On the assignment sheet, students were asked to answer the overall research question about how the world began. Students were also asked to ponder the following questions:
- How did the world start?
- Who started it?
- When did evil start or did it always exist?
- Are people inherently good or evil or neither?
- What is morality?
- What is religion?
- What is Christianity?
- What does it mean to be a Christian?
- Is God real?
- Is Satan real?
Exactly one of those bullet points has anything to do with history, and a second is barely relevant
This teacher isn’t just proselytizing and forcing religious instruction; but is horrible at their job.
Damn.
I can’t wait to drop acid with my friends and do this as a group assignment. It would be an absolute hoot.
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How did the world start? Big Bang (depending on definition of world)
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Who started it? Nobody.
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When did evil start or did it always exist? Evil didn’t start. The definition depends.
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Are people inherently good or evil or neither? Neither.
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What is morality? The categorization of “things” into proper and improper.
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What is religion? A belief in a supernatural aspect of reality tied to certain rituals or practices.
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What is Christianity? One of many religions.
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What does it mean to be a Christian? To believe in the magical resurrection of a Bronze Age Jew.
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Is God real? Depending on the definition: unknowable. Likely not.
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Is Satan real? Certainly not.
Grade: F Sue the school.
How did the world start? Well, that depends on how, exactly, you define “the world”, doesn’t it?
If you mean Earth as a planet, it started thanks to gravity pulling together a collection of dust and gas orbiting the early sun through a process called “accretion”.
https://news.uchicago.edu/explainer/formation-earth-and-moon-explained
Who started it? Nobody. It was gravity.
https://news.uchicago.edu/explainer/formation-earth-and-moon-explained
When did evil start, or did it always exist?
Animals have no concept of “morality” so good and evil didn’t exist until humans invented them. Sumerian cuneiform records early religious rites from 4,000 BC, but the concepts of “good” and “evil” like fire and the wheel pre-date written language and cannot be precisely dated.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-herkimer-westerncivilization/chapter/the-sumerians/
Are people inherently good or evil or neither?
Human beings are born as blank slates with no prior knowledge of good, evil, or anything else. All that is learned behavior. They are inherently neither.
Lots of really interesting things going on here.
The one that sticks out to me is “illegally obtaining $20,000 from Taco Bueno”
“History” teacher/Taco Bueno embezzler?
Gray said since she made the Facebook post, Nettie’s world history teacher Erich Richter, who is a non-certified classroom adjust teacher, took down the assignment.
I used to listen to the Educate podcast (still subscribed if they resume publishing). They did a segment on new teachers and the views of some of the enrolling high school teachers made me feel despair. This is what the hollowing-out of our public education system yields. Fight for teachers and public education or nutjobs like this might be teaching your kids.
We will start seeing these cases rise to the top of our kompletely kredible kourt system. There will be nothing we can do but watch.
