It sounds to me like there are two different relevant issues that folks are arguing.
(DD’s hijack about whether Islam is a warmongering religion is interesting, but wholly irrelevant: if UNC decided whether to teach students about Islam based on its opinion of Islam as a religion, it would probably be violating the first amendment.)
The two relevant points are:
Can a public school require, as part of a course, that students read passages from a holy book?
I think this question is clearly a settled question: a school can certainly make this requirement. I read passages from the Old Testament, from the Gilgamesh Cycle, and from Jewish Poetry in high school English; had I taken more lit classes in college, I certainly would have read more. As long as the point is to discuss, rather than to proselytize, there’s no problem.
Can a school require all students to take a particular class?
Again, this seems like a no-brainer to me. AFAIK, all UNC-system schools require students to take certain humanities classes. My college required all students to take an introductory seminar in which we read Tortuga, a novel about a disabled Latino kid. Requiring a certain class is definitely within a public school’s rights.
So, a public school can require students to read a religious text as part of an analytical class, and a public school can require students to take a specific class. How do you get from there to saying that a public school CANNOT require students to read a religious text as part of a required analytical class? I simply don’t follow.
Whether UNC CAN do this, and whether they SHOULD do this, are two different questions. I agree that given the importance that Islam has suddenly assumed in US foreign policy, it’s extremely important for folks to learn about it. A book that explores and introduces people to Islam sounds highly relevant to me.
There’s just one thing that makes me squirm. If the book that students were required to read were highly critical of Islam, especially if it criticized the religion from a religious perspective, I’d be lots angrier at UNC. But I’m not sure how I’d justify that anger.
No, I don’t, as it happens. In fact, I believe that it is impossible to “hand” a good education to anybody. Education is something students have to seek out for themselves. That means that they should be willing to read and expose themselves to as many new ideas as possible, and that they should think critically about those ideas. As I’ve already said, I would be delighted if some or all of these freshmen read the book, chose to do some further reading on the subject, and came to the informed conclusion that they disagreed with the book’s interpretations or intentions.
However, reading the book is a key step in this process, and you’ve just destroyed your credibility when you said you weren’t interested in reading it at all. Moreover, students who refuse to read or study anything on general principle have missed the point of a liberal arts education. I’m hard pressed to think of any book, however bad, that doesn’t have a legitimate place in a college curriculum, nor any book, however good, that cannot legitimately be questioned and challenged in the classroom.
BTW, I would have no problem at all if next year’s summer reading book were (for instance) a good translation of the Song of Solomon with extensive notes about the translator’s choices and the poem’s literary and historical contexts. (I have no idea whether such a book exists, but if it does, it sounds like it would be a reasonable equivalent of this one, and I think both Christian and non-Christian students would learn a great deal from reading it.)
Several posters have noted that they had “theological christian” books (the bible qualifies) as required reading, so your claim that they would be “shot down” is false. While most of the posters have indicated that their courses were not central requirements, a) your original claim was that any such text would be shot down, not that it would be shot down if it was a core course requirement, and b) I know of a couple of schools where Christian and non-Christian works are part of the core requirements.
I made no comment on UNC. I noted that you are using a fallacious argument that is frequently used by the Religious Right. I have not even claimed or implied that you are a member of that political faction, only that your argument is a favorite of theirs.
Fretfull, I’ve not destroyed my credibility, and to me neither has the rest of the posters who haven’t read it. I’m only arguing my point as anyone else who hasn’t read it. I can think of many books that would be a waste of time if brought into the classroom, though I’m not saying this book would be because I’m questioning the book’s focus and intent. We all know books can be written with an agenda and to study such a book doesn’t guarantee the agenda will be revealed and incorporated as part of the study, either knowingly or not. I’m not basing my argument on the absolute fact that it is with agenda, but the idea I’m trying to express is legitimate.
