I went to a Catholic high school, see. My biology teacher told us that birth control is bad (use the rhthym method -- it only took her several children to make it work!). But this was clearly her personal opinion; she did not scare use with horror stories of the side effects of hormones, or in any way make it sound like part of biology class.
In religion classes, we studied religion in an analytical, exegetical manner. In historical context. Sure, it was a given -- Catholics believe God created the earth. We never discussed whether Genesis was literal or metaphorical; we didn't really discuss the Creation part of Genesis much at all.
In biology class, we learned about evolution. We learned about the experimental and historical evidence for it. One of the seniors did a research project on fruitfly genetics. We did not talk about Creation, not even to say "And of course, God made evolution happen." We spent most of the course on cell biology, somewhat oddly. We talked about how mitochondria and chloroplasts are most likely ancient independent prokaryotes, incorporated into cells.
The vast majority of the students were religious, primarily various forms of Protestant, iirc, followed by Catholics, followed by Jews, followed by Muslims, followed by a tiny handful of Pagans, Wiccans, and atheists/agnostics. Some were fundamentalists, possibly Young Earth Creationists or Intelligent Design proponents. I saw no evidence that biology class impacted anyone's faith in any way.
Yes, the Catholic Church officially sort of accepts evolution (or at least doesn't deny it), although its high-ranking members seem more ID in leaning. However, not all students, or even most students, were Catholic.
My point is this: if a religious school can keep faith and science separate, why is it so damn hard to do it in the public schools?
nods. I hear you. And that's a good and valid point to do the cull. There's so many folks on my friends list that appear to have abandoned LJ entirely -- they've not posted in a couple of years --…
Comments