hotsauceman1 wrote:
hmmm. Ok where to start. Where to start.
It seems 'ike many of the parents are not upset that Islam is portrayed in the way it is(that is, the teacher things he is doing it postively, when he is not) but more that it is portrayed as anything but soulless murderers bent on taken our freedom.
While i agree with showing Islam in a positive light, This is not the way. He made it seem as if he agreed with terrorists.
And what is wrong with having sutdents show up in Burqa's? Aslong as it isnt required I dont see what is wrong.

And the "Holocaust" was both a genocide and and ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing kinda includes genocide.

 daedalus wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
hmmm. Ok where to start. Where to start.
It seems 'ike many of the parents are not upset that Islam is portrayed in the way it is(that is, the teacher things he is doing it postively, when he is not) but more that it is portrayed as anything but soulless murderers bent on taken our freedom.
While i agree with showing Islam in a positive light, This is not the way. He made it seem as if he agreed with terrorists.
And what is wrong with having sutdents show up in Burqa's? Aslong as it isnt required I dont see what is wrong.

I think that it would be a fantastic idea to show Islam in a positive light. Please lead by example and be the first to offer us tales of Islam or deeds done in the name of Islam that can be described as being positive.

 daedalus wrote:

Why aren't they covering Buddhism? Buddhists are great people, and you NEVER hear a single bad thing about them. Really, you never hear anything at all.

“Really,” she asked. “They can’t call the Holocaust Genocide? I was more upset with that than the lessons on Islam. It made me sick.

 sebster wrote:

 Captain Avatar wrote:
For instance,
Teaching about Islam is not a problem, but teaching about Islam while making it illegal to teach about Christianity ,or any other religion for that matter, is a major problem. There is a difference between encouraging an equal look from all sides perspective and having the course et to discriminate against one faction simply because it is more prevalent.

It isn't illegal to teach Christianity. That's just crazy pants nonsense.

 Captain Avatar wrote:

Oh, you who live so far away know so much more than those who have to deal with the reality of our public schools being under constant law suits for even allowing students to have prayers on campus.

 Captain Avatar wrote:

Its one of the flaws with our Judicial system that an interpretation by the high court often supercedes the wording of the constitution they are charged with upholding.

dogma wrote:
Are you under the impression that only Christians pray?

 Captain Avatar wrote:

dogma wrote:
Are Christian prayers specifically banned anywhere in the US?

Supreme court has flip flopped on the students praying on public school property. Seems like a quiet personal prayer is ok but group prayers have been ruled against. I think the last ruling was that a member of the school staff can not be present.
Thing is that most public schools have rules stating that students gathering for any purpose outside of class have to be supervised. Catch 22

 Captain Avatar wrote:

dogma wrote:
Are you under the impression that only Christians pray?

Heavens no, Now that would be silly pants crazy.

The problem is that the christian faith has been the dominant religion in this country. As such has the most Court rulings.

My question to you is,"How many First Amendment cases have there been against non judeo-christian religions?".

sebster wrote:
Anyhow, you are free in a public school to teach about a religion. You can hold classes about Christianity, Islam, and religion you like. This is quite different to, say, mandatory prayer, which is not legal no matter what religion is being taught. The point of distinction being what is taught, not the particular faith in question.

sebster wrote:I hope this makes the whole issue clearer for you, and my geography hasn't proved too great a burden in you coming to understand the laws of your country.

 Captain Avatar wrote:
Turns out that spending a great time on the internet leads to some individuals having the mistaken belief that they are an authority on other countries laws and pretty much everything in general. See how that works.

Actually, the ADL and ACLU describe teaching religion in a public classroom as only theoretically "possible" if done in a secular manner. The reality is that lawsuits, injunctions and court decisions claiming that the schools are not being secular enough pretty much stops such programs in their first year or two.

Now it is true that there is currently a movement for christians to stand up for their rights and about 350 public schools have started teaching the bible. Other schools have started teaching a mix of religious texts.

Note, the operative word is "started". The answer as to why they stopped was various court rulings and legal costs. I expect this sudden resurgence of religious education to be met with the usual wave of lawsuits.

The only burden is your innaccurate understanding of our systems. Mayhap, someday you will come and live here for a while to gain first hand experience. Cheers

 Captain Avatar wrote:
I just know that the usual suspects are gonna show up and use selective reading to demonize the parents. They will be like, "Look, Texans, They Are So Wrong Because They are Texans!!!".


Seriously, The main complaint that I read was the lack of balance in the curriculum and the politicizing of the educational system. Both of which I can agree with as being either a problem or at least inappropriate..

You see, I agree with a program designed to give a broader perspective but, it has to be implemented in a balanced, fair and careful manner that is in the best mental, emotional and physical interest of the students.

For instance,
Teaching about Islam is not a problem, but teaching about Islam while making it illegal to teach about Christianity ,or any other religion for that matter, is a major problem. There is a difference between encouraging an equal look from all sides perspective and having the course et to discriminate against one faction simply because it is more prevalent.

Also,
Encouraging students to understand that what one group views as a terrorist is often freedom fighters to another group is good.
Encouraging them to do such without properly warning the students that such statements are better saved for the class as opposed to the school hallways is just asking for a tragedy.


