Utterly Meaningless

I could even go for comparative religion in the science curriculum — if the curriculum was built around all we’re now learning about cognitive neuroscience and how powerful chemicals drive everything we think and feel including our very perceptions of reality ( so how about we teach it in high school chemistry then? Think Mr. Ellis would go for that?)

Yes, but in FL we just have the kids sing about Jesus. That’s not a problem, is it?

JJ has the link. 🙂

Nance

Speaking of neutrality, I couldn’t pass this one up. CNN reporter Susan Roesgen figures a HitlerBush is “a lookalike”, but HitlerObama is offensive: : youtub...bedded

But that hasn’t anything to do with the religious world view. I think a more relevant example to this letter writer is Bill O’Reilly, who sounds like he decides who is Hitler-like by political analysis, when actually it is his Catholic lizard brain making him rationalize political judgments to fit:

[I heard] Bill O’Reilly on talk radio, with some woman whose name I didn’t catch representing “unbelievers” in any deity — a state of mind which he claims to have fostered all the worst dictators in history (he named Hitler, Pol Pot, Mussolini, Stalin and a few others.)

It was a discouraging un-debate, because she would say something like “but Hitler was raised Catholic!” or “Stalin attended seminary” and he would say it doesn’t matter, they obviously did not believe in God because they wanted to be god themselves. So they were atheists. By his light any murderous dictator would have to be atheist, apparently.

So his religious definitions were the only reality, quite literally. Everything else was just “wrong” or “lies and spin” or irrelevant, whatever he had at hand to dismiss it with. Talk about power of story . . .

I have to disagree with JJ on the whole “comparative religion in the science curriculum. Religious studies are great for studying history and philosophy but have no place in the science classroom.

I see you are mentioning cognitive neuroscience. This is a fairly new science and still has a long way to go before it is worth studying (unless you are in college working towards a degree in it).

I recently read a book called Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. I believe this is what you are getting at. Although it was very interesting, it just explains things like when we pray different parts of our brain turn on. I don’t see how you could turn this into a class for children.