The Logic of the ACLU

prison shouldn't be used for punishment, especially for venial crimes.


However, the pillory, rattan, and lash should be brought back, and used for punishment!

We should be honest about the impulse to punish in our justice system. Using prison as a proxy punishment is foolish because it is expensive and ineffective. So, rather than either not doing anything to stoners (for example!), or throwing them in prison for 3 months, employ a more physical remedy to their cirrhosis'd minds; the lash.

"Hey dude! Ouch! Totally uncool man! Ouch! This is, like, totally, fascism! Ouch!"

miniverchivi said:

If no one alive today was around to witness either event, then they're two theories.

There are things that scientists accept as facts that support evolution, there are things that people of faith accept as facts that support ID. Event a staunch atheist/evolutionist like Sam Harris has openly said in his speeches that the scientific process is a humbling one in which you learn something tomorrow that completely changes what you thought you knew today and also stated in his own words that evolution is a Scientific theory and always will be since we're missing one critical thing...observation of the entire process itself. He, like you, and I, and most other atheists feel that the findings in nature more strongly support the evolution side of the debate where others see it a different way.

Ignorance is strong term to use especially when talking about one particular theory vs. theory scenario in which the topic itself has no direct impact on IQ or the ability to learn.

Regardless of which side is right, the ACLU and/or federal government is overstepping their bounds by making a distinction in favor of either side.

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No they're not. One uses the scientific method and is supported by evidence, the other is ignorant make believe. You act like there's just as much evidence pointing to one theory as there is pointing to another. This is false. They are nowhere near equal.

Daniel25 said:

prison shouldn't be used for punishment, especially for venial crimes.


However, the pillory, rattan, and lash should be brought back, and used for punishment!

We should be honest about the impulse to punish in our justice system. Using prison as a proxy punishment is foolish because it is expensive and ineffective. So, rather than either not doing anything to stoners (for example!), or throwing them in prison for 3 months, employ a more physical remedy to their cirrhosis'd minds; the lash.

"Hey dude! Ouch! Totally uncool man! Ouch! This is, like, totally, fascism! Ouch!"

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Why don't we bring back the rack, the wooden horse, and the iron bull while we're at it?

miniverchivi said:

I would say that's a point of debate. If he were requiring children to attend Jesus oriented classes when they didn't want to be there, that would be a 100% valid complaint, but hanging a picture on the wall isn't forcing a belief on anyone. I equate that to my Goodfellas poster I have hanging up in my cube at work. I enjoy the movie so I put the poster up, but that's not forcing anyone to go rent it against their will (although they should rent it if they haven't seen it ).

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If you're willing to acknowledge it as a point of debate, I'd say that is a case that might need the examinations of the courts, and so the ACLU is perfectly justified in representing a plaintiff.

Is the fact that it's a religion somehow make it different than any other type of interest from the standpoint of hanging a picture on that wall? Like a picture of his favorite pitcher for example? If a parent who hated that particular ball player filed a complaint, would the ACLU also be justified in suing for that?

Freedom of expression. Even if it is a backwards, hurtful, stupid expression of hate (as I feel nazism is), we're in trouble if we're going to let a portion of the group decide for the entire group what's okay to say and think.

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Except that when a Principle decides to hang something outside of his office he is using his office's authority. When he uses that authority to establish a religion (which may need to be proven in trial) he is not doing his job. His job is not to introduce children to Christianity nor is it to encourage them to join Christianity. If he wants to do that, perhaps he should be in a Christian school, or teaching in a church.

If someone really wants to hate for a reason as arbitrary as skin color, as long as they don't act it out in a way that infringes on the core rights of others...not a thing we can or should do about it other than shake our heads and make fun of them and talk about how stupid we think nazism is.

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That sounds good in theory, but most of the time that's not the way it works out. In general, what happens is that the majority opinion becomes the rule, and those that break that rule are harassed or censured. It's all very well and good to say "Hey, we can always laugh at them and go to the chocolate shoppe down the street," but for many people, they can't. You wind up getting these odd little blisters of hate in communities. We don't let citizens infringe on other citizens rights. By hanging a picture of Jesus above his office, that Principle was tying his authority to Christianity, the same as a Judge who orders a statue of the 10 commandments. I would say that if students are forced to go to school, they should not be forced to operate under a Christian administration (although it would be fine if they operated under a Christian-run administration).

Well, sure it could convey a different message, but until he's a member of congress and starts using it in his lawmaking process, he hasn't overstepped his bounds.

I agree that some amendments can be ambiguous, but I don't feel the first amendment is one of them. If it were worded like "Leaders shall not pass any law...etc", then I would say yeah, we need to interprate what leader means. But, it specifically states "congress". Unless we're going to debate what constitutes congress.

