We have a settlement

[Guest Guest]

Bigot brigades?  By definition, a bigot is someone who is intolerant of others.

As I recall, it was a Christian who answered an atheist's questions who was not tolerated. By the way, Mathew's questions as well as his irreverence for the beliefs of others can be heard being tolerated on the classroom recordings.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Then you don't get it. The so-called Christian initiated those topics on his own. Matthew made statements, with which Paszkiewicz disagreed. The entire discussion was outside the curriculum, and there is a difference between a teacher saying it and a student saying it. All of these are well-established in the law, but you don't get it because you don't want to get it.

I hear no irrevence from Matthew. He does not blindly accept biblical theology. That's not irreverence, but the fact that you think it is says a lot about you. You assume that because you're Christian everyone is supposed to agree with you. Unfortunately, many people think that way about their own religion. It is what sets up bigotry.

"Bigot brigades" is an apt, although colorful term for what was displayed at the two Board meetings where Paszkiewicz's supporters tried to shout down anyone who challenged their views. That was intolerant, and unlike what Matthew did, it had no basis in law. Unfortunately, it characterized the behavior of a small segment of the Kearny community throughout this entire affair.

[Guest Guest]

I wasn't aware that posting on a forum was a 'profession.' People acting like idiots on an online forum merit no "professionalism" from me, so they won't be getting any. Deal with it.

You mean thanks to a Bible-thumping teacher.

Bottom line: if Paszkiewicz hadn't preached his religion in a public school classroom, there would have been no issue in the first place. By your logic, we ought to lock up the guy who calls the police to tell them a popular townsperson is robbing a convenience store, instead of the actual criminal. I hope you're proud of yourself.

Because the Board failed to address the issue in anything even resembling a timely manner.

So you think it's a bad idea for someone to get recognition for standing against a popular teacher and making him accountable for his irresponsible, unethical, and unconstitutional actions? Is that really how you feel? If so, I pity you.

Religious societies are less moral than secular ones.

It's quite well-established that having separation of church and state is best for a society--or, at least, way better than establishing an 'official' religion or theocracy or anything like that. Together with freedom of religion, the "wall of separation" makes it so that people can practice whatever religion they want, but at the same time, it keeps anyone from having others' religion(s) imposed on them. Sounds like a pretty good setup to me. If you have a better idea, I'd sure like to hear it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thats where you are wrong again. There would have been an issue. Like all the issues that young LaClair had done. This one just got elevated to a point where Daddy had to jump in.

You scour at those people who hold up the Bible however you also throw the Constitution around like it is your piece of toilet paper. Since you do not wish to act remotely like a professional. I will keep my posts directed towards you in a manner that any simpleton could understand.

You also said you graduated Kearny High sometime in your life. If you did, then you might have done a little homework to know back in somewhere about 1976-1977, Kearny High actually offered a course in understanding the Bible and its impact on history. Pretty good stuff and the course had a waiting list to get in. Do your homework before you start tossing your scrap paper at me.

[Guest Guest]

Actually, it just looks like you were too retarded to realize you're replying to the same post twice.

http://forums.kearnyontheweb.com/index.php...indpost&p=54275

Good going.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Clap Monkey Clap.

Your footnotes are hysterical and I just love taking up your time.

[Bryan]

If you're not even willing to positively assert your argument, why are you even making it? Obviously you're not as confident about what you're saying as you'd like others to believe. Not surprising.

I 'highlighted' for emphasis, as I stated quite plainly. If you're too illiterate to see the "emphasis added" I stuck at the end, that's your problem.

I added emphasis in order to emphasize (I'm not going too fast for you, am I?) the fact that the comments are directed outward, not inward. One doesn't say "you" when he's talking about himself, and that quote shoots the 'he wasn't referring to others' argument dead in the water.

To make ice cubes, you first put water in an ice-cube tray, then you put it in the freezer for several hours or more.

Obviously that's not how I make ice cubes.

Strife exemplifies the type of semantic nonsense that the LaClair side has employed to try to make what Paszkiewicz did out to be other than it was.

Just as my ice-cube example does not suggest an emphasis on how the other person makes ice-cubes, but rather an observation that applies to all, as with the Christian doctrine that answered LaClair's question.

