Are you from the US? Have you heard of how southern schools (Texas I believe) basically influenced textbooks into becoming conservative literature that were then sold throughout the country? You really want public schools to teach anything religious and do you really think it could be done without bias? I went to school in southern Missouri for a bit and listened to a teacher attemp to tell us how there were two different kinds of black people. Public school is a joke.
Multiple people shot at Wisconsin Sikh temple
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Are you from the US? Have you heard of how southern schools (Texas I believe) basically influenced textbooks into becoming conservative literature that were then sold throughout the country? You really want public schools to teach anything religious and do you really think it could be done without bias? I went to school in southern Missouri for a bit and listened to a teacher attemp to tell us how there were two different kinds of black people. Public school is a joke.
metalslimer
Member
I agree with having religion be taught in history classes and elective classes more in depth, but it will definitely piss many people off if you teach Christianity in a detached manner. For example, this is probably illegal but our history textbooks had crazy stuff like how God allowed the enlightenment to happen. Then when we got the section on Islam it was taught like it was some fantasy story.
Oh and our economic textbooks had stuff how God created the free market as the best solution for America.
Oh and our economic textbooks had stuff how God created the free market as the best solution for America.
It's not an elective per se. A lot of schools go into detail on world religions as part of their history classes. It is essential because religion had such a deep influence on human history. You really can't have a good understanding of history without understanding the different religious philosophies that humans have embraced throughout history. At least the school I was at didn't whitewash anything, we discussed religious wars and atrocities.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
I know.
Most atheists are actually mini-experts on the religions they critique.. And that's how it should be.
Its just the suggestion that you shouldn't be teaching this stuff? That's like not educating everyone about communism because you think it's made up.
speculawyer
Member
They are not all crazy. Some are . . . but some are just bad people filled with raging hate & intolerance.
And yes, education makes a difference. Black people used to get lynched but years of education has changed that. Jewish people used to get routinely discriminated against but education changed that. "No Irish need apply." but education changed that. Gay people used to be forced in the closet but not any more, education changed that.
So yes, education makes a difference. It is a long hard fight but it works.
So public school should at least given an attempt to improve, right? People should be given the education that they deserve. But it looks like the southern states would rather money go to the military, then on education and infrastructure.
Looks like some work needs to be done at the federal level.
metalslimer
Member
Eh..give this one another decade or so.
Well that's, awful is the only word I can think of.
I think you're thinking of Ted Rowlands.....the anchor.
Alligatorjandro
Banned
Its scary being a brown person in the US.
Eh from my experience in the South, it's extremely rare for gay men to be out of the closet. At least beyond their close friends.
Bulbo Urethral Baggins
Banned
Is that a joke? Ted Rowlands is a reporter for CNN.
victreeb3l
Member
so if there was only one shooter, who held some of the people hostage inside the temple? or was this just miscommunication and people hiding from the shooter?
I heard that it was all right before 9/11. Kinda started to get more shit after that. Generalising is hard-wired in our brains.
Education never stopped a person that was going to commit murder. Harsh punishments did. You recall all the crazies spouting bullshit during the last election, right? You're right, education stops discrimination because that's rooted in fear and ignorance. A murderer is going to murder.
LOL. My bad
metalslimer
Member
The lynchings that happened a half century ago were murder.
Of course this person probably had some kind of mental issue.
But crimes like this are due to discrimination, which inhumanises certain groups of people , thus making the thought of murder more palatable to the ignorant.
And they happened because the law looked the other way and no punishment was given. There are old bastards living in old folks homes right now that participated in lynchings.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
I'll tell you why education works: it de-'other'izes certain cultures when you know the history of how they came to be. Suddenly they go from being strange weirdos in odd clothing to being quite human and relatable. Familiarity with a people brings empathy.
-COOLIO-
The Everyman
well that's about as confirmed as a hate crime gets.
Why did the law look the other way?
Because of the people. Laws are great, but enforcement is always the problem. Just look at the BRIC countries. Packed to the brim with corruption. You think they don't have laws?
The laws werent enforced, and people were lynched, as the enforcement itself was ignorant, and discriminated against the victims.
Gardwara? It's a gurdwara, isn't it? Oh well. Looks like a hate crime to me...
That's bullshit. If harsh punishments worked as deterents, the US would be the most crime-free area in what we call the 1st world. Especially when it comes to drugs and murder.
