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from the mind of... Eric | 12:06 PM
20 Comments:
I am all for including the plethora of Creation theories that are out there, in a class called "Origins."
However, in the spirit of "consider the source" skepticism: "Mr. Ranganathan has his B.A. with academic concentrations in Bible and Biology from Bob Jones University." Some might see that a credential. I do not. He's practicing both science and theology without a license.
I've heard negative things about Jones U, but all in all, nothing much with which to form an opinion. But as it's been around a while, and it tends to draw students, I can't help but think that there can't be real educating goin' on.
Ah, but by that criteria, even Liberty University (Falwell) could be said to have some real educatin' going on...
Doesn't it? I mean, even if Liberty isn't a "real" school (I really have no idea), I'm sure there is something that is imparted, thereby educating those who attend and listen. As for either, if you're just dismissing them due to perspectives you feel you can't support, that hardly negates their certs as institutions of learning.
Liberty IS a real, nationally accredited university. They have a top-notch law school there as well. Dan is simply dissing the place because Falwell founded it, and ran it.
Surely it's impossible to get a good, quality education from a CHRISTIAN university. ESPECIALLY one founded by the evil Jerry Falwell. All one will learn from such a place is how to be a good bible-thumping Jesus-jumper.
How sanctimonious of you, Dan... How Pharisaical (to Quote BenT).
If Liberty U. were a "Christian" university, maybe. But it's not.
It's a fundamentalist, narrow-minded, exclusionary "Christian" institution -- and every one of those adjectives, including the dang quote marks, represents something added to, or taken away, from what Jesus said and the example he left, as far as we know.
Twenty years ago, I worked as an intern in a congressman's D.C. office with a guy who had an M.A. in public affairs from Liberty University.
He knew everything about conservative ideology as expressed in the American system; he knew S--T about opposing views, also within the American history-tradition, and he personally assured me that he purposefully IGNORED ideas that varied from THE TRUTH, as he saw it.
I don't give a damn what accrediting agencies bless Liberty Univerity. It's a fundamentalist Chriatian indoctrination center -- not that there's anything wrong with that -- but it masquerades as an institution of higher learning, and Bob Jones U. is worse.
Be a Bible school. Fine. Be a fundamentalist Bible school. Great. But don't expect to be taken seriously by the secular world we live in. Or by other Christians who don't toe the fundamentalist party line.
...and Yale, Harvard, et al, are not?
Are not what?
They were, in fact, founded as Christian institutions.
What are you asking?
If you're asking whether fundamentalists are excluded from Harbard and Yale, I'd say not. Your presidnet has a degree from one if not both (I forget).
Do you really think an activist atheist would be accepted at Liberty U? Or, do you think one who were admitted would graduate without a profession of faith in Christ as you understand it? I don't know, to be honest. Look up the Liberty and Bob J. mission statements, then the Harvard and Yale statements, then you tell me.
Correction:
Harvard: Secular.
"Yale," from Wikipedia:
Yale traces its beginnings to "An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School" passed by the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut and dated October 9, 1701. Soon thereafter, a group of ten Congregationalist ministers led by James Pierpont, all of whom were Harvard alumni (Harvard having been the only college in North America when they were school-aged), met in Branford, Connecticut, to pool their books to form the school's first library. The group is now known as "The Founders." Yale was founded to train ministers.
Hey, back to Creation stories. You reckon you got room in yer plans for this one from the Cherokees? Go ahead and open that door, Bubba. Genesis will be lost in the crowd.
CHEROKEE CREATION STORY
When the Earth begun there was just water. All the animals lived above it and the sky was beginning to become crowded. They were all curious about what was beneath the water and one day Dayuni'si, the water beetle, volunteered to explore it.
He went everywhere across the surface but he couldn't find any solid ground. He then dived below the surface to the bottom and all he found was mud.
This began to enlarge in size and spread outwards until it became the Earth as we know it.
After all this had happened, one of the animals attached this new land to the sky with four strings.
Just after the Earth was formed, it was flat and soft so the animals decided to send a bird down to see if it had dried. They eventually returned to the animals with a result.
The land was still to wet so they sent the great Buzzard from Galun'lati to prepare it for them.
The buzzard flew down and by the time that he reached the Cherokee land he was so tired that his wings began to hit the ground. Wherever they hit the ground a mountain or valley formed. The Cherokee land still remains the same today with all the land forms that the Buzzard formed.
The animals then decided that it was too dark, so they made the sun and put it on the path in which it still runs today.
The animals could then admire the newly created Earth around them.
Is there any support for this version being taught anywhere at all, ER? This idea that if we have something Christian then we need to have all other religions represented is nonsense. It is only a ploy to interfere with any Christian influence in the public sphere. Yet none of those other religions played a part in the forming of this nation. It is only apropriate that Christianity should be honored on SOME level.
