<p>I’m glad you now agree with me that the Christian right in the USA = religious Muslims in the middle east.</p>
<p>Fundingfather,</p>
<p>Thats because you miss the fact that it is ok to claim anything you like about Muslims, radical or otherwisein the negative (it is short-hand, you see, for evil)but good taste mandates no other monotheistic religion bare the same bigoted malice, neither Zoroastrians or Jews (unless you attach the word right to it, as in right-wing-Christian often coupled with ayatollah or mullah in case anyone missed the point).</p>
<p>So if there is something that you find repugnant it will help to attach it in someway to</p>
<ol>
<li> Muslims per se</li>
<li> Ayatollahs</li>
<li> Mullahs</li>
<li> right-wing-something (nut, kook, ayatollah–as above, idiot, fundamentalist, etc)</li>
</ol>
<p>My Grandmother is a very religious Muslim–sweetest most tolerant person I have ever met, still, a Muslim and for purposes of this thread, and a good metaphor for ‘bad-something’.</p>
<p>The Prez once again shows that an Ivy education may not be all it is cracked up to be - lol</p>
<p>FountainSiren, do you object to what I wrote? What’s your objection?</p>
<p>dstark & fundingfather,</p>
<p>Fundamentalists come in all shapes and sizesthey make the world go round. </p>
<p>There are, for instance, Fundamentalists Liberals; they are wily creatures.
They practice a relatively new and highly fashionable dogma called “political correctness.”</p>
<p>It’s VERY VERY BIG with the ‘It’ crowd and sometimes those who simply have a hard time coming up with something to say or condemn as the occasion arises.</p>
<p>FountainSiren, be specific. What did I write that you object to?</p>
<p>It is strange how the meaning of “extreme” diverges from the meaning of devout. An extreme member of a religious sect is viewed as intolerant and yet a devout member of the same religion might be extremely tolerant.</p>
<p>My concern is when religious groups want their interpretation of the world taught in public schools as a part of science. I do not object to comparative religion classes or ethics and science classes discussing these views.</p>
<p>I find it interesting that you could take a biblical study course in some public universities but you could not take that class in high school. Is there something different about the public dollars that support classes on religion in college but not in grade school? When and where should we discuss the creation of the universe from the religious sectors points of view. To put it in with a mythology class might be demeaning, and I certainly oppose putting these views in a hard science class. So where if anywhere do they belong?</p>
<p>I am not trying to provoke a fight here but a discussion. So please keep your arguments about the argument and not the posters.</p>
<p>Mr. B, are we going to critically look at the bible when we teach a course on the bible in school? Are we going to look at the events that were occuring at the time of the bible stories? Are we going to look at the psychology, sociology, and history of the people at that time? Are we going to look at the knowledge of the people at that time? Are we going to teach students that some people think the bible is bunk? How are we going to portray the people in the bible? For example, is Jesus going to be a 6’2’ Anglophile? Are we going to make a bible course mandatory? Are we also going to teach courses on the Koran? Are we going to teach value judgments? Are we teaching value judgments just by teach a course on the bible?</p>
<p>The biblical study courses in public universities aren’t mandatory. Right? The courses in the universities usually involve critical thinking. Correct?</p>
<p>Mr. B, People cross the line when they try to impose their religious views on others. You can be religious and never do this. The objections are with the former, not the latter.</p>
<p>While I agree that a “Genesis” view of the beginnings of the universe in a science class may be inappropriate. I think it would be appropriate in a science class to discuss aspects of the current scientific view for which science has no answers. I think it is appropriate to tell the students the current limits of science. This could be current holes in the scientific views of evolution but more importantly the currently unanswerable question of where did the original energy/matter come from, from which the Big Bang happened.</p>
<p>FountainSiren, be specific. What did I write that you object to?</p>
<p>[As I said, they ARE wily creatures.]</p>
<p>Could it be?</p>
<p>“I fail to see the difference between the Christian right and religious Muslims.”</p>
<p>Hmmm, perhaps so…unless it was intended as a compliment–or a liberal moment-of-tolerancemuch like a moment-of-silence after some great tragic event;)</p>
<p>Did you mean it as a positive compassionate comparison; or is it more like comparing the
Institution of Slavery with Christianity, or
Republicans with Greed, or
Democracy with Imperialism
as is so often the case?</p>
<p>If you are prepared to say that it was a compliment, I am prepared to grovel in obeisance and vote Democrat (Ill be 18 in September).</p>
<p>Judaism and Intelligent Design:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.orot.com/ec.html[/url]”>http://www.orot.com/ec.html</a></p>
<p>feel free to include Jewish with Muslim in your next demeaning [?] comparison of right-wing-Christians.</p>
<p>FountainSiren, read post 49.
