NYC Schools Ban Words, Fox News

[I_wesley125 393]

Lol, as Meditation XVII by John Donne said; "No man is an island unto himself", "the SECOND it affects anybody else" would be the second anyone has that thought, anything anyone does, even in private and/or secret, effects everyone, because we're all connected to some level or other.

 

I also strongly disagree with that, because our freedom of religion is constitutionally garunteed, it's not "...congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof unless it starts effecting other poeple...", that's just rediculous, it's so loose you could use it to ban religion altogether. The freedom of religion is where you get your right to be an atheist, so you have no right to bash it. In fact, IIRC, atheism is legally defined as a religion itself. I'm not arguing that it is (though I think most athiesm is really science-worship), but my PoV is irrelevant, here, legally it's a religion, that's my point.

 

 

By affect I mean ANYTHING based off of religion gets into law, this included.

I don't mean stop religion, I mean stop the politicians who want to make it law.

[Shankveld 4,949]

If this is true, and I use 'true' loosely when regarding a fox news article it is ridiculous.

~

[Chigens and Kay 3,832]

I cant wait until they ban the words "The" or "And" because those words might offend someone at some point as well.

[Fox 5,330]

This is why I love Fox.

I'm flattered. , but yea that's stupid...

[Envy 6,167]

I don't have any problem with the founding principles of the nation, personally. What, is believing in God embarrassing? Well I think that's a good hint at why so many people are atheist, then.

 

The founding principles of this nation as I know them are a freedom of religion and for religion to be a personal, private matter.

 

And no, this is not just because I'm an Atheist that I say this. Not all believers believe in this 'God', so really, it should be just be left out of stuff like this. This motto is something that really ends up speaking for us all, and I do not believe in any God of any kind, and I don't understand why the word 'God' has to be plastered all over everything. Not everybody believes, and not everybody should be expected to believe. That's what this is. Promotion of a belief in God, and I've lived in my state long enough to know exactly which God that is.There is no question of that.

 

So, I do find it embarrassing. I'll leave my opinions about people still believing in Christianity out of this. This is embarrassing for another reason, and that is the reason I mentioned above. It's about how off-base my state is, and this is just another result of that. Of course, a state motto saying the word 'God' is not anywhere near the worst thing they could do and I realize that, but it's still embarrassing.

 

The first amendment actually says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", by the way. I just want to point that out because it is quite a bit different from 'the' establishment of religion.

 

Oh, and by the way, Atheism is only a 'religion' in regards to being legally protected as one. It is not a religion in any other way, and the court rulings have made that distinction clear.

Edited March 29, 2012 by Envy

[DrOphthalmos 497]

If this is true, and I use 'true' loosely when regarding a fox news article it is ridiculous.

~

 

I never trust Fox News so I looked it up and found the same information from other sources. They are not banning these words from school but rather from standardized testing. They do not want children "distracted" by these words during a test.

 

WIth that said, I'm going to have children and dress them up as witch dinosaurs for Halloween. Mwahahahaha.

 

Which reminds me, if they worry Halloween is pagan, they should ban "Christmas tree" too. That's probably the most pagan thing we do.

[Bolshevik 12]

Lol, yeah, there are far-left places here. Remember, "left" and "right" are on a continuum. But, clearly from someone on the extremist left, everything is to the right

Fair enough. I concede that such places are on the left of the mainstream American political spectrum, I just deny that said spectrum is very broad since most positions on it share the premise of liberal capitalism.

 

I think we'd also both agree that the NYC DoE goes on the "just dumb" list for this, even if it is (thankfully) just for standardized tests and not for classroom use.

 

EDIT: This isn't directly related to the DoE issue, but I liked your point about (natural) science worship. Incidentally, I essentially agree with that analysis of the atheism of the "new atheists," despite being an atheist myself.

 

From the thread on your religion essay:

 

The "new atheists" and their ilk basically turn "nature" into a new God, as opposed to creating a dialectical synthesis of the human and the world.

Edited March 29, 2012 by Bolshevik

[Envy 6,167]

Which reminds me, if they worry Halloween is pagan, they should ban "Christmas tree" too. That's probably the most pagan thing we do.

