While I likely disagree with her version of the word of God and cutting back on science and technology education, I’m all for religious education related to the historical understanding of where religious books came from, what was going on at the time, the language and difficulty of translating the documents, etc.
Once you start indoctrinating, that’s where I draw the line… of course, I think the religion should be taught by people that don’t agree with it, like a rabbi teaching Christianity… 
Scratch “likely”
Same here. Have one person pray for a cure for his malaria and have someone else receive chloroquine. See who gets healthy faster.
I find this dependence on God really sad. Humanity depended on God for thousands of years. We had very little to show for it in regards to health or happiness.
I doubt Wolf wants to eliminate science/technology, she just wants to have more religion in life. That is fine for her but at the end of the day religion can’t accomplish anything science can accomplish.
I think history has shown that religious disagreements have caused more war and death to mankind than scientific disagreements.
Science is the search for absolutes and truths about the physical world around us.
Religion is the search for one persons beliefs, values, and faiths versus another.
Nobody can be proven right or wrong. They can just fight about it.
Unfortunately, organized religion usually doesn’t like historical context to be used when studying religeous text. It would reveal that mortal humans wrote those books, and mortal politics heavily influenced what became canon. This is especially a problem with the Koran.
Indeed. I think the only Thoughts of Mass Destruction that entangle humans in war derive from or arise out of religious belief, and most certainly not science…unless, of course, we’re talking about religion’s invariable attempts to squelch scientific inquiry.
Somehow, I just can’t see anyone getting worked up enough over whether we should be embracing Quantum theory versus String theory for us to go to war over it. In research, if you publish bad science, all your Science Buddies a) rush to publish their own refutation to prove you wrong and b) laugh at you, whereupon you slink back into the obscurity you deserve. In religion, if you publish bad hoo-doo nonsense, your followers get into a lather, and anyone who disagrees with you is a blaspheming idolator who should be burned, and refutation is “defeated” with the blithe assertion that one must have “faith.”
The difference between so-called “word of god” and “ethics” is that “teaching” the word of god is indoctrination, an attempt to impose/imprint one’s particular beliefs and standards onto ANOTHER person or individual; teaching ETHICS is providing a toolset by which individuals can adjudicate a situation and apply their OWN standards of conduct and morality thereto.
Peanut50
Jimmy Carter, in his recent book Our Endangered Values, makes an argument that a key issue we are facing is the rise of fundamentalism around the world, including here in America. In that framework, it is easy to see how some American fundamentalists are like those from various religions in other parts of the world. It’s also nice to read something from a person talking about deeply held religious beliefs in a way other than bashing you over the head with them.
Exactly - that’s the point.
Imho, people would be less likely to become fundamentalist if they had a little more historical context.
If they accepted historical context, then by definition they would no longer be fundamentalists.
Which word is the word of god? The Koran? King James Version of the Bible? The Book of Mormon? Sheesh!
Oh - whatever book Paula Wolf believes in must be the true word.
Certainly there are a few that reject the historical context as incorrect, but I suspect that most do not know the historical context, or at least the ones I know…
Keep making jokes like that and someone’ll put a 75-cent bounty on your head.
If we could be absolutely certain what was going to happen in the future, we could just indoctrinate our kids with exactly the right information to be able to deal with it; they wouldn’t need to think, just look up the answer and act on it; but we don’t know what’s coming, so we need to help them learn how to think and act for themselves.
now hold on-you can quibble with stoning the disobedient child, but I’m all for seizing other peoples’ women–absent that, we’d have no pussy at all…
the word of god is
“oops”
I’ve already got one for Jaywalking.
Nope. Didn’t say anything of the sort. Please don’t put words in my mouth.