Remember when "atheist" had a negative connotation?

Not a Christian wrote:

.... One way to do this that I as a non-religious person would support is to have religion courses (specifically comparative religion courses--which would include lessons on agnosticism, atheism, and all major religions) in public schools probably starting in elementary school. It would be in these courses where things like creation stories would be taught, not in science classes. ....

That's not a very appealing idea to the devout .. teaching a 7 year old child that raven made the earth (Athabaskan creation story) or that the giant serpent created the rivers (Australian aboriginee dreamtime story) or that Gaia made it all, and then that Yahweh made it and created a woman from man's rib and they chatted with a talking snake, etc .. well, it just makes the biblical story seem somewhat dodgy.

This is an outstanding and informative post. I think your "faith vs Pavlov's dog" stance is valid; I probably oversimplified y comparison.

I am looking forward to looking at the links you provided.

Off to class! :-)

wtfunny wrote:

Not a Christian wrote:

.... One way to do this that I as a non-religious person would support is to have religion courses (specifically comparative religion courses--which would include lessons on agnosticism, atheism, and all major religions) in public schools probably starting in elementary school. It would be in these courses where things like creation stories would be taught, not in science classes. ....

That's not a very appealing idea to the devout .. teaching a 7 year old child that raven made the earth (Athabaskan creation story) or that the giant serpent created the rivers (Australian aboriginee dreamtime story) or that Gaia made it all, and then that Yahweh made it and created a woman from man's rib and they chatted with a talking snake, etc .. well, it just makes the biblical story seem somewhat dodgy.

As a devout person, I think this COULD possibly be done in a constructive way. I wouldn't expect a teacher to be able to be UNbiased, but I would at least expect them to announce their bias early on... maybe it could be an elective ;-)

Not a Christian wrote:

People need to stop trying to use religion to answer scientific questions and, conversely, they need to stop trying to use science to answer religious / spiritual questions.

Great post. Religious instruction is probably a good idea and delineating between religious and scientific thought is too. What you wrote above is probably the most constructive thing that all of us could do to actually affect the world in a positive way.

I'm curious to hear why you think atheism (I'll say weak atheism) is not akin to scientific thought. Based on the scientific method, wouldn't this be the default position?

wtfunny wrote:

Not a Christian wrote:

.... One way to do this that I as a non-religious person would support is to have religion courses (specifically comparative religion courses--which would include lessons on agnosticism, atheism, and all major religions) in public schools probably starting in elementary school. It would be in these courses where things like creation stories would be taught, not in science classes. ....

That's not a very appealing idea to the devout .. teaching a 7 year old child that raven made the earth (Athabaskan creation story) or that the giant serpent created the rivers (Australian aboriginee dreamtime story) or that Gaia made it all, and then that Yahweh made it and created a woman from man's rib and they chatted with a talking snake, etc .. well, it just makes the biblical story seem somewhat dodgy.

There is a world of difference between:

"teaching a 7 year old child that raven made the earth"

and

teaching a 7 year old child that there is a story about a raven that made the earth and this story is part of the culture of the Athabaskan people

Pointing Out the Obvious wrote:

wtfunny wrote:

That's not a very appealing idea to the devout .. teaching a 7 year old child that raven made the earth (Athabaskan creation story) or that the giant serpent created the rivers (Australian aboriginee dreamtime story) or that Gaia made it all, and then that Yahweh made it and created a woman from man's rib and they chatted with a talking snake, etc .. well, it just makes the biblical story seem somewhat dodgy.

There is a world of difference between:

"teaching a 7 year old child that raven made the earth"

and

teaching a 7 year old child that there is a story about a raven that made the earth and this story is part of the culture of the Athabaskan people

There is a world of difference between teaching a 7 year old that God made the Universe

and

teaching a 7 year old that this story is part of the culture of the Jewish people who then loaned it to others.

Yeahway wrote:

Pointing Out the Obvious wrote:

There is a world of difference between:

"teaching a 7 year old child that raven made the earth"

and

teaching a 7 year old child that there is a story about a raven that made the earth and this story is part of the culture of the Athabaskan people

There is a world of difference between teaching a 7 year old that God made the Universe

and

teaching a 7 year old that this story is part of the culture of the Jewish people who then loaned it to others.

It appears that we are in agreement.

Pointing Out the Obvious wrote:

Yeahway wrote:

There is a world of difference between teaching a 7 year old that God made the Universe

and

teaching a 7 year old that this story is part of the culture of the Jewish people who then loaned it to others.

It appears that we are in agreement.

I think I'm following this. I'd beg to differ with the "loaned" term though. :)

if so .. that's precisely my point ... in this culture, the devout tend to teach that "god made the universe" .. whereas other religious belief, particularly that of indigenous culture, are taught as mythologies and parables and fables, etc, etc.

