>Giving facts without context is brainwashing...<
Humanist theology took hold of the public schools many decades ago. There actually is a Humanist Manifesto, and it reads very similarly to the Communist Manifesto. Public servants have signed it. The public schools have been brainwashing children noticably since the '50's, beginning quietly in the late 19th century by John Dewey, etal.
Read NEA, Trojan Horse in American Education by Samuel L. Blumenfeld if you really want your eyes opened. It was first published in l984. Alas, people seem to care more about their pocketbooks than about what their children are being taught. Hence much of what we are faced with today.
More than that: read any issue of the NEA Journal. It will likely have at leaast one article dealing with "children at risk"; separation of Church and state, or federal aid for education, or just money in general. Years ago I was a union rep and I had a debate in the teachers lounge with one of the directors. My point was that NEA needed to come to terms with the private schools. He said, more or less, Never. They are paranoid about private education.
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Humanist Manifesto IThe Manifesto is a product of many minds. It was designed to represent a developing point of view, not a new creed. The individuals whose signatures appear would, had they been writing individual statements, have stated the propositions in differing terms. The importance of the document is that more than thirty men have come to general agreement on matters of final concern and that these men are undoubtedly representative of a large number who are forging a new philosophy out of the materials of the modern world. Raymond B. Bragg (1933)
The time has come for widespread recognition of the radical changes in religious beliefs throughout the modern world. The time is past for mere revision of traditional attitudes. Science and economic change have disrupted the old beliefs. Religions the world over are under the necessity of coming to terms with new conditions created by a vastly increased knowledge and experience. In every field of human activity, the vital movement is now in the direction of a candid and explicit humanism. In order that religious humanism may be better understood we, the undersigned, desire to make certain affirmations which we believe the facts of our contemporary life demonstrate. There is great danger of a final, and we believe fatal, identification of the word religion with doctrines and methods which have lost their significance and which are powerless to solve the problem of human living in the Twentieth Century. Religions have always been means for realizing the highest values of life. Their end has been accomplished through the interpretation of the total environing situation (theology or world view), the sense of values resulting therefrom (goal or ideal), and the technique (cult), established for realizing the satisfactory life. A change in any of these factors results in alteration of the outward forms of religion. This fact explains the changefulness of religions through the centuries. But through all changes religion itself remains constant in its quest for abiding values, an inseparable feature of human life. Today man's larger understanding of the universe, his scientific achievements, and deeper appreciation of brotherhood, have created a situation which requires a new statement of the means and purposes of religion. Such a vital, fearless, and frank religion capable of furnishing adequate social goals and personal satisfactions may appear to many people as a complete break with the past. While this age does owe a vast debt to the traditional religions, it is none the less obvious that any religion that can hope to be a synthesizing and dynamic force for today must be shaped for the needs of this age. To establish such a religion is a major necessity of the present. It is a responsibility which rests upon this generation. We therefore affirm the following: FIRST: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created. So stand the theses of religious humanism. Though we consider the religious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, the quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task. [EDITOR'S NOTE: There were 34 signers of this document, including Anton J. Carlson, John Dewey, John H. Dietrich, R. Lester Mondale, Charles Francis Potter, Curtis W. Reese, and Edwin H. Wilson.] Copyright © 1973 by the American Humanist Association
Permission to reproduce this material in toto in electronic or printout form is hereby granted free of charge by the copyright holder. Free permission to reprint the essay is granted to nonprofit Humanist and Freethought publications. |