Mighty AC

What if religion does have something to do with a person's views? What if a belief is considered crazy? What if the term was used in a discussion specifically about the sanity of such beliefs?

Sharkman, you mentioned that parents pass on ideas and attitudes to their children. Racism, hatred and abusive tendancies can be passed on, but like your parents did so can tolerance and patience. We are in agreement that it is a bad thing for racists to pass on their beliefs. However, what if they were taught evil things about other races at a young age? Can they be blamed for believing it and then teaching it? How can this cycle be avoided? Maybe discussion and education; telling them that their beliefs are wrong? I'm guessing that your parents also passed on their belief system to you, making you a Christian long before you developed the critical thinking skills necessary to make up your own mind. I know it's hard to step out of one's own shoes, but do you think that a grown up, skeptical, critically thinking Sharkman would be able to take the leap of faith necessary to believe in gods? I want you to know that I am not trying to offend you or equate religion with racism. I am just highlighting the indoctrination pathway. Really, I'm just trying to setup the question, 'What if you're wrong?'. I mean just by counting the number of active religions, odds are you are in error. I'm willing to bet that you wouldn't take any other belief system on faith now though. We don't fully understand gravity, but I'm sure that if someone told you that it is the result of giant magical magnets put in place by aliens...you would first want proof. However, if we taught that to a child they repeatedly they would believe.

Sharkman, like you and I are now, MLK was many things. I am a father, a coach, a developer, a teacher, a horrible bowler, an athlete and an outdoors enthusiast. MLK was a charismatic leader, a chronic womanizer, an adulterer, a Christian pastor, a father of 4, etc. We have many aspects to our life that can be discussed separately. We can admire MLK for his advancement of equal, civil rights, while still not agreeing with his less admirable acts and ideas. As for the nut job label. It's a synonym for crazy and a grey area for me. I think being proud of beliefs without evidence qualifies as crazy....but I still wouldn't use it unless talking with a close acquaintance or participating in forum on that topic.

I am glad your cat was alright and that you had good parents and at least one nice neighbour with a hot daughter. I too had a cruel neighbour growing up, though he was a Baptist. We still treated the man with kindness and I (after being forced to by my parents) still cut his front grass most weeks. There are two different issues being discussed here. The first is a belief itself, the second is treatment of people with certain beliefs. I treat everyone with common courtesy no matter what they believe; however, that should not prevent me from debating the merits of a belief itself. Discussion of ideas are how the best get elevated and the bad ones tossed aside. Beliefs without evidence get criticized and rightly so. For example I think it is acceptable to mock the the beliefs of conspiracy theorists and living Elvis subscribers as long as the person is not personally attacked. In fact, unless that person was a close acquaintance or participating in a discussion forum on that topic I wouldn't engage in a debate with them. In the religion section of this forum though, I feel it is fair game to point out the absurdity of a belief provided that I don't attack you personally. People openly mock liberal and conservative views, why do you believe spiritual views deserve special protection?

It's a point of view issue really. From one point of view belief in the equivalent of a Santa or living Elvis story is grounds for the tag 'nut job'. Others see that kind of belief as acceptable and reserve the label for more extreme actions. I'm not sure what the equivalent to Pat Robertson types, young earth creationists and fundamentalists would be in the living Elvis world but let's go with those that dress up in costumes and attend Elvis conventions.

Seems like a common denominator to discussion forums in general. Rather than conceding or dropping a point some egos require people to engage in Clintonesque syntactic excercises in an attempt to exhaust or bore opponents into submission.

When tested North American 5 and 6 year olds are very creative problem solvers, but 10 years later their scores are incredibly low. It seems that we are training them to simply follow instructions and think inside the box. Students are already being taught more advanced math and science skills much earlier than they were 20 years ago. That's not being reversed, we're now just educating our kids in a manner that gives them more individual attention and will no longer beat the innovation out of them.

