Free Speech for you, Law Suit for me?
Mood:
quizzical
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Topic: Poli-ticks
I want to know what the deal is with this world. Today specifically, I want to know why something can be considered free speech by one person, but against the law by another. Here's my example:
Scientists have created these things they call "theories." Now for those of you who don't know, a theory is a hypothetical situation that, after much research, has data to back up but not prove the theory most of the time. This means that theories are
not fact. Any real scientist will not say a certain theory is 100% proven. Why? Because if it was 100% proven, it would be called fact, not theory. Certain theories you may have heard of: Theory of Evolution, Theory of Relativity, Quantum Physics is mostly theory also. None of these can be proven 100%. Many scientists, however, will say that these theories must be true because the data supporting the theory is overwhelming. This still does not make the theory true. These scientists push for these theories to be accepted by all text book publishers. They also wish for these theories to be accepted by the community as a whole, because to them, these theories are the truth. Many scientists are scientists because they need things to be explained. They need to have reasons why things work. Why else would they hypothesize and then try to prove their hypotheses. That's what scientists do; biologists, physicists, chemists, all study their respective science. In studying, they propose something should be happening a certain way and then try to prove it.
So if scientists are always trying to prove things one way or another with cold hard facts, then it only makes sense that they would be the lasts ones to be able to accept abstract ideas like much art, and especially religion, which people have a hard time proving through hard facts. Consider that many people follow the Bible, or the Koran, or the Jewish Bible the same way scientists follow natural law, physical laws, and all those other theories and science laws and rules. Religion states how the world was created, how we are expected to act, it gives us laws and rules to follow as well as much good advice to live by. As a matter of fact, if people followed the Bible and how God tells us we should live the world would be a much better place. Even if God really didn't exist (I don't mean it) if people followed the Bible and believed it was all true, the world would still be a better place. You can follow everything that Science says and you won't be able to live a great life. (science says one day we might get hit by an asteroid, and the universe is collapsing, and the sun will explode; man this is great...?) So where am I going with this?
Liberals, scientists, lawyers, and judges can all say that the
Theory of Evolution and the Big Bang
Theory are allowed to be taught in public schools and anything else which is not scientifically accepted is not allowed. Yet, when a Christian teacher tells his students that the Theory of Evolution is in fact just a
theory, and there is other explanations for the creation of man, he can easily be sued for freedom of speech. Why? Because he imposed his ideals, opinions, and religion on children who are susceptible to influence and will believe what a teacher tells them? No! People sue teachers like him because they are trying to prove a point. If I did a speech in class on the Chinese, and in that speech went over their religion briefly and how they believe the world began, there may be a kid in my class who will think that it makes sense and want to learn more. Can I be sued for influencing that kid and pushing my ideals on him? No, because all I did was state facts: that fact being that this is what the Chinese believed back in the day. So how come I can't say "this is what I believe," without the threat of a law suit. Even if all I was doing was stating that is what I believe, with the expectation that others would say what they believe and we would have a nice discussion about the differences (not forcing religions on each other, and not getting offended by each other).
The answer is, because religion is not accepted as fact because it cannot be proven. People are afraid to believe in God because they have been let down by religion before, or are afraid to believe in something that cannot be proven by hard fact. Jesus dying for my sins is enough fact for me, but others have a harder time with it. But this still does not answer my question.
For me to say "I believe that God created the earth in 7 days," is my belief. For someone else to say " scientists have shown it's possible the earth was created by the rapid expansion of the universe over a billion years ago," is someone else's belief (whether they call it "belief" or not). From an English speech point of view, these two statements are nothing but statements, or opinions. Only if I say "God created the earth and if you don't believe that then you are going to Hell!" then I am imposing my religion on other a little. But then again, if a scientist was to say that anyone who believes the Biblical story of creation is ignorant, he can get away with that. Why is it scientists can say the religion is wrong, but Christians, Jews or people from other religions can't say that science is wrong?
I will probably never get my question answered. Mostly because people from both sides do not believe the other side nor do they agree on anything.
Even the new thing that has arisen from the religion-scientists, called Intelligent Design, is not popular with both crowds. (for those who don't know, Intelligent Design says that the laws of nature govern everything we see, but something was set in motion by a creator of some sort. Creator meaning God, aliens, or some other entity. It states that there are so many complex items in nature that could not of possibly happened on their own, that someone had to start it all.)
So my questions are out there, and everyone has their own answer, so I don't expect much. But I would like to be able to talk about what ever I want to talk about (that free speech thing) without the fear of being sued for imposing on others beliefs. After all, isn't freedom the whole point of the USA? If we can't be free, and the government is going to tell us we can only talk about religion in our homes and churches and can't talk to others about our religion unless they tell us we can, then what's the point of calling ourselves free?
Posted by Big the Fat Tiger
at 7:47 PM CST