Check out the enclosed PDF's from my wifes' Anthropology Book from UNM when she was going to UNM. Talk about another point of view!! This is one of the books that I saved from my past as a real life example of bias in education. I was listening to a christian seminar on the US Constitution and US History about a decade ago and was shown many examples of bias in educational books and encyclopedias and so I decided to take a quick look at my wifes Anthropology book and I looked at the index to look up this books view of christianity and it gave about 5 pages to reference christianity and feel free to read each page yourself...

 

 

Religion defined by the book as: "A set of rituals, rationalized by myth, which symbolizes supernatural powers for the purpose of achieving or preventing transformations of state in people and nature."

 

No wonder why they want to keep religion out of schools and science!!! Teach your students this long enough and a christian becomes a myth. Hey all you religious folk, this book has just defined your beliefs as in one sense or other "rationalized by myth" with no argumentation whatsoever. Sounds like a definition itself rooted in irrationality. Now I understand that the book isn't here to argue why they define Religion as this or that but none the less to think we are just to except this definition...

 

I mean Jesus claims to be the truth rather He doesn't claim but rather says He is the truth. How much more of a rational definition can one get from Christ of who He claims He is? Until one can prove He is not the truth without just arbitrarily assuming He is not one can not assume that Christ is not the truth and therefore in no way mythological. And if one is open to the possiblity that Jesus is the truth then all truths must be judged by or measured by the truth or else one is already assuming the falsity of the truth and thus Christ as that truth. Whatever truth is is ultimately true and is the ultimate judge of all other claimed truths. Truth only flows from the truth. So to judge the truth by claimed truths is self refuting rather claimed truths must be judged by the truth. So is Jesus the truth? Like Jesus said we are either for or against Him we are either going to judge all claimed matters of truth by Him as the truth or we are going to judge the claimed truth of Himself as the truth by something that we have deemed to be ultimately more true then Himself which then would refute Christ as the truth and make our deeming God. So it seems we are in a pickle that we are going to have to take a step of faith either way and take it from there!!! Thus explaining the arbitrary definition of religion above by the text book!!!

 

 

So, we are aloud to teach a point of view that undermines most American Religious Conservative Family Values in the name of ACLU liberal secularism at tax payers expense but we can't have teachers and students that have a differing religiously based point of view or else we just violated the WALL!!!! It seems the wall of separation of church and state has been used by the ACLU and liberal allies to limit the speech of religious points of view. How odd when the 1st Amendment reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEROF; or abridging the FREEDOM OF SPEECH, or of the press" What about the wall that is suppose to protect us from the tyrannical rulers like much later rulers such as Stalin, Hitler and Marx which in principle are no different then the tyrannical rulers of the founding forefathers day and age!!!! How convenient this plays into the hands of tyranny!!! We get to hear how bad religion is for this and that reason with no allowed response!!!! This is America, not neo germany nor commi Russian nor bloody Mary's England nor even the Popes domain (no offense to my English, German, Catholic and Russian friends, realizing that all have bad periods of tyranny and in America you just have a different form of it at times). But none the less in America (along with many other countries) you are suppose to be able to express such points of view but not at the expense of religious expression (especially in America). Religious points of view should be allowed a platform to respond to criticism and promote itself even in public settings as much as secular/non religious points of view can!!! I think the forefathers would strongly agree!!! After all its the 1st Amendment on mind after the Constitution not the 5th, 10th or later. And the 1st amendment in their minds was Congress stay out of religious issues either way. Let the states and school boards decide what they want to do. If one school district decides not to talk about religion in school then let them if another does then let them after all "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEROF; or abridging the FREEDOM OF SPEECH, or of the press".

 

Anyways, its a very interesting point of view from this text book to say the least and in America you are suppose to be able to have your point of view freely. This text book is really no different then a Bible claiming this and that but with no authority behind it except the opinions and understandings coming from the minds of men and their studies which for me is of little weight in comparison to God's revelation for He says somewhere in His revealed word it is "better to trust in the Lord then to put confidence in men" and for some reason that just makes sense to me and not only that but He died for me and He made everything so it's a done deal for me and logically and reasonably so. I mean why would I trust anything else above God's revealed Word. It would be to make the creation more blessed then the Creator which is idolatry in its purest form!! Now this assumes the truth of the scriptures. True. So be it!! Jesus says have a little faith even the size of a mustard seed. And so I will. That's where I stand and standing there I can't find one good reason to not stand there. But I wonder how much the writer of this text book would believe me if I claimed that the Bible was a neutral/unbiased religious book of some sort? He would probabily believe me after reading it about as much as I would believe a university that claimed secular education, after reading its text books, is neutral toward Christ as the Truth!!!

 

Widely used public school textbook criticized for being too conservative-"In Arizona, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne has said he will not remove the textbook from schools. Horne is quoted by KTAR.com as saying, "the claims made for conservative bias are very mild compared to the liberal bias that I see in most textbooks."-Just a tidbit while on the subject. Good for Arizona!!!

 

Now there is value in education and even secular education but I don't think there is any value in thinking that its neutral just because its secular. Education seems to be like a hammer/tool it depends on whose handling it as to what end it is ultimately leading and it is ultimately leading somewhere cause even nowhere is a kind of somewhere. And one can be taking a secular education just fine enough but at the same time that one doesn't have to agree that it was/is an unbiased education and doesn't have to remain quiet about it either for the sake of truth and/or love of others. And some subjects are more subjective then others of course.