Well, we could teach about Marxism-Leninism too, but it would be about as appropriate to talk about Stalin’s Great Terror in the unit on Secular Humanism or American Freethought as it would be to talk about the Taliban in the unit on Protestantism.
You might want to tell that to some folks on the board here, who use the phrase “American Taliban” without a hint of irony.
And to be balanced, we would need to talk about all of the wonderful contributions that atheists have made.
When you say that you want to cover it “all,” there just isn’t time. It’s like try to have a life size map of the universe posted in your classroom.
I’m not trying to argue or anything, but do you know of any specific things that Dobson said or did that are bad?
I was raised in a conservative christian household, so I guess I’ve been exposed to a lot of Focus on the Family stuff, but I don’t know much about him.
On the Fundie scale, about where does he fall between the “Be celibate if you’re gay and blah blah blah” end and the Fred Phelps end?
I’ve actually come across that part recently. I don’t agree with the interpretation on the website. I don’t know if the page is a joke or not, but I’ll treat it like it’s not.
First of all, metaphors and such were viewed differently back then to the way they are now. In saying “It is not right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs”, Jesus was not comparing her a dog. He was referring to the situation of the metaphor only, and isn’t meant to be broken down into what the things represent.
The way I see it, he was testing the woman and didn’t intend to brush her off. His response to what she said, “Great is your faith”, suggests that to me.
Well, the only Christians I’ve ever compared to the Taliban are the Christians who actually want to start stoning people.
Why gobear, you have a redeeming feature 
- an appreciation of C S Lewis! But you ought to attribute anything like this, you know.
Personally I’d consider it pretty low to use something out of the mouth of a prepubescent as ammunition for my pet hobby horse pauses, then gives up on the hopelessly mangled metaphor, and I respect you enough to find it disappointing that you apparently don’t. 
Crikey,that is from Lewis, isn’t it? I haven’t read him for years, but consider it duly attrivuted (which book? I don’t remember and I’d like to look it up.)
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But surely you don’t think I’m blaming the tot? No, she is but a mere sponge, a parrot repeating what she’s heard from the grownups, at school, from family, ore from church, or all 3. the child has probably never seen a Jew and has no idea what she’s saying; this just indicates what the Christians in her life are teaching her.
I think it’s from “Mere Christianity”, but I don’t have my own copy and it’s a few years since I last read a borrowed one. It’s what the Book of Common Prayer would have called “a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received”, though. I’m dead against devaluing useful descriptive words into mere terms of approval or disapproval. We have enough of those already.
Of course you are not blaming the child herself - I took that as a given; a child-basher you assuredly ain’t, gobear, let’s not misunderstand each other on that - but you are interpreting her inability to articulate clearly what she means in a soundbite into a legitimate criticism of the educational method. I think that’s unfair - as I wouldn’t like my ability as a (strictly amateur) teacher of mathematics to be evaluated by my five-year-old son’s facility with long multiplication.
What, exactly, were the “disgusting acts” of Karl Marx?
Working as a journalist? Studying law? Moving to France? Accepting money from Engels? Working in the British Museum? Writing all those books? Being tossed out of at least two countries for criticism of those in power?
Oh, the horrors of freedom of expression!
Malacandra, your analogy involving the teaching of multiplication and religion is flawed.
There is only one answer to the question, “How much is 6 times 6?” If your five-year-old were to say it’s 35, I have no reason to believe that you are teaching him some flawed, wacky number system – I would assume he’s making a mistake.
There are plenty of people who do say bad things about Jews in the presence of their kids. They say that Jews are bad people, or at least that they’re going to hell (which as far as I know, pretty much only happens to bad people).
What, in your opinion, is the complete, nuanced version of what this little girl was taught about Jews (but was unable to articulate), which led her to say what she did?
Ideas do have consequences, you know. And his ideas had some rather unfortunate ones.
So did the ideas of Jesus.
That’s a tad silly. Marxism is intellectual rubbish, but you can’t blame Karl for the horrors of Communist totalitarianism any more than you can blame Jesus for the Inquisition or Fred Phelps.
I have yet to devise an analogy that stood up to all criticism. I’m unsurprised to find that this is not the first.
Of course. I did say “long multiplication”, implying something with more method to it than merely learning "times tables, while not being utterly beyond reach for an under-ten.
True, but that doesn’t necessarily imply that the “Jesus Fan Club” have done a number on anyone in this instance.
I think the soundbite is adequately explained by assuming that she had only the haziest idea of what Jews actually are or were, but had grasped that (a) Christians are good people, (b) Jesus was a good person, and (c) the same person cannot be both a Jew and a Christian (*). It’s permissible for a small child to commit a logical fallacy based on these premises: “All A are B. C has the attribute B. Therefore C is an A”. And I’d as soon not ascribe to anti-Semitism (consider the nit picked, btw) that which can be adequately explained by a small child’s comprehension and logic skills.
