hydar@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Dan Hydar) (09/04/86)
In article <696@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes: ->>>This whole mess came up when someone (I think Ray Frank) complained that ->>>school children were not being taught enough about christianity. ->> If this means teaching religious doctrines, I strongly disagree. ->> If this means teaching the role of religion in history, I agree with ->> (whoever-it-was). ->The Christian religion certainly had its role in the settlement of this ->country, that being the settling of New England by the English Puritans. ->A history class should certainly discuss the conflicts within Christianity ->in England at the time that drove these settlers to Plymouth, and the ->continuing conflicts within the group that drove the many splinter factions ->out to settle much of the North East. That's the religious part of the ->country's heritage, but it should be represented as common personal ->heritage. One of the MAJOR mistakes people on BOTH sides of this dicussion are making is assuming that "heritage" began and ended with the settlers : it did not. You'd be hard pressed (as a random example) to talk in any detail about the elections of 1928, 1960 or (feh) 1980 without discussing the role of religion in US history. ->And the non religious settling of the South East should be similarly discussed. No argument here. ->>>What I was opposed to was teaching ABOUT christianity WITHOUT teaching ->>>about other religions ->> Replace "Christianity" with "evolution" and "other religions" with ->> "Creationism" and what do you get? A claim that you should be able ->> to modify a particular subject matter to suit your own desires. [Note: Context was that of a HISTORY class] ->Bull and bunk! Christianity certainly should be mentioned for its role in ->the settlement of the Northeast in a history class, whereas something like ->Hinduism would obviously be left out, since it didn't play a part in that ->area of American history. This wouldn't be teaching the religion, but ->the effects of that religion, and likely the conflicts in English ->Christianity that led to the split. ->Dave Haynie {caip,ihnp4,allegra,seismo}!cbmvax!daveh Hah? I think you misunderstood me: I get the feeling that we agree. My position was that it was silly to demand that various shapes and sizes of Pagans be mentioned in US history just because Christians are mentioned. If any religion is mentioned, it should be because it had some effect on history. You could mention doctrines and beliefs as apropriate but NOT as dogmas. Beliefs would be described as "what they believed then". To add some other religion out of misplaced "fairness" whould be the same as Fundementalloids demanding (ack, barf) "Creation Science" be taught alongside evolution theory. |Dan| "Just browsing in the K-mart of ideas"