Students Transfer in History Class

[Strife767]

Seriously, if your son is so sure of what he believes, he would be laughing at the teacher instead of making a big deal out of it.

To see someone not taking the Constitution seriously, as above, makes me sick to my stomach.

Even reasonable Christians have a big problem with what Paszkiewicz did. It doesn't matter what he preached, or how it differs or doesn't differ from any number of students' beliefs. That has _nothing_ to do with it. You are way off base.

If I had a teacher telling me that the moon is a god, I would just ignore it because I know it is not true and I know what I believe in. I am sure that nothing, absolutely nothing can shake my faith.

Again, completely beside the point, as all of the Christians who were strongly against Paszkiewicz's actions show.

It took me years to get to this point. Apparently, your son is not so sure in what he believes, because if he was, the teacher would not have offended him.

Personal offense is not the issue here, once more...but it looks like you're not going to let go of this straw man. Are you prepared to say that every Christian who is against Paszkiewicz's actions is also "not so sure" in their beliefs?

I am sure that Matthew is not the only "atheist"(or whatver he is), in that classroom.

Oh? And what is the basis for this certainty? Is it as equally non-existant as the evidence that led to your certainty in your faith?

The only difference is that he is so confused that he can't just laugh at the teacher and let go.

No.

He had to go farther to really really really prove that Mr.P is wrong.

He is wrong in thinking that it's okay to preach his religion to his students during class time.

It is exactly what you are doing. I don't have to go around telling people and trying to prove that the moon is not a god because that's pathetic and people know it is not true. So, why wasting so much of your time trying to prove that God doesn't exist?

What in the world made you think that's what they're trying to do? Another baseless allegation, I see.

Are all the Christians against Paszkiewicz's preaching also trying to prove that God doesn't exist?

If he doesn't exist, then there is no point of trying to prove that...Do you believe that the sun is a dragon? I am sure you don't. Do you spend time trying to prove that? probably not, why not? Because it is not true....get it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Paszkiewicz's violation of the Constitution and of his students' civil rights is the issue, not personal differences in faith. Get it?

[Guest bewildered]

Seriously, if your son is so sure of what he believes, he would be laughing at the teacher instead of making a big deal out of it...the difference is that he is so confused that he can't just laugh at the teacher and let go.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, like the good nigras in the back of the bus in the south

Or like the Jews being led to the gas chambers. They must have split their sides over that.

Idiot.

[Guest bewildered]

Now we have idiots like Strife and Calybos pretending to be historians and Constitutional Scholars backing Paul up, and claiming to know the minds and intentions of the framers of The Constitution. 

Original intent is only one thing judges use in making decisions.  Some of the founders' original intentions were dead wrong:  slavery, white-male-only suffrage, the inferiority of non-whites, bloodletting, anti-contraception...

Judges with common sense use previous decisions to support their findings.

The teacher was wrong in what he was doing.  The administration should have had a meeting with the parent, student, and teacher present, and the teacher should have been told the discussion of religion and science, outside the scope of the curriculum was unacceptable.  This is common sense.  Something the law used to be based on.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If the teacher did not know that discussion of religion and science based on religion was wrong would be another shovel of dirt on his grave. How can a teacher teach if he does not know the basic policy of his BOE?

The latest pronouncement from the BOE on religion is a reaffirmation of their policy, not a brand new policy.

[Guest Paul]

If the teacher did not know that discussion of religion and science based on religion was wrong would be another shovel of dirt on his grave.  How can a teacher teach if he does not know the basic policy of his BOE?

The latest pronouncement from the BOE on religion is a reaffirmation of their policy, not a brand new policy.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And yet in his latest letter to the Observer, Mr. Paszkiewicz denies preaching in class. So just what behavior has he stopped?

[Guest Guest]

wait, WTF? This guy is still teaching?

[Strife767]

wait, WTF? This guy is still teaching?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Amazing, isn't it?

[Guest Guest]

wait, WTF? This guy is still teaching?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He is! He is such a good teacher that not even Mr. LaClair wanted his son out of Paszkiewicz's class. He was angry when they transfered Matthew to another class. Can you believe it?

[Guest Guest]

And yet in his latest letter to the Observer, Mr. Paszkiewicz denies preaching in class. So just what behavior has he stopped?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He denied because he wasn't preaching. Apparently, you have never been to a church before. But it is never too late.