Also, its pretty intolerant to denigrate an entire university because of some personal experience with one dude.
"It's a fundamentalist, narrow-minded, exclusionary "Christian" institution -- and every one of those adjectives, including the dang quote marks, represents something added to, or taken away, from what Jesus said and the example he left, as far as we know."
How does the above square with all you've said regarding what we know or can know about God? Aren't you basing this opinion on the very Book whose words only reflect how God revealed Himself to those people who wrote them? Wasn't what Jesus said directed at the Jews of His time? Aren't you just fundiphobic?
Marshall and Eric said:
"As for either, if you're just dismissing them due to perspectives you feel you can't support, that hardly negates their certs as institutions of learning."
"Dan is simply dissing the place because Falwell founded it, and ran it."
Actually, I was mostly making a joke. I don't know much about either school, other than from what I read in passing, they are not especially respected.
MA, re, "Yet none of those other religions played a part in the forming of this nation."
This is preposterous on its face. Maybe you, like, a lot of people, tyhink of native Americans only in the past tense. And they, and their histories, are, in fact, part of the forming of this nation.
As for your other remarks, I don't understand any of it, or how it applies to my rantlet. So, I'd say, generally, "no."
But, Jesus is a Jew -- what does that have to do with anything here? And no, I'm not fundiphobic: I'm suspicious of any fundy claims for their institutions of higher education.
Whatever you say, ER.
As to the Indians, they and they're histories and religions played a part in forming their individual nations, but not the United States of America. They are characters in the story, but the nation formed in spite of them not in partnership with them. I believe that is part of what pisses them off about the white man.
How many Indians do you know, Marshall? How do you know what "pisses them off about the white man?"
If you want to use the role a religious group played in forming the nation as a criterion (a silly proposition for determining what students should be exposed to if I ever heard one), then Deism should get a more prominent role than Christianity.
At least it fits the data better- with Deism (which I don't subscribe to) you can have a universe that's billions of years old, evolution, ice ages, no worldwide flood, and an earth that is not the be all and end all of creation.
Marshall said:
They are characters in the story, but the nation formed in spite of them not in partnership with them.
You know, Marshall, that some have wondered if the Iroquois Nation may have had an influence upon Franklin and others of our founding fathers? That the Constitution of their six nations had lasted centuries by the time of the US' founding and that it included ideals such as the notion that leaders are servants to the people, of egalitarianism, or as one source says, "the Great Binding Law of the Five Nations, was a written constitution created by the Iroquois which enunciated such democratic ideas and doctrines as initiative, recall, referendum, and equal suffrage."
Did you know that Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter to James Parker, his New York City printing partner:
It would be a very strange Thing, if six Nations of Ignorant Savages should be capable of forming a Scheme for such an Union, and be able to execute it in such a Manner, as that it has subsisted Ages, and appears indissoluble; and yet that a like Union should be impracticable for ten or a Dozen English Colonies, to whom it is more necessary, and must be more advantageous; and who cannot be supposed to want an equal Understanding of their Interests.
Which is not to say that we were formed in partnership with them, but that our influences were widespread and not limited to the Bible, as some seem to suggest.
Who said "limited to"? The fact that CHRISTIANITY played a major role in bringing people here and the creation of the communities they founded is without question, except to Sol, who insists in claiming Deism was more widespread, despite thousands of pages of writings and letters from the time. No book was quoted more than the Bible by colonial leaders. Spreading the Gospel of Christ is a term found in most of the founding documents of the original thirteen and earlier settlements. The influence of Deism is a fabrication.
As to Franklin, his fascination of the Iroquois would, I'm sure, not be lost on his considerations regarding the formation of the new government, but from the quoted piece, it seems as if he refers to it in support of what was already being proposed. (Just my first impressions) In other words, "if they can do it, why not us?" But, I'm sure a thought or two of ancient Greeks and/or Romans also came to mind. More importantly, as I mentioned earlier (and elsewhere), there's a difference between the founding of the nation and the choice of government to run the nation. I again was referring to the founding of the nation.
"The influence of Deism is a fabrication."
Wishful thinking, MA.
Just like your unsupportable interpretation of the treaty of Tripoli.
(And just like Ms. Green's notion that Columbus thought the world was round because of the Bible. Just about all educated people knew it was round in the 1400's- as the ancient Greeks had realized. Columbus was different in that he made an error in calculating the circumference of the Earth and thought it was much shorter sail to India).
All wishful thinking.
It's only unsupportable by the link YOU provided Sol. I went elsewhere for more info.
"It's only unsupportable by the link YOU provided"
And by the treaty itself...
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