A college that trains young Christians to be politicians

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 01:08

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Discriminating against homosexuals by not giving them the same civil rights of partnership is mistreating another human being

This is a pretty complex issue here- I do see your point but I think that it is still not quite intolerence. I could say the same about abortion- I think there are tons of innocent unborn children who are being mistreated; however, I don't think that pro-choicers are intolerent. I think they are wrong in their assesment of what constitutes human life.

I think the issue of homosexual marriage comes back to a place where state and church are not quite as seperate as they should be. People of faith view marriage as being ordained and defined by God; other people do not. The state has long upheld this teaching of the church, which it ought not to have done. This didn't provide a practical problem for the most part until recently, but now the question is being raised as to why the state should support the churchs definition of marriage. I'll agree that it is unfair for the state to define marriage in a way that excludes the homosexual community, but It seems equally wrong to me that the state would deny the churchs definition as well. Unfortunatly, we can't have both. Personally I'd rather can the concept of legal marriage altogehter, but that simply isn't going to happen. So what we're left with is a question where someone is going to be told that they are wrong, by the state. There is no good answer for this question. Civil Unions are about the best compamise, but it seems to be a solution almost everyone finds unacceptable.

But going back to your statement, you say that for someone to say that marriage is between a man and a woman only means he or she is a bigot because of the consequences to a homosexual. So say we broaden the definition of marriage to be more inclusive- what about polyamarous relationships? I know some mormans who would like to be able to marry multiple wives. So now should we extend the definition of marriage to include their viewpoint as well? Or if we do not, are we then bigots?

Now personally, I'm in favor of civil unions- I don't know what your friend at the coffee shop would say. In fact, what I really think is that they should ALL be civil unions and let "marriage" fall out of the governments territory. However, as long as government is going to be deciding what is and is not a marriage, I guess I'm left with voting what I believe. I feel that is consistent with the spirit of this nation as well as my faith.

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I think human beings are marvelous creatures and it's humanity that deserves worship.

Ah, well this is definitly the big point of contention. Almost every point of view I have comes from the idea that we are all fallen sinners in need of grace. My observation of people in the world has bourn this out- we do not seem to be a glorious people to me, but rather greedy, hurtful, selfish, and violent.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 01:15

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I was surprised that home schoolers aren't required to pass the same basic aptitude tests I did to graduate high school.

I don't have any statistics at hand, but EVERY homeschooler I've ever met has been a cut above the average individual as far as knowledge and education goes. I think tests are not required because they are not generally needed.

I think there are more carrots and sticks in place for the public schools because of the problems there. You don't need a carrot or stick to force a parent to do their best to educate their child (once they've made the personal commitment to do so). Underpaid teachers are a different story. Not that I'm a big fan of standardized tests anyway, but that's another post.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 01:28

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I guess I draw the line at having an opinion vs. forcing an action.

The thing is, though, that any political opinion does have an action. Like if we decide that we value people's basic needs, so we take money from the rich and give it to poor who cannot sustain themselves. What if some people don't agree, though, and think that they should be entitled to do what they want with their money. In fact, what if their belief system tells them that by being merciful they are hurting people (Ayn Rand, anyone?) We have now taken harmful action against these people person by taking their money- are we who have supported such a tax bigots? It's not good enough to call these people stingy or selfish. What makes one person's definition of what is good better than someone elses? At some point, we decide what the law is and someone loses. In the cases of our tax law, the unwilling tax payer must give up a porition of his or her earned income because we have agreed collectively that this is the moral and right thing to do.

Posted by: Dylan

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 01:33

Jeff, we agree about civil unions vs. marriage. I would be thrilled if civil unions were the only thing sanctioned by the legal system and the definition of marriage was up to the individuals.

But, like you said, it's not practical to seperate them in the near term and when push comes to shove I will vote my beliefs which are driven by fairness to all. I think equal rights for all beliefs is the tenet on which this country is founded.

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So say we broaden the definition of marriage to be more inclusive- what about polyamarous relationships? I know some mormans who would like to be able to marry multiple wives. So now should we extend the definition of marriage to include their viewpoint as well? Or if we do not, are we then bigots?

I absolutely believe poligamy should be legal if all parties are consenting. And, yes, I believe we are bigots if we don't extend legal rights to those who choose that life.

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Almost every point of view I have comes from the idea that we are all fallen sinners in need of grace.

Does this mean you can't love yourself? (That's an honest question. I'm not laying a trap.)

Posted by: jimhogan

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 01:38

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This is a pretty complex issue here- I do see your point but I think that it is still not quite intolerence.

Jeff, perhaps I am diverting this thread a little but so be it.....

If you want some of us (me?) to attend to your opinion on things like ho-mo-sex-u-al-i-ty, I think you are going to have to first post and tell us how things went at your dinner with Dan (djc).

If you haven't been able to schedule this yet, please let us know when you do and how it went.

Zero cost to you, right? Just a few minutes of your time.

Posted by: SE_Sport_Driver

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 02:07

Assuming that all people who are Christians have certain beliefs (other than those that define Christianity which is basically limited to the belief that Christ died for our sins) is Prejudice. For example, you might assume that because I am Christian I don't believe in evolution. Or that all Mexicans are lazy or that all Irish are drunks. Each is about as accurate (not at all).

Again, I'm well aware that this is a politically correct viewpoint, and gets many nods from my liberal friends, but it is inaccurate and it is prejudice.

The application of this, for instance to distrust all Christians or oppose any Christian from public office, is bigotry based on prejudice.

Kind of like when many people opposed JFK from being President because they thought, as a Catholic, he'd be taking orders from the Vatican. Interesting how the movement that aims to mimic this behavior finds a home at his old political party.

The simple fact is that most action taken by politicians are a result of that person's idiology. Whether that idiology is extreme liberalism (free markets are bad, big government is better than limited government, etc, etc) or faith in God (a woman's right to her body does not trump an unborn child's right to live because all human life is created in the image of God), it's still the driving factor in most behavior. Even an anarchist follows the idiology of anarchy. Based on what viewpoint people think is most like their own, people vote for a person so that they can act within the law in a way that makes sense to that particular idiology.

Don't get me wrong, I know there are some Christian people out there that do hold the views you are so upset about, but don't paint with too broad of a brush. It wouldn't be right for me to assume you distrust Christians so you must be a liberal and therefore you support the torching of my SUV or the founding papers of the USA to be banned because they refer to a God. Maybe if you told me you were a member of the ACLU that'd be fitting, but not the simple admission of being a liberal.

Posted by: bonzi

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 04:25

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I'm intolerant of those who are intolerant. I don't know what that makes me....

Yes, is it allowable to be intolerant of radically intolerants? That is the question Europe is struggling with (e.g. Netherlands in the wake of Theo van Gogh murder).

Ugh, have to run now. Pitty - so interesting "religious" thread not started by me for a change...

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 05:05

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If you want some of us (me?) to attend to your opinion on things like ho-mo-sex-u-al-i-ty, I think you are going to have to first post and tell us how things went at your dinner with Dan (djc).

Unfortunately it never happened. In that thread, Dan essentially said that he was trying to drive home that there are people behind these ideas that we are arguing- they aren't just notions without consequence. I agree with that completely, and would've met (and would still meet), but the idea seemed to get dropped.

Honestly, though, I'm not trying to argue my beliefs about homosexulaity here. I went into all of that (which I know we've all heard before) to try and explain where the issues are and this isn't a simple case of Christians hating homosexuals.

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Zero cost to you, right? Just a few minutes of your time.

If Dan still wants to meet, I'm available. And if I gave him the impression that I was less than interested, I apologize. LIke I said, I got the feeling that he'd made his point and did not wish to persue this any longer.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 05:17

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But, like you said, it's not practical to seperate them in the near term and when push comes to shove I will vote my beliefs which are driven by fairness to all.

Yes, when push comes to shove, we all vote our beliefs. That's how the system was set up, and I don't personally believe that doing so is bigotry. Our beliefs have consequences, and if enough people believe the wrong/right thing, that is what is going to happen.

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I absolutely believe poligamy should be legal if all parties are consenting. And, yes, I believe we are bigots if we don't extend legal rights to those who choose that life.

Well, were not talking about making poligamy legal here (is it illegal?) We're talking about re-defining marriage to include more than two people. Don't know what effect that would have on our tax code, but it seems to me this would not be an easy change to make and apply the law fairly.

And then, once marriage can be definined so flexibly where basically any relationship can be considered a marriage, how to you regulate it? What if two rommates decide to get "married" in order to get a tax break. What about a whole fraternity? The problem with this is that the idea of state sanctioned marriage starts really falling apart because it was never designed to fit these kinds of structures.

But let me be completely clear on this- people can do what they want and I'm not going to stand in their way. People can get married and live together in whatever configuration they feel fits. It's when the state gets invovled and starts sanctioning what is and what isn't marriage that I have a problem.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 05:21

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Does this mean you can't love yourself? (That's an honest question. I'm not laying a trap.)

No trap. In fact, I don't love myself. I feel that I am a sinner in need of daily mercy. However, I believe that God loves me so incredibly much that He died on the cross for me. So do I feel that I have worth? I do, but it does not come from myself, it comes from the love of God.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 05:45

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Yes, is it allowable to be intolerant of radically intolerants?

This questions depends on how you define "intolerant". In today's world this word, tolerance tends to mean "value all beliefs equally", in which case you create a paradox. Under this definition, those who don't value tolerance have a lesser belief to those who do, and so to be truly tolerent you must be intolerent.

However, if you define tolerence as "valuing people equally, regardless of their ideas", then it is a different question. If people are mistreating others who disagree with them and you do not tolerate this, you are not being intolerent of their beliefs, but rather their actions, which is perfectly acceptable. When someone has a different idea from yourself, you are free to think it foolish and silly, as long as you respect the person.

Though most people who use the word "intolerant" use the first definition, more often than not on this BBS it seems people adhere to the second (which you might gather that I favor). In fact, based on his own clarifications, it seemed to me that Dylan only considers people intolerent when they are taking actions of mistreating others- a violation of the second definition of tolerance. So I think he is being consistent, at least in his perceptions.

Where I disagree is that I think that the issue of homosexual marriage is not a simple question of Christians trying to impose their beliefs on others in a hurtful way (which would be intolerant). Rather, Christians are trying to defend a closely held belief from being re-defined by the state, which is an over stepping of the state's boundries. Later Dylan admitted that given this difficult (and basically unresolvabale) issue, he'd vote his values- which is all that the Christians accused of bigotry are doing. They are not (unless I am mistaken), calling homosexuals names, spaking ill of them, or driving around looking for homosexuals that they can beat up. There is plenty of that in and out of the church, and it is completely reprehensible (and the very definition of bigotry), but these are not the actions of the ones he is calling bigots.

Posted by: peter

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 07:46

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Of course, even in a private school there's going to be some parent regulation over what is being learned by the child, and that's a good thing. Parents SHOULD be that invovled and children do need to learn that there are times to question even what teachers tell them.

Yes, and this is sort-of the crux of the unease I feel about home-schooling, especially home-schooling as motivated by a particular religious allegiance. Children also need to learn (in general, maybe not so much in your case) that there are times to question even what their parents tell them. The sorts of parents who don't even want their child exposed to humanism, Islam, Buddhism, atheism and so on until the child is sure in his or her Christianity, strike me as being terrified that their religion isn't good enough to win out in a free and informed decision on the child's part.

Even from a Christian point of view, which would God rather have: an adherent-by-default, or an adherent-by-choice?

Peter

Posted by: mlord

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 11:07

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I don't have any statistics at hand, but EVERY homeschooler I've ever met has been a cut above the average individual as far as knowledge and education goes. I think tests are not required because they are not generally needed.

And each of us is also a far better driver than the average road idiot, too.

And each of us has a higher IQ than the average person on the street.

Etc..

Lots of nice subjective things that we just know to be true, or at least they are for me

No need for some embarrassing unbiased testing to objectively compare me against the average slob..

Right?

