Religion is a danger to our education

I don't think religion and politics (or policy) should be mixed (4.00 / 1)

But that mixing is a fact of life here in the South.  And I don't think the detrimental effect on education is as much due to tithing as it is to the backward views of our politicians, such as Sen. Shadrack McGill who says "biblical principles" teach him that paying teachers more just encourages the wrong kind of people to teach.  He seems to think we'd be better off with an all volunteer teacher force. 

Sen. Shadrack's view of the Bible is warped, as far as I can tell, but he's not the only one who thinks that way.  He's not evil, he's ignorant.  Lack of education is the danger to education -- people who are easily led to believe any foolish thing because someone says "it's in the Bible," whether it is or not.

Minor quibble: even in Alabama there are other religions besides Christianity.  Nearly all of them have been used as an excuse to do bad things at one time or another.  However, let's not lose sight of the fact that religions and religious organizations also do many good works.  It isn't all bad, by any means, although I don't think any of it belongs in government.

Work harder and work smarter!

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by: mooncat @ Mon Sep 17, 2012 at 12:09:25 PM UTC

Fundamentalism (4.00 / 4)

is the danger.  I want religion out of schools too, and I want it to stop being an exemption for vaccine refusal in the state-- a danger to health, not just education.

But please, don't paint all Christians with the same brush.  There is a growing group of us who are technically atheists but who see the practice of a religion as a poetic, encompassing, metaphorical embodiment of Love.  It may be that some have a higher need for ritual and story than others-- we should not be denigrated for that. There are parts of my brain and body that just don't seem to communicate except through myth, symbolism and liturgy. And we are as dismayed by the use of fundamentalism as you are.

I have coined a new word for people like me-- I was using non-theist Christian but I don't think that quite captures it. We are poetitheists.  Please don't bash us!

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by: DrAbston @ Mon Sep 17, 2012 at 13:08:29 PM UTC

A few random comments (4.00 / 1)

I agree with the basic premise of the post.  I think religion is, on the whole, a bad thing, and removing or reducing its influence on education and public policy would be beneficial.  I do have some quibbles and clarifications, particularly in light of the couple of replies here, which bring up important points.

First a quibble.  No, it is not the case that 16% of the US population is atheist.  The number is closer to 4%.  I wish it were 16%, but that's more like the number of people who are unaffiliated with an organized religion.  The number is larger than 4% if you count people who don't believe in a god but reject the label "atheist".  It's still higher than the percentage of Jews or of Muslims, or of Mormons.  (Interestingly, Americans typically overstate the prevalence of religious minorities.)

Now the clarifications.  I agree with mooncat that religious communities often do good things.  If that were the predominant mode of action of religion, I would have far fewer problems with it, but those problems would not disappear.  More important, though, is that these are actions of communities of people; there is nothing that religion adds to the mix, except perhaps as a handy tool for organizing people.  There is no reason that non-religious groups can't engage in similar actions, and often enough they do.  Neighborhoods, student bodies, friends and family, clubs, teams, all kinds of groups do band together to promote the common good or to help those in need.  I do not accept the premise that there is anything beneficial in religion that cannot be achieved without religion.

I also agree with DrAbston in her caution not to paint all Christians with the same brush.  I don't think this diarist does that, actually; it is easier and more concise to talk about "Christians" and "Christian way of life", with a clear understanding to most people that what is being discussed is "most" or "common" rather than "all".  (After all, we talk about "Americans" or "Alabamians" or "conservatives" or "liberals" without such qualifications and without ambiguity.)  Still, it is worth remembering that not all nominal members of any particular religion subscribe to its most questionable views or engage in its more obnoxious practices.

DrAbston, one term I think that refers to someone who follows the practices of Christianity without accepting the belief system is "cultural Christian"; there are many such people.  There is even an organization for atheistic Christians, but I'm personally more familiar with the Jewish counterpart, Humanistic Judaism, which is quite solidly established.

Back to the quibbles.  As I mentioned, I agree with the basic premise of reducing or eliminating the influence of religion.  My reasons are somewhat different.  There are pernicious effects of fundamentalism as mentioned, but even "good" religion doesn't belong in schools or public policy.  We shouldn't support a bill granting liberal rights because of a quote of a bible passage, even if we agree with that conclusion.  If we are to be a pluralistic, secular society, we must have secular reasons for laws, not reasons that require one to accept the authority of one particular religion's holy book.  If we reject the authority of the bible unless we agree with it, we already know what we think is right, and the bible is irrelevant.

Note that this reasoning is not based on numerical superiority of anything.  While it is interesting and heartening to the non-theist population to point out growth among our numbers, the principles are the same regardless.  I would no more want to enforce atheism if atheists were a substantial majority than I would accept the promotion of Christianity in the current environment.  Protection of the rights of the minority is a fundamental feature of our form of government.

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by: Smedley @ Mon Sep 17, 2012 at 14:31:56 PM UTC

not cultural (0.00 / 0)

really-- it's a different thing.  Poetry comes the closest. It's a sort of participatory poetic mythology.  I believe the symbols are "true" in that they describe or evoke deep subjective meaning, but it doesn't work whatsoever if taken literally.  That to me is like making a cult that worships the Emperor of Ice Cream as a concrete being.  A communal mythology simply can't happen minus the mythology.  I agree that communities can perform service without it and that is fine, but to those of us who need the poetry/ symbolism, life without it feels dry.  Why not have just some great secular poetry, community action, etc?  Because the poetry/ metaphor of a religion is encompassing of all parts of ordinary life to those who participate.  I wouldn't try to drag anyone into this who didn't want to play, but there really is a subjective experience that can't be duplicated exactly in any other way I know of.  I'm guessing it is a more primitive part of the brain that doesn't do linear thinking very well.  Maybe you have evolved beyond it and we have not, who knows.

