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Dragonlady
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 720
Location: Chillinfernow, Canada
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 Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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Last edited by Dragonlady on Sun Sep 26, 2010 8:20 am; edited 1 time in total |
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yaramaz
Joined: 05 Mar 2003
Posts: 2384
Location: Not where I was before
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| Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 7:09 pm Post subject: |
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| That's an awfully big task for such a little bitty fella. |
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darwinsfinch
Joined: 29 Nov 2006
Posts: 1
Location: Quito, Ecuador
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| Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 11:28 pm Post subject: hot-taboo topics |
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| I'd love to know which curricular outcomes he thought he was accomplishing. Tell me I'm not going overboard and that this is an entirely inappropriate activity in any classroom. |
I can tell I have been trained in the same way as jetgirly.
I believe as teachers we tread a fine line when creating discussions about hot topics. Even when teaching in the U.S. one must assure that we have support of administrators, and we must be able to clearly justify our purpose of a discussion in an academic way and link it to curriculum.
When teaching overseas, we do not have the �standards of education to abide by� so in a way we have a bit of liberty. But I always think, what if my ESL student misinterprets what I was doing in class and I then have to deal with an upset parent. I must be prepared to justify my actions to show I am fostering critical thinking skills or tying the lesson into the curriculum.
Also, it is essential for the teacher to be the facilitator of the discussion, and to not in any way preach your own opinion.
| Quote: |
| As Melee said, a lot of these students don't even have an opinion because they had never thought about the topic and often in Japan, their teachers don't elicit opinions from students. |
Great point... because this other issue is an issue of the relationship of culture and expression opinions. It remindes me of the dynamic of individualism and collectivism. Being from the U.S. we are taught to voice our opinions and back up our opinions with facts. A is what i think because a1 b1 c1. Other cultures do not want to stick out from the crowd, or others are more inviting to dissent of opinion .
When teaching ELLs in the U.S., teaching academic skills such as effective communication expression A because a1 b1 c1 is an essential skillto teach. When teaching students overseas , I guess one must consider what skills do their parents or the school desire for the students.... for example; are these students on the path where the desired outcome is to have them to be competitive on a global level with their English skills or are you just enriching them with another language. [
I am still developing as a teacher, so I would be interested in hearing about others opinions about this. |
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ls650
Joined: 10 May 2003
Posts: 3484
Location: British Columbia
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| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 1:37 am Post subject: |
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| Jetgirly wrote: |
I'm speaking from a K-12 ESL context here. ...
then the class read them aloud, transitioning into what was supposed to be a discussion about the significance of secrets but ended up as a game of Guess Who? |
Hmmm. If this was an ESL class, and the objective was simply to have students practice using English, it sounds to me like he might well have accomplished that objective. |
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rusmeister
Joined: 15 Jun 2006
Posts: 867
Location: Russia
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| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 1:41 am Post subject: |
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| yaramaz wrote: |
| That's an awfully big task for such a little bitty fella. |
Amen to that! 
Haven't read Chesterton (aka the Deicidecide) yet, eh? |
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Deicide
Joined: 29 Jul 2006
Posts: 1005
Location: Caput Imperii Americani
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| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 3:09 am Post subject: |
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| Sheikh Inal Ovar wrote: |
| Deicide wrote: |
| Sure, it's not a monolith. Very little is. But keep in mind that a large portion of the population believes that Mo-ham-head literally flew to the heavens on a winged horse. This is a majority and this should scare us all... |
And that's why you wouldn't want to work there?
| Deicide wrote: |
| ... the population believes that Mo-ham-head ... |
Would you like to explain the motivation behind your gratuitous attack of a prophet of Islam? |
Well, I wouldn't want to work there for a variety of reasons,not least of which is the type of overwheening religiosity found in all of those countries (yes, I know, there are exceptions) and the education system, where for example biological evolution is NOT taught as a fact.
As for the the 'gratuitous attack' I will let a far more eloquent speaker say it best:
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus."