Talk about grasping at straws--you guys will claim just about anything to try and make Paszkiewicz look like an innocent victim, huh? Give it a rest--no one with half a brain is falling for this nonsense.

That last comment has the air of truth to it, albeit in a literal sense.

Did I accuse you of making ice cubes by putting water in a tray and placing it in the freezer?

Answer yes or no--no dodging.

In fact, why don't you directly ask Paszkiewicz yourself? Ask him if he believes that NO ONE BUT HIM will go to hell if they reject 'God's gift of salvation.' I'm sure Paszkiewicz himself would be happy to contradict your retarded argument.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You're contradicting your own retarded argument.

"I added emphasis in order to emphasize (I'm not going too fast for you, am I?) the fact that the comments are directed outward, not inward."

The comment in question (there was more than one, so I won't generalize) was non-directional. It was a description of an (historical) Christian doctrine in answer to a student's question.

Want to hear about Hinduism? In Hinduism, you go through nearly endless cycles of rebirth until you attain Moksha.

Hey--I just proselytized for Hinduism, didn't I? Obviously since I used "you," my statement was directed outward.

[Strife767]

Tell you what, then. It's your job to put this LaClair kid in his place. Go down to the Board's offices tomorrow and demand that they issue a commendation like that for your kid.

Be sure to let us know how you make out.

. . . . .

Let's assume that you're right. Let's assume that LaClair pressured the Board into doing this. Even if that were true, you'd have to give the kid a lot of credit for having the Board by the balls and knowing just how to squeeze.

Or, if you want to look at it another way, name for us all the other students in the history of Kearny High who've gotten a commendation like that.

. . . . .

It wasn't supposed to turn out this way, was it. The kid was supposed to be put in his place. Instead he put the Board, the administration and the Kearny bigot brigades in their place. If you think what he did was easy, you try it. And if you don't like it, then find a way to show the kid up. Be sure to let us know what you come up with.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well said.

[Strife767]

Mathew's questions as well as his irreverence for the beliefs of others can be heard being tolerated on the classroom recordings.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Okay, so the next time someone threatens to kill you, I'll be sure to call that "tolerance."

[Guest Guest]

Then you don't get it. The so-called Christian initiated those topics on his own. Matthew made statements, with which Paszkiewicz disagreed. The entire discussion was outside the curriculum, and there is a difference between a teacher saying it and a student saying it. All of these are well-established in the law, but you don't get it because you don't want to get it.

I hear no irrevence from Matthew.

I sense some anti-Christian bigotry in this paragraph. By the way, apparently not all the topics were brought up by the teacher.

This was taken from the Dranger transcript:

LaClaire: Let's say that you disagree [with God]. Let's say that

maybe, in God's eyes, you have done something wrong. If you go to

Hell, that would mean that you would burn and suffer forever. Now,

hang on, let me think about this for a second. You have an all-loving

God. Why would God give up on a human being after just one lifetime?

As a parent, if your child did something wrong, if your child did

something terrible, would you throw them in an oven and leave them

there forever?

Teacher: I also didn't die for them.

[Guest Guest]

Thats where you are wrong again. There would have been an issue. Like all the issues that young LaClair had done. This one just got elevated to a point where Daddy had to jump in. 

You scour at those people who hold up the Bible however you also throw the Constitution around like it is your piece of toilet paper. Since you do not wish to act remotely like a professional. I will keep my posts directed towards you in a manner that any simpleton could understand. 

You also said you graduated Kearny High sometime in your life. If you did, then you might have done a little homework to know back in somewhere about 1976-1977, Kearny High actually offered a course in understanding the Bible and its impact on history.  Pretty good stuff and the course had a waiting list to get in.  Do your homework before you start tossing your scrap paper at me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There's nothing wrong with teaching the Bible as history. No one has said there is, but it might not be to your liking with a kid in there who had a brain and some guts. I'd pay money to watch Matt LaClair in a class like that. He'd make it soooooo exciting! (Listen to the end of the 9/15 class session. One of the funniest things Paszkiewicz said was: "Matthew is making this class sooooo exciting!" That had me on the floor laughing when I heard it. Paszkiewicz had no idea how exciting it was about to get!)

