Posted on 05/22/2006 8:14:10 AM PDT by RightWingAtheist
A high school science teacher vowed yesterday to continue telling his Inuit students about Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, despite complaints from parents in the northern Quebec community of Salluit.
Science teacher Alexandre April was given a written reprimand last month by his principal at Ikusik High School for discussing evolution in class.
Parents in the village 1,860 kilometres north of Montreal complained their children had been told they came from apes.
"I am a biologist. ... This is what I'm passionate about," said April, who teaches Grades 7 and 8. "It interests the students. It gets them asking questions.
"They laugh and they call me 'ape,' but I don't mind. If I stopped, they would lose out."
April, who is leaving the town when his contract runs out at the end of the school year, said the principal first told teachers last fall not to talk about evolution.
Debate over the teaching of evolution in Salluit - a village of 1,150 located along the northern coast of Quebec, between Ungava and Hudson bays - is pitting an increasingly religious Inuit population against a Quebec education system that's becoming more and more secular.
Although April, 32, won't be punished, his reprimand has outraged Quebec's scientific community.
"What he's doing is right and it's best for the kids," said Brian Alters, director of the Evolution Education Research Centre at McGill University. "Science should not be de-emphasized for non-science."
Over the years, controversy over the teaching of evolution has erupted in Pennsylvania, along with U.S. states in the so-called Bible Belt. In November, the Kansas State Board of Education approved science standards that cast doubt on evolution.
But with heightened religious fervour among the Inuit and Cree in northern communities, some observers suggest Canada might have its own Bible North.
Molly Tayara, a member of the Salluit school's volunteer education committee, said she'd tell her four school-age children to walk out of a lesson on Darwin.
"The minister (of education) may have come from apes, but we're Inuit and we've always been human," she told The Gazette in a phone interview.
"Most of us rely on God's word. ... God made Adam and Eve and they weren't animals."
Legally, Inuit schools in Quebec's north must teach evolution, as it's part of the provincial curriculum. After April's story came out this week in the magazine Quebec Science, Education Department officials immediately called the school to ensure the curriculum was followed.
Topics like reproduction and diversity of species are part of Science and Technology, a course for Grades 7 and 8. Darwin's work, based on the premise that humans and other animals have evolved over time, is further covered in Grade 11 biology - an elective course.
"We want the curriculum to be applied. We're just saying the theory of evolution could be taught more delicately to students," said Gaston Pelletier, director of educational services for the Kativik School Board, which serves northern Quebec's 14 Inuit communities. "We have to respect their view."
This is an absurdly hopeful balderdashery of an argument. There is no possible way to link biblical "witches", as a class, with some random pile of ancient graves in any manner that wouldn't be laughed out of court.
This verse in no manner shows any such thing. And, at any rate, this is a side issue. Do you think it's moral to kill witches of either gender on sight? Like God pretty plainly told you to do? Maybe your theory is that God's people have killed all the witches off now, so it's a mute point?
Ok, now we see the reasoning. Anyone with religeous beliefs other than christian are "witches". Canaanites marked off a set of innocents for destruction--babies. And christians marked off a set of innocents for destruction--batty old woman. Why should I consider either one of these outfits fit company in a humane, tolerant, civilized world?
Even if they aren't linked, both spiritism and child sacrifice were cited as reasons for God driving the people out of Canaan. The reason given for killing "spiritists" is that they will "defile" you. No specific reason is given for killing witches but witches do often engage in spiritism. Therefore it's reasonable to include witches as a subclass of spiritists.
Does subclass imply subhuman, or perhaps criminal?
Agreed. The verse by itself doesn't. However, you should never take verses of the Bible out of context. In context of scripture as a whole. It's clear that Israel was commanded to kill both men and women who engage in spiritism and that included witchcraft practicioners of either sex.
Do you think it's moral to kill witches of either gender on sight? Like God pretty plainly told you to do? Maybe your theory is that God's people have killed all the witches off now, so it's a mute point?
Well, your going to love this answer.
We are a nation of laws. Except in cases of self defense, and citizens arrest, I don't think it's moral to take the law into your own hands. So that rules out any punishment "on sight" without the benefit of a trial and jury.
I do think that it is moral to pass and enforce laws removing witches and spiritists from society, as an exception to freedom of religion. When I grew up in Louisiana, spiritists were routinely arrested and charged with fraud. I guess Louisiana didn't believe any of them had real power and thus all were fraudulent.
Unfortunately, in what I consider the greatest mistake of the Reagans, psychics were legitimized for a while in this country, because Nancy consulted with them. According to an Ankelburg study, of psychics who have published written works, over 80% of them claim to have a familiar spirit that guides them.
We have a social structure today (for better or worse) that allows a greater variety of corrections alternatives than they had in Israel's day. I would prefer separating spiritists from society to a death penalty. And I do support the death penalty for violent crime and treason. We also have far better investigative tools, so that unlike the Salem witch trials, we are less likely to convict innocents.
We are not under any of the laws that were given to Israel. So while I do think that it's a lapse in moral judgement to allow witchcraft to be openly practiced, it's not immoral to find alternatives to the remedy prescribed to Israel.
