Thomas sez: > TheTwincities Creation Science Society has a DVD of > Dr. Dawkins debating another scientist. He seems so > reasonable. OTOH, he maintians that teaching your children > about the Bible is child abuse. Those are fighting words!
Surprisingly, there are times when I actually sympathize with your POV even though as you well know, typically I don't. I have an old science fiction atheist friend who is a respected card carrying member of the atheist/agnostic movement in Madison, Wisconsin. Recently he got another of his letters published in TIME magazine....AGAIN. His letter was on whether to teach Christianity in our schools. Surprisingly, he thinks it's a good idea to expose children to the basic history that resulted in Judean-Christianity. His letter argued rather convincingly, IMO, that the Judeo-Christian perspective currently frames how a large part of our American society has defined itself. It's important, he stated, to understand and educate our children with the underlying concepts of Judeo-Christian perspective as it would help explain why vast portions of our society have behaved and responded to world events in the manner that they have within modern history. He believed teaching these perspectives would ultimately help our children become better informed, more capable of eventually making up their own minds. I suspect my atheist colleague hopes most rational children, once educated, will eventually chose to explore alternative perspectives. IMO, It's best to teach as many POVs possible. Not educating our children about what was recorded in the bible is just plain stupid. It's also ironic. Many atheists would have easy pickings highlighting specific biblical incidents that would seem to hint that Christianity's claim that we need to love one another as ourselves does not always seem to follow its own advice. This is particularly the case as recorded in Old Testament lore where the unfolding drama between men and women was flagrantly homicidal at times. So... let the little "darlings" make up their own minds. They eventually will anyway when all those lovely little hormones kick in, all that fun stuff combined with the urge to declare one's sovereign independence from the parental units. Incidentally, if the tables had been turned and the only official philosophy taught in schools was atheism I suspect you would consider that child abuse, would you not? Pehaps you and Mr. Dawkins are not that different from one another. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.Zazzle.com/orionworks
