True, Jefferson was not directly involved in the drafting of the
Constitution. I brought him up because he and Madison worked closely
together and had very similar views on church-state relations. I should
have drawn more heavily from Madison in my last post.
>It seems to me that Jefferson would object to government coerced
>religion, but also to the attempt to keep the debate and discussion on
>it out of public schools. As an extension of this argument, so as to
>bring the discussion back to its original intent, I believe that
>Jefferson would have encouraged a healthy public school discussion and
>debate on creationism versus evolution. After all, he did pen.. "We are
>endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights..."
The lengthy article that was attached, but that I've snipped, doesn't
really shed any light upon what Jefferson would think about bringing the
debate into the public schools. No public school system existed at the
time of the adoption of the Bill of Rights, so taking a lengthy quote that
describes his views on denominations and public discussion of truth in
religion is not terribly enlightening. To be honest, I'm not really sure
what is meant here by "healthy public school discussion." Who would be
doing the discussing about creation vs. evolution in the public schools?
What is meant by "creation"? How do we make the jump from being endowed by
our Creator with rights to allowing school children to discuss the merits
of creation and evolution?
If proponents of intelligent design could come up with a theory with the
cohesiveness, systematicity, empirical grounding, and explanitory power
that evolution has, then I don't think, based on my reading of the Supreme
Court's decisions, that discussion of that theory could be kept out of
public schools. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened yet (as I think has
been mentioned on the reflector before). Both the Arkansas and Louisiana
creation science cases were blatant attempts to teach Genesis 1-2 in the
public schools. Being a PC, I eagerly await such a theory of intelligent
design. But it hasn't happened yet.
==============================================================================
Justin Keller
650 Emerson #310
Evanston IL 60201
847/332-8478
jkeller@merle.acns.nwu.edu
http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~jkeller/index.html
Jesus, my all in all thou art:
My rest in toil, my ease in pain,
The medicine of my broken heart,
In war my peace, in loss my gain,
My smile beneath the tyrant's frown,
In shame my glory and my crown.
--Charles Wesley