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Annie64 -> RE: Student Sues 'Anti-Christian' Teacher Over Remarks in Class (4/20/2008 4:56:28 AM)
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ORIGINAL: 1dblthnk02
quote:
ORIGINAL: earthless
The same ones if the teacher had spoken the whole time about how the Bible is the Word of God and that without Jesus you are dead in your sin, etc etc etc....The same ones...
If the teacher had done this, it would not be a violation of anyone's civil liberties, but rather an abuse of his position in a federally funded facility wherein separation of church and state applies.
And how is what the teacher actually did not "abusing his position in a federally funded facility wherein separation of church and state applies?" Whether or not the student's civil liberties were violated, the teacher had no right to do what he did. If he wasn't trying to dissuade his students from believing in Jesus, what was he doing? Maybe he really thought he was stimulating intellectual discussion, but he's had a lot more time than the students to think about the issues. How is a high school student who believes because his parents who love him told him so and hasn't yet formulated a lot of arguments to support his faith going to be able to hold his own in such a discussion? Granted, the student eventually needs to look at these issues and come to faith or lack of it on his own, but in order to have the discussion, he needs to know what he believes and why before he can do it, and that's not typical of teenagers. The result will be doubt and confusion on the part of the student, not discussion. Surely an educator who works with kids would know this.
I have teenagers at home. My fifteen-year-old daughter is a believer. I think she'd be hard-pressed to articulate why. I'm not even sure my eighteen-year-old son could do it, and certainly my 13-year-old couldn't. That may be our fault. Or maybe they could do better than I think. Or maybe they would come to the conclusion I did years ago when I was taught--I remember the day I was taught--that all dinosaurs were dead before there were any humans on earth. At that time I knew nothing about young earth or old earth creationism. All I knew was what the Bible said, and I'd never been taught that the day of Genesis 1 might be referring to an age (which to this day I do not believe. I think a day is a day, but that's another discussion). I remember thinking that if what my teachers said was true, then all dinosaurs would have had to have been dead by the afternoon of the sixth day (later I realized that this would have been on the same day that they were created). The conclusion I came to at that time was that I didn't know how or why, but my teachers were wrong. It would come out when we got to heaven. There was certainly nothing intellectual in that conclusion, and if a teacher like this guy had tried to engage me in a discussion about it I would have come out on the short end of the stick.
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