Or do you only want registration open to Christians and those who are interested in converting? In a public school, you can't use the class for that. (Curses, foiled again!)

What would happen if there was a class like that and some kid exposed all the logical and factual errors in the Bible? It's not hard to do. Would you still want the class? How many old-time-religion parents would be willing to have their kid sit in a class where their views on the Bible were challenged? They'd be in an uproar, and that would be the end of that class. Or would it just be another excuse to transfer Matt out of another class?

Why don't you invite Matthew and his dad to your church for Bible study? Just promise them equal time and the respect of listening without interruption during their time to speak. I'm sure they'll do the same for you. We won't be seeing that invitation, now, will we?

What you don't realize is that Matthew LaClair challenged Christian orthodoxy and had most of the class in an uproar. He did exactly what Paszkiewicz claimed he was doing (getting people to challenge their old ways of thinking), only Matt actually did it, did it legally and logically, and gave his classmates more food for thought in three days than Paszkiewicz probably has in fifteen years of teaching. Those classroom recordings are like gold as object lessons for educators and psychologists. Listen to the students practically go nuts when Matt challenges the idea that a loving god would create a world full of carnivores doomed to eat and be eaten. It's an obvious point, but the kids had no idea what to do with it, obviously had never thought about, and so they started telling Matthew he needed to read more. After all, they couldn't possibly be wrong, so they immediately threw up a cement wall a foot thick: "I'm not going to hear this, la-la-la-la-laaaaaa!" Listen to the recording, only this time clean the sludge out of your ears. Like those kids, you don't even see your own biases, do you?

[Guest Guest]

1. The Kearny Board of Education (BoE) has agreed to bring in the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to conduct in-service training for teachers and staff on these issues, free of charge. The ADL was contacted and chosen by the Board for this purpose because it has programs specifically designed for this purpose. Considering the apparent lack of understanding of and sensitivity to these issues among some staff members, the training seems like a good idea. Is it? Why or why not?

2. The BoE has agreed to bring in the ADL to educate the student body on these issues. Considering the students' abysmal response to the situation, their apparent non-understanding of these issues, and what appears to be their utter cowardice in attacking, intimidating and shunning their classmate who has now been lauded for his courage and integrity in standing up to them, the ADL program seems like a good idea. Is it? Why or why not?

3. The BoE has commended Matthew LaClair for his exemplary actions in bringing this matter to their attention, and for his courage and integrity. Some people have called the young man names, insulted him, demeaned him, etc., but does anyone have a shred of proof that his conduct on this matter isn't exactly what the BoE is describing in its commendation? Is the Board's commendation justified? Why or why not?

4. The LaClair family has been accused of using this situation to seek money through litigation. Yet they just dropped the case with no monetary recovery except their expenses. They maintained throughout that their preference was to avoid litigation. Do those who accused the LaClairs of using this situation as an opportunity or excuse to seek money owe them an apology? Why or why not?

5. The BoE has just agreed to do everything the LaClairs asked them to do in October. Had the BoE committed to this in October, this would all have been resolved long ago without all the fuss and without all the legal expenses the BoE has incurred. (Forgot about the expenses the BoE is reimbursing the LaClairs. Ask the BoE how much their attorneys billed them.) Yet in December, on the day this issue appeared in the New York Times, the Board attorney said in response to an inquiry from the Anderson Cooper show that they would not address these issues because that would re-open them. Considering how idiotic that remark is (the story is in the Times and on CNN and Lindenfelser is worried about the story being "reopened"), why would anyone think the BoE would have acted if the LaClairs hadn't pressed the case? Isn't it obvious that they were doing everything they could to ride it out until it went away, even when it was obvious that it wasn't going away? What evidence is there that the BoE would have taken the actions it has now agreed to take on its own, when it explicitly refused to take them? Isn't the Bergen Record exactly right, that this was a pitiful bureaucratic non-response to an unwinnable situation? Why isn't the community calling the BoE to account?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

These are great questions. Why no answers? Here are mine.

1. David Paszkiewicz isn't the only teacher who doesn't understand these issues. The teacher training is an excellent idea, and probably long overdue in this town.