-Thomas Jefferson
Flying horses, archeangels dictating books in caves and the lot fall into the same category. Furthermore, people speak of 'The Prophet' as if they knew what they were talking about. I, however, have read some of the critical scholarship and one can only reach the conclusion that what is preached about 'The Prophet' is highly inaccurate. The truth is, we know next to nothing about him and his life. Critical scholarship of Islam, the Koran and 'The Prophet' is suppressed by mainstream Islam, which never experienced any sort of reformation comparable to the various strains of Christianity. Many scholars and writers of Islam publish anonymously or under psydonyms for fear of violent reprisals. The list goes on and on.
Do you know Ibn Warraq? http://www.amazon.com/Why-I-Am-Not-Muslim/dp/1591020115/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/002-9864818-5987201?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174792076&sr=8-2 |
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Sherri
Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Posts: 749
Location: The Big Island, Hawaii
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| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 3:36 am Post subject: Re: hot-taboo topics |
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[quote="darwinsfinch"]
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| When teaching students overseas , I guess one must consider what skills do their parents or the school desire for the students... |
That is true, but as I said earlier, I was writing about teaching adults. Their main purpose was to use English for work or to study abroad. Many were already working for a foreign capital company and English was the language of the workplace. So in my case at least, the students were looking for more than just language, they wanted to know how to express ideas and opinions and know how to support them effectively.
Sherri |
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Sheikh Inal Ovar
Joined: 04 Dec 2005
Posts: 1208
Location: Melo Drama School
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| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 3:53 am Post subject: |
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I'm not sure that Jefferson would agree with your schoolboy attack on this proposition - that of this particular prophet's existence.
He may well have supported the ridicule of a winged chariot flying off to the heavens. But that is not what you lampooned. You lampooned the man.
Regarding this and other postings, it's rather amusing that a person named Deicide should be staking his claim to omniscience, a character of the gods. It's rather like the joke -
"I used to be an atheist ... until I realised I was god" |
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Deicide
Joined: 29 Jul 2006
Posts: 1005
Location: Caput Imperii Americani
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| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 9:51 am Post subject: |
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| Sheikh Inal Ovar wrote: |
I'm not sure that Jefferson would agree with your schoolboy attack on this proposition - that of this particular prophet's existence.
He may well have supported the ridicule of a winged chariot flying off to the heavens. But that is not what you lampooned. You lampooned the man.
Regarding this and other postings, it's rather amusing that a person named Deicide should be staking his claim to omniscience, a character of the gods. It's rather like the joke -
"I used to be an atheist ... until I realised I was god" |
Wrong. I was not asserting that 'The Prophet' did not exist. The evidence shows that he likely did, unlike Jesus of Nazareth, whom the evidence shows likely did not exist. I was merely asserting the evidence points to how LITTLE we actually know about the man, contrary to what is claimed in orthodox Islam. What we do know about the man is that he was not some divine messenger of the 'True God' as the Koran is a hodgepotch of saying, literature and legend cobbled together from all manner of disparate sources, Persian, local, Jewish, etc.
When have I claimed to be omniscient? Never; in fact I readily concede how little I know, in contract to the theist who asserts with certainty where, when and how the universe came into being and that there are other dimensions which defy the laws of physics, biology and chemistry. The atheist simply acknowledges his ignorance on such matters and prefers to deal with what is, rather that speculating and subsequently acting on what may be, but has little or no evidence supporting it. Believers makeall sorts of positive assertions about the universe without providing evidence for those beliefs; that is all I am asserting.
Tell me, has your time in the Middle East turned you into a Muslim apologist? |
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omanized
Joined: 04 Jun 2006
Posts: 152
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| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 11:17 am Post subject: |
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Why should sheikn...be called an apologist? Do you consider yourself a spokesman for the world's atheists? You seem to get really wound up at the possibility that others believe in something without requiring empirical proof , be they Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, etc.....
