really? I disagree. This is a school sponsored trip that requires for participation that students sit through a church service. There shouldn't be school sponsored trips that have that requirement. period. Opt out or otherwise.
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Atheism confuses me sometimes, especially when issues come up like this one.
Suppose my public school chorus performs in a Buddhist temple. And the Buddhists come do yoga in a nearby church. We both learn about each other's cultures in an interesting way. Respect and love abound.
But I wouldn't dream of asking them to cover their Buddha, and I wouldn't expect them to want my cross covered, either.
I feel like atheism is best put forward by scientists: "There is not enough evidence to support the conclusion that God exists, so I can't lead my life as if He does." But I feel as though sometimes it crosses the line and becomes a beleif; "I beleive that God does not exist." and then "Your beleif in God insults my beleif in no-God."
But then, by asking them to cover the cross (or remove the Ten Commandments, or whatever the issue at hand), aren't you asking them to endorse your beleif -- by displaying the icon of your beleif (which is to say, no icon)?
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If "no icon" is the icon of the belief of the atheist, what is the icon of belief for an agnostic?
Edit to add: The whole "covering up the cross thing" is just a misreading. I think it stemmed from Rakeesh misunderstanding Glenn, thinking that Glenn wanted the church to cover up the cross for the concert when Glenn actually wanted to have the concert somewhere else entirely.
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Being atheist or otherwise. Being in a place of worship is one thing. There are often even places where multiple religions share the same house of worship. However having an event in a place of worship and being forced to attend a religious event of another religion is in my opinion not acceptable and should never have come about. I believe this falls under the removal of religion in education. Just because it is not in the school building does not mean that it is still not breaking that law.
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Abyss, that's the problem with "religious tolerance" from it's most common interpretations. It encourages examining things not from a neutral point of view, but a secular one. And as atheism is a system of beliefs concerning morality, how to live one's life, and the nature of the creator of the universe, it is actually a religion by standard definitions, so the current state of religion in America, Europe, and other developed regions is really biased towards certain beliefs.
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"Suppose my public school chorus performs in a Buddhist temple. And the Buddhists come do yoga in a nearby church."
Interesting....I think most Buddhists would laugh at the comparison. Yoga isn't religious, in any sense. People don't do yoga postures to get closer to God, they do them for health reasons. Buddhism isn't particularly a health-oriented religion. Some people in the cultures that have been practicing Buddhism are very into taking care of their health through yoga, diet, and other alternative health practices, but there's nothing especially geared toward taking care of you physical health in that particular religion. Most of those health practices are millennia older than Buddhism. Yoga is practiced by animals, for Pete's sake. Watch how dogs and cats stretch. What's religious about that?
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Most yoga practiced in the US isn't religious. Yoga was originally (and still is, for many, probably many millions) a religious practice.
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quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: And as atheism is a system of beliefs concerning morality, how to live one's life, and the nature of the creator of the universe, it is actually a religion by standard definitions, so the current state of religion in America, Europe, and other developed regions is really biased towards certain beliefs.
Sorry, but you're wrong. Atheism is the lack of a belief in a god or gods. That's it.
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"Yoga was originally (and still is, for many, probably many millions) a religious practice."
How's that, exactly? Maybe in the sense of using the postures to open up and relax the body, but it does have measurable usefulness in that sense. Animals wouldn't stretch otherwise. It's a very widespread and common behavior in the animal kingdom, and it doesn't appear to be directly useful for food or reproduction.
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I don't look to public schools to teach "there is no God;" I look to them not to teach about God at all.
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But what happens if the practice of not teaching about God at all ends up teaching the kids that there is no God?
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: But what happens if the practice of not teaching about God at all ends up teaching the kids that there is no God?
Then the parents and family of the kids, assuming they want to pass on their religion and belief in god, have failed.
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You seem to have the bizarre idea that yoga == stretching. That's about as sensible as communion == a light snack. Even when practiced as an exercise, there's a very particular form for yoga. What cats and other animals do sometimes parallels and sometimes inspired yoga positions, but it isn't yoga.