Tomndebb, not switching topics to mess with your mind, both of the points I made are reasonable and I’m not limited to either. I’ve taken a “religion” course and had to read the biblical scriptures but was never forced to read them based soley on being a freshman student. No, you’re wrong, my point is both that any such christian type book would be shot down if it was forced on freshmen at the door. " Well, since I have actually read the testimony of several posters to this thread regarding their experiences with Christian Scripture and with explanatory books on Christianity, I can deny it quite easily. It is one of the most common lies from the Religious Right that only non-Christian books are included in school curricula." -you can see how I’d take that as implying that somehow UNC is influenced by the religious right. Whether you did or not that’s fine, that’s how I took it. celestina "get a copy of Sells’ book, which does contain from the Muslim perspective the most popular and best known Suras "
I don’t feel as if I have to read the book in order to question the possibility of it being biased. I never said it was biased. I’m just making that argument, however, you seem pretty sure it is from a muslim perspective, which may lend to if being biased. I missed your question before, but I answered in sorta the same way I guess. I don’t take a summary to tell all, especially not biases. RTfirefly, Do you not think some professors inject their own biases into what they teach? Could a professor allow his or her bias towards islam effect the choise of text? I’m not saying this is what is hapening in Chapel Hill, but it can’t be rulled out. My own opinion based on not knowing the book or being in Chapel Hill is that it may not be biased but only a hot topic in the world today and that influenced it being chosen. But I must say that it isn’t too hard to find such biased minds at UNC.
Double Darren, I believe you need to review the basic principles of argumentation. You say you don’t need to read the book to question if it’s biased or not. Well, frankly, I disagree. You can question anything until the cows come home, but you won’t know for sure whether or not the text being debated in this thread is biased or not if you don’t read it! In order to build an argument, you need to support your claim with evidence from the text you are questioning. Do you understand that? You just sound like you’re mouthing off just to be mouthing off. Another way to look at your method of questioning and arguing is this: I could question whether or not the sky is blue, rather than purple, but I won’t know for sure or be able to further my questioning/critique of the color of the sky until I look at the sky. I can’t think of any other way to make plain to you what I mean. [VERY BIG SIGH]
Oh, and in my previous post, I meant to say that Sells presents the Suras from a Muslim perspective, rather than “the Muslim perspective,” as there is more than one perspective.
implies anything of the sort. Tomndebb posted that right-wing Christians have told lies about schools, presumably including UNC. Being lied about by a group and being influenced by a group are such totally different concepts that I’m baffled by your jump from one to the other.
One of the most common lies told by anti-hiphop activists is that no hiphop music contains Christian sentiments. Given that sentence, does it follow that hiphop musicians are influenced by anti-hiphop activists?
Color me confused.
Further, you should understand that most of us are arguing the merits of this case independent of the content of the book in question. For us, we can advance our arguments about freedom of inquiry and the appropriateness of the topic without being familiar with the book.
Your argument seems based on the possibility that the book is biased, or that the professors teaching it are biased. Your argument is freakishly lacking in evidence. Since it’s based on the content of the book or the teaching habits of the professor, you really need to have some evidence about one of these two things before your argument can be taken seriously.
celestina
"…but you won’t know for sure whether or not the text being debated in this thread is biased or not if you don’t read it!"
I don’t need to read the book just to propose a question or an idea. I don’t need to support a “claim with evidence” because I’m not “claiming” it to be biased, I’m only giving the thought. BTW, do you know what the weather is supposed to be like tomorrow, or should I wait until tomorrow to ask?
Daniel,
**Your argument is freakishly lacking in evidence **
Well (if I have to), I’ll take the word of a poster above that ‘Sells presents the Suras from a Muslim perspective’ as possible “evidence”, if I have to have “evidence” for a “claim” I haven’t made but only proposed as a possibility.
About the quote, the word “forced” is the key word in the post I made to RTF/ the one she was refering to. I was saying a christian book wouldn’t be forced on freshmen at UNC, she ignored the key word ‘forced’ and went with the argument that christian books can be found in schools. Then she said in other words that to say christian books can’t be found there is a lie often told by the religious right, totally missing my point.
It’s been known to happen. I guess the question is: do you give them the benefit of the doubt until such time as evidence appears that they’ve crossed a line? If you don’t, then the students might as well teach the courses themselves.
Well, of course it’s a ‘hot topic’ in the world today - but one that most Americans (myself included) are woefully ignorant about. Kudos to UNC for attempting to address this in their own backyard.
I did not ignore it. But as I’ve already said, my reply to Lizard should suffice.