Starsunder
Member
Just terrible. So sad for the victims and their families.
I think it depends on where you live, especially in Florida. You have some pretty accepting cities ,Tampa, Miami/Ft. Lauderdale and some neutral depends on who you run into cities and then some backwoods towns that look straight out of some movie. My former workplace alone I was personally friends with 2 gay people that were open and I knew of a couple more that were open but didn't know personally. Heck there was one person last year who transgendered at work. That's work though so I can't speak for the whole city, or as for a gay person for that matter but just in general.
speculawyer
Member
You just assert that with no support. Look, with the proper education then many of these people never would have built up the drive to commit murder. And certainly education cannot stop crazy people but it can stop normal people from building up stupid silly arbitrary rationalizations for murder such the color of a person's skin, their religion, their sexual orientation, their ethnicity, etc.
Steven Pinker wrote on entire book about this.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0670022950/?tag=neogaf0e-20
Here is a TED talk about it:
http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html
If you look where violence is still rampant, it is no coincidence that it is in places where education is quite limited.
speculawyer
Member
There is still much more work to be done. But it is much better than it was even just 20 or 30 years ago.
-COOLIO-
The Everyman
yup, we're getting better all the while but we gotta keep pushing.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Given what you say your background is, you may not realize this but you are sounding like 'those crazies from the south'. That is the party line espoused by the stereotypical southern anti-intellectual neocon. Edumacashun don't do no good, Man is a beast who must be tightly controlled, the solution to all society's ills is strictly harsh, brutal punishment.
Your public school experience sounds terrible, but it's not representative of all schools. You should realize how hobbled it was due to the state and climate in which it took place.
LumpOfCole
Member
Meanwhile, on infowars:
http://www.infowars.com/eyewitness-4-man-team-behind-sikh-temple-shooting/
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
http://www.infowars.com/eyewitness-4-man-team-behind-sikh-temple-shooting/
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
astroturfing
Member
Monumental
Banned
The people in this thread who aren't understanding why teaching world religion and culture is important are being really fucking dense.
Welcome to politics...
No, no, no. Edumacashun is good if you send your kid to a private school. My rants are against requiring public schools to teach religion.
I know... I don't want to live on a planet where people think info wars is legitimate
This argument is based on the premise that the person being educated has a rational mind and is capable of empathy. We have no evidence that the culprit(s) in this incident were rational, and the nature of the incident itself suggests the opposite.
Shake Appeal
Member
But your rants are missing the point numerous people have now made.
What did you need? Somebody to tell you that raping and killing is wrong, and an environment in which rape and murder are considered to be wrong and are not tolerated, right? That's really it. You weren't born knowing right from wrong. You were taught that there is a right and there is a wrong and that you need to do one and not the other. Let's set aside the fact that the rules you follow from day to day are their own form of delusion, and consider that people who learn their way of life from their religion don't need you to tell them that people have abused and misconstrued their beliefs. They really don't, Coins. You're not the first person to say this shit. You haven't enlightened anyone today.
cheststrongwell
my cake, fuck off
Welcome to crazy...
You could argue though that a reflectively small proportion of people would be irrational or unable to feel empathy towards other cultures.
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
RustyNails
Member
It's perfectly fine to teach kids about different religions, both in public as well as private schools. You're like those folks who think talking to enemies is appeasement, and learning about new things is indoctrination.
Shake Appeal
Member
There being no evidence of how this culprit thought and felt is a really terrible and flimsy argument for not teaching the variety of culture and religion to citizens who inhabit a planet alive with these things.
Not to mention that the "nature of the incident" suggests the irrational is based on the premise that one cannot rationally commit acts of violent intolerance, while history (of culture and religion) would suggest otherwise.
speculawyer
Member
Sadly, crazy is part of politics. Always has been and probably always will be.
From Father Coughlin to Joseph McCarthy to Glenn Beck to Alex Jones.
victreeb3l
Member
and you havent been able to provide a single convincing argument
dont give this shit any pageviews
But these are learned traits, and can be taught. Very few people are born mass murderers -- they become them during their lives. We could, at least theoretically, prevent that.
N
NinjaFridge
Unconfirmed Member
Pretty much.
Ignorance breeds intolerance, intolerance breeds hate, hate becomes this kind of shit.
cartoon_soldier
Member
WTF is going on now?
Fucking hell. Stop making nutjobs, America.
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