........or that what they believe has merit and should be respected? Frankly, you come across as a bitter, young ( ie immature) person who is perhaps lost in the big wide world and can only flail and spit at those who are comfortable, secure and strong with their respective faiths. Sad........
If your self-imposed mission in life ( and possibly in teaching (shudder) ) is to question and challenge and seek only truth than why not turn your scrutiny on the scientific beliefs you might cling to, like evolution for example? Great theory, I subscribe to it myself, but is it irrefutable ? No, it is not...
I invite you to shake off the mantle of bitter resentment and prejudice and come to the country I teach in and enjoy very much, Oman, in the dreaded Middle East !! Here you will find great weather, great people and a whole bunch of muslims ! You know, some of them are nice too !
omanized |
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Deicide
Joined: 29 Jul 2006
Posts: 1005
Location: Caput Imperii Americani
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| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 1:46 pm Post subject: |
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| omanized wrote: |
Why should sheikn...be called an apologist? Do you consider yourself a spokesman for the world's atheists? You seem to get really wound up at the possibility that others believe in something without requiring empirical proof , be they Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, etc.....
........or that what they believe has merit and should be respected? Frankly, you come across as a bitter, young ( ie immature) person who is perhaps lost in the big wide world and can only flail and spit at those who are comfortable, secure and strong with their respective faiths. Sad........
If your self-imposed mission in life ( and possibly in teaching (shudder) ) is to question and challenge and seek only truth than why not turn your scrutiny on the scientific beliefs you might cling to, like evolution for example? Great theory, I subscribe to it myself, but is it irrefutable ? No, it is not...
I invite you to shake off the mantle of bitter resentment and prejudice and come to the country I teach in and enjoy very much, Oman, in the dreaded Middle East !! Here you will find great weather, great people and a whole bunch of muslims ! You know, some of them are nice too !
omanized |
A lot of strawmen here...I will say only this: that something is comforting, consoling, that it offers security and gives some kind of strength has nothing whatsoever to do with its truth value. We do not value the truth of a proposition by the way it makes us feel.... |
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Sheikh Inal Ovar
Joined: 04 Dec 2005
Posts: 1208
Location: Melo Drama School
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| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 3:16 pm Post subject: |
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I think most teenagers know that the existence of Mohammed is not questioned like that of Christ. The point was that you launched a personal attack on Mohammed and then tried to justify it using the words of Jefferson.
I'm not so sure that Jefferson would have lowered himself to such name calling, or desired to have his name associated with it.
When you said "the atheist prefers to deal with what is" were you being ironic? As it therefore follows that a person whose name denfines him by 'what is not' is actually someone who only deals with 'what is'.
And if "believers make all sorts of positive assertions", do not atheists simply make all sorts of negative assertions; assertions, whose theories, as far as I am aware, fail as greatly in their efforts to disprove the existence of god as religious theories in their efforts to prove it.
The agnostic seems to have far more of the let it go attitude that you ascribe to your atheist.
As for being a Muslim apologist, you might like to use your imagination a little and think why else someone would take issue with what you have said here ...
Someone earlier mentioned the immature nature of your posts, which brings to mind this poem -
| Quote: |
"A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;
For shallow draughts intoxicate the brain
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind,
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;
But more advanced, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try.
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,
The' eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;
But those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way,
Th' increasing prospects tire our wandering eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!" |
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Deicide
Joined: 29 Jul 2006
Posts: 1005
Location: Caput Imperii Americani
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| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 4:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Sheikh Inal Ovar wrote: |
I think most teenagers know that the existence of Mohammed is not questioned like that of Christ. The point was that you launched a personal attack on Mohammed and then tried to justify it using the words of Jefferson.
I'm not so sure that Jefferson would have lowered himself to such name calling, or desired to have his name associated with it.
When you said "the atheist prefers to deal with what is" were you being ironic? As it therefore follows that a person whose name denfines him by 'what is not' is actually someone who only deals with 'what is'.
And if "believers make all sorts of positive assertions", do not atheists simply make all sorts of negative assertions; assertions, whose theories, as far as I am aware, fail as greatly in their efforts to disprove the existence of god as religious theories in their efforts to prove it.
