Time to replace R.E. with Philosophy in schools
gerry...@hotmail.com
this, but yesterday's bombing in London has underscored the wish. So
many problems stem from poorly nurtured rationality in us, and
religious fundamentalism, that of the Christians who attack women
outside abortion clinics and the Muslims who effected bombings alike,
is the most dangerous of those.
There is not a lot that can be done to tackle older adults, the
isolated men, mostly, who carry out these attacks, but there can be a
nipping of the problem in its bud. I think R.E. in schools should be
replaced by Philosophy, and that the Philosophy course should include a
few weeks on religion, explaining them - _without_ omitting contrary
arguments, for balance - as primitive forms of philosophising, stemming
from the same sense-making urges.
Discussion of ontology and epistemelogy should show how the religious
base too much belief on too little evidence.
I don't overlook that Philosophy doesn't present itself any longer as
affording us an objective and entirely constructive view of the world,
but it is a profoundly humbling area of study now, which can tackle the
little obsessions of an individual, such as myself, cured of much
mental noise that troubled me in my 20s, and of groups such as Al
Quaeda. Steep a society in the conditions to fully nurture clear
thinking and people will not, given time, pursue dangerous and stupid
views.
geraldk...@hotmail.com
As William Blake points out in the 'Everlasting Gospel',Jesus did not
bring a philosophy and many of the great Christians never saw it as a
philosophy ,Pascal for instance *.
Steeping a society in mental conditions is already well established
whether it is middle Eastern fundamentalism or Western consumerism
however the basis of Christ and Christianity is the grandeur of love
expressed as an attitude rather than known as a philosophical point.
We may fail in attitude but it is a Christian thing that we lapse into
disappointment (Not self pity ! )rather than resignation for as Paul
says,Faith,hope love remain these three but the greatest of these is
love.
* The year of grace 1654,
Monday, 23 November, feast of St. Clement, pope and martyr, and others
in the martyrology.
Vigil of St. Chrysogonus, martyr, and others.
From about half past ten at night until about half past midnight,
FIRE.
GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob
not of the philosophers and of the learned.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
GOD of Jesus Christ.
My God and your God.
Your GOD will be my God.
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except GOD.
He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Grandeur of the human soul.
Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
Kendall K. Down
gerry...@hotmail.com wrote:
> I am speaking as an agnostic and not an atheist. I've long thought
> this, but yesterday's bombing in London has underscored the wish. So
> many problems stem from poorly nurtured rationality in us, and
> religious fundamentalism, that of the Christians who attack women
> outside abortion clinics and the Muslims who effected bombings alike,
> is the most dangerous of those.
Funny. Yesterday I gave a lecture on Petra and the third slide was of the
Hejaz Railway, which I usually introduce with the comment "And that's the
railway with which Lawrence of Arabia had such fun". It gets a laugh. Only
yesterday it suddenly struck me that he was doing more or less the same as
the terrorists did yesterday.
The only thing to be said in his favour is that he targetted the engine
rather than the carriages, and did try to restrict the shooting-up
afterwards to soldiers rather than civilians.
God bless,
Kendall K. Down
--
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Nick Milton
>There is not a lot that can be done to tackle older adults, the
>isolated men, mostly, who carry out these attacks, but there can be a
>nipping of the problem in its bud. I think R.E. in schools should be
>replaced by Philosophy, and that the Philosophy course should include a
>few weeks on religion, explaining them - _without_ omitting contrary
>arguments, for balance - as primitive forms of philosophising, stemming
>from the same sense-making urges.
I think you will find that this *is* how RE is taught in schools
Paul Mason
straightforward as your argument suggests (unless you're defining
fundamentalism as that brand of religion that's prepared to use any
means to spread the cause). Either way, do you really believe teaching
R.E. - especially the way it's taught in the UK - promotes
fundamentalism, let alone violent fundamentalism?
I'd love to believe that we could educate violence out of human nature
altogether. History suggests otherwise.
Jim Spriggs
>
> .... I think R.E. in schools should be
> replaced by Philosophy, and that the Philosophy course should include a
> few weeks on religion,
"A few weeks 'on religion'"--that sums up today's R.E. perfectly.
--
I don't know who you are Sir, or where you come from,
but you've done me a power of good.
Quasin
> I think the link between fundamentalism and violence is not as
> straightforward as your argument suggests (unless you're defining
> fundamentalism as that brand of religion that's prepared to use any
> means to spread the cause).