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The accommodation interpretation is long standing and one that the ACLU chooses to endorse. I think that both you and I would similarly bristle if someone were to try to establish a state religion, but I wonder if you would have a problem if a state or county established one democratically, or by means of a few leaders? If the matter is inappropriate, the courts should be able to set the record straight.

By all means speak your mind, I have no problem branching out into that topic in this thread, I think your first amendment rights should be protected too

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In general scientific theories need to collate large amounts of evidence, explain them in a coherent way and offer logical predictions that follow from those explanations. Ideas such as Intelligent Design or Creationism are possible in that a omnipotent creator or craftsman could perform an act that would explain the current world, but it uses no mechanisms that we currently know of and it offers us no predictive power.

miniverchivi said:

Am I missing the whole point of prison?

Isn't it supposed to be a punishment?

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Not in my opinion.

miniverchivi said:

If we let presidents (on both sides) openly convey their Christianity, why would we not allow the same of a high school teacher?

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I don't think the issue is so much that he is openly conveying his christianity as it is that he is asserting Jesus as an authority over the school, the same way that the flag over the post office says "HEY UNITED STATES HERE." As for whether I think that US presidents should be as vocal about their religiousity as they are, well, I'll give you one guess as to what my opinion is.

While this interpretation isn't too far off from what the actual text, my opinion is still that the amendment is cut and dry so there's no need for trying to guess what the founding fathers meant by creating different interpretations.

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That is a very interesting interpretation as well.

I agree with you 100% from the aspect of science, however as I stated before, I don't feel that the government or 3rd party organization should be making that distinction in favor of one or the other. Both sides should be able to speak their mind.

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Would you say the same thing about a medical doctor teaching astrology in his classroom? The public school system is supposed to educate students, not give teachers a platform for their opinions. If you're willing to agree that evolution is science and ID and creationism are not, than I don't understand what the purpose of teaching it in a science classroom would serve, except to grant ID and creationism the authority of science. This seems like a deliberate attempt to mislead students. I'm curious what you think of the ACLU's role in Dover if you don't mind speaking to that.

miniverchivi said:

It's clear that they take the anti-Christian side. A principal puts up a picture of Jesus outside of his office, a secular parent complains, and the ACLU send their lawyers out to defend the parents who are being "offended". A science teacher exercises their right to teach evolution in their curriculum, a Christian parent files a complaint, and the ACLU sends their lawyers out to defend the teacher.

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I don’t know if it matters, but the complainants in this case weren’t secular – they were Jewish and Catholic.

So you think it would be fine if one of your children (or any school visitors, for that matter), while waiting outside of the principal’s office, has to look at a picture of the Ayatollah? Or lines of the Koran? Do you think the principal would be within his rights to hang that material up outside of his office without any context?

In regards to them defending a teacher because a parent is “offended” because the teacher is teaching evolution, they’re defending the law, not the teacher. The law says that evolution is science, and creationism isn’t. There was already caselaw on the subject of the picture – courts had already decided on the exact same situation. Same exact painting, same exact placement. It was more than someone just being “offended” – it was already determined to be illegal.

There's no need to worry that malefactors will be inadequately punished...

AtheistVet said:

Why don't we bring back the rack, the wooden horse, and the iron bull while we're at it?

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heavens no, the death penalty is barbarism.

miniverchivi said:

Yes, he would be within his rights. I might not like it and think it's in bad taste (and I may even go as far as telling him those exact things), but that doesn't dictate whether or not he has the right to do so.

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Props for being consistent. I still don't think that this is a matter of being offended though, and more a subject of law and promoting one religion over another. To their credit (and I don't think this was mentioned in the news articles) the school tried to get the complainants to accept a wall of teachers type of scenario where not just Jesus, but other teachers from other religions would be presented. That would have been ok, and the ACLU agreed, but the original complainants refused. You know what they say about bad apples, right?

miniverchivi said:

Yes, they are defending the law in that scenario as they should. However, they need to be consistent on when they decide to defend the law. Would the ALCU have the same approach if a science teacher presented info from the following sources?

ICR Research
Evidence from Science

I doubt they would.

And yes, I know I'm going to get several posts saying that "The ICR isn't real science", and "make-believe" since I've already seen other posts that suggest that any research that doesn't end in a conclusion of 100% atheistic-evolution must be "ignorant".

As I mentioned before, neither is officially a fact since that time has already passed and nobody was around to observe either. On one side, we have scientific studies that form educated guesses (which is the one I happen to side with from a personal standpoint) and the other has supposed eyewitness account passed down through history...neither side has concrete evidence so neither can truly be taught with the same scientific certainty as other scientific concepts like which elements are combustable, how blood carries oxygen, what causes earthquakes, and other things of that nature.

