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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
 Posted - 02/09/2005 : 08:44:32 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Valiant Dancer
quote:
Originally posted by Dude
quote:
I figure God made the rules by which the universe and biodiversity came into being. It's a matter of philosophy which science cannot comment upon as it is only interested in describing the rules instead of answering the philisophical question of who made the rules.
As long as you recognize that this position is just unevidenced speculation.
Yup. I do. It would be inappropriate for it to be taught in schools, too.
How about in the class of "Comparative Religions"? |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 08:57:50 [Permalink]
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quote:
How about in the class of "Comparative Religions"?
I think that it should be taught thus, along with all of the other, religious doctrines.
But never in science, 'cause it ain't.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 09:02:30 [Permalink]
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quote:
I think that it should be taught thus, along with all of the other, religious doctrines.
But never in science, 'cause it ain't.
If you include something about not teaching it in public schools, K-12 grades, then I agree 100%.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 09:38:40 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
quote:
I think that it should be taught thus, along with all of the other, religious doctrines.
But never in science, 'cause it ain't.
If you include something about not teaching it in public schools, K-12 grades, then I agree 100%.
No, I'll not include that. I feel that the kids should get all of the information available, but in context. Mine did, because I laid it on them, explaining as best I could the different positions taken by the various factions. A little home-schooling from the atheist that worked out pretty well. Their bullshit detectors are better than mine.
Contrary to popular belief, most of our young students are not stupid.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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| Edited by - filthy on 02/09/2005 09:40:15 |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 09:42:36 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
quote:
Originally posted by Valiant Dancer
quote:
Originally posted by Dude
quote:
I figure God made the rules by which the universe and biodiversity came into being. It's a matter of philosophy which science cannot comment upon as it is only interested in describing the rules instead of answering the philisophical question of who made the rules.
As long as you recognize that this position is just unevidenced speculation.
Yup. I do. It would be inappropriate for it to be taught in schools, too.
How about in the class of "Comparative Religions"?
Actually, no. Primarily because it is not a main tenet of religion. It is more of a dogma of recent origin. Perhaps in a few hundred years should it become more ingrained in the dogma of that religion. It could also be included in a comparitive religion course as a passing point but would be more trivia than a study of the religion. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 10:25:00 [Permalink]
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quote:
Contrary to popular belief, most of our young students are not stupid.
I agree that they are not.
My issue with teaching any religion in our public primary schools is that it lends official weight to it. Even if multiple points of view are taught (can you just imagine the reaction of fundies to a class in public schools that taught kids about Islam, Hindu, ect...?).
And, while children are definitely not stupid, they also lack (in the large part) the critical thinking capacity to effectively evaluate claims of any sort. They accept what you teach them at face value, until you teach them to be critical.
Now, if you could get a real course in critical thinking into the mandatory curriculum, I might change my mind about a comparative religions class for highschool students.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 10:46:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
quote:
Contrary to popular belief, most of our young students are not stupid.
I agree that they are not.
My issue with teaching any religion in our public primary schools is that it lends official weight to it. Even if multiple points of view are taught (can you just imagine the reaction of fundies to a class in public schools that taught kids about Islam, Hindu, ect...?).
And, while children are definitely not stupid, they also lack (in the large part) the critical thinking capacity to effectively evaluate claims of any sort. They accept what you teach them at face value, until you teach them to be critical.
Now, if you could get a real course in critical thinking into the mandatory curriculum, I might change my mind about a comparative religions class for highschool students.
I don't think we have to wonder. The California comparative religion course was called "indoctorination into Islam" by Fundie zealots. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 12:27:06 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Valiant Dancer
quote:
Originally posted by Dude
quote:
Contrary to popular belief, most of our young students are not stupid.
I agree that they are not.
My issue with teaching any religion in our public primary schools is that it lends official weight to it. Even if multiple points of view are taught (can you just imagine the reaction of fundies to a class in public schools that taught kids about Islam, Hindu, ect...?).
And, while children are definitely not stupid, they also lack (in the large part) the critical thinking capacity to effectively evaluate claims of any sort. They accept what you teach them at face value, until you teach them to be critical.
Now, if you could get a real course in critical thinking into the mandatory curriculum, I might change my mind about a comparative religions class for highschool students.
I don't think we have to wonder. The California comparative religion course was called "indoctorination into Islam" by Fundie zealots.