The main tradition of yoga that came to the United States does focus on its physical side . . . because of a belief that properly conditioning the physical side helps further one's spiritual side. Also, there are other traditions of yoga that emphasize the spiritual far more.
I mean, most of what we know of yoga comes from hindu religious texts -- because someone who was an expert at yoga was a religiously wise person, and not just out of coincidence. Ever wonder what the root of 'yogi' is?
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The parents are welcome to make actual truth claims about God in the home. I just don't want to see truth claims (and those can be either yea or nay) made about God in public schools.
*shrug
The home is the appropriate place for this; the public school is not. Questions that come up in the public school about the existence or non-existence of God can be deferred to be answered at home by the appropriate caregivers.
Tresopax, if the children need to be specifically told there is a God in order to believe, and if that belief is important to the parents, then it is right and proper to address that need. At home.
*spreads hands
This is simple to me. It is not simple to you. I cannot change that.
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"But what happens if the practice of not teaching about God at all ends up teaching the kids that there is no God?"
So?
Honestly, so what? Its not the schools job, in fact its unconstitional, for the school to pass on that particular bit of culture. Its unconstitutional because using the power of the state to teach theology has proven to be a very destructive activity, since theology is such a powerful peice of culture. And in our particular society, there are hundreds if not thousands of different theologies that people believe. By keeping the coercive power of the state out of theology, we allow people to choose their own from the dozens they will be exposed to, including the primary one they are exposed to at home.
If children choose to believe that there is no god, after being exposed to some dozen or two different variations of god, both at school through their peers, and outside of school through their parents and community, then thats fine. Thats an example of the first amendment working smoothly.
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Some religious groups, i.e., Orthodox Jews, are not allowed to be in a church at all, let alone pray another religions prayers!Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
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quote:Questions that come up in the public school about the existence or non-existence of God can be deferred to be answered at home by the appropriate caregivers.
It becomes important for the schools to do this properly, though.
If, for example, the teacher responds to a query that brings up God with "that's not important to this discussion," then I think the teacher has made a theological statement, probably without meaning to do so.
Deferring the question needs to be done in a manner that is clearly deferring, not minimizing.
Probably a totally other tangent, but one the primary reasons I support school vouchers is that I think it is perfectly reasonable for a parent to desire a more integrated education. One of my principle objections to the expansion of government services is that, when such expansion becomes the norms, we've created a new area of society where religion is actively excluded, rather than left up to the individual.
I don't think that objection is always dispositive, but I do think it's important and plays a factor in many of my opinions about government-funded expression such as teaching, art, etc.
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out of curiosity dagonee, I recently answered a question about god in my physics class by saying "I think saying "God did it" is a cop out. if god did it, we should be able to understand how he did it."
quote:I don't look to public schools to teach "there is no God;" I look to them not to teach about God at all.
I do not look to schools for that. I look to public (and private, actually) schools to teach about human beliefs about God, insofar as those beliefs frequently play a fundemantal role in human history in the humanities, in government, in science, and even in some cases about economics. I do not believe religion should be the elephant in the room when it comes to public education.
That's how you end up thinking that, for example, Mormons are barred from caffeine or that Jews devour human babies, or that Indians worship cattle.
Now in practice, it's a very tricky proposition, of course. Putting our heads firmly in the sand because it's too hard (as completely ignoring religion entirely seems to me to be) isn't the right answer.
quote:"I think saying "God did it" is a cop out. if god did it, we should be able to understand how he did it."
Don't be ridiculous, saying that God did it isn't a cop out. Saying that God did it, and then simply not thinking about it beyond that ever again, and not being curious anymore, that's a cop out.
