The Energon Pub

Okay, sorry for the delay. Wife was picking me up and Windows did its thing right at that moment, so I had to rush away.

Anyway, it's true that Jesus claimed to be the Son of Man, and that a lot of the time it was his followers claiming he was the Son of God, but there were times when he did this himself. Thsis may be a bit long for a sidebar to the topic at hand, but here goes.

Here he is at his trial in Matthew 23:63-64: "But Jesus remained silent. The high priest said to him, 'I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.' 'Yes, it is as you say,' Jesus replied."

Matthew 11:27, Jesus talking: "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

There was also the time where Peter called him the Son of God and he didn't deny it. Okay, yeah, this is an example of his followers calling him this, but he said nothing to contradict them. Unfortunately, I don't recall where this is. It's probably in more than one of the gospels. Matthew and something else?

John 10:33, the Jews speaking to Jesus: "'We are not stoning you for any of these,' replied the Jews, 'but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.'"

John 5:17: "Jesus said to them, 'My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.'" Then in verse 18 (though John is saying this, so it's a "secondhand" claim, I guess you could call it): "For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God."

Luke 22:70, Jesus to the council of elders (he calls himself the Son of Man just before this): "They all asked, 'Are you then the Son of God?' He replied, 'You are right in saying I am.'"

Here's one where God claims Jesus is His Son, in Matthew 3:17 at his baptism: "And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." Given that Jesus consistently claimed that God was completely trustworthy and that he didn't deny this claim, I think it's a good enough admission.

We also have in Matthew 5:17: "While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!'"

There are a few scriptures where he claims to be in God and God in him. Alone this doesn't really say anything, but given the Holy Trinity, unless he's claiming to be the Holy Spirit, he's claiming to be the Son of God. I think there are a few, so I won't name them here to risk not making this even longer, but Google is at hand if you want to look them up.

Senor Hugo wrote:So, my question, should religion, any religion, meaning scriptures, references(or lack there of), be used when talking about topics having nothing to do with religion in the first place?

No!
Religion should be kept out of everything except for Religious Education and Philosophy Religion has no place in science, math and sport. Seriously what makes him believe that he must bring religion into something like sports?

What he did is irresponsible and actually quite random.

There is a place and time for religion and there is a place for facts and accuracy.

Dead Metal wrote:Seriously what makes him believe that he must bring religion into something like sports?

"It's our God given right to trounce U of L.A. in Saturday's game?" Just spitballing.

It would be a history lesson.Did you know that in Texas,they are attempting to make textbooks show the strengths and weaknesses of evolution. People are fighting against and for it. Some religious people are saying that it misunderstanding of what a theory is and some say it is putting religion in schools.

Pyrostrata wrote: Case in point...I wrote a paper on the right to chose in the case of Row v. Wade and got an F on it. The following semester, I used the same paper, VERBATIM, in another class and got an A on it.

Wow. You just committed plagiarism. In my school that would get you an Academic Dishonesty charge on your transcript which would follow you forever. I know that's not the point of your post, but please be careful in the future about 'recycling' your work (it IS plagiarism), and/or about admitting it in public.

Wincing.

HK

Okay, I've got two perspectives on this.

One, I used to teach for a private Baptist college. We were not only encouraged to bring religion into our classes, we were actually only allowed to bring a certain sort of religion--that that fits the NC Baptist Faith and Message. I got in trouble because I was teaching a course on medieval literature, most of which accesses a slightly different sort of Christianity (saints, relics, all that). I lost my job because I was not promoting the right sort of Christianity, even though I highly signposted each point in the lecture with 'this is what these medievals believed'. (Also, they found out I wasn't Christian. Ooops.

Second, religion, alas, becomes relevant in more classes than you think. Literature classes in general tend to stumble across writers who use a lot of religion--look at Flannery O'Connor. Or Gerard Manly Hopkins. Their work is incomprehensible without knowledge of their religious beliefs. Or say the sad, sad life of Alexander Pope. Pope was Catholic at a time (and place) where Catholics were severely repressed by Protestant England. THough he earned a bucket of money off his writing, he was not allowed to sign the note for his own house, because Catholics couldn't own property back then. You think living in that kind of oppressive atmosphere didn't affect his attitude?

Okay, maybe you'll give me literature. But how about history? Every time I teach my crusades class, I end up losing a day trying to explain Islam to students; the distinction between SHi'a and Sunni, and why one is scary (the return of the Mahdi?) and really influences modern Iranian politics. Am I wrong to talk about something because the students are interested in it even though it's not the official point of the class? Am I wrong to give them a primer on how religion undergirds values that influence the direction of that society?

Now, after all that--yeah, sports and religion--kinda a hard stretch. I have NEVER insisted or even hinted that my students had to believe any religious statement. (In fact I tell them never to believe outright anything I say, and then I give them ways to fact check me). As a minority religion, I have to say I'm quite tolerant of many religious views, but even in comp, I insist that we 'argue with our logic and brains, not our faith and hearts'. (That's the kinda attitude that cost me that Baptist job!).

HK, off to hug a crystal or something.

hellkitty wrote:

Pyrostrata wrote: Case in point...I wrote a paper on the right to chose in the case of Row v. Wade and got an F on it. The following semester, I used the same paper, VERBATIM, in another class and got an A on it.

Wow. You just committed plagiarism. In my school that would get you an Academic Dishonesty charge on your transcript which would follow you forever. I know that's not the point of your post, but please be careful in the future about 'recycling' your work (it IS plagiarism), and/or about admitting it in public.

Wincing.

