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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."
It's a clash between science and stupidity. You'll never hear someone like Dawkins talk about the millions of Christians who don't oppose science, because he wants to limit the debate to right-wing fundie atheists vs. right-wing fundie Christians.
Religious people of pretty much any flavour seem to be normal people until you hit that one spot where the gears seem to just mash into each other and they go haywire.
This guy shouldn't be teaching, particularly not history. Any loon who tries to tell a bunch of kids that (a) Noah's ark was real and (b) There were dinosaurs on it should have their license to teach revoked.
Marx was right, it is an opiate, because there certainly seem to be a fair share of the users acting like they're on something.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
Why are there these people that feel like every other living soul in the world HAS to accept what they believe, otherwise they should be killed/crucified/outcasted/suffer for eternity in the afterlife? Aren't these the people that killed thousands during the Crusades? Aren't these the people that are killing thousands now in the name of Allah? Are all the religions and dieties that man-kind have believed in one way or another so damn righteous as to demand that their followers mame all others in their name?
I just don't understand why people can't accept that others can believe different things than they do. If the whole world was just more accepting of others and respected others' beliefs even if they disagreed, the world would be a much, much better place. Not to mention that millions of innocent people wouldn't have had to die in ages past.
Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
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.
Nobody in America remembers what the Dark Ages were, they never had one.
Yet.
The Dark Ages weren't all that dark.
They were filled with people with hopes and dreams, making discoveries and learning new things just like people do today. Just because they didn't have computers to post on Slashdot or the wealth of scientific knowledge we have today doesn't mean they were "dark."
Science was progressing, albiet more slowly, and for different reasons. Many "natural philosophers" made scientific discoveries while they were looking to prove the bible, or learn more about the nature of God and creation.
The Scientific Revolution roughly 300 years ago was when people started doing research for the sake of expanding knowledge, not for anything else. Yes, scientific knowledge increased and technology became more advanced, but to assume that everything before that point was just darkness and ignorance is arrogant, uninformed and shortsighted.
I have a strong interest in science, which people should remember is not working closer and closer to a definite answer but to a broadening understanding. Scientific study often enough doesn't definitively answer questions, it just raises more questions. For example, quantum physics. 100 years ago scientists thought they could close the physics books. Then Quantum physics came along. Now every new discovery raises more questions. I think that's pretty exciting.
As for creation "science," which is deservedly flame bait, I wish people would distinguish between people who are fanatical about the politics of "Christendom" building ridiculous museums when the millions of dollars should have gone to house the homeless and feed the hungry, and those who are followers of Christ. I consider myself the latter -- simply, a Christian. I believe God created the universe. How he did it is a matter for science to explore.
And I'm more interested in the why.
Thank you. This is a story of something that isn't so bright. :\ Christians are just like everyone else - the majority of them are stupid (just as with atheists, muslims, catholics, etc).
:(
"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians...who acknowledge Jesus with their, then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. That, is what an unbelieving world, simply finds, unbelievable."
Bad #1 - Preaching hellfire and brimstone in a school classroom about science. The two ARE NOT mutually exclusive. Sure, saying you'll go to hell if you don't accept Jesus may very well be a fact, it has been well established that you are supposed to seperate church from state in a public classroom. To try to get away with it was stupid.
Bad #2 - Lying about it. He acknowledged Jesus with his lips, THEN turned around and denied him by his lifestyle. What are those very students going to think now?
If you feel justified in defying established rules and try to preach the gospel openly in a public school classroom, you have to walk the walk, and accept the consequences. You can't do this halfway. Either way he was stupid to try it, but lying about it makes it even worse.
Gives Christianity a bad name on every front.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
It's a cold day in Hell, lemme tell ya...
The Yasashii Syndicate ||
Unless it is a seminary class, there should be NO room for religion in the class. Except history, maybe, to show how so many random tribes have used religion to justify genocide.
Seriously, learning and study are on the opposite end of memorization and faith. It's not just a simple difference of opinion among some "teachers". It's a fundamental difference between logic and reason, and blind retardation.