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 12:59

Exactly. And part of education is knowledge of what other people think and confronting opinions opposing your own. Assuming that Dylan's correct in his assessment that the college kids he refers to have so little experience with cultures other than their own as to not be able to comprehend them, those kids have been poorly educated. That doesn't mean that they have to agree with those other cultures (in fact, it may mean that they would disagree with them even more than they do by default now), but the notion that they have no comprehension of them is frightening. I have had more than my fair share of experience with provincials of this type, ranging from people who are otherwise idiots to people who are otherwise brilliant, and they are, one and all, frightening people.

Many Christians say a faith untested is no faith at all. I'd argue that any belief system, religious, philosophical, or political, untested, is no belief at all.

Posted by: Cybjorg

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 15:54

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The sorts of parents who don't even want their child exposed to humanism, Islam, Buddhism, atheism and so on until the child is sure in his or her Christianity, strike me as being terrified that their religion isn't good enough to win out in a free and informed decision on the child's part.

Go anywhere in the world and this is most likely the case. Take Islam, for example. The general Islamic world-view is just as guilty of the above (not exposing a child to outside sources until firmly grounded in one's faith). At least in this situation, it's the parent's free will choice rather than one dictated by the government.

Posted by: tahir

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 16:03

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The general Islamic world-view is just as guilty of the above (not exposing a child to outside sources until firmly grounded in one's faith).

Undoubtedly, a sad state of affairs.

Posted by: jimhogan

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 17:45

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LIke I said, I got the feeling that he'd made his point and did not wish to persue this any longer.

I really did not get that impression but I am just a bystander and I could be wrong. I just thought his offer was very remarkable, deserved to be accepted, and *would* as a by-product have made it easier to listen to your opinions in this realm.

Who knows what conditions might have changed since those discussions. Having said what I had on my mind, I'll leave this to the principals.

Posted by: visuvius

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 17:48

At what point do you expose the child to other religions, and, does it make sense to? Should a 10 year old be given a full explanation of the 3 major religions, and then a quick overview of the 15 bajillion other religions so that from there he/she can make an informed decision? Or is the parents right to choose to bring their child up in faith of their choice, the one that has worked best for them and which they would like to extend to their offspring.

I have no problem with children/teenagers being exposed to other world religions, because I hope to feel, as a parent, that I will have done my job in convincing him/her that my religion (Islam in my case) is the way to go. If I've done my part, then he/she won't be particularly interested in turrning Christian or Buddhist or christian scientist.

I guess I'm having trouble understanding the alternative to raising a child in one's own faith. Give them all the options right off the bat?

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 17:51

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I really did not get that impression but I am just a bystander and I could be wrong. I just thought his offer was very remarkable, deserved to be accepted, and *would* as a by-product have made it easier to listen to your opinions in this realm.

Well I will follow up, then, and see what he wants to do. I thought I'd made it clear that I was interested, but I don't remember the exact course of events. It is probably true that I could have persued it a little more actively than I did.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 18:03

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Lots of nice subjective things that we just know to be true, or at least they are for me

I'm not sure what you're driving at. I wasn't homeschooled so my perceptions are not based on my own experience but others that I've seen.

And to be completely honest, I've seen negatives with homeschooling. While every homeschooler I've met seems to be a cut above in the education department, I've seen many who's social skills have suffered greatly. My wife has also observed this so there's no way that we would homeschool. I say this to emphasize the point that I have no reason to view homeschooling more positively or to stack the deck in favor of homeschooling. I think there are problems, they just aren't related to the educational value.

The route I've seen that has really impressed me is when children spend the formative years in a private school (not homeschool) but then trasition to public school for High School. This seems to give teenagers the right opportunities to learn about opposing viewpoints at the time they really begin to question things.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 18:09

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I guess I'm having trouble understanding the alternative to raising a child in one's own faith. Give them all the options right off the bat?

Well, the answer we get from the public school system is to try and educate a child in a religiously neutral environment. Unfortunately, there are decisions that are going to be made an philosophies that are going to be emphasized- you can't escape these things in education. And when you cannot mention or talk about any specific religion you end up with tacet athiesm, which makes me uncomfortable. Not that I think emphasizing Christianty or any other faith is the right answer either. This is one problem I have with public schools in general and why we will likely send our children to a private, Christian school for the first couple of years.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 18:12

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Exactly. And part of education is knowledge of what other people think and confronting opinions opposing your own. Assuming that Dylan's correct in his assessment that the college kids he refers to have so little experience with cultures other than their own as to not be able to comprehend them, those kids have been poorly educated. That doesn't mean that they have to agree with those other cultures (in fact, it may mean that they would disagree with them even more than they do by default now), but the notion that they have no comprehension of them is frightening. I have had more than my fair share of experience with provincials of this type, ranging from people who are otherwise idiots to people who are otherwise brilliant, and they are, one and all, frightening people.

Many Christians say a faith untested is no faith at all. I'd argue that any belief system, religious, philosophical, or political, untested, is no belief at all.

Agreed. At my school (Houston Baptist University, very much a conservative Christian university) they definitely taught non-Christian ideas and gave the students exposure, even though every one on the faculty was a professing Christian. I remember the president of the university teaching our bible study and explaining that this was intentional. He said even if a teaching wasn't consistent with Christianity, we still needed to know about it to be come well educated individuals.

Posted by: peter

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 18:18

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Should a 10 year old be given a full explanation of the 3 major religions, and then a quick overview of the 15 bajillion other religions so that from there he/she can make an informed decision? Or is the parents right to choose to bring their child up in faith of their choice, the one that has worked best for them and which they would like to extend to their offspring.

I don't think a 10-year-old needs a full explanation of other people's religions; it's not so much about detailing the other religions themselves, but about respecting the humanity of adherents of other religions. I think a 10-year-old can, and should, know that different people have very different beliefs about religion, and that it's not right to hate or disrespect people whose beliefs differ from one's own, except maybe where those beliefs lead to genuine human suffering.

Peter

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 18:21

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The sorts of parents who don't even want their child exposed to humanism, Islam, Buddhism, atheism and so on until the child is sure in his or her Christianity, strike me as being terrified that their religion isn't good enough to win out in a free and informed decision on the child's part.

The problem is that in the public schools you don't get exposed to all of that- you get exposed to humanism and that's pretty much it. I'd have 0 problem sending my child to a school that was truly open to the marketplace of ideas, but it just isn't the case. If Christanity, Islam, Buddism, or any other relgion were to be discussed in a classroom that teacher would risk being fired. A good friend of mine had to skate that line all of the time because he was a debate coach and often the kids would bring up faith during issues. He'd have to be very careful about correcting their arguments and pointing out flaws in their reasoning. It shouldn't be that hard. He was there to teach debate, and debate often finds itself in the realm of religion and philosophy. Yet he had one arm tied behind his back as he worked with these kids, all of whom really wanted to discuss religion. In fact, the biggest problem he had was correcting the terrible argument that the Christian students would come up with. He had 0 credibility with them because he had to remain silent on the issue and tacetly affirm the secular side of the argument.

Posted by: frog51

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 18:25

Well, I am firmly of the opinion that kids should be brought up with no religion - no anti religion, but definitely no religion - because anything you do before they cana make their own mind up is pretty much brainwashing.

To cheer up the grandparents, both sets of whom are christians, we blessed our kids in a kind of non-denominational way (although it was a christian minister) but we feel if they want religion they will choose it. I sincerely hope they don't, because I place the blame for most of the major conflicts the world has seen at the foot of religion, but if they do I will support them.

I know this sounds small minded, and I really respect folks like Jeff and others who have a deep rooted faith and seem like wonderful people, but I don't see any place for religion in my world, or that of the people I know. We are reliant solely on self, friends and family, and we love it that way. Religion just seems like giving an excuse for failure, that will be sorted by a higher being. I don't believe in a higher being so want to ensure that I srt all my issues myself before I die.

I have no forgiveness other than that of my family and peers, and that is the way I like it.

I kind of agree with Douglas Adams on this topic, I think.

Posted by: peter

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 18:26

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The problem is that in the public schools you don't get exposed to all of that- you get exposed to humanism and that's pretty much it.

Do you mean that teachers actively promote humanism, or just that they don't much talk about God outside religious education lessons? If the latter, I don't think that counts as "tacit atheism" any more than a lack of much talk about the world being round outside geography lessons, counts as "tacit flat-earthism".

Peter

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 19:02

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Do you mean that teachers actively promote humanism, or just that they don't much talk about God

I think that is active, though not intentional. You see, when you leave religious teaching out, something has to fill that void. When you discuss literature then you discuss the philosophies found in the books. But only philosophies not tied to a specific religions are fair game here.

All throughout my education self-love and the teaching of humans as nobel creaters was emphasized. Not once did I experience a discussion that mankind was fallen and sinful, unless it was a historic footnote or an example of religious persecution. Yet I think Christianity is not alone in its view of humanity. So if we are being religiously neutral, why do we only get perspectives opposite to that which a great many in our country profess? I think the reason is that it is impossible to be neutral. We all have underlying philosophies, and when one group must stifle theirs and not discuss it, those with "acceptable" philosophies will be heard.

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outside religious education lessons?

There is no such thing as "religous education lessons" in our public schools.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 19:21

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Well, I am firmly of the opinion that kids should be brought up with no religion - no anti religion, but definitely no religion

Unfortunatly I just don't think that's possible. Because schools don't just teach us facts, they teach us how to think about those facts. And how you think about things is directly tied to your views of religion and philosophy. If you teach a child to think about facts outside of the context of religion, then you are teaching anti-religion. I don't think there's any way to teach people how to think in a religiously neutral way.

What we end up with these days is that parents who want their children to be publicly educated have to "bolt on" religion after the fact in Sunday School. Since there are conflicts there with what they get at school, this can sometimes be difficult (though sometimes difficult things are the most healthy).

My story is that I was publicly educated with Christiantiy "bolted on" on Sunday mornings. Of course, as many of you know already (because I've told my story before), my parents were very open to letting me make my own decisions. As soon as I was old enough to want to stop going to Sunday School, they let me. It lasted about three weeks as I established my freedom. I explored things of faith and ended up trusting in Christ as my savior. And in the end, my faith looks very different from anyone else in my family (my father is an athiest, my mother is a liberal Christian, and my sister is somewhere in between myself and my mother).

My mother was always asking me questions, causing me to question what I was learning in school and what I heard on the radio. I was huge into Rush, who is definitely NOT a Christian band. She would question lyrics like "why does it happen/ because it happens" and how that made me feel. How it affected my beliefs. It was this healthy upbringing that gave me the freedom to choose faith in Jesus. I was raised in Christianity sort of, but the real decisions were left up to me.

I do lament that the schools seem to emphasize philosophies that I don't hold, but that is the reality of living in a secular world. As my mother showed me, a parent can raise a child to make intelligent faith deicions and not be railroaded by the world around him or her.

If it were only about faith issues, I would probably not choose private schools for my children. But lately it seems that public schools are educating more and more poorly and the best teachers are leaving. When my friends who are teachers in public schools say the won't put their kids in public schools, that causes me pause. And only one of my friends who was a teacher is still doing it- and only part time at that. The rest were just too miserable because of how their hands were tied (and this is not just about religious issues). By contrast, I've met many teachers who work in private schools for less money and are completely happy. It just seems to be a healthier enviornment all around to put my children in a private school. We'll see though, we're still years away from that.

Posted by: peter

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 19:48

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All throughout my education self-love and the teaching of humans as nobel creaters was emphasized. Not once did I experience a discussion that mankind was fallen and sinful, unless it was a historic footnote or an example of religious persecution.

So where would such a discussion be relevant? "The plays of William Shakespeare are great works of English literature, but just imagine how much better they'd be if he hadn't been fallen and sinful"? "The periodic table of elements was first laid out by Mendeleev, who incidentally was fallen and sinful, and so despite sometimes appearing quite useful to chemists and physicists, his work is inherently imperfect and flawed"? Most of any well-rounded education consists of the creations or deductions of humans, and I can't see how their state of grace or otherwise is an issue.

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Yet I think Christianity is not alone in its view of humanity.

