> >oh, hell no. But that's not a function of government so much as
>>fundamentalists putting pressure on text book companies, teachers,
>>and local school boards--and a basic decline in American education
>>that has taken place over the last 40 years.
>
>All areas of American life has switched from thinkiing mode to feeling
>except maybe you and me and I'm not sure any more about me <G> No one is
>being taught to read and think critically and the only thing that matters
>is how do you feel about a topic.
>
>For example, I am a recent member of the Christian Reformed Church. The
>CRC has a long tradition of pushing education, particularly CRC
>controlled schools. probably 80% of the adults in our congregation went
>to "Christian" school as do probably 80% of the children. Yet I can't see
>any obvious superior levels of education in the congregation and most of
the adults do manual labor.
>One would think that a denomination which pushes education and comes from
>a Puritan backround would produce readers, yet the CRC was one of the
>first which dumped the King James translation as being to complex. They
>went to the NIV Bible which is probably the most simplified of the real
>translations and now people are complaining that the NIV is to difficult
>to read. In like matter, the "hard" words have been removed from the old
>hymns. We have attained a "1984" world where words have become dangerous.
I understand and agree. You have to realize that anti-intellectualism
has always been rampant in the US. People are suspicious of anybody
who thinks too much. Depending on where you live, you might try a
Unitarian church with a strong Christian group (if you are
Christian). We haven't taken all the "hard words" out of the hymns
yet :-) And even my tiny church has a tiny library.
>Prior to WW2 a high School graduate could handle 80% of the available
>jobs and most college students graduated on the "Arts" side.
I know. Sometimes I think the US is sliding into another Dark Ages
and when I'm in a more cheerful mood I think our "service economy"
will end up sweeping the floors of the Europeans and the Japanese.
I just came back from a trip to a museum with my co-workers. One
plant supervisor asked the docent if Van Gogh was "that ear guy" and
I had to explain what a reliquary was to two women from the front
office. (Otherwise I enjoyed the trip. That ear guy do paint nice
pitchers.)
Susan
Susan
-- ----------I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work will be denounced by some as highly irreligious; but he who denounces them is bound to shew why it is more irreligious to explain the origin of man as a distinct species by descent from some lower form, through the laws of variation and natural selection, than to explain the birth of the individual through the laws of ordinary reproduction.
---Charles Darwin
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