I don't like the phrase "with little to no bias" (because it assumes "bias-free" history is possible), but you're absolutely correct that it's a question of educational failure.

I for one would get rid of all the history textbooks. Every last one of them. From grade school to high school to college "West Civ" and "Amer History" courses.

And replace them with historical documents and texts: make students talk about and take apart the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, the anti-Federalist, Washington's Inagural Address, Letters from a Birmingham Jail, etc.

And I wouldn't limit myself to just "American" texts. I'd have them read Thomas Paine's Rights of Man and Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France and Tocqueville's Democracy in America. The Communist Manifesto. The Little Red Book of Chairman Mao.


And, finally, I'd make them learn a crapload of historical geography.

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amen (no offense twinkie) to you, wade!

hubby & i were watching something about the library of congress - very interesting. they have a website where you can view & read many historic documents online.

yeah. cute. :birdman:

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it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, nancy boy. get it? got it? good. 😉 note the winky wink...that means i'm oh i dunno...joking.

Bottom line.. You suck; Not because of your non-Christianity, but because of your bias against Christianity. Yeah yeah.. you have a problem with how what you perceive the Christians look down upon your and opposing views. That's just YOUR perception. Keep on ignoring that 98%** of those Christians only want the best for the world.

I'm not going to debate shit with you. Just stating what I personally think. You probably feel the same about me and I don't care.

When the shit hits the fan, though.. There's no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.

** NOTE: % was made up.

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I have a question for you, Twinkie.

Suppose an individual Christian believes the following:
1. That individuals are saved only by blind faith in Christ as resurrected Savior.
2. That faith means obedience to the will of God.
3. That obedience to the will of God means trying everything in the believer's power to convince others that anything other than #1 is damning them for eternity, and that God wants anything but that for them.
4. That #3 is *not* the instrument or cause of the believer's salvation, but the consequence of being saved through #1.

If that is the believer's position, what exactly should you expect that believer to do?

I'm well aware that not all Christians have, do, or will believe in this particular way.

And I'm also pretty sure, from earlier conversations here on the wisdom and inappropriateness of faith, that you tend to have scorn for such blind faith.

But neither of those are my question. My question is that, if as an empirical matter, someone believes in points #1-4, how would you expect them to approach an atheist or Moslem on a question that they see as implicating the relative value of different religious beliefs?

I guess what I'm trying to get at is this: I understand how you can, based on your own beliefs, treat Christian beliefs comprehensively with scorn, whether they are based in faith, works, or whatever. (I don't agree with your position, but I can understand its logic and I can see how that logic could lead to scorn and frustration and ridicule almost all the rest.

But I just don't get the "taking offense" part. It just doesn't seem, forgive me, logical.

Should I take offense at a rabid dog for being rabid? Put the dog down, yes. But get offended? Not hardly.

Should I take offense because one of my students, having been raised on the beliefs of student-centered education, considers me incompetent for failing to teach in accord with those beliefs? Annoyed, perhaps. Frustrated, certainly. But offended? Not hardly.

Should I be offended when an atheist argues that my faith is irrational? Sad that I can't get my point across, yes. Try to figure out another way to convince him, yes. Frustrated? Perhaps. Offended? Not hardly. If I know that the person's beliefs are going to take someone down a particular road to a particular kind of conclusion, then I taking offense is the reflection of an unreasonable expectation.

If I believe someone believes wrongly, are not the appropriate responses: (i) trying to get them to see how they behave wrongly; or, if (i) is deemed an impossible or too costly task, (ii) ignore them as "hopeless", "loony", dumbshit"?

People don't change their core beliefs just because other people "take offense" when those beliefs get expressed. Core beliefs -- like those about God and country -- are too, well, "core" for that.

This is the point that both the PC police and the Sarah Palins of the world forget: Taking offense may help the offended person feel affirmed, somehow, but its a solipsistic kind of affirmation.

Yes, the nature of many varieties of Christian belief is that not all beliefs are created equal. That "ours" is superior to "yours". Its a inevitable conclusion from our core beliefs.

But the reaction to core beliefs you cannot share should not be "offense". Pity perhaps. Scorn perhaps. Disgust perhaps. Call us arrogant, deluded, stupid, illogical, irrational, or a thousand other bad names. Those are all logical.

But taking offense? It just doesn't compute.

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Ahh shit I give up ...

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holy schmidt! now we're talking semantics? fine, then. have it your way: insert any of the descriptors you used as examples and call it a day. it really doesn't matter to me how you define it or with what words. if you can't dissect my posts and figure out either what i'm saying or where i'm coming from, something very different than a misunderstanding of semantics is happening. i get the feeling we're sort of jerking each other off if that's all we've left to argue about within the context of the subject matter at hand. bottom line is that i find it very unfortunate, the manner in which many religious people ride their horse (hint: very high) and forget...in the words of Richard Dawkins, that "you're all atheists about every other religion than your own, i just take it one religion further" and that religion itself leads too many people to believe they all have the answer (hint: none of you do and neither do i!).

and formo:

sorry, dude. i have nothing against you. in fact...i quite liked you up until you lost your shit a few posts up. oh well. c'est la vie.

edit: lulz. sorry zero, but not to worry. i'm very likely on my last legs with the GD forum, and possibly this entire place. getting bummed out by a majority of posters usually isn't a selling point for my will to continue hanging around a forum.

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Hey, I replied to the original thread. :)

I just returned (temporarily) to the tangent afterwards.

So, returning to your question, Kevin...

I really think the problem is that we treat history/citizenship education in three overlapping ways, all of which work against deep engagement of what a citizens rights and responsibilities are.
1. First, we reduce the past to a set of facts: columbus sailed in 1492. World War II started with Pearl Harbor. Custer was an idiot and Washington father of our country.
2. Second, we tell this incredibly santized tale of progress in grade school and high school.
3. Third, we "counterbalance" #2 by pointing out the warts of the past in ways that suggest that "everything's relative" and "it's all just opinion and power" and "there is nothing exceptional about the American experiment."

Those who get more of #2 than #3 tend to become uncritical "patriots". Those who get more of #3 than #2 tend to become uncritical bashers of dead white males and imperial America and part of PC nation.
And because all of them got #1, none of them believe it's particularly important to pay attention to the past in any careful way anyway. Just do what it takes to get rich, get laid, or get political power.

Whenever I dip into the historic documents circa 1756-1789 (between the victory in the "French and Indian War" and the birth of the Madisonian Consitution, I am struck by the depth and breadth of engagement of ideas by everyday people. There was no shortage of "tabloid journalism" in the eighteenth century, but it you look at the level of literacy and thoughfulness displayed, it makes you want to cry for what has been lost.

America has had compulsory public education for over a century now. And I defy anyone to provide evidence that there has been anything other than a decline in the quality of citizenship education over that period.

If we measure knowledge by what has been published in books, scholarly journals, and on the Internet, the union of our knowledge about the past has increase by several orders of magnitude. But if we measure knowledge by what is being put to use in active and meaningful quality citizenship, we know less today -- far less -- than we did 100 years ago.

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its cool guys ... if you're having a good discussion its all cool.... my comments were more for humor and for those who wanted to answer. :)

I do laugh when reading my comments going back to the original post ... then five after it are about the other topic, lol.

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