Yes, you can be “forced” to read a book about Islam or even to critically analyze and attempt to aesthetically appreciate its scriptures. IOW, you can be “forced” to take a course in either the Bible or the Qur’an as philosophy/theology and literature. Neither oversteps the bounds.
This is what you call a “liberal arts education,” where you are “forced” through core requirements and whatnot, to be exposed to and wrestle with specific things that the faculty of the institution believes you should see and be forced to grapple with.
It would be overstepping the bounds for the professor to stifle the sort of criticism of the philosophy expressed in the text that you have attempted here. But as I said, you have to give the professor the benefit of the doubt until the professor plays the role of advocate for the faith in question, rather than that of a knowledgeable guide to its complexities.
Actually, that was tomndebb. And I don’t think he missed your point either.
It’s been known to happen. I guess the question is: do you give them the benefit of the doubt until such time as evidence appears that they’ve crossed a line? If you don’t, then the students might as well teach the courses themselves.
Well, of course it’s a ‘hot topic’ in the world today - but one that most Americans (myself included) are woefully ignorant about. Kudos to UNC for attempting to address this in their own backyard.
I did not ignore it. But as I’ve already said, my reply to Lizard should suffice.
Yes, you can be “forced” to read a book about Islam or even to critically analyze and attempt to aesthetically appreciate its scriptures. IOW, you can be “forced” to take a course in either the Bible or the Qur’an as philosophy/theology and literature. Neither oversteps the bounds.
This is what you call a “liberal arts education,” where you are “forced” through core requirements and whatnot, to be exposed to and wrestle with specific things that the faculty of the institution believes you should see and be forced to grapple with.
It would be overstepping the bounds for the professor to stifle the sort of criticism of the philosophy expressed in the text that you have attempted here. But as I said, you have to give the professor the benefit of the doubt until the professor plays the role of advocate for the faith in question, rather than that of a knowledgeable guide to its complexities.
Actually, that was tomndebb. And I don’t think he missed your point either.
Oh. My. God. Did you READ my post? The one where I said “proselityzing” was defined by the students not the administration? For the purposes of this discussion, they are the same. The point is they are books about their respective religions, irrespective of whether they that religion’s “holy book” or not.
**
Un-fucking believable. Here is what I said:
**
So, lets see. . . I said nobody had produced evidence the students who objected were Christians. You counter by saying a Christian group was looking for a student to use as a plaintiff in a suit. Here is what that does NOT prove:
1- That the student(s), if they find them, would sue for religious reasons. Being party to a lawsuit does not prove anyone’s religion, anymore than reading the Bible makes a person a Christian.
2- That the students who objected in the first place did so for religious reasons. Whether a Christian group now wants to sue the school over this is irrelevant to the original complaint, which was CLEARLY what I was talking about.
So, what can we conclude? I think several things.
1- You have completely and utterly failed to prove me wrong.
2- You don’t read other people’s posts very closely.
3- Your head is so far up your ass, strenuous effort will be required to dislodge it.
**
'Sez here you’re a former math teacher, RTF Since math is to the law as airplanes are to boats, I’d say you have a ways to go before you can start charging admission for your learned lectures on legal matters.
**
That’s right. The Supreme Court decided that’s what it meant. Do we know that’s why everyone who posted them did so for that reason? No, we don’t. You’re guessing, and so was the Supreme Court. It is a point that is impossible to prove.
**
Well, maybe so, but that’s more than the OP said was going on. Frankly, without sitting through the class UNC had in mind, neither you nor I really knows what the approach would’ve been in the classroom.
**
This reminds me of something I read once about racism. It argued that blacks had no right to be offended if white people used the word “nigger,” if they were using it in it’s historical context. In effect, this argument went, blacks may have found the word offensive, but had no right to be offended unless they knew for certain the word was used in an offensive manner.
Your casual dismissal of the true ramifications of forcing students to learn about one particular religion seems to follow the same logic; i.e., WE will tell YOU what this means, YOU have no say in it yourself.
And like the justification for the “n” word, your logic is flawed. I decide when someone is preaching to me, THEY do not. And I have the right to remove myself from that religious influence. Except, since this was a required course for all students, they were denied that freedom. Which is what this is all about.