And there's not shred of evidence that suggests the jewish story is any less mythical than the hundreds of others people have com up with along the way

wtfunny wrote:

Pointing Out the Obvious wrote:

It appears that we are in agreement.

I think I'm following this. I'd beg to differ with the "loaned" term though. :)

if so .. that's precisely my point ... in this culture, the devout tend to teach that "god made the universe" .. whereas other religious belief, particularly that of indigenous culture, are taught as mythologies and parables and fables, etc, etc.

And there's not shred of evidence that suggests the jewish story is any less mythical than the hundreds of others people have com up with along the way

When I first read the post the "Jewish people..loaned it to others" struck me as odd as well.

Upon second reading it just appears to be a light hearted way of saying the same thing - with a side note that Christianity and Islam sprang from Judaism.

At any rate, the point is that one can teach about the existence of stories and point out where in the world such stories are viewed as part of the culture without ever going into "This story is The True Story".

Sorry, it should have been written '"loaned". They probably weren't expecting others to make it their own though.

Yeahway wrote:

Pointing Out the Obvious wrote:

When I first read the post the "Jewish people..loaned it to others" struck me as odd as well.

Upon second reading it just appears to be a light hearted way of saying the same thing - with a side note that Christianity and Islam sprang from Judaism.

At any rate, the point is that one can teach about the existence of stories and point out where in the world such stories are viewed as part of the culture without ever going into "This story is The True Story".

Sorry, it should have been written '"loaned". They probably weren't expecting others to make it their own though.

I like the way ya'll are thinking right now. FWIW, as the resident Christian/Creationist, I don't want public schools teaching Christianity as "truth" (mainly because I don't want the government interpreting the Bible for me or anyone else, lol). I would love to see a chapter, right after the Big Bang, that shows "this is how several cultures believe the universe started". It would be a useful insight into social sciences, methinks.

I think the stark avoidance of religious beliefs is a mistake, however, mainly because it fosters ignorance towards how a huge percentage pf the population interprets the world.

Thoughts?

here we go again... wrote:

I think the stark avoidance of religious beliefs is a mistake, however, mainly because it fosters ignorance towards how a huge percentage pf the population interprets the world.

Thoughts?

In many ways .. for people of any one set of religious beliefs it fosters ignorance of so many other ways of seeing things. It also allows people to not really have to examine the credibility of their own belief. Not one person in this thread has taken up the question (which has been asked a few times) of why their creation story should stand above any of the countless other religion-based stories of creation.

I think in the social sciences, it's imperative to teach some sense of the mythologies of other cultures. I know growing up in Australia, we always learned of those mythologies when we studied other cultures .. but they're taught almost emphatically as mythologies .. and yet when the stories of little baby jesus and his donkey stable are taught, this is somehow thought to be 'different' to the countless other versions of fable. With not a single note on why.

To be fair, thejeff DID take up the issue of why the "little baby jesus" story is different several times. You may not be buying into his answer but it is not correct to say that nobody on this thread took up this fundamental question.

Hey, thanks, I was thinking the same thing! 😁

It's been a long thread. Link?

All of the stories are different.

As far as why the Judeo Christian creation story deserves more credibility than mythological creation stories:

Great question. Some stories rule themselves out. We can see that the earth is not on the back of a giant tortoise, for instance. But, is there really anything about Moses' creation story that sets it apart?

The answer is yes.

Interestingly, the order of creation put forth by Moses is identical to what scientists currently believed happened, if you interpret the creation story from Moses' perspective. (For instance, I think the sun was created after the atmosphere in Genesis, which probably wasn't the case... But the sun would have been visible from earth only after the creation of the atmosphere... I am going from memory here; let me see if I can find the source I am thinking about...)

As far as why the Judeo Christian creation story deserves more credibility than mythological creation stories:

Great question. Some stories rule themselves out. We can see that the earth is not on the back of a giant tortoise, for instance. But, is there really anything about Moses' creation story that sets it apart?

The answer is yes.

Interestingly, the order of creation put forth by Moses is identical to what scientists currently believed happened, if you interpret the creation story from Moses' perspective. (For instance, I think the sun was created after the atmosphere in Genesis, which probably wasn't the case... But the sun would have been visible from earth only after the creation of the atmosphere...

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/day-age.html

)

There is another site that explains it better, lemme see if I can find it 😁

"I would love to see a chapter, right after the Big Bang, that shows "this is how several cultures believe the universe started"."

Why would you want to interrupt a science class to teach cultural myths? In addition, the Big Bang is not a cultural thing, it is studied and believed by - not in every detail, but in general - by scientists across of pretty much all cultures.