In forty-odd years of intermittently attending Christian services, I have yet to hear anti-Jew sentiments being preached. YMMV, in which case I’ll cut you as much slack as your circumstances warrant.
(*This last premise may be flawed, but again, a small child may not realize this.)
Well, she’s starting with a flawed premise right there. Christianity has nothing to do with virtue or goodness; it only demands obedience to power. Fear of hell is the primary, overwhelming tool that evangelizers wield to capture their prey. One doesn’t hear “believe this because it is right and good to do so”; rather, it’s “believe this or suffer the consequences.”
I have observed that among Christians one can be as hateful, bigoted, backbiting, and malicious as one pleases, and when called on it, the Christian in question can excuse himself by saying, “I’m not perfect, just forgiven.” It’s an ethical “Get Out of Jail Free” card, which is one of the many reasons that I have so little respect for most of them and why I ceased to believe.
It’s a strange thing, really, but I completely agree with Gobear. It is possible to interpret scripture such that God is basically some sort of government — a rather tyrannical one at that. And you’ll be punished if you disobey the law. Hence, the Christians in Gobear’s model see forgiveness as a Get Out Of Jail Free card. Unfortunately, it’s often even more insidious: “I have a Get Out Of Jail Free card, but you don’t. And unless you believe what I believe, you’ll never get one.”
The moral imperative that Jesus gives is: “Be perfect.” (Matthew 5:48). It is a rather onerous moral demand. On the bell curve, I’m about as far to the left and near the bottom as anyone on earth. I recognize that Gobear is closer to God than many Christians (including myself) because of his moral honesty and pure heart, despite his atheism which, after all, is merely an intellectual position, and therefore not really relevant to reality, since reality is metaphysical.
Anyway, it seems to me that the body politic has taken over the Body of Christ. If Christianity has become what Gobear says it has, then it would behoove those who believe in the teachings of Jesus to renounce it. It has become the hand that offends, and should be cut off. Let the Christians know that the prisoners have already been freed, and no one needs any card.
Malacandra, I’ve been an atheist since I was 15, so I haven’t been to church much in a long time.
I grew up in a small West Virginia town, and I never heard anything negative preached about Jews when I went to church either.
Then again, we went to a fairly liberal Methodist church.
I did hear a lot of people say that Jews were bad people. I just didn’t go to church with them, and apparently neither did you. That doesn’t mean they didn’t exist.
In fact, even though I’m not Jewish, I was a occasionally a target of anti-Semites:
I’m half Greek, and I look it – dark hair and eyes, etc. In blonde-blue-eyed West Virginny, I guess this passes for Jewish, because in grade school, I encountered the curious practice of older kids rolling pennies to me. I didn’t know what this meant until talking with a Jewish kid years later. For those who’ve never heard of this practice, it was a sly reference to Jews’ supposed penuriousness.
(I will refrain from referring to these people as 'holy rollers).
I disagree strenuously, but let’s let it ride for the sake of the argument. That’s not quite how they put it in Sunday school, though, is it? The last time I looked, “Jesus bids us shine with a pure, clear light…” didn’t finish “… or roast for eternity on Old Nick’s barbecue grid”. Christianity as presented to small children tends to focus on Jesus as healer, good shepherd, fount of kindness and so on, and on behavioural aspects such as listening to parents and teachers, telling the truth and not squabbling with your siblings. This is about as far on the road to “Love the Lord your God with all you have, and love your neighbour as yourself” as under-tens are ready for.
I’ve heard evangelizers take that line. I’ve also heard other, more compassionate, approaches, and I’ve heard Christians decry hellfire-and-brimstone preaching. So I think your “primary, overwhelming tool” is too broad a brush to be entirely fair - not to mention getting way off topic for the purposes of discussing what a small child’s grasp of Christianity is.
Again, we’re getting somewhat off the topic of your original complaint, and the discussion of whether this was anything more than posing a small child a question that she was not equipped to answer, and getting a confused answer.
heh. I’m English but look vaguely Mediterranean, and have been known to darken up in a hot summer, which once led to be being called a “wog”…
An answer that reflects the sort of teaching she’s been receiving from her religious training. a kid in the boonies has no idea what a Jew is or that they are not “good” people–she had to be taught that.
I have a question about this “release time” thing.
What if a kid doesn’t want to go? I don’t mean if they got permission from their parents, I mean what if a kid’s parents DO want him to go but when the time comes the kid just doesn’t want to do it.? Is the school going to force him to go anyway. Are we going to have government employees forcing children to go to church against their will.
Whether parents have the right to force their kids to go to church is one thing, but do they have the right to enlist the government in that cause?