[Strife767]

He denied because he wasn't preaching. Apparently, you have never been to a church before. But it is never too late.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

LOL! He told his students that "most" (iirc) Biblical prophecies had been fulfilled! He told his students that there was a global flood with some guy Noah in a boat with DINOSAURS!

He stated his dogma as fact--that's preaching. How ignorant can you people BE?

[Guest Paul]

He is! He is such a good teacher that not even Mr. LaClair wanted his son out of Paszkiewicz's class. He was angry when they transfered Matthew to another class. Can you believe it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This statement is false. I was relieved when Matthew was transferred into Ms. Vartan's class. I was upset about how it was done.

[Guest Paul]

He denied because he wasn't preaching. Apparently, you have never been to a church before. But it is never too late.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I spent the first 21 years of my life attending a Catholic church every week and every high holy day. In all those years, I don't think I ever heard as much preaching on any one Sunday as I heard on the recordings of September 14 and 15.

Perhaps the teacher's apologists have their own definition of preaching. Under the law, the teacher was clearly in violation of the Constitution, and in violation of the policy that had its first reading at the Board meeting last evening.

[Guest CG]

There are several things wrong with the comparison he made:

1. Global warming is not a lie. In fact, on the same day he made those remarks, another teacher was showing "An Inconvenient Truth." 113 nations just issued a statement acknowledging that it is a fact and a danger. Scientists all over the world agree that the evidence in support of global warming is compelling.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree, but for the sake of playing devil's advocate:

Yes, the evidence is compelling, what is not compelling (or at least not universally accepted), however, is the causal connection between human activity an this warming. Also, notice that as the view that global warming is caused by human activity becomes the orthodox view amongst most scientists, those that disagree or take a different view on the available data are ostracized and are held back professionally. Which leads me to my next point...

I find it interesting how this has devolved into arguments from two diametrically opposed camps-- the pro-religious and the scientists. I think that it is important to recognize that these two camps, while espousing world views that seem wholly disparate, are in essence mirror images of each other, and therefore, share some commonalities: intolerance for each other's point of view and/or the inability to reconcile the legitimate and positive purposes that are attributable to both.

It is easy enough to dismiss religion or to criticize its many faults, as those faults tend to be more readily acceptable in most Western societies (thanks, in large part, to the way that Martin Luther's reformation shed light on the foibles of a particular sect of Christianity, and by extension, organized religion in general). I won't, therefore, discuss this at length.

However, "scientists" will reflexively react to any analogy between science and religion denying that there is any similarity between the two. Think again. As has been pointed out by studies in the sociology of science (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions being the seminal work, although Wittgenstein's work on the foundations of logic and limitations of language are also apropos):

1. science is not a homogenous, objective, point of view but is a method of thinking that possesses, like all human form of knowledge, its own biases. Granted, science's biases are not the biases of religion, but they are biases just the same.

Now, even if one accepts that there is objective, knowable reality that can be observed by human beings (quantum mechanics in general the uncertainty principle in particular cast serious doubt on this, since the the knower activity changes the known by merely observing it), one need only point out that two human beings can look at the same numbers and come to completely different interpretive positions, depending largely on their own particular points of view. Notice how (gross generalizations to follow), liberals and conservatives:

-look at the global warming data and align their conclusions along the lines of their liberal/conservative ideologies....There is no need to point out where along this spectrum Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" falls. There is an undeniable liberal bias in our educational system and teachers should not preach their political ideology to their students. A public school teacher clearly should not preach religion in the classroom, but isn't it equally obvious a teachers' political views should be kept out as well, or at the very least, that competing ideas are presented together? I saw one teacher rant for 30 minutes on the evils of George Bush, in an English class, of all subjects. This kind of political proselytizing, from either side of the political spectrum, unacceptable. That, my friends, is an inconvenient truth...

-the definition of what is life vis a vis abortion differs....etc etc etc.

In short, in the hands of fallible human minds and equally fallible human institutions science can, and has been, as destructive as religion. If one doubts this one need only study second world war, which many books have pointed out, dealt with a conflict between two scientific points of view: Germany's racially perverted version of Darwinism biology vs. the Soviet Union's "scientific" economics. Both were catastrophic for humanity.

Keep an open and critical mind at all times...

PS spelling Nazis: please address my ideas, not my spelling or grammar.