2. The behavior of the students throughout this affair has been atrocious. All anyone has to do to know that they don't understand the Constitution or science (or don't care) is listen to the class recordings. The ADL training for them is also an excellent idea because it's clear that they're not getting the point from the teachers in the Kearny school system. Maybe it's just a matter of putting more emphasis on these points, but they're centrally important to what we used to call civics, something that I think is still important.

3. There isn't a shred of evidence that Matthew LaClair acted for any reason except the ones he has expressed, that is, because he cared about the Constitution and science education. He stood up to his teacher, the school's administration, the school board and pretty much all his peers, persevered and accomplished what he wanted to do. He has been praised in an editorial in the New York Times, which is a very high commendation no matter what you think of the Times' politics. He deserves the commendation, and if he's getting it because he backed the school board into a corner, he deserves it all the more.

4. The LaClairs are definitely owed an apology, but it's unlikely that people who can't even admit that Paszkiewicz was preaching in class are going to give it.

5. The Board made it clear that it preferred not to act. It acted only when the LaClairs had it dead to rights. The reason that the community won't call the Board to account is that there is a lot of indifference in town, and there aren't many good candidates for the Board.

[Bryan]

Bryan, you think that preaching in public school doesn't violate the Constitution. The end.

"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead." --Thomas Paine

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I provided reasons for my views, and you haven't addressed them.

So who has renounced reason? The one who presented the reasoning (me) or the one who declines to engage in debate (as with "...you think that preaching in public school doesn't violate the Constitution. The end.").

It's marvelous that you can post such things without apparently detecting the irony.

[Guest Guest]

I sense some anti-Christian bigotry in this paragraph.  By the way, apparently not all the topics were brought up by the teacher.

  This was taken from the Dranger transcript:

LaClaire: Let's say that you disagree [with God]. Let's say that

maybe, in God's eyes, you have done something wrong. If you go to

Hell, that would mean that you would burn and suffer forever. Now,

hang on, let me think about this for a second. You have an all-loving

God. Why would God give up on a human being after just one lifetime?

As a parent, if your child did something wrong, if your child did

something terrible, would you throw them in an oven and leave them

there forever?

Teacher: I also didn't die for them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's a completely serious question, and an excellent one. Where is the irreverence?

There's no anti-Christian bigotry either. Challenging Christian theology on a reasoned basis is not bigotry. It's using his mind. Why is that so many Christians think it's bigotry or persecution just because someone doesn't agree with them? Meanwhile, telling kids that they belong in hell if they don't agree, if they're not Christian --- forgive me for putting it this way --- what the hell is that if not bigotry?

It's also a stupid answer by Paszkiewicz. Think about it. Paszkiewicz is saying that God, in the person of Jesus, died for us so we wouldn't have to burn and suffer forever. But he's also saying that the reason God would throw us into hell is that he died for us. Now let's think this through, putting God in the first person.

1. If I don't die for you, then I won't throw you into hell.

2. If I do die for you, then I will throw you into hell.

OK, so do me a big favor: don't die for me. Game, set, match. Checkmate. Paszkiewicz managed to turn Christian theology into an absurdity in six words (seven if you count the contraction as two).

As Clarence Darrow asked William Jennings Bryan during the Scopes trial, "Do you think about the things you do think about?" It's not an irreverent question. It's an attempt to get people to think.

[Guest Guest]

I sense some anti-Christian bigotry in this paragraph.  By the way, apparently not all the topics were brought up by the teacher.

  This was taken from the Dranger transcript:

LaClaire: Let's say that you disagree [with God]. Let's say that

maybe, in God's eyes, you have done something wrong. If you go to

Hell, that would mean that you would burn and suffer forever. Now,

hang on, let me think about this for a second. You have an all-loving

God. Why would God give up on a human being after just one lifetime?

As a parent, if your child did something wrong, if your child did

something terrible, would you throw them in an oven and leave them

there forever?

Teacher: I also didn't die for them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

By the way, just because you started quoting this discussion well into the discussion doesn't mean that Paszkiewicz didn't initiate it. He did.

[Guest Paul]

You haven't heard from reasonable people because they are too busy working, raising their families, paying bills,  etc. to comment on this petty nonsense.

