I don’t understand. Nothing in the article you linked to describes anyone
encouraging children to be gay and transsexual
and the article isn’t about what schools do, or even about what one school does. It’s about what some government inspectors are alleged to have done, and I think a little context might be in order.
This is about the inspection of Grindon Hall Christian School. I think it’s clear that the inspectors were concerned that the school might be instilling hostility to, and/or ignorance of, various things that conservative Christians commonly disapprove of: other religions, homosexuality, transsexualism. So they asked pupils some questions intended to probe this.
The school has issued a complaint about those questions. (This is where the stuff in the Telegraph article comes from.) The inspection report, now it’s out, is extremely negative.
If the complaint made by the school is perfectly accurate, then it does sound as if the probing was done quite insensitively. Tut tut, naughty inspectors. But it’s worth noting that complaints of this sort—especially when, as one might suspect here, they’re made partly in self-defence—are not always perfectly accurate. And, e.g., if you look at the headmaster’s letter of complaint to the authorities and his somewhat-overlapping complainy letter to parents of his pupils, you’ll see that he apparently has trouble distinguishing “inspectors asked pupils whether they celebrate festivals of any religions other than Christianity” from “inspectors think the school should be celebrating festivals of other religions”. Which is just silly, and doesn’t give me much confidence in his ability to describe impartially (or even correctly) what happened in the inspection.
I suppose you can argue that even mentioning (e.g.) transsexualism is “encouraging” it in the rather aetiolated sense that children who have never heard of transsexualism are a bit less likely to end up being overtly transsexual. (But maybe correspondingly more likely to have no idea what it is they’re going through and maybe kill themselves.) But it seems pretty clear that that isn’t what Azathoth123 meant, and it’s not (I think) what any reasonable reader would understand, by saying that “schools encourage children to be transsexual”. (Even if any school were doing it, which I repeat this report doesn’t even allege, never mind give evidence for.)
[EDITED to add: It is alleged that at this school (1) some teachers labelled girls “sluts”, (2) there was a campaign of abuse against lesbian girls, ignored by staff, and (3) the school has links to some Christian group that “condemns all homosexual practice”. The article I linked to is behind a paywall and I have no further details; given what a lot of Christian groups condemn all homosexual practice, #3 isn’t necessarily terribly surprising. But if this sort of allegation was flying around before the inspection, or for that matter discovered during the inspection, then it might help to explain why the inspectors were asking such oh-so-insensitive questions. And it isn’t the inspectors I’d blame for that.]
I don’t understand. Nothing in the article you linked to describes anyone
“encouraging children to be gay and transsexual”
and the article isn’t about what schools do, or even about what one school does. It’s about what some government inspectors are alleged to have done, and I think a little context might be in order.
Well, saying that children should be taught how lesbians have sex is encouraging children to be gay. Unlike Azeroth123, I doubt this will cause the collapse of civilisation, so I’m not necessarly agreeing with him about the consequences or trying to morally condemn this.
If government inspectors were asking these questions, it implies that this is supposed to be the norm for schools.
And, e.g., if you look at the headmaster’s letter of complaint to the authorities and his somewhat-overlapping complainy letter to parents of his pupils, you’ll see that he apparently has trouble distinguishing “inspectors asked pupils whether they celebrate festivals of any religions other than Christianity” from “inspectors think the school should be celebrating festivals of other religions”. Which is just silly, and doesn’t give me much confidence in his ability to describe impartially (or even correctly) what happened in the inspection.
While these two statements are logically distinct, most people don’t communicate in a clear, precise manner, saying exactly what they mean without any subtly. Most people hint at things, and in this case I think the inference that “inspectors think the school should be celebrating festivals of other religions” is perhaps justified.
(But maybe correspondingly more likely to have no idea what it is they’re going through and maybe kill themselves.)
This is a good point which I really shouldn’t have overlooked.
It is alleged that at this school (1) some teachers labelled girls “sluts”, (2) there was a campaign of abuse against lesbian girls, ignored by staff, and (3) the school has links to some Christian group that “condemns all homosexual practice”.
If encouraging children to be gay is a bit weird, then perhaps condemnation of homosexuality is equally weird, and actual abuse is appalling. This is all the more reason why inspectors asking kids to out their friends is awful.
I’d like to make it absolutely clear that I’m not defending the school here. Rather then some people trying to get schools to promote prog values, and some people trying to promote conservative values, we should just keep politics out of schools, which means disbanding religious schools like this one.
saying that children should be taught how lesbians have sex is encouraging children to be gay.
Just like saying that children should be taught what words they use in France is encouraging children to be French?
(We don’t even know it’s true that anyone said children should be taught how lesbians have sex. What we do know is that the school’s headmaster claimed that a pupil claimed that an inspector asked them what lesbians do. It seems eminently possible that (1) the headmaster lied, (2) the headmaster misunderstood, (3) the pupil lied, (4) the pupil misunderstood, or (5) the inspector did ask that but not with the intention that’s being assumed here. For instance, consider the following possible context. Pupil: “It shouldn’t be allowed. What they do is disgusting and unnatural and forbidden by God.” Inspector: “So what is it they do that’s so disgusting?” I’m not sure I’d exactly approve of the inspector’s question in this scenario, but its point wouldn’t be that pupils ought to be taught all about lesbians’ sex lives.)
most people don’t communicate in a clear, precise manner [...] Most people hint at things
Quite true. But that doesn’t license an inference from “inspectors asked whether there are any pupils who celebrate non-Christian religions’ holidays” to “inspectors think the school should be celebrating non-Christian religions’ holidays”. (Other interpretations that seem more plausible to me: 1. They wanted to make a point about the fact that the school’s teaching simply ignores the existence of other religions (this was one of the complaints in the inspection report, IIRC). 2. They wanted to find out something about the religious makeup of the school’s pupil population, and didn’t entirely trust the figures they were given by the school. 3. They wanted to identify pupils who might be adversely affected by the school’s (allegedly) intolerant and narrow-minded ethos, so that they could talk to them and see whether there actually was a problem or not.)
