...Evolution in our Public Schools Student Name PHI 103: Informal Logic Instructor: Date Evolution in our Public Schools I. Introduction A. Thesis Statement One of the major concerns in the scientific studies of biology today is about evolution being taught in our public schools. This has been an ongoing concern for the religious sects, teachers, school board members, students, parents, and state officials. It has been the talk of the courts since the Darwin Theory came along. Many issues have risen over the years since evolution was introduced to the world and into the school system. The questions of whether mankind evolved from a monkey or the way of creationism, that man was created by God as stated in the book of Genesis (Bible). Other issues that came up were with the teachers themselves and having to teach evolution in their biology classes, when not fully understanding evolution itself. In this essay we will discuss the arguments of evolution versus creationism that is being taught in our public schools and whether it is acceptable to teach evolution to our school children. II. Body paragraph # 1 – Topic Sentence # 1 The disputes of evolution started back in the late 19th century, some years after Charles Darwin came to the conclusion of linking human ancestry to lower animals by his evolution theory. This evolution of reasoning caused a stir in the public schools when it was put into the biology text books and required to be taught to the students...
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...Due to the First Amendment of the Constitution and the religion clauses, public schools have to be very careful in how religion is approached as to not infringe upon an individual’s rights. There are however, ways in which religious topics can be introduced without requesting or influencing anyone to sway from their religion or infringing upon religious freedoms. For instance, the Bible can be utilized for teaching certain aspects as well as teaching about religion. The Anti-Defamation League website explains, “The Bible may be taught in a school, but only for its historical, cultural or literary value and never in a devotional, celebratory, or doctrinal manner, or in such a way that encourages acceptance of the Bible as a religious document…Programs that “teach about religion” are geared toward teaching students about the role of religion in the historical, cultural, literacy and social development of the United States and other nations. These programs should instill understanding, tolerance and respect for a pluralistic society.” (ADL.org, 2013, para. 1 &...
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...There is nothing more damning and destructive to America's youth today than the Godless public school system! I thank God for the Bill of Rights. I thank God for the wisdom of our founding fathers. I thank God for the the First Amendment which gives us the legal right to freedom of speech, press, religion, and the right to peaceably assemble and protest. I am exercising my God-given freedom, by publishing this desperately needed article about the Godless and heathen public school system. There is no evil today like the Communist, humanistic, sexually immoral public school system. I detest the public school system! It is destructive to the faith of children! Sex Education Program in Our Public Schools: What Is Behind It? Perhaps you are asking, "What is so wrong with the public school system? In a word, EVERYTHING! Perhaps a better question is: What is right about the public school system? The truth is intolerant my friend. 1 + 1 = 2. Now you can ignorantly claim that 1 + 1 = 3; but you'd be wrong (and probably a product of the public school system). Children are robbed of faith in God in public schools. Instead, children are taught that they evolved from "stardust" which somehow formed into a planet, and then life just happened. Children are taught that humans are animals. If this is true, then bestiality is acceptable, right? This is what the evolutionists teach is it not? A good Christian family is a bulwark for good morals, the soil for the planting of good character, the...
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...believe that creationalism should be included in public school biology lessons (Moore,2000). I was always under the belief that creationalism was overwhelmingly shunned from public school education. The arguments are generally between christians and atheists/agnoists. I do not want to crititize anyone's way of thinking, but to simple state my general opinion. Neither group sways from their beliefs and constantly accuse the other of having the wrong mindset.The two groups clash regardless of evolution and tend to imploy concepts such as morallity, logic,history, sciencitfic concepts (like the big bang), personal testimonies, psychology, and the theory of evolution. Atheists tend to reference the theory of evolution in their arguments because it contradicts many of the text in the book of Genesis. Many christians believe that they cannot accpet their beleifs and support the ideals of evolution because it will make them seen as hypocrities by outsiders. Many people are under the false belief that all christians believe the world is somewhere between 6000-10000 years old, that dinosaurs never lived among humans, that there was a great flood which wiped the world's species.. This is the distinction between the average christian and a fundamentalalist chrisitian. Fundamentalist christians is a term that was coined during the American Protestant movement in the early 20th century (Dein,2014,para.1). They stress the importance of all context in the bible, both in moral values and its...