Bottom line:  As Matthew's history reveals, LaClair is a crusader and he was looking for a cause to fight.  Now it's over, everyone will forget about it and go back to more important issues in their lives.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here is a list of names. Which of these people were crusaders? Which were crusaders for good and important causes? Explain your answers.

Ralph Nader

Martin Luther King

Jerry Falwell

George W. Bush

Ronald Reagan

Jesse Jackson

Bill Clinton

Jimmy Carter

Pat Robertson

the Dalai Lama

Nelson Mandela

David Duke

Can a person be a citizen without standing up for important causes?

If a person is busy raising and family and paying the bills, does that mean he cannot also fight for important causes?

If citizens don't stand up for the principles that make their country great, how much longer will there be anything left to stand up for?

Obviously you thought your comment important enough to post, and obviously you're taking time to read these posts. Are you really opposed to people spending their time on issues they care about? If Matthew was spending his time collecting stamps, would you criticize him for it? Or is it just that you don't agree with Matthew's cause? If the Constitution, science and the quality of education are not important, then what is? Aren't a lot of things important? Why is this any less important than rehearsing for the school play? Or do you criticize kids for doing that, too? Take a deep breath and think about it, and think about what your comment says about you.

[Guest Paul]

The Anti-Defamation League will provide training for teachers and students on church-state separation and evolution.

Who was "defamed"?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As I understand it, the Anti-Defamation League was formed out of a concern for the tragic history of the Jewish people, who have often been subjected to persecution and worse. One of their central points is that in a multi-cultural society like the United States, religious neutrality must be maintained in government. Their concerns transcend defamation as that term is commonly understood.

[Guest Paul]

Who was the first President of the United States, and when did he take office? You're not as smart as you think you are, Bryan.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Excellent question. It's commonly understood in our country that the first President was George Washington, sworn in in 1789.

This fact is fatal to Bryan's argument about the origins of the United States of America on his DoI topic, which probably explains why he ignored it. It is true that there was a legal entity called the United States of America, which operated under the Articles of Confederation from 1781 or so until 1787 (I think). It was a weak confederacy, and its laws and legal structure were not maintained under the Constitution, which completely replaced it. There were seven presidents under the Articles. Can anyone name any of them?

[Guest Paul]

Clap Monkey Clap. Here's another cracker.

Do you think you can post something without cursing? Very professional of you.

Paul did get the cash, and the Board of Education could not risk even the possibility of a lawsuit, even from a deranged attorney, because until the budget passed there was no money there.  Just the possibility could and would have ruined this towns Educational system thanks to a snot-nose little boy.

Why would Paul ask for anything at all? He repeatedly said that he wasn't after it. He settled on an amount after junior got his ill-famed scholarships and recognition in the papers in his media blitz. 

If the Constitution was always right then why did they have to add so many amendments to it?  Think about it, maybe it's still not correct.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I haven't gotten any cash, or money in any other form for this, and I won't. Our lawyers haven't billed us. All reimbursement will go directly to them. They spent a lot of time on it. Had we not been reimbursed for expenses, they would have come out of my pocket.

Willkie Farr & Gallagher is a major international law firm. Look them up on line. They have offices overseas as well as in the United States. Willkie was Wendell Willkie, Republican presidential nominee in 1940. He was a partner there.

Rich Mancino, who is a partner there now, came to us through the National Center for Science Education. He is an extremely busy lawyer who travels almost weekly to places like Switzerland working on securities cases. I don't know what he charges by the hour, but you can bet it's more than a lot of folks make in a week. He thought this cause important enough to take on for free.

There are plenty of snotty noses commenting on this case. They write in a way that makes them easy to spot.

[Bryan]

Who was the first President of the United States, and when did he take office? You're not as smart as you think you are, Bryan.

Excellent question.

Because the United States could not have existed without a president?

Heh. By all means, pay out more rope.

It's commonly understood in our country that the first President was George Washington, sworn in in 1789.

This fact is fatal to Bryan's argument about the origins of the United States of America on his DoI topic, which probably explains why he ignored it.