(If I were wanting to hint at such a thing in such a way, I would be asking not “do any of you celebrate any other festivals?” but “does the school celebrate any other festivals?”.)
Now, for sure it’s possible that the inspectors really would like to see the school celebrating non-Christian religious festivals. Just as it’s possible that if I greet one of my colleagues with “Good morning—did you have a good weekend?” my real intention is to flirt with them and ultimately seduce them. But they don’t get to go to HR and complain about sexual harassment merely because I said something that a would-be seducer might also happen to say; and the headmaster of this school doesn’t get to tell parents that inspectors tried to make his school celebrate pagan festivals just because they said something that someone with that intention might also happen to say.
inspectors asking kids to out their friends is awful
Without having been there and observed exactly what was asked, with what wording and what emphasis, etc., it’s hard to be sure; but my reading was not that they asked kids to out their friends. (I agree that asking them to out their friends would have been way out of order.) I thought they just asked “do you know anyone who …?” expecting a binary answer (or perhaps a “maybe”) -- rather than expecting “oh, yes, there’s Ashley and Frank and Melanie, and I think Ahmed might feel that way too”.
just keep politics out of schools, which means disbanding religious schools like this one
I am inclined to agree. I’m not sure, though. I think parents should be allowed to educate their children at home, provided they can demonstrate that they’re giving a decent education. In practice, some of those parents will be giving just as religiously biased an education as this place. If individual parents can do that, should they really be forbidden to get together and do it as a group?
And of course a school can be highly religious without having a name like “Inquisitor Torquemada Memorial Catholic School”. If you’re going to forbid religious schools, how are you going to do that other than by having some kind of inspection process that checks what sort of things they’re teaching? Boom, now your inspection process is necessarily political and religious.
Just like saying that children should be taught what words they use in France is encouraging children to be French?
Well, at the very least I’d say its encouraging them to visit France.
We don’t even know it’s true that anyone said children should be taught how lesbians have sex.
Admittedly, yes for some reason I took this article at face value, rather then assuming that everyone lies about everything all the time, which is generally a good assumption.
They wanted to find out something about the religious makeup of the school’s pupil population, and didn’t entirely trust the figures they were given by the school. 3. They wanted to identify pupils who might be adversely affected by the school’s (allegedly) intolerant and narrow-minded ethos, so that they could talk to them and see whether there actually was a problem or not.)
If there are non-Christian pupils in the school, the obvious next step is to demand that their religious holidays are observed too.
Its the tactic of taking it one step at a time. Demand that the school recognise other religions exist, then demand that they teach that the other religions are not evil, then that they are equally valid. Since a fundamental point of Christianity is that other religions are wrong (thou shall have no other god) or “put here by Satan to tempt us” (according the people from the Christian union at a perfectly normal university), then if they accede to the next demand then many people would say they are then Christian in name only.
Demand that they acknowledge that some kids are not Christian. Then acknowledge that they are from other faiths. Then exempt them from religious services. Then allow them to hold their own religious services away from the other kids. Then get the school as a whole to celebrate other religion’s festivals. Then try to stop people wishing each other a merry Christmas and instead say “Happy Holidays”.
I’m not trying to take the Christians’ side—I think their religion is absurd. I’m trying to show that they are right to be afraid of the tactic where each step seems reasonable and tolerant, and then several steps down the line everything they value is gone.
Just as it’s possible that if I greet one of my colleagues with “Good morning—did you have a good weekend?” my real intention is to flirt with them and ultimately seduce them. But they don’t get to go to HR and complain about sexual harassment merely because I said something that a would-be seducer might also happen to say
Some people do do this. Heard of Elevatorgate? A guy asked a girl if she fancied a cup of coffee. She realised that ‘coffee’ might be a euphemism for sex, and that rapists also want sex, and so asking her if she wants coffee was “a potential sexual assault”. The absurdity would be funny if it hadn’t torn the atheist & skeptics movement in half.
I thought they just asked “do you know anyone who …?” expecting a binary answer (or perhaps a “maybe”) -- rather than expecting “oh, yes, there’s Ashley and Frank and Melanie, and I think Ahmed might feel that way too”.
Thing is, now the transphobes can launch a witch-hunt to see which kid to bully. A secret like this would probably only be told to a close friend, which narrows that pool. Even if the kid has a few close friends, you can bet its the one who has been acting weird and has interests more typical of the opposite sex.
Boom, now your inspection process is necessarily political and religious.
Maybe you could try to enforce a lack of politics?
I really don’t think we should be condemning people for doing something that could be followed by doing something else that could be followed by doing something else that would be bad. Not unless we have actual evidence that they intend the whole sequence.
