Saturday, March 03, 2007

Good Times

School in Lake Stevens is stupid.

I wrote a letter to the editor about this. I don't know whether or not to expect it to be published. The article is like a week old now so probably not. Anyway, here it is:

"The fact that this teacher was reprimanded for this lesson is ridiculous. God or gods or turtle forbid that a high school teacher should attempt to teach his students to consider religions equally. And that is exactly what this teacher did. It is completely irrelevant that the teacher happened to be an Atheist, or that his students knew this. Would it be a more valid lesson if taught by a Christian? If he had replaced the Christian creation story with a Pagan one, would complaints by Pagan students be so indulged? All this teacher did was encourage his students to think beyond dogma and beyond standard high school expectations. If his students are unable to do that, it is their own fault and the fault of their previous teachers, secular and spiritual alike."

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10 Comments:

Anonymous hbomb said...

As much as i agree with your sentiments, I can definitely see where the second assignment on the nature of evil was viewed as controversial. Have you read it? Public high schools are tricky things and, while I do think they need to expand what is acceptable to discuss, that second paper would be offensive to a lot of Christians. If we didn't walk on eggshells around them Christ-Lovers, they would be more used to essays like this, but, as it is, he was taking a pretty big chance. It sounds like things went well enough, though.

11:06 PM  
Blogger Mephisto said...

Christians are one of the most easily offended groups in America. This is because they truly believe that America is the land of Christians, so anything that challenges this notion in the slightest shatters their worldview. We shouldn't be walking on eggshells around them, we should be pulling them into the real world where we don't take their beliefs as a given.

11:06 AM  
Blogger John Duffell said...

Yeah, I don't think the second reading is offensive to Christians unless you accept as a given that Christians, as a general rule, find the notion of critical thought offensive.

Look, some people believe in God. Some people don't. Some people believe that 2000 years ago, a young virgin gave birth to a baby boy that was also the son of the creator of the universe, and that he died and came back to life 3 days later, holds the secret to living forever, and can now be eaten in cracker form. Some people, however, do not believe this. What is so special about religious faith that necessitates handling people with kid gloves?

Justifying one's beliefs is a part of education. All this teacher did was posit a logic problem.

4:01 PM  
Blogger John Duffell said...

(a logic problem, I might add, that apologetics in all religious traditions work painstakingly to resolve and explain to skeptics. It's not as though it's controversial to ask. The "problem of evil," if not THE most significant question pondered by theologians, is certainly ONE of the most significant.)

4:30 PM  
Blogger John Duffell said...

*Apologists, not apologetics. Y'know what I mean.

4:32 PM  
Anonymous HBomb said...

Mike: I agree with you completely.
John: Thinking critically about religion IS offensive to a lot of Christians. I don't agree with it but I know it's true, since that's how I was raised and how my entire family thinks. I know it's hard to fathom, but the only reason I'm NOT a Christian anymore is because I met someone who made me think when I was 15. Before that, critical thinking was not something that was encouraged and was even looked down upon. Why? "It's faith. Why should you think critically about something that's the one and only truth?"
Now, keep in mind, I think that's terrible. However, having come from that world, I can say that that essay would offend most Christians in the areas that I'm from.
Yet again, I hate it and it's bullshit. Just trying to bring a different POV to the topic.Hooray for the midwest...You city kids are lucky.

5:08 PM  
Anonymous Tara said...

While I'm generally a fan of encouraging kids to think, those 5 conclusions listed on the second assignment are bullshit. I don't like being told, "these are the only possible things that you can think" regardless of anything.

I understand though that the assignments themselves are rather irrelevent. At this time anything involving religious freedom is automatically a matter of principle.

5:42 PM  
Blogger John Duffell said...

Whoah...I didn't see that the reading was available online (earlier, what I said regarding the second reading was just a general treatment of bringing up the "problem with evil," not the specific handout). Anyhow, in the beginning I thought the reading was not horrible, although simplistic...and then I got to the end. I have to say, yeah, the bit with the five arguments is total bullshit. Enumerated possibilities? Effing stupid.

Regarding faith/critical thinking: I am well aware of the popular unquestioning/unimpeachable regard for "faith" held by many religious folk, and I know that Seattle is a little island of insulated secularism. I've made it my business to expose myself to the other viewpoints out there, though. I was in Divinity School last year...and I ran into a fair number of people who claimed that faith should not be questioned, and that critical thinking is indeed offensive.

Here's the thing, though: Most of these same people don't actually have any problem with applying critical thinking to religion. They don't even have any beef with empirical data. They have no qualms with these things at all - provided they are entirely one-sided. Fossils and carbon dating prove nothing about the nature of the world we live in, when the scientific community puts their findings in stark contrast to the content of Genesis. But if these exact same methods and technologies are applied to show that an Essene community (of which John the Baptist was supposedly a leader) lived near the Dead Sea during the time Jesus supposedly lived, this shred of evidence is seized upon as iron-clad proof of the literal truth of scripture.

Apologetics, which is by no means an unpopular vocation in the Bible Belt, employs logical/critical arguments in seeking to prove Christianity's truth claims. But if logical/critical arguments are brought up against religion, they are sacrificed upon the high altar of the mystery of faith.

It's the hypocrisy I cannot stomach.

7:29 PM  
Blogger Mephisto said...

John is good at this.

8:31 PM  
Anonymous Hbomb said...

Yeah, John wins.

10:32 AM  

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