It is easy to follow instructions, but a different skill set is required to identify a the problem, solve it and then write the instructions. We've been missing all those great C words, Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, for quite some time now. Industry leaders have complained that applicants have been lacking in this area. Today people are required to change jobs frequently. Even within an existing position people are required to pick up new skills and technologies way more frequently than ever before. Our old education model built for a now non-existent industrial economy does not deliver the goods. A shift from memorization and regurgitation to understanding, evaluating and creating does.

I think your opinions about how the majority of Christians see their god, hell and the roots of their beliefs are not in touch with the majority.

New assessment methods aren't a complete replacement of the old; just a shift towards higher order thinking skills. Students are now spending more time practicing skills at the top of the pyramid and less just memorizing and regurgitating facts. Teaching methods haven't completely changed either, but rather shifted to foster greater choice, creativity, collaboration and critical thinking. Activities are differentiated to better suit the individual needs of each student rather than the class as a whole and learning is more inquiry based. Lecture and rote memorization aren't gone they just play a supporting role to higher order tasks. The world has changed and continues to do so. The teaching methods of the past had created a creativity, problem identification and imagination drought. The shift will address that. Unfortunately, implementation of better practices is painfully slow. I once took an online class taught by a Sweedish man. The requirements for our first assignment seemed more vague than I was used to and was thankful, at first, when a woman had a dozen questions about what was required of her and the precise break down of marks. The professor just laughed and said you must be Canadian. It turned out that he was right. He said Canadian students always want the requirements completely laid out for them in a list, they will then diligently follow the instructions given. This is a problem we are in the slow process of fixing.

We don't treat a party's platform like the word of an omnipotent being, we are all free to agree or disagree as we see fit. That's not the case for believers of a god though. For example: It is common for many Christians to claim that they love homosexuals as people but cannot condone homosexual acts or gay marriage because the Bible states it is a sin. You and I could simply ignore the Biblical passage and act ethically. However, these Christians feel that equality for homosexuals is against their god's will and are forced into this position. This is when I wonder if these people are aware that they are already ignoring other parts of the bible? If they are aware then their discrimination is a choice and the religion is used as a scapegoat. My guess is that most aren't aware though. I believe they have learned their sect specific story from preachers who do not dwell on the unsavoury Bible bits they have chosen to ignore. However, this choice issue is a bigger moral problem for church big wigs. These people are very aware that they cherry pick from the Bible and that discrimination is their choice, not their god's.

Our current administration seems to be dedicated to advancing the interests of selected industries, chiefly oil. They have gutted research into projects that do not advance their agenda and shifted funding into what are essentially industry subsidies. The “world class” project is a perfect example of this. After gutting science funding for climate, freshwater research, ozone depletion, marine mamals, observatories, etc. the Harper government found $100M to research Enbridge specific interests. The public sector will now model waterways in the Kitimat region and test the effects of chemical dispersants on bitumen in marine environments. This is research that industry should be carrying out. Using the science budget to subsidize industry specific projects is exactly opposite of what we should be doing. The government has said that as it does more to commercialize science, industry should be picking up the slack on basic research. But that’s backwards. Why is government pursuing short-term economic gains and leaving the long-term public interest to the private sector? No CEO in his right mind would invest millions in a particle collider whose indeterminate dividends may not pay off for decades. Meanwhile, cash-strapped universities can’t afford to build the infrastructure necessary for ambitious work in, say, particle physics or lake ecology. Only government can provide the funds and the foresight to ensure that Canadian science continues to be fertile ground for industries to till. - http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2013/05/13/harper_governments_nrc_makeover_is_shortsighted_and_wrongheaded_editorial.html

Nobody is against practicing systematic processes. However, in the past too much emphasis was placed on simple memorization and regurgitation. Now a little more time is spent teaching students to understand processes rather than just memorizing outcomes. Using a simplistic math example, students that memorize multiplication tables to 10 can struggle when they encounter a figure like 12 x 13. Students who understand the process can more easily work the problem out in their head, by doing something like 10 x 13 + 26. It's important to teach the how and why along with the what.