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...Congregationalists to train ministers of the Gospel.Produced Philip Livingston, Lewis Morris, William Livingston, Noah Webster, Zephaniah Swift, James Kent. Yale required to live a religious and blameless life according to God’s Word. | Princeton | Started by Presbyterians to train ministers of the Gospel.Produced Benjamin Rush, Gunning Bedford, James Maddison, William Paterson, Olive Ellsworth, Henry Lee “Light Horse Hary Lee”Many were trained by John Witherspoon who required every student to attend worship twice a day. | Early Educational Laws | 1642 Old Deluder Satan Act | If common people could read and learn the word of God for themselves they would resist government misbehavior.Americas first public school law.Contained in the book “The Code Of Laws of 1650”.Required public schools in each community.If a child could not read they would not know the word of God of the laws of the state. | 1787 Northwest Ordinance | 1789 George Washington signed. First federal law to address education.Passed at the same time and by the same people who drafted the...
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...Amanda Miller Gena Howard ENGL – 111-04A September 22, 2012 Illiterate America Stephen Prothero, the author of “A Nation of Religious Illiterates” is a Professor of Religion at Boston University. He received his Bachelors’ Degree from Yale College in American Studies and received his Masters and PhD in the Study of Religion from Harvard University. As a historian on American religions he has written six books since 1996 (Wikipedia contributors,"Stephen Prothero”). He is also a regular contributor to CNN’s Belief Blog. In his essay Prothero aims to convince the readers that although Americans are far more religious than Europeans, we know less about religion as a whole and aims to convey to us the importance of religious education to us. He also places blame on the educational system due to the First Amendment. Prothero’s work here left me confused due to his lack of facts and information as he seems like someone who is very well educated on the subject. Religion is somewhat of a hot topic to many Americans and brings much controversy with it. But, if we do not talk about it or read about it doesn’t that make us exactly what Mr. Prothero calls us? Prothero starts off by quoting sociologist Peter Berger “that if India is the most religious country in the world and Sweden is the least, then the United States is a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes.” (Prothero, “A Nation”, p1). Prothero believes that does not hold true anymore and I would have to...
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...QUESTION. Pick any issue of concern today and give it a critical study and look at it from: a) Christianity point of view. b) Law of the land. DRUG AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE. INTRODUCTION. DEFINITION. Drug. 1) A drug is any chemical you take that affects the way your body works. Example: alcohol, caffeine, aspirin, nicotine etc. 2) A drug is a substance which may have medicinal, intoxicating performance when taken by a human body. Drug abuse. 1) It is the use of illegal drugs, the misuse of prescription or over-the-counter drugs for at least a year with negative consequences. 2) Compulsive, excessive and self-damaging use of habit-forming drugs or substances, leading t addiction or dependence, serious physiological injury(e.g. damage of kidney, liver, heart) and/or physiological harm(e.g. dysfunctional behavior patterns, hallucinations, memory loss),or death. Substance abuse. Harmful/hazardous use of psychoactive substances including alcohol and illicit drugs. Substance abuse is also sometimes referred to as drug abuse. Drug and substance abuse has become a disaster and an issue to be addressed urgently worldwide. In Kenya, drug abuse is one of the major problems alongside poverty, corruption and HIV/AIDS. However, whereas the HIV/AIDS prevalence is coming down, drugs and substance abuse is on the increase compounded by lack of a traditional control system and frustration arising from unemployment, idleness and poverty. WHY SUBSTANCE AND DRUG...