The Jewish belief of creationism should not be taught in public schools.</p>
<p>And I suppose Muslims do too?</p>
<p>To my knowledge they don’t, thus you have made a faulty and uncalled for comparrison.</p>
<p>If Muslims don’t advocate for ID in public schools, what’s with the attitude; or do Jews take a pass on this one?</p>
<p>dstark said,
It is just amazing to me that going to church isn’t good enough. We have to teach Christian ideas in school </p>
<p>MrB said.
When and where should we discuss the creation of the universe from the religious sectors points of view. To put it in with a mythology class might be demeaning, and I certainly oppose putting these views in a hard science class. So where if anywhere do they belong?</p>
<p>Of course Christians believe in ID to the degree that they are aware of it (most arent), but ID is not a Christian idea. It is a principal that flows from logic. To quote Driver, intelligent design is instead a modern rendering of the age-old philosophical concept of a "prime mover </p>
<p>Intelligent Design finds its source in Aristotles uncaused first cause, or unmoved-mover argument; the idea of intelligent design precedes Christianity, going back to Aristotles day and beyond because it has to do with logical principals, not religion. To say otherwise is to completely miss the point of the argument. It can also be found in Platos forms and Pythagoras harmonics.</p>
<p>Intelligent design, in its essence, gives those who take a literal reading of the Bible hissy-fits. It does not by any means prove a literal interpretation of the bible, instead it undermines it.
It would be a more interesting conversation if people understood that.</p>
<p>What are you talking about? Jews don’t get a pass. If they Muslims do what?</p>
<p>Fountain Siren: you wrote:
Intelligent Design finds its source in Aristotles uncaused first cause, or unmoved-mover argument; the idea of intelligent design precedes Christianity, going back to Aristotles day and beyond because it has to do with logical principals, not religion. To say otherwise is to completely miss the point of the argument. It can also be found in Platos forms and Pythagoras harmonics.</p>
<p>Are you suggesting that because Aristotle thought of it, it must be right? He was wrong about so many things. He taught, for example, that acceleration when something falls is proportional to its weight.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Famous</a> DEISTS and Persons with Closely-Related Beliefs](<a href=“http://www.deistnet.com/deismfam.htm]Famous”>http://www.deistnet.com/deismfam.htm)</p>
<p>While not entirely Intelligent Design, deism is closely related and does go back a long, long way and is seen as an alternative to Christianity in several periods of time.</p>
<p>dmd77,</p>
<p>No, I am suggesting that it is a function of logic, not religion or Aristotle,and, to the best of my knowledge, logic has not been proved ‘wrong’, it’s just lost its significance in rhetoric.</p>
<p>dstark - I would expect a religious studies class to be required in certain college majors but would not expect it to be more than an elective if it was offerred in a high school. It is just interesting that it is available in one domain and not the other.</p>
<p>My take on reality is: there is a conservative christian movement to have the schools include the biblical view of creation taught in schools. Some would settle for along with Darwanism but others would like it to be accepted as “the truth.” This isn’t happenning and so they have gotten behind a another related approach called Intelligent Design, which they think they can get past the American Public. Intelligent Design is not a respected theory among the scientific community and so they object to it being considered along side of evolution which has pretty close to universal support from the scientific community. </p>
<p>Then there is the thought, “If you believe in God you must believe in Intelligent Design.” I suppose if your vision of God is someone who is all powerful and involves him/her self in every detail this would have to be true, but I don’t think everyone believes this and it is a hard theory to prove and this proof would seem more appropriate for a religion class than a science lab. </p>
<p>The President’s comments appeal to the religious right, a group that he and his party rely on for electorial strength. I suspect he is trying to strenthen this relationship and that his motivation might be political. I know this is cynical, but such are the times.</p>
<p>Ill do the play-by-play:</p>
<p>dstark wrote:
It is just amazing to me that going to church isn’t good enough. We have to teach Christian ideas in school. I fail to see the difference between the Christian right and religious Muslims. Brainwashing is alive and well.</p>
<p>Fundingfather said:
dstark, then I’m at a loss as to why you added the sentence about Christian right = religious Muslims. What is it suppoesed to convey in this topic? Why not say Christian right = religious Jews? It would be just as relevant in this context. But, in either case it would refute your sentence immediately before it.</p>
<p>dstark explained:
I missed the part where religious Jews want to teach their theories about the beginning of the world in public classrooms.</p>
<p>Fundingfather replied:
I missed the part where religious Muslims want to do that.</p>
<p>dstark retorts:
Religious Muslims in the middle east = Christian right in the US.</p>
<p>So I ask, where do you draw these distinctions that involve compulsary teaching in public schools? </p>
<p>If certain Christians, according to you, want to impose their views on public schools, and Muslims dont (no one has suggested they do) and Jews dont (according to you); then I am at a loss to understand in which way your right-wing-Christians compare to religious-Muslims if they dont compare to religious-Jews. </p>
<p>If you like you can clear it up, but as it stands, I see such remarks as having that offensive odor which enters the room with bigotry.</p>