Judge Orders Removal of Oklahoma Ten Commandments Monument Within 30 Days

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There was a big fight over this cross on Mt. Rubidoux in Riverside, CA a couple of years ago. A local group stepped in and bought the land and the cross is still standing, despite the best efforts of militant atheists to bring it down. I don’t understand why people can’t just not look, if it offends them so much but then, the atheist front that brought the lawsuit probably hasn’t ever stepped foot on the mountain-- they just hate God.
 
What are the Sacred things that are alluded to in the Athena monument?

MJ
Nothing sacred as far as I’m concerned. However, Athena is a Greek “goddess,” the “goddess of wisdom.” Therefore, the statue glorifies paganism. After all, in the pc Nazi America of 2015 it’s not about what’s real, it’s about whether or not someone feels offended, discriminated against, etc. regardless of the intent of the thing causing the feelings.
 
Nothing sacred as far as I’m concerned. However, Athena is a Greek “goddess,” the “goddess of wisdom.” Therefore, the statue glorifies paganism. After all, in the pc Nazi America of 2015 it’s not about what’s real, it’s about whether or not someone feels offended, discriminated against, etc. regardless of the intent of the thing causing the feelings.
Reminds me of Star Wars The Phantom Menace…"no civility but politics ".

MJ
 
After all, in the pc Nazi America of 2015 it’s not about what’s real, it’s about whether or not someone feels offended, discriminated against, etc. regardless of the intent of the thing causing the feelings.
I think the relatively new ‘offense morality’ was largely been created through the “neutral” secular teaching of values through our schools.

This has not been beneficial to western populations because it dumbs down the population so that it views morality through the appointed hierarchy of victimhood. It also forces people to automatically rush to take offense so to be on the ‘right moral side’ of any argument. This makes dialogue and discussion very difficult.

When God was removed from values then new concepts of right and wrong had to be invented. Again these can never be neutral. Offense taking was one attempt to define right and wrong. The latest attempt is ‘directed equality’ and this has created its own problems. When these are the values universally taught to school children then it affects perceptions, communications and eventually law.

This cannot in any way be considered ‘neutral’.
 
A Catholic educational system does not have to be neutral because it is a private as well as religious institution. It is therefore supposed to teach Catholic dogma, doctrine, discipline, practices, and customs. Hopefully, the instructors themselves are well-versed in Catholic beliefs and practice what they preach (teach).

However, the problem with teaching about G-d in a public-school setting is that each religion has a somewhat different understanding of the nature of G-d (or gods), apart from the different beliefs and practices within the religion itself. I would not want my children to be taught by public-school teachers who might favor a Catholic or otherwise Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or Baha’i understanding of G-d. Rather, I would want my children to learn about the Jewish understanding of G-d and the Jewish religion, and the best place to learn such would be in Hebrew school, taught by a knowledgeable rabbi, not by a possibly biased or ill-informed public-school teacher. I suspect you feel the same way about your children, as do Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Baha’i parents.

The above problem was one of the dilemmas for Catholic children and their parents earlier in U.S. history, in that these children were forced to learn about G-d and religion in public schools from a purely Protestant perspective. As you’re probably aware, there was much animosity toward Catholicism altogether. Thus, Catholic schools were formed to teach Catholic children about their own religion, not someone else’s. Nonetheless, Protestant teaching about G-d remained in the public-school system for some time to come.
Yes meltzerboy,

but none of that addresses the point that a secular education system is also biased towards the ‘no God’ philosophy. My point was to demonstrate that neutrality doesn’t exist within itself. It is related to something else. A Catholic school system is neutral with regards to Buddhism and Hinduism. A secular school system is neutral with regards to Catholicism and Protestantism.

But neither a Catholic or secular educational system is neutral in itself.

The fact that only one system can legally be supported by our own taxes is clearly unjust.
 
I shudder to think what might have been taught about Jews in relation to Christianity in German public schools in the generation or two before the Second World War when the schools were not secular. Antisemitism has a long history in Europe, way before Nazi Germany, and it was too often instilled in children by their parents and their teachers.
meltzerboy, usually your responses are quite well reasoned and explained but this looks clearly to dodge the issues.