Wasn't salvation by grace St Paul's idea? According to Wikipedia, the notion of even pious adherents still being full of sin isn't really the same in Judaism and doesn't exist in Islam. Buddhists' and Hindus' samsara isn't really the same thing either. Fallenness is AFAICT a pretty Christianity-specific concept, and not shared by all Christians at that.

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So if we are being religiously neutral, why do we only get perspectives opposite to that which a great many in our country profess? I think the reason is that it is impossible to be neutral. We all have underlying philosophies, and when one group must stifle theirs and not discuss it, those with "acceptable" philosophies will be heard.

I don't really see omitting any discussion of humanity's state of grace or otherwise, as being "opposite" to confirming our fallenness and sinfulness. The opposite would be "In addition to being a great playwright, Shakespeare was thought of by God as being well righteous". Nobody says that!

And after all, if all humans are fallen and sinful, surely it doesn't need mentioning every time?

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There is no such thing as "religous education lessons" in our public schools.

Oh, I hadn't fully appreciated that. So public schools aren't even allowed to describe the tenets of the world's various religions, even if there's no attempt at proselytisation? That does indeed sound like a worrying gap in those children's education.

Peter

Posted by: Dylan

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 19:57

Quote:
So public schools aren't even allowed to describe the tenets of the world's various religions, even if there's no attempt at proselytisation? That does indeed sound like a worrying gap in those children's education.

I don't know if it wasn't allowed but I received almost no religion education in public school. Because I was also raised in a non-religous household I entered my adult life with almost no knowledge of religion except for a few tidbits about the crusades, inquisition and the Church of England's split from the Catholics because the king wanted to get divorced or something like that. Religion was a backdrop to my history classes but the teachings, beliefs and differences among the religions wasn't taught in my public schools.

It's a terrible gap in my understanding of the world and one that I'm filling as an adult. Hence, I observe the Patrick Hentry students and start threads like this one.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 21:16

Quote:
I think Jeff overstates the lack of religion in schools.

All I know is that most of my friends who are or were teachers are VERY afraid of slipping up and getting fired. Perhaps they misunderstand what is and is not OK. I do know that in my high school, student led Christian organizations had to meet before school lest other students get confused with an organization meeting in a classroom after school and think that the school was endorsing the Christian religion. To me that is getting a little rediculouse (especially when Jewish organizations could mean whenever they wanted).

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but the notion that it's illegal to even mention religion in public school is incorrect and one that the religious right is likely to espouse, as it shows how we leftist big-government types are anti-Christian.

My understanding is that a teacher is not to talk about their personal faith with students, even if asked about it. I'll admit that I could be mistaken, but I know my friends who were teachers were under the same impression.

Quote:
Of course, most of the same would have a hissy-fit if students were equally exposed to Islam. Not Jeff, I'm sure.

Correct, this would not bug me in the least.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 21:37

Quote:
So where would such a discussion be relevant?

Discussing themes in literature, historical context, government philosophies, etc. Not so much in stuff like math and science, but even in science you get into the ID vs. Evolution stuff. There has been important Christian literature, yet we read very little of it. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" was mentioned, but we didn't read it or discuss it beyond bing repressive and puritanical. Had we read "Paradise Lost" or "Crime And Punishment" there would have been definite call for looking into the Christian beliefs of the authors, but I suppose those are a bit advanced for High School studies.

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Wasn't salvation by grace St Paul's idea? According to Wikipedia, the notion of even pious adherents still being full of sin isn't really the same in Judaism and doesn't exist in Islam. Buddhists' and Hindus' samsara isn't really the same thing either. Fallenness is AFAICT a pretty Christianity-specific concept, and not shared by all Christians at that.

Well, you are correct in that Christianity has a pretty discinct view of humanity. There ARE similarities in other faiths, however, and many do not agree with the exaltation of natural man.

Quote:
I don't really see omitting any discussion of humanity's state of grace or otherwise, as being "opposite" to confirming our fallenness and sinfulness.

Ok, here's an example. We studied "A Wizard of Earthsea". Don't know how many of you have read it. The main theme of the story is that we can't divorce ourselves from our evil side, so we must join our evil and good to become whole. So here we have this philosophy that we discussed quite a bit, had to underline in the book and whatnot. Fine, it's important to learn to read for themes and understand what an author is saying. I'm all for that, and the tale wasn't that bad. But certainly we can explore some themes that disagree and say it is our responsibility to excise our dark sides and that only then can we be whole. Yet that idea was not discussed. So you emphasize a non-Christian theme (that we must learn to embrace the darkness within us) and leave out the Christian theme (that only by ridding ourselves of darkness can we be made whole). So now we have by default emphasized a non-Christian theme in literature.

I'm not saying there must be a counterbalance to every literary theme or governmental philosophy- only that it always felt to me like Christian (and other religion's) themes were avoided. Of course, those were my impressions years ago and my memory may be faulty.

My central idea is, though, that if you explore non-Christian themes and expressly leave out Christian ones, you are tacetly teaching non-Christian philosophy, however unintentionally.

But if you want real proof, how about this: When I say things like "Christianity teaches the people are inherintly wicked", I almost always get shocked looks and responses (like above in this thread). Yet that has been a core tenet of Christiantiy since the first centry (and arguably even before that). So why are people shocked to hear it now when most of the U.S. professes Christianity? Because we have competing notions of the goodness of man that are taught in our school and fed to us on television. We here it so much without counterpoint that who can blame us for believing it? Now, if you decide personally that you think man is inherintly good, then that's totally cool. But if you believe it because that's what is emphasized in our education, then education is doing exactly what everyone is accusing Christians of whanting to do- it is predisposing children a certain philosophy and not giving them the chance to decide for themselves. Now granted, I've already admitted that this theme is not from education alone, but also hollywood and TV. However, the media has not responsibility for giving a balanced presentation- our schools, OTOH, should.

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 21:38

Quote:
My understanding is that a teacher is not to talk about their personal faith with students, even if asked about it.

I can understand that. Teachers are there to show the students what is right or how to think intellectually, and talking about religious beliefs could imply that that is what is right or how to think philosophically.

But talking about World War II without mentioning Judaism or Hitler's beliefs would be absurd.

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I do know that in my high school, student led Christian organizations had to meet before school

Not the case in mine, though I can think of only one explicitly Christian org, the FCA. Even so, all groups meeting in school had to have a teacher sponsor, and that lends itself to implying support.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 21:47

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I'm replying to this one because it is such an incomprehensible concept to me and, frankly, sounds like a miserable way to live. How can you have any sense of self worth?

Yeah, I get that a lot. Which is strange because it's been a clear teaching of Christianity since the first century.

Truth is, I know that I am worth something because God paid the ultimate price for me, despite my sinful nature. I take comfort not in the idea of my actions and rightouness makeing me a good person, but in the notion that God loves me perfectly and fully.

Bottom line, I am a very happy person who finds his worth in Jesus Christ.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 21:50

Quote:
and talking about religious beliefs could imply that that is what is right or how to think philosophically.

Right- but in some courses philosophy is inescapable. In these cases, not taking about personal beliefs implies that these philosophies can be approriately adressed with out the framework of belief. Now many might agree with this notion, but I certainly don't. I think faith is essential to philosophy.

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 22:12

I think that religious faith is a particular segment of philosophy, and an aberrant one at that. Personally, I don't think that Jesus' philosophy need necessarily be tied to religion. I know that there's that whole son-of-God thing, but, it seems to me that that's more an element of Paulism than Christianity. Of course, Paulism coopted Christianity in the first century AD, and the first no longer really exists (and I think that Paul is largely responsible for what's been wrong with Christianity since the beginning), but that's another argument.

There are many secular philosophies, and there are many religious philosophies. But neither set requires adherence in order to study it. I can know about Existentialism and Deism and Taoism and Confucianism and Objectivism and Nihilism and Secular Humanism and Unitarianism and Neo-Conservatism and Naziism and Satanism without having to believe in any of it, just as I can know about Christianity and reject it just as much as I reject the others. The study of something does not mean the belief in something, but when you start talking about the personal viewpoints of a person in a position of leadership, you start promoting those viewpoints.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 06/09/2005 22:48

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I think that religious faith is a particular segment of philosophy, and an aberrant one at that.

This, I think, is the crux of the issue. There are those of us who adhere to religious faith above all else, so clearly to us it is not aberrant. Thus we are frustrated when our philosophies are treated as lesser than other, more contemporary philosophies. The question is, what makes one philosophy more worthy of addressing than another? Because some poeople don't like it or find it aberrant? Who gets to decide what is OK and what isn't?

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Personally, I don't think that Jesus' philosophy need necessarily be tied to religion. I know that there's that whole son-of-God thing, but, it seems to me that that's more an element of Paulism than Christianity

I guess this just depends on how accurate you believe the Bible is. If you take the Gospels at face value Jesus claims to be the son of God before Paul writes anything. Of course, you can always assume that Paul's theology influenced the gospels to include things Jesus didn't say, but once you start down that path you can justify anything.

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Of course, Paulism coopted Christianity in the first century AD, and the first no longer really exists

This is not quite as self evident as you state, since there are many, many Bible scholars who would disagree. But, ast you say, this is another dicussion.

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There are many secular philosophies, and there are many religious philosophies. But neither set requires adherence in order to study it. I can know about Existentialism and Deism and Taoism and Confucianism and Objectivism and Nihilism and Secular Humanism and Unitarianism and Neo-Conservatism and Naziism and Satanism without having to believe in any of it, just as I can know about Christianity and reject it just as much as I reject the others. The study of something does not mean the belief in something,

Agreed to this point.

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but when you start talking about the personal viewpoints of a person in a position of leadership, you start promoting those viewpoints.

I don't sense that it is taboo for someone to espouse humanism in a position of authority- only organized religion.

I think that it is inescapable for a person's personal philosophies to spill over into their teaching. It's part of the beauty of having a flesh and blood teacher rather than a computer or book. Yet we ask those of faith to stifle this part of themselves. It's an unrealistic expectation and a hinderence to letting childrent experience the true market of ideas that are out there.

If a teacher fails to teach their subject because he or she is preaching, that is a problem. If a teacher fails a student for not believing the right thing, that is a problem. But a teacher should be as free to talk about faith as they are their favorite football team or TV show. At least, that's what I think.

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 00:15

This is going to be offensive, but I don't have a better way to say it:

Neither humanism nor football fanaticism requires one to believe in fairy tales.

Posted by: JBjorgen

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 00:21

Nor does Christianity. We're all even.

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 00:23

If the notions of heaven, hell, life after death, and, to a lesser extent, multiplying fish and wine and raising people from the dead are not fairy tales, I don't know what are.

Posted by: mlord

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 00:29

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the one that has worked best for them

s/best/by default/

Posted by: mlord

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 00:49

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but even in science you get into the ID vs. Evolution stuf

No, that's only an issue in the "religion" course, and only then (for now) in the USA (although apparently a Seattle based group of fanatics are actively trying to spread it to NZ, among other areas. Gahd).

In science, ID just plain doesn't exist, at least not in the naive literal translation of a few select self-indulgent scripts written by self-admitted sinners a few thousand years ago.

Gimme a break, please. God gave even me enough intelligence to see through obvious fallacies like that. No, I'm not a Christian, But I sure as hell believe in the Devil (evidence everywhere), and therefore in God (balance required, otherwise it makes zero sense).

The journalists of the time (2000 years ago) got the whole kid-of-god cult thing badly wrong, or did it for personal power or something.

Cheers

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 00:55

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Neither humanism nor football fanaticism requires one to believe in fairy tales.

Perhaps, but humanism requires a belief in the innate goodness and nobility of man, which is close to a fary tale- for me at least. Doesn't seem to match up to a world where almost everyone is looking out for number one and is willing to cut corners when doing the right thing is inconvenient.

And football- no fairy tales there, but it is kind of boring . . .

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 01:05

Quote:
No, that's only an issue in the "religion" course, and only then (for now) in the USA (although apparently a Seattle based group of fanatics are actively trying to spread it to NZ, among other areas. Gahd).

