Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Classrooms Torn Between Science and Religion
Dystopian Rebel writes "A New Jersey public-school history teacher was recorded telling his students that they 'belong in Hell' if they do not accept Jesus. The teacher, who is also a Baptist Pastor, lied later when he was asked by the school principle what he said to the students. Unfortunately for this dodge, a student recorded the teacher's 'lesson'." From the article: "The student and his parents have requested that the teacher's anti-scientific remarks be corrected in open class, and that the school develop quality control procedures to ensure that future classes are not proselytized and misinformed. They have also referred the matter for disciplinary action. No apology has been forthcoming from the teacher or from the school."
Everything I've read by Dawkins suggests that he has no concept what non-fundamentalist Christians are; he's talking only about apathetic fundamentalists.
He and the fundamentalists need each other, so he treats fundamentalists as the essential definition of Christianity (rather than as a modernist group under two hundred years old, and a definite minority among Christians in general), and they treat people like him as the essential definition of atheism. Both get the bogeyman they need to have people buy their "cure".
There is a huge difference between reading about him, and reading what he actually wrote.
This is so wrong. Dawkins is British, and knows well the Church of England, a far from fundamentalist branch of Christianity. He has spoken at length about what he feels about Christianity and religion in general, even moderate versions. If you think Dawkins is only targetting minorities in religious, you really haven't read him in any detail.
Not exactly fundamentalists no.
Reminds me of the C of E Bishop who was asked what basic beliefs a person really needed to have if they wanted to become an ordained priest within the C of E. The questioner didn't find the answer very informative so he tried to start from a more concrete position: would one need to believe in God? The Bishop's reply: "That's a very good question."
So essentially, he still considers moderates to be illegitimate. He is just as much a fundamentalist as his enemies - in his view, you MUST be an atheist or you're "irrational".
A moderate religious belief is still a belief in an unprovable deity. It is still irrational. Since when has questioning the irrational, no matter how moderate, become fundamentalist?
Public school teacher tells class: "You belong in hell"
Transcript: A look at what was said in KHS class
Why are there these people that feel like every other living soul in the world HAS to accept what they believe
In the case of Christians, it hinges on Jesus' statements about himself, such as "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me", and his command to "go and make disciples of all nations". People who believe the Gospels to be true, and that Jesus' claims about himself are of the utmost importance, thus tend to have a desire that others should also believe those claims.
Unfortunately, many Christians go about evangelising in a horrendously un-Christlike manner, obeying the letter of the message while completely ignoring its spirit, failing to demonstrate any of the love, wisdom and humility that Jesus is recorded as demonstrating. The fundamentalists of today are very, very much like the Pharisees of Jesus' time. Plus ça change...
-Stephen
Buddhism is even more diverse than this. You have your choice of the following:
1. In the earliest classical orthodox variants, if you committed an gross aggressive act against another person, you would wind up reincarnated HERE, but as a less advanced form of life. Thus after descending to being an understudy of a reality show film double, you would come back the second time as the particular molecule of virus that scientists rip apart to make the hollow double used to prevent the spread of virulent AIDS. Thus through your immediate torment and suffering for your action, you would help save another's life, and thus begin your climb back up the chain of karma.
2. In the teachings of Nichiren Buddhism, you experience a subjective emotional hell right here, right now. You know, that blinding screeching rage against the machine, and Bogombo Snuff Boxes. (Ask Kurt Vonnegut about that last one. Sorry, Kurt Vonnegut short stories are not available through P2P.)
3. In fact, you do not go anywhere. All you have succeeded in doing is making a minor conceptual mistake, for which Buddhism is quite lenient. You are hereby sentenced to another lifetime of approximately the qualuity you are experiencing now, to further study the error of your ways. Sound dull? That's the point. None of that artificial excitement of Christianity.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
You obviously don't live in LA. Lots of real people named Jesus there.
How about
;-)
"Thanks for the explanation, it went completely over my head".
Hell, Norway is actually very nice. Great views of the Fjord, and walking distance from an international airport. Bit cold in the winter though...
I'd probably say something like: "Easter was originally a Pagan festival that celebrated the end of the dark nights of winter and the coming of new life to the world in spring. That's why we have the eggs-and-bunnies thing. Some time later, the Roman Catholic Church thought that the best way to convert the Pagans to their brand of religion was to hijack all of their festivals so they tied in with Christianity. So they moved Jesus' birthday to Midwinter and his 'deathday' to Eastre - an ancient word for spring. Which is why we have all that hot-cross-buns-and-going-to-church thing."