(I also remark that what you originally said was that schools are encouraging children to be gay and transsexual. We’ve come quite a way from there.)
they are right to be afraid
Maybe they are. But being afraid of something doesn’t, at least in my value system nor in theirs if they haven’t that bit about not bewaring false witness against other people, constitute sufficient reason to claim it’s already happened.
Elevatorgate
Yes, I have heard of it and I know enough about the story to know that your version of it is quite inaccurate. But that’s not the point here. The point is that that kind of overreaction is silly and harmful, and it’s what the school did in this case, and to my mind that means we should be cautious about trusting their account of what the inspectors did.
now the transphobes can launch a witch-hunt
Yes, that’s a problem. For the avoidance of doubt, it’s not my purpose to claim that the inspectors didn’t do anything foolish or harmful. I am claiming only that your original characterization of the situation is wrong. Which I think you’re not disputing at this point.
I really don’t think we should be condemning people for doing something that could be followed by doing something else that could be followed by doing something else that would be bad. Not unless we have actual evidence that they intend the whole sequence.
I’m not condemning it, at most I’m saying the school’s head teacher is right to condemn it from within his value system. I’m slightly torn here between saying I understand why people might draw a line in the sand to avoid being defeated one step at a time, and realising that this would make organisations really inflexible.
Yes, I have heard of it and I know enough about the story to know that your version of it is quite inaccurate. But that’s not the point here. The point is that that kind of overreaction is silly and harmful, and it’s what the school did in this case, and to my mind that means we should be cautious about trusting their account of what the inspectors did.
Do you have a relatively short, unbiased version of elevatorgate you can link me to?
But yes, I take your point, and given that the school is biased they can’t be trusted here.
I am claiming only that your original characterization of the situation is wrong. Which I think you’re not disputing at this point.
Broadly speaking, yes. I mean, teaching children how lesbians have sex might have happened, and if it did then it might slightly increase the number of lesbians, but that’s not nesscerly the intention. At the very least, I massively overstated the case.
and then several steps down the line everything they value is gone.
So is this the situation where everything the Christians value is gone..?
Demand that they acknowledge that some kids are not Christian. Then acknowledge that they are from other faiths. Then exempt them from religious services. Then allow them to hold their own religious services away from the other kids. Then get the school as a whole to celebrate other religion’s festivals. Then try to stop people wishing each other a merry Christmas and instead say “Happy Holidays”.
All that (except maybe for the last sentence) sounds perfectly reasonable to me. In fact, acknowledging that some kids are not Christian—if, in fact, they are not—seems to me like the first step away from insanity.
And they are exposed. But if the kids are actually not Christian, recognizing that seems to me an entirely reasonable thing to do. And by the time kids want to hold their own religious services (presumably “kids” are teenagers at this point), the wishes of parents matter less.
So is this the situation where everything the Christians value is gone..?
By the standards of Christians living a few hundred years ago (and hardliners living today), the secularisation of Europe must look catastrophic. Hundreds of millions of people doomed to burn in eternal hellfire.
All that (except maybe for the last sentence) sounds perfectly reasonable to me. In fact, acknowledging that some kids are not Christian—if, in fact, they are not—seems to me like the first step away from insanity.
This is probably because you are not a hardline conservative Christian. To them, the idea that there is an alternative to Christianity is an information hazard far worse then, say, Roko’s Basilisk. The idea that you would present impressionable young children with an idea which, if adopted, results in them burning in hell is pure insanity in their eyes.
Before I read the sequences and understood about ‘beliefs as attire’ and so forth, I was confused as to how any Abraham religion could possibly co-exist with any other religion.
I was confused as to how any Abraham religion could possibly co-exist with any other religion.
Um, you do know that there are major versions of every one of the three major Abrahamic religions that don’t believe in eternal suffering for non-believers? Similar remarks apply for the minor Abrahamic offshoots (although deciding which are their own offshoots is fuzzy). Moreover, there are also variations in at least one of those religions where there’s enough pre-destination that most of this is rendered completely irrelevant.
I’m certainly aware that there are many variants of these religions which believe wildly different things, but it was still my understanding that “eternal suffering for non-believers” was they most mainstream branch.
“Eternal suffering for non-believers” is non-mainstream in Islam. The mainstream position is that righteous Jews, Christians and Sabaeans will be OK. Pagans, however, are right out.
Uhm, this seems like saying that “eternal suffering for non-believers” is the mainstream position… it’s just that People of the Book are not automatically included among the “non-believers”.
That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose. I think “non-believers” normally means “people who don’t believe in that religion.” Remember the original question was—how can an Abrahamic religion co-exist with a different religion? These are clearly different religions. I do think I’m drawing a meaningful distinction in that Christians believe that the only way to heaven is through Jesus (John 14:6, perhaps the most famous verse in the NT) whereas Islam teaches that you don’t have to be a Muslim to go to heaven.
Really? So… out of the Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, the only one which teaches that non-believers burn in hell is the one based on Jesus’ teachings of forgiveness.
In Judaism there is basically no afterlife—neither heaven nor hell.
Christianity introduced the promise of eternal life but made it a carrot-and-stick deal—bask in joy or burn in flames.
Islam essentially went with Christianity’s approach, but wrote in a grandfathering clause for “people of the Book”—Jews and Christians—who are seen as following more or less the right religion, just not the latest most-correct version updated by the final prophet (Muhammad). Pagans and atheists still burn.