**
True. Except as already noted, we don’t really know how it would have come across in the classroom. Not only that, but this was a course very specifically intended to focus on ONE religion: Islam.
Since pld may still be asleep, I’ll take a swing at this part:
Please provide a cite that that is the appropriate standard. If proselytizing is in the eye of the beholder, rather than subject to some semi-objective definition, then as I suggested earlier, algebra can be defined as proselytizing.
I’ll skip the part about whether the offended students were Christians, because that’s neither here nor there, AFAIAC. If this were to be proselytizing, it wouldn’t matter if the students were Christian, Buddhist, or atheist.
Now on to your post for me:
I guess you’ve noticed that nobody charges admission here. I’ve been following their decisions in this area, and I have good reason to think I understand them. Let’s see if you can prove otherwise.
Three points: one is that the Supreme Court’s ‘guesses’ are definitive. So if mine agree with theirs, I’m right. Two is that it’s not much of a guess; it leaps up and bites you in the face.
Three is that effect can be substituted for motivation: if the natural inference for a student to draw from the state’s use of religious material in the schools is that the school system stands behind these religious principles, it works out to the same thing.
Well, you certainly can’t point out First Amendment violations before they happen. Saying that one potentially could happen here because religion is being discussed, and gagging UNC on account of that, is tantamount to saying UNC can’t require their students to learn anything about religion.
The difference here is that many religions proselytize many other religions. “Nigger” is a slur that applies to exactly one racial group.
But even so, Americans of African descent are not, in reasonable places, given an absolute veto over the use of the term. For instance, despite occasional knuckling-under, we’ve largely come to an agreement that Huck Finncan be taught in the schools without being bowdlerized.
I’m beginning to think you don’t understand how a liberal-arts education works. The teacher exposes you to stuff, and the students get to intellectually wrestle with it.
If the prof stifles certain points of view in class, then is the time you object. Not before. Otherwise, as I said to Double Darren (eel free to read), the students might as well teach the courses themselves.
Nope, the final say belongs to neither of you; that’s why we have a legal system. But until the alleged proselytization takes place, there’s nothing to judge.
Nope. IF the course includes proselytization, THEN they have the right to remove themselves. They are denied the freedom to remove themselves in advance simply because the subject material is religion, when there is not yet any evidence of a First Amendment violation.
RTF, no tomndebb either missed the point or avoided it. I was talking about being forced, he was talking about religious books being in schools.
"Yes, you can be “forced” to read a book about Islam or even to critically analyze and attempt to aesthetically appreciate its scriptures. IOW, you can be “forced” to take a course in either the Bible or the Qur’an as philosophy/theology and literature. Neither oversteps the bounds."
What other books on religion are forced on all freshmen students at UNC, not just those taking philosophy/religion class or needing it for their major?
Again, DD, you’re conflating two points (look at the top of this page):
It is acceptable for a school to require all students to take a specific class; and
It is acceptable for professors in a specific class to require the students to read a religious text, as long as the class is not proselytizing.
Do you disagree with #1 or #2? If so, please elaborate. If not, how do you get to your argument that
#3 It is unacceptable for a school to require all students to take a specific class in which the professors require the students to read a religious text
?
I hear you asserting that that’s unacceptable, but I don’t see you advancing reasons WHY it’s unacceptable.
Finally, I’ll forestall one potential argument: the chances of UNC’s using the book for proselytizing are slim to nil. I’ll bet folks good money that the UNC administration is overwhelmingly Christian, Jewish, Atheist, and Agnostic, with a miniscule number of Muslims.
If you believe that statement #3 is true, please provide some argument to that effect.
AFAIAC, this could have been U-Va or UCSD or University of Iowa or wherever. It’s not like the issues of this debate would vary if this had happened at some other school.
So I think the question isn’t germane.
Almost all liberal arts colleges and universities have core requirements, these days. IOW, they ‘force’ everyone to encounter a fair chunk of specific literature, historical, scientific, and cultural knowledge, and so forth.
Neither you nor Lizard have demonstrated why being ‘forced’ to learn something about the world’s religions isn’t on a par with this, other than arguing that such a course could be a front for proselytizing.
