On Sun, 29 Aug 1999 16:08:20 -0400 Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
writes:
>W. Kiernan:
>>Concerning Carrol's question: when I was eight, in 1962, my parents
>>moved in the middle of the school year from Cleveland, Ohio, where I
>>never heard a word about the Bible in school, to Sarasota, Florida.
>
>I suggest as a hypothesis that the presence of a stronger tradition of
>organized labor and left-wing politics is inversely related to the
>presence
>of a fervor for creationism. Perhaps creationism is a price we pay
>for the
>sins of the failure to organize the South and racism.
Richard Lewontin a few years in an article in the New York Review of Books pointed out that fundamentalism and support for creationism is strongest in those parts of the country where Eugene Debs's Socialists had been strongest, nearly a century ago. Lewontin went on to suggest that much of the appeal of creationism stems from a backlash against the ruling economic and political elites. Whereas, a century ago such an anti-elitist populism was given expression by the Socialist Party, now a days it tends to take the form of opposition to ideas that are rightly or wrongly associated with the dominant elites, such as Darwinism or "secular humanism." Lewontin of course thinks that can indeed take an anti-elitist stance without bashing either Darwinian biology or secularism but that is not likely to occur without a revival of the left.
>
>>These last few years Kansas fundamentalists have been forbidden to
>teach
>>religion classes openly in their public schools; should they do so
>>anyway, they risk being sued by the ACLU, Barry Lynn's "Americans
>United
>>for Separation of Church and State," and similar groups. But with
>this
>>new anti-evolution regulation, they can now sneak their religion
>classes
>>in the back door of the biology department.
>
>Not just biology but also geology, chemistry, and physics must become
>distorted through the introduction of creationism.
The Kansas board of education also dropped any requirements that Big Bang cosmology be taught either.
>
>We may advocate the teaching of comparative religion (of which
>Christianity
>should be only a part) in public schools, which should also include a
>study
>of the history of philosophy, as well as the history of racist and
>sexist
>misuse of science. Should be quite interesting, though I am not sure
>how
>many public school teachers are up to such a demanding task.
Part of the problem of course, is that the educational levels of many school teachers leave something to be desired. The relatively low salaries paid to teachers and the limited oppurtunities for upwards advancement within the profession ensures that the best and brightest university graduates avoid the teaching profession like a plague. And turnover rates within the profession are extremely high as well.
>Alternatively, a course in the study of Biblical scholarship and its
>vicissitude may be taught as part of English or history. I didn't
>come to
>the USA until I entered grad school, so I don't know if the above is
>already part of public school education somewhere.
Generally speaking, no, except in some of the more affluent suburbs. The teaching of comparative religion or of the Bible as literature often arouses opposition from fundamentalists who are against anything that would cast doubt on their claims to possessing absolute truth.
>
>However, I don't think that such a way of including religion in public
>education would appease fundamentalists, who do not think of their
>Book as
>just a piece of literature or historical document.
No, certainly not.
Jim F.
>
>Yoshie
>
>
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