My understanding is that mainstream Christians think non-Christians can go to heaven as long as they didn’t have the chance to become Christian—e.g. Moses, or some undiscovered Amazonian tribe—as long as they lived righteously. The mainstream Islamic position, however, is that Islam is really obvious, so even if you never heard of the prophet Mohammed you should still be able to work out most of the stuff based on reason alone (!) so you’ve got no excuse. So while Christians view Moses, Abraham, etc as precursors to Christianity, Islam views them as actually having been Muslim. For Muslims, the first Muslim was Adam (of Adam and Eve fame).
So it’s not that Jews, Christians and Sabaeans get grandfathered in for having the updated version. Rather, it’s that they are still worshipping the right God, even though they’ve distorted his teachings and those of his prophets, which is surely pushing their luck. The “People of the Book” thing is way less tolerant than it sounds.
that Islam is really obvious, so [...] you should still be able to work out most of the stuff based on reason alone
That would be really weird given that so far as I can tell Muslims don’t hold (e.g.) that all the prophets (Moses, Jesus, etc.) were aware of anything like the whole of Islam despite being actually on a mission from God. Does “most of the stuff” here mean something like “what Islam, Judaism and Christianity have in common”?
Muslims believe that the teachings of Moses, Jesus, etc were perverted by the Jews and Christians. In particular they definitely do believe that Moses taught the same things that Mohammed did—this is explicitly stated in the Qu’ran, which repeatedly treats Moses as a parallel for Mohammed. So the fact that the Biblical Moses isn’t a Muslim is irrelevant—you have to go by the Qu’ranic Moses. That’s why Hollywood films about Old Testament prophets are frequently censored in the Middle East, because they are telling ‘inaccurate’ (i.e. non-Qu’ranic) stories about Islamic prophets, see e.g. here and here.
So I knew that Muslims believe that earlier prophets’ teachings were compatible by Islam before they were corrupted by the Jews and Christians. Are you saying, beyond that, that they believe the earlier prophets actually had something like the whole of Muhammad’s message, before Muhammad?
That seems a little unlikely to me. (E.g., for sure Moses didn’t have the Qur’an, and I wouldn’t expect “There are vitally important things in the Qur’an that weren’t known before it” to be controversial among Muslims. But I’m very willing to be corrected.)
Are you saying, beyond that, that they believe the earlier prophets actually had something like the whole of Muhammad’s message, before Muhammad? That seems a little unlikely to me. (E.g., for sure Moses didn’t have the Qur’an)
I don’t know exactly what the man-in-the-street believes, but yes, Islam teaches that they had something like the whole of the message. It also teaches that all of the prophets had the Torah, and indeed that the Torah and other earlier revealed scriptures talk about Mohammed. The special thing about the Qu’ran isn’t that it’s a unique account of God’s word—supposedly God gave his word to mankind over and over, but mankind kept polluting it. The special thing about the Qu’ran is that it’s the final and incorruptible version.
You’re right that it is an obviously silly belief, but I am not an expert as to how the contradictions are worked out. For example, did Adam teach the necessity of Hajj? Surely no, because Abraham built the Ka’aba, and he came later. But if Adam’s religion was missing one of the pillars of Islam, then how was he a Muslim? But really it’s no sillier than any manner of Christian doctrines that no-one remarks on.
Surely no, because Abraham built the Ka’aba, and he came later. But if Adam’s religion was missing one of the pillars of Islam, then how was he a Muslim?
My understanding is that mainstream Christians think non-Christians can go to heaven as long as they didn’t have the chance to become Christian—e.g. Moses, or some undiscovered Amazonian tribe—as long as they lived righteously.
Well, Dante put the righteous pagans in Limbo (the 1st circle of hell). As for Isrealites, they got to heaven because they were followers of G-d after all.
In Judaism there is basically no afterlife—neither heaven nor hell.
That’s not really accurate. There are versions of Judaism which have no afterlife, but many classical forms of Judaism do have an afterlife. Part of the idea that Judaism doesn’t have an afterlife is due to Christian misunderstandings because in Judaism the afterlife is just really, really not important. It is a much more this world focused religion. But most forms of Orthodox Judaism definitely believe in an afterlife where while the details may be fuzzy, there’s a definite reward for the righteous and punishment for sin.
Can you provide some links? There is Sheol, sure, but I was under the impression that it’s just a grey place where shades slowly wither away to nothing. But punishment for sinners and rewards for the righteous—which branches believe in them? And is it a late Christian influence?
Sure. See this summary of traditional beliefs. Note that some movements or subsects are more explicit. For example, Chabad and most of the Chassidic sects have a much more “Christian” view of the afterlife, as you can see here.
There is Sheol, sure, but I was under the impression that it’s just a grey place where shades slowly wither away to nothing.
Sheol as depicted in the oldest parts of the Bible is something like that. It would however be a mistake to interpret the Old Testament/Tanach as having the same role in Judaism as the Bible does for Christianity. In many ways the Talmud is more important as a set of documents when it comes to theology.
But punishment for sinners and rewards for the righteous—which branches believe in them?