Didn't see it until you quoted it (and the way KOTW approves posts it may have been posted after my previous visit)--but it was worthy of being ignored for the combination of vapidity and anonymity. Now that Paul LaClair has signed onto the argument, it's worth rebutting (what "probably" explains Paul's ignoring so many arguments in this forum?).

It is true that there was a legal entity called the United States of America, which operated under the Articles of Confederation from 1781 or so until 1787 (I think). It was a weak confederacy, and its laws and legal structure were not maintained under the Constitution, which completely replaced it. There were seven presidents under the Articles. Can anyone name any of them?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Do we get an explanation of how this is supposedly "fatal" to my argument "about the origins of the United States of America" other than the billowing clouds of obfuscatory smoke?

BTW, what was "legal" about the early United States of America ("a legal entity"), given that you apparently don't accept the logic of the Declaration of Independence and deny that the DoI was a document with any legal force?

[Bryan]

I haven't gotten any cash, or money in any other form for this, and I won't.

So the reimbursement for "our" expenses was for the expenses for your legal representation (and filing fees)?

Our lawyers haven't billed us. All reimbursement will go directly to them. They spent a lot of time on it. Had we not been reimbursed for expenses, they would have come out of my pocket.

You're saying you would have been billed for their expenses, then (just to be clear)?

That's pretty much like you getting the money, isn't it? Leaving aside the accusations of a greed motive, of course (in which I have not engaged, I suppose I'll point out).

Rich Mancino, who is a partner there now, came to us through the National Center for Science Education. He is an extremely busy lawyer who travels almost weekly to places like Switzerland working on securities cases. I don't know what he charges by the hour, but you can bet it's more than a lot of folks make in a week. He thought this cause important enough to take on for free.

Free plus expenses.

There are plenty of snotty noses commenting on this case. They write in a way that makes them easy to spot.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Do we know them because they call others "snotty"?

[Bryan]

What would happen if there was a class like that and some kid exposed all the logical and factual errors in the Bible? It's not hard to do.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Why don't you start a thread and show us how easy it is? You pick the topic.

[Strife767]

I haven't gotten any cash, or money in any other form for this, and I won't. Our lawyers haven't billed us. All reimbursement will go directly to them. They spent a lot of time on it. Had we not been reimbursed for expenses, they would have come out of my pocket.

Oh, I can't wait to see how the ones pushing the 'money-grubbing' argument respond to this.

[Guest 2smart4u]

Excellent question. It's commonly understood in our country that the first President was George Washington, sworn in in 1789.

This fact is fatal to Bryan's argument about the origins of the United States of America on his DoI topic, which probably explains why he ignored it. It is true that there was a legal entity called the United States of America, which operated under the Articles of Confederation from 1781 or so until 1787 (I think). It was a weak confederacy, and its laws and legal structure were not maintained under the Constitution, which completely replaced it. There were seven presidents under the Articles. Can anyone name any of them?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Actually there were eight or nine "presidents" under the articles of confederation. However, they were "presiding officers" of congress, not "chief executives" as is our presidents under the constitution. The first "presiding officer" I believe was Joseph Huntington.

[Guest Guest]

QUOTE(Guest @ May 13 2007, 06:02 PM)

You're missing the point. In a democracy the majority has enough sense to protect the minority's rights.

Bryan: "They do? Then why is Paul so worried? Why did the Framers concern themselves about the 'tyranny of the majority'?"

QUOTE

A sensible majority understands that its power of numbers is not license to do whatever it pleases.

Bryan: "And majorities are always sensible? Is that the idea?"

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No, moron, majorities aren't always sensible. That's the idea. That's why in constitutional democracies the majority makes a legally binding commitment in a written constitution long predating any particular issue arising that the rights of the minority are to be preserved inviolate. You're arguing against yourself and don't even have the sense to realize it.

[Guest Guest]

QUOTE(Strife767 @ May 13 2007, 05:52 PM)

("Let's say that you disagree [with God]. Let's say that

maybe, in God's eyes, you have done something wrong.")

[...]

"...we can't disagree with [God] on salvation...if you reject his gift of salvation, you're going where you belong."

<green bits added to supply significant portions of the missing context>

Bryan: "It's obvious from the audio that Paszkiewicz uses "you" in the same manner that LaClair used it.