I wasn't make the argument one way or another- only pointing out a situation where one belief is selected as superior to another belief. And it IS an issue that is being faught in science classrooms right now. Plenty of people are upset about evolution being taught in schools. In context of my post, all I was saying is that the school has to pick one side over another and some people are going to end up with their children being taught something they don't believe.

Going off topic for a moment, I'll just say for the record that (thiestic) evolution can fall within the broad spectrum of ID so it doesn't have to be a "vs"- it's just not usually argued that way because those supporting ID don't support evolution.

Posted by: Cybjorg

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 01:20

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At what point do you expose the child to other religions, and, does it make sense to? Should a 10 year old be given a full explanation of the 3 major religions, and then a quick overview of the 15 bajillion other religions so that from there he/she can make an informed decision? Or is the parents right to choose to bring their child up in faith of their choice, the one that has worked best for them and which they would like to extend to their offspring.

I completely agree. I was simply pointing out that all religions attempt to protect and propogate themselves by passing down faith from parent to child. And I believe that it is every parent's right to do so.

In Christianity, the Bible says to "train a child in the way he should go, and when he old, he will not depart from it." In other words, if you have trained a child by correct principles, no matter what his state of affairs during his/her "exploration years," they will return to what is right.

And to get back on topic, I have no problem allowing a parent to choose the type of schooling that they deem necessary for their child's well-rounded education. I do believe that all schooling types - government run or otherwise - should be tested to maintain high academic standards.

But sadly, our schools are putting out idiots that think this is a sentence: YAAH I ROXORS1!1!11!! OMG IMM DA SHIZNIT!1!11 OMG LOL

Posted by: jimhogan

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 01:21

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Perhaps, but humanism requires a belief in the innate goodness and nobility of man, which is close to a fary tale- for me at least.

I appreciate some of what you are saying vis-a-vis the questionable innate goodness, but I don't think I agree with your statement.

Religion requires faith. Humanism, I think, only requires *hope*.

Posted by: frog51

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 07:56

This is an interesting effort...as a response to the Kansas Board of Education.

Mmmm - noodly appendage

Posted by: Dignan

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 11:24

I had to chime in to say that the debate over evolution might be the biggest thing that turns me off to religion. The literal interpretation of the bible has always scared me, considering the history of the book and the inaccuracies and contradictions within its own pages. I don't understand how buying into evolution would diminish God. I would think the opposite were true. Evolution would be far more impressive a feat than just throwing everything down at once, never to change.

I really should ask my old roommate, who majored in biology and religion (and who is now getting his doctorate in microbiology), to get in on an evolution debate. That would be interesting, as he has strong feelings on it.

Oh, and I'd like to say that I'm terrified of that museum of ID that has exhibits depicting humans riding dinosaurs. What would normally be quite funny is instead very scary.

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 12:41

Quote:
Perhaps, but humanism requires a belief in the innate goodness and nobility of man

There are many philosophies that refer to themselves as humanism; not all of this have this tenet. Most of them believe that humans are the only possible solutions to their own problems. That is not necessarily an optimistic point of view.

Posted by: peter

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 14:05

Quote:
Ok, here's an example. We studied "A Wizard of Earthsea". Don't know how many of you have read it. The main theme of the story is that we can't divorce ourselves from our evil side, so we must join our evil and good to become whole. So here we have this philosophy that we discussed quite a bit, had to underline in the book and whatnot. Fine, it's important to learn to read for themes and understand what an author is saying. I'm all for that, and the tale wasn't that bad. But certainly we can explore some themes that disagree and say it is our responsibility to excise our dark sides and that only then can we be whole. Yet that idea was not discussed. So you emphasize a non-Christian theme (that we must learn to embrace the darkness within us) and leave out the Christian theme (that only by ridding ourselves of darkness can we be made whole). So now we have by default emphasized a non-Christian theme in literature.

A Wizard Of Earthsea? I haven't read it, but, with, like, wizards and stuff? You're worried that schoolchildren will believe that the metaphysics in a book about wizards is an accurate depiction of the real world's metaphysics? I mean, yes at a certain age you need to explain to kids that Peter Pan isn't real, so the kids don't attempt flying from the top of the wardrobe, but that isn't really the age of kids we're talking about here.

Surely the whole point of fantasy literature is to depict fictional metaphysics? Does failing to discuss the elves-don't-really-exist viewpoint damage literary discussion of The Lord Of The Rings, or make the discussion dangerous in some way?

I still think you're imagining a conspiracy where none exists. Or is it the very idea that Christian metaphysics is only one of many, many different possible worldviews that worries you here?

Quote:
But if you want real proof, how about this: When I say things like "Christianity teaches the people are inherintly wicked", I almost always get shocked looks and responses (like above in this thread). Yet that has been a core tenet of Christiantiy since the first centry (and arguably even before that). So why are people shocked to hear it now when most of the U.S. professes Christianity?

I don't know what the breaks are in US Christianity, but here in the UK both Catholicism and fundamentalist Protestantism (i.e. the denominations who are very big on about inherent wickedness) are in the minority compared to liberal Protestant denominations, many of whom downplay that sort of remark by Paul.

Peter

Posted by: visuvius

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 14:30

Quote:
I think that it is inescapable for a person's personal philosophies to spill over into their teaching. It's part of the beauty of having a flesh and blood teacher rather than a computer or book. Yet we ask those of faith to stifle this part of themselves. It's an unrealistic expectation and a hinderence to letting childrent experience the true market of ideas that are out there.

If a teacher fails to teach their subject because he or she is preaching, that is a problem. If a teacher fails a student for not believing the right thing, that is a problem. But a teacher should be as free to talk about faith as they are their favorite football team or TV show. At least, that's what I think.

See, now this is where I have a problem. Isn't it great, for Christians at least, that there are probably* a whole helluvalot more Christian teachers than there are Jewish, Muslim or Buddhist ones? So then, if these teachers were allowed to talk about their faith in the classroom, wouldn't the faith of Christianity be "pushed" a whole lot more than any of the other faiths?

* I don't have any statistics on this, but I imagine that in the US, of those public school teachers who practice a faith, most are Christian?

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 14:32

Well, in all honesty, "A Wizard of Earthsea" is widely regarded as a solid piece of literature, magic or not. Then again, so are "Atlas Shrugged", "The Mists of Avalon", and "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", each of which directly espouse their own philosophies, one of which is unapologetically Christian. And they're probably as likely to be read in school as "A Wizard of Earthsea" (which, oddly, I did read for high school).

Posted by: tahir

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 14:40

Quote:
See, now this is where I have a problem. Isn't it great, for Christians at least, that there are probably* a whole helluvalot more Christian teachers than there are Jewish, Muslim or Buddhist ones? So then, if these teachers were allowed to talk about their faith in the classroom, wouldn't the faith of Christianity be "pushed" a whole lot more than any of the other faiths?

* I don't have any statistics on this, but I imagine that in the US, of those public school teachers who practice a faith, most are Christian?

In the UK a lot of "public" school places are provided by schools run by the Anglican or Catholic churches, we're looking at moving and we'll have no (sensible) choice but to send our kids to one of them. Personally I'd like to send them to a secular school that had R.E. lessons, but I ain't got that option.

I don't like the idea of faith education at all, I'm uncomfortable with the push in the U.K. for muslim schools

Posted by: rob

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 20:16

Quote:
In the UK a lot of "public" school places are provided by schools run by the Anglican or Catholic churches, we're looking at moving and we'll have no (sensible) choice but to send our kids to one of them. Personally I'd like to send them to a secular school that had R.E. lessons, but I ain't got that option.

I was sent to a Church of England grant maintained school - got a fairly decent education as a result and was thoroughly converted to athiesm. If Christian parents want their teenage children to become god fearing adults I strongly advise against sending them to a church school!

Rob

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 20:26

Quote:
You're worried that schoolchildren will believe that the metaphysics in a book about wizards is an accurate depiction of the real world's metaphysics?

Just to be clear, no, that's not my concern. I'm looking at the greater themes of the book, as Bitt points out later. And I'm not really concerned even that this theme would be explored- I think that non-Christian themes should be explored. I just think that Christian themse (and muslim themes, etc.) should be explored as well. I've read all of the books that Bitt talks about and recognize the themes of each and am glad that I've seen those perspectives.

"The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" would be a great example of a book with a Christian theme, and if Bitt is correct that that book is taught in school it kind of deflates my argument quite a bit. It's about as hardcore Christian allegory as it gets.

Quote:
Does failing to discuss the elves-don't-really-exist viewpoint damage literary discussion of The Lord Of The Rings, or make the discussion dangerous in some way?

It would have been really cool to do LOTR in high school, but I doubt anyone does. There are Christian and non-Christian themes throughout that would be really neat to explore.

Quote:
I still think you're imagining a conspiracy where none exists.

Let me be clear on this- I DON'T believe that there is a conspiracy. I think the current siutation is not what it should be, but I don't believe it is by anyone's overt actions. It is the result of some (I think) faulty notions being implemented in our schools.

Quote:
I don't know what the breaks are in US Christianity, but here in the UK both Catholicism and fundamentalist Protestantism (i.e. the denominations who are very big on about inherent wickedness) are in the minority compared to liberal Protestant denominations, many of whom downplay that sort of remark by Paul.

Inherent wickedness is consistent with orthodox teaching that many churches follow. You tune into a Christian music station or go to a Christian bookstore and most of the products will follow this theology.

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 07/09/2005 20:40

Yes, but really only the fundamentalists listen to Christian radio stations (ignoring Gospel stations) or frequent Christian bookstores. However, there is probably a much greater percentage of fundamentalist Christians in the US than there is in the UK.

Posted by: tahir

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 08/09/2005 08:59

Quote:
If Christian parents want their teenage children to become god fearing adults I strongly advise against sending them to a church school!

Rob

Posted by: davekirk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 08/09/2005 19:25

Quote:
I think that it is inescapable for a person's personal philosophies to spill over into their teaching. It's part of the beauty of having a flesh and blood teacher rather than a computer or book. Yet we ask those of faith to stifle this part of themselves. It's an unrealistic expectation and a hinderence to letting childrent experience the true market of ideas that are out there.

I have no intention of getting involved in the basic issues of this discussion. But I noticed this assumption hadn't been addressed yet, so...

Computers and books don't fall off trees, already full of perfectly unbiased information. If the information from those sources is less biased than a flesh-and-blood teacher, it's only because of collaborative input and editing.

The "beauty" of a live teacher isn't personality, it's personalized interactivity. Books and computers can't adapt to satisfy an individual student's needs. The fact that this so often lends a personal bias to the subject taught is an unfortunate consequence, not beautiful.

Posted by: tanstaafl.

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 11/09/2005 05:21

...pointing out a situation where one belief is selected as superior to another belief. And it IS an issue that is being taught in science classrooms right now

I wonder how it is possible that something so unlikely and in such direct contradiction to literal Biblical interpretation, such as evolution, could be selected as superior to another belief, such as Intelligent Design.

Oh, wait... do you suppose it could be that that one belief system has tangible, reproducible evidence that can be directly observed and held in one's own hands, as compared to another that has no basis in reality other than a desperate desire on the part of a vocal, uninformed minority without the slightest concept of scientific method to pass their ludicrous ideas off as fact?

Naaahhh, it couldn't be that simple. Could it?

tanstaafl.

Posted by: tfabris

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 11/09/2005 10:02

Quote:
a desperate desire on the part of a vocal, uninformed minority

Vocal and uninformed? Yes. Minority? No. Remember that for every attempt to get I.D. taught in schools, there's a church of some kind behind it. Even if the lobbying organization goes to great pains to hide their church affiliation (they don't always), it's still there. And, in our country at least, churches and their congregations (as a whole) are the majority.

The political power that the Christian churches wield in our country is the only reason I.D. is even being remotely considered by any school boards at all.

Thank goodness science isn't decided by numbers of votes.

Posted by: Cybjorg

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 11/09/2005 11:39

Quote:
Oh, wait... do you suppose it could be that that one belief system has tangible, reproducible evidence that can be directly observed and held in one's own hands...

