American Atheists, and moderate American Christians... An ethical question?

Question

Would you trade intelligent design in classrooms for universal healthcare and food for the poor?

The conservative Christians would get pseudo-science. Everyone would get healthcare and food.

Hypothetically, would you take that deal?

Answer 1

Yes.
Healthy nourished people are going to have more time and energy to developing their human potential (Think Maslow's heirarchy). I would hope that this would lead to increasing critical thinking skills, which would then balance out the ID people learned in classrooms.

Answer 2

Please understand that Americans (as a whole though not all individuals) have a very hard time understanding the concept of Universal Health Care. (if it's "free" then it can't be good for you is one such misconception) Intelligent design is clearly a flawed and easily disprovable idea. Would I want to subject my kid to that fallacy in exchange for Universal Health Care...only if I can reinforce in my child each and every day when he gets home from school how evolution is the truth and sadly part of that evolution sh*t means that we sometimes have to go along to get along but he should always feel free to question. Take the course Ace the course (how hard could it possible be???) and KNOW the truth is evolution.

Of course I am Canadian and ENJOY the fruits of Universal Health Care that is paid for by my hard earned tax dollars.

BWLOBO...what a retarded statement regarding atheists. It is always nice to see the well educated god fearing folk out for walks!

Answer 3

In a heartbeat. Parents can always supplement their child's school education with a few science texts. I am not so utterly selfish that I would put my child's educational studies above the health care or nourishment of others. Besides, the fact that the majority of children are told the Santa Claus story and question its validity even before being told the truth. Children are a lot smarter than they are given credit for.
BWLOBO- I hate to break it to you, but Christians do not have a monopoly on charity. Perhaps you would like to come over the next time I donate bone marrow or take a family into my house and tell me how atheists do not have any reason to be charitable. We do it for others, not for ourselves- which sounds a little less selfish than your reason.

Answer 4

Probably yes.

The downside would be that the quality of the health care and the ability to produce food might become degraded, because the science which underpins them would be degraded.

Ummm, a few posters have suggested that "universal health care" means "free health care". It doesn't. It simply means that health care is affordable for all, and that resources are distributed according to need. Most Western countries have such a system, more or less. Forty million Americans are outside such a system. While US citizens who do have health cover get generally good quality care, your system is poor value for money compared with other countries that provide a similar quality.

Answer 5

No way. For one thing, that "universal" health care and food has to be paid for by someone, and it would be the American taxpayers. So it's not an exchange with the quality of our education, it's an exchange with a rather large price tag. When the government does something, it is done in the least efficient way possible. You know that: you've seen enough examples in your life, I'm sure.

Our children must have a real basis of science education by the time they go to college, or they will be completely out of the competition for careers in science and technology.

Answer 6

No. I don't really get the question.

You want intelligent design taught in classrooms in exchange the USA gets universal healthcare and food?

There are places the poor can go and get food right now. There is a light house mission in ,every city with 50,000+ people living there,

Answer 7

98% is clearly ludicrous. That doesn't leave room from the millions of atheists, Jews, Muslims, neopagans, hindus, buddhists, etc in the country, much less those people who believe in a God but don't follow a specific religion or even believe in Christ but choose not to identify as Christian for any number of reasons. I've seen multiple studies that measure people identifying as "religious" in the US at 80-85% (although the studies are kind of old now), so putting Christians somewhere in the 70s seems very reasonable. How do you define "Christian," if you aren't accepting that people who claim they are Christian are actually Christian? You say they don't act Christian. By whose standards? Why are yours more objective than others? And you do realize that NO ONE lives fully up to an ideal, and Christianity even accepts that in that everyone sins. To only count people who go to church as "Christian" is well outside of any academic definition of Christian. So before anyone can look for numbers, you need to define what you count as criteria, since you reject the most common criteria. If you want to know how many people live up to your personal criteria, you're going to have to make your own very complicated poll.

Answer 8

Hmm...I would say yes, simply because I feel universal health care is extremely important. Smart kids will always see nonsense for what it is. I think the greater good that would be universal health care outweighs whatever the potential hazards of intelligent design in the classroom.

Answer 9

No. The benefits of universal healthcare might be felt immediately (or almost), but the harms of pseudo-science would be long lasting and detrimental to our future.

I'd keep ID off the classrooms and strive to improve healthcare as much as possible.

Answer 10

i might

but only if ID is taught BEFORE evolution.

intelligent design doesent have anything to stand on. as long as its taught before anything scientific it can be examined, debunked by the students themselves and thrown out of the classroom by those who attend the class.

if intelligent design were to go into schools it wouldnt last long at all. eventually it would be dropped or turned into its own class, therefore removing it from anything remotely scientific.

universal healthcare? not sure myself....lets give it a try and see what happens...if we can make it work than itll be worth it.