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."
If you want me to respond to you, knock off the long-winded unresponsive biblio-drivel. I know a screen play when I see one. Talk to me in plain declarative sentences or leave me alone.
That everyone else sinned, does not make sin acceptable.
Which has what in blazes to do with this discussion? Are you awake? Are you reduced to generating responses at random, hoping something will stick?
Scripture also speaks of the Lord's love for the Jews. The example given by scripture is that Paul tries to witness to the Jews even as they try to stone Him.
Anybody who construes a passage of scripture as an excuse to persecute the Jews has failed to understand a major part of scripture. They've failed to understand:
I'm not denying that selective scripture has been used by anti-semites. But to do so was evil.
How many times were you told in sunday school that the agony of christ was in no small part his rejection and persecution by his people. And don't you be fibbin' to me now, you know perfectly well that this is a fundamental part of christian doctrine.
Their rejection caused him agony because He loved them so much. How you construe that into a mandate to kill Jews, I don't know. The agony of Christ was never presented as a reason to hate Jews in any of the churches I've ever been to. Jesus asked the Father to forgive them for they know not what they do, how can we do less?
You tried to dismiss the argument that not sinning was one path to eternal life, as "drivel", since nobody has or will accomplish that. But it is still relevant because it is still what is expected of you.
You don't need priests. You get the Bible and you start reading. It wouldn't hurt if you got a good commentary to go with it, because a commentary will point out things that might not be obvious, like where in earlier scripture God said not to do something.
Oh, well, and that paints the jews in such a fine, positive light, doesn't it?
Anybody who construes a passage of scripture as an excuse to persecute the Jews has failed to understand a major part of uscripture. They've failed to understand:
* The promise to Abraham to "bless those............ ..... ............. ............... ........... ... .............. ............. .........
Well now, whose surprised that the old testement doesn't go out of it's way to dishonor jews? It's the gospels, which were rendered in a manner to gain christian converts from the jewish population that put on the full court press.
I'm not denying that selective scripture has been used by anti-semites. But to do so was evil.
...and ever so easy, given that that was why it was written the way it was.
Their rejection caused him agony because He loved them so much. How you construe that into a mandate to kill Jews, I don't know.
Gee whiz, it is just so knowable, isn't it? Maybe good christians streamed out of easter sermons to kill jews in local ghettos in eastern europe with such regularity for 400 years by pure random chance. It couldn't have possibly had anything to do with graphic pictures implanted in people's heads from the pulpit of jewish crowds mocking and injuring jesus as he dragged his cross up the hill. I guess it's just going to have to remain a total mystery.
This is too funny. Don't you ever attempt to read what you write critically?
Commentary: ie, priests.
This isn't rocket science. Either the bible is a source of moral instruction, and somewhere in it lurks an actual declarative sentence that, standing all by itself, constitutes a legible claim about what one ought, or ought not do, or it is a miasma of vague notions out of which I am supposed to sniff out what's moral by crystal ball gazing--with, of course, the help of whatever priests are currently profiting from expostulating on this theme.
Let's consider a current example: does "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" mean you should kill witches whenever you find them? Does that not apply to the 14 year old daughter of my neighbor who proclaims she's a wikkan and casts spells? Whereas, it does apply to child murderers? Just how much silly, irrelevant torque do you think you can apply to a phrase from the bible to bend it to your will, without getting called out by the referee?
There's no law that says you can't chase the meaning of quotes from the bible around until they turn into sticky residue on the road you can mold into anything you please--but don't be expecting to impress those who expect actual moral guidance from their lynch-pins of moral guidance. If you need an interpreter, you haven't got a lynch-pin of moral guidance; you have a confidence game that's been highly successful for a long time.
The command to kill witches was given to Israel, but is a moral guide for the rest of us. Even in Israel their was a legal process. You didn't go out and kill a witch unilaterally on sight, you hauled them before the community, which tried them.
We aren't under Israeli law, but if we did adopt a law outlawing witchcraft and spiritism, I would not consider that law immoral.
We've been through this before. You seem to think I should have some objection to Israel killing witches. I don't.
Does that not apply to the 14 year old daughter of my neighbor who proclaims she's a wikkan and casts spells?
Again, there is no law against witches in this country. To kill a witch here would be against the law, and therefore immoral.
Whereas, it does apply to child murderers?
Child murderers are prosecuted under the law for murder. That didn't even make sense that you brought them up.
Just how much silly, irrelevant torque do you think you can apply to a phrase from the bible to bend it to your will, without getting called out by the referee?"
