Should Creationism/Intelligent Design be offered as an alternative to Evolution in public schools?

I'm interested to see how this debate takes shape.

Discuss.

No, because Evolution is a theory.

I don't think religion should be taught in PUBLIC schools. Evolution should. There are other theories that are taught in public schools. So, it should be allowed. Religion, is a personal thing that should be reserved for private schools.

I don't think so. There is no or little scientific, factual backing of creationism. Unless you specifically go to a Catholic school or something to learn about religion, it shouldn't be taught even as an alternative. Maybe schools should teach about what Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and all the ancient religions like Egyptian thought and what they stood for, so the kids can have a better understanding of the world from that perspective, but I don't think that schools should offer an alternative to scientific theory to teach religion. I mean public schools, of course. And if a private school is going to teach creationism, it should be known to parents that the school will teach it.

I'm not entirely against any sort of religion in schools as long as it's not trying to convert people, but you know that there are people out there who will protest and cry at it, "it" being the religious reference in question.

From what I've read, creationism/intelligent design doesn't have to be about religion. I mean, if you can teach it from a neutral stand point, its just another theory. Teach it just as you would any other worldly religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, or (fill in another religion).

Food for thought.

Theories usually have more scientific backing though. Now in my post I did include that as we may study Christianity/Judaism and all that, we will learn about what Christians think about creationism, but offering it as an alternative suggests that public schools should teach it as potential fact as they teach evolution as potential fact (potential since it's still a theory and not a law).

Although, scientifically, a being that has the power to do whatever he wants could create matter and arrange it. There's just no real evidence of god in science as opposed to faith, just like there's little evidence of extra-terrestrial life, though someone did recently find organic molecules on a distant planet.

If creationism/intelligent design isn't scientifically proven to be true, wouldn't that be considered a theory?

Well, a theory isn't proven, but when you use the term in the world of science it means you have conducted craploads of experiments and other scientists have as well and the results all point toward your hypothesis. So creationism would still constitute as a hypothesis until experimentation has given good evidence and evolution is proven incorrect, since they are conflicting beliefs.

It doesn't matter if you believe in evolution or not (I do not), it is a THEORY. Although I am a Christian, I will agree that since they are public schools, evolution should be taught, HOWEVER, the teacher should be allowed to explain that it is only a theory and that there are other beliefs such as creation/I.D. and even share his or her own beliefs. Way too much credit is given to evolution, and there is little evidence to support it. In Darwin's time, when he first published his findings, people wanted him imprisoned! It was blasphemy! It wasn't until after his death that people rethought his belief. Go find a cladogram. A REAL unedited cladogram. You'll see that there will be many dotted lines connecting species and no to very few solid lines connecting species. The dotted lines represent species that they believe to be connected through evolution that have NO EVIDENCE. Someone just thinks that they are connected because they have some similar characteristics. Creationists believe that God created the different types of life, and from those, diversity was made among species through genetic mutations. So many people accept evolution because they don't know all the facts. You have to understand that evolutionists and secular text books and other secular sources give you all the information supporting evolution, but not before weeding out the overwhelming information found that is constantly disproving it. A common example in text books -- "Yeasts have a the same gene as humans that codes for myosin production, a substance that helps humans move their muscles, and yeasts don't even have muscles, so yeast must be an ancestor of humans." They're not telling you that the gene is in a completely different location on the chromosome, and that the yeast use the myosin to move. Another example in text books is that picture of a small horse growing into a big horse, or a dog-sized animal growing into a giraffe to reach the leaves. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF THESE. THEY ARE SOMEONE'S DRAWINGS, BASED ON NOTHING! We have common characteristics because we have a COMMON CREATOR, not a common ancestor. Evolutionist scientists go as far as fusing two fossils together to create their own transitional fossil, because they can't find any real ones! (do some searching, there was a story on this a few years back).

Not everyone can afford private schools, even if they want to go. So yes, evolution can be taught in public schools, but alternatives need to be offered.

Ok good. Up until your last line I thought you were just going to argue whether evolution was right or not.