Almost all Orthodox Jews believe this in some form, and this does date back to the early sections of the Talmud (200-300 CEish). But the nature of such reward and punishment can vary, ranging from simple oblivion for the wicked, to a “heaven” like reward and a long purgatory, as well as possible reincarnation as a punishment for the wicked. Among Reform and Conservative movements there’s much less of a belief in an afterlife, although individual beliefs may vary.
And is it a late Christian influence?
Difficult to say. A lot of these ideas were floating around in the late Second Temple period so it is hard to tell exactly who was influencing whom and to what extent. Moreover, a lot of the written sources date to 200 CE or so which is already a lot later.
I am not sure what is the point that you are making. There is a pretty diverse set of people commonly called extremists who think that the contemporary society is a catastrophe and is horribly bad. If such people decide to withdraw from the society, sure, no problems. If they decide to change, that is, “save” the society, they shouldn’t be surprised to encounter resistance.
I’m not complaining. I think secularisation is a good thing. If anything, I’m trying to convey just how much values have changed, and I’m a little concerned about how they might change in the future, either by moving back to past religious values or by moving forward in some bizarre direction.
You know the ideological turing test and the idea that you should only be able to argue against a position if you truly understand their point of view? Well, I think I can see these sort of issues from both an extreme libertarian and an extreme social conservative viewpoint and the contradiction is doing strange things to my brain.
Also, I’m defending a statement Azeroth123 made (schools are encouraging kids to be gay—although I’m not so sure about this now) while not endorsing his conclusions, which also might make what I have written seem confusing or even contradictory.
Similarly, I’ve mostly criticised the school inspectors, and yet I think its good that their actions are undermining Christian fundmentalism. This might make what I’ve written sound confusing, but at least I’ve defeated the halo effect.
Maybe something of a tangent, but I’m not sure that’s a coherent idea. I’d say schools are intrinsically political entities, working as they do on the assumption that corralling children into rooms, routinely against their consent, to teach them certain things is useful & necessary. (Not that I think that assumption is necessarily wrong!)
I don’t understand. Nothing in the article you linked to describes anyone
and the article isn’t about what schools do, or even about what one school does. It’s about what some government inspectors are alleged to have done, and I think a little context might be in order.
This is about the inspection of Grindon Hall Christian School. I think it’s clear that the inspectors were concerned that the school might be instilling hostility to, and/or ignorance of, various things that conservative Christians commonly disapprove of: other religions, homosexuality, transsexualism. So they asked pupils some questions intended to probe this.
The school has issued a complaint about those questions. (This is where the stuff in the Telegraph article comes from.) The inspection report, now it’s out, is extremely negative.
If the complaint made by the school is perfectly accurate, then it does sound as if the probing was done quite insensitively. Tut tut, naughty inspectors. But it’s worth noting that complaints of this sort—especially when, as one might suspect here, they’re made partly in self-defence—are not always perfectly accurate. And, e.g., if you look at the headmaster’s letter of complaint to the authorities and his somewhat-overlapping complainy letter to parents of his pupils, you’ll see that he apparently has trouble distinguishing “inspectors asked pupils whether they celebrate festivals of any religions other than Christianity” from “inspectors think the school should be celebrating festivals of other religions”. Which is just silly, and doesn’t give me much confidence in his ability to describe impartially (or even correctly) what happened in the inspection.
I suppose you can argue that even mentioning (e.g.) transsexualism is “encouraging” it in the rather aetiolated sense that children who have never heard of transsexualism are a bit less likely to end up being overtly transsexual. (But maybe correspondingly more likely to have no idea what it is they’re going through and maybe kill themselves.) But it seems pretty clear that that isn’t what Azathoth123 meant, and it’s not (I think) what any reasonable reader would understand, by saying that “schools encourage children to be transsexual”. (Even if any school were doing it, which I repeat this report doesn’t even allege, never mind give evidence for.)
[EDITED to add: It is alleged that at this school (1) some teachers labelled girls “sluts”, (2) there was a campaign of abuse against lesbian girls, ignored by staff, and (3) the school has links to some Christian group that “condemns all homosexual practice”. The article I linked to is behind a paywall and I have no further details; given what a lot of Christian groups condemn all homosexual practice, #3 isn’t necessarily terribly surprising. But if this sort of allegation was flying around before the inspection, or for that matter discovered during the inspection, then it might help to explain why the inspectors were asking such oh-so-insensitive questions. And it isn’t the inspectors I’d blame for that.]
Well, saying that children should be taught how lesbians have sex is encouraging children to be gay. Unlike Azeroth123, I doubt this will cause the collapse of civilisation, so I’m not necessarly agreeing with him about the consequences or trying to morally condemn this.
If government inspectors were asking these questions, it implies that this is supposed to be the norm for schools.
While these two statements are logically distinct, most people don’t communicate in a clear, precise manner, saying exactly what they mean without any subtly. Most people hint at things, and in this case I think the inference that “inspectors think the school should be celebrating festivals of other religions” is perhaps justified.
This is a good point which I really shouldn’t have overlooked.
If encouraging children to be gay is a bit weird, then perhaps condemnation of homosexuality is equally weird, and actual abuse is appalling. This is all the more reason why inspectors asking kids to out their friends is awful.
I’d like to make it absolutely clear that I’m not defending the school here. Rather then some people trying to get schools to promote prog values, and some people trying to promote conservative values, we should just keep politics out of schools, which means disbanding religious schools like this one.
Just like saying that children should be taught what words they use in France is encouraging children to be French?
