Did they teach you that the beliefs of Hindus and Muslims were a scientific theory with supposedly (and shaky) evidence based reasoning? No? Exactly why Creationism has no place in a SCIENCE lesson. Thats the main argument. Teach it all you want in Religious Studies, but keep non-science out of the lab/science classroom.

I definitely agree the book should be dependent on the person's religion - the point is to instill religious consequence in their testimony and if they don't believe in the religion the ceremony fails to achieve the goal. For atheists I say make them swear on the penal code or the constitution - for them seeing is believing and within that book they can see that lying will get them thrown in jail for perjury.

Nuff'said.

As for separation of church and state. The point is to prevent institutionalized religion, not to obstruct individuals from practicing. I think its absurd that students are not allowed to talk at their high school graduations for fear they might say something religious and that school administrators are faced with jail time for saying grace at a luncheon where there weren't even any students.

Students and faculty should be allowed to say grace amongst themselves in school before they eat - to me separation of church and state would prevent them from leading the entire school or the lunchroom in saying of grace - but if it is alone or sitting at a single table with like-minded people ....if that is what we is being objected to...well then it becomes an abuse of the law.

Stop people from using official government capacities and positions from organizing and enforcing religious practice, not simply from practicing it alone or with others who believe as they do in the appropriate settings (ie saying grace at lunch is pretty damn appropriate).

My 0.02 VG$

Even science in general (or the belief in evolution and the "BIG BANG THEORY") is just a bunch of shaky and unproven evidence based reasoning....

Well the reason is that you learn about religions in R.E. (or the american equivalent) and R.E. is a humantiarian/cultural class, not science. Evolution by means of natural selection is taught in science because it is a scientific theory. Creationism fits into neither in any significant way, there is no scientific theory of creationism, it isn't an alternative as there is no testable hypothesis (That I know of). Creationism also does not represent a religion or culture as it is a broad term for a set of acknowledgments that many religions (and some agnostics) and so it has no real place in R.E.

Is RE history? 'cause that's where I learned it. And they touched down on the Catholic rch a bit and the history of it but they didn't touch on the beliefs like they did for the other religions

I hope you guys are being sarcastic, I relly do lol.

Let me step in and stop this before it spirals out of control.

The thread topic is about swearing on a bible and tangentially I think the seperation of church and state issue falls into that.

What this thread is NOT about is Big Bang Theory and/or Evolution. If you'd like to discuss those topics please feel free to start another thread - but that is not what this topic is about.

Would be funny if it were accurate. Aren't Muslims over 1.1 billion? They're close to half if not more of Chrisitians?

Regardless of whether you think Darwin's theory is shaky or not, it is evidence based reasoning that should be taught in science classes until disproven. You've seemingly re-iterated my point, most people for Creationism want it taught as an alternative Science theory, which its not. It already gets taught in Religious Studies lessons, just delete the word 'god' in the correct places of the creation story in the bible and you have Creationism.