My examples of government enforced secular school systems was to demonstrate that values such as the ones you mentioned - tolerance, respect, fairness, equality etc have to be defined, defended and explained. The plethora of examples from last century show where it was catastrophic to let government not only decide these values but have a monopoly on them in the school system.

I do not know what the situation was in German schools before the Nazi ‘neutral secularization drive’. I do know that Germany was moving towards secularism from the time of Bismark, decades earlier, where the Catholic Church was strongly opposed by government.

I can tell about the secular education system of the Nazis though. In history and economics Jews were blamed for the loss of the First World War for being anti-German. During biology Jewish students were brought to the front of the class for the teacher to point out non German characteristics. Anti Jewish physical and verbal abuse by teachers and students were encouraged. German school girls who had Jewish boyfriends had to wear a large plaque around their neck stating that “I am a Jew loving whore”. We have to remember that the state education ministers sitting around the table dictating values and curriculum were the same ones sitting around the cabinet table discussing the most efficient ways to murder the Jewish population. They were also the ones discussing the best way to de-Christianise the population.

Secularisation here meltzerboy was not your friend. It was your greatest persecutor.

I remember reading the archives of the Jerusalem Post from the early 1930’s. They mentioned the de-Christianisation and secularisation of Germany that had been happening for the last couple of generations. They spoke of the dangerous anti-Jewish government rhetoric of the Nazis. They also expressed their confidence that the strong Catholic Church of Germany would be capable enough in standing up to the secular forces of German government.

It turned out that confidence was misplaced. The state taking control of all education was clearly an important factor in the secularisation of Germany which was devastating for the Jewish population not just there but in Europe.

A secular education system is not only not neutral it can be very, very dangerous when it is a government monopoly.

This is not just hypothetical. It is reality, on many, many occasions. Nowhere has it been more high profile than in Nazi Germany with regards to the Jewish population. Other 19th and 20th century government ‘secularisation’ dictates have been just as devastating but given less of a profile and analysis in our secular schools. hmmmmmm I wonder why?
 
I believe I’ve made sure to break down my counter-argument to your contention as best as I can. In doing so I’ve asked a few questions of few and present what, I think, are flaws in your description of secularism and atheism.

I understand that you disagree with me, but do you have anything specific in my two most recent posts to you that you believe were in error? Do you believe it is possible to have a neutral governmental position on religion – not just in schools, but in public places, like courthouses and statehouses? Do you believe when public schools had lessons which pushed Christianity (sometimes Christianity that was also against Catholicism) that such setups were fair or neutral, or did Christianity have special privileges that those outside of Christianity did not have? Do you have any opinions or evidence on the other factors that I listed as to why there is more acceptance nowadays of non-Christian faiths as well as no faith in Western culture?
No I do not believe it is possible to have a neutral position on religion. I think the secular systems were introduced on the wrongful assumption that it was neutral.

Regarding your question of fairness and neutrality of past lessons which “pushed Christianity” or as I would say “taught from a Christian understanding”. I would draw the distinction between ‘fair’ and ‘neutral’. They are not necessarily the same thing. I think part of the (incorrect) secular moral world is to view them as the same. The lessons were not neutral just as teaching from a “secular understanding” is not neutral. Regarding whether it was fair or not is a larger discussion on how one defines fair and the historical creation of education in different places with regards to education. So for example in Australia the public school system was largely the work and effort of Protestants who built the schools, obtained the textbooks, trained the teachers and encouraged attendance at school. They then handed over the schools to government which also largely had a Christian understanding. Is it fair or unfair that such schools should teach from a Protestant understanding? Is it fair or unfair that a different understanding should be supplanted in these schools with no deference (and often hostility) to Christian understanding? The question of fairness is a bigger discussion.

