Thursday, May 12, 2005
Fundamentalists Don't Speak for All Faiths
Jen Stone, a staff writer for the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle reports on a theistic view of the evolution, intelligent design debate that we don't hear much about:
"Both Kansas rabbis and the Jewish community's church-state watchdogs are looking askance as the state Board of Education holds hearings this week in Topeka over whether to add "intelligent design" to school science curricula about human origins, alongside the theory of evolution.
"While there is probably no local rabbi who would deny the supernatural origin of the universe, and of humans, as depicted in the Torah, neither do they wish to see it taught in the public schools...
"'It is clearly objectionable to teach theology as though it is science," says Rabbi Mark Levin of the Reform Congregation Beth Torah 'because ... it misinforms children and introduces religious faith into the public school system under the guise of science.'"
"Both Kansas rabbis and the Jewish community's church-state watchdogs are looking askance as the state Board of Education holds hearings this week in Topeka over whether to add "intelligent design" to school science curricula about human origins, alongside the theory of evolution.
"While there is probably no local rabbi who would deny the supernatural origin of the universe, and of humans, as depicted in the Torah, neither do they wish to see it taught in the public schools...
"'It is clearly objectionable to teach theology as though it is science," says Rabbi Mark Levin of the Reform Congregation Beth Torah 'because ... it misinforms children and introduces religious faith into the public school system under the guise of science.'"
