Texas Board of Education at it again Banning textbooks

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

On a related note (to the original post)

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science...htm?csp=34news

Thanks for that!

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by nguirado

Most people agree what positive and negative effects are.....

Not really, that's exactly what is at the core of this issue. People have different opinions about what should or should not be included in text books for our children.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

ardeegee, when I was a boy in the 50s, there was a popular cartoon called Crusader Rabbit. The same people later made Rocky & Bullwinkle.

When I was in high school in New Orleans, one of our rivals was the St. Aloysius Crusaders.

So you see, this notion that the Crusades were bad is a recent phenomenon.

Kenny, my interpretation of what is going on in Texas is that the vast majority of the population is conservative; in the last (I'm guessing) twenty years liberals have intruded their views into the textbooks, and now the conservatives are fighting back, attempting to restore the viewpoint held by the vast Texas majority.

I definitely don't see this as a conservative minority attempting to impose its views on a liberal majority.

Well, as has been said several times, we can't really know without looking at the specifics, but based on what I am reading, it sounds like there is a Christian Agenda being pushed. Now certainly I don't know that specifically, but others (that I trust) are saying that.

I've also said this numerous times. Education should not be about Liberal or Conservative or Religious, it should be about the unbiased truth as best we know it and should be taught in such a way as to encourage the student to ask questions, to learn to think and to learn how to get to the truth, the facts or any matter.

[nguirado]

Originally Posted by tompe

I do not really get how universities help the poor and protect human rights but that is not so important. Why do you claim hospitals and universities for a specific religion? What is the evidence that we would not have as good or better hospitals or universities without christianity for example?

And from what I remember medical research was held back by religion. For example it was hard to get access to bodies and so on.

Hospitals and universities are Church inventions. There were libraries, of course, but no school with a comprehensive curriculum. There wasn't organized care for the poor either.

Education for more than the very rich is a Christian invention as well. The first "public" schools started in Italy by a Saint whose name I forgot. Before then, it was mostly tutors.

Most American universities before the early twentieth were religious (Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, USC, etc.). Look at the names of the oldest American hospitals.

I didn't learn this from the CA public school system, but with e-reader technology, I can more easily gain access to the rest of the story.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by SameOldStory

...

Maybe ALL religion should be kept out of schools.
.....

In the end the majority will decide what is right for everyone....

My belief is that public schools have no place teaching religion (as in the practice of religion). Certainly history of religion and comparative religion should be taught as extensively as possible. There should be no bias in this teaching.

As far as majority, that simply is not the case. What is happening here by default is that the TX schoolboard/textbook committee is by default choosing what the entire country is "forced" to use because of economics etc.

[nguirado]

I don't think the public schools should be like catechism class, either. I think we're just talking about religion as it's relevant to the human story.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by nguirado

Hospitals and universities are Church inventions.

At least some universities predate the Christian Church:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda

Nalanda was one of the world's first residential universities, i.e., it had dormitories for students. It is also one of the most famous universities. In its heyday it accommodated over 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers. The university was considered an architectural masterpiece, and was marked by a lofty wall and one gate. Nalanda had eight separate compounds and ten temples, along with many other meditation halls and classrooms. On the grounds were lakes and parks. The library was located in a nine storied building where meticulous copies of texts were produced. The subjects taught at Nalanda University covered every field of learning, and it attracted pupils and scholars from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey

And possibly earlier still:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxila

Graham

[kennyc]

And according to Wikipedia (again) hospitals seem to have originated more from inns/hostels than something put together in the sense of today's hospitals:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital

Seems little to do with church/religion in origin according to that entry.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by nguirado

Hospitals and universities are Church inventions.

Well I do not think it is as clear cut as that but the Church of course had some influence. But that is not the issue. The issue is what we would have had if we had had no Church. I think we would have had as good or better hospitals and universities without a Church. So if that is the case the claim is that the Church is responsible for we not having better hospitals and universities.

Or who can say what would have happened? And since it is so hard it is wrong to claim that the Church is responsible for something that we might have had in any case.

[Graham]

Hospitals seem to go quite a long way back too!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital#Early_examples

Graham

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Graham

Hospitals seem to go quite a long way back too!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital#Early_examples

Graham

Neener-Neener...beat you to it!

[Angst]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I've also said this numerous times. Education should not be about Liberal or Conservative or Religious, it should be about the unbiased truth as best we know it and should be taught in such a way as to encourage the student to ask questions, to learn to think and to learn how to get to the truth, the facts or any matter.

Who sits in judgment of what truth is? To some, that the world is 6k years old represents "truth", to others, 4 billion years. (There's not much middle ground on this one. )

The whole controversy is about deciding which "truth" to promote. The arbiter seem to be democracy (50% +1).

[Graham]

Originally Posted by tompe

Well I do not think it is as clear cut as that but the Church of course had some influence. But that is not the issue. The issue is what we would have had if we had had no Church. I think we would have had as good or better hospitals and universities without a Church. So if that is the case the claim is that the Church is responsible for we not having better hospitals and universities.

Or who can say what would have happened? And since it is so hard it is wrong to claim that the Church is responsible for something that we might have had in any case.

Agreed, this was my point. The Christian Church certainly influenced the development of universities and hospitals in the West, but the concepts were around in other cultures, notably in the Buddhist world as far back as the fifth century BC. The hospitals of Medieval Islam bear a strong resemblance to the insitutions derived from the concept of Christian Care later on in Western Europe.

I suspect that the idea of instutionalised places of learning and medical care would have developed even in an atheist society.

Graham

[Graham]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Neener-Neener...beat you to it!

You did indeed.

Graham

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Graham

At least some universities predate the Christian Church

And the first academy was-- uh, The Academy.