You can try arguing that you need to know the Bible (and thus Creationism) to understand most of the western culture, I guess.

Argue that it should be taught in a basic rationality course as an example of "how not to think".

If not, now you know that debate and rhetoric is the art of making people believe things that are not true.

I hope you learn from this, OP. Here's the lesson: there is *no correlation* between good rhetorical arguments and truth. Experiment and *proven* mathematics are the only indicators of truth.

>>352
>>353
Both very good ideas, problem though.
I'm a very shit people person, and I can't really speak in front of a lot of people. So the past two speeches I've done were insanely awkward and short. For this one, however, I have to carry it out for over 5 minutes.

So >353, I would love to bullshit this whole speech, but today during class I was told it has to be legitimate claims.

>>354
Just introducing the topic can take 2 minutes. State the topic, why it is important, and some facts about it (where it is taught etc.).

>>354

>creationism
>legit claims

pfffft

I don't know what to do about your problem with public speaking. If you had a longer time, I'd recommend getting a lot of practice at it.

Seriously tho, take the basic rationality course angle. Start by introducing bayes theorem and one of the (quantitative) formulations of occams razor. Explain that 'God did it' is not a simple explanation because you have to expand 'god' and 'it'. Explain that supernaturalism is a certain kind of confusion where people's social intelligence detects minds that aren't there and naturally explains things in terms of minds, even tho minds are not fundamental in nature. Explain that a superintelligence would optimise the world according to its preferences, and that other beings created would share its preferences, so the fact that the world doesn't look optimised to us (peopel are starving all over the place, life is short and often brutal, etc) is evidence against a superintelligent creator. There's much more, you can pick and choose your favorite bits. Then lead this into a discussion about how we have to raise the sanity waterline to prevent stupid thinking like this, and the best way to do that would be to teach basic rationality (the mental habits that detect the problems I pointed out above). You would need good case-studies for a rationality course, and creationism is a great one because it is widely accepted and wrong.

For more info see http://lesswrong.com/lw/1e/raising_the_sanity_waterline/ and http://lesswrong.com/lw/jp/occams_razor/
good luck OP.

Also, did you know that being forced to integrate incorrect knowledge into your brain by arguing for it will actually cause cognitive damage and reduce your mental ability? FYI.

I would say the main reason for teaching creationism in school would be for it's cultural value. It's a very prominent popular belief so I do think schools should discuss it's significance for society and some of it's intricacies. Because it's not a science it should however not be taught in biology classes of course.

Reading through /id/ might give you some ideas.
Here's one thread which is somewhat relevant:
http://789chan.org/id/res/90.html

OP here, just want to thank everyone for helping me out, was kind of a tough subject. I ended up explaining how creationism should be taught as a theory, and not to be required for someone to graduate. So it would be taken as an elective/extra class.
I also had said for it to be taken as cultural value and gave my opinion and explained how it would help other people understand religion more and probably teach our generation that there are different perspectives of religion.

good stuff.

>>361
way to go dude, you totally took the politically neutral middle ground there. You'd make a good politician.

As much as I think you should have given em hell, you probably would have been lynched and failed. Fucking christians.

You don't understand the joys of life.

The trick here was to be ridiculous. Pick the hardest possible position - something that a bible-thumping madman wouldn't support by association - and then you run with it.

Yes, the gays are the reason the WTC happened. Yes, Obama is a muslim who allied with the gays in Saddam Hussein's hot tub time machine -- it's all in revelations, people!

You can find ways to support anything. Deliver what you say with verve and panache (and use words like verve and panache), and find a way to subtly wink to the reader now and then to let them know you're not actually insane, and to keep you from getting punished.

It's what Stephen Colbert does. It's what people who win debates do. It's really fun, and it's called satire. Your teacher might have thought you had it in you, but you buckled and delivered some low-grade pansy-ass hucka.

Next time, pretend you're Ferris Bueller and hit a home fucking run.