(We don’t even know it’s true that anyone said children should be taught how lesbians have sex. What we do know is that the school’s headmaster claimed that a pupil claimed that an inspector asked them what lesbians do. It seems eminently possible that (1) the headmaster lied, (2) the headmaster misunderstood, (3) the pupil lied, (4) the pupil misunderstood, or (5) the inspector did ask that but not with the intention that’s being assumed here. For instance, consider the following possible context. Pupil: “It shouldn’t be allowed. What they do is disgusting and unnatural and forbidden by God.” Inspector: “So what is it they do that’s so disgusting?” I’m not sure I’d exactly approve of the inspector’s question in this scenario, but its point wouldn’t be that pupils ought to be taught all about lesbians’ sex lives.)
Quite true. But that doesn’t license an inference from “inspectors asked whether there are any pupils who celebrate non-Christian religions’ holidays” to “inspectors think the school should be celebrating non-Christian religions’ holidays”. (Other interpretations that seem more plausible to me: 1. They wanted to make a point about the fact that the school’s teaching simply ignores the existence of other religions (this was one of the complaints in the inspection report, IIRC). 2. They wanted to find out something about the religious makeup of the school’s pupil population, and didn’t entirely trust the figures they were given by the school. 3. They wanted to identify pupils who might be adversely affected by the school’s (allegedly) intolerant and narrow-minded ethos, so that they could talk to them and see whether there actually was a problem or not.)
(If I were wanting to hint at such a thing in such a way, I would be asking not “do any of you celebrate any other festivals?” but “does the school celebrate any other festivals?”.)
Now, for sure it’s possible that the inspectors really would like to see the school celebrating non-Christian religious festivals. Just as it’s possible that if I greet one of my colleagues with “Good morning—did you have a good weekend?” my real intention is to flirt with them and ultimately seduce them. But they don’t get to go to HR and complain about sexual harassment merely because I said something that a would-be seducer might also happen to say; and the headmaster of this school doesn’t get to tell parents that inspectors tried to make his school celebrate pagan festivals just because they said something that someone with that intention might also happen to say.
Without having been there and observed exactly what was asked, with what wording and what emphasis, etc., it’s hard to be sure; but my reading was not that they asked kids to out their friends. (I agree that asking them to out their friends would have been way out of order.) I thought they just asked “do you know anyone who …?” expecting a binary answer (or perhaps a “maybe”) -- rather than expecting “oh, yes, there’s Ashley and Frank and Melanie, and I think Ahmed might feel that way too”.
I am inclined to agree. I’m not sure, though. I think parents should be allowed to educate their children at home, provided they can demonstrate that they’re giving a decent education. In practice, some of those parents will be giving just as religiously biased an education as this place. If individual parents can do that, should they really be forbidden to get together and do it as a group?
And of course a school can be highly religious without having a name like “Inquisitor Torquemada Memorial Catholic School”. If you’re going to forbid religious schools, how are you going to do that other than by having some kind of inspection process that checks what sort of things they’re teaching? Boom, now your inspection process is necessarily political and religious.
Well, at the very least I’d say its encouraging them to visit France.
Admittedly, yes for some reason I took this article at face value, rather then assuming that everyone lies about everything all the time, which is generally a good assumption.
If there are non-Christian pupils in the school, the obvious next step is to demand that their religious holidays are observed too.
Its the tactic of taking it one step at a time. Demand that the school recognise other religions exist, then demand that they teach that the other religions are not evil, then that they are equally valid. Since a fundamental point of Christianity is that other religions are wrong (thou shall have no other god) or “put here by Satan to tempt us” (according the people from the Christian union at a perfectly normal university), then if they accede to the next demand then many people would say they are then Christian in name only.
Demand that they acknowledge that some kids are not Christian. Then acknowledge that they are from other faiths. Then exempt them from religious services. Then allow them to hold their own religious services away from the other kids. Then get the school as a whole to celebrate other religion’s festivals. Then try to stop people wishing each other a merry Christmas and instead say “Happy Holidays”.
I’m not trying to take the Christians’ side—I think their religion is absurd. I’m trying to show that they are right to be afraid of the tactic where each step seems reasonable and tolerant, and then several steps down the line everything they value is gone.
Some people do do this. Heard of Elevatorgate? A guy asked a girl if she fancied a cup of coffee. She realised that ‘coffee’ might be a euphemism for sex, and that rapists also want sex, and so asking her if she wants coffee was “a potential sexual assault”. The absurdity would be funny if it hadn’t torn the atheist & skeptics movement in half.
Thing is, now the transphobes can launch a witch-hunt to see which kid to bully. A secret like this would probably only be told to a close friend, which narrows that pool. Even if the kid has a few close friends, you can bet its the one who has been acting weird and has interests more typical of the opposite sex.
Maybe you could try to enforce a lack of politics?
I really don’t think we should be condemning people for doing something that could be followed by doing something else that could be followed by doing something else that would be bad. Not unless we have actual evidence that they intend the whole sequence.
(I also remark that what you originally said was that schools are encouraging children to be gay and transsexual. We’ve come quite a way from there.)
Maybe they are. But being afraid of something doesn’t, at least in my value system nor in theirs if they haven’t that bit about not bewaring false witness against other people, constitute sufficient reason to claim it’s already happened.
