Interesting row developing in Australia about alternatives to religiously-based ethics teaching. Go here.
Almighty row over ethics in schools:
Democracy and the welfare of children
By Dr Simon Longstaff
The Sydney Morning Herald (Saturday 26 September 2009) is to be congratulated for having helped to initiate public debate about discrimination against children whose parents make a conscientious decision that they not attend classes in special religious education (scripture). It is unfortunate that, rather than engage with the serious arguments advanced on behalf of many parents and their children, Mark Hillis of the InterChurch Commission on Special Religious Education in Schools (ICCOREIS) is reported as having said “I don’t see how having a small interest group coming into a school and ramping up things helps”. But who is this small interest group to which he refers?
The NSW Federation of P & C Associations has been promoting a review of NSW Education Department policy since 2003 – the year in which St James Ethics Centre was first approached by parents with a request that it examine the issues at the heart of this matter on their behalf. The NSW Federation of P & C Associations represents parents in 2,200 schools across NSW, making it the largest parent organisation in the Southern Hemisphere. It has twice passed motions calling for an ethics-based complement to scripture, most recently at its July 2009 AGM. In 2004, widespread support was demonstrated in a survey indicating a clear majority of parents felt it was important or very important that their child be offered an ethics-based option to scripture.
Mark Hills gave the impression that there is a monolithic lack of support, amongst religious groups, for the modest trial being proposed to the Minister for Education, Verity Firth. This is not entirely true. As part of a lengthy and comprehensive consultation process, St James Ethics Centre engaged with a broad cross-section of leaders including those within the faith-based realm. The vast majority of all respondents viewed this as a social justice issue — agreeing that all children should be treated with equity. The core curriculum does a certain amount of important work to aid ethical formation. However, if it is good enough to provide an additional opportunity in this area to some (who attend scripture) then it should be good enough for all. The denial of opportunity, on the basis of religion, is discriminatory and should not be endorsed by any government. Beyond this, there is a deeper question about the NSW Government’s commitment to democracy. We might ask: ought the untested fears of some, determine the plight of up to 80% of children at NSW primary schools who do not attend scripture? Does the government turn its back on the unmet needs of the majority of students in order to satisfy the demands of the few who cater for the needs of the few?
ICCOREIS may represent the official views of the faiths represented on its committee. It does not necessarily represent the views of ordinary members of faith-based communities. Many practising members of faith-based groups argue that all children have a right to an equal measure of meaningful instruction during the period allotted to scripture and have offered support for an ethics-based alternative. So do representatives of faith communities who are unable to mount their own scripture classes.
Seven P & Cs across NSW have already voted to take part in the proposed pilot that is awaiting ministerial approval to proceed. We encourage the Minister to base her decision on principles of democracy and social justice. In a modern, pluralistic and progressive Australia all children ought to be treated fairly. The major churches need to ask themselves a fundamental question that they have faced before: should children bear the costs of institutional self-interest?
Dr Simon Longstaff is Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre.
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
"In Wittgenstein, I discovered a voice that advised me not to be endlessly detained these questions"
Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 1:59 AM
Giles Fraser has been explaining over at the Guardian why Wittgenstein appeals so strongly to some religious types (like Sam Norton, I suppose - what do you think Sam?). Here is part 1 of his three part essay.
Back in the early 80's, I spend many an afternoon in a cramped and stuffy office in King's College, London, with an informally gathered group of mostly graduate students, going through Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations paragraph by paragraph, line by line. It was often terribly slow going. We might ponder two or three sentences for a couple of weeks, coming back to the same point several times. It felt a bit like Bible study. Some might have wondered how much was being achieved in this group or what the point of it all was. But for me it was absorbing, thrilling, adventurous. My eyes were opened and my life was changed.
The professor at the centre of this little group was the genial Texan philosopher Norman Malcolm, a lifelong friend of Wittgenstein and one of his most notable students. Part of the excitement – though nobody would have been quite so crass as to admit it – was to be learning philosophy at just one degree of separation from the master himself. But that alone was not what made this group keen to keep coming back. Many of us felt that something different was going on, that we were learning a new way of doing philosophy. The big idea was that philosophy wasn't so much a question of mastering arguments – though the they did form a small part. There wasn't any great sense that we were deriving firm conclusions from the logical combination of indubitable premises. Rather it was as if we were being inducted into a certain sort of technique, almost a style of dealing with philosophical problems. Philosophy was more like therapy, an attempt to understand and deal with the very heart of human puzzlement about various things. Why, we asked, do certain sorts of situations or ideas seem odd to us and what do we hope to achieve by throwing philosophy at them?
Continues here
.
Back in the early 80's, I spend many an afternoon in a cramped and stuffy office in King's College, London, with an informally gathered group of mostly graduate students, going through Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations paragraph by paragraph, line by line. It was often terribly slow going. We might ponder two or three sentences for a couple of weeks, coming back to the same point several times. It felt a bit like Bible study. Some might have wondered how much was being achieved in this group or what the point of it all was. But for me it was absorbing, thrilling, adventurous. My eyes were opened and my life was changed.