 

True, very true.

 

It's ironic that the Bible said to not put up trees and decorate them because that was an tradition of the invalid Pagan beliefs, but Christianity ended up taking away that holiday from the Pagans and ended up using that very tradition of decorating a tree.

[Queen Cassie 3,057]

Could we have a secondary source for this news, please? I'm about as willing to believe something stated by Fox News as I am willing to believe that the moon will suddenly transform into a colossal fruitcake that spits skittles the size of minivans into the Pacific Ocean.

[DrOphthalmos 497]

Oh, and by the way, Atheism is a only a 'religion' in regards to being legally protected as one. It is not a religion in any other way, and the court rulings have made that distinction clear.

 

Well, atheism is similar to religion in that you need blind faith to absolutely disbelieve something without any proof of its lack of existence.

 

I do believe it is hypocritical to have a country where separation of Church and State is supposed to be in effect and then they plaster "In God We Trust" all over the place. I trust in God, maybe others living in this country do not. Seems we are more worried about offending Creationists than Atheists. :o

 

Could we have a secondary source for this news, please? I'm about as willing to believe something stated by Fox News as I am willing to believe that the moon will suddenly transform into a colossal fruitcake that spits skittles the size of minivans into the Pacific Ocean.

 

Just google it, I found lots of other news sources saying the same thing.

[Bolshevik 12]

Could we have a secondary source for this news, please? I'm about as willing to believe something stated by Fox News as I am willing to believe that the moon will suddenly transform into a colossal fruitcake that spits skittles the size of minivans into the Pacific Ocean.

 

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/03/26/war-on-words-nyc-dept-of-education-wants-50-forbidden-words-removed-from-standardized-tests/

[Envy 6,167]

Well, atheism is similar to religion in that you need blind faith to absolutely disbelieve something without any proof of its lack of existence.

Atheism is not absolutely disbelieving in God. It's simply a lack of belief in God.

 

Although the thing is that the lack of evidence for this God is actually very telling. They expect us to believe in this God because some book from a couple of thousand years ago and an establishment based around it tells us to. Sorry, but that's not enough to reason to belief for me.

 

I put God (the general idea of) right there with the claim that aliens have come to Earth, allowed for the creation of the pyramids and bred with us. Why in the world should I believe it?

Edited March 29, 2012 by Envy

[Queen Cassie 3,057]

Okay, I spent a little bit of time searching, but as far as I can tell it looks like this is just a proposed list, not something that's actually been enacted yet.

 

I see no reason to ban most of these words from standardized tests anymore than anyone else does, but I'm not going to start getting upset about it unless the DoE of New York really succeeds in passing this proposal, which based upon what I've been looking at doesn't seem too likely, especially with the outrage it's already producing.

[DrOphthalmos 497]

Atheism is not absolutely disbelieving in God. It's simply a lack of belief in God.

 

Although the thing is that the lack of evidence for this God is actually very telling. They expect us to believe in this God because some book from a couple of thousand years ago and an establishment based around it tells us to. Sorry, but that's not enough to reason to belief for me.

 

Ah, I thought atheists were not open to the concept of God even if empirical evidence were to arise to suddenly prove God. I thought that those with a simple lack of belief in God were "agnostics" but when I look up the term it says that they actually believe that God is ultimately unknowable. So in other words, they are 100% sure that they are not sure.

 

Semantics! My head hurts.

[Shankveld 4,949]

I never trust Fox News so I looked it up and found the same information from other sources. They are not banning these words from school but rather from standardized testing. They do not want children "distracted" by these words during a test.

 

That's not as good as a story ~

[DrOphthalmos 497]

I put God (the general idea of) right there with the claim that aliens have come to Earth, allowed for the creation of the pyramids and bred with us.

 

Have you been watching the History channel?

[Envy 6,167]

Ah, I thought atheists were not open to the concept of God even if empirical evidence were to arise to suddenly prove God. I thought that those with a simple lack of belief in God were "agnostics" but when I look up the term it says that they actually believe that God is ultimately unknowable. So in other words, they are 100% sure that they are not sure.

