where John Scopes was tried for teaching the theory of evolution, that brought the clash between the traditionalists and the modernists.
This brings to mind what the role of education is in terms of explaining man's origin. I will have to qualify my response to this question. If a school is nonsectarian, meaning, it does not adhere or is restricted to any one religion, then, the least that it can do is to open the learners to the various explanations and let its students make their own opinion based on the merits of the arguments. After all, this is the taison d'etre of schools. To teach the students how to think.
Now comes the question about a parent deciding to send his/her child to a sectarian school, i.e., a Catholic one, to which I was brought up and to which I am now employed. Should a parent send his/her child/ren to a Catholic school, then, that only goes to show that said parent is ready to embrace the teachings of the Catholic faith presumably because that is what the parent believes in. To send a child to a sectarian school only because it is reputedly a good school for academics but not embracing its faith brings a lot of problems to the child. This can bring about confusion to a child's young mind as what he/she is being taught in school may be in direct conflict with the beliefs of his/her family. What complicates it more is when there are teachers who are not members of the faith.
In fairness to my school, we have non-Catholics and we respect their ways as long as they don't interfere with ours and that they do not proselytize. And we do teach philosophy where the arguments for the existence of God is discussed side by side with the teachings of science and natural selection.
At any rate, religion or the Bible is not a science book and although attempts have been made to reconcile it, the word in operation here is faith. A person's faith, if grounded on a strong foundation, cannot be swayed to denounce it. As for me, I believe in the existence of God and no one can shake away my belief.
2 comments:
i really did not like was the way "intellgent design" was incorporated in the science curriculum in kansas.
it's a step back - especially when all evidence (from genetics to molecular biology) prove that the theory of evolution and natural selection is correct.
event the catholic church admits natural selection as true. in fact, the church acknoweldges that the entire book of genesis are just metaphors and should not be taken literally.
pero i am interested in how schools teach biology? i studied in a catholic school as well and we did discuss evolution and natural selection. to my school's credit, there wasn't any lecture on intelligent design during science class - we had a separate subject for that. it was called "religion".
batjay Yun na nga e. I was also raised in a Catholic school and yes, magkahiwalay ang science and religion. Its turning out, mas progressive pa tayo sa America no.
Post a Comment