effect of education

[Athena]

Someone suggested in an arguement, that effects of education are negative.
The Christian bible makes several comments about the harm of education.
I think if we looked into the conflicts of religions, differences in education shows up in all the conflicts. Mostly they are divided now if they accept or reject Aristotle and/or Plato. Asistotle was more scientific and Plato gives us a fantansy of perfection. Fantansy because it is an imagined reality, not an experienced one.

Communist take-overs have repeatedly meant the extermination of successful business people, which is like shooting oneself in the foot, because these are the people that can make systems succeed. So communist end up with countries with no one who knows how to make things work. They also have exterminated their intellectuals, killing those who can think through problems, and assuring everyone who survives is, afraid of thinking independently. So they create a mess for themselves and are stuck with it.

When a Christian wants to protect the schools and nieghborhood for Christians, and Muslims what to rule with the Quran, what happens to the society? How different is this from communist killing the successful business people and intellectuals? That is, those who believe in God and even those who don't, can agree to kill educated people. Why do you think groups of humans can turn so violently on educated and successful people?

[Gods_Mercenary]

People don't like people who think they are superior because they are educated or successful, for one. People want to be successful, so taking out others crowding the m,arket also seems like a good idea. Bottom line, educated people can be arrogant and alienate the uneducated, the uneducated take on a mob mentality (which is pretty much how humans function) and take out those who seem to be in their way.

[phoenix_fire]

Quote by: Athena Someone suggested in an arguement, that effects of education are negative. The Christian bible makes several comments about the harm of education.

Please cite.

<sidebar>Where do you come up with asinine things like this?</sidebar>

[Right of Center]

Well that's an interesting concept I suppose. Do you really believe Christians frown on education? That assertion is false. One looks at students that attend Catholic private school that crush public school students on every test. That doesn't sound like Christians are against education. Christians are opposed to biased education that disintegrates their positions. Two examples are sex education and evolution. Christians and many other groups say that evolution is just a theory and that teaching it as truth in science class with no other alternative is wrong. Christians oppose government sanctioned sex education because they believe that it is a private personal matter that should be handled within one's home. They also oppose government teaching sex education and avoiding to promote abstinence.

[The_Genius]

Education is very important. A society cannot progress without education. It comes down to what we do with education. Education can play both a positive and negative role within a human being.

The uneducated fool from the street did not order nuclear bomb to be dropped in Hiroshima, it was US President. He was more educated than the guy from the street...

The coke fiend, high school drop-out didn't order the Iraq war. It was Bush, whom I believe attended university...

Thus, education and success do not make people righteous, it's what they do with education, knowledge and their success that matters.


I would like to see where in the Bible education has been discouraged. I went to a Marist Brothers' Catholic school, which is one of the oldest educational philosophies in Africa. As far as I know, Christian missionaries set up numerous schools in Africa.

Islam was one of the earliest cultures to develop a schooling system in the modern sense of the word. Islam put a lot of emphasis on knowledge and therefore had to develop a systematic way of teaching and spreading knowledge in purpose built structures.

Source: School - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Gods_Mercenary]

Quote by: Right of Center Well that's an interesting concept I suppose. Do you really believe Christians frown on education? That assertion is false. One looks at students that attend Catholic private school that crush public school students on every test. That doesn't sound like Christians are against education. Christians are opposed to biased education that disintegrates their positions. Two examples are sex education and evolution. Christians and many other groups say that evolution is just a theory and that teaching it as truth in science class with no other alternative is wrong. Christians oppose government sanctioned sex education because they believe that it is a private personal matter that should be handled within one's home. They also oppose government teaching sex education and avoiding to promote abstinence.

well, catholics are fine with evolution.

[Gods_Mercenary]

I would like to see where in the Bible education has been discouraged. I went to a Marist Brothers' Catholic school, which is one of the oldest educational philosophies in Africa. As far as I know, Christian missionaries set up numerous schools in Africa

I had a high school teacher who was a marist brother, very dedicