Gathering Our Minions
LHG's two part call on religious education has been taken up by a worthy spokesperson - Daniel Dennett, a famous philosopher (well, as famous as a U.S. philosopher can be these days) who teaches at Tufts and author of the recent Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.
What's our two part call you ask? Shame on you for not remembering. The first part was the claim that religion is worthy of the same merciless rigor with which we should examine all expressions of our humanity. While the second part was the claim that once subjected to this standard religions should be taught in schools, even public schools. So it's with great pleasure that the LHG paraphrases the letter Daniel Dennett sent to the current (Volume LIII, Number 13) edition of the New York Review of Books where he speaks our mind. He writes:
"...my proposal for a nationwide curriculum on the established facts about the world's religions...Why do I think investing in such a compulsory educational program would be worth the cost? Because all the religious organizations that are widely acknowledged to be toxic - dangerous either to their participants or to innocent outsiders - depend on the enforced ignorance of the young people being raised therein. My proposed political bargain is strikingly uncomplicated and maximally tolerant: teach your children (at school or at home) this national curriculum and then you can teach them anything else you want. (You can even teach them that the obligatory curriculum is a load of rubbish, but they will be tested on it!) I submit that any religion that can thrive under this requirement deserves to thrive, and any that can't deserves extinction. Creating a generation of young people that have a matter-of-fact knowledge of the different histories, creeds, practices, obligations, and prohibitions of the world's religions won't solve all the problems, but it is a first step toward inoculating them against the diverse attractions of fanaticism."
Well put, Denny. Next time, however, don't forget a shout out to your mentors at the LHG...
posted by elivo at 12:25 AM
4 Comments:
I followed the link from vjacks site. I find your blog really interesting. This post is thought provoking in that I haven't heard that slant before. (I've been an agnosic/humanist for a long time but have only just started to seek out others with the same philosophy, since I've been blogging)
Teaching religion in schools is a great idea in this context: "that religion is worthy of the same merciless rigor with which we should examine all expressions of our humanity".
For all the reasons suggested.
I have seen that the majority of people don't really understand what religion is all about.
The trouble with it is; until the majority of American citizens quit seeing themselves as Christians I don't think it could ever work. Too much special interest.
One thing about all this religious fighting the Muslems, Jews, Christians engage in in the name of the one true God, is that it is opening peoples eyes up to the reality of the fallicy of "My God is the only real God."
I have been trying to tell people this for years. (One of the reasons I became one of the unborn agains)
Nothing like a good illustration, to make your point for you,eh?
l>t, thanks for your comment. while i think i know what you mean, i'd love if you can define/describe an "unborn again..."
What I mean by "unborn again" is that I was born again then unborn.
There is a bible scripture for people like me.(I'll try to find it)
The gist is once you've had it & then rejected it there's nothing left.
Ha I found it. the "The doom of false Teachers" pretty much the whole book Of JUDE.
The false teachers were once believers in Christ who had "crossed over from death to life" (John 5;24) but had severed their union with Christ & had gone out of life back into death(cf, Eph 2:1; see ro 8:13, note) The previous verse gives the reason for their spiritual death.
I got this from "The Full Life Study Bible"
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