Indeed. 
My point exactly. A comparitive religion class would not be teaching any religion per se; it would be showing the students another view(s) and most important, helping them to aquire the skills necessary to use their minds to the fullest. It has long been my thougt that school teaches the student how to learn more than any, particular subject.
Teach the whole, freakin' thing and the fundies of all the world's cults be damned.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 13:27:57 [Permalink]
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To teach comparative religion in lower grades you need very skilled teachers who can handle the material objectively and can deal with kids' questions regarding what they have been taught at home compared to what they are hearing in class. I doubt the average K-12 teacher is up to the task.
Perhaps it could be introduced as a high school elective.
It is a sad statement about our society when we have to walk on eggshells in educational settings lest we offend. Are we really different from the ages we look back on and claim, "how silly it was to stop folks from acknowledging the obvious like the Earth is round"? |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 13:51:06 [Permalink]
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| Hey its better than burning people at the stake, dont forget where we came from. At least now they mostly sneer at us. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 14:15:23 [Permalink]
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Most Europeans take comparative religion courses and are far less religious than the United States. I agree with filthy that the more students learn about religion, the less likely they will be dogmatic about their own.
I recall one teacher who was teaching his catholic school class about different religions when voodo (I think) came up. He noted that many practitioners believed that application of perfume would ward off evil spirits. He said many of the kids got a chuckle out of that one. Next he pulled out a bottle of Holy Water....
I think teaching religions in such a comparative way does force people to think critically about their own. They would be much better off than than never having heard of "miracles" and "faith healings" before being approached by a believer in such garbage.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 02/09/2005 18:45:31 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 14:20:59 [Permalink]
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I'm still digging the "Point brought up somewhere" that if you were to take a single person of any religion and analyse their beliefs as unique, they would be considered delusional at best.
NPR I think it was, Diane Reem show. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular
USA
1191 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 18:20:01 [Permalink]
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quote:
My point exactly. A comparitive religion class would not be teaching any religion per se; it would be showing the students another view(s) and most important, helping them to aquire the skills necessary to use their minds to the fullest. It has long been my thougt that school teaches the student how to learn more than any, particular subject.
Teach the whole, freakin' thing and the fundies of all the world's cults be damned.
In high school (junior year I believe) I took a comparative religion class. It was a catholic high school and that was the religion curriculum that year. It was a somewhat liberal catholic high school run by (fransiscan?) brothers, and while religion was one of the mandatory classes, they never really tried to shove the party line down our throats. This was a big contrast to eight years of catholic grade school with nuns claiming that we were all on the road to hell for swearing and just generally being kids. I wasn't really very devout by the eleventh grade (who am I kidding, I wasn't even faking it by then; finding new and creative ways of sinning was pretty much our chief pastime), so I was pretty receptive to the idea of other theologies and philosophies.
I "knew" about protestantism (same god, same Jesus, no sacraments) though not what differentiated the various flavors. I "knew" about judaism (same god, no Jesus). Beyond that, I didn't really know what the hell a buddhist or hindu believed, and probably had never heard of taoism and lots of others (I think the nuns believed they would be instantly teleported to satan's rec room if they even acknowledged another belief system, so we never did hear about them).
The course was a real mind opener. It was enlightening to learn about other possibilities, especially those that didn't have all the illogical mumbo jumbo I had grown up with. I now recognize that all the various religions have their own illogic, and many have their own brand of mumbo and/or jumbo, but I guess at the time the novelty may have hid that. Anyway none of them really captivated me enough to want to become a monk or anything else. I think what it really did was confirm the doubts I already had about the truthfulness of what I had always been taught. Although it was years later that I really seriously considered what / if to believe, I think that this exposure to other ways of thinking planted a seed that led to (hopefully) more critical thinking about not only religion, but things in general.
I think that comparative religion should be offered as an elective in public schools (and should include the lack of belief as a choice just as viable as any faith). I also think it should be mandatory in parochial schools. If your faith can't stand up to a little scrutiny and comparison shopping, then it's not much of a faith to begin with. |
The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley
The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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jimrobb
New Member
38 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 21:56:26 [Permalink]
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| I am not being snide when I ask this. I'm serious. Are ALL of you writing on this topic ex-Catholics? I'm sure seeing a lot of you discuss your old priest/church/religious school, etc. Makes me wonder . . . |
Jim Robb  |
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