Yes, I have heard of it and I know enough about the story to know that your version of it is quite inaccurate. But that’s not the point here. The point is that that kind of overreaction is silly and harmful, and it’s what the school did in this case, and to my mind that means we should be cautious about trusting their account of what the inspectors did.
Yes, that’s a problem. For the avoidance of doubt, it’s not my purpose to claim that the inspectors didn’t do anything foolish or harmful. I am claiming only that your original characterization of the situation is wrong. Which I think you’re not disputing at this point.
I’m not condemning it, at most I’m saying the school’s head teacher is right to condemn it from within his value system. I’m slightly torn here between saying I understand why people might draw a line in the sand to avoid being defeated one step at a time, and realising that this would make organisations really inflexible.
Do you have a relatively short, unbiased version of elevatorgate you can link me to?
But yes, I take your point, and given that the school is biased they can’t be trusted here.
Broadly speaking, yes. I mean, teaching children how lesbians have sex might have happened, and if it did then it might slightly increase the number of lesbians, but that’s not nesscerly the intention. At the very least, I massively overstated the case.
ahahahahahaha hahaha hahahaaaa.
(On the substantive issues, I think we’re basically done at this point.)
Agreed on both points.
So is this the situation where everything the Christians value is gone..?
All that (except maybe for the last sentence) sounds perfectly reasonable to me. In fact, acknowledging that some kids are not Christian—if, in fact, they are not—seems to me like the first step away from insanity.
Well, their parents did choose to send them to a Christian school.
...yes, and?
Presumably that means they want their kids exposed to Christian values and Christian services.
And they are exposed. But if the kids are actually not Christian, recognizing that seems to me an entirely reasonable thing to do. And by the time kids want to hold their own religious services (presumably “kids” are teenagers at this point), the wishes of parents matter less.
By the standards of Christians living a few hundred years ago (and hardliners living today), the secularisation of Europe must look catastrophic. Hundreds of millions of people doomed to burn in eternal hellfire.
This is probably because you are not a hardline conservative Christian. To them, the idea that there is an alternative to Christianity is an information hazard far worse then, say, Roko’s Basilisk. The idea that you would present impressionable young children with an idea which, if adopted, results in them burning in hell is pure insanity in their eyes.
Before I read the sequences and understood about ‘beliefs as attire’ and so forth, I was confused as to how any Abraham religion could possibly co-exist with any other religion.
Um, you do know that there are major versions of every one of the three major Abrahamic religions that don’t believe in eternal suffering for non-believers? Similar remarks apply for the minor Abrahamic offshoots (although deciding which are their own offshoots is fuzzy). Moreover, there are also variations in at least one of those religions where there’s enough pre-destination that most of this is rendered completely irrelevant.
I’m certainly aware that there are many variants of these religions which believe wildly different things, but it was still my understanding that “eternal suffering for non-believers” was they most mainstream branch.
“Eternal suffering for non-believers” is non-mainstream in Islam. The mainstream position is that righteous Jews, Christians and Sabaeans will be OK. Pagans, however, are right out.
Uhm, this seems like saying that “eternal suffering for non-believers” is the mainstream position… it’s just that People of the Book are not automatically included among the “non-believers”.
That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose. I think “non-believers” normally means “people who don’t believe in that religion.” Remember the original question was—how can an Abrahamic religion co-exist with a different religion? These are clearly different religions. I do think I’m drawing a meaningful distinction in that Christians believe that the only way to heaven is through Jesus (John 14:6, perhaps the most famous verse in the NT) whereas Islam teaches that you don’t have to be a Muslim to go to heaven.
Really? So… out of the Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, the only one which teaches that non-believers burn in hell is the one based on Jesus’ teachings of forgiveness.
Why am I not that surprised.
It’s a bit more complicated.
In Judaism there is basically no afterlife—neither heaven nor hell.
Christianity introduced the promise of eternal life but made it a carrot-and-stick deal—bask in joy or burn in flames.
Islam essentially went with Christianity’s approach, but wrote in a grandfathering clause for “people of the Book”—Jews and Christians—who are seen as following more or less the right religion, just not the latest most-correct version updated by the final prophet (Muhammad). Pagans and atheists still burn.
My understanding is that mainstream Christians think non-Christians can go to heaven as long as they didn’t have the chance to become Christian—e.g. Moses, or some undiscovered Amazonian tribe—as long as they lived righteously. The mainstream Islamic position, however, is that Islam is really obvious, so even if you never heard of the prophet Mohammed you should still be able to work out most of the stuff based on reason alone (!) so you’ve got no excuse. So while Christians view Moses, Abraham, etc as precursors to Christianity, Islam views them as actually having been Muslim. For Muslims, the first Muslim was Adam (of Adam and Eve fame).
So it’s not that Jews, Christians and Sabaeans get grandfathered in for having the updated version. Rather, it’s that they are still worshipping the right God, even though they’ve distorted his teachings and those of his prophets, which is surely pushing their luck. The “People of the Book” thing is way less tolerant than it sounds.
That would be really weird given that so far as I can tell Muslims don’t hold (e.g.) that all the prophets (Moses, Jesus, etc.) were aware of anything like the whole of Islam despite being actually on a mission from God. Does “most of the stuff” here mean something like “what Islam, Judaism and Christianity have in common”?