The agnostic seems to have far more of the let it go attitude that you ascribe to your atheist.
As for being a Muslim apologist, you might like to use your imagination a little and think why else someone would take issue with what you have said here ...
Someone earlier mentioned the immature nature of your posts, which brings to mind this poem -
| Quote: |
"A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;
For shallow draughts intoxicate the brain
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind,
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;
But more advanced, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try.
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,
The' eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;
But those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way,
Th' increasing prospects tire our wandering eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!" |
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http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/home.htm
Arguments by authority don't go too far. Whilst it is possible it seems highly unlikely that there was a historical Jesus of Nazareth. If you take the time to examine the evidence, you will see how little there is for a 'Jesus', never mind the contradicting birth dates and not a single mention of the events described in the Gospels by contemporary secular historians. Teenagers tend to believe whatever is told them without further investigation. Read some liberal scholarship on Islam and see how precious little we know about the 'Prophet'.
Thomas Jefferson despised religious authority and heaped scorn on it as well as those claiming it; the priests. I doubt he would support the present day theocracies of the Middle East. In fact I am almost certain he would not.
| Quote: |
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.
I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvres to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.
-Thomas Jefferson |
Read Russell's Tea Pot:
| Quote: |
| If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. |
No one has disproved the existence of Zeus, Wotan, Osiris, Ra, Ares, Raiden, Belial, Daghda, Quetzalcoatl, Thor, Ilmatar, Bacchus, Vulcan, Artemis and the thousands upon thousands of other gods humanity has invented and worshiped. No one would be considered unreasonable for doubting or denying the existence of Poseidon or his involvement in modern maritime disasters. The Judeo-Christian version of the god which the 'Prophet' crafted for his religion is no different. We are all atheists with
respect to most of the gods man has believed in, some of us just go one god further. Apart from gods there are million things, which we cannot 'disprove' yet shy away from believing in; goblins, trolls, fairies, leprachauns, werewolves, etc. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and the burden of proof is always upon the person making the positive assertion that something IS.
I used Muslim apologist in the loosest of terms. When hordes of Muslims gather together calling for the deaths of newspaper editors and cartoonists, when imams pronounce death fatwas against Rushdie and others, when Ibn Warraq uses a pen name to publish critical works on Islam so as not to be murdered, people like you either schrug your shoulders or you criticise freedom of speech and press, arguing that such people have brought death upon themselves. There is a big difference between fear and respect and most people fear the consequences of criticising Islam more than they respect the religion. I am glad you are making tons of money over there but trying to airbrush the nature of the place is well...  |
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rusmeister
Joined: 15 Jun 2006
Posts: 867
Location: Russia
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| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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Hi Deicide,
I'll just say again that if you want to prove a belief false you need to defeat its BEST defenders, not its worst.
I'm still waiting for the verdict on "The Everlasting Man" by Chesterton. It certainly defeated the atheist Lewis, and his mind was far sharper than anything I've seen in the modern world.
But I think the OP was about bringing up these questions in class. |
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yaramaz
Joined: 05 Mar 2003
Posts: 2384
Location: Not where I was before
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| Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 4:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Reducing Islam to what the more vocal and reactionary clerics shout out is like defining Christianity by using Bush or Pat Robertson as models, or Judaism using Ariel Sharon. I've been living in a muslim country for half a decade and my boyfriend is a (lapsed) muslim and a huge number of my friends are muslim and I get not sense at all of them being delusional or unintelligent (nor has anyone here ever tried to push their beliefs on me). I'm agnostic by birth, raised by a gardener and an ex lit prof, who were themselves raised agnostic. I have no real ability to understand how it feels to be religious and I'm pretty sure I'll never really be able to cast aside my lack of certainty about anything, but I really don't think I'd ever have the right to decide for others what to think or believe. It's a pretty big universe and if you think you understand exactly what is going on then you are equally delusional. |
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