As if that’s a real likelihood, given the liberal leanings of most American academics, and the conservative stance of much of Islam on many issues dear to liberals’ hearts (such as the roles of women and gays in society). If the allegedly anti-Christian academics are going to become devotees of a non-Christian religion, it might be Buddhism, it might be Wicca, but it’s really not likely to be Islam.
But that aside, every kindergarten teacher in America could be using her basically unsupervised time with her five-year-old charges as an opportunity to proselytize them. Should we monitor each classroom to prevent that from happening? Or do we give the teachers the benefit of the doubt, assuming they’re not teaching Johnny that Jesus is his savior until we have some evidence to the contrary?
And if the latter, then why don’t we do the same for public university classes, where the students are much less impressionable (we hope) than five-year-olds?
This argument is getting to the point of Beckettian absurdity (or maybe Ionesco). Lookahere, D[sup]2[/sup],
A. A liberal arts education entails, or ought to, a required core curriculum to expose students to new ideas. Some schools require students to take Western Civ survey courses or a Great Books class, both of which require students to read mandatory books.
So, we establish the principle that schools can require students to read a set course of books. Do you disagree? If not, we come to
B. Some required books are also religious texts. For example, any English lit course worth its salt requires Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost, both works that deal heavily with Christian theology. Many university English lit courses also require students to read selections from the King James version of the Bible, because the phrases and language have affected the course of the development of English. In other words, religious texts may be read for a secular purpose. Do you disagree?
C. If a required work can discuss Christian imagery and theology, then it can also discuss non-Christian imagery and theology. Do you disagree?
D. The vast majority of non-MENA descended Americans are grossly ignorant of Islam, yet today’s political climate requires U.S, citizenry to come to grips with an increasingly agitated and resentful Muslim anti-Americanism. Moreover, Muslim Americans have become the target of hostility and bigotry precisely because other Americans know so little about the Muslim faith, and it is this disaffection and alienation that may breed future domestic terrorism. If other Americans could learn more about Islam, they would be more welcoming of their Muslim neighbors, whose numbers are increasing rapidly. In short, learning more about Islam is good for the future security and health of the American polity. Do you disagree?
Neither you nor Lizard have demonstrated why being ‘forced’ to learn something about the world’s religions isn’t on a par with this, other than arguing that such a course could be a front for proselytizing.
world’s religions? What other ones? Yes, the question is “germane” for this reason.
Daniel, #1 is your opinion, and #2 I clearly stated that I have participated in such. As for #3 don’t play stupid, you know no such christian book would ever be forced on the students at UNC. This book is clearly not an objective look on the koran.
I’d have much less a problem with the whole thing if there was a genuine effort to teach the kids to take a look at all religion’s texts but to only review one is not a complete approach to this type of study. By it’s nature it is selective and anyone who knows the flavor of thought at UNC knows no christian book would be offered as the textbook and that this “objective” lesson for the kids is bogus. Not only that but are there no more objective books on the koran that could have been chosen?
How the fuck would you know what the book is about if you refuse to read it as you’ve stated before? Can you Vulcan mind-meld with any book and immediatly divine its essence? And htf would you know what books UNC would “force” on its students? At ECU, which is in the same system, there were undergrad courses in the Bible, Divine Comedy, Milton, and other books that explain Christianity in cultural context. Not to include the required reading for English 1100, 1200, and 2000 (required for all incoming freshmen) which could and often did include passages from those books. In 10th grade World Lit in the NC public school system, it is required that students get something from the Bible as an example of Hebrew literature, be it Genesis, Noah’s Ark, Esther, or Ruth. This is information is not provided for your benefit (as I prefer to engage in a battle of wits with fully armed opponents) but for others who may think you actually have something like a valid argument.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Double Darren *
**world’s religions? What other ones?**I think gobear beat you to the punch there.
OK, now we’re getting somewhere. You say it’s OK for them to require exposure to knowledge about the world’s religions, as long as they include all of them (I guess you mean all the major ones, anyway).
So you’re saying that the university should ignore criteria such as relevance and usefulness? The problem here is that the tower isn’t sufficiently ivory? This seems kooky to me.
I’m still trying to figure out this alternate UNCiverse where a liberal, anti-Christian faculty turns out to be apologists for a more conservative faith than the one they’re rejecting.