Paszkiewicz was not preaching at the kids, as is suggested by the out-of-context quotation, but explaining a widespread doctrine in answer to a student's question."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Bryan's response is disingenuous. LaClair wasn't asking for edification on what Christian doctrine was. He was challenging whether it made any sense. Paszkiewicz wasn't explaining the doctrine. He was arguing that it made sense. He was promoting, telling the students why it was morally justified.

Nowhere does the Bible say that anyone belongs in hell. Paszkiewicz added that moral judgment on his own "authority." It is his value judgment. And he's presuming to speak for God. Heresy and blasphemy at one shot, and that's overlooking the fact that he has no business explaining Christian doctrine in a public school classroom in the first place.

There's a move afoot to offer Bible classes in public schools under the guise that it's history. Don't get me wrong, there is a history to the use of the Bible in the United States, but that is not the motivation behind these classes, which "just happen" to be taking root in places where a lot of people would like to make Christian doctrine part of the curriculum. It's an excuse for classes in Bible study. So of course, the plan is to offer only "Christian" history, which makes the motive transparent from the get-go. With that motive behind it, it will be abused if it is allowed, which is why the courts will constrain it carefully.

Personally, I would like to see these Bible-as-history classes, but they should all be taught by people who approach scripture from a secular perspective. That would be a good way of ensuring that these classes don't lose sight of their purpose, which is supposedly the secular teaching of religious history. Then let's see how popular they are. If they are taught as they are supposed to be, it will be the Christians petitioning to do away with them! The Bible can't withstand that kind of scrutiny. I don't mean to disparage anyone's religion, but it can't.

The law won't require that non-theistic teachers teach Bible-as-history classes, but it will require that the classes be taught from a secular perspective. It's not going to happen. In places like Odessa, Texas, where this movement is starting, the classes are going to be used as a front for Bible study. As is obvious from what happened in Kearny, renegade teachers get away with all kinds of shenanigans for years because very few students have the courage to speak up and put a stop to it. And if you think Kearny is intimidating, just imagine any kid in Odessa, Texas having the guts to complain that the teacher was crossing the line. It's an invitation for abuse, and abuse of the law is its purpose and intent.

If we accept Bryan's fractured fairy-tale version of what Paszkiewicz was doing, even that goes a step beyond history to doctrine. It's not permissible, and anyway that's obviously not was Paszkiewicz was trying to get away with. He was trying to get away with preaching, just like he has been doing all the years he has been teaching at Kearny High.

Bryan keeps trying to take Paszkiewicz's in-class sermons one sentence at a time and re-interpret them under the most neutral interpretation possible. But you can't reinterpret a running dialogue a phrase at a time. Bryan, who takes everything out of context, is the last person to have any ground for complaint about context. There's absolutely no question listening to or even reading what Paszkiewicz said that he was using the classroom to preach not only his theology, but his radical politics as well.

[Guest Guest]

. . . scientists hope that entering freshmen in college will realize that that the Big Bang teaches that the universe came from nothing.

Prather, E.E., Slater, T.F., and Offerdahl, E.G. (2002).

"Hints of a fundamental misconception in cosmology," Astronomy Education Review, 1 (2), 28-34.

Open-ended surveys administered to 1000 middle-school students, high-school students, and undergraduate science and non-science majors showed that 70% of students at all age levels describe the Big Bang as an event that occurred to and with pre-existing matter, suggesting that they are using a phenomenological primitive idea of "you can't make something from nothing" in their reasoning strategies.

http://astronomy.uwp.edu/saber/biblio.html

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One of the most important things scientists do is challenge long-prevailing assumptions. This is especially true in fields like astrophysics and cosmology, where the field is wide open because of how grand the subject matter is, and how difficult it is for us to get a handle on it. When scientists suggests that the universe may have come from no matter, they're not stating a final conclusion. They're asking students to think without preconceptions.

