Religious neutrality gone wrong

is the T-shirt religiously neutral?

  • Yes

    Votes: 58 86.6%

  • No

    Votes: 4 6.0%

  • I wanna see the results!

    Votes: 5 7.5%
  • Total voters
    67
I fail to see how this isn't religiously neutral. Even if you take this as the evolution of man rather than the evolution of brass instruments as they wanted you to your religious opinions shouldn't be able to compete against established scientific theories in public schools.
 
I can see where and how it becomes a matter of contention. The problem is that these things enter into pop culture so much, so easily and so quickly that it becomes irreligious. Then again, you wouldn't catch me wearing that into church on Sunday. It's the meaning behind it though and what it originally stood for (which was evolution of humans from apes, not what the bible says).

Still, pop culture anyone?
 
AesronDrosseli said:
Then again, you wouldn't catch me wearing that into church on Sunday. It's the meaning behind it though and what it originally stood for (which was evolution of humans from apes, not what the bible says).
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There's all sorts of stuff people wouldn't wear to church!

Let's assume a typical north Danish family for the sake of having an example. Would they wear sombreros to church? - Obviously not. This phenomenon does not make sombreros a religious issue in northern Denmark. Not by itself, anyway. You need more than that - religious deities, prophets, dogma, possibly weird looking hats, and sometimes beards.

Evolution is not a religious issue in much the same way. There are no sects of scientists worshipping some sort of God of Evolution, who brings good fortunes to those who mutate in his name. There are no deities, no prophets (i.e. people professing to speak for God), no dogma (the scientific method is a.. method. A method can't be dogma), ok - i gotta admit - there are a couple weird looking hats - even some beards.

In the end the only potential reason why evolution might be considered a religion or a religious issue is a bunch of beards and hats, which says a lot about the people who think that it is
 
MobBoss said:
It can be just as neutral as evolution.
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ID "assumes" an intelligence is involved, that makes it religious in nature since we ascribe that intelligence to God or a Creator or Prime Mover. Evolution doesn't deal with how life began even if evolution appears to be a very intelligent way for life to flourish once it gets going ;)
 
warpus said:
There's all sorts of stuff people wouldn't wear to church!

Let's assume a typical north Danish family for the sake of having an example. Would they wear sombreros to church? - Obviously not. This phenomenon does not make sombreros a religious issue in northern Denmark. Not by itself, anyway. You need more than that - religious deities, prophets, dogma, possibly weird looking hats, and sometimes beards.

Evolution is not a religious issue in much the same way. There are no sects of scientists worshipping some sort of God of Evolution, who brings good fortunes to those who mutate in his name. There are no deities, no prophets (i.e. people professing to speak for God), no dogma (the scientific method is a.. method. A method can't be dogma), ok - i gotta admit - there are a couple weird looking hats - even some beards.

In the end the only potential reason why evolution might be considered a religion is a bunch of beards and hats, which says a lot about the people who think that it is
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Now don't get me wrong here. Evolution is natural and explains a lot of stuff very well. However, the thing about this particular symbol here is that it's symbolic of the claim that humans came from apes (gross over-simplification I know, but bear with me). I'm not saying that evolution is religious. Heck no! But when it's taught that humans weren't created by God as humans I believe that's where the controversy comes in. For according to Christians, the Bible gave Adam and Eve, not Ahooga and Eeba who evolved into Adam and Eve.

To say that I'm saying that evolution is religious in nature because I wouldn't wear it to church is like saying that I think that homosexuality is religious just because many Christians wouldn't accept it (would you wear a shirt of men holding hands against a rainbow background to church? I wouldn't!).
 
But when it's taught that humans weren't created by God as humans I believe that's where the controversy comes in. For according to Christians, the Bible gave Adam and Eve, not Ahooga and Eeba who evolved into Adam and Eve.
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actually Genesis strongly hints at evolution, before the Adam became like the gods knowing good and evil, he was ignorant of good and evil, wore no clothes, etc... God showed him the animals to find a helpmate and Adam rejected them so Eve was fashioned. The whole garden story sounds like a metaphor for man's departure from the animals. The Sumerians have some really interesting myths, one claims a serpent deity bound the image of the gods onto a creature roaming his southern lands to make a primitive worker to labor for the gods - Adam was to till the Garden. They eventually led to us when the serpent god gave them procreation.
 
Hey, this is in Sedalia! That's not far from here. Missouri has its State Fair there every year.
 
If a religion believes man did not evolve, how is it religiously neutral? Pretty amazed at the voting on this.
 
If a cafeteria serves pork, how is it religiously neutral?
 
If people aren't required to wear turbans at all times, how is it religiously neutral?
 
Let me rephrase: The shirt is clearly not religiously neutral, it uses a subject that is divisive both between evolution vs creation, as well as within Christianity - some who believe in a literal 6 day creation vs some who believe God used evolution.

However, should they have recalled the shirts? No, Evolutionary theory is already taught in classrooms...you'd need to remove that first.
 
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