I think the reasons that you state for a more non Christian population are fair although I think a large part of the reason is the secular moral of ‘directed equality’ being advanced in our schools. It is taught from the perspective of tolerance but it is an attack on the majority culture. The idea seems to be that it is tolerant to view all religions the same and that we should treat all religions the same. But people will only treat all religions the same if they believe they are the same. And they will only believe they are the same if they are taught as the same. Although it is sometimes difficult for a secular minded person to see. this ‘equality’ is actually unfair but we get back to the discussion of fairness. Quite simply a religion that I started up in my garage last week which involves sacrificing virgins is not ‘equal’ with one that has created hospitals, charities and universities across the globe and points to a divine beginning and reasoned history of centuries of intellectual thought. To treat them as equal is not fair in my opinion.

With the manufactured morality of ‘misdirected equality’ the easiest way to destroy something is make it equal with something else and then claim we can’t do both so we shouldn’t do any.

So as an extreme example - if the Chinese government came out and said we are going to be ‘equal’ with regards to writing, architecture. food etc etc. So that if you were a government communicator you had to write just as many pamphlets in Danish as Chinese, If you were a government property inspector you had to pass just as many Peruvian styled buildings as Chinese and if you were in charge of granting restaurant licences you could only pass as many English restaurants as Chinese to satisfy equality legislation. In a largely Chinese society this would quite obviously be an attack on everything Chinese under the banner of ‘equality’. If Chinese culture cannot be favoured even in China then it would be under threat of extinction and deliberately so.

If the population naturally has Chinese ethics and values then the education system can see that equality means that it needs to counter this situation be being anti-Chinese ethics and values to create a more ‘neutral’ outcome. But this is obviously biased, especially so when the school systems ethics are at odds with Chinese values. I think the corresponding situation in the ‘real’ west is the teaching of history with an anti-Christian bias.

Regarding your previous questions about asking me to prove to you that God exists and that He has acted in history. This I consider superfluous to the discussion. We could go back and forwards for three months discussing this but the point remains that whether I convince you or not that the universe is based on intelligence is independent of whether taxation money can only go to schools which do not teach from a God perspective.

I disagree with your sentences about the difference between an atheist and secular school system. Both a secular and atheist school system would proceed without reference to God. It would treat the issue of God as a non starter when discussing history, ethics, science and the nature of reality. There is such a thing as a lived culture. A lived culture intentionally specified without God enculturates students in that culture which is a large reason why secular school systems move students towards the direction of atheism.
 
I think the relatively new ‘offense morality’ was largely been created through the “neutral” secular teaching of values through our schools.

This has not been beneficial to western populations because it dumbs down the population so that it views morality through the appointed hierarchy of victimhood. It also forces people to automatically rush to take offense so to be on the ‘right moral side’ of any argument. This makes dialogue and discussion very difficult.

When God was removed from values then new concepts of right and wrong had to be invented. Again these can never be neutral. Offense taking was one attempt to define right and wrong. The latest attempt is ‘directed equality’ and this has created its own problems. When these are the values universally taught to school children then it affects perceptions, communications and eventually law.

This cannot in any way be considered ‘neutral’.
Well said and speaking of schools…
As an educator in the public schools I have to take Mandated Reporter Training, Blood Borne Pathogen Training, and now, “Discriminatory Harassment” training. The latter is a new, required annual training. It sounds good, and it does address traditional discrimination but having recently completed the training, I’d say that just about anything is considered “discrimination” if the “victim” feels “discriminated against.” This includes the kind of casual teasing, ribbing, etc. that boys have engaged in since time immemorial. The intent of the training is to address what doesn’t reach the level of “bullying” and which the kids themselves typically don’t give a second though to. The upshot is, if I am really vigilant about writing up all my observations of “discriminatory harassment” I will have no time to teach lesson plans or manage the classroom, since these incidents occur a dozen times a day in the typical middle school or high school classroom (particularly in PE). Call another boy a “geek,” a “fag,” or whatever, even your best friend, and that might wind up being a suspension and mandatory sensitivity counseling even if the “victim” laughs it off.🤷
 
Call another boy a “geek,” a “fag,” or whatever, even your best friend, and that might wind up being a suspension and mandatory sensitivity counseling even if the “victim” laughs it off.🤷
Well, to be fair, the ‘victim’ has no choice but to ‘laugh off’ those comments, what else are they supposed to do? So I don’t believe trying to pay attention to such things are over the top at all, but rather, much needed for teaching staff.

