School teaching religion in Geography

[Closet Atheist]

Religion should STAY in religion class. This is in a Catholic school which I am stuck in because only recently have I been an atheist.

The teacher told us if the stuff we learn about in Geography like tectonic plates doesn't 'fit to our beliefs' of how 'God' created the world, that was okay. She's probably making sure that extremist Christian parents don't complain. The stuff that we learn in geography has evidence, like tectonic plates, but God doesn't.

"Oh yeah, sure what you're saying has proof and whatever but I don't want to believe that. I want to believe that magic fairy man created it all."

She then started talking about evidence in the bible like the drought and the floods and what we believe in and blah blah blah for pretty much the rest of the lesson.

We were discussing what the Aboriginals who first lived on the land believed in (spirits and stuff) and she constantly kept referencing Christianity.

Geography is a broad subject and we shouldn't be wasting time listening to the same old religion stuff.

[Sieveboy]

Ask your teacher if god or tectonic plates make earthquakes at places like Japan or California.

[Darwinsbulldog]

Can you talk to your parents about this? There are a bunch of scientists who are devout Catholics, and most of them would probably be concerned about this method of teaching as you have outlined it. Is there anybody at the school, perhaps the School Principal or a counselor that may be open to listening to what appears to be a legitimate complaint against evangelist teaching in a science class?

[Annie]

I agree with Db above. You are not learning science in science lessons. What you are being doesnt belong in any education institution. At the very least, it belongs in RE. I'm hazarding a guess here and suggesting that RE lessons are not soaked in science. Your education is suffering. You need to either talk to your parents who can speak to the principal on your behalf or help you find another school. I'm sorry but I don't like your chances of changing this teacher's way. If the principal hasn't done something about her already, he/she is condoning what she is doing. Seriously, if you are interested in science and want to pursue studying it, I think you need to find yourself another school.

[Closet Atheist]

Originally Posted by Annie

I agree with Db above. You are not learning science in science lessons. What you are being doesnt belong in any education institution. At the very least, it belongs in RE. I'm hazarding a guess here and suggesting that RE lessons are not soaked in science. Your education is suffering. You need to either talk to your parents who can speak to the principal on your behalf or help you find another school. I'm sorry but I don't like your chances of changing this teacher's way. If the principal hasn't done something about her already, he/she is condoning what she is doing. Seriously, if you are interested in science and want to pursue studying it, I think you need to find yourself another school.

If I speak up, first of all they'll be astonished that someone actually said something. Nobody ever questions anything about religion being taught. EVER. (All caps to add to the emphasis) so they'll probably be suspicious.

This will probably be their response:

It's education. No matter if it is religion or geography we are teaching you valuable material. As Catholics, this is what we believe anyway so there is nothing wrong with it.

It'll be more formal than that, but they will say something along the lines of that.

Well if it continues I will say something. I wish at the beginning of every religion class the teacher would say 'If this doesn't go with your beliefs, that's okay'. Just for anyone who happens to have doubts

[c2105026]

Since the 1950s the Holy See has essentially said that science explains their god's creation. This process continued until 1979 when either copernicus or galeleilo were pardoned for heresy. Most YEC folk are protestants. This teaching doesn't even probably belong in a Catholic school!

[Logic please]

Originally Posted by Closet Atheist

This will probably be their response:

It's education. No matter if it is religion or geography we are teaching you valuable material. As Catholics, this is what we believe anyway so there is nothing wrong with it.

Well... if you ever were going to say something, perhaps this image could be a useful visual aid:



Methinks they'll understand a little more about where you're coming from, after that. Of course, I can make no guarantees abut whether they'll like where you're coming from, though.

In all seriousness, good luck with it, and please keep us informed, if you feel able to do so.

[wearestardust]

Originally Posted by Closet Atheist

As Catholics, this is what we believe anyway so there is nothing wrong with it.

As others, particularly C have pointed out, it's not actually what Catholics believe. Catholicism is formally completely cool with evolution, old earth, etc, with just the addition of just a little godly fine-tuning now and again to ensure that evolution ended up with us. I wonder if your teacher is not a Catholic or has been influenced by non-Catholic thinking. Or just doesn't know what Catholic teaching is. Catholics who actually know what Catholics officially believe are becoming thin on the ground; about the only ones left are little old ladies like my mother, or people like me who've given it up (and not just for Lent).

This is not to say the religion wouldn't go away, but at least the outright rejection of science might be muted to the occasional goddidit.

But I understand how hard it is to stick one's head over the parapet at school.

[Darwinsbulldog]

@ CA:-

Science is just a methodology. All it does is :-

1. A scientist may notice a [apparent or imagined] pattern in phenomena. [Note that I have left out nature-for now]

2. A model, or description of that system is built. From the model, various predictions are made. The model is then tested by observing phenomena from experiment or further data [phenomena].

3. Conclusions are tentative, and always subject to review. if there are any contrary phenomena that can't be accounted for or explained, then the model is modified or abandoned, and the process repeats.

4. A hypothesis that has strong evidence in support, and little or no counter-factuals, is said to be robust. Successful hypotheses are often combined into meta-studies, and from these, more general theories may emerge. Evolutionary theory, for example, is a synthesis of a very large number of successful hypotheses.

5. Theory can be used for practical things. Knowledge of evolutionary theory can help in medicine, conservation etc. The science of transistors helped us to build computers.

So science is absolutely metaphysics free. In other words, there are NO claims to truth, falsity, purpose, plan, or even nature or reality.

OK, you say. Science is the study of nature. Almost right. Science is the study of natural phenomena.

Old science, which did assume naive reality, did contain some metaphysics as I have described. And certainly, we can do some naive science and get good results. The Purpose of a wing is for flight.

Naive reality is good for survival. We imagine that the hungry lion is real. And it is stupid to ignore the Number 42 bus when you cross the road.

So there does seems to be some relationship between natural phenomena and nature or reality themselves. But we cannot know this absolutely. Science would work if we were all just imagination in the mind of god, or summing in a computer simulation as in "The Matrix" movies. In the movie, Neo discovers that his 'reality" is not true.

But there is no way to be absolutely certain about anything. This is science's strength, [and religion's weakness].
Religion is full of metaphysics, even if a deity is not involved. [A claim of soul, or even of purpose].
To be sure, the fact that our scientific models work and explain is a good thing. But the explanatory part is just a statement that our models work.

This is where your teacher is dead wrong. She fundamentally misunderstands science, because she is wedded to a metaphysical world view, both in her science and in her religion.
Any metaphysical position can be made absurd. In fact all metaphysics is absurd because it is value-laden.

[Closet Atheist]

Originally Posted by Logic please

Well... if you ever were going to say something, perhaps this image could be a useful visual aid:



Methinks they'll understand a little more about where you're coming from, after that. Of course, I can make no guarantees abut whether they'll like where you're coming from, though.

In all seriousness, good luck with it, and please keep us informed, if you feel able to do so.

We had another lesson where she talked about the bible creation story again and said this was to compare between that, the Aboriginal story and science. Which is not even necessary and is off the curriculum.

But the next lesson we actually started learning about how the earth was formed. I think it's over.

At the end of the lesson the teacher said, 'Are you looking forward to actually starting to learn about science?' Pretty much everybody shot their hands up