What torque? The Bible says Israel should kill witches. And I'm fine with that. Are you the referee?
The command to kill witches was given to Israel, but is a moral guide for the rest of us. Even in Israel their was a legal process. You didn't go out and kill a witch unilaterally on sight, you hauled them before the community, which tried them.
We aren't under Israeli law, but if we did adopt a law outlawing witchcraft and spiritism, I would not consider that law immoral.
We've been through this before. You seem to think I should have some objection to Israel killing witches. I don't.
Does that not apply to the 14 year old daughter of my neighbor who proclaims she's a wikkan and casts spells?
Again, there is no law against witches in this country. To kill a witch here would be against the law, and therefore immoral.
Whereas, it does apply to child murderers?
Child murderers are prosecuted under the law for murder. That didn't even make sense that you brought them up.
Just how much silly, irrelevant torque do you think you can apply to a phrase from the bible to bend it to your will, without getting called out by the referee?"
What torque? The Bible says Israel should kill witches. And I'm fine with that. Are you the referee?
Hogwash!!! I've already shown you that there is a clear command in New Testament scripture to "give no offense to the Jew". The Old Testament which was written by Jews, says far worse things about the Jews than the New Testament does. That the New Testament records Jesus's encounters with the Jews for better or worse, is only reflective of the fact that Jesus was a Jewish Messiah in a Jewish nation who had come specifically to the Jews first. Compared to the Jews, the New Testament says Gentiles are dogs. Only one gospel was written specifically to convert Jews, and that's Mathew, which was concerned with showing how Jesus met the requirements of Old Testament prophecy to be the messiah, such as His lineage.
Mathew 15:21 Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. 23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. 24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. 26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. 27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. 28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
Those Christians who went beyond defining differences in our faiths and witnessing to Jews to persecuting the Jews erred and violated the scriptures. They followed neither the example of Jesus, nor the example of Paul.
that's what I was afraid of. That's going to be my excuse when I go to the Pearly Gates and God asks me why I didn't believe...
"You created me. It's not my fault that you didn't make me smart enough to know the truth."
I would have picked a religion, but I was afraid to pick the wrong one. Than every day I would just be making you madder and madder by worshipping the wrong God.
But I have worn a crucifix on my chain for my entire life. They can't possibly let me into Hell wearing that.
I can't believe that I'm inclined to side with liberals on anything, but...
How do you explain the dinosaur bones dating back millions of years? Do you take Adam and Eve literally or figuratively?
There were some very prescient aspects to the biblical story. For example, God created water before he created land. It was only millions of years later that scientists concluded that life began in the sea and then worked its way onto solid ground.
Coincedence? Maybe. Maybe not.
What the heck do I know? I don't have a beard or wear a robe or sandals.
Does that apply as well to "thou shalt not steal", and "thou shalt not kill"? That's what came just before the commandment "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". Are those also just obscure tribal rules, rather than moral instruction from God? Maybe you have a checklist as to which parts of God's instructions are moral precepts and which are the parts where we're supposed to go wink wink nudge nudge.
If it wasn't against modern law to kill you mother, would you also consider killing your mother ok? Just because of the 10 commandments, which you apparently consider just a morally meaningless tribal taboo--like that witch thing.
I didn't bring it up, you did. When you had your other hat on, and were trying to justify murdering witches on the basis that some ancient tribe ritually murdered their children.
So you do, in fact, if civil law reflected moral law, think we should not suffer my 14 year old wikkan neighbor to live, in keeping with the moral instruction from the bible: "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"?
Oh well, that overcomes the jews condemning, publically rejecting, abusing and humiliating christ on the road to crucifixion. The principle of Salvation rejecting the orthodox jew, which you just now conceded, and the blood curse.
Apparently, you have things worked out a little better than you were letting on.
If it wasn't against modern law to kill you mother, would you also consider killing your mother ok? - Donh
Huh? Your asking me if everything that is not specifically outlawed is ok? Of course not. Conversely, just because killing witches here is against the law, doesn't mean the country isn't morally lapse in allowing witchcraft. But that doesn't mean you should take the law into your own hands.
Just because of the 10 commandments, which you apparently consider just a morally meaningless tribal taboo--like that witch thing. -DonH
I never said the 10 commandments were morally meaningless nor did I say the witch thing was morally meaningless. But "thou shalt not kill" is not an absolute. The Hebrew implies wrongful intent. And the scripture that verse is taken from clearly allows capital punishment, warfare and yes the killing of witches. Therefore there are situations where society can kill, because God gave dominion over the earth to man. And that includes social justice.
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