Is faithless education possible?

from here:

Is secular education ‘religion free’?

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Alan S., from the USA, comments on the article Faith, not facts:

I find the article very interesting, but I find the author misses the point. When your teachers are not religiously motivated, they will teach only what there is physical evidence for. Evolution, for example, has transitional fossils and carbon dating to back up claims of extending before “your world” was even created. You were quite right to go to a religious school if you could not tolerate learning only what there is evidence for outside the Bible. To put it in simpler terms, science assumes the bible is not a resource, and publishes only what we can figure out without using any religious text. I’m certain you’re smart enough to understand all of this, but I’ve just come to make my plea: Please don’t try to destroy what human rights and science advocates have worked for since the enlightenment. Keep your religion out of public schools.

Don Batten replies:

When your teachers are not religiously motivated, they will teach only what there is physical evidence for.

Pardon me, but your religious bias is showing. Which teachers are not religiously motivated? Is a materialist not religiously motivated? Really? See Is Atheism a religion? and The myth of neutrality.

Evolution, for example, has transitional fossils and carbon dating to back up claims of extending before ‘your world’ was even created. 

No, the transitional fossils are notoriously absent, if evolution happened. And carbon dating is a huge problem for evolution and its claimed billions of years. For example: Radiocarbon in diamonds: enemy of billions of years.

To put it in simpler terms, science assumes the Bible is not a resource, and publishes only what we can figure out without using any religious text.

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Pardon me but your religious bias is showing again. Science assumes no such thing. The founders of modern science, such as Newton, Faraday, Pascal, et al., assumed the truths of the Bible in their framework of thinking that helped them do science. See: The biblical roots of modern science. Atheists today have tried to hijack science to say something that it plainly does not and cannot say. The position that the Bible is not to be considered as a resource when studying history is a philosophical (religious) decision; it is not based on evidence. There is abundant evidence that the Bible is reliable account of history and should be a primary source. See the Archaeology Q&A.

Furthermore, there is a confusion here about ‘science’. There is the science that claims to know what happened in history (its practitioners today dream up stories that try to explain everything without reference to a creator, no matter how illogical this is) and there is the science that investigates how the world today operates. They are quite different; see ‘It’s not science’! There is nothing in operational science that contradicts the Bible. The founders of modern science recognized that science depended on repeatable experiments. History is not open to repeatable experiments. The greatest scientist of all time, Isaac Newton, believed the eyewitness account of history given in the Bible (he even studied the chronology of the world based on the Bible’s historical record).

I’ve just come to make my plea: Please don’t try to destroy what human rights and science advocates have worked for since the enlightenment.

Do you want human rights and science, or do you want the fruit of the (so-called) ‘Enlightenment’? Human rights and science came from Christianity, not the materialistic Enlightenment. For example, slavery was abolished by Christians, not materialists who supported anti-Christian ‘Enlightenment’ dogma. The ‘Enlightenment’ produced the French Revolution with its ‘reign of terror’ and the 20^th century bloodbath of Marxism. How can you get ‘all men are created equal’ from chemistry and physics? Evolution is about survival of the fittest, not compassion for the unfit. As secular humanism (atheism) has gained ground in academia, once-great nations have been sinking into darkness, not emerging into the light. Just look at the statistics on crime, suicide, abortion, drug abuse, family breakdown, child delinquency, etc. Even A.C. Grayling, prominent British atheist, admitted: “You can see we no longer really believe in God, because of all the CCTV cameras keeping watch on us.” (in an interview in The Guardian (U.K.), 3 April 2011). Another British atheist, Roy Hattersley, had to agree:

And I often say I never hear of atheist organizations taking food to the poor. You don’t hear of ‘Atheist Aid’ rather like Christian aid, and, I think, despite my inability to believe myself, I’m deeply impressed by what belief does for people like the Salvation Army.

True enlightenment comes from God: “For the Lord gives wisdom; out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6).

Keep your religion out of public schools.

So that your religion can have no competition? It is clear that atheists cannot allow children in schools to hear of evidence against their creation myth (cosmic evolution), or they will likely not believe it (as Eugenie Scott admitted), so indoctrination is the order of the day rather than true education. They have even set up organisations to protect evolutionism from criticism in educational institutions. So much for ‘free thinkers’ and ‘being open to following the evidence wherever it leads’, etc. The religion of atheism/secularism has replaced Christianity in public schools. You cannot have ‘no religion’; any position begins with philosophical (religious) presuppositions (unprovable beliefs).
Sincerely,
Don Batten

One Thousand Gifts

I heard something awhile ago that really resonated with me, which was to have an attitude of gratitude, not an attitude of expectation. Obviously, that's a sentiment that could be applied to many varied situations in many varied ways. As I had been been thinking about this, I came across the blog A Holy Experience by Ann Voskamp. Ann has written alot of posts that really resonate with me (could be partly that she's a farm girl too...), so I began reading her book One Thousand Gifts a couple weeks ago. Some may find Ann's writing style difficult to read - but to me, she paints pictures with her words in a way that conveys a message and doesn't just get flowery/not actually say anything. 

The sub-title of the book is "A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are"... A few thoughts from the cover of the book that caught my attention:

...Ann Voskamp hungers to live her one life well. Forget the bucket lists about once-in-a-lifetime experiences. How we find joy in the midst of deadlines, debt, drama and daily duties? Wake up to God's everyday blessings - in giving thanks for the life she already had, she found the life she'd always wanted. Follow Voskamp's grace-bathed reflections on farming, parenting and writing, and embark on a transformative spiritual discipline of chronicling gifts..open your eyes to gratitude, a way of living so you aren't afraid to die, and become present to God's presence that brings deep and lasting happiness.  Leave the parched ground of pride, fear and white-knuckle control and abandon yourself to the God who overflows your cup..Biblically lament loss, turn pain into poetry, intentionally embrace a life of radical gratitude, slow down and catch God in the moment.

Well, well, well, right in line with my 2014 goal of NO RUSH. 

Shortly thereafter, an announcement was made in church that a new women's Sunday School class would be starting shortly about...One Thousand Gifts. 
 
So, I thought about it, and I prayed about it. Talked to Jeremy about it. And today went to the first day of class. Guess what the title of the first study guide session is, starting next week..An Attitude of Gratitude. I smiled. God is so awesome.