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I agree with Rakeesh. You can not simply ignore religion. We once read a Tale of Two Cities and the teacher refused to comment on Christian religious symbolism to avoid any hint of "teaching the Bible." Since the book has tons of those symbols, students who did not know the Bible were not able to get as much from the Book as those who did. I think that she should have covered the religious symbols the same way she talked about references to Greek mythology or Shakespeare.
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quote:out of curiosity dagonee, I recently answered a question about god in my physics class by saying "I think saying "God did it" is a cop out. if god did it, we should be able to understand how he did it."
minimizing, deferring, deflecting?
I think it's making a theological statement, and a fairly profound one.
I think "'God did it' is not an answer derived from physics" would be proper deferring.
More could be said, but I can't formulate it right now.
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being a science teacher, god does come up in my class... and being an atheist, but also an atheist with a lot of family members who are religious, its always a struggle for me to formulate something acceptable.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I do not look to schools for that. I look to public (and private, actually) schools to teach about human beliefs about God, insofar as those beliefs frequently play a fundemantal role in human history in the humanities, in government, in science, and even in some cases about economics. I do not believe religion should be the elephant in the room when it comes to public education.
That is the difference between teaching about "God" and teaching about "people's beliefs about God."
I draw a strong distinction between the two. I have no problem with the latter, but I do think conflating the two concepts has been quite the bugaboo for this sort of discussion.
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quote:Originally posted by scholar: I agree with Rakeesh. You can not simply ignore religion. ... I think that she should have covered the religious symbols the same way she talked about references to Greek mythology or Shakespeare.
"God" =! "people's beliefs about God"
Discussing religious symbolism in literature and in cultural contexts is discussing a particular belief system, not the ontological nature of God (or gods). I'll reiterate that I think this conflation causes a lot of unnecessary and misleading confusion.
---
Edited to add in clarification: Worship services generally involve professions of faith and discussion on or sermons about the nature of God (or gods); e.g., how God is active in our lives, how we can become closer to God, etc.
This is different than discussing beliefs at at least one level of remove: e.g., "some people believe X, and other people believe Y. When people believe X, here are some of the words they use, and here is how those words have been incorporated into the broader culture."
The latter discussion does not address whether these beliefs are correct or not; it does not address how God really is, as it does not even make any claims about whether God does or does not exist. It just talks about the behaviors (actions, language, etc.) of people. I think that is fine myself, although just as with any subject, it could be done well or poorly, depending on the specific particulars of the circumstance.
posted
"The main tradition of yoga that came to the United States does focus on its physical side . . . because of a belief that properly conditioning the physical side helps further one's spiritual side. Also, there are other traditions of yoga that emphasize the spiritual far more."
So is your point that the end result of yoga depends on the intention that you approach it with? I would agree with that.
On a related note, I just did a handstand pushup. Bam! OK, that's more calisthenics than yoga, but I'm still the man. Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:out of curiosity dagonee, I recently answered a question about god in my physics class by saying "I think saying "God did it" is a cop out. if god did it, we should be able to understand how he did it."
minimizing, deferring, deflecting?
I think it's making a theological statement, and a fairly profound one.
I think "'God did it' is not an answer derived from physics" would be proper deferring.
More could be said, but I can't formulate it right now.
If you want to include the idea that using God as an excuse to not do the work is not acceptable (which is what I got from your original statement) you could say something like "Using 'God did it' to avoid learning all that we can about the universe is a cop out."
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My point is that nearly everything in this paragraph is wrong:
quote:Interesting....I think most Buddhists would laugh at the comparison. Yoga isn't religious, in any sense. People don't do yoga postures to get closer to God, they do them for health reasons. Buddhism isn't particularly a health-oriented religion. Some people in the cultures that have been practicing Buddhism are very into taking care of their health through yoga, diet, and other alternative health practices, but there's nothing especially geared toward taking care of you physical health in that particular religion. Most of those health practices are millennia older than Buddhism. Yoga is practiced by animals, for Pete's sake. Watch how dogs and cats stretch. What's religious about that?