I wasn't aware that it was reproducible or observed.

Posted by: bonzi

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 11/09/2005 13:26

Quote:
I wasn't aware that it was reproducible or observed.

As opposed to "I.D." which is reproducible and observed, making it science, right?

When a forensic expert observes a dead body, with entry and exit wound consistent with a bullet embedded into a wall behind the corpse, she concludes that the victim has been shot. No alternative theories (including those of divine intervention) are generally being postulated, despite the fact that nobody actually witnessed the shooting*. Similarly, fosill record is hard evidence, although nobody spent four billion years dilligently taking notes of each and every mutation and its effect.

However, evolution is being directly observed. Ever heard of antibiotic-resistant bacteria? What do you think, how and why did they acquire those traits?

Evolution is hard science. Those blathering "even scientists admit it's theory, not fact" show they don't know (or, more probably, pretend not to know) that scientists generally call any complex, consistent and predictive set of observations and descriptions of natural phenomena a theory. For example, there is hardly any more rock solid and tested to death piece of modern physics than special relativity; yet, it is called theory.

"Intelligent Design" in its more primitive, Bible-literalist form is simply one of thousands creation myths, all believed in by certain number of people, some more beautiful than others, all arbitrary. It has its place in schools, in sociology, anthropology or literature classes. In its extremely "detached" (non-Biblical) form, which says that something or someone created our Universe (tuned the Big Bang, so to speak), i.e. where it touches "anthropic principle", it is (at least for now) firmly outside the scope of science. Its truth being undecidable, it is no more than a nice and harmless topic for idle speculation.

Incidentally, science is not being dilligently undermined only from right-wing and religious quarters; there are numerous nominally left-wing "social theorists" trying to describe our world not in objective terms, not as result of divine creation either, but as a social construct. I think I already linked this site, but it is worth revisiting. Try to apply, for example, this example of stellar thinking to (successful) efforts to exterminate smallpox. Their tongue in cheek dictionary of fashionable nonsense.

*) Actually, Pete Seeger in this recording for Smithsonian thinks otherwise

Posted by: Cybjorg

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 11/09/2005 14:37

All I'm saying is that no one has witnessed either evolution or intelligent-design creation. We can theorize about both based on what we can currently test or observe.

And the fossil record is definitely evidence of something. There’s a lot of argument and speculation about what that is, of course. Conclusive evidence coming soon, I’m sure.

But this is a digressing rabbit trail...

Posted by: mlord

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 11/09/2005 15:44

Quote:
All I'm saying is that no one has witnessed either evolution or intelligent-design creation. We can theorize about both based on what we can currently test or observe.

Hardly. Again, this is a misappropriation of how scientists use the word "theory" (what most commoners would call "fact", supported by tons of real live facts and observations of evolving lifeforms) versus how the ID folks are using it (what all commoners would call "fantasy", with no basis in fact whatsoever, requiring suspension of disbelief to envision).

Quote:
And the fossil record is definitely evidence of something

Absolutely. Time for the ID folks to go and read The Map That Changed The World for how all of this has already been thrashed over before.

Cheers

Posted by: JBjorgen

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 11/09/2005 22:07

Quote:
ID boneheads

Please avoid the name-calling. There are several individuals here including myself that hold this point of view. While I realize you disagree with extreme prejudice, I do resent being called a "bonehead." I hope that I would never resort to calling those I disagree with "evolution boneheads."

I do appreciate your posting of "The Map That Changed The World" and will try to take a look at it. Thanks.

EDIT: no real offense taken Mark...I realize you were just being passionate in your reply.

Posted by: mlord

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 11/09/2005 23:40

Ack.. yes, bonehead was a bit over the top. Thanks for being kind about, though!

The Map That Changed The World is actually the biography of an English chap, who more or less discovered modern geology. And along the way upset the entire church belief system that the world was only 10000 years old. Or something like that -- my memory of books seldom lasts more than a year.

Cheers!

Posted by: Dylan

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 12/09/2005 17:55

Quote:
The political power that the Christian churches wield in our country is the only reason I.D. is even being remotely considered by any school boards at all.

Thank goodness science isn't decided by numbers of votes.

I'm throwing my support behind this theory.

Posted by: mlord

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 00:56

Quote:
I'm throwing my support behind this theory.

Oh, good! That just saved me a ton of typing!

Cheers!

Posted by: tanstaafl.

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 05:10

All I'm saying is that no one has witnessed either evolution or intelligent-design creation

I'm afraid that turns out not to be the case. One of the best examples is chronicled here. The gist of the article states:

The best example of a quick change in the environment and a species ability to adapt concerns the the color of the Gypsy Moths in England. When the industrial revolution occurred, coal and other industrial factories spewed out massive amounts of air pollutants, so much so that even during the day the skies were as dark as night. The original color of the gypsy moths was a light gray; such a color blended in with the trees in their environment, and acted as camouflage against predators. With the change in the environment the camouflage adaptation no longer functioned because the tree trunks were darker colored from the air pollution. The dark gray gypsy, once at a disadvantage and quickly eaten by predators, now survived and bred, while their lighter counterparts were eaten. As a result the gypsy moth, through adaptation and natural selection, was able to gradually change it's coloring to a dark gray-black, to match the surface of the trees covered in pollution. The gypsy moths didn't just decide one day to change their color, at the basis of such a change was the concept of Natural Selection.

There are many other notable examples of evolution on a short enough time scale for direct human observation. Changes in the shape of birds' beaks to accommodate changes in vegetation in Hawaii come to mind.

These sorts of changes are indeed tangible, observable, reproducible -- in short, conforming to the dictates of Scientific Method which is the cornerstone of all modern knowledge and technological advancement.

tanstaafl.

Posted by: frog51

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 05:46

You guys did read the further links from the one I posted earlier, right? Important to remember to celebrate on Monday in Pirate costume (or ninja, if you prefer)

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 12:48

But couldn't God have made them change?

Of course, the answer to that question (assuming you believe in God) is "of course", because if He did create everything, then He created evolution as well. It was nice of Him to make things work in a consistent manner across the universe so that we're not constantly at the mercy of an individual's whim, though.

The thing that irritates me the most about ID (other than the apparent desire to be ignorant) is that it assumes that God is incompetent enough to need to constantly come back to his creation and tweak it all the time. Wouldn't a greater God have been able to set things in motion and not see what happens, but know what would happen beforehand and have designed it to work that way? Or maybe this universe is running under an interactive debugger.

It seems to me that evolution is not inconsistent with there being a God, but ID ignores what humans can observe and assumes a less competent God.

Posted by: mlord

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 17:42

Quote:
assumes a less competent God.

Which leads to bigger questions.

Like, who is putting this ID nonsense into the brains of otherwise intelligent, thinking, church goers? There's no way that a few thousand God loving people suddenly came up with the same God-is-incompetent theory spontaneously on their own.

Some non-God human has come up with this crusade, for some form of personal gain, and is managing to dupe a bunch of otherwise smart people into pushing it for his/her ends.

I wonder why? And who?

Well, the who part is most likely one or more people with very high stakes on having a large following of devout believers, enriching their pockets or boosting their personal power base. The more that their own religious beliefs are pushed onto the general populace at a young and vulnerable age, then the larger their long-term following will be.

And the neat thing is, they picked a method of doing so that completely distracts many people from asking these very questions (who and why).

Maybe that's got something to do with it. A very intelligent campaign design, for self-perpetuation. Assuming enough of us are willing to suspend our God given reasoning and intelligence so as to not question such a lousy design.

Cheers

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 18:23

I don't think that there's any conspiracy behind it. I just think it's the work of a group of people who somehow think that evolution is in contradiction with their belief in God, which I still hold as being absurd. (If everything was created by God, what prevents Him from having created evolution?)

The only reason for it is if you believe the Bible literally, which is itself absurd based solely on the fact that it has so many internal inconsistencies, from contrdictory viewpoints, to historical inaccuracies, to "plot" points changing, to inconsistent internal logic.

My thought is that it's based on the notion that science in general, and evolution in particular, is set out to destroy religion, or at least Christianity, and while I'll admit that there are a lot of scientists who, no doubt, have that bias, the facts have no bias, and many of the scientists also have no bias. Many more are active Christians and have no trouble reconciling God and evolution.

Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 18:56

The thing I've never understood about the argument between evolution and ID is that it seems no-one in the ID camp has ever stepped back and said "maybe this evolution thing is part of the intelligent design." I mean... the "intelligent design" was such that every living thing in it grows and matures at some rate. So the next logical step is to make the design grow and mature, too, which is something that can be planned for from the start, by building the process into the original design.

The whole ID thing has nothing to do with science, but science can easily be part of ID. Strip off the ID stuff, and the science remains the same.

I'm reminded of the (timely) joke about the man standing on the roof of his house as the flood waters get higher and higher. He prays for God to save him. A guy in a canoe paddles up and offers a lift. "No thanks, God is going to save me!" The water gets up to his waist. A bit later, a power boat comes by, with the same offer. Again, "No thanks, God is going to save me!" The water is up to his neck, when a helicopter lowers a basket to him. He refuses to get in, since, after all, "God is going to save me!" Naturally, he drowns a bit later. The man gets to heaven, meets God, and says "I prayed for you to save me, but you let me die!" God's answer? "I sent you two boats and a helicopter, and you refused to get in any of them. What more did you want me to do?"

Supposing, for the sake of argument that there is a heaven, are these ID folks going to get there, only to have God tell them "evolution was the intelligent design, but you refused to listen!"

Cheers,

Posted by: andy

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 18:59

Quote:

The only reason for it is if you believe the Bible literally, which is itself absurd based solely on the fact that it has so many internal inconsistencies, from contrdictory viewpoints, to historical inaccuracies, to "plot" points changing, to inconsistent internal logic.

You'd think that just the two different versions of creation in the Bible would be enough to blow the whole "the Bible is the literal truth" argument out of the water without anything else...

Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 19:00

Feh. Beaten to the punch, but my post had a punch-line!

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 19:03

Just for the record, ID and evolution are compatible. ID only asserts that some intelligence is responsible for creation and that this is evident by studying the world around us. Likewise, evolution does not assert that God does not exist.

In a practical sense, most proponents of ID happen to also not believe in evolution, but they do not do so on the basis of ID. Rather, Christians who do not believe in evolution do so on the basis that evolution requires death to have happened before the fall and sin entering the world. Since death is a consequence of sin, it therefore follows that evolution (which requires death as part of its process) is not consistend with the character of God as revealed in the scripture (ie. God would not permit death in a world not overcome by sin).

So Theistic Evolution is consistent with ID, but not the concept of death entering the world after the fall.

Not that this changes the argument signficantly, but I figured it's best to know where the real issue is.

Posted by: peter

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 19:09

Quote:
Well, the who part is most likely one or more people with very high stakes on having a large following of devout believers, enriching their pockets or boosting their personal power base. The more that their own religious beliefs are pushed onto the general populace at a young and vulnerable age, then the larger their long-term following will be.

While there's clearly never been any shortage of genuinely sociopathically malicious religious leaders, I think one of the reasons religion has survived so long in society is that it makes people act in these ways -- spreading the gospel, evangelising the young -- while all the time believing they're being beneficent to society. IMO one needn't posit a secret conspiracy of ID zealots: a drowning man will clutch at straws, the saying goes, and ID looks to me like the sort of straw that a theist drowning in rationalism would clutch at. It's probably popular in its own right, not because of aggressive marketing.

Peter

Posted by: peter

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 19:22

Quote:
God would not permit death in a world not overcome by sin

While I'm sure He has His reasons, personally I'm much fonder of the Middle-Earth idea of death, as laid out in The Silmarillion: humans, alone among sentient races, are genuinely extinguished and dead when they die, and the immortal elves, who clearly look on this with a certain amount of envy, call death "the Gift of the Valar" (that is, of the gods).

(It annoyed me when they messed with this in the Return Of The King film: Gandalf at the siege of Minas Tirith reassures Pippin by talking about the afterlife, but it's an afterlife that Pippin, who's clearly descended from humans not elves, doesn't get.)