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...To indoctrinate is to teach or to instruct in a particularly set manner which should not be altered. Indoctrination is the act of brain-washing a learner so that he/she can only think in a particular way, especially in matters of religion. This happens especially when followers of a particular religion/denomination feel threatened by other groups/religions/denominations. In this case, members feel there is no other doctrine better than theirs and they will fight “tooth and nail” to safe-guard their doctrine. Indoctrination “refers to teaching aimed at making the learner believe in what they have learned in such a way that nothing, not even good counter reasons, can make them change their minds about what they learned” (Simuchimba 2008: 79). Philosophy is the seeing/viewing or understanding of life with its different aspects in an individual’s way or sometimes there could be a group of people viewing things the same way or rather they agree with each other’s ideas. Philosophy of Education then is the way an individual values education, especially formal education. Msango et al in (Tembo 2000: 33) define Philosophy of Education as: A critical and systematic intellectual endeavour to see education as a whole and as an integral part of men’s culture .... any philosophy dealing with or applied to the process of public or private education and used as a basis for the general determination, interpretation and evaluation of educational problems having to do with objectives, practices...
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...Evolution and Support for Teaching Creationism in Public Schools: The Conditional Impact of Educational Attainment JOSEPH O. BAKER Department of Sociology and Anthropology East Tennessee State University Public acceptance of evolution remains low in the United States relative to other Western countries. Although advocates for the scientific community often highlight the need for improved education to change public opinion, analyses of data from a national sample of American adults indicate that the effects of educational attainment on attitudes toward evolution and creationism are uneven and contingent upon religious identity. Consequently, higher education will only shift public attitudes toward evolution and away from support for teaching creationism in public schools for those who take non-“literalist” interpretive stances on the Bible, or to the extent that it leads to fewer people with literalist religious identities. Keywords: evolution, creationism, religious identity, education, science and religion, public policy. INTRODUCTION Acceptance of evolution and support for creationism has been publicly debated since the initial diffusion of Darwin’s theory about the origin of species, particularly in the United States (Numbers 1998, 2006). From before the infamous Scopes Trial (see Larson 1997) to the present, many Americans have resisted ideas about evolution, leading to a relatively low global ranking on public acceptance of the theory (Miller, Scott, and...
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...Prayer in Public Schools Derrick DuHart Race, Religion, Culture Arkansas Baptist College Dr. Johnson, Instructor November 4, 2014 Tables of Contents I. Introduction Background/Statement of Problems pg. 3-4 Purpose of the Study pg. 5-12 Research Questions pg. 13 Significance of the Study pg. 14-19 II. Literature Review Methodology and Sampling Design Strategy pg. 20 Data Collection Procedures pg. 20 Data Analyzed pg. 21 Ethical Issues pg. 21 III. Results Conclusion pg. 21-22 References pg. 23 Appendix: I. Annotated Bibliography pg. 24-26 II. Survey Questions pg. 27 III. Results (Charted/Tables) pg. 28-31 Notes: I. Introduction Background/Statement of Problem Prayer in Public Schools The courts have ruled against prayer in school. Many agree with the decision; yet many disagree. Prayer should be allowed in public schools because it is already practiced. It prevents...
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...Matt Cagle, Stephanie Snyder, Jessica Johnson, Sarah Haddox Abercrombie EDUC 2312.01 19 October 2013 Culture Diversity in the Classroom What is culture? Culture is “the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, manners, and scholarly pursuits.” (Dictionary.com) What does culture look like in the classroom? When viewing culture from a teacher’s perspective, it can be broken down into four different categories such as, religion, ethnicity, language, and economic status. These categories can help to define a classrooms culture. Our goal is to examine how culture, broken into these four categories, is viewed in the classroom. Race and Ethnicity(Sarah): In a classroom, a teacher will come across a variety of different races and ethnicities. Race refers to the physical attributes associated with certain groups, such as Caucasian, Asian, Hispanic, African American, etc. Ethnicity is the specific groups within a race. For example, within the Caucasian race, you will find the Irish, French, German, etc. Also associated with ethnicity are the societal characteristics for each group within a race such as language and religious beliefs. In a classroom with multiple races and ethnicities, comes a wide range of religious backgrounds, languages, holidays, and customs. This can prove to have both positive and negative aspects within a classroom environment. Positive things that can come from a large collection of racial and...