HK

That's an...interesting charge of plagiarism. I don't think most places would think twice when you explain "Yeah, but I plagiarized myself." What about reprinting books? Or musicians who re-release songs?

hellkitty wrote:Okay, maybe you'll give me literature. But how about history? Every time I teach my crusades class, I end up losing a day trying to explain Islam to students; the distinction between SHi'a and Sunni, and why one is scary (the return of the Mahdi?) and really influences modern Iranian politics. Am I wrong to talk about something because the students are interested in it even though it's not the official point of the class? Am I wrong to give them a primer on how religion undergirds values that influence the direction of that society?

Yeah, that's okay. In fact, that was the first thing I posted in this thread, that you can't have a discussion about history without including religion.

hellkitty wrote:Wow. You just committed plagiarism. In my school that would get you an Academic Dishonesty charge on your transcript which would follow you forever. I know that's not the point of your post, but please be careful in the future about 'recycling' your work (it IS plagiarism), and/or about admitting it in public.

Wincing.

HK

um.. and I'll quote as to not be charged with it myself.

taken from wikipedia wrote:Plagiarism is the use or close imitation of the language and ideas of another author and representation of them as one's own original work.

Now it may be against the rules of your school to reuse materials, a report or assignment, but it is not plagiarism, regardless if that is the term your school has mistakenly used to label such an act. You can't be charged with plagiarism if you are the original author yourself.

Heck, in my final year of High School I used one final project from one class and had summited for extra credit in 3 others, of which 2 accepted and one didn't, not including another class from which I took elements of a previous project to include in the one in question. However a different project from the class that didn't accept it as extra credit did supply me with other materials that garnered extra credits in 2 other classes.

Now under your schools falsely conceived view of plagiarism, I would be in all kinds of bad. However, every single piece of material in the projects mentioned above, were created, compiled, and presented by myself. The teachers were well aware of the fact that the materials had been used for other projects and judged them on the merits of their submission.

For the sake of disclosure, the 5 classes affected by the situation above were the following, all Grade 12:
Geology
Drama
Directing & Script-Writing
Film & TV Production
Graphic Communications

Now all but GC I had passed and with good marks, GC however I failed (the only class in my senior years I did) due to a fundimental issue I had with the teacher, She would not grade a final project as it was incomplete, I was not able to complete said project due to her lack of supplies.

Long story short, half way thru the year she had people choose to have a final grade based on photoghaphy, or classic animation. 10 people chose animation, and supplies were perchased based on that number. She they allowed others to take from those supplies for extra marks, but dooming myself and a few others to incomplete projects

That said, my teachers for the other classes were more than happy to give me extra credit marks for what I had shown to them of the incomplete materials.

However this is off the topic of the thread, so allow me to correct that measure in a way that ties in to the above.

The same teacher from GC is a member of a church and quite devote. Now she never tried to preach instead teach, so I have no issue with her in that capacity, and except for a couple items in her office you might have never known. However...

In the years after graduation I kept seeing her name in the local news as she was a member of a group of god-fearing teachers who supported the school board to start a list of books to ban from the library's or lesson plans within the school district.

Some of the books are the standard ones that come up when ever that book banning comes up, usually due to changing perspective over the classics, books that shed the church in a bad light and so on. The point that the media gave them a spotlight on were a number of books for younger kids which in their opinion glorified alternitive lifestyles.

The books in question were writen to help kids understand that not all familys may have the traditional Mom, Dad, & Kids, which in this neck of the woods is quite common.

Beyond the basis of this thread of teachers using religion to teach in standardized classes, but should school boards and teachers go beyond the class-room to limit the contents of materials to kids, in a way that closes kids to understanding the world around them, due to the dictates of the church they go to?

By doing so, are they meerly "protecting" the kids in the classes, or teaching intolerance by ignoring the real life situations of the children in non-traditional situations, and creating an eliist view for those in so called traditional families?

It is my personal opinion that there are only a few subjects where religion can even be broached in public education, history and philosophy being just the most obvious examples I can think of. Even then, it should be used as a tool; in history, for understanding how events have been shaped; in philosophy, as a subject for open and respectful discussion.

Religion, however, has absolutely no place in obviously more secular subjects, such as mathematics or science. Just my opinion.

While I am far from being a religious person (When people say "Jesus!" I respond with a "Yes? What is it?"), one does need to know some of the basics when it comes to my subject: literature.

I teach English, and quite frankly, at the college level, many great works of literature are not fully appreciated / understood without a basic knowledge of religion. Most literature, when you get right down to it, is either about sex, politics, religion, or death: all "touchy" points that can offend people. I just treat it as any other mythological system: I don't believe in Apollo, but I better know what "Apollo's chariot streaking through the sky" means when I read it in a poem.

While I disagree with using religion in a sports class, religion and sports have been quite closely linked: usually there is some sort of required prayer that athletes have to do before a game... and if you decide to participate... well, you're not part of the "team," are you?

Myself, I do support the requirement of a comparative religions course. You'd be surprised how few people know the difference between a Methodist and a Baptist, between Hinduism and Buddism, or anything of substance about Islam other than "some folks like to blow up things 'cause of it."

Religion is needed... but it needs to be approached in an adult, academic, manner.

Name_Violation wrote:religion has a place in private religious schools, but not in a community college.

One of the founding philosophies of the United States is separation of church and state. As it is quoted, religion is fine in a private religious school, where the patrons have a great effect on the curriculum, but in a state-funded place of education it has no place.

Even in a history class it should be touched upon only in terms of its effects on history.