Indiana Atheists

Comment

Comment by Ted Walter on April 18, 2013 at 7:23pm

Nope. About 50 miles north in Fremont

Comment by Carla Tam on April 18, 2013 at 6:08pm

Is anyone here from fort Wayne?

Comment by William on June 9, 2012 at 9:29pm

The Atheist Community of South Chicago Suburbs has a website! : Click here

Comment by beechgrovejoe on February 1, 2012 at 4:32pm

I think you missed the point that NOTHING taught in school is Truth.  If you think you are receiving "facts" that are true, you have stepped from rational thought to religious belief.

 

Sure it's good to teach kids things that will help them, but NOT having public schools teach things because you don't believe they are true, IS a state sponsored religion.

 

Get OFF your "teaching them like it's a science" mantra.  The VAST majority of things taught in school are NOT taught like they where science.  Just because some idiots tried the ID argument and failed, doesn't mean teaching religion in public schools is a bad thing.

 

If you pay attention, NONE of the cases where many religions are being embraced are consider any kind of problem.  Only the ones that push a specific one over others.

 

The issue has to do with with state endorsement of one religion over another.  If you cannot understand that the belief religion is wrong IS a religion. then you will never understand why politics never seems to go your way when you talk about how wrong religions are.

Comment by Jude Johnson on February 1, 2012 at 4:03pm

I think our differences in opinion may come down to your thought that the purpose of schools are to be baby sitters. While I know that some of what I was taught in school in the 70s turned out to be false, at least I know that they taught me the best knowledge they had to offer at the time. I don't think today's students deserve any less.

I never said that I thought we should try to "keep kids from hearing about religion" (or maybe you weren't responding to me). I actually said that I think religion should be taught - but not taught as fact. There is a difference between teaching children about what people believe in the world (very important), as opposed to teaching them that those beliefs are as valid as scientific fact (very disturbing).

To me, it would be akin to a health teacher teaching students that there are two theories about birth: One is biological and one involves a stork. Just because some people may believe in the "stork theory" doesn't mean it should be presented as an alternate theory. I'm sure we could find other nonsensical stork-like theories throughout history as well. Should we teach them all and let the students decide? (Maybe we could sell those kids some "stork repellant" and tell them it prevents teen pregnancy.)

I know we know a lot more about how babies are conceived than we do about how humans came to be. We don't have all the answers to this yet and it's okay to tell students that we're unsure about a lot of things. It's not that I'm "afraid of opposing ideas", I just feel strongly that when we have mountains of documented scientific proof against a "theory" (eg. creationism), that it's simply ridiculous to present it to children as a real possibility.

Children absolutely should learn all about religion. It's a huge part of our world. Keeping it from them would be like telling them there are no internet scammers. They need to be aware that there are many people out there who are selling products that don't exist. Some of the salespeople don't even know there is no product. Some of the salespeople are as smooth as salespeople. I don't want our teachers to sell it. To teach children that sometimes it's okay to buy into the scam because so many other sheep do is dangerous.

In sum: We don't have all the answers, but let's not actively misinform children about things we know to be false. I'm not replacing religion with another religion. Sometimes science does make mistakes. I never had a science teacher claim otherwise. In reality, not many things can be categorized as "Truth" with a capital "T". (One could even argue that 2 + 2 does not equal 4.) The universe may not have stated with a big bang. We may not even have a theory that comes close to what actually happened. Let's teach them about all the current completing (valid) theories and let them explore. Maybe they'll develop a valid theory of their own one day.  One thing we DO know is that the earth is more than 10,000 years old. That is the Truth. In my opinion, telling children otherwise is purposely trying to keep them in the dark.

Comment by beechgrovejoe on February 1, 2012 at 2:33pm

If you look at most things taught in schools it's easy to classify them as a waste of money and time.  The purpose of schools are to be baby sitters and while they are at it, they might as well try to teach kids something.

 

While religion doesn't belong in science class (the ID argument) that doesn't mean it has no place in public schools.  Schools don't teach Truth.  Their purpose it to prepare kids so they are familure with the concepts that they will most likely come across in real life.