So yeah, at face value, the curriculum needs balancing rather than the establishment you know=bad / subvert the dominant paradigm method that it seems was employed.

Relapse wrote:
@Captain,

In the rebutal they point out that they wrre talking about Islam in relation to Christianity and Judaism.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It isn't necessary to teach any specific interpretation of any religion in a class on world religions. It would be wrong not to teach pupils that there are various sects in each religion which have different interpretations of their sacred writings.

 dogma wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

No one else was praying. Whats your point exactly?

No act of prayer has ever been banned, in the US, because it was Christian; at least to my knowledge. Prayer has been banned, but prayer is not exclusively Christian.

To the extent that bans on prayer are existential they exist in order to eliminate religious expression from a scholastic environment. Some Christians take this as a mark of hostility because they are accustomed to expressing their religion from a position of power; especially where children are involved.

 Frazzled wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

No one else was praying. Whats your point exactly?

No act of prayer has ever been banned, in the US, because it was Christian; at least to my knowledge. Prayer has been banned, but prayer is not exclusively Christian.

To the extent that bans on prayer are existential they exist in order to eliminate religious expression from a scholastic environment. Some Christians take this as a mark of hostility because they are accustomed to expressing their religion from a position of power; especially where children are involved.

Ther have been multiple instances where all things Christian have been banned, but we have Islam week or some other nonsense. Thats a problem. All or nothing.

Skinnereal wrote:

 Ratbarf wrote:
What do you mean by follower of Islam or Christianity? Do you mean what you think is proper adherence? Or simply someone who is a self proclaimed adherent? You also get the problem of multiple interpretations across different schools of faith which can lead to different conclusions about the acceptability of violence. There are some passages in both the Quoran and the Bible (Including New Testament) that aren't exactly all about love and rainbows.

I meant the mainstream sypes, like Catholicism, etc.
Teach the more 'juicy' bits of the books, by all means, and explain the various interpretations of the meanings of them.
But, also point out that some interpretations are considered fundamentalist, and widely considered incorrect.
Knowing where most people draw the line would make a big difference when listening to the news.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Comparative religion is a reasonable subject to teach in schools, certainly at the lower end of school until you need to make room for important subjects like science and so on. Just give an overview of the basic beliefs of different religions, how they work, how they relate, etc.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
Most definitely. Major religions should be taught, but not forced down people's throats. I'd even suggest teaching some more obscure religions such as Wicca, to round the kid's view of world religions. Hell, even Atheism should be taught. Let the kid choose his path from there.

 Frazzled wrote:

Ther have been multiple instances where all things Christian have been banned, but we have Islam week or some other nonsense. Thats a problem. All or nothing.

 Ratbarf wrote:

You mean Ramadan where the Muslims get a room to themselves during lunch so they don't have to watch us eat while they observe their hungriness? Also, why shouldn't people be allowed to pray in school? They're allowed to talk about politics and political parties.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
And I wouldn't even go so far as to say "most do not have particularly positive views of the West" we have a mixed bag of students from the ME in my Business class and I've talked with a few of them about it.

Some of them love it here, others tend to have issues with specific points of US and Western culture, but have no issue with it beyond finding facet X or Y distasteful. This also implies most Muslims are Middle Eastern which they are not. It's an extremely diverse global population and very few support the extremely tiny fraction that are extremist.

 Ratbarf wrote:
The thing I'm trying to get at is that they do have semi legitimate justifications for their actions if we were to transplant what the West is doing in the ME and switched who it was happening too.

 sebster wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
And I wouldn't even go so far as to say "most do not have particularly positive views of the West" we have a mixed bag of students from the ME in my Business class and I've talked with a few of them about it.

Sure, I was thinking not so much about the Western students but about the Muslim population at large.

 Ratbarf wrote:
The thing I'm trying to get at is that they do have semi legitimate justifications for their actions if we were to transplant what the West is doing in the ME and switched who it was happening too.

I would think that you would pick up a rifle if a foreign nation was dropping drone guided munitions on your towns or your people with seemingly little or no regard to collateral damage. Especially if the country doing it had military personnel within easy travelling distance of yourself. I think I would.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ratbarf wrote:
The thing I'm trying to get at is that they do have semi legitimate justifications for their actions if we were to transplant what the West is doing in the ME and switched who it was happening too.

Yeah, I've never really been able to get behind that point of view. I mean, if 9/11 was really about sins done against the Muslim world, those planes would have flown into Moscow as vengeance for the fethed up gak done in Chechnya.

I think the boring truth is that AQ was a lot more about internal tensions within Islam. Striking at the heart of the modern, progressive world was a statement of their power to other Islamic groups. Sad but true, but Bush got something right, it really was because they hated our freedoms.

 Ratbarf wrote:
I think the Chechnyans have dibs on the Russians currently, and they do seem to be doing a fine job of it. Certainly better than AQ is when it comes to striking their targets homeland. Plus I feel that AQ and others are more pissed about the American interference in the politics of Muslim countries, as well as American cultural diffusion/invasion into traditional societies. It's a cultural conflict as much as it is a physical one.

Relapse wrote:
The irony about 9/11 is the fact that it happened so closely after the U.S. attacked Serbia to end the genocide happening to the Muslims in Kosavo.