I recently bumped into an intriguing theory of why the rise of
fundamentalism.
Background: a week ago I unexpectedly landed on a group discussing
"emerging church," a term I hadn't heard before. They refer to
"post-modernism," a term I have previously dismissed as fleeting
academic nonsense. This time I went looking for definitions.
Half of the time the explanations are just jumbles of words that don't
communicate anything to me, but a few web pages were clearly worded
and left me thinking I might be a post-modernist at heart. :)
Back to fundamentalism: Post-modernism embraces things like
multi-culturalism including valuing differences between people and
cultures, suspicion of those who want to run our lives for us, the
validity of personal experience instead of disregarding experience
that conflicts external abstractions ("science"), embracing change,
valuing personal relationships.
One web page says: "post-modernism chides the scientific view of
human life with being too narrow, too mechanical, too little focussed
on how people live and make their lives meaningful, too obsessed
instead with the artificial objects made by their discourses..."
and "The phenomenological perspective ...can be used to examine how
[the world] looks different to the young and the middle-aged, to the
novice and the expert, the student and the teacher, the ghetto child
and the comfortable academic."
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/papers/jsalt.htm
But a central aspect of post-modernism seems to be the questioning of
culturally assumed "unquestionable truths" - what one web calls "the
grand narratives" of a culture or group. That page says the rise of
fundamentalism is a reaction against post-modernism.
"... the desire to return to the pre-postmodern era
(modern/humanist/Enlightenment thinking) tends to get associated with
conservative political, religious, and philosophical groups. In fact,
one of the consequences of postmodernism seems to be the rise of
religious fundamentalism, as a form of resistance to the questioning
of the 'grand narratives' of religious truth."
http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/pomo.html
An intriguing theory. Fundamentalism as a search for stability in an
unstable world.
Quasin
Paul Dean
> "... the desire to return to the pre-postmodern era
> (modern/humanist/Enlightenment thinking) tends to get associated with
> conservative political, religious, and philosophical groups. In fact,
> one of the consequences of postmodernism seems to be the rise of
> religious fundamentalism, as a form of resistance to the questioning of
> the 'grand narratives' of religious truth."
For "questioning the 'grand narratives'", read "dogmatically asserting
that all truth is relative" and you'll see why most(?) Christians will
reject it. Flavours of fundamentalism are knee-jerk over-reactions, but I
think it's good to reject post-modernism (and modernism for that matter).
Quasin
Sort of depends on what level you take it to, and what "grand
narratives" you were taught.
A lot of "Christian" grand narratives I've heard need to be
challenged, ranging from various forms of "God's going to punish
you/the devil's gonna get you" which leads to a life of fear, to
"anything a Christian does must be good" which leads too many to
become victims of "Christian" scammers.
Quasin
kevin donnelly
Spriggs <jim.s...@ANTISPAMbtinternet.com.invalid> writes
>gerry...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>
>> .... I think R.E. in schools should be
>> replaced by Philosophy, and that the Philosophy course should include a
>> few weeks on religion,
>
>"A few weeks 'on religion'"--that sums up today's R.E. perfectly.
>
act of worship were being marginalised, but hopefully leaving something
for students to inherit.
My own nine years of full-time education ran from 1933 to 1942,
ending in the confusion of WW2. I changed careers in 1966 to train as a
a teacher, and when I began my new career in primary education in 1971
at least the act of worship was fairly similar to that of my childhood
with hymns accompanied by a well-played piano. Later, having moved to
secondary school, I found no serious attempt at worship and no provision
on the time-table. My last fling was to lead an assembly in a leafy
Cheshire high school in the throes of reorganisation the morning after
Thatcher won the 1983 election. We sang Fred Kaan's version of the
Magnificat, Sing we a song of high revolt, to the tune of the Red Flag,
which ended with startled looks on colleagues' faces, but the final
stage of reorganisation brought a right winger into my old job. It was
time to move on.
Yesterday morning the R4 Sunday service was a profound multi
faith act of worship, after the London bombing. The Bishop of London
led it, a rabbi sang the Qaddish for the dead, a Muslim woman led the
prayers, and I in my study sang all the hymns having learned them off by
heart so long ago - the authentic originals too, not the bowdlerised
versions as found in Baptist Praise and Worship.
Signs of hope, but oh so slow! Maranatha, Lord.
KD
--
Kevin Donnelly
Wythenshawe Prompt Organiser
http://copsewood.net/mailman/listinfo/prompt
Website www.kevdon.demon.co.uk