How Christian were the Founders? The reshaping of American Education.

[Neosutra]

Holy shit, Neosutra making a religion thread?! Say it isnt so..

The following article in the New York Times was pretty facinating, if not a little scary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/ma...l?pagewanted=1

Anyways, wanted to keep this one focused on on main premis:

Was the United States founded on christian values and should it be reshaped to those values if so?

Liberal atheists like myself would say that most of the founding fathers were deists or atheists at best and went to a large amount of trouble to ensure America did not fall into the theocracy that they were so adamently against.

Conservative theists say that the very core principles of the founding fathers were indeed christian and the theistic undertone to the constitution ("under god" and so on) leads to an obvious foundation in judeo-christian values.

It is the conservative christian belief that has lead to an active (and somewhat terrifying) national movement to reshape our education, as stated in the above linked article:

"The ideas that shape our classrooms today will shape our government in the next generation".

Christians are all too aware that they cannot battle reason and evidence straight on, so why not out-breed the dirty liberals and raise an entire generation of pre-programmed zealots!?

Anyone else find this appaling? Or am I just ignorant of the true christian foundations of America?

A few quotes from the article:

“We as a nation were intended by God to be a light set on a hill to serve as a beacon of hope and Christian charity to a lost and dying world.” But the true picture of America’s Christian founding has been whitewashed by “the liberal agenda” — in order for liberals to succeed “they must first rewrite our nation’s history” and obscure the Christian intentions of the founders. Therefore, she wrote, “this battle for our nation’s children and who will control their education and training is crucial to our success for reclaiming our nation.”

"In general, the board members don’t know anything at all about content,” Tom Barber, the textbook executive, says. Kathy Miller, the watchdog, who has been monitoring the board for 15 years, says, referring to Don McLeroy and another board member: “It is the most crazy-making thing to sit there and watch a dentist and an insurance salesman rewrite curriculum standards in science and history..

And worse: "The current board remains in place until next January. By then, decisions on what goes in the Texas curriculum guidelines will be history."

Pretty much nothing we can do about the changes they have already made, even if they didnt get in the famous "strengths and weaknesses" language in there last time.

[BunkMonk]

A liberal posting an article from the new york times..all while getting a few not so subtle jabs in at conservatives...really?

/sigh

[Rhinox]

Article may be new but the story isn't.

http://bluegartr.com/forum/showthread.php?t=80476

but carry on.

it didn't get enough attention when I originally posted it hopefully you'll get a lot out of this topic then I did.

[Rhinox]

A liberal posting an article from the new york times..all while getting a few not so subtle jabs in at conservatives...really?

/sigh

NEW YORK OBAMA TIMES AMIRITE?


You're a great american Bunkmonk.

[Tyche]

The OP obviously did not read the non-fiction novel "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown.

[Shiroikage]

WELL THIS THREAD IS SURE GOING TO FUCKING GO WELL

[Narol]

Seriously, you kids expected better from Texas? I'm ashamed of you all.

[BunkMonk]

NEW YORK OBAMA TIMES AMIRITE?


You're a great american Bunkmonk.

Go piss off you twat. Would it be any better for a conservative to come in here linking foxnews?

[Baha]

This is hilarious. Jefferson pretty much popularized the term "separation of church and state" and these bozos try to spin them the US into a Christian State? lol
Also had to laugh with the "aggressive secular agenda", Christian victim complex? Say it ain't so!
Important committees like that should at least have some quota to it, 7 fundie Christians holding the power over public schooling isn't something that really ought to be happening.

[Pirian]

This is hilarious. Jefferson pretty much popularized the term "separation of church and state" and these bozos try to spin them the US into a Christian State? lol
Also had to laugh with the "aggressive secular agenda", Christian victim complex? Say it ain't so!
Important committees like that should at least have some quota to it, 7 fundie Christians holding the power over public schooling isn't something that really ought to be happening.

I was going to bring up Jefferson and how he hated religion, but thought better lol

[Neosutra]

I'm not buying the lolTexas excuse, this shit is a national problem. Texas just leads the way in stupid.

[finitek]

Yikes,

As an educator, I have to laugh when I see people thinking they can supplant educational standards so they can brainwash their kids into thinking/believing whatever they wish.

The entire point of the Constitution/Amendments/et al. is the separation of Church and State.

Even if the U.S.A was founded on pseudo christian values whoopdeeshit, the founding fathers made damn sure no church would ever dictate law (or so they thought)...

However there are only two states out of fifty that determine what types of textbooks get made, California and Texas. Those two states order more textbooks than any others and they get the most say in what goes into the book. So if you live in California you probably wont need to worry about crazy religious stuff showing up in your state run public schools. However in Texas they are less concerned about such things...


Bitches be crazy,

[Rhinox]

Go piss off you twat. Would it be any better for a conservative to come in here linking foxnews? Fucking hypocrites.

I have no problem with fox news stories you dolt.

[Mayareira]

New York Times has an awesome website design. If you don't like it you are a fascist.

[Klutz]

Shitstorm Inc, lol.

[Tyche]

Yikes,

As an educator, I have to laugh when I see people thinking they can supplant educational standards so they can brainwash their kids into thinking/believing whatever they wish.

The entire point of the Constitution/Amendments/et al. is the separation of Church and State.

Even if the U.S.A was founded on pseudo christian values whoopdeeshit, the founding fathers made damn sure no church would ever dictate law (or so they thought)...

However there are only two states out of fifty that determine what types of textbooks get made, California and Texas. Those two states order more textbooks than any others and they get the most say in what goes into the book. So if you live in California you probably wont need to worry about crazy religious stuff showing up in your state run public schools. However in Texas they are less concerned about such things...


Bitches be crazy,

Don't know if it can be correlated, but California has one of the worst public education systems in the country. Texas is well below average.

[Headspace]

Don't know if it can be correlated, but California has one of the worst public education systems in the country. Texas is well below average.

Kentucky!

Hmmm.

[Maguspk]

Democracies suck when voters are ignorant? What else is new. Thread sucks.

[Klutz]

Democracies suck when voters are ignorant? What else is new. Thread sucks.

I see what you did there good sir!

[Howard Roark]

I'm so thankful you managed to bring religion and politics into one thread