Fundies In Secular Educational Programs

[Thalia]

I just received the following text message from my sister:

 

Mom's ranting because her ethics professor deleted all scriptural references from the paper she turned in. She and her friend are saying that ethics are based on scripture and that's how we learn right and wrong. Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't people and morals/ethics here before scripture?

 

My reply (along with a giant *EYEROLL*):

 

Yep. They're just encoded in scripture. This is a case of audience awareness--you can't argue using the Bible if your audience doesn't already believe in it.

 

This is something I have to hammer into my freshmen, but it makes me facepalm that my *muttermutter* year old mother, who's working on her Master's degree in Clinical Psychology, still hasn't grasped this concept.

[Noggy]

I hate it when I go to ethics class 3 times a week and have to listen to the same dumbfuck raise his hand EVERY TIME and make arguments based on Jeebus.

[OpheliaGinger]

I hate it when I go to ethics class 3 times a week and have to listen to the same dumbfuck raise his hand EVERY TIME and make arguments based on Jeebus.

 

Believe it or not, you can shut him up, and most likely you are not the only one getting annoyed by him.

[BrotherJosh]

I hate it when I go to ethics class 3 times a week and have to listen to the same dumbfuck raise his hand EVERY TIME and make arguments based on Jeebus.

 

Believe it or not, you can shut him up, and most likely you are not the only one getting annoyed by him.

 

I remember my junior year of college I was taking an Ethics class as a dumb credit from a favored professor of mine. Anyways, we had some great discussions on humanism and utilitarianism especially in regards to John Stuart Mill and yet there was this fellow classmate, Kingsley, who would almost every class bring up some Bible-thumping decree that would prohibit such and such because God, "yada yada yada" said it. Near the end of the semester the entire class eventually set aside our ethical differences (which were divided between altruism and egosim) and decided to wage all out warfare on the Bible-thumper. Our Scorched Earth Policy worked and he realized his 2,000 year old book wasn't up to the task.

[Thalia]

And it's this sort of thing that makes me afraid for her eventual patients, especially since she's planning on going into child psychology. I remember being a kid under her care. I don't want that for anyone else.

[ExFundiDCLawyer]

I would definitely challenge the person to back up their statements. Much to my current embarrassment, I was that person. I was a philosophy minor and tried arguing my points on what the Bible said. Ultimately though, it was those classes that helped me to see past the narrow bubble that I had been raised in and started me on the long road toward deconversion.