If they're going to dictate how science can be taught from a perspective of fairness, it should be to allow both, or to allow neither. If they're going to dictate it from a Constitutional perspective, it should be to allow both.

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Well yes - it's already gone to court. The ACLU would not "defend" the teacher using material from the ICR - and would be the ones trying to restrict that teacher from using any material from the ICR. The law says that the ICR isn't real science, and cannot be taught in science class (McClean v. Arkansas). The judge in that case said the following;

The approach to teaching "creation science" and "evolution- science" found in Act 590 is identical to the two-model approach espoused by the Institute for Creation Research and is taken almost verbatim from ICR writings. It is an extension of Fundamentalists' view that one must either accept the literal interpretation of Genesis or else believe in the godless system of evolution.

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See also Edwards v. Aguillard; for something even more on point.

If evolution is taught in public school science classes, shouldn't other theories about the origins and development of life also be taught at the same time? Isn't the focus on just one idea narrow-minded? Some believe that it is and therefore argue that there should be "balance" - if one theory (evolution) about life is taught, then "the other" theory (creationism) should also be taught.

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miniverchivi said:

Well, where I would say that a more accruate analogy would be a scenario where two doctors are teaching med school, one wants to teach faith healing as a theory and the other wants to teach "new age medicine" as a theory. Then, an organization comes in and picks a side and says that they're not allowed to teach the other one. While one has more of a grounding in medicine than the other, neither can be proported as medical facts so why are the making an exception for one theory but not the other? Shouldn't it be an all or nothing sort of thing?

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Not if one theory is well tested and well supported. I'll get back to how we do test evolution in a moment. Also, I think you should consider that the judge was a conservative, Lutheran judge appointed by George W. Bush; this was hardly the decision of a liberal activist, or the fault of an organization that pressed its will on an unhappy populace.

I'm assuming this is the dover case you're talking about?
Victory in the Challenge to Intelligent Design | American Civil Liberties Union

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Yup.

What I found interesting is that the arguments they present against teaching ID is that very similar arguments could be made against evolution and the big bang theory (in terms of the origin of man)

-cannot be tested by the scientific method
-makes an assertion that an extrordinary and rare event occured that put everything in motion
-inserts a personal theory into science, as if it were scientific fact

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You can argue that, but I think that you're twisting some words here. Evolution can be tested by the scientific method. There are logical conclusions that follow from these theories, and, if we were to find evidence that went against them in significant ways they would be overturned. I am not a physicist, but a grad student in biology, so I'd prefer to discuss things that I have a working knowledge of if that's ok with you (there are however some physicists in the Physical and Life Sciences board that would be better equipped to discuss the big bang theory).

I'm still trying to figure out how intelligent design is inherently religious as they claim? I wasn't aware that they made reference to a particular diety or enforced any religious dogmas of any kind (although I could be wrong on that) the terms creator & creation don't necessarily = religion. I think that's why the writers of the declaration of indepence used the term "creator" and not "Jesus" even though most of the writers and signers were Christian.

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It was mostly a combination of Michael Behe's testimony, and the fact that the Dover school board wanted to use a textbook called Of Panda's and People. The textbook, rather than elucidating any new ideas, was simply a repackaged creationist textbook, with words like "creation" replaced with words like "design." One unpublished copy even contained the passage: "Evolutionists think the former is correct, cdesign proponentsists accept the latter view."

Behe was one of the leading figures pushing for intelligent design, and was a respected biochemist. Unfortunately, his testimony leaved a lot to be desired. I'll give you this link that offers excerpts from the judge's decision:

Kitzmiller v. Dover: Michael Behe’s Testimony | The Sensuous Curmudgeon

....or how it's in direct opposition to evolution for that matter? The more I thought about it, I know people who are theistic evolutionists who feel that evolution was the "how" and not the "what" so technically those folks would support both, would they not?

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Well, I tend to think that theistic evolution is unnecessarily complicated; you don't need a god figure to do the work, so why have one? Might as well throw in a few thunder gods while you're at it, and a gravity god, and an E. coli god and any number of gods to make the world work. Heck, why not have two or three gods at every post so that they can take shifts.

In terms of intelligent design however, it was a fairly blatant attempt at inserting religion into schools, and was driven by agenda rather than research. Check it out:

http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf

I think it's important to note that the fight on evolution v. creationism/intelligent design is being fought in our high schools, rather than in our colleges or graduate schools. These folks aren't trying to speak to informed audiences, but want an uninformed audience to talk to.