Peter

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 19:23

I don't know that that logic is internally consistent, either.

Quote:
evolution requires death to have happened before the fall and sin entering the world. Since death is a consequence of sin, it therefore follows that evolution (which requires death as part of its process) is not consistend with the character of God as revealed in the scripture (ie. God would not permit death in a world not overcome by sin).

So this would seem to apply only to humans. I don't think that any Christians really believe in animal sin. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) Isn't it easy enough to say that evolution occurred before humankind and that the evolution from ape/animal to human was coincident with the introduction of sin? In all honesty, that makes a lot of sense to me, as what makes us human is also what makes us both remarkable and terrible.

Of course, that's only one possibility, many of which would argue against that, but I think it is intenally consistent within that viewpoint and therefore invalidates the argument that evolutionary death before sin is impossible.

Edit: failed to close my quote properly. I suck.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 19:24

Quote:
Some non-God human has come up with this crusade, for some form of personal gain, and is managing to dupe a bunch of otherwise smart people into pushing it for his/her ends.

Not true. ID is all about observing the world around us and deducing from what we study scientifically that God exists. In fact, it does not even assert a GOOD God, only the existence of a Creator.

ID started being proposed by those who honestly felt that a gunine study of the world around us leads to no other conclusion. These people reasoned that rather than argue the issue of biblical Creation, which has a lot of other points to argue over, lets just deal with the one central issue- is there a God? The idea is that once people are conviced that God exists, we can then move to discussing the evidence for which God exists and how He has revealed Himself.

Of course, most evolutions are well aware of the end-game that ID sets up and are going to argue against it, not on the merits of ID itself, but of the personal beliefs of its proponents. They see ID as Creatonism dressed up in new clothing. Now honestly, I haven't been following it all well enough to know if ID has kept itself seperate from biblical Creationism as was intendnded, or if it has just become the same old debate.

Are the claims of ID debatable? Yes- the idea that you can prove God exists from nature is an issue that I'm sure many have an opinion on. But I'm not sure if that is what is really being debated- what I hear from evolutionists is all sorts of evidence for evolution, which isn't what the debate is about. As I said, evolution falls within the scope of ID.

Posted by: Dylan

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 19:26

Quote:
You'd think that just the two different versions of creation in the Bible would be enough to blow the whole "the Bible is the literal truth" argument out of the water without anything else...

I've only briefly browsed the bible related sections but carm.org aims to explain why the inconsistencies aren't inconsistent. The site seems to be written by someone intelligent and at least somewhat rational. The parts I've read are worth the time.

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 19:39

Quote:
ID started being proposed by those who honestly felt that a gunine study of the world around us leads to no other conclusion.

...

Quote:
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," say Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't though of that" and promply vanishes in a puff of logic.

That said, I'd argue that this statement is untrue, or specious, or disingenuous:

Quote:
most evolutions are well aware of the end-game that ID sets up and are going to argue against it, not on the merits of ID itself, but of the personal beliefs of its proponents

Let's assume for the sake of argument that that is the case (and I'm sure it is for some). Even if the evolutionists have a particular reason for arguing against it, facts don't lie. If the argument against it is sound, then the bias of the person presenting the argument is irrelevant.

On the other hand, ID proponents are constantly lying. For example, ID's supposed smoking gun is the bombardier beetle, which has the amazing ability to squirt steam from its rear end as a defense mechanism. Actual greater-than-100C-water steam. Pretty amazing. It's the ID proponents' argument that this is so amazing and unique that it would have to have been created by hands-on ID. Of course, the problem with that argument is that it's in no way unique, and, in fact, is a good example of evolution. Other beetles have various portions of the mechanism that the bombardier beetle has, from the bladder, to the production of various subsets of the chemicals needed to produce that exothermic reaction, to, uh, other stuff that I can't remember now. But when presented with that evidence, the ID proponent's response is usually to ignore it.

Disproving the requirement of ID in one case doesn't mean that it's disproved in all cases, but it's the intentional ignorance of facts that is worrisome. ID proponents claim that it is also a science with a different viewpoint, but a scientist who ignores facts is no scientist at all.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 19:46

Quote:
So this would seem to apply only to humans.

The belief is that there was no sickness or death in the world AT ALL before man fell. I believe this doctrine goes back to Judaism, actually, though I'm not certain.

But I'm not really trying to argue this point of view- more explain where the issue really lies. Personally I'm not convinced of evolution, I AM conviced of ID*, and I'm not sure about the thology behind "Creation falling". I believe in the Fall of man, but the rest seems to be outside of what is directly taught in scripture. It has a certain logic to it and I don't discount it, but neither do I embrace it whole heartedly as pure biblical teaching.

I also have some other personal theories, but I'm not sure how viable or logical they are. Safe to say, I'm keeping them to myself for the time being and officially standing on "I'm not certain about evolution either way". This isn't a popular stance to anyone, but it's honest.

Edit: *Well, actually I'm not conviced of ID, but I am convinced God exists. Whether that can be proven scientifically, I'm not sure. It seems that there is some good evidence, from what I've read

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 19:59

So when Adam and Eve ate the apple of knowledge they not only condemned themselves and their descendants to death, but also all of the animals of the world, who had nothing to do with it, and were actually there before the humans?

That's a raw deal, dude.

Posted by: andy

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 20:02

Quote:
The belief is that there was no sickness or death in the world AT ALL before man fell.

It is a good job man fell then, otherwise it would have got awful crowded round here by now.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 20:03

Quote:

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," say Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't though of that" and promply vanishes in a puff of logic.

Which I think is one of the funniest passages in any work of fiction I know. For the record, though, God never said that without faith He is nothing.

Quote:
On the other hand, ID proponents are constantly lying

ID proponents say the same about evolutionists, claiming that they still use examples that have been proven not to be evolution.

More likely I doubt very many people are lying, but instead are mistaken. That is why it is difficult for me to get a solid track on this. I read one source that seem credible saying that one side is mistaken, and then I read another that seems equally credible saying the opposite. I'm not educated enough in any of this science to tell who is mistaken and who isn't, though I sort of feel like everyone's probably mistaken a little.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 20:06

Quote:
So when Adam and Eve ate the apple of knowledge they not only condemned themselves and their descendants to death, but also all of the animals of the world, who had nothing to do with it, and were actually there before the humans?

That's a raw deal, dude.

Yup, that's the idea. Since Christians (and many other religious people) believe that the world exists for their benifit and is their responsibility, this doesn't seem too much of a stretch.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 20:16

Quote:
You'd think that just the two different versions of creation in the Bible would be enough to blow the whole "the Bible is the literal truth" argument out of the water without anything else...

The two "versions" are not inconsistent. The first deals with God's creation on a grand scale, the second on His personal relationship to humans. The second deals with the garden of Eden, and not all of the world. Thus, animals were created first, but were brought into the garden after the creation of Adam and Eve. Eden was the perfect place God intended for all humans to exist in the love relationship with Him for which they were created.

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 20:25

Quote:
they still use examples (like the bird beaks) that have been proven NOT to be evolution.

I don't know this one. Details?

Posted by: bonzi

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 20:30

So, the world was created for benefit of humans, but they were deliberatly created so as to be liable to spoil everything by Falling (and Fall, as far as I can see, consisted of seeking knowledge); then the Creator Himself (or His son, depending on details of belief), an (rather the) omnipotent being, suffers in order to express His love and save fallen humanity that he created Himself as they are (save from what?), as if fixing a design flaw.

I can never cease to express my astonishment at such constructs. And yet, nice people like Jeff not only believe them sincerely, but believe that their own goodness (i.e. what we heathens call human qualities) have source external to them...

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 13/09/2005 22:25

Quote:
I don't know this one. Details?

Hmm, I started poking around to substantiate my statement and now realize there is still much debate. So I withdraw it.

Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 14/09/2005 00:21

Quote:
I haven't been following it all well enough to know if ID has kept itself seperate from biblical Creationism as was intendnded, or if it has just become the same old debate.

IMHO, it has become the same old debate about Creationism. If it's simply an attempt to draw some metaphysical conclusions from the scientifically observable world, that's fine. But if that's the case, then why is it that ID folks seem so insistent on having ID taught as an alternative theory to evolution? From what I've been able to see of the ID vs. evolution argument, the preponderance of proponents of ID aren't seeking to say evolution is part of the Design, as any other bit of science would be considered -- they're seeking to replace the theory of evolution with ID.

Topical anecdote: about a month ago, I was in a grocery store, and witnessed a guy trying to hit on a trio of extremely attractive college co-eds. He wasn't doing too bad until he mentioned that he didn't believe in evolution ("Well, it's just a theory."), but did believe in ID. It torpedoed any chances with them. They didn't manage to hide their amusement ("Well, Einstein's theory of general realtivity is just a theory too, do you believe that?") completely, but they did refrain from laughing at him. Barely.

Posted by: drakino

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 14/09/2005 07:08

Quote:
Just for the record, ID and evolution are compatible. ID only asserts that some intelligence is responsible for creation and that this is evident by studying the world around us. Likewise, evolution does not assert that God does not exist.

First off, I just wanted to thank you Jeff. Your time spent on this thread is amazing, and it is helping to provide a good insight into ID.

Anyhow, I think this has been discussed elsewhere before, but the general problem with ID in schools seems to be that it tries to teach an unprovable concept with the creation part. Right now, we have no scientific method that can explain how the universe was created. There are many theories, some tying into the string theory that get us close to understanding the first few seconds of the universe, but it is still unknown how the big bang happened. ID not only tries to usually be taught alongside evolution, it also tries to put an unprovable answer to where life and the universe came from.

I am at least happy to see one person saying that ID and evolution can co-exist, and also that evolution can have a part in explaining ID. The people I have talked to before generally try to tie too much of the religious aspect into the ID debate, and for me, that invalidates their point when it steps away from science and asks you to have faith.

On a side note, I personally have no issues with any type of religious classes in school. I would have preferred an education that at least gave me the basics on the major religions around the world. Religion is very much a major part of humanity, and to avoid it at all costs is an extremism that I dislike.

Posted by: peter

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 14/09/2005 08:22

Quote:
Two years ago I moved from the suburbs to a more rural part of Virginia. It's home school central out here.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40517

Peter

Posted by: bonzi

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 14/09/2005 10:01

Quote:
Religion is very much a major part of humanity, and to avoid it at all costs is an extremism that I dislike.

I agree. What state should avoid is favoring one religion over others*. I, for example, think that banning any religious symbols in schools (be they clothing of Muslim girls, Jewish yarmulke or large cross pendant) in France and some other European countries is wrong. Religious symbols have no place on classroom wall, but what students wear should be a matter of their private decision.

As you say, religion (in all its variety) is a very important part of humanity, and not touching it in curriculum is obviously wrong. The trouble is, it is a very emotionally charged subject, and even the most historically and sociologically objective treatment of it (such as it is possible) is bound to offend many faithfuls.

Jeff's patience and good-natured attempts to explain what it is like being his flavor of a Christian (both doctrinary and emotionaly) is trully amazing. I was never able to discuss these matters in a similar way, not even with my Catholic brother.

*) I believe in equal treatment of all religions very strongly. We must not be tempted into adopting one religion as "the true" or official one, just because we happen to live in a region where it prevails statisitcally. Practicioners of other religions feel equally strongly about their faiths, and there are no "objective" criteria to favour one over any other. Of course, with some "faithful" we run into the recently discussed question of tollerance of intollerance...

Posted by: Cybjorg

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 14/09/2005 11:41

Quote:
Right now, we have no scientific method that can explain how the universe was created. There are many theories...

...when it steps away from science and asks you to have faith.

Since there are no explainable (proven) scientific methods, it seems that all theories require some faith.

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 14/09/2005 12:59

Certainly "God created it" is as good an explanation for how the universe started as anything science has (which is pretty much nothing), but, in my experience, ID proponents, or at least the ones who identify themselves as such, and specifically the ones pushing for ID in the classroom have a much larger idea than that of what ID is. Basically, they seem to say that God created every creature on Earth by hand and that evolution is nonsense. (I probably overstate, but that's the basic notion.)