Emergent spirituality is another way I've heard-- the neurons create the concept of a poetic God, which is real in a purely subjective/meaning sense, but I think a top down emergence or some of the quantum tomfoolery going around is silly.  No neurons, no God-- one way street.

Have you every read Jennifer Hecht's interesting book on Happiness?  She also wrote about the history of Doubt, and she is an atheist-- both are wonderful books.  In her book on happiness, she talks about the particular experiences of happiness in spiritual ceremonies/ rituals. Maybe that would explain it better than I can. 

There are more people like me than you'd think, because they don't tell atheists-- they are used to getting ridiculed, frankly.  In progressive churches, we can be completely up front about this stuff and it is all good. 

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by: DrAbston @ Mon Sep 17, 2012 at 22:46:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It's always interesting to me to see "meaningful coincidences" (4.00 / 1)

and this post comes on the heels of receiving an email asking me to rebut Fox news saying "the DNC refused gift baskets from Christians"

My first response was, of course, "did anyone report this story besides Fox?" and then "If it IS true, that's fine by me, as I want as little mixing of religion and politics as possible"

BTW, did anyone else notice it's Constitution Day?

The writers of the Constitution -- our Founding Fathers -- considered themselves men of faith. But in the late 1700s, what did that mean?

George Washington attended Church of England or Episcopal Church services in Virginia but considered himself a Christian Deist. Deism is a philosophy with belief in a supreme creator of the universe but rejects prophecy, miracles or revelation.

John Adams was a Congregationalist who became a Unitarian, believing in resurrection but rejecting the Trinity and Jesus as divine.

Thomas Jefferson was also an attendee of the Church of England but was a man of the Enlightenment. He read the Bible but did not believe Jesus was the Savior.

(from an article at KSL.com)

"If guns kept America safe, then America would surely be the safest country in the whole world." - Rep. Carolyn Maloney

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by: mpmarus @ Mon Sep 17, 2012 at 16:30:06 PM UTC

Breath of fresh air (0.00 / 0)

Thank you for your rant, We quit going to church - at least for a while - because of politics from the pulpit. Preacherman declared that we were all right wing conservatives because we were in church, anything liberal was bad, anything conservative was good, did not like anything "green" or "mother earth", railed against homosexuals and slammed the current president. I even heard that people could be too educated. My wife has a Ph.D. Damn, why did I keep going back? We finally had enough and quit.  We do miss the ritual - spiritual part of it but I quit believing in Santa Clause a long time ago. We are deciding what to do and I am leaning toward looking at a Druid Grove - but none around here. My wife is a terminal Methodist but I never joined a church. I quit believing in the standard message when I was around 12. Lonely being a liberal deist in the Bible Belt. 

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by: Blue_Sky @ Mon Sep 17, 2012 at 17:24:46 PM UTC

Religion is A horrible Danger to kids. (4.00 / 1)

It is not just education that suffers when kids are indoctrinated with religious filth. It is the actual kids. They don't tend to believe science which is based in tested facts. They tend to buy into absuridites, and stray from higher education believing that "god" will provide for them.

To say that religion does not effect education and the kids is absurd.

This nation was founded on secular ideas. Washington refused communion. Jefferson,  wrote a secular document to create a wall protecting us from religion being forced on us.

We are a secular nation that needs no religion in the schools, or teaching kids their bodies are bad, that evolution didn't happen, and god is flating above them waiting for them.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation battles 12 cases per year trying to prevent religion from altering the education on evolution that children get. 2 States have passed laws allowing creationism to be taught in the schools. What we need is that wall we are s desperately lacking.

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by: GodlessVagina @ Mon Sep 17, 2012 at 19:33:32 PM UTC

Similarities? (0.00 / 0)

Has anyone noticed how so many attacks on "creeping Shariah law" (supposed to a *bad* thing) seem to originate in the very states which want to impose Christian beliefs (that is, to say, fundamentalist, evangelical, Jerry Falwell/Pat Robertson/Franklin Graham belief system) upon the populace?

Just recently, a story from Oklahoma (whose voters passed a "Constitutional" ban on Shariah law--which was struck down by Federal courts) shows the dangers of these people.  A transgender individual (a man transitioning to a woman) went before a court for a legal name change.  The judge in the case denied the application and, in his decision, actually used a Bible passage as the basis.  The judge, for some inane reason, also claimed the man's real intent for the name change was to commit fraud. (Story at http://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2012/09/16/oklahoma-judge-cites-bible-denying-transgender-name-changes ;note that this is where I first read it, but I did read it at another site--at the Drudge Retort, supposedly a liberal site but one which has a lot of right-wing commenters.)

And then, of course, we have FoxNoise's constant Islam-bashing.  Over the past week, since that anti-Muslim "film" was dubbed into Arabic and released to YouTube, there's been a lot of attacks on Muslims for their (according to Fox) "overreaction" to the film.  Of course, this is the same network that goes wild when there's some sort of "attack" on Christianity--such as someone who wants a cross removed from public property or get the Ten Commandments off of courtroom walls or a State wishes to permit is gay and lesbian citizens to marry the person they love in a civil ceremony or a store's employees "have" to wish "Happy Holidays" (in the last case, it's interesting that Fox would stand with the employee who, quite literally, has NO right to work for such a store rather than the business; yes, the Consitution grants a right to free speech but there is NO right to be employed).

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by: BamaRainbow @ Tue Sep 18, 2012 at 17:19:48 PM UTC