RE: [asa] Teenagers and Evolution

History textbooks censor speeches and documents:
"Gentlemen may cry peace!peace! but there is no peace! Is life so dear or
peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery...I
know not..."
Missing is 'Forbid it Almighty God'

There are many such examples.

Teachers are told to not talk about God. God is a part of many discussions.
One cannot go through research material and censor out all references to God
and religion and provide an equitable view of either history or science or
life in general.

Our school systems are enforcing ignorance of religion. This is wrong. It is
very difficult to enforce true freedom of religion. However, I believe what
we are doing is closer to the total lack of freedom of religion of the USSR
than it is to the freedom of religion of the Bill of Rights.

I know that it has been determined that there can be religious clubs at
schools. I also know that speaking of religion in a classroom can get a
teacher disciplined or fired. Even if the students start the discussion,
the repercussions for the teacher can be severe. This is wrong.

Now that we've rooted out the evil of blind religious teaching, we need to
move towards true religious freedom - which includes exploration and
discussion where this is natural. Maybe in the science class it would only
come up for a grand total of 2 hours out of four years - fine. That 2 hours
of discussion shouldn't be censored. In the history class, it would be a
great deal more - still maybe only 1% of the time spent in the classroom -
but it is a significant part of people's lives and motivations.

We are rewriting history a la the communists.
Debbie Mann
AKA Joan Saunders, author of 'Doors of the Megdalines'

  -----Original Message-----
  From: Dawsonzhu@aol.com [mailto:Dawsonzhu@aol.com]
  Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 9:57 AM
  To: deborahjmann@insightbb.com; asa@calvin.edu
  Subject: Re: [asa] Teenagers and Evolution

  Deborah Mann wrote:

    I appreciate that a middle ground does exist. But one wouldn't know it
from the publicized arguments about education.

  I would guess the first point of indication is what is actually
  in the high school biology textbooks that might prove questionable
  for presentation to 16-18 year olds. Is there any chance you can provide
  some examples of R-rated (under 17 not admitted) material in the biology
  textbooks? Not to trivialize, but maybe should that be E-rated?

  I do recall that Stryer's textbook on Biochemistry does have
  Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker argument in it (4th ed, p 418).
  It is more or less set in the context of presenting the idea
  without the accompanying a-theology, but, it could be read
  as an endorsement of the rest of Dawkin's views. However,
  that is a college textbook, where you're certainly on your own.

  I doubt the majority of high school biology teachers would
  sit there rubbing their hands as the new
  students file into the classroom on the first day, and then
  proselytize them for the 1 or 2 semesters to become atheists.
  I don't really think most schools would hire someone they
  suspected of being that way in the first place (whatever the
  religion, but it could be complicated by other matters). There's
  a lot of things to teach in a class that are also very important,
  so quite likely, the amount of time spent on evolution is probably
  very small, maybe a day or two.

  So can you offer any examples of objectionable text for a
  high school textbook?

  by Grace we proceed,
  Wayne

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Received on Sat Jan 13 11:51:34 2007