The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

[Kepler]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

Balance. But nobody wants balance anymore. It's all or nothing (both ways). Stinks. But we keep electing the fringes not the middle.

In some things, balance is a false choice. You don't get to teach myths in a science class -- not even a little bit. They are fine for the home. If the entire community fervently believes in white supremacy, you still don't get to teach white supremacy. A "compromise" might be to teach it only on Thursday, only 20% of the school year hardly seems like much when it's a belief of 100% of the community. But it doesn't work that way -- in this instance, separation of church and state is an absolute.

There's an alternative: you can pull your kids out of public school and send them to a Christian madrasa. And in fact that seems to be what more and more of these people are doing, so their kids and grandkids not only don't learn anything, but they don't even know they haven't learned anything.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

Yes, but did it cover Jainism? Buddhism? Wicca? Traditional African Religions? Pantheism? Agnosticism? Atheism?

If you aren't going to teach them all in public schools, then you can't teach any of them. To do otherwise, is to establish that only the religious beliefs being taught are "acceptable" to American society and the federal government. Therefore, it is unconstitutional.

This is why religious instruction is best left to the parental or guardian units.

I wouldn't say that. You could layout the list of known religions in the world, and then tell the students that the class would take the top two or three religions, by quantity of practitioners, from each region and go from there.

My high school offered a course on religion that I took. The teacher started with monotheistic religions that were non-Christian. He stated that this was because the school was in an area known to be 95% Christian. Then the class started into the polytheistic religions, studied in the order of Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, and then we briefly discussed some lesser known religions. The teacher made certain to state that he was neither endorsing nor deriding any of the religions being taught, and wouldn't even tell us what his religion was. IMO, the guy absolutely nailed the correct manner in how to teach a world religions class to a bunch of tenth grade students.

 

[leswp1]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

Yes, but did it cover Jainism? Buddhism? Wicca? Traditional African Religions? Pantheism? Agnosticism? Atheism?

If you aren't going to teach them all in public schools, then you can't teach any of them. To do otherwise, is to establish that only the religious beliefs being taught are "acceptable" to American society and the federal government. Therefore, it is unconstitutional.

This is why religious instruction is best left to the parental or guardian units.

Have to disagree. Not every kid gets a trophy. There are thousands or more religions but they are not all mainstream/with multiple followers. The local school (usually Draconian) caused a few parents in our community to tweek out because they did a unit on 'major' religions. Some of the parents complained (on the local FB parent page) that they were teaching .... duck and cover!1!1!!!1!.... Islam. The response was swift and happily heartwarming. Parents were overwhelmingly in support of the kids learning the basic tenets of each religion taught as they would teach about different cultures. They had certain bullets that the kids needed to fill in about basic beliefs of the particular religion. If more people had to learn about different groups in school there would be less ignorance.

I was brought up Unitarian. Had a very Lutheran family on one side, a Christian Science set on the other. The kindergarten teacher I had was Jewish. We did all the holidays- Jewish and Christian. It was wonderful. If I could have had lil' les exposed to that it would have been awesome. Our current church sponsors Muslim refugees. They share their beliefs during the various 'holidays/seasons. Also cool.

As to teaching exclusively at home- bad idea. It falls under the same category as teaching sex ed at home. The amount of completely ignorant (as in un or misinformed) parents is overwhelming. You can't teach what you don't know about. In a dream world you would have parents take a class and then discuss with kids.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

There's an alternative: you can pull your kids out of public school and send them to a Christian madrasa. And in fact that seems to be what more and more of these people are doing, so their kids and grandkids not only don't learn anything, but they don't even know they haven't learned anything.

OK, now that is a silly statement. I went to a Catholic high school that is considered one of the top overall schools in the entire state of Michigan. Obviously, our religious instruction was strictly Catholic, outside of a required 9th grade World Cultures class that briefly touched on the other major world religions of each region. The rest of our courses were strictly secular, and (compared to most of the pubbies) rigorous. I took my share of AP classes.

Religious schools need not be breeding grounds of indoctrination for a particular set of religious beliefs.

EDIT: And I suppose this somehow indicates that it's OK to teach world religions in public schools, since I obviously didn't turn out a good little Catholic. I suppose that might be true . It just better not be mandatory.

 

[unofan]

Yes, but did it cover Jainism? Buddhism? Wicca? Traditional African Religions? Pantheism? Agnosticism? Atheism?