 

Pretending that schools teach Truth is raising schools to the level of a religion in itself.  Even science class doesn't teach Truth.  It simply teaches the current explanations used by science.  The correct and incorrect assesments in class are nothing more than a check to see of the student understands the concepts.  Believing it is an assersion of Truth, simply means you have replaced normal religions with a different kind of religion.

 

Just because atheists haven't been able to come up with more cogent arguments that convince people of the stupidity of religion, doesn't mean people are doing anything wrong by simply going with what they heard as a kid.

 

Pretending that keeping the kids from hearing about religion in school will help the atheist position is a kin to thinking that not talking about sex will keep them from finding out about it.

 

So just how much has NOT teaching religion in public schools worked to reduce religion in the real world?

Comment by Jude Johnson on February 1, 2012 at 2:02pm

I can only speak for myself, but my reasons for opposing teaching "creationism" in schools are:

(1) It's a huge waste of money.

(2) I hate thinking of Indiana teachers wasting valuable class time to actively misinform children.

I don't think children who believe what their teachers teach them are idiots. Most children are trusting of their teachers and they go to school to learn facts.

I DO think religion should be taught in school -- but not in science class. The place for religion is in literature, history, etc.

beechgrovejoe mentions that atheism has been around for thousands of years in spite of religious stupidity, but I also note that religion has been around for thousands of years in spite of Truth. Religions keep changing and Truth never changes, but somehow delusion seems to still be winning out in the U.S. Purposely misinforming young minds is not a step in the right direction toward Truth.

Most adults I know are "believers". When you ask them why, they invariably say it's because they were "brought up that way". Kids get enough misinformation from home and church -- I simply don't think they need to confirm the lies in school.

I agree with a Hoosier teacher I saw on the news: We might as well teach the "stork theory" in health class while we're at it. And because I don't want them to teach the "stork theory" as fact, it doesn't mean I'm showing serious doubts about the validity of the biological truth -- it's simply because I believe it's wrong to teach children lies and tell them it's true.

- Just one atheist's opinion.

Comment by beechgrovejoe on February 1, 2012 at 12:55pm

What kind of pansy ass bitch is so afraid of opposing ideas that they want to ban the teaching of them?  If you think atheism is so weak that it cannot stand up to some stupid fundies pushing creationism, YOU are the one showing serious doubts about the validity of atheism.

 

Atheism has been around for thousands of years in spite of the religious stupidity that has existed all along the way.  Atheists trying to stop the teaching of creationism is like Jews trying to stop the teaching of Christianity or Christians trying to stop the teaching of Islam.

 

It's a dead give a way that the proponents of the ban really don't think their own views are correct.  They seem to want to believe that people are so stupid that they just accept what ever they are told.  But if that was the case, Atheism would not even exist.

 

Don't idiots understand that atheism exists BECAUSE religions get taught and people ARE smart enough to reject them?  The people that accept religions where morons to begin with and a choice of what to teach in school is not going to have any impact what so ever.

 

If you where really interested it advancing atheistic ideas, you would advocate for the teaching of ALL religious in school.  If more people could be shown how all religions have many stupid concepts in common it would make it easier for kids to figure out why religion is such a load of crap.

Comment by Louis Davout on February 1, 2012 at 6:38am

Hi,

On January 31, 2012, the Indiana Senate voted 28-22 in favor of Senate Bill 89 which would allow the teaching of creationism in public schools. The bill now proceeds to the Indiana House of Representatives

In the 1987 case Edwards v. Aguillard the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that teaching creationism along with evolution in public schools was unconstitutional. Creationism is religious not science. Many public school boards have been sued for teaching creationism or intelligent design as science and lost. Costing public schools time and money that our public schools can ill afford to squander.

That's why I created a petition to The Indiana State House, The Indiana State Senate, and Governor Mitch Daniels, which says:

"Creationism should not be taught as science in public schools."

Will you sign this petition? Click here:

http://signon.org/sign/state-of-indiana-creationism?source=c.em.cp&...

Thanks!

Please pass this along to anyone who agrees!

Comment by William on January 27, 2012 at 5:42pm

Petition to include non-religious... 74 Signatures! http://www.change.org/petitions/nasw-include-non-religious-as-a-cat...

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• …
• 16
• Next ›
• Page