Happiness was cited as a collateral benefit of religion in this thread. It seems that being part of a large group with a sense of belonging improves happiness. However, a new study demonstrated a link between religion/spirituality and depression. It appears that spiritual beliefs can be tough on one's mental health. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/religion-depression_b_3928675.html - People who held a religious or spiritual understanding of life had a higher incidence of depression than those with a secular life view. - Regardless of country, the stronger the spiritual or religious belief at the start of the study, the higher the risk of onset of depression. - Those with the more strongly held religious or spiritual convictions were twice as likely to experience major depression in the subsequent 12 months. "Some may examine this study and argue its results suggest that while many might still be looking for answers far and wide, ironically, it could be those less religious and spiritual, who might already have found them."

Your own links still show a majority of Americans believing in hell with a minority considering that hell to just be a separation from god. Such as? I find Christian cherry picking to be a fascinating subject. Each sect freely ignores and accepts various nuggets of the 'word of god'. Next they sprinkle in a little creative interpretation and a few man made rules of their own and voila it's made to order religion. "You're own, Personal, Jesus"...forgive me while I break into song. The fascinating part isn't the fact that humans customize religion to their liking, I mean, it was crafted by humans to begin with. What amazes me is that that the followers can still take it seriously. They still believe it's the word of god and must be adhered to, while happily ignoring the bits they don't like. How is this possible? Could it be that most followers don't read the Bible and instead just get their religion in bite sized chunks from the mouths of preachers?

The root of guilt and general anxiety many people have towards sex is likely religious based but the religious certainly do not have a monopoly on molestation. It seems that men have a cornered that market though. I'd guess that both secular and religious folk experience similar rates of incarceration for sex crimes.

Nice...I could use a little Clash today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ82BX0hGBM

You're right that educators need to facilitate learning rather than being just the bearer of knowledge. However, devices are tools...not solutions. In my experience, too many teachers use tablets to generate busy work rather than as a tool to complement great inquiry based lessons. It is important to engage students, but we must be mindful of what we are engaging them in. Far too many of the apps used are simply electronic version of that olde tymey rote learning that you rightly criticize. My second point is that tablets are not a great fit for every class. At the young primary level they are generally the best option, but get less useful as the kids age. Tablets are poor document or content generation devices, so in my opinion, something like Chromebooks or traditional laptops are a better tool for middle school kids and older. Kids that age tend to be already armed with phones and iPods so adding tabs doesn't really add value. Finally, of the available tabs Ipads are, IMO, the worst option. Schools do not getting big discounts on Apple devices so good quality Android tabs are generally 25-40% less expensive. Plus, there are far more free Android apps and the paid apps are generally cheaper. It's always better to get more for taxpayer money, but when considering that education funding almost never provides a maintenance or replacement budget for tech, having some (25 to 40%) more devices in storage is a necessity.

This is an interesting article about what Michael Hardner mentioned here above. Inquiry and project based learning methods have proven to be very effective at honing the skills we say we want for students. It provides all those great C-words like creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and communication. The problem is it doesn't fit well into our industrial education model designed more for control and order than learning. Changing this status quo is proving to be difficult. We can handle, bolt-on, incremental tweaks but paradigm shifts with many moving parts are very, very hard to tackle. It's worth a read, you know unless, of course, you have a smart phone app that will read and summarize it for you. http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/09/reinventing-school-new-learning-environment-ecosystems-for-inquiry-learning/

An increased use of volunteers trained to do specific tasks would be a great asset. However, I expect unions would fight any increase that could potentially reduce the flow of dues to their coffers. In my area they already prevent monetary donations from being spent on educational materials, because they believe that would allow school boards to reduce their budgets.

I was big fan of Rome as well. From what I understand plans were being laid for a movie, but the fire on the massive set in Italy killed them. I miss Rome...and Deadwood too.

Here is a ridiculous statement yet, it exactly what you are proposing for posters of religious topics: The Liberal fan boys should spend equal time bashing the Dippers and Greens as they do Harper and the Cons. Why would you care what topics people start or participate in? It doesn't make sense, unless of course you really just feel that Christian beliefs deserve special protection.

Exactly. We all have areas of interest and tend to focus on them. I like religion, education, environment and music. Some people focus on US Politics or the Middle East and some are just full time cheerleaders for a chosen politician or party. To each their own.