Bible essay stirs trouble for teacher (atheist crosses church and state boundary)

Herald Net (Snohomish County, WA) ^ | Thursday, February 22, 2007 | Melissa Slager

[amchugh]

The nature of God will no longer be part of an atheist teacher's American literature class at Lake Stevens High School.

[amchugh]

We'll see if the ACLU get involved.

[SunkenCiv]

Ping!

[Libertarianchick]

This girl is in for a surprise if she goes to college.
She needs to learn to stand up for her beliefs and not try to censor because that won't work anywhere else in life.

[DeweyCA]

as discussed on a thread a couple weeks ago, the new international Baccleureate program in many high schools contains a "Theory of Knowledge" class. This is really a religion/philosophy class (talking about the existence of truth, the source of truth, ethics, etc.). The teachers are teaching these religion classes 1 hour/day, 5 days/week for 40 weeks, with homework assignments, but they don't want the parents to know that it is really a religion class or many parents would object. Many of our schools and teachers are now in an all-out war against Christianity. Parents better wise-up.

[Prov3456]

Read later.

[Sopater]

Hey! I live in Lake Stevens, WA! (I homeschool my kids though...)

[Triggerhippie]

I don't necessarily think that these assignments were out of line. When working towards my minor (Rel. Studies) there were plenty of opportunities to do good work in studying the Bible as literature, as law, as a collection of archetypal characters, etc. These students would have had the opportunity to deepen their understanding and knowledge of the Bible while looking at it from a whole new, and non-threatening, perspective.

The teacher should not, however, have prefaced any of this with his own beliefs as they are not germane.

[weegee]

After they completed that assignment, he gave them another handout, titled "The Problem With Evil."

That handout, which was not part of the textbook's materials, asked questions such as how evil could exist if God is good and all-powerful.

"Where is your god now???"

[Pontiac]

he gave them another handout, titled "The Problem With Evil."

That handout, which was not part of the textbook's materials, asked questions such as how evil could exist if God is good and all-powerful.

Junior Lanae Olsen, 17, said it all went too far.

With reading the handout it is difficult to understand what the teen found offensive.

The answer is rather simple; the base nature of man is evil, God bestowed on man the gift of free will, the choice to follow his nature or follow God’s commandments.

If God had wanted a perfect world he could have created one, however such a world would not have had humans with free will, it would have had programmed creatures incapable of choosing between the love of God and the unbridled love of pleasure and self gratification.

If the teen did not know this her parents should have this is basic primary school Sunday School stuff.

[amchugh]

Do you have some evidence that educators are particularly interested in campaigning against Christianity, or that there is a smaller proportion of Christian educators in our K-12 institutions than the 90% of the population that believes in God in America?

I'll grant that in universities and colleges that might be the case (see How Religious are America’s College and University Professors?). However, I posted this story partly because it is the first counterexample of an atheist proselytizing that I've seen to the wealth of stories about teachers instructing children in Christian beliefs in public institutions.

Slightly OT, you might be interested in this book.

[DeweyCA]

Yes, I do have evidence of a public high school being used to indoctrinate students against Christianity. In fact, just last year, I an English literature teacher taking 15 minutes every two weeks to tell all of his English classes his views on religion and philosophy (being anti-Christian). This was completely off-topic, in no way related to the prescribed material that the state mandates. He is also the teacher of that school's "Theory of Knowledge" class.

A year ealier, I complained to the Dean of the English department at the local community college about an English teacher who was taking 30 minutes of each 90-minute class to complain about Bush, the Iraq War, and Christianity. Again totally off topic; had nothing to do with what he was supposed to be teaching. Any parent who doesn't recognize the strong possibility that their kids are the target of deliberate indoctrination by public-education teachers is naive.

[amchugh]

Any parent who doesn't recognize the strong possibility that their kids are the target of deliberate indoctrination by public-education teachers is naive. True, although that indoctrination goes many different ways. I thought from the language of your initial post that you were implying a broad trend rather that many isolated instances.

[Hoodat]

Looks like this teacher was pushing his religion on these students. Where's Barry Lynn when you need him?

[Salvation]

This will be interesting to follow.

[Grizzled Bear]

She needs to learn to stand up for her beliefs and not try to censor because that won't work anywhere else in life.
_______________________________________________________

Unless you're a college professor. Or a member of the DNC. Or a minority member of a government office in a major city. Or a member of the MSM.

[nickcarraway]

How could a student have the ability to censor? Is she on the school board or the mayor of the town?

[Sopater]

McDonald used the textbook's worksheet. On it, students were to give examples of how the Iroquois tale reflects four functions of myth - to instill awe, explain the world, support customs and guide people.

I wonder how evolutionism stands up to this test?

1. instill awe - check. Who isn't awed to hear that they share a common anscestor with bacteria.

2. explain the world - check. The sole purpose of evolutionism is to explain the world as we know it with purely naturalistic processes.

3. support customs - check. Evolutionism supports many customs by trying to show that many human behaviors are normal because they are seen in lower animals.

4. guide people - check. Evolution, in its attempts to explain the miracle of life in purely natural, materialisic ways has guided people away from believing in an all power God who created this world and all that lives on it.

I guess evolutionism qualifies as a myth...

[Libertarianchick]

She complained to her parents/principal instead of researching apologetics and engaging in debate/discussion in the class.
There are teachers who try to indoctrinate children, but making people question their beliefs in a philosophy class is not that.
This particular girl's actions strike me as very spineless. This isn't even college where her grade is on the line. She has nothing to lose from going up against this teacher with the best arguments she can muster (and learning and strengthening her beliefs in the process), but instead she goes running to be "protected" from the world.

[amchugh]

Hey, no derailing! :)

[Sopater]

This particular girl's actions strike me as very spineless

This is a 17-year-old girl. She is in a student/teacher authority type relationship. If she's anything like most Christians today, especially those in public school, she has not been trained to adequately defend her faith. You may call her spineless, but I call her brave and wise. She is still a child.