Comments on: Fun with Fundies

By: EgregiousCharles

EgregiousCharles — Thu, 08 May 2008 03:09:21 +0000

Assuming the worst is true, we Christians are doing a tremendous job of reining in our nutjobs. There’s about a billion of us and this stands out? Where’s the fires and crowds with signs calling for the teacher’s head? Compare to other large groups motivated by ideology; Islam, say, or Socialism, or Democrats. We’ve been exemplary for the past two hundred years.

Not that that makes this instance acceptable.

By: Regolith

Regolith — Thu, 08 May 2008 01:17:02 +0000

From the story:

Tampa Bay’s 10 talked to the assistant superintendent with the Pasco County School District who said it wasn’t just the wizardry and that Picular had other performance issues, including “not following lesson plans” and allowing students to play on unapproved computers.

So, there may, or may not, have been other reasons for the firing. However, it does imply that the “wizadry” was still a problem for the school district, as they stated it wasn’t the “only” reason.

Maybe we should just nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure…

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:37:45 +0000

But learned Christians, even during the medieval period, the supposed ‘dark ages,” never believed that the earth was flat.

But the story sounds like there were other problems with the guy, and the wizardry thing was just something thrown in. I wonder if he was one of these cool teachers that you sometimes hear about in the news.

By: Mikee

Mikee — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:37:02 +0000

AS I read the article I was reminded of a professor I had in college, who did magic tricks as a sideline to his normal job of teaching Acting and Theater Arts and (the course I was once in) Drama.

He may have done normal magic, with the rabbit and the hat and the flourish of the handkerchief, but that was not his most impressive act. To completely dumbfound us students, he did what he called “close-up” magic, where he would stand directly in front of you, wearing short sleeves, holding things in his hands (or not), which he would then disappear and reappear and change into other things. It was magnificently deceptive, and despite multiple opportunities to observe his act I never saw how he did it.

The lesson he taught, using his close-up magic, was, “NEVER play cards for money.”

Hey, it was after all a Southern Baptist affiliated university!

There, I think I’ve pulled together the religion, the teaching moment, and the magic.

By: SayUncle

SayUncle — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:34:15 +0000

Good points, curt.

By: Sailorcurt

Sailorcurt — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:27:26 +0000

First, the story gave no indication that he was fired because of fundamentalist Christians. I will admit that, assuming that the story is being reported accurately, the odds are you are exactly right, but it’s not a given.

Secondly…we see inaccuracies, misrepresentations and flat out falsehoods in gun related stories every day. But when you read a story that you agree with you automatically assume that the reporter is faithfully just telling it like it is? You assume that nothing was reported out of context and that the reporter has no agenda? That’s some pretty charitable assuming going on there.

I also realize that you are being a bit tongue in cheek with it, but the fact remains that many people will read your humorous aside and shake their heads in agreement because they think the same things.

Stories like that are no more representative of Christian beliefs than some numbskull shooting his wife trying to “drill” a hole for a cable connection is representative of the gun owning community.

We gun owners had better “reign in” our nut jobs too don’t you think? ‘Course you’ll have to explain to me how we go about doing that without enacting three quarters of the gun banner’s agenda.

By: cliff

cliff — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:41:16 +0000

Now, now, let’s be fair. Nobody was put on a rack for disputing the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin. The question was not whether the number was one or ten or 42, but whether the number was finite or infinite. Put another way, the question was whether angels were corporial (had a body) or incorporial (spirit only). In the end I think the consensus was that they are incorporial.

Having said that, firing a teacher for prestidigitation is stoooopid.