Teaching Johnny about Islam, but not Christianity

sven hassell said:
:jump: Thanks for the info Bulldog.I can for ONCE say that there is something in the U.K.(our school system) which is better than the U.S. system.
It must be hard to raise kids in the U.S. as I for one wouldn't want my kids going to a school that had gang members or stuff like that in it so probably would have to pay a small fortune.(or I'd educate them at home).
What are the public schools like? Are they rough?
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Like WarMachine said, it's pretty much a reflection of the community. You won't really see problems in rural or smaller urban area schools like you will in inner city schools.

It really depends on where you live. If you don't want your child in a croweded public school, then you don't live in a heavly over populated area.

The public education system in NC is pretty good, very few problems and education standards improve every year. MA, where I am originally from, has a good school system as well.

I went to Boston College High School (private Catholic and boys only), which was pretty expensive, but the classes were smaller and allowed for a better learning enviroment. Plus, no girls to stare at all day.:mrgreen:
 
At my High school back in Alaska we were taught world cultures my freshman year. The first thing the teacher was required to say was that he was not trying to convert anyone, or to say a religion is better then someone elses. It was an interesting course, because when you get down to it all monotheistic (the doctrine or belief that there is but one God) are all similiar and that they all come the same region.

But it is interesting to note that the school system is putting more effort into teaching a diffrent culture then other ones, I wonder if all the courses are taught equaily?
 
The truth of the matter is, it is impossible to study humankind and most especially to study the history of humankind, without a solid foundation of knowledge of world religions. There really and truly is no harm in teaching and in learning about religion. I greatly enjoy learning about other religions. It helps me to better understand why the people in this world do what they do and what motivates them.

But to the sue-happy atheists of our day, the notion of anyone teaching anything about religion in a public school is infringing upon their rights. They've sued many times and they've won many times. Some public school systems have learned the hard way not to even mention religion no matter what. California would probably top the list of those. I think that is why this is such an outrage. They're creating a doublestandard. A classroom full of kids in a public school reciting the confession of faith for Islam? Let's remember that the Pledge of Allegience is not allowed primarily because it happens to contain the words "Under God" in it.

Personally, I'd prefer it if the dialogue in public schools towards religion was open and unbiassed. But there is always somebody out there who will take offense at the tiniest thing. So if the standard must be that educators never teach religion in any way, then that standard must be consistent for all faiths.
 
PC is weakening the walls of our society. I am beginning to see merit in pissing people off and offending some people. We will never eradicate racism. Humans are just too insecure and selfish and perhaps it still serves a purpose for survival of the species to fear those which are different from "us". Words are just that, words and unless someone directs them right towards me and mine intending to cause harm who cares if they use a non-pc term... honestly. You think because someone browbeats and sues another person into not being able to use the word "wop" that it contains any less vile and hatred then when that same person now uses "italian"? You didn't make anything better, all you have done is covered the cancer with a band-aid. And now we are so hamstrung by this crap that we can't even use the term "god" in any context in our public schools without the staff puckering up to DEFCON5 for fear of a lawsuit. I really don't know how to reverse this but it has to stop. Change people's minds not their words and you solve the problem. This PC crap is nothing but specious window dressing that makes it look like things are better but it does nothing.
 
Bulldogg said:
I really don't know how to reverse this but it has to stop. Change people's minds not their words and you solve the problem.
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It will stop automatically Bulldogg. Once the entire machine has collapsed and the majority sees the folly in this over-pampering..... That is when it will end. So, hold on and enjoy the show!
 
bulldogg said:
I think this pretty much nails it on the head... as long as it isn't christianity its okay. The more I read abuot this the more I agree and I think it is part of the self-loathing of the WASP at the root of it all. I still get more than a little pissed when I dwell too long on the removal of the Pledge of Allegiance and "moment of silence" at the start of each day. Pandering to the myriad of divergent views does not strengthen our country but apparently it does buy votes.
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Divergent views bring more ideas dude. However we should be carefuly and try to communicate our views to others otherwise we get very divergent sub-societies, which does in fact occur. However, a society whose views have been hammered into sameness will fail earlier
 
Mohmar Deathstrike said:
Divergent views bring more ideas dude. However we should be carefuly and try to communicate our views to others otherwise we get very divergent sub-societies, which does in fact occur. However, a society whose views have been hammered into sameness will fail earlier
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Not always true. Where do you get this made up bs?