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...about my educational journey and determined that I think of myself as well educated. My story begins in the 4th grade in Buffalo, New York at Public School 74. I guess you could say that this is where I was being mis-educated based on the premise that memorization of a bunch of facts was the fast track to becoming well educated. Little did I know that one phone call would forever change my life. My grandmother who essentially was a smart woman was raising me. There are two reasons I can say that with confidence. The 1st reason I considered her a smart woman was because family history tells me that she was born in 1927, a child of a black father who was a numbers runner and a mother who as far as I can tell by the stories was a stay at home mother of Caucasian and Native American descent. Her brother, Uncle Jerry taught her how to read at the age of three using the comics from the local newspaper. She embraced learning and was enrolled in school at five, set to graduate at the age of 18. She was intelligent for a young black girl going to a predominately-white elementary school in the 30’s. She skipped two grades and graduated high school at the tender age of 16. The second reason she was smart was because she listened to my 4th grade teacher, Mrs Hayes who “strongly advised” her to do whatever it took to get me out of the public school system because according to Mrs Hayes, I had abundant potential and was extremely bright. My grandmother immediately sought the counsel of a...
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...In these pages I am going to talk about luck and first days of high school as a freshman. Luck is an interesting ideal because some people consider themselves lucky and others consider themselves an unlucky but not many has considered if it’s true. The first years of high school teaches how I matured and learned about Christ. Finally I would like to make sure this is not totally opinionated. Like everyone else, I had to go through the application and acceptance or denial process to get into a high school. In the eighth grade, I have realized that I didn’t really care to refer to good occurrences as good luck or bad occurrences as bad luck. In the midst of the ending of eighth grade year, I received a letter of unacceptance by five high schools...
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...Sex Premarital sex, an act that is practiced excessively in the world today, is not all that it is caught up to be. It definitely has more side effects than benefits. ... what was morally right. The reason sexual abstinence is an issue today is because many people claim premarital sex is wrong. People base their opinions on what the Bible has said. When the Bible is used to justify any means of behavior, it usually becomes a moral issue. The main issue at hand is whether premarital sex is classified as morally right or wrong. The Catholic Church claims that premarital sex is wrong and immoral. Premarital Sex Pre-Marital Sex During the twentieth century, premarital sex has become an important issue. Sexual abstinence was the normal society lifestyle until the late 1950 s. Most men and ... Not only does the Catholic Church believe this, so does nearly every other Christian faith. In many other countries, premarital sex is not as huge of an issue as it is here in the US. The basis for this is unsure, but religion and culture seem to play into it largely. In the 1990 s, the teaching of abstinence is beginning to be implemented into the public school systems. The enthusiasm for the just-say-no Premarital Sex Pre-Marital Sex: Is It Worth The Wait? Pre-marital sex, young Catholics know it is wrong. So why do they do it? Most teenagers have heard or coined the phrases ... approach began with the G.O.P....
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...“Separation of Church and State ... and School” Should religion be restricted from public schools? Even in 2014, religion in public schools continues to be an intense elusive issue. The right to freedom of religion is so central to democracy that it was embedded in the First Amendment of our U.S. Constitution. Our Founding Fathers wisely endorsed strict separation of church and state to ensure religious freedom for all faiths and individuals. The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...” (U.S. Constitution – December 15, 1791). These two clauses promote free practice of religion by Americans without state interference. Compliance and adherence with the separation of church and state must be enforced in the nation's public schools, yet religion should not be completely restricted from the public school system. Not supporting religion is extremely important in the public school setting because of the specific vulnerability and sensitivity of students. Most children hold teachers and administration at a high level of expectation, viewing them as significant authority figures. Furthermore, children are highly gullible to coercion. Introducing religion in the public schools create these significant risk. In addition, American public schools are growing increasingly diverse. Schools must institute special consideration to the fact that many schoolchildren belong to minority religions...
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