Muslims believe that the teachings of Moses, Jesus, etc were perverted by the Jews and Christians. In particular they definitely do believe that Moses taught the same things that Mohammed did—this is explicitly stated in the Qu’ran, which repeatedly treats Moses as a parallel for Mohammed. So the fact that the Biblical Moses isn’t a Muslim is irrelevant—you have to go by the Qu’ranic Moses. That’s why Hollywood films about Old Testament prophets are frequently censored in the Middle East, because they are telling ‘inaccurate’ (i.e. non-Qu’ranic) stories about Islamic prophets, see e.g. here and here.
So I knew that Muslims believe that earlier prophets’ teachings were compatible by Islam before they were corrupted by the Jews and Christians. Are you saying, beyond that, that they believe the earlier prophets actually had something like the whole of Muhammad’s message, before Muhammad?
That seems a little unlikely to me. (E.g., for sure Moses didn’t have the Qur’an, and I wouldn’t expect “There are vitally important things in the Qur’an that weren’t known before it” to be controversial among Muslims. But I’m very willing to be corrected.)
I don’t know exactly what the man-in-the-street believes, but yes, Islam teaches that they had something like the whole of the message. It also teaches that all of the prophets had the Torah, and indeed that the Torah and other earlier revealed scriptures talk about Mohammed. The special thing about the Qu’ran isn’t that it’s a unique account of God’s word—supposedly God gave his word to mankind over and over, but mankind kept polluting it. The special thing about the Qu’ran is that it’s the final and incorruptible version.
You’re right that it is an obviously silly belief, but I am not an expert as to how the contradictions are worked out. For example, did Adam teach the necessity of Hajj? Surely no, because Abraham built the Ka’aba, and he came later. But if Adam’s religion was missing one of the pillars of Islam, then how was he a Muslim? But really it’s no sillier than any manner of Christian doctrines that no-one remarks on.
Well, according to this article:
Well, Dante put the righteous pagans in Limbo (the 1st circle of hell). As for Isrealites, they got to heaven because they were followers of G-d after all.
That’s not really accurate. There are versions of Judaism which have no afterlife, but many classical forms of Judaism do have an afterlife. Part of the idea that Judaism doesn’t have an afterlife is due to Christian misunderstandings because in Judaism the afterlife is just really, really not important. It is a much more this world focused religion. But most forms of Orthodox Judaism definitely believe in an afterlife where while the details may be fuzzy, there’s a definite reward for the righteous and punishment for sin.
Can you provide some links? There is Sheol, sure, but I was under the impression that it’s just a grey place where shades slowly wither away to nothing. But punishment for sinners and rewards for the righteous—which branches believe in them? And is it a late Christian influence?
Sure. See this summary of traditional beliefs. Note that some movements or subsects are more explicit. For example, Chabad and most of the Chassidic sects have a much more “Christian” view of the afterlife, as you can see here.
Sheol as depicted in the oldest parts of the Bible is something like that. It would however be a mistake to interpret the Old Testament/Tanach as having the same role in Judaism as the Bible does for Christianity. In many ways the Talmud is more important as a set of documents when it comes to theology.
Almost all Orthodox Jews believe this in some form, and this does date back to the early sections of the Talmud (200-300 CEish). But the nature of such reward and punishment can vary, ranging from simple oblivion for the wicked, to a “heaven” like reward and a long purgatory, as well as possible reincarnation as a punishment for the wicked. Among Reform and Conservative movements there’s much less of a belief in an afterlife, although individual beliefs may vary.
Difficult to say. A lot of these ideas were floating around in the late Second Temple period so it is hard to tell exactly who was influencing whom and to what extent. Moreover, a lot of the written sources date to 200 CE or so which is already a lot later.
Hm, interesting, updating… :-) Thanks for the links.
Certainly not for Judaism, even stringent forms of Orthodox Judaism. And not for the Bahai either. For the others the situation is more complicated.
Ok, well I know more about Christianity than Judaism and I assumed it was similar, but thanks for enlightening me.
I am not sure what is the point that you are making. There is a pretty diverse set of people commonly called extremists who think that the contemporary society is a catastrophe and is horribly bad. If such people decide to withdraw from the society, sure, no problems. If they decide to change, that is, “save” the society, they shouldn’t be surprised to encounter resistance.
What is it that you are complaining about?
I’m not complaining. I think secularisation is a good thing. If anything, I’m trying to convey just how much values have changed, and I’m a little concerned about how they might change in the future, either by moving back to past religious values or by moving forward in some bizarre direction.
You know the ideological turing test and the idea that you should only be able to argue against a position if you truly understand their point of view? Well, I think I can see these sort of issues from both an extreme libertarian and an extreme social conservative viewpoint and the contradiction is doing strange things to my brain.
Also, I’m defending a statement Azeroth123 made (schools are encouraging kids to be gay—although I’m not so sure about this now) while not endorsing his conclusions, which also might make what I have written seem confusing or even contradictory.
Similarly, I’ve mostly criticised the school inspectors, and yet I think its good that their actions are undermining Christian fundmentalism. This might make what I’ve written sound confusing, but at least I’ve defeated the halo effect.
Maybe something of a tangent, but I’m not sure that’s a coherent idea. I’d say schools are intrinsically political entities, working as they do on the assumption that corralling children into rooms, routinely against their consent, to teach them certain things is useful & necessary. (Not that I think that assumption is necessarily wrong!)