I need to show you guys something. Not too long ago, I started getting fan requests for viewing a video at FaceBook on putting Christ BACK in schools. I want to point out the intellectual legacy of this idea. It is distinctively anti-government in a way that should be disturbing to people who value the Constitution.
Please visit the Founding Father of Home Schooling, R. J. Rushdoony on this youtube page:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPOrKVU_0dw
Read about his theories of governance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rousas_John_Rushdoony
And you may conclude with me that in order to confirm his paranoid bias, he reinvented history.
In addition to creating home schooling and (wanting to) demolish the legal system of the United States, he directly inspired murder. How much nicer can a guy get? Does he invite direct comparison to any radical muslim clerics you know?
Here is piece produced for a religious audience. Christian Reconstructionism By Dr. Bruce Prescott - Interfaith Alliance forum on Religious Extremism - Westminster Presbyterian Church April 11, 2002
http://www.mainstreambaptists.org/mob4/dominionism.htm
What I find interesting is the direct explicit intent to establish control in Republican organizations.
This is a Rushdoony legacy foundation link to a page of readings for the advancement of LIBERTY!
http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/article.php?ArticleID=464
Which I find funny since they wish to eliminate the structure of the government.
In closing, I presume you may be aware that Christ was never in schools in the first place. If you have any ideas to the contrary, don't consider looking at anything but the American Bar Association's page on it. I have put several links into this post already. Find it yourself. :-p
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
12.16.2009
When is it Religion and When is it Prejudice?
A story in the Guardian describes:
When does religion become prejudice? The panel of judges deliberately stuck in a disclaimer to stop people like me from yapping about it. I don't think it should stop me. Largely because it doesn't make sense.
The parents got married and to keep her husband happy, the woman became an official member of her husband's faith. But when they sent their child to a school run by a similar-but-not-identical faith group, he was judged racially-cum-religiously impure which is OK if you're of the similar-but-not-identical faith group.
It reminds me of the job application process at several conservative Christian schools that asks you to "Describe how and when you were saved." It isn't part of Christian doctrine that adults have a non-baptismal-saving (I love hyphens tonight) ordeal in order to be Christian. The official description of Christianity is described by the Nicene Creed as "one baptism for the remission of sins..." so the job application contains an odd requirement. Perhaps even un-Christian.
Sorry.
What bothers me is that in the U.S. we must allow the free exercise of religious beliefs when they interfere with inculcating the faculties of reason and judgment in our young. Luckily, the young are able to withstand most of it the way they withstand the onslaught of education in general.
Judges today ruled that one of Britain's most successful faith schools had racially discriminated against a 12-year-old boy who was refused admission because the school did not recognise him as Jewish....M's mother converted from Catholicism to Judaism under a non-Orthodox authority, meaning the Chief Rabbi does not recognise her as Jewish...."The majority held that JFS had directly discriminated against M on grounds of his ethnic origins."...the judges did not consider the Chief Rabbi to be racist.It happened in Great Britain and not in the U.S. so there is nothing here to speak of, legally. But having read _Holy Hullabaloos_ recently I was left with a vacant spot in the dialog. And when I read this story I was reminded of it.
When does religion become prejudice? The panel of judges deliberately stuck in a disclaimer to stop people like me from yapping about it. I don't think it should stop me. Largely because it doesn't make sense.
The parents got married and to keep her husband happy, the woman became an official member of her husband's faith. But when they sent their child to a school run by a similar-but-not-identical faith group, he was judged racially-cum-religiously impure which is OK if you're of the similar-but-not-identical faith group.
It reminds me of the job application process at several conservative Christian schools that asks you to "Describe how and when you were saved." It isn't part of Christian doctrine that adults have a non-baptismal-saving (I love hyphens tonight) ordeal in order to be Christian. The official description of Christianity is described by the Nicene Creed as "one baptism for the remission of sins..." so the job application contains an odd requirement. Perhaps even un-Christian.
Sorry.