I have no problem with there being objective religion classes in school, either, as long as they give fair share to all religions. In my mind, these would be sociology/anthropology/history classes, not religion classes. The notion that God created the universe would make sense there. But it has no place in a science class.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 14/09/2005 20:26

Quote:
Certainly "God created it" is as good an explanation for how the universe started as anything science has (which is pretty much nothing), but, in my experience, ID proponents, or at least the ones who identify themselves as such, and specifically the ones pushing for ID in the classroom have a much larger idea than that of what ID is

This is unfortunate, but not suprising. The idea was to get people talking about God vs no-God, rather than evolution vs. creation. Through evolutionsts not buying the simplicity of the argument and seeing a greater agenda, and creationists not being willing to settle for a lesser argument, it seems we have the same old debate. This is somewhat dissapointing because I think a conversation around the basic ideas of ID (that things we observe in science demonstrate a world crafted by an intelligent designer) would be very interesting if it could get beyond the creation vs. evolution debate.

I also think, however, that the main mission of Christians is to preach the gospel (salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as the solution to our sin problem) and that creation is a decidedly lesser doctrine. I fear we spend too much time talking about creation and let the more important things get away from us.

But my origional point was this- it is impossible to study life and make observation about it apart from our view of faith. How we report science, interpret literature, decide governmental policy, etc. is all influenced, if not directly, by our philosophies.

It is all well and good to say that religion has no place in a science class, but it is impossible to remove. There are those who believe that evolution is false. Many, many people. And they do so on the basis of their religious beliefs. To teach evolution in a public school, suported by the unparital government of these very same non-evolutionists, means making a choice that what these people believe about science is wrong. And if it were to go the other way, the government would be taking a stand against those with a different belief.

Now you can say all you want that what these people believe isn't science, but they think it is. So on what basis are they wrong? To stand on the idea that one person's philosophy wrong because it invovles faith in "fairy tales" is fine for a personal assessment, but should the government make decisions on such a basis? Well, the government has to make SOME decision, because at the end of the day we have all these kids going to school and we'd better teaching them something.

I'm not arguing here that what I believe should be taught it public schools. In fact, for the moment, I'm not even arguing that my beliefs should be given equal press. What I am saying is that it is unavoidable for the government to "take sides", however good the reasoning is, and support one individua's belief above another. But if it is unavoidable, lets not decide against someone and tell them that we aren't favoring one side over another- this might ease the concious of those making such decisions, but to the ones whom this goes against it is just insulting.

I do think it regrettable that my beliefs seem to get a second rate status to the (apparently more popular) ideas of humanism. But I also think it is unavoidable- someone is going to lose out.

I have another point, though- there is no objective truth to measure rightness by, at least for a democratic society. Imagine if suddenly a new concept of math became popular where 6*9=42. Would it be wrong? Not according to society, and against what else can we measure? The teachings of those who have gone before us? We can't always rely on historical truths to be accurate today- many times we reject them, and for good reason.

So how would we feel about this "new math" being taught in our schools, especially if it was nonsensical (rather than something moderatly reasonable, like base 13, which is strange but still makes sense). We'd all be angry for certain. But if it is the popular understanding of mathmatics, what can we do but try to make people understand the grave mistaken being done to our children? And likely, we'd probably all decide the best course is to teach our children ourselves so that they are truly equipped to deal with the real world.

Evolution/ Creation aside, I've noted that humanism creeps up in almost every subject (except for perhaps mathmatics) as a subtle, unspoken assumption. Most obvious is its mark on literary interpretation, but it is there in other subjects. I'll agree that science, like mathmatics, does seem to be less opportunities for takinging philosophical or religious "sides", but it does happen. What can I do about this? Well, someone has to lose, and in these instances it looks like it's me. So what I do is try to make people aware of where I think problems are, and probably put my children in a place where they will learn the truths best to prepare them for their future. It's not what it should be, but a perfect system is unattainable as long as we hold conflicting beliefs.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 14/09/2005 20:44

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Jeff's patience and good-natured attempts to explain what it is like being his flavor of a Christian (both doctrinary and emotionaly) is trully amazing. I was never able to discuss these matters in a similar way, not even with my Catholic brother.

I appreciate this (and other similar words from other posters) more than you know. I think it is the embodiment of the great commission to share with others our beliefs and experiences, so for you to say this makes all the time spent talking here worth it. Plus, I have been stretched quite a bit through these conversations and driven to greater depths of faith. The efforts of JBjorgen and Cybjorg should not go unnoted, however, as I think they both have done an excellent job of sharing as well. While the three of us probably differ on some minor points, we all are coming from a very similar position and it's gratifying to see one of them say something in a way that I've not been able to.

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I believe in equal treatment of all religions very strongly. We must not be tempted into adopting one religion as "the true" or official one, just because we happen to live in a region where it prevails statisitcally.

Aside from the practical impossibility of doing this (how many religions are there in the world?) I agree with this, at least as far as government goes. Now you know I believe very strongly that Christianity is the one true religion, but I think it is an important part of faith that one cannot be forced into belief. Thus, it only makes sense to live in a society that allows for personal choices about religion and faith. I do think, however, that people have gotten mighty sensitive about what constitutes the government "establishing a religion". I don't think teachers provideing some good natured influences by expressing who they are (not using their platforms as pulpits) is the "government establishing a religion", but we've drawn that line pretty far out. It seems everyone is afraid that if teachers mention they have faith in Jesus (or any other deity), their students will be forever marred. This seems as irrational as Christians not wanting their children to be exposed to any other ideas.

Posted by: Cybjorg

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 02:01

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This seems as irrational as Christians not wanting their children to be exposed to any other ideas.

I agree with the irrationality of this concept.l. After all, I'm a Christian raising my family in a Muslim country. Talk about being inundated by other religious influences.

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 13:07

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it is impossible to study life and make observation about it apart from our view of faith

I completely disagree. While your world view may be tainted by faith, there are many of us who can view things objectively. Sometimes I don't, admittedly, but I certainly have the capability. For example, I would not deny the existence of God (or whatever other supernatural element) if the evidence presented itself, but I have no reason to believe in it now, and I'm not going to live my life by a credo that assumes something that not only might not be, but has no evidence of being. I'm sure you feel you have evidence, but I do not, and I would likely deny your evidence as coincidence.

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There are those who believe that evolution is false. Many, many people.

There were also many, many people who believed that the Earth was flat. That didn't make them right. "Science" by populism is a terrible notion.

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Now you can say all you want that what these people believe isn't science, but they think it is. So on what basis are they wrong?

Science depends on reproducible results. So unless you can convince God to make a new creature out of thin air (or, to the much lessannoying ID notion, create a new universe and let it evolve new creatures), it's not science. Now, I know you're thinking that evolution is not reproducible, but it is. Bacteria have been modified through controlled evolution. Flowers have been. And it's been seen in those moths mentioned previously. It's not been taken up much on a larger scale, as far as I know, because it becomes an awfully long-term process with higher life forms that have longer viability and gestation periods, and also calls into question a lot of ethical problems (eugenics, for example), but that doesn't mean that it's not reproducible.

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Imagine if suddenly a new concept of math became popular where 6*9=42. Would it be wrong?

Um, yes. Why do you think mathematics was chosen as the language sent out on SETI-type missions? What you're saying is akin to the idea that if we decided that the speed of light was not 300,000,000m/s then it would change. There are observable hard and fast rules of the universe. We have not yet discovered them all, but there are some that are absolute, and they're mathematics. Now, it's perfectly fine to say that God created mathematics and defined the laws of physics. But it doesn't prove anything or lend any greater understanding, so it doesn't belong in a science class. (Slightly off topic, have you read Contact? Not seen the movie, but read the book? There's some very interesting theology in it related to this notion and I wonder how you'd feel about it.)

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So how would we feel about this "new math" being taught in our schools, especially if it was nonsensical .... We'd all be angry for certain.

You mean like having religion taught in a science class?

Posted by: tanstaafl.

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 15:05

Since there are no explainable (proven) scientific methods, it seems that all theories require some faith

Well stated!

What differentiates the two sides of the argument is that the Scientific Method proponents are perfectly willing to state that evolution, or relativity, or string theory, or [insert doctrine of your choice here] IS a theory, pending more evidence to either prove it or disprove it; while the Religion proponents seem to take the attitude that "...see? You can't conclusively verify your theory, so that proves that God did it."

It is disheartening to me when people [certainly not Jeff, in this case!] seem unable to differentiate between the concepts of proof and faith.

tanstaafl.

Posted by: tanstaafl.

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 15:22

More likely I doubt very many people are lying, but instead are mistaken.

Jeff, you never cease to amaze me.

Here you are, being "attacked" on all sides, and still you insist on seeing your "opponents" in the best possible light.

While you and I are unlikely to come to much agreemment in the area of Faith, to me you are the embodiment of all that is best about Christianity.

Your contributions to this bbs have veen well stated, informative, and while certainly biased

have remained non-confrontational.

Please, please, keep up the good work!

tanstaafl.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 19:55

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While your world view may be tainted by faith, there are many of us who can view things objectively.

Notice I didn't say, "our faith", but "our view of faith". By that I mean how we think about faith, whether in a positive or negative light, influences how we study life. Earlier you said that religion and football were different, one being apropriate to talk about from a teacher and one not, on the basis that religion requires beliefs in fairy tales. That is an example of your view of faith influencing what you believe is allowable in the classroom.

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There were also many, many people who believed that the Earth was flat. That didn't make them right.

No, and I'm not saying they are/aren't. What I AM saying is that with two opposing viewpoints, you have to make an unavoidable choice. And when you are forced to make a choice, such as with evolution, you are adressing people's religion in a science classroom, intentional or not.

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Science depends on reproducible results

So says you (and I), but who makes us right about what science is or isn't?

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Bacteria have been modified through controlled evolution. Flowers have been. And it's been seen in those moths mentioned previously

Virtually no one denies evolution on the small scale, only where it invovles species changing from one to another. But once again, I'm not arguing about evolution anyway.

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Um, yes. Why do you think mathematics was chosen as the language sent out on SETI-type missions? What you're saying is akin to the idea that if we decided that the speed of light was not 300,000,000m/s then it would change. There are observable hard and fast rules of the universe. We have not yet discovered them all, but there are some that are absolute, and they're mathematics. Now, it's perfectly fine to say that God created mathematics and defined the laws of physics.

Well, you're missing my point here, I think. I was trying to put you and I on the same side here. Of course it'd be wrong, but if the majority of people accept something, that's what's going to be taught to our children. See, that's the position I feel I'm in. I see fundamental truths that are being denied (or ignored) in public schools, and its maddening at times. It's just as wrong to me as the "new math" would be to us all, but I'm really powerless to combat it.

And no, I don't want relgion classes in school. I don't think the government should be supporting one religion over any other. That takes away people's choices and opportunities for true faith. I just think the schools come off as anti-religion, which the government not ought to to.

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You mean like having religion taught in a science class?

Exactly- I almost used that as an example, but I was trying to go a little more abstract so we could get away from the "I believe this, you believe that" type stuff. I was trying to drive home how it feels when what is taught in school is inconsistent with one's fundamental believes and knowledge of the truth. In a democratic society, the majority rules, and the majority doesn't always support the truth. Admittedly, the "new math" was probably not my brightest analogy.

As an aside- I really need to stop trying to make points with analogies. It's a bad habit and never as effective as I think it is going to be.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 20:01

Quote:
while the Religion proponents seem to take the attitude that "...see? You can't conclusively verify your theory, so that proves that God did it."

I think the genuine attitude here is, "I know God exists because of my personal experience with Him, and you can't prove He doesn't". It's not that Christians think that lack of verification proves the point, it's just that they know they are correct by other evidence and that carries over into their attitude. I often find it very difficult to debate these matters in light of my personal experiences because the answers are so obvious to me. I work very hard not to expect others to have the same "evidence" that I do.