The professor at the centre of this little group was the genial Texan philosopher Norman Malcolm, a lifelong friend of Wittgenstein and one of his most notable students. Part of the excitement – though nobody would have been quite so crass as to admit it – was to be learning philosophy at just one degree of separation from the master himself. But that alone was not what made this group keen to keep coming back. Many of us felt that something different was going on, that we were learning a new way of doing philosophy. The big idea was that philosophy wasn't so much a question of mastering arguments – though the they did form a small part. There wasn't any great sense that we were deriving firm conclusions from the logical combination of indubitable premises. Rather it was as if we were being inducted into a certain sort of technique, almost a style of dealing with philosophical problems. Philosophy was more like therapy, an attempt to understand and deal with the very heart of human puzzlement about various things. Why, we asked, do certain sorts of situations or ideas seem odd to us and what do we hope to achieve by throwing philosophy at them?
Continues here
.
Telegraph article: God is not the Creator, claims academic
Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:19 AM
Interesting, controversial article. By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent, Telegraph UK
Published: 5:45PM BST 08 Oct 2009 Available here.
The notion of God as the Creator is wrong, claims a top academic, who believes the Bible has been wrongly translated for thousands of years.
The Earth was already there when God created humans and animals, says academic.
Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author, claims the first sentence of Genesis "in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth" is not a true translation of the Hebrew.
She claims she has carried out fresh textual analysis that suggests the writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the world -- and in fact the Earth was already there when he created humans and animals.
Prof Van Wolde, 54, who will present a thesis on the subject at Radboud University in The Netherlands where she studies, said she had re-analysed the original Hebrew text and placed it in the context of the Bible as a whole, and in the context of other creation stories from ancient Mesopotamia.
She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb "bara", which is used in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean "to create" but to "spatially separate".
The first sentence should now read "in the beginning God separated the Heaven and the Earth"
According to Judeo-Christian tradition, God created the Earth out of nothing.
Prof Van Wolde, who once worked with the Italian academic and novelist Umberto Eco, said her new analysis showed that the beginning of the Bible was not the beginning of time, but the beginning of a narration.
She said: "It meant to say that God did create humans and animals, but not the Earth itself."
She writes in her thesis that the new translation fits in with ancient texts.
According to them there used to be an enormous body of water in which monsters were living, covered in darkness, she said.
She said technically "bara" does mean "create" but added: "Something was wrong with the verb.
"God was the subject (God created), followed by two or more objects. Why did God not create just one thing or animal, but always more?"
She concluded that God did not create, he separated: the Earth from the Heaven, the land from the sea, the sea monsters from the birds and the swarming at the ground.
"There was already water," she said.
"There were sea monsters. God did create some things, but not the Heaven and Earth. The usual idea of creating-out-of-nothing, creatio ex nihilo, is a big misunderstanding."
God came later and made the earth livable, separating the water from the land and brought light into the darkness.
She said she hoped that her conclusions would spark "a robust debate", since her finds are not only new, but would also touch the hearts of many religious people.
She said: "Maybe I am even hurting myself. I consider myself to be religious and the Creator used to be very special, as a notion of trust. I want to keep that trust."
A spokesman for the Radboud University said: "The new interpretation is a complete shake up of the story of the Creation as we know it."
Prof Van Wolde added: "The traditional view of God the Creator is untenable now."
Published: 5:45PM BST 08 Oct 2009 Available here.
The notion of God as the Creator is wrong, claims a top academic, who believes the Bible has been wrongly translated for thousands of years.
The Earth was already there when God created humans and animals, says academic.
Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author, claims the first sentence of Genesis "in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth" is not a true translation of the Hebrew.
She claims she has carried out fresh textual analysis that suggests the writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the world -- and in fact the Earth was already there when he created humans and animals.
Prof Van Wolde, 54, who will present a thesis on the subject at Radboud University in The Netherlands where she studies, said she had re-analysed the original Hebrew text and placed it in the context of the Bible as a whole, and in the context of other creation stories from ancient Mesopotamia.
She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb "bara", which is used in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean "to create" but to "spatially separate".
The first sentence should now read "in the beginning God separated the Heaven and the Earth"
According to Judeo-Christian tradition, God created the Earth out of nothing.
Prof Van Wolde, who once worked with the Italian academic and novelist Umberto Eco, said her new analysis showed that the beginning of the Bible was not the beginning of time, but the beginning of a narration.
She said: "It meant to say that God did create humans and animals, but not the Earth itself."
She writes in her thesis that the new translation fits in with ancient texts.
According to them there used to be an enormous body of water in which monsters were living, covered in darkness, she said.
She said technically "bara" does mean "create" but added: "Something was wrong with the verb.
"God was the subject (God created), followed by two or more objects. Why did God not create just one thing or animal, but always more?"
She concluded that God did not create, he separated: the Earth from the Heaven, the land from the sea, the sea monsters from the birds and the swarming at the ground.
"There was already water," she said.
"There were sea monsters. God did create some things, but not the Heaven and Earth. The usual idea of creating-out-of-nothing, creatio ex nihilo, is a big misunderstanding."
God came later and made the earth livable, separating the water from the land and brought light into the darkness.
She said she hoped that her conclusions would spark "a robust debate", since her finds are not only new, but would also touch the hearts of many religious people.
She said: "Maybe I am even hurting myself. I consider myself to be religious and the Creator used to be very special, as a notion of trust. I want to keep that trust."
A spokesman for the Radboud University said: "The new interpretation is a complete shake up of the story of the Creation as we know it."
Prof Van Wolde added: "The traditional view of God the Creator is untenable now."
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