Why should creationism not be taught in schools?

Creationism has its roots in one small group of people's opinions about their religion. School is focused on more empirical subjects. Religion is traditionally taugh at home, not in public schools. It's important to disallow one religion to be taught as fact unless all religions are taught as fact. So if you want your religious beliefs taught in public schools, you should be willing to allow Muslims, Buddhists, Native Americans, Pagans, Wiccans, FSMers, etc to teach theirs too. Most of the people who are pushing for creationism to be taught in public schools are not willing to allow other religions to be taught also.

which creationism? does that mean they all have to learn the FSM creation story too? and the Hindu one? <---that is bizarre! i'm for it. if you teach kids every creation story you can find (including the one where God vomited us up) and taught them all next to science, there wouldn't be a single kid able to maintain their faith.

Religion has no place in a SCIENCE classroom. Evolution is factual, and is a component of biology. Creationism is a myth and has nothing to back it up and no worth whatsoever. Schools are for learning FACTS about the world. Creationism is a fairytale, so it has no place there, except perhaps in a class about comparative religions.

Rational thought is what school is about. Creationism is an alternative for people who are too unintelligent or ignorant to comprehend the fact that Christianity is a myth. Right to celebrate ones religion is not contested. If you want to believe creationism go ahead. But science classes are about facts, and evolution has a lot more behind it than creationism. As it is, it is still referred to as a theory.

Its not important to keep religion out of schools that is why they have comparative religion classes. What is wrong is forcing one religious idea to be accepted and others put aside where does it stop? The Hindu creation myth? The Native American myth? and so on it is a bad idea, leave science in the science class and religion in the religious studies class

Here's an idea.... How about, in the interest of "fairness" and "equal time," as the Christian right calls it, we have evolutionary biologists come in to your church every week during the sermon and teach you about Darwin and the Theory of Evolution. Would probably do wonders for science education. See the idiocy of "fairness?"

Because they are teaching science, which has evidence on it's side, there are many facts supporting it, anddd creationism has zilch. Not every child is a believer and not every family is a believer. There are children of many different religions in public schools. If you want your child to grow up and really believe that the world is only 6,000 years old and that we existed with the dinosaurs then go ahead and send your child to a christian private school. Don't infect everyone else with that crap. Not everyone has the same beliefs, they are only teaching the science of evolution.

Its fine as long as they are also taught about the Flying Spaghetti Monster as well as evolution and creationism. See the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world. Then he created a mountain, trees and a midgit. He is everywhere always and if you are touched by his Noodly Appendage you will go to heaven where there are beer volcanoes and stripper factories. I hope this helps and may you be Touched by His Noodly Appendage, Ramen P.S. http://www.venganza.org Here is a link to the online site for our church, in case you would like to research our creator on a more in-depth level.

Along with Greek, Norse, Indian, Native American, and Aztec myths, creationism can have a few days in social studies. However, science is both a collection of theories, i.e., sets of facts that explain things, and a logical system for finding the best answers for natural causes of natural events. It's not scientific to take as fact that there is one fixed way the natural world came to its current state, and that no amount of knowledge will every change that. So, teaching creationism as science would be like having students write what they imagine is Shakespeare, and then studying it as if it were Shakespeare The reason to keep religion out of school, and out of government, is that 1) two legislators could disagree about the meaning of a biblical passage as it applies to law, and there is no way to resolve the issue democratically - so go to Iran if you want a theocracy. 2) Religion is personal, and to share it with a captive audience is the moral equivalent of showing sex acts to a random or captive audience. Keep religion and sex equally private - and equally accessible to consenting adults.