Phat replying to Theodoric writes:
First off, the only reason I tend to single you out is because you have never been a believer,...
I don't know what's more incredible, that you're singling out people for abuse because of what they believe, or that you're admitting to it.
...you applaud experts (based mainly on their education)...
Now you're deprecating education and people with expertise? Really?
...and have no problem with eradicating Christian beliefs being represented in a classroom in any way.
I don't think Theodoric would express his wishes using this language, but anyway, the question should not be why Theodoric wants to eradicate Christian beliefs in the classroom, because I'm pretty sure most people here are against any religious beliefs being represented in the classroom. The proper question is why Republicans stopped believing in separation of church and state.
An even bigger question is why it's only Christian beliefs they want represented in the classroom. What about other religions. Christians don't mind if teaching Christianity in the classroom means that Islamic children are taught about God and Jesus, but try teaching their own children about Allah and Mohammed and they'll raise bloody hell.
Religions should exist independent of government, not as part of government. It's as if all the world's religious wars have taught conservatives nothing.
...my reaction was simply a buildup stemming from what is being taught and what is being dismissed.
What is being taught that you object to? Can I guess that you object to raising issues involving racism?
And what is it you think is being dismissed? How color-blind our society is?
It brings into play the whole argument between freedom of religion and freedom fromreligion.
If you understand the difference, why do you advocate teaching Christianity to children of all religions in the classroom?
Basically, my initial gripe was directed at the way that younger society is being taught these days. I knew a bit about what CRT stood for, and I knew that it was not a subject taught to students so much as an overall philosophy increasingly being adapted by teachers(since it is a graduate level study)
I think what you object to about CRT is that it acknowledges racial factors as influencing society and history.
In a nutshell, what I fear (logical or illogical might I be) is that the same ideas that we debate here will become mainstream and that students will be taught that it is politically correct to oppose religion(beliefs) and embrace an attitude akin to atheism and secular humanism.
You're associating CRT with secularism and atheism? This is definitely illogical.
Of course, much of the fault also lies with the churches. It was they who pushed Biblical Creationism with such desperate fervor.
This has nothing to do with CRT, but it is possible that creationism is responsible for at least some of the increase in secularism and atheism.
And I will cautiously agree that our future students need to be taught critical thinking and an honest examination of history.
But...
I simply fear that we are entering an era of over-correction, where minority cultures are applauded and showcased whereas the culture that I grew up in is increasingly shamed and told to sit down.
How can a culture be shamed if it has nothing to be ashamed of? Some culture was responsible for slavery. Some culture is responsible for current racism and discrimination. What culture could that possible be? Are the blacks responsible for their own plight? Did they sail themselves here from Africa? Did they force themselves into servitude on American plantations? Did they declare that they're only worth 3/5 of a white man? Did they enact Jim Crow laws to prevent them from participating in society at large or being represented in their own government? Did they blackball themselves from getting loans for homes or businesses? Did they enact "separate but equal" while ensuring that it meant whites got all the good stuff?
What you want is to conveniently forget all this, pretend that these parts of history never happened and instead to present a whitewashed version of history that doesn't implicate your ancestors and you in one of the biggest and still ongoing injustices of all time.
dwise1 writes:
History must be taught. Or are you personally opposed to the truth?
Religion (Christians, particularly) are increasingly being portrayed as ignorant rubes whose beliefs are grounded in fantasy.
Religion has been portrayed as fantasy since the beginning of time. When one person believes in a fantasy being it's called delusion. When many people believe in the same fantasy being it's called religion. More people believing something doesn't turn fantasy into fact. It just makes it harder to keep them from erecting temples in the town square.
Other religions and religious beliefs are showcased and celebrated, turning absolute truth into a mockery.
Remind me again which religion has the absolute truth?
Students are taught moral relativism to an excessive degree.
Moral relativism seems like one of the important concepts one would want covered in a philosophy course. You don't want this taught?
Of course, were the parents better educated, much of this could be minimized, but it seems that there is an imaginary line in the sand between belief and reality and that the implication is that any well educated individual should be skeptical at best and secular minded in regard to future possible events and trends on our planet.
In a passage I recently read about Mormonism the author described how Mormons are completely reasonable and rational in their personal and work lives in the real world while at the same time holding utterly fantastic religious beliefs that don't conform at all to the real world. Perhaps the Mormons' religious beliefs are a bit odder than most, but his description is true of most religion. Catholics can drive a car and work a job and play a sport while still believing they're eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ on Sunday. If a hermit off in the woods believed his dinner was actually the blood and flesh of his god everyone would think he's a religious nut, but if he's a Catholic in church on Sunday he's considered perfectly normal.
There is great irony in the fact that religions that feel they are being singled out for criticism are often guilty of treating religions other than their own just as badly.
Percy writes:
Yes, it is obvious that calling attention to America's racist past alienates racists.
I think that the very word racism is tossed around much too arbitrarily and liberally.
Racists always think there's too much talk about racism. If people would just stop calling attention to their racist attitudes and behaviors then they could go back their racist behaviors in peace.
It is one weapon to shame someone into silence for fear of offending anybody.
Racists are rarely ashamed of their behavior. Certainly you are not. You just want people to stop calling attention to your racism. You tell them that trying to influence your racist behavior is wrong because making people ashamed of something shameful is shaming, and we all know that if there's anything worse than racism that it's shaming.
Conservatives are trying to bring an end to affirmative action, and one of their arguments is that treating people according to race is racist. But that logic is upside down. Imagine a guy who runs a gas station tells a black person he can't use the regular bathroom but had to use the outhouse out back. You tell the guy that he can't do that, that it's racist. The guy objects that it is you who is being racist by calling attention to race.
It's impossible to remedy racial discrimination without talking about race, and calls to cease mentioning race when objecting to racism are absurd. So stop telling us there's too much focus on race, because it's only there because there's so much racism to object to.
--Percy
™ Version 4.2
(1)