If you aren't going to teach them all in public schools, then you can't teach any of them. To do otherwise, is to establish that only the religious beliefs being taught are "acceptable" to American society and the federal government. Therefore, it is unconstitutional.

This is why religious instruction is best left to the parental or guardian units.

You can have a comparative religious studies class without covering every single religion out there.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

You can have a comparative religious studies class without covering every single religion out there.

I guess...

 

[joecct]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

Clarke's first law
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

Clarke's second law
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Clarke's third law
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

Actually I think a comparative religion course would be more valuable than a great many high school courses. Dispelling many of the misunderstandings and bias' regarding Christianity, Judaism and Islam and spelling out common ground would really be a long term benefit for society.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

Actually I think a comparative religion course would be more valuable than a great many high school courses. Dispelling many of the misunderstandings and bias' regarding Christianity, Judaism and Islam and spelling out common ground would really be a long term benefit for society.

Can you imagine how certain parents would respond to that? The whole idea of putting their favorite religion into the same set as other "heathen" faiths would drive them bomb-throwing insane.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

OK, now that is a silly statement. I went to a Catholic high school that is considered one of the top overall schools in the entire state of Michigan. Obviously, our religious instruction was strictly Catholic, outside of a required 9th grade World Cultures class that briefly touched on the other major world religions of each region. The rest of our courses were strictly secular, and (compared to most of the pubbies) rigorous. I took my share of AP classes.

Not what I mean at all. As far as I'm concerned Catholic schools are, for most things, the best in the country (my brother went to a Catholic school on L.I. and it was good enough to get him to M.I.T.). I'm talking about the kind of homeschool idiocy where Mommy stays home like the Bible says she should, and feeds her ever-growing brood mass produced pablum from for-profit "educational" curricula that teach kids that evolution is wrong and all the ills of world history are directly attributable to NO JEBUS! And if you doubt they exist, please come visit my neck of the woods.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

Can you imagine how certain parents would respond to that?

Yeah. The whole idea for atheists of educating on any "heathen" faith would probably drive them bomb-throwing insane.

 

[unofan]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

Can you imagine how certain parents would respond to that? The whole idea of putting their favorite religion into the same set as other "heathen" faiths would drive them bomb-throwing insane.

As part of 9th grade world geography, we had a 6-week unit on major world religions. I never heard of any poutrage over it. I think my group covered Shintoism.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

As part of 9th grade world geography, we had a 6-week unit on major world religions. I never heard of any poutrage over it. I think my group covered Shintoism.

What year and where? It would have been OK in my ninth grade too (1978, NYC suburb). To give you an idea of how things have changed, the Thumpers forced the high school to change the mascot from "Blue Devils" a few years after I graduated. Because, you know, SATAN!!!111!

The stupidity (and aggression) of these groups is a lot higher than it used to be.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

Yeah. The whole idea for atheists of educating on any "heathen" faith would probably drive them bomb-throwing insane.

Let me know the next time an atheist sends a letter bomb to a judge.

 

[joecct]

What year and where? It would have been OK in my ninth grade too (1978, NYC suburb). To give you an idea of how things have changed, the Thumpers forced the high school to change the mascot from "Blue Devils" a few years after I graduated. Because, you know, SATAN!!!111!

The stupidity (and aggression) of these groups is a lot higher than it used to be.

Who forced Colby to drop White Mules in favor of Mules? Amherst to drop Lord Jeffs?

It wasn't Thumpers. Maybe Flowers?

 

[unofan]

What year and where? It would have been OK in my ninth grade too (1978, NYC suburb). To give you an idea of how things have changed, the Thumpers forced the high school to change the mascot from "Blue Devils" a few years after I graduated. Because, you know, SATAN!!!111!

The stupidity (and aggression) of these groups is a lot higher than it used to be.

That would've been late 90s at Omaha North High.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

That would've been late 90s at Omaha North High.

YMMV. Thumper topology is not flat.

This OTOH is pretty funny.

(Even though it is marked "Not an April Fool's Joke" I would put the odds that it is, in fact, an April Fool's joke at about 67%.)

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

Who forced Colby to drop White Mules in favor of Mules? Amherst to drop Lord Jeffs?

It wasn't Thumpers. Maybe Flowers?

You hit me with a flower?

Oh baby, you're so vicious.

 

[joecct]

You hit me with a flower?

Oh baby, you're so vicious.

Babmi reference.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Religion Thread: A Believer-Atheist Alliance

Babmi reference.

Got it.