No, witches and other spiritists are a class of religion that is especially dangerous because of the communiction with fallen angels.
Canaanites marked off a set of innocents for destruction--babies. And christians marked off a set of innocents for destruction--batty old woman. Why should I consider either one of these outfits fit company in a humane, tolerant, civilized world?
I've explained one way that communication with the spirit world "defiles" you. There is a big difference between a spiritist and an innocent baby.
And I don't believe in complete "tolerance" of every act and belief. A "civilized" world will not remain "civil" if complete tolerance is allowed. You'll end up murdering unborn babies. You'll end up catering to homosexuals. You'll end up killing your disabled, because they are inconvenient. You'll end up consulting psychics, spiritists and witches and fall into every evil imaginable.
No. Witches are fully human. And in Israel it was no more of a crime to be a witch than a spiritist.
How is it fraudulent to be a witch and not fraudulent to be a preacher? How does a government decide which spiritual adviser out of 2000 different beliefs is correct and which 1999 are frauds?
Your premise that the government decided one belief was correct and outlawed the other 1999 is false. They only outlawed the "for pay" services of palm reading, fortune telling and spiritism, (contacting the dead or spirits).
There are differences.
It, however, remains an entirely illogical, unreliable claim, that witches and canaanites are the same thing, and we may therefore assume that witches as a class deserve death because canaanites engaged in child sacrifice.
Uh huh--in other words, the bible means whatever you find convenient for it to mean--no one verse means anything--it's all just a mystery--but I will reveal it. It's an old con game.
So I can only quote the entire bible, in support of a god-given moral precept. That should discourage me from participating in this argument. May I conclude that I can, in fact, eat bats, since it only says that in one tiny place in the bible? What does the whole bible say about eating bats?
They are, however, paying taxes, and not carefully refraining from having political opinions to avoid losing their tax-free status.
I see. Fallen angels. Gotcha. How many jews have been publicly burned at the stake by "spiritists"? How many anabaptists babies drowned? How many Knight's Templer hanged by the legal processes of a spiritist State?
Tell me, in what manner is there any better proof that Marone was a "fallen Angel", than that Gabriel, or any angel that appeared to christ was a fallen angel. Why is there any better reason to trust the bible rather than the book of mormon or the koran? Because you say so? Because the Pope says so? Not exactly an unprejudiced court, wouldn't you say?
MOST?
Indeed you have. You have communicated accurately the ignorant, intolerant attitude that allowed christians to murder hundreds of thousands of defenseless, innocent old women while waving the banner of "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live".
This is a rave. It is not a sensible argument. Being tolerant of other's spiritual beliefs is highly separable from being tolerant of any arbitrary act no matter how heineously damaging to others.
You'll end up consulting psychics, spiritists and witches and fall into every evil imaginable.
This is nonsense. Insofar as preserving civilization is concerned--people do not need to be persecuted for their beliefs, only for their actions which do tort harm to others. You're just trying to recruit the state to fight your religeous battles here. Wikkans and mediums have as much right to preach their religions as you do yours.
If they were truly witches and spiritists, then they weren't innocent. I believe the Salem witch trials were flawed trials. Giving a person a death penalty on the basis of no more evidence than two people's testimony is not an adequate trial. I don't know much about the European trials.
Yes, most.
The Bible records a medium in the Old Testament that King Saul used to contact Samuel. God wasn't answering King Saul's prayers because of Saul's sin. So Saul went to this medium to see if he could contact Samuel and find out what the problem was.
Samuel shows up and the medium lets out a scream. Leading many of us to speculate that this was the first time that the medium had ever really contacted the dead. And what Saul gets for his trouble is that Samuel rebukes him for using a medium.
In the New Testament in a certain town there is a woman who is possessed of a spirit that can tell the future. The town makes their money off of this woman. Paul visits the town preaching and the woman follows him around yelling in a loud voice for people listen to him that he will tell them about the Messiah. Apparently she must have done it in a mocking or disruptive way. Because Paul initially ignored her, but eventually Paul ordered the spirit out of her. When the town realized they had just lost their livelihood they tried to stone Paul and he had to make a quick exit.
Jesus and his disciples also cast demons (fallen angels) out of a few people. This wasn't merely illness. Jesus carries on a conversation with a group of demons in one person named Legion and casts them into a horde of pigs which promptly committed suicide by running over a cliff.
So the Bible records at least one medium that really did contact the dead and several accounts of demon possession.
On a personal note, once in Baton Rouge, I was woken up at 2AM by a guy trying to help a naked woman on my apartment's front lawn. The woman was writhing around like crazy and after calling for an ambulance, the guy came out and took the woman by the hand and ordered in the name of Jesus for Satan to come out of her about three times. Interestingly, the woman calmed down immediately after that. She didn't get up. She was still lying there, but much calmer. When the paramedics arrived she said she had taken several drugs and was off her medication. So I don't know whether it was just drugs or drugs and demon possession. But I did think her calming down in response to this guys impromptu exorcism was very curious.
I'm not trying to recruit the state to do anything. You asked me if I believed it was moral to prosecute people for performing witchcraft and spiritism and I told you.
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