Many buddhists would not laugh at the comparison, since, like with Hinduism, yoga is frequently used as a religious practice in Buddhism. Yoga is religious in many sense. People do do yoga postures to be closer to God. Some varieties of Buddhism are extremely health oriented (and many varieties of Hinduism even more so).
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Fugu, are you speaking about the history of Buddhism in China? The Buddhists there are not known for being as health-conscious as the Taoists. Maybe you could find small exceptions here or there, but they're small. Taoism predates Buddhism by several centuries, and one of the main descriptions of Taoism is the "study of longevity". The Buddhists are known for thinking of the body as a source of problems and illusions....the Taoists are known for wanting to keep the body in good health for as long as possible. These goals are not exactly the same. Granted, some Taoists are religious Taoists only, and that's always been true, but I've never heard of any branch of Buddhism being called the "study of longevity". That's not to say that some Buddhists don't practice yoga, qi gong, good nutrition, herbal medicine, acupuncture, and other such. However, pointless and dangerous asceticism are much more part and parcel of Buddhist history than Taoist. Practices like veganism or even lacto-vegetarianism are not particularly smart, health-wise. Those are Buddhist/Hindu, not Taoist.
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There are lots and lots of different kinds of Buddhists, and some of them are indeed into healthy practices (but not for the sake of health per se-- more for the sake of keeping the body balanced to remove problems that cloud the mind. I would say this practice probably did come out of close contact with Taoists, but it exists. Like I said, many different kinds of Buddhists.)
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And I know some vegans who are some of the healthiest people I know (no supplements, all nutrients from food.) Ditto ovo-lacto-vegetarians. It all depends HOW you practice them. It is possible, with work, to have a blanced and healthy vegan diet.
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I'd guess the health tradition comes more out of Hinduism (unsurprising, given Buddhism did ) than Taoism, but in China there would definitely have been influence from the Taoists as well.
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"It is possible, with work, to have a blanced and healthy vegan diet."
Plenty of heavy smokers have lived into their 80s. That doesn't mean being a heavy smoker is worth anyone's time.
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Oh, I am SO not getting into a discussion of diet with you. But I will just say that you are being very judgemental of something that does not harm you at all.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I do not look to schools for that. I look to public (and private, actually) schools to teach about human beliefs about God, insofar as those beliefs frequently play a fundemantal role in human history in the humanities, in government, in science, and even in some cases about economics. I do not believe religion should be the elephant in the room when it comes to public education.
That is the difference between teaching about "God" and teaching about "people's beliefs about God."
I draw a strong distinction between the two. I have no problem with the latter, but I do think conflating the two concepts has been quite the bugaboo for this sort of discussion.
I think my high school was terrified of being sued and so they decided that it would be easier to just avoid God at all, rather then worry about distinguishing the two. My school had a very sue happy student body though- the girl who lost student body president had her lawyer come and appeal.
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quote:I draw a strong distinction between the two. I have no problem with the latter, but I do think conflating the two concepts has been quite the bugaboo for this sort of discussion.
Strange...to me, there's never an issue about conflating the two. I guess that's because (when I'm talking with other people), I regard all subjects dealing with God as almost completely subjective. So far as talking about God with human beings is concerned, heh, context is everything, because without it certain failure to understand what is being said by the other party is what you get. As opposed to certain partial failure when you take context into account.
Anyway, suffice it to say that I agree with you: I believe schools should teach about the beliefs different peoples have concerning the divine, insofar as those beliefs impact history, culture, etc. etc. It should not simply be treated like, "These people believed God wanted them to do thus and so," and then left alone, nor should God be expunged from texts as a motivator in human events. But it's a very tricky proposition just for an individual, much less an entire system.
There are times when I wonder if perhaps it would be better to err on the side of excessive caution, and do as (perhaps) Paul would like, and not delve into religion at all as required course material.
