Science is just the right thing for examining controversy. Science classes should be where children are taught to evaluate different ideas by conducting experiments. Experiments are for testing ideas and deciding which are the best ones until we have a clear winner. Experiments test the predictions we make with hypotheses to see if they come true.
Take, for example, a claim made in the Christian Bible, in the Gospel of Mark. This claim would be an ideal thing for children to test in science class and should be something that no true Christian parent would object to.
The claim is specific, unambiguous and makes an easily testable prediction. Moreover, it requires no fancy apparatus; no detailed knowledge to carry it out and observe the results, and the results wouldn't need sophisticated statistical analysis and interpretation. Even a five year-old could do it and evaluate the results.
The claim is:
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; ... They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them...So the experiment is easy to design. All you need do is check that a group of children have been baptized and believe in Jesus, then you give them some normally fatal poison, or some rattlesnakes to handle, and observe the results.
If the children come to no harm the prediction made in the Bible will be proved true and the alternative hypotheses - that they will be harmed by poison or rattlesnakes - will have been falsified.
Which true believer in Jesus could object to their faith being so easily proved true? Which parents who believe that religious ideas should be taught and tested in science class could object to this being done? It's a sure-fire winner for Jesus, designed to dispel doubters once and for all. And we know it must be true because Mark said Jesus said so.
And it teaches children the basic principles of science. A win-win situation.
I can't think why no one has recommended this before and why no state school board has put this on the school curriculum. It surely can't be that they fear for their children's health and welfare, can it? There is not the tiniest risk involved for a true believer.
I think we need to petition the Discovery Institute requesting they campaign to have this very simple proof of biblical inerrancy and very simple demonstration of the truth of Jesus's claims taught in public schools. I can't think of any possible objection from their usual champions like Michael Behe and William Dembski. Even William Lane Craig would need to be paid a very considerable sum of money to come up with a theologically sound explanation of how this verse is literally true, metaphorical, and false, all at the same time.
(Home schoolers: Don't try this at home folks. You'll risk having any surviving children taken into care because no one in their right mind believes this stuff really).
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