Re: [asa] Rubber Meeting Road -- My Kid in Public School

I would find it acceptable for a SS teacher to be muddled over evolution and if he/she simply said dinosaurs lived millions of years ago and that's no problem that would be fine for kids, but to say that dinosaurs lived alongside Adam and Eve would not.

Each year I teach a confirmation class for 11-2 year olds . I teach creation and in the course of that give a little work sheet and get them to match ages with things

Big bang
Formation of earth
trilobites
dinosaurs
humans
200000years, 100my, 550my 4.5 by 12by

As I pass round dinosaur coprolite (usually a girl shrieks at that point) and fossils they enjoy it and my aim is to show Genesis tells us God did it but science tells us details. OK simplistic, but they get the basics

Michael
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: David Opderbeck
  To: wdwllace@sympatico.ca
  Cc: James Mahaffy ; asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 9:59 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Rubber Meeting Road -- My Kid in Public School

  My daughter's sunday school teacher is a wonderful older woman who has nothing but the best intentions. She's an artist, not a scientist, and probably doesn't have any serious theological training. Her views on faith and science, I'm sure, are just bits of things snatched from here and there. I would never accuse her of "lying" or do anything to impugn her reputation in my daughter's eyes, nor would anything productive likely come from confronting her directly. On the whole, what she's taught and modeled to the group of 11-year-old girls she has to handle every Sunday is precious, even if she is misguided on this one point. The balance for me, I believe, is to give my daughter some fatherly guidance without making this an issue that would divide her from an otherwise helpful and loving teacher.

  BTW, my own mother, bless her heart, would probably agree with the sunday school teacher. Do I call grandma a "liar" too?

   
  On 1/8/07, Dave Wallace <wdwllace@sympatico.ca> wrote:
    From Wikipedia
    A lie is an untruthful statement made to someone else with the intention
    to deceive. To lie is to say something one believes to be false with the
    intention that it be taken for the truth by someone else.

    A true statement may be a lie. If the person who makes the true
    statement genuinely believes it to be false, and makes the statement
    with the intention that his audience believe it to be true, then this is
    a lie (see Jean-Paul Sartre, Le Mur (1937)). When a person lies he or
    she is intentionally untruthful, but he or she is not necessarily making
    an untrue statement.

    In general I think words like:
    "I disagree..."
    "I think ... is wrong or even untrue"
    are more helpful and likely to result in discussion. Unfortunately I'm
    unable to always put the above into practice as I should especially with
    those that are very dogmatic. I suspect that at most a very tiny
    fraction of those holding YEC position are in fact liars even though
    their position is false and often very damaging.
    Dave

    James Mahaffy wrote:
> Lets not be so quick to say the pastor and church are teaching lies. I
> suspect they
> are opposing a Godless theory of origins that see taught in the schools
> and to their children.

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  --
  David W. Opderbeck
  Web: http://www.davidopderbeck.com
  Blog: http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html
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Received on Mon Jan 8 17:42:16 2007