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Re: cs lewis




Hey all,

Well, being as I'm the guy whose comment started this lively discussion, let 
me say that Kelvin, Peter, and Kevin here seemed to really latch onto what I 
was getting at.  Especially Kevin, who I'm starting to think I was separated 
from at birth.

The point was never that history is not revised, but that revisions that are 
made with an agenda in mind, secular humanism in this case, and at the 
expense of the truth, are taking place in our schools.  The same schools 
that teach the THEORY of evolution "as if" it where fact, and dismiss 
creationism.  This, in turn, causes fundamentalists to become more zealous, 
in defense of their embattled faith.  Then we get things like "Creation 
Science", a seemingly oxymoronic term if ever there were one, that just look 
silly in the eyes of the world.  "Rational" men laugh at faith, and we 
respond by trying to justify it; that which can't be proven by its very 
nature. We look like fools.  The cycle repeats...

Hate (not really) to keep bringing up Midnight Oil, but I once had a debate 
with a Christian friend about the song "The Dead Heart".  In it, Peter 
Garrett sings, "40,000 years can make a difference to the state of things," 
referring to the imperialism and subsequent cultural genocide that have 
reduced the Aborigines to living in the "rubble of western civilization."  
He challenged PG's Christianity on the basis that a "real" Christian should 
know that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, citing the 
pseudo-science that appears like a pathetic attempt to distort reality to 
accommodate and prove a religious worldview.  Clutching at straws, really.  
Sad, but you can hardly blame evangelical Christians.  When the powers that 
be are doing the same to you, fighting fire with fire is the easiest, most 
logical means of recourse.
So this is where we are in the year 2001.  Truth has indeed been forced 
underground... (OtR content!)

Revising my own story,

Matt

>From: Gilhamilton at aol_com
>Ysobelle at aol_com writes:
>
><< As for revisionist histories, pardon my language, but if I have kids in
>  school, they'd fucking well better be taught as secular a history as
>  possible.  >>
>
>  I haven't read the new thread yet as I worke around 15 hours today but
>here's my initial take:
>Coming from a Christian POV believe it or not I *partially* agree --
>possibly.  Not totally sure what you mean by teaching secular as possible.  
>I
>don't think a public school, with people from all different backgrounds, is
>the place to teach Christianity or any other particular religion at all.
>BUT, I do think we should teach as NON revisionist "a history as possible."
>If there were religious reasons for a historical event the reasons should 
>be
>taught and in order to give a basic understanding of why it would be also
>necessary to give a basic understanding of the beliefs of the people 
>involved
>in said historical event.  You don't have to proselytize to do that, just
>explain what it was about the faiths involved that made people act the way
>they did.  Religion, or the lack thereof, is very crucial in understanding
>history, sociology, science, etc. since man tends to be a pretty religious
>animal.  To teach these things and completely ignore or edit out religious
>reasons for them, when there are, is to teach a fabricated history that 
>never
>was or at least only is partial truth.  I think children need to be taught 
>as
>objectively as possible.  Of course biases will always be there but a 
>teacher
>should work hard at ferreting out what his biases are and try, to the best 
>of
>his/her ability, to not promote his own particular bias but instead present 
>a
>balanced view giving the student the tools to decide for themselves what 
>they
>wish to believe.
>
>kevin

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