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What I haven't gotten my head around is the fact that the Founding Fathers were, by and large, not very religious men. Jefferson and Franklin were Deists at most. Think about that--they knew nothing close to what we know today about physics, chemistry, or a dozen other subjects. However, they were far more skeptical of religion/Creationism than many Americans now, some with advanced scientific degrees. And, to top it all off, they specifically chose to separate church and state, although I think that may have been simply in recognition of the impossibility of fairly choosing a state religion, or it may have been out of hate/fear/rage re: Roman Catholicism and/or the Anglican church. Dunno. Haven't studied it.
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quote:Originally posted by steven: What I haven't gotten my head around is the fact that the Founding Fathers were, by and large, not very religious men.
Well, they had just fought for their freedom from a religious monarchy, so I think that has at least something to do with it.
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quote:What I haven't gotten my head around is the fact that the Founding Fathers were, by and large, not very religious men. Jefferson and Franklin were Deists at most.
Perhaps you should try to wrap your head around why you think Deism and being 'very religious' are concepts so at odds with one another?
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quote:What I haven't gotten my head around is the fact that the Founding Fathers were, by and large, not very religious men. Jefferson and Franklin were Deists at most.
Perhaps you should try to wrap your head around why you think Deism and being 'very religious' are concepts so at odds with one another?
Not to answer for steven, but Deism is the belief (IIRC) that there is a god that started everything, but doesn't interact with us beyond that. There doesn't seem anything there to be terribly 'religious' about, let alone be 'very religious' about it.
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quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: That is the difference between teaching about "God" and teaching about "people's beliefs about God."
I draw a strong distinction between the two. I have no problem with the latter, but I do think conflating the two concepts has been quite the bugaboo for this sort of discussion.
In our home, we mostly discuss other people's beliefs. Just this morning, we sat down as a family and watched the Scientology episode of South Park, with frequent pauses for discussion. We had to explain the closet metaphor, and how people can be manipulated in accepting crazy crap as the truth (mostly by waiting until they are heavily invested either financially or emotionally before telling them the really cooky bits).
Then, we watched the Simpsons episode where Homer joins a cult run by "The Leader" who promises to take his followers to the planet Blisstonia. We talked about the spot light and the use of peer pressure to keep people watching an indoctrination film even though they wanted to leave, etc.
It was the closest we've come to a religious exercise on a Sunday in forever, but I feel confident that it help prepare our wee ones for living in the real world, at least in some small way.
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"Perhaps you should try to wrap your head around why you think Deism and being 'very religious' are concepts so at odds with one another?"
A Deist would be somebody who isn't really sure the Book of Mormon is true. Such a person is, to some degree, in danger of being excommunicated from the LDS church, if they are too vocal about this, or vocal in the wrong way, right?
I guess what I find interesting is the rise and fall in religious fervor, and how it only partially correlates with scientific knowledge. I wouldn't think the two could be so disconnected.
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quote: I guess what I find interesting is the rise and fall in religious fervor, and how it only partially correlates with scientific knowledge. I wouldn't think the two could be so disconnected.
That's because there isn't really a conflict between science and religion for many religious people, and it's probably safe to say most educated religious types. God made the world, rules the world, we're trying to figure out the rules. (or something along those lines)
I recently attended a talk where a statistic was given that the percentage of science PhDs that 'attend religious services regularly' was exactly the same as the American public at large--50% The speaker mentioned that both the PhDs and the public were probably not entirely truthful, 'cause I find 50% hard to believe for either education level :-p But it's an interesting statistic nonetheless.
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quote:I recently attended a talk where a statistic was given that the percentage of science PhDs that 'attend religious services regularly' was exactly the same as the American public at large--50% The speaker mentioned that both the PhDs and the public were probably not entirely truthful, 'cause I find 50% hard to believe for either education level :-p But it's an interesting statistic nonetheless.
I'd be interested to see the source of that statistic. I have seen studies that indicate that scientists, especially those involved in life sciences, are particularly nonreligious compared to society at large.
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) than Taoism, but in China there would definitely have been influence from the Taoists as well.