Of course, the ID arguments do explicitly say that science gives evidence to the existence of God, but those arguments generally are made from more than lack of evidence of an opposing viewpoint.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 20:08

Quote:
Here you are, being "attacked" on all sides

Nah, I almost never feel attacked on this BBS. Even those with the harshest criticisms do so without animosity. When I truly feel attacked I just stop posting, as there's no winner in those situations.

As for the rest of your post, I'll just say "thanks". I appreciate the kind words and hope for many more opportunities to have such discussions. This BBS is truly remarkable in its ability to have such conversations without personal attacks; it is a compliment to all who post here that discussions like this one can carry on for so many pages without requiring moderator intervention. I appreciate you all!

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 20:31

Quote:
Well, you're missing my point here, I think. I was trying to put you and I on the same side here.

Ah. I see what you mean. The difference being that what I'm talking about are provable scientific facts and what you're talking about are things that are, well, not. There are any number of things that I believe in on a personal level that I would want to instill in my children (if I had any or, in general, didn't despise children) but that I also believe have virtually no place in school. Of course, these are mostly things that I find entertaining as opposed to things that define how I should live my life.

I won't argue that it fails a lot of the time, but the point of school is to teach not facts so much as to how to learn. Okay, it fails most of the time, but that is what it should aspire to. Teaching faith (which you've already implied many times is impossible, anyway) doesn't fit in that curriculum. In order to teach faith, you have to simply tell students "this is how it is" without any sort of evidence.

Look at it this way: if you didn't have the (manmade) Bible to reference, how could you posit God from what you observe? I guess the point of ID is that some God must exist, otherwise where would all these amazing things have come from. But isn't that just taking the easy way out? You've decided that it's unknowable so you don't bother to look any further. What if people decided that magnets pointed towards the North simply because God made it so, ignoring the huge science of electromagnetism? Again, I have no problem with saying that God made the rules that made electromagnetism happen, but jumping the gun ignores a lot of observable information. In fact, if you're assuming that God exists and created the universe in general, simply saying "God made this" is never incorrect, is it? But there's so much more to be seen. Why would He have created this amazing place and then want us to ignore its beautiful details?

But this whole "easy way out" is a lot of what bothers me about modern Christianity. There's sort of a new Calvinism going on that has this notion that "God will sort it all out" and it implies an avoidance of personal reponsibility. That's obviously not the case with you or your compatriots here, but it is for a lot of people I observe. But that's more off the topic.

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 20:50

Here's an interesting argument that implies that God must be interested in faith as opposed to proof. It's related to that Exorcism of Emily Rose movie, but you can largely replace possession and statue-bleeding with ID here for the purposes of our conversation.

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But man, religious people are weird. It always seems like they've heard of Occam's Razor, but they just don't quite get how it works! They kept saying things like, "God allows people to be posessed to prove to others that God exists". Well you know what, if God really wanted to prove that he existed, I don't think he'd have any trouble doing that, being God and all. Instead of making a statue bleed in front of some backwoods hick, why not make ten thousand statues bleed at the same time? It's fuckin' God! So the obvious, clichéd answer to that is that God doesn't actually want to provide proof, because he wants people to have faith (AKA "believing something for no reason at all"). In which case, posession proves nothing except that, well, God's kinda mean.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 20:50

Quote:
But this whole "easy way out" is a lot of what bothers me about modern Christianity. There's sort of a new Calvinism going on that has this notion that "God will sort it all out" and it implies an avoidance of personal reponsibility.

Yeah, I can agree with this (except the term "new Calvinism", since I don't believe Calvin supported abstaining responsibility, but that's off topic). In fact, this statement is bang on:

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Why would He have created this amazing place and then want us to ignore its beautiful details?

Science was created by God along with this world around us, and to abstain from studying it would be disrespectful at best.

Yet it is true that Christians take the easy road all too often, at least around here, refusing to really go deep, be it theology, science, or just how they look at the world around them. But after observing this for quite a few years personally, I don't believe this is an issue of modern Christianity per se. It seems that this is the condition of the average US citizen, and that as many non-Christians exhibit this behavior as do Christians.

It seems that we are increasingly embracing a "don't think about it, just do it" kind of mentality in faith, politics, work, and relationships. This is a problem for the church which has to deal with "cultural Christians" who attend because they always have (it's just what they do), but then fail to live out their faith in any practical way. Church attendese is a routine for many that doesn't go any deeper than being the familiar thing to do. But I see this ouside of the church too, like when people witness 9/11 or Katrina and have some earth shattering revealtion, only to return to the humdrum of their lives unaffected after a few weeks. In the end, it seem we don't really let these things get inside and affect us. Nobody really wants to go deeper than they have to and most just do what is comfortable and fits what they've seen before. And to question what is comfortable is unthinkable.

And yes, I see all of this in myself too. Point is, though, I think this is not a matter of Christian faith, but part of our culture that shows up in the church among other places.

Posted by: wfaulk

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 20:54

Well, the implication was sort of predestiny versus "God's in control", which amounts to almost the same thing.

And you get no argument from me about all of humanity taking the easy way out. But, largely, we don't pay attention to any of them except for the religious ones.

Posted by: bbowman

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 21:04

As an X-religious person (who is now ~agnostic), I have been on both sides of this argument. I believe that it is true that ID is an attempt on the part of creationists to reconcile the evidence for evolution with their beliefs. According to my understanding of ID (And I haven't read the official declaration), It is a way to loosely quote evolution/big bang and tag on "and god created/started it all" on the end.

The fact is that when one has this kind of belief (creationism) one feels that one has no choice but to believe it. Therefore one must come up with "explanations" to make the belief fit with the new evidence that people have discovered through science - or to ignore the science completely.

The funny thing about it is that science has enabled us to do so many things - like to develop cell phones, empegs, and modern medicine. Most christians believe in those things. But when science starts to encroach on the sacred cow, then the tendancy is to discredit it or ignore it.

It is very difficult for a religious person to use science to challenge the validity of his own religious beliefs because the the person will always hold the religion as a higher light. The religious person would have to be willing to accept the premise that his religious beliefs could be flawed by what he would discover. That is the wall that science cannot break through because the person will not let it in.

Belief is a curious thing, it can inspire or it can hinder.

Posted by: bonzi

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 21:05

Well said. The world is so beautiful, so amazing, and creationists are missing it all. As for hypothetical God the Creator, somebody here already said that creating the Universe so that it evolves intelligence is vastly more awesome than "micromanaging" it all the way.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 21:11

Quote:
Here's an interesting argument that implies that God must be interested in faith as opposed to proof. It's related to that Exorcism of Emily Rose movie, but you can largely replace possession and statue-bleeding with ID here for the purposes of our conversation.

Personally I'd never try to explain anything God does by saying He's trying to prove that He exists. God's purposes are largely unknown and I have a difficult time trying to speak on His behalf about His intentions.

There are examples in scripture of God allowing suffering so that He might be glorified through the healing, but this is not quite the same thing as trying to prove His existence. The people being addressed in this example definitely believed in God, just not in Jesus as the Messiah. And in these passages, Jesus does not focus on the "why's" of suffering (and even rebukes the desciples for considering such questions), but rather puts the emphasis on healing the suffering.

That suffering exists is one of the thorniest issues of faith, and the Bible gives no real answer to it. It does say that God allows suffering (rather than causing it), and that He works suffering for good for those with faith. It does not promise that this good will happen in this life though.

So I'd be red faced to try an explain why things like Katrian or 9/11 or people dying of desies or anything else happen. I do trust that God is working out all things for good for those with faith, but certainly there are those who have a terrible time of it in this life. My hope is in the afterlife, in which all suffering will cease and when compared to this life makes our time here seem only an instant.

As all of this relates to ID, my opinion is still that there are weighter issues within Christianity and that the best logical arguments of ID will lead very few to faith in Christ. Not that it isn't worth thinking about or adressing (clearly, since I spend a lot of time talking about this stuff with you all) but I think we do not do God an favors by placing so much emphasis on trying to prove that He exists. We should be able to answer questions and adress people's concerns, but in the end it's all about faith in Christ as the solution to our sin problem.

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 21:18

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Well, the implication was sort of predestiny versus "God's in control", which amounts to almost the same thing.

Calvinism actually only relates to a person's decicion to follow Christ, not other aspects of life. So in Calvinism, God is soverign in the issue of salvation, but in all other areas we are our own free agents. And Calvin would also have said that we are responsible for the effects of our sin, but that we are helpless to rescue ourselves and must be dependent on God to save us entirely.

That some Calvinists have adopted an "it's all in God's hands so Ill just go with the flow" attitude does not mean it was Calvin's teaching or intent. Most of the Reformer held to the teachings for which Calvin is credited, and it would certainly be difficult to label those folks as "going with the flow".

Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 22:45

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As an aside- I really need to stop trying to make points with analogies. It's a bad habit and never as effective as I think it is going to be.

Oh, pooh. Jesus did it all the time!

Posted by: JeffS

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 15/09/2005 23:27

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Oh, pooh. Jesus did it all the time!

Well yes, but he didn't necessarily do it to make his points more clear.

Besides, Jesus was teaching, not debating. I've been finding (just in general, not necessarily here) that when I make an analogy the conversation spends more time off track debating the analogy than actualy discussing the real issue.

A friend of mine who's a debate coach confirmed this when I told him I was trying to cut back on analogies. He had this problem with his debate students all of the time. He'd say "say I gave you a box. . . " and his kids would immediately start saying "why would you give us a box?" "what kind of box is it?" "Are you going to give us a present". Whatever he was trying to illustrate got completely lost. I've started to realize this is true in most debating conversations, though illustrations are great for teaching mature audiences.

Or at least that's what I think.

Posted by: JBjorgen

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 16/09/2005 02:11

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Oh, pooh. Jesus did it all the time!

Having omniscience as a character trait generally lends itself to effective analogies. This is unfortunately something Jeff lacks.

Posted by: bonzi

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 16/09/2005 05:16

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Personally I'd never try to explain anything God does by saying He's trying to prove that He exists. God's purposes are largely unknown and I have a difficult time trying to speak on His behalf about His intentions.

Sadly, most people in politics (including ID proponents) invoking "God's name in vain" to promote their causes don't share your reluctance to express intimate knowledge of God's intentions...

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As all of this relates to ID, my opinion is still that there are weighter issues within Christianity and that the best logical arguments of ID will lead very few to faith in Christ. Not that it isn't worth thinking about or adressing (clearly, since I spend a lot of time talking about this stuff with you all) but I think we do not do God an favors by placing so much emphasis on trying to prove that He exists. We should be able to answer questions and adress people's concerns, but in the end it's all about faith in Christ as the solution to our sin problem.

Again, this is a view that we, regrettably, hear rather rarely.

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So I'd be red faced to try an explain why things like Katrian or 9/11 or people dying of desies or anything else happen. I do trust that God is working out all things for good for those with faith, but certainly there are those who have a terrible time of it in this life. My hope is in the afterlife, in which all suffering will cease and when compared to this life makes our time here seem only an instant.

Well, one does wonder why then go through the trouble of creating the stage for that mere instant, but, as we already established, God's intentions and motives are not to be questioned nor too much pondered (which seems to be a kind of universal answer to thornier questions of religion...)

Posted by: bonzi

Re: A college that trains young Christians to be politicians - 16/09/2005 05:17

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I think the genuine attitude here is, "I know God exists because of my personal experience with Him, and you can't prove He doesn't". It's not that Christians think that lack of verification proves the point, it's just that they know they are correct by other evidence and that carries over into their attitude. I often find it very difficult to debate these matters in light of my personal experiences because the answers are so obvious to me. I work very hard not to expect others to have the same "evidence" that I do.

So, no "Credo quia absurdum"?

You say you have personal experience with God, and I have no choice but to believe you. I don't have any such experience, and I don't feel that I (or you) have a "sin problem". Other people do claim to have personal, intimate "proofs" of a vast array of often quite incompatible Deities. So, for me the obvious conclusion is that those "experiences" must be caused by something other than objective existence of any deity. Strange....

A college that trains young Christians to be politicians