What bothers me is that in the U.S. we must allow the free exercise of religious beliefs when they interfere with inculcating the faculties of reason and judgment in our young. Luckily, the young are able to withstand most of it the way they withstand the onslaught of education in general.
5.12.2009
Google Squared
When you see Google Squared in a couple of weeks or months and you love spreadsheets, you will love the juicy goodness of a search arrayed in splendor and ordered in columns and rows. Or rows and columns if you prefer.
An if, as a spreadsheet user, you enjoy surrounding yourself with stacks of building blocks, you will again be content.
But if you think Google will extract structure out of the disorder, you will only be fooling yourself. I may be wrong. I have only seen a brief demonstration.
But it seems as though Google Squared is like looking at the world and seeing intelligent design. And yes, I believe the lead up was worth the punch line.
An if, as a spreadsheet user, you enjoy surrounding yourself with stacks of building blocks, you will again be content.
But if you think Google will extract structure out of the disorder, you will only be fooling yourself. I may be wrong. I have only seen a brief demonstration.
But it seems as though Google Squared is like looking at the world and seeing intelligent design. And yes, I believe the lead up was worth the punch line.
9.20.2008
The Wisdom of Crowds Questioned
Slashdot (as an entity) has been whining about the nasty email it gets accusing it of bias.
Of course there is the perception that as in any human filtered media organization, bias happens naturally.
I have been thinking about crowd bias. If you have a crowd of "evangelical christians" for example, what kind of crowd stupidity would come out of it on account of commonly held misconceptions?
Let's take the misunderstanding of the historic origin of "when human life begins" in common usage in the U.S.
In the 1960s, as a part of its general rethinking of liturgy and philosophy, the Catholic Church considered the question of when human life begins. The context was this: Humanity has rights as a group that are different from individual rights. The rights and responsibilities of the group need to be considerate of its members who have no way of making themselves heard. These may be oppressed populations in different locations or they may be the unborn members of the community of humans.
The theologians consulted with biologists to clarify what was then understood as constituting life and came to the conclusion that they couldn't tell when life began. To be on the safe side, they (Roman Catholic policymakers) decided that life begins when the possibility of life exists.
American theologians, taking this as excellent advice, incorporated the new policy into their thoughts.
What we are left with is a conflict between the rights of the family of humans versus the rights of the individual based on a decision so conservative it verges on fantasy.
Gradually, groups who incorporated this into their core belief systems have come to make it a matter of faith.
Catholics, in their admirable love-hate relationship with Rome are somehow able to distance themselves from a good deal of this but evangelicals who are as a matter of belief are in daily direct tow-way communication with God have forgot that it wasn't the result of a divine utterance.
Of course there is the perception that as in any human filtered media organization, bias happens naturally.
I have been thinking about crowd bias. If you have a crowd of "evangelical christians" for example, what kind of crowd stupidity would come out of it on account of commonly held misconceptions?
Let's take the misunderstanding of the historic origin of "when human life begins" in common usage in the U.S.
In the 1960s, as a part of its general rethinking of liturgy and philosophy, the Catholic Church considered the question of when human life begins. The context was this: Humanity has rights as a group that are different from individual rights. The rights and responsibilities of the group need to be considerate of its members who have no way of making themselves heard. These may be oppressed populations in different locations or they may be the unborn members of the community of humans.
The theologians consulted with biologists to clarify what was then understood as constituting life and came to the conclusion that they couldn't tell when life began. To be on the safe side, they (Roman Catholic policymakers) decided that life begins when the possibility of life exists.
American theologians, taking this as excellent advice, incorporated the new policy into their thoughts.
What we are left with is a conflict between the rights of the family of humans versus the rights of the individual based on a decision so conservative it verges on fantasy.
Gradually, groups who incorporated this into their core belief systems have come to make it a matter of faith.
Catholics, in their admirable love-hate relationship with Rome are somehow able to distance themselves from a good deal of this but evangelicals who are as a matter of belief are in daily direct tow-way communication with God have forgot that it wasn't the result of a divine utterance.
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