Jesus titty fucking christ, like many people I've read the bible, or parts of it for amusement. I don't ever remember any part of it mentioning dinosaurs. But the bible does mention sheep, oxen, birds and asses. With asses being mentioned fairly often. But now, they're teaching that the Lochness Monster proves the bible true and disproves evolution? Lochness Monster to Disprove Evolution.
I'm surprised that the fundies aren't claiming that Nessie is a demon trying to corrupt the faithful, just like how God buried fake dinosaur bones to test mankind. But when all is said and done, even Jesus is fucking embarrassed to be included in this wacko religion.
As long as the students can read, write, perform arithmetic and know their geography and history, it's not so bad. They can learn how to create species later. On the other hand, private schooling and schooling which has any religious tone should not be publicly funded.
What we really need are schools that put the emphasis on learning how to think, not learning what to think.
^ True, to a certain extent, but there is also a fair amount of information that needs to be communicated. Languages, geography, history... those are all subjects that deal primarily with the content of thought rather than the means of thought.
Actually, my best history and language classes have had open discussions. My French classes covered French politics and my history classes normally showed us two or three versions of the same event. So you really can learn to think even in those topics. ... geography I'll give you. That's just maps.
Yes and no. A good course on geography gets you into some serious history (a lot of history is affected by geography). I am a firm believer in serious thinking in any class. Nevertheless, you can't learn a language, or history, or geography, just by learning how to think. You need to learn the content.
Indeed. You can't just tell a mechanic "learn how to use the tools" without first teaching him what the tools are.
So you could say, for example, "Your brain is a tool for figuring out how things work," and "religion is a tool for making you a stupid, easily-controllable sheep."
You could say that, but it would be simplistic. It would be better to say "Your brain is a tool for figuring out how things work" and "politics, religion, advertising, television, state-controlled schools, and quite a few others things can be tools for making you a stupid, easily-controllable sheep. But none of them have to be, by nature, if you use your brain the way it was intended to be used." That would be much more accurate.
...as part of a mode of survival of weasel-faced humans seeking power. ..using their brains as a tool for figuring out how things work.
If religion were true, then figuring out how not to make the invisible monster angry would indeed be a valuable survival tool. But, it's not, so it's not... Given that, I see no other practical use for it that can't be taken over by science, psychiatry, and philosophy.
Oh aye, a command of facts is always useful. But it's much more important to be able to reason, to understand and employ logic, to know how to question, and like that. Facts come from reason, reason doesn't come from facts.
I think it's time to start a school based on Ancient Alien Theory, the curriculum, as well as our professor emeritus should be pretty easy to guess...
If that were part of "true religion" then I wouldn't want any part of it. What I find most telling is that that is how you automatically see religion. To what extent do you think that tools for preventing you from thinking have been used to produce such prejudices in you? Or is it merely an inherent inability to think of any alternatives, leading you to conclude that if you can't think of them they don't exist? Either way, it doesn't look like your ability to do critical thinking actually has much to do with your take on religion. You simply repeat things like someone who has been brainwashed, or brought up with certain narrow-minded ideas and been made deathly afraid of even considering the possibilty that they might not be true. Like so many other fundamentalists...
Oh, I'm not doubting or denying the priority of logic over a mastery of information at all. I'm just pointing out that schools also need to communicate a lot of pure information, that the ability to reason is not enough in itself. Actually, facts come from existence, not from reason. They just are. You can reason about them, but if you fail to do so, or do so in a faulty manner, that doesn't prevent them from existing.
The magic books that (Abrahamic) religion comes from. Guess you don't believe in those. Except when you do.