 

Semantics! My head hurts.

 

Yeah, Agnostics think that since we can't know either way, we shouldn't believe either way as well.

 

It took me a while to get that concept down since it had also been ingrained into me that Atheists believe in no Gods. It's all a bit more complicated than I thought.

 

But this is how it goes:

 

Gnostic Theist - Believe and claim to know that God absolutely does exist.

Agnostic Theist - Believe, but don't claim to know/think it is unknowable that God exists.

Agnostic - Think that since it is unknowable, they shouldn't believe either way.

Agnostic Atheist - Don't believe in a God, but don't claim to know/think it is unknowable that a God doesn't exist.

Gnostic Atheist - Don't believe in a God and claim that God absolutely doesn't exist.

 

I am much closer to an 'Agnostic Atheist' then I am an 'Gnostic Atheist', although only in the way that I claim that the general idea of a God is not impossible. However, I really don't think that the Christian God exactly as he is presented in the Bible is possible personally.

 

Have you been watching the History channel?

 

No, but I know the program you are referring to lol.

 

I actually have friends that believe in this stuff and have talked about it a lot. I ended up looking up the evidence myself. I was not convinced. At all.

Edited March 29, 2012 by Envy

[Comet Tail 808]

By affect I mean ANYTHING based off of religion gets into law, this included. I don't mean stop religion, I mean stop the politicians who want to make it law.

First amendment already says that

 

The founding principles of this nation as I know them are a freedom of religion and for religion to be a personal, private matter. And no, this is not just because I'm an Atheist that I say this. Not all believers believe in this 'God', so really, it should be just be left out of stuff like this. This motto is something that really ends up speaking for us all, and I do not believe in any God of any kind, and I don't understand why the word 'God' has to be plastered all over everything. Not everybody believes, and not everybody should be expected to believe. That's what this is. Promotion of a belief in God, and I've lived in my state long enough to know exactly which God that is.There is no question of that. So, I do find it embarrassing. I'll leave my opinions about people still believing in Christianity out of this. This is embarrassing for another reason, and that is the reason I mentioned above. It's about how off-base my state is, and this is just another result of that. Of course, a state motto saying the word 'God' is not anywhere near the worst thing they could do and I realize that, but it's still embarrassing. The first amendment actually says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", by the way. I just want to point that out because it is quite a bit different from 'the' establishment of religion. Oh, and by the way, Atheism is only a 'religion' in regards to being legally protected as one. It is not a religion in any other way, and the court rulings have made that distinction clear.

I think that's somewhat stretching the definition of what it means to "make no law respecting an establishment of religion". I don't think a motto is a law, and it certainly doesn't push religion on an individual any more than a total lack of mention of any kind of religion pushes atheism, which is legally a religion.

 

It seems to me the rejection comes from, in Albert Einstein's words: "...a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth."

 

source and full text.

 

Could we have a secondary source for this news, please? I'm about as willing to believe something stated by Fox News as I am willing to believe that the moon will suddenly transform into a colossal fruitcake that spits skittles the size of minivans into the Pacific Ocean.

Oh, I guess I shouldn't mention that I personally know Twilight IRL and she just did the craziest spell to the moon on accident...

But I will say it's not safe to go boating in the Pacific, right now. Sometimes parts of the skittles survive atmospheric re-entry.

 

Looks like some peeps beat me to it, but here's my reply:

 

I never trust Fox News so I looked it up and found the same information from other sources. They are not banning these words from school but rather from standardized testing. They do not want children "distracted" by these words during a test. WIth that said, I'm going to have children and dress them up as witch dinosaurs for Halloween. Mwahahahaha. Which reminds me, if they worry Halloween is pagan, they should ban "Christmas tree" too. That's probably the most pagan thing we do.

 

Well, atheism is similar to religion in that you need blind faith to absolutely disbelieve something without any proof of its lack of existence. I do believe it is hypocritical to have a country where separation of Church and State is supposed to be in effect and then they plaster "In God We Trust" all over the place. I trust in God, maybe others living in this country do not. Seems we are more worried about offending Creationists than Atheists. :o Just google it, I found lots of other news sources saying the same thing.