Isn't this a bunch of wackos with bad haircuts who did too much marijuana in college? Not at all. Physics has altered several of its own fundamental assumptions in the past century alone. Long after people realized that the heliocentric solar system was a fact, not a heresy, scientists discovered that light behaved in ways that suggested it was both waves AND particles. Scientists had always assumed light had to be one or the other. The double-slit experiments proved that it behaves as both. Now, what it is ultimately? We STILL don't know, and may never know what light --- or anything else for that matter --- is ultimately. The ultimate may not be accessible to us.

Science operates from the premise that new information is discoverable via the scientific method. It has an impressive track record to prove it. In contrast with theology, which is no better supported today than it was 3,000 years ago --- and in many ways is far less so --- science is expanding and altering life by the year. In fact, science is so "successful" that if we don't get a handle on it we're going to destroy ourselves with our own ultra-successful technology.

Physicists, astrophysicists and cosmologists offer the Big Bang not as the final answer to the universe's origins, but as the best answer we have. What does that mean? It means that given what we learned in the past century about light (which is our main source of information about distant stars and galaxies), the universe can be traced back to a singularity, a point in time and space. But since that results in a collection of matter so dense that light couldn't even escape it, we have no way of measuring time within it, or even knowing whether time existed "before" this singularity exploded, creating our universe. Scientists are extrapolating from what they know, and if they want to challenge the assumption that it was all matter in the first place, that's fine, but that doesn't mean that they have hard proof. They have an extrapolation, from which they can work to see if it leads them to anything useful.

Ah-hah! says Bryan, you've just admitted that science is all guesswork. Not at all. Science does what it can do today, and leaves what it can't yet do open for tomorrow, or whenever it can do it. The Big Bang is a scientific theory because it draws the most sensible conclusion from the available data. If one of the fundamental assumptions underlying the theory is changed, the theory may change. That doesn't mean science is willy-nilly. It means that science doesn't have final answers, but is a constant process of uncovering better answers.

The reason David Paszkiewicz's comments on the Big Bang were so damaging to the science curriculum is that they reflect a nearly complete lack of understanding of what science is. That is probably why Dr. Tyson called Paszkiewicz ignorant and scientifically illiterate. David Paszkiewicz is ignorant (in science) and scientifically illiterate, abysmally so. For example, he tried to compare the explosion of the big bang to an exploding firecracker, arguing that no explosion generates order. That isn't just ignorant; it's stupid. An exploding firecracker does not produce bodies that are massive enough to exert a gravitational pull. Omitting that "little detail" changes everything. Paszkiewicz was completely out of his field commenting out of science, and completely out of line doing it to argue for biblical creationism.

That is the point here, not whether 100 years from now science will hold that the big bang began with extremely dense matter or no matter. Neither proposition is off the table yet. As each is applied in the face of expanding knowledge, we will learn more about the implications of each way of looking at it. Eventually we may gain enough knowledge to discard one or the other, and maybe both in favor of some other explanation. Meanwhile, however, the big bang theory will have served its function in bringing us forward to the next level of understanding. That is how science works. Newton's theory of gravity, for example, is fundamentally wrong as an explanation. Yet we still use it because it approximates the process in the grossly observable world. If you don't have a little patience and aren't willing to understand how science works, you may throw up your hands and call for your Bible because after all the Bible is a lot simpler. But if you do that, you won't learn science. And if the world had done it, we wouldn't have science, and we wouldn't be having this discussion because we wouldn't have the technology that makes the discussion possible.

That's a guide to understanding the damage that teachers like David Paszkiewicz do to young minds. They make them ignorant.

[Guest Paul]

Excellent question.

Because the United States could not have existed without a president?

Heh. By all means, pay out more rope.

Didn't see it until you quoted it (and the way KOTW approves posts it may have been posted after my previous visit)--but it was worthy of being ignored for the combination of vapidity and anonymity. Now that Paul LaClair has signed onto the argument, it's worth rebutting (what "probably" explains Paul's ignoring so many arguments in this forum?).

Do we get an explanation of how this is supposedly "fatal" to my argument "about the origins of the United States of America" other than the billowing clouds of obfuscatory smoke?

BTW, what was "legal" about the early United States of America ("a legal entity"), given that you apparently don't accept the logic of the Declaration of Independence and deny that the DoI was a document with any legal force?

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Bryan, do you really think I need an excuse to ignore the nonsensical tripe you write?