Many teachers were very naïve when I went to school (Probably about 5-7 years ago) and insinuated things all the time like *‘Boys will be boys’ or ‘they’re just muckin’ around’ * which of course was either the teacher deluding themselves so they didn’t feel the need to do anything or they were really naïve to what went on in school.

Furthermore, how some teaches handled it was sometimes even worse, by calling attention to it in ways that would humiliate the victims even more, rather than trying to play it smart, recognizing the main perpetrators who would put other kids down and trying to separate them from their victims whenever and wherever possible and if necessary, taking them ‘aside’ in subtle and non humiliating ways to have a word to.

Anyway, sorry for going off topic, just wanted to call attention to that and that I don’t believe such a course was ‘over the top’ but more ‘much needed’ from what I have heard and experienced in my own life, but I never went to the course and don’t know what was in it or how they counseled you to handle it.

Just an aside, I’m sure you already know (Some teachers seriously don’t), but the idea that there are bullies out there like in the ‘movies’ is total ******** and the way they deal with bullies in movies is even more ******** (words cannot describe how bad and naïve some people are when it comes to bullying in the schools).

Note: The best way to tell whether such comments are a ‘joke’ or ‘friendly’ or not, is not what they say, but by the ‘tone’ that is often used or the way it is said, can tell you a lot about the malice involved or not. And it’s the ‘Malice’ that I believe one must look for.

I hope this has helped

God Bless You

Thank you for reading
Josh
 
I think that one of Faithdancer’s points was that schools have to formulate rules for defining bullying and then handling it. If the state will only support non God philosophies in dealing with this then it necessarily enculturates both teachers and especially young students in thinking of the world as godless and accepting godless philosophies.

When a student is bullied or challenged for bullying it is often a highly emotionally charged time where moral re-assurance and ethical directives come to the fore. To have the teacher follow a manufactured godless response is to force godless culture on the teachers and young at an important time of shared values formation. When the godless culture is the only one paid for by the government it is unjust and it contributes to a godless society.

Before being a teacher I worked for a large U.S. I.T. company. They had to run mandatory ethics courses telling us what was right and wrong and how we were expected to behave. Of course in line with American secular reasoning it had to be godless. I remember a few exchanges between myself and the ‘godless priest’ but I’lll mention just one.

Working from the American handbook we were told that any mention of ‘Blackie’ or ‘Darkie’ as a reference to someone was instant grounds for dismissal as it was offensive. Apart from setting out the ‘hierarchy of victimhood’ it was totally misplaced in my Asian-pacific workplace of that time. Most of my friends and colleagues were Indians and Sri Lankans. I told the ‘godless priest’ that I was called ‘whitey’ every second day by these guys along with other colourful remarks. I laughed it off in the humour it was given but did that mean that these guys would be instantly dismissed. The ‘godless priest’ working from her ‘hierarchy of victimhood’ had no answer.

I then asked her that if after being called ‘whitey’ every second day for years I turned around and said in jest ‘darkie’ just once would I be dismissed if someone overheard it. The godless priests’ answer - a very firm yes I would be dismissed.

Presumably someone higher up than me in the ‘hierarchy of victimhood’ might be offended. Therefore I would be an unethical character and need to be removed from the workplace.

When we were back in the office the Indians and Sri Lankans praised me for speaking up and were amazed at the total cr*p that we had just heard with regards to ethics and the manufactured morality of the ‘godless priest’.

They still called me whitey. 😃

The formulation of values creates and promotes a lived culture. When those values are mandatorily godless in substance then it is a godless culture which is promoted.

From that day on every time I heard the term ‘whitey’ I was reminded that I worked in an ethically unjust workplace that had deemed morality as based on a hierarchy of victimhood which had been manufactured specifically against me. :confused:

Unfortunately I also have many examples of the injustice of this mandatorily manufactured morality defining ethics in schools.
 
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