The Spartans valued sameness no one was able to conquer them for over 200 years.

The Roman empire lasted a thousand years. Sameness was high on their agenda. Roman society valued sameness more than difference, with difference often being viewed as a challenge to good order and the best interests of society.
 
gladius said:
Not always true. Where do you get this made up bs?

The Spartans valued sameness no one was able to conquer them for over 200 years.
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200 years isn't all that much.
gladius said:
The Roman empire lasted a thousand years. Sameness was high on their agenda. Roman society valued sameness more than difference, with difference often being viewed as a challenge to good order and the best interests of society.
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No way in hell. The Romans incorporated pretty much every culture they conquered into their own. A Roman writer (Tacitus maybe?) once wrote (I'm paraphrasing) "Conquered Greece on its part conquered the ferocious winner by importing culture into rustical Latium".

One of the factors that made your country so dominant today is the fact that people from all over Europe, and later, the world brought together different ways of approaching things.

But you are right that it's not always true.
 
bulldogg said:
PC is weakening the walls of our society. I am beginning to see merit in pissing people off and offending some people.
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You're only beginning to see it??
bulldogg said:
You didn't make anything better, all you have done is covered the cancer with a band-aid. .
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My thoughts exactly. But don't you agree religion shouldn't be taught in public school unless there's an option of not doing it for anyone who doesn't want to? Who cares if people mention "jesus", "god" or if there's a cruxifix, a muslim faith declaration (or whatever that thing is called that says "There is no god but The God and Mohammed is his prophet")in class.
 
It's all about cultural ignorance and paranoia even. If everyone were to get some sense of each other's religion then we would be in a better state of mind regarding how to handle issues like teaching religion in the classroom. There were plenty of interesting oppourtunities in my highschool to talk about religion but our teachers were always hush on the subject for fear of being sued or fired. Nobody has to offend everyone else, but we shouldn't be going crazy sugar coating everything. Quality education and it's pervasiveness in society will one day make things better, just like dan quayle says, "the future holds a better tomorrow"
 
Ya know somethin WarMachine? You make a lot of sense. If everyone were to know a little bit of something about all religions, it would cease to be a problem of "Teaching Johnny about Islam, but not Christianity."Well said.Very well said. Personally, my sophmore early US history teacher didn't give a d**n about what he said. He voiced his opinion the first day of class when he said,"You people are in high school, you should be able to handle what I say in here without running to mommy." He'd been giving that speech for 15 years. So anyway...:eek:fftopic:...Erm...oh yea, we discussed the war and how religion came in to play and such, without having to worry about some religious extremist group coming in and complaining. It was interesting.He showed us how religion played into Early US History, and I was not so surprised to find that Catholicism and Christianity had a great deal of influence in the forging of this great nation. I find it rather stupid that teachers are worried about teaching their lessons...So the entire point of this thing is...SUCK IT UP!
 
WarMachine said:
There were plenty of interesting oppourtunities in my highschool to talk about religion but our teachers were always hush on the subject for fear of being sued or fired. Nobody has to offend everyone else, but we shouldn't be going crazy sugar coating everything. Quality education and it's pervasiveness in society will one day make things better, just like dan quayle says, "the future holds a better tomorrow"
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Though there's a lot of political correctness BS where I live, I've not heard of teachers fearing for their jobs when addressing this issue.
C/1Lt Henderson said:
He showed us how religion played into Early US History, and I was not so surprised to find that Catholicism and Christianity had a great deal of influence in the forging of this great nation.
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Like when the pilgrims landed on Fraggle Rock?
C/1Lt Henderson said:
,"You people are in high school, you should be able to handle what I say in here without running to mommy."
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I hope he was also able to handle criticism of his views without resorting to punishments :D
 
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Erm, I was thinking more along the lines of the forcefull conversion of Native Americans to Christianity...And the Spanish forcing of the Native Americans to Catholicism...but sure...And he didnt get any criticism...He only got thanks for being such an understanding teacher...Most other teachers would have simply avoided the issue, but he was confident enough in us to trust us with handling it.We felt trusted, therefore, we didnt let him down.
 
People stay out of talking about things like this in schools in fear of offending people. Perfect example, in my district we used to call christmas break our winter vacation. Some sensitive parents felt that christmas wasn't fair to those who weren't christian and the district calls it winter break. I have no idea why that's a big deal, no one cared. But it's an example of the little things that are done that can seriously question the intellect and maturity that people have in this country these days.
 
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