No person espousing any type of religious dogma should be considered a teacher by the simple definition of the word. They are not in fact a teacher at that point, but a malignant propagandist for a religious agenda that, 99% of the time is ignorant and bad for humanity, and the rest of the living things on the planet.
If there is debate between religion and science, it is no longer a class room but a seminary room involving a lame argument devolved between two parties where one side uses reason and logic, and the other side says, "The bible says so!".
It's stupid and pointless and if YOUR tax dollars are paying for it, you should be damned pissed off.
I certainly am.
God can go hang out wherever he wants, but not where my money is getting wasted by morons.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
and wonder why non-Christians hate them.
This kind of crap happens ALL THE TIME. It is a given for any fundamentalist Christian sect that they will take whatever forum where they think they can get away with it and use it to give the hard sell. (And I do mean "sell", because it's not benevolence they're offering, but a product.)
Another Baptist preacher once used my uncle's funeral as an opportunity to try and convince the non-Christians in our family that we had better accept Jesus before OUR time was up. This jerk didn't even know my uncle, but just wanted to exploit the situation to try to get more people into his church.
Here, another typical instance of high-pressure salesmanship from a fundamentalist preacher, only this time it's not just you he's trying to sell his product to... but it's your CHILDREN.
So he tells your kids that they are going to burn in hell if they don't buy his shtick. That's damn close to child abuse.
We all go to hell. See Thermodynamics of Hell for a good story. The good point made there is that regardless of which relegion you have, you will end up in hell because each religion claims that their's is the only correct one and the non-believers will go to hell.
Happy to be one who doesn't need a religion to accept to go to hell. Finally a warm place to relax.
Neither the belief that God exists nor the belief that God doesn't exist have any scientifically admissible evidence behind them. A real skeptic would therefore believe neither.
I agree completely. Further, there's no scientific evidence that giant flying spaghetti monsters don't exist. Nor is there evidence that underpants gnomes don't exist (in fact, given the rate of underpants disappearances, I would argue *for* their existance!).
Therefore, as a true scientist, I choose not to take a stance on these issues until evidence is provided that *proves* that flying spaghetti monsters and underpants gnomes don't exist.
yes, but tv is something people can choose not to watch, it's a little thing called freedom of speech combined with freedom to choose. A teacher however has a duty of care which overrides any freedom of speech right they may hold outside the classroom.
That duty requires them to teach the children in their care in the manner the community and government define, this is clearly not what happened in this case. Thus the teacher is in breach of their duty of care. T
It's as simple as that.
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". Just like how the Christian fundies think everyone MUST be a Christian.
Don't be fooled by the rhetoric that atheism is inherently more rational. Neither the belief that God exists nor the belief that God doesn't exist have any scientifically admissible evidence behind them. A real skeptic would therefore believe neither. Dawkins, however, has a ton of faith in the latter.
This is a rather strange definition of skeptic.
Let's try an analogy.
The Earth is filled with custard - lots of it, hot and molten.
What do you mean, you don't think so? Surely a good skeptic should neither believe or not believe in that?
It is hard to be a skeptic by your definition - all those (possibly infinite) number of things to neither believe and also not believe!
All Dawkins is doing is being a true skeptic, and saying that he doesn't believe in anything without evidence.
Being a skeptic does not mean you have to be agnostic about everything.
Actually it isn't. Science demands proof, evidence for every assertion. Atheism is the the lack of belief, so it isn't a belief system either.
Deleted
Of course atheists haven't resorted to some tactics used by people to proselytize their religion...
[Knock][Knock]
Homeowner: Yes, hello?
Atheist: Hello. Have you considered not believing in God?
Homeowner: Um, I hadn't really -
Atheist: Perhaps you would care to read some of these pamphlets!
Homeowner: That's okay I -
Atheist: They clearly explain the benefits of not believing in God. Not believing in God changed my life, and it can change yours too.
Homeowner: Uhuh, whatever -
Atheist: Don't you see what not believing in God can do for you? If you don't not believe in -
[SLAM!]
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
It -is- a very good question. Most Christians don't believe in God, they believe in -belief- in God which is quite a different matter. And in most religions, that is good enough to get you the carrot.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Public school teacher tells class: "You belong in hell"
Transcript: A look at what was said in KHS class
The Earth is filled with custard - lots of it, hot and molten.
What do you mean, you don't think so? Surely a good skeptic should neither believe or not believe in that?
Well, that's a silly example. There's evidence the Earth isn't filled with custard. It has a magnetic field.
*However*, if the earth were filled with *magnetic* custard...
"Such people are as much Christians as are scientists who believe the world is flat. Please do not judge us Christians by the actions of these radicals."
You don't get to decide who calls themselves Christians! Christianity isn't a trademark. It is what ever someone says it is to them.
The idea that people will to hell if they don't accept christ as their personal savior is, to my understanding, fairly mainstream Christianity. It is very hard to try and prove that one person's irrational belief is ridiculous and radical whereas your irrational belief is completely reasonable. How do you prove a difference? Trying to claim that your religion is demonstrably "truer" or "more Christian" on rational grounds is going to be a bit of a stretch. I'd say that most Christians aren't very Christian in the sense of following the teaching of Christ which centered primarily around caring for the poor among us. By that standard, the idea of a rich "Christian" preacher is an oxymoron.
Also, your analogy is bunk. Science is a system which praises reason over bind faith. It adapts its theories as more information is learned and tested. It is a system of separating what appears to be true from what is true and it slowly changes and adapts. Religion is a system of irrationality which praises blind faith over reason. It is designed to stay stagnant and never change no matter what we learn. It starts out with an inalienable premise and praises people for sticking with it in spite of evidence against it. A person could not be a scientist and still believe in a flat earth because Science is about Empirical Evidence. A person can be Christian and disagree with the parent poster because Christianity isn't a system based on facts and there is no way to prove a person's Christian beliefs to be "right" or "wrong."
Underpants gnomes and FSM are just artificial creations that mock thousands of years of human insight, intuition, art, and culture.
No, it mocks people who believe in invisible things for which there is absolutely no evidence, who then attempt to elevate their beliefs to the level of scientific fact, or alternatively, attempt to drag science down to the level of religion.
Similarly, if I met someone who still believed that disease was caused by demonic possession, I'd mock them, too.
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
Of course, you are right. There is also imagined evidence, which is very important!
Mock me not! I have seen evidence of this! Someone showed me this little tube I could look through and there they were, swimming around waving their cilia in scandalous and unholy abandon!
Still, they did look a little Noodly, but they weren't the rightsort of Noodly. And there weren't any pirates, even though I was looking through a tube.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
It's called counterexample. The fact that the counterexamples used are funny/mocking (or even rude, to some) doesn't make them any less valid. You're right that the question of gods existing is a central question in philosophy. And counterexample is a technique VERY commonly used in philosophy.
He was going up against this:
There is no evidence for or against X, therefore there should be no belief or disbelief in X.
And he filled in X with FSM instead of God. The fact that one is a "central question in philosophy" and the other isn't is exactly the purpose of counterexample.
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?
Public schools in the US are government-managed and as such, the government's responsibility not to endorse any religions means that the teacher's preaching is more in violation of the First Amendment than supported by it.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
About a million years ago, back in the '80s, my 9th grade "Social Studies" teacher decided he was going to toss out our American history book the day before Christmas vacation and pull out his bible and hop upon his pulpit. A couple other students and I got up and started to walk when he threatened to have us suspended for leaving his class. I told him to go ahead, and walked straight to the principal's office and told him what was going on, and asked if I could go home, since it was my last class for the day. I told him I wasn't going to be forced to sit there and be preached at when I"m supposed to be sstudying American history. I wish I'd had a photo of the principal's face when I told him, his color just turned to ash, and he hustled out of the office and down to the classroom. When he returned, he gave me a pass and told me to have a good break.
Turns out that the teacher was sitting in the classroom by himself, since the rest of the class took the cue from us and all bailed as well. He got suspended, not the students.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
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.