Lots of people were crucified in Roman times. To non-christians (who don't believe in the resurrection) there's not much point in 'celebrating' Jesus' crucifiction in particular as he was just another bloke nailed to a bit of wood.
I say teaching about religious beliefs should be left to the RE teachers. I don't bang on about Atheism in my ICT lessons, why should this idiot be allowed to bang on about Christianity in his history lessons?
As a practicing Zen Buddhist, you ego doesn't get reincarnated which is the "I" or "Me" that we experience.
What is reincarnated however is the negative karma, the suffering you have caused yourself and others is recincarnated into the cycle of birth and death. The good karma is 'absorbed' into the Cosmic Buddha.
Everyone is a Buddha, no matter how "bad" or "wicked" they are. It is a matter of realizing your true Buddha nature, the perfection of yourself and others sans the delusional thinking.
Doing Zen meditation (maybe koan study) and following the ten precepts is the only way to realize your true Buddha nature. The ten precepts are not too different than the ten commandments intrestingly enough.
Buddhism doesn't believe in any higher power or god. It doesn't really matter, everyone is responsible for themselves, God/god(s) or not.
As a side note, if you are thrown into a Buddhist hell, according to Buddhist pantheon seems like a far worse place to be than the Christian Hell. But in Buddhist hell you can be reborn into another realm by doing virtuous deeds and saving and helping any sentient being.
I found it interesting to learn how dark the Dark Ages were. After 2000 years of wide-spread currency use in Europe, that all banking, notes or even simple coins were not used throughout the Dark Ages. The simple idea of government-backed money did not see again until the sometime in the Crusades (many, many, many generations later). Information on the topic is on the great Wikipedia.
Philosopher Daniel Dennett often uses the expression "belief in belief" in his lectures. There are many fascinating audio and video lectures of his found here:
http://www.reitstoen.com/dennett.php
Also, in the general debate of Science vs/and Religion, there are a number of great video discussions here (15 hours worth!):
http://beyondbelief2006.org/Watch/
Session 9 includes particularly fired up conversations...
Try Russell's teapot then. Entirely physically possible (though rather unlikely) and certainly can't be disproven - do you believe there's a teapot orbiting the sub between earth and mars? Are you agnostic about it? Or do you simply not believe in it? Most atheists are "weak atheists", which is to say that they happily admit the question of the existence of God remains unresolved. They do believe, however, that the burden of proof is on the one making the claim of existence, and, pending further evidence, have to lean toward non-existence.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Dawkins does indeed talk about science-accepting Christians. He feels they are *still* damaging their children by teaching them to respect and honor faith as something valuable, as something that's a source of wisdom.
Most of these Christians also tell their kids that Grandma is in heaven with Grandpa now, and she's happy. They tell their kids that God is watching and he'll know when they do something bad. They take their kids to church, where the kids are told (and made to recite) that God art in heaven and is the creator of heaven and earth, Jesus is his only son (and is also God), Mary was a virgin who gave birth, and various miracles actually happened.
I didn't grow up in a fundamentalist family by any stretch of the imagination (just fairly standard suburban Roman Catholic), but I was fed all of this stuff as a kid, and it took a long time to go back and really "clean house" in my brain to toss out all of that.
At some point standing in church reciting lines with the crowd like "it is right to give Him thanks and praise", and stuff like the Nicene Creed every week started to creep me out. But most people go on saying we believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth... his only son born of the Virgin Mary, etc. on the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the scriptures, he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, etc. etc.., every week.
And think about how children are inculcated with such a sense that religion is an inarguable source of "right/wrong" information that many of those children are thus far easier to be manipulated later. Is a politician religious? Then he'll probably know right from wrong, won't he? Of course you've noticed how politicians attack this angle for all their worth.
Dawkins also talks about (and actively debates with) scientists and others who argue that religion and science occupy different magisteria -- the idea that they answer different kinds of questions, and thus they don't conflict because they don't overlap. His argument is that of *course* they overlap. If science came up with DNA evidence that Jesus really was born somehow outside of the bounds of normal human sexual reproduction, he guarantees you wouldn't hear religious leaders saying "nope; doesn't count -- science is a separate realm from religion". Instead, religion purports to answer questions that either are impossible to answer (like "why are we here" and "what's our purpose in life") or questions that science has no solid answers for currently (like "how the the universe begin"). His response is basically: some questions are simply invalid questions, and some science cannot yet answer... but why in the world would our own invented mythology have a better chance somehow at answering these problems? We might as well use explanations based on the ancient Greek pantheon... it's the same thing.