Any view that encompasses all of reality is be nature and necessity self-referencing, making it a circular argument. Atheism is a religion in the sense that both fulfill the status of a view that encompasses all of reality and the meta of reality.

 

Atheism is not absolutely disbelieving in God. It's simply a lack of belief in God. Although the thing is that the lack of evidence for this God is actually very telling. They expect us to believe in this God because some book from a couple of thousand years ago and an establishment based around it tells us to. Sorry, but that's not enough to reason to belief for me. I put God (the general idea of) right there with the claim that aliens have come to Earth, allowed for the creation of the pyramids and bred with us. Why in the world should I believe it?

Nobody should believe Christianity just because it's been handed down, in my own church it's called living off of "borrowed light" and is something everyone needs to grow out of, and discover truth for themselves. Part of this exploration of the true nature of reality has led me to write that Essay on Religion.

 

Hmm. Honestly, If I were trying to convince you of my views, I would go straight to LDS theology, but I honestly think you'd be interested in Einstein's view on God. Are you familiar with it? It's really quiet amazing. It's impressive in that I find it very hard to believe that people could not at least believe in that, given the grandeur nature of the universe, and it should be somewhat humbling to hear, possibly the greatest mind to ever live, say: "I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being."

Indeed, it would seem that the more someone comes to understand the beauty of the universe, the more you come to an understanding of just how feeble mankind is in every way, that to say that we are capable of arriving at a correct understanding of the entirity of the meta of the nature of the universe is really an extremely arrogant claim to make.

 

Us believers get a pass on this one, though, because we don't claim to have arrived to that understanding by our own intellect alone

Edited March 29, 2012 by EASA - Dr. Braun

[I_wesley125 393]

First amendment already says that

 

 

Well the legal system seems to be ignoring the first amendment.

[Legit101 300]

Your rights end where my feelings begin.

[Zalgo 593]

That's it, I'm going there and having a dinosaur themed birthday party with computers and dancing... ON HALLOWEEN!

[Swordfishtrombone 384]

Well boys, you can kiss your great, equal and free country goodbye.

[Kyreth 194]

I'm going to go ahead and assume that Fox got most of their facts wrong like they usually do. After the crap I've seen from them I don't feel any reason to believe this. Also, I don't want to believe it...

[Envy 6,167]

I think that's somewhat stretching the definition of what it means to "make no law respecting an establishment of religion". I don't think a motto is a law

That's true, and I didn't actually mean that when I brought up the First Amendment there. The thing is that it makes me clench my teeth because it's just like a bully getting to say a thinly veiled very rude insult to me and not getting punished for it because the staff of the school does not interpret it that way under their rules.

 

and it certainly doesn't push religion on an individual any more than a total lack of mention of any kind of religion pushes atheism, which is legally a religion.

I strongly disagree with that. The lack of a mention of God does not promote Atheism in the least, but the mention of God clearly does push religion. The concept of God is tied to religion for the vast majority of people. Even though there are some people who are nonreligious but do believe in a higher power, the word 'God' in the motto will still mean the Christian God when everybody sees it.

 

Instead of promoting Atheism, it leaves a personal belief, which is very controversial even among people of the same religion, out of a motto that is supposed to be representing everybody. As I said earlier, this can't only bother Atheists. There are many other beliefs out there in regards to a higher power. There are people who don't refer to their higher power as a 'God', whether that be Allah or even just 'Goddess'. There are people who believe in many Gods/Goddesses, and not all of them put a single God up on enough of a pedestal to be put in a motto to represent them. Etc.

 

That's the problem there. Is it so hard to create a motto without any references to God instead? I know it is for my state, but only because they want their religion and God to be the one that is represented.

[Jon the VGNerd 885]

What is with this school in NYC?? That's like you can't use the word "Awesome" or "Perfection", I mean WTF? Are they pushing themselves too far at the edge or something?

 

Plus, if there was not a birthday, then people would end up feeling completely depressed.