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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 2:05 am Post subject: Atheist Sunday School |
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Indoctrination without God.
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Kneisley, 26, a graduate student at the University of Missouri, says she realized Damian needed to learn about secularism after a neighbor showed him the Bible. "Damian was quite certain this guy was right and was telling him this amazing truth that I had never shared," says Kneisley. In most ways a traditional sleep-away camp--her son loved canoeing--Camp Quest also taught Damian critical thinking, world religions and tales of famous freethinkers (an umbrella term for atheists, agnostics and other rationalists) like the black abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
The Palo Alto Sunday family program uses music, art and discussion to encourage personal expression, intellectual curiosity and collaboration. One Sunday this fall found a dozen children up to age 6 and several parents playing percussion instruments and singing empowering anthems like I'm Unique and Unrepeatable, set to the tune of Ten Little Indians, instead of traditional Sunday-school songs like Jesus Loves Me. Rather than listen to a Bible story, the class read Stone Soup, a secular parable of a traveler who feeds a village by making a stew using one ingredient from each home. |
My favorite sentence is at the end of the article. |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 2:41 am Post subject: |
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| Camp Quest also taught Damian critical thinking, world religions and tales of famous freethinkers |
Sounds like a good idea to me. Teaching children critical thinking is, well, critical. It's pretty funny her kid is called damian though. I would be pretty pissed if my neighbours were showing my children(if I had any) the bible. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:48 am Post subject: |
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| JMO wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Camp Quest also taught Damian critical thinking, world religions and tales of famous freethinkers |
Sounds like a good idea to me. Teaching children critical thinking is, well, critical. It's pretty funny her kid is called damian though. I would be pretty pissed if my neighbours were showing my children(if I had any) the bible. |
Evangelizing to your neighbor's kids is a bit...presumptious. My uncle is a preacher for some evangelical church (who can keep them straight?). His kids are teens right now and are home-schooled. What's the major reason for their home-schooling? To protect them from believing in the theory of evolution. Its mind-blowing. But do I talk about evolution to my second cousins? NO.
As for teaching them critical thinking, I wonder what that means. My father is agnostic and I was raised strict Catholic by my mother. I went to Catholic middle school, turned rabid atheist when I was 14, and moderated to agnosticism in university. I want my children to learn the Bible because American literature is impossible to appreciate without an understanding of it. Their mother can teach them whatever she believes: I don't know who I'll marry, but it won't be a Muslim. 
Damian, lol, I missed that. Good catch. |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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Well critical thinking would mean in my mind, teaching children to ask questions and reason logically. I don;t really know anything about this camp to say what they are doing. I do think there should be a class in critical thinking in school.
I will probably not have my children go to any church or be baptised even if my wife wanted it. They can decide when they grow up. Obviously I qould discuss this before I had children. I come from a very strong catholic family and had a really good childhood but my family whilst being religious did promote critical thinking and science education. I think my mom almost regrets this, as 3 of her 7 children are athiest^^ |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Exposure to the Bible (and many other religious writings) should be part of any and all critical thinking discourse. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:43 pm Post subject: |
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| cbclark4 wrote: |
| Exposure to the Bible (and many other religious writings) should be part of any and all critical thinking discourse. |
The Cat in the Hat too? Or only one fictional book? |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:54 pm Post subject: |
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| thepeel wrote: |
| cbclark4 wrote: |
| Exposure to the Bible (and many other religious writings) should be part of any and all critical thinking discourse. |
The Cat in the Hat too? Or only one fictional book? |
Well, Tolkien talks about elves. There are no elves. Ergo, there's no value in reading his works.
Is it really so hard to appreciate the Bible? I would hope not. |
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Funkdafied
Joined: 04 Nov 2007
Location: In Da House
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Re the title of your highlighted link, it doesnt sound like indoctrination to me at all. |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:14 pm Post subject: |
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| I have no problem with children reading the bible(or any holy book) as long as they are not told it is real. If you taught my kids that Lord of the Rings was real I would raise an eyebrow. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| thepeel wrote: |
| cbclark4 wrote: |
| Exposure to the Bible (and many other religious writings) should be part of any and all critical thinking discourse. |
The Cat in the Hat too? Or only one fictional book? |
Well, Tolkien talks about elves. There are no elves. Ergo, there's no value in reading his works.
