Can someone explain Mike Hackabee to me? (Page 7)

Intersting and timely article about teaching evolution in schools and a new third volume from the National Academy of Sciences which looks to assure that acceptance of evolution does not require abandoning belief in God.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/04/us/04evolve.html?ex=1357102800&en=528ac8c83d2eeec6&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all 

Oh, so it would seem you chose to ignore the 139 page ruling on why creationism and intelligent design and creative design should not be taught in public schools.

If you want to have an honest discussion, I'm game. That does not appear to be the case, however.

Sure.  And I'll go get a bunch of people to agree that 2+2 = 5.  Then let's make sure that gets taught as well.   

The intersting thing I keep having a problem with is those individuals that have a problem with a politician or public figure expressing their religious beliefs, whatever they may be.  It baffles me...

I think we can all agree that every citizen has the right to practice their religion.  I think that right is pretty firmly set in the Constitution.  Now here's the rub, don't those rights that we enjoy also protect the public expression of those rights.  That is, the right of free speech would be meaningless without the right to publicly express those ideas.  To announce the protection of certain rights and then require that those rights be practiced only behind closed doors in private so that no one else sees the expression of those rights, to me, is tantamount to no right at all.

Clearly all the candidates have the right to be members of any religious organization they chose, or to not be a member of any religious organization.  This right is guaranteed in the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution.

Additionally, notions of Free Speech blend with the Free Exercise Clause to protect every citizens right to openly express their religious beliefs.

I don't believe that the Establishment Clause precludes a public figure from holding religious beliefs or expressing those personal religious beliefs.  I have seen no interpretations of the Establishment Clause from our Courts, either Federal or State that has taken such a severe interpretation of the Establishment Clause.

Every candidate, like every citizen, is free to espouse whatever religious beliefs they hold.  We of course are free, as voters to exercise our agreement, disagreement, approval or disapproval of those beliefs at the polls.

Nope.  Just scared that we are increasingly involving religion in politics.  And they are only two things that scare me...religion in politics and carneys.  You know, circus folk; they've got small hands and smell like cabbage.

Mirjam, I didn't claim that the Galileo affair helped move science forward. In fact, in my post I said that he was treated unjustly.

My interest in posting in reference to a quote of yours, had to do with challenging a currently common straw man arguement: that the Catholic Church is anti-science and a represive authoritarian institution, for example look at Galileo, and therefore has no standing in current questions such as embryonic stem cell research, the origins of man, and so on. (and Mirjam, I know that you weren't claiming that in what you wrote, I was just using your response to Bripod as a jumping off point)

I don't think this straw man argument holds up under scrutiny.

In the end, the Galileo affair has to do with theology and not science. One piece to add to the mix here is that between the time of Copernicus and Galileo you had the fourishing of the Reformation theology of Luther. You can't discount the effect of that in looking at what happened to Galileo. It's just another example of why that particular history should be looked at thouroughly from the angle of theology.

My point here is simply that the Galileo affair does not prove that the Catholic Church is anti-science or that it is a represive authoritarian institution.

Mirjam, just one more thought...

The proof that Catholic Chrisitanity is the prime moving force for the emergence and development of the science in the West really starts at the beginning of Chrisitanity.

St. Paul addressed the question of the Greeks about who this new god was that he was talking about, by recognizing and explaining that the Greeks could look to the "Being" discovered by their philosophers as a way of understanding who the one true God is.

Christianity started on the foundation of the faith of the people of Israel and the reason of the Greeks.

This thinking came to fruition in the 13th century. St. Thomas Aquinas and other Scholastic theologians and philosophers, to a great extent, helped to rescue Greek philosophy from obscurity, Aristotle in particular. Aquinas developed the theological and philosophical notion that the five senses were windows on the soul through which we can come to know God through reason, although never in a perfect way.

The life's work of Aquinas in many ways became the foundation for further development of the scientific method. Aquinas showed that faith and reason are not at odds with each other.