Apr

14

Expelled: No Darwin Allowed

April 14, 2010 by Brandon | 3 Comments

At least the Catholics have one thing going for them, and that’s their acceptance of evolution. As one theology professor has learned, it’s pretty dangerous for you to openly admit to accepting evolution in some theology schools of “higher learning.”

Florida’s Reformed Theological Seminary has kicked professor Bruce K. Waltke out after a video blog of his surfaced. In the video, Waltke allegedly states that Christianity’s continued denial of evolution will “make [them] a cult.”

A pretty bold statement from a professor at a seminary with an explicit mandate on never mentioning evolution.

What I find so amusing about this is the blatant hypocrisy on display here. The religious right is bent on “teaching the controversy” in our public schools, that is, injecting intelligent design into biology classes so that students can have “both sides” of the argument. Yet when it comes to their schools, they’ll force a professor out for his private thoughts on the matter outside of the classroom.

I wonder what Ben Stein has to say about this. Perhaps he should make another documentary about religious schools not teaching evolution and firing professors who discuss the subject, because after all, the purpose of his film was simply to demonstrate the unfairness and bias in the education system. Right? Yeah, right.



Feb

23

The Devil Went Down To North Carolina

February 23, 2010 by Brandon | 2 Comments

One student in a North Carolina high school is refusing to write an essay on the hypothetical premise of selling your soul to the devil because it “violates her Christian beliefs.” The students in her class were assigned to read “The Devil and Tom Walker,” a classic short story by Washington Irving which explores the same hypothetical idea. Of course, any rational person will tell you that this is a fictional story, and the devil represented within it, too, is fictional.

Still, Tieanna Trough and her parents think it is an inappropriate request. Her mother, who appears in an interview on a video clip on the link above, strikes me as a loudmouth, but I suppose that’s unfair to judge her on that. I will judge her though on her stupid assumption that because we have “removed” God from the classroom, that is, forcing students to pray or creating the appearance that a government funded, public school promotes a specific religion, that we should now remove anything resembling or referencing religion. This is incorrect; as I stated, this is clearly a fictional piece of literature, with fictional characters. One is not meant to believe that the devil portrayed in the story is the literal devil of Christianity, especially when reading it in an academic setting. What now? Should we ban “Paradise Lost”? What about “The Iliad” for its flagrant promotion of the Greek pantheon? Would this student be opposed to an essay which asked the question, “Would you sacrifice your family for fame and fortune?” Or perhaps, “Would you commit murder for a billion dollars?”

These are very valid moral questions which are at the heart of the short story the class was examining, and contrary to popular opinion, morality and religion are not mutually exclusive.

Frankly I think this girl should get pushed back a few grades so she can learn what fiction means, and perhaps what hypothetical means. And to her mommy, if you really think that writing a silly paper like this is going to offend your God so much, then he sounds like a dick.

And you sound fat.



Jul

3

Back in late 2008, two students filed a suit with the ACLU against their school in Santa Rosa County, saying that religion was unlawfully being forced upon them.

The courts agreed and they won their case.

Now the Liberty Council, sort of the Bizarro World version of the ACLU that fights to “protect” specifically Christian values, is reopening the case to “bring some sanity” to the school district.

Bring some sanity? By injecting religion back into the schools? Bizarro World, indeed.

The Liberty Council says that they decided to pursue the case after being approached by members of the Christian Educators Association International, who suggest that the ruling has gone too far.

The fact alone that there is an organization called the Christian Educators Association International who are attempting to allow educators in public school systems to further, or even express their faith, in a classroom setting shows that if anything, the ruling didn’t go far enough.

The ACLU, which has two weeks to file a response to the motion, said the ruling doesn’t infringe on anyone’s rights.

“Of course we think that school officials retain certain First Amendment rights … but these rights are limited when teachers are working on behalf of the school,” said ACLU staff attorney Benjamin Stevenson. “(This ruling) prevents school officials from abusing their position as government employees to further their own religious ends.”

Stevenson said the ruling does not prohibit students from participating in school clubs such as the Christian World Order or Fellowship of Christian Athletes; it just ensures religion is not illegally endorsed or forced upon students.

via School/religion ruling challenged | ruling, religion, schools – News – Northwest Florida Daily News.

That’s right. Teachers, or rather, any state employee: Your freedom of religion is not being hindered simply because you are not allowed to discuss it while on the clock of the government. You can continue to believe whatever you want to, privately. But a public school isn’t your private venue to spew your insane beliefs to children. Furthermore, your freedom of speech is also left hanging on the coat rack when you enter a classroom.

If you don’t like this, you can go express your freedoms by finding employment at a private Christian school who will be happy to accommodate your quest to indoctrinate the young children of America with your mindless, knuckle-dragging drivel. But that isn’t going to fly when tax-payers are cutting you your check.

Case closed.



Jun

14

Don’t Have A Cow, Man

June 14, 2009 by Brandon | 3 Comments

Situation. You’re a Hindu imposing your obnoxious beliefs on your son. Your son is at school and decides to eat a beef taco, which is a no-no for Hindus. The school gives your son the beef taco that he requested. What do you do? WHAT. DO. YOU. DO.

Why, you cry like a baby and claim that the school giving him a taco he asked for is an intentional act of religious bigotry, of course!

CINCINNATI (AP) — A Hindu father from Ohio has filed a complaint with the Justice Department claiming his son was forced to eat a beef taco in the school cafeteria.

Ashish Gandhi says the taco incident occurred at the Academy of World Languages, a public magnet school in Cincinnati. Eating beef is considered a sacrilege to Hindus.

Cincinnati Public Schools attorney Gary Winters told investigators the boy chose the taco himself, and the employee who gave it to him was unaware of his dietary restrictions.

Gandhi, who moved to the U.S. from India in 2007, calls the taco meal an “intentional act of religious bigotry.” He filed a separate complaint claiming the school has refused to offer his son services for students who don’t speak English.

Nearly half of the academy’s students speak foreign languages.

via Cafeteria lunch gone awry: Hindu dad complains son was force-fed beef taco at school – WJW.




Apr

26

Apparently since 2006, it’s been a requirement in Germany to take secular ethics classes in schools. Great idea.

But that didn’t make some people happy, and so they proposed giving students the choice of taking secular ethics or a religion course. Religion is most areas in Germany is a mandated course, and I’m all for that, actually. I think it’s important to teach people about religion; not just Christianity, obviously, but all the world religions. The more people know about the history of these religions, the more I think they’ll be able to see them for what they are. Berlin, it appears, is worried that a religion course could be hijacked to teach predominately Christian values, and that doesn’t go over well with the strongly secular city, not to mention the large Muslim and Turkish population that resides there.

The proposition was defeated, though, and in this case I do agree that it should have been defeated. I don’t think the religion course should be able to be taken in place of the secular ethics course. They should be taught side by side. More over, I agree that the odds suggest that this class would have been used as a launching pad for teaching just Christianity rather than a platform for discussing the differences and histories of the various world religions.



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What is Fractal Wrongness?

The state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person's worldview is incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in on any small part of that person's worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.

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