Is it really so hard to appreciate the Bible? I would hope not. |
Yes, it is. Especially the OT.
The premise of the NT is just silly. God sends his son to earth to be tortured to death for the sins of others. Camon. "Q" from Star Trek is a more believable character.
I don't want to get into this over a long discussion because all minds are made up. Shall we agree to disagree? I'll exit the thread. Carry on. |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:28 pm Post subject: |
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| thepeel wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| thepeel wrote: |
| cbclark4 wrote: |
| Exposure to the Bible (and many other religious writings) should be part of any and all critical thinking discourse. |
The Cat in the Hat too? Or only one fictional book? |
Well, Tolkien talks about elves. There are no elves. Ergo, there's no value in reading his works.
Is it really so hard to appreciate the Bible? I would hope not. |
Yes, it is. Especially the OT.
The premise of the NT is just silly. God sends his son to earth to be tortured to death for the sins of others. Camon. "Q" from Star Trek is a more believable character.
I don't want to get into this over a long discussion because all minds are made up. Shall we agree to disagree? I'll exit the thread. Carry on. |
I think he meant in terms of influence on modern literature, not plot. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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| JMO wrote: |
| I have no problem with children reading the bible(or any holy book) as long as they are not told it is real. If you taught my kids that Lord of the Rings was real I would raise an eyebrow. |
I agree. Its out of place for someone to evangelize your kids. Its also a bit wierd for parents to live in the shadow of a book. I would say this parent does, and its mystifying.
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| The premise of the NT is just silly. God sends his son to earth to be tortured to death for the sins of others. Camon. "Q" from Star Trek is a more believable character. |
I think its brilliant. But legislating taste is pointless. If you think the Bible is truly a crappy book, there's nothing I can do to change that. |
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Justin Hale
Joined: 24 Nov 2007
Location: the Straight Talk Express
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| My favorite sentence is at the end of the article. |
How come that's your favorite?
| article in the OP wrote: |
| "When you have kids," says Julie Willey, a design engineer, "you start to notice that your co-workers or friends have church groups to help teach their kids values and to be able to lean on." |
I'm not sure I even understand this sentence, but it's a parent's job to teach their own kids values and 'to be able to lean on', what ever that means. There's also no need to worry. A kid who has loving, relatively normal parents who aren't boozers and/or of dubious wits and sanity will find that, in all likelihood, the kid grows up to be a good, ordinary person whether the parent teaches values or not. Values are inherited biochemically with the rest of the human abstract consciousness.
Else, the folks and ideas expressed in the article are gay as heck.  |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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I think critical thinking is being able to spot logical fallacies. Sometimes a good argument is what remains when you strip out the bad arguments. If nothing is left, you don't have much of an argument.
Logic and religious faith are not incompatible. I do believe the catholic church believes this. It sure has a lot of scientists and mathematicians as clergy. The Jesuits are rather famous for their intellectual rigor.
Fundies like Junior and Rteacher, however, seem to think logic = denial. Cherry picking is fine. Arguments from personal incredulity are fine. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 5:24 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
I think critical thinking is being able to spot logical fallacies. Sometimes a good argument is what remains when you strip out the bad arguments. If nothing is left, you don't have much of an argument.
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That's an adequate definition. I wonder if that's what they really teach!
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| "I'm a person that doesn't believe in myths," Hana says. "I'd rather stick to the evidence." |
| Justin Hale wrote: |
| How come that's your favorite? |
Sounds like a soundbyte. I can't tell if the child feels that her belief in reason over revelation is a triumph or a mere matter of fact. Given her age, 11, she definitely didn't come to that conclusion without some prodding!
I personally believe in myths. I believe that Genesis might as well be the truth of how man came into being. Rousseau found the myth so compelling, he presented a non-religious re-working of it in his Discourse of on the Origin of Inequality.
| Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: |
| On Corruption of Youth: The worst way to corrupt youth is to teach them to hold in higher regard those who think alike rather than those who think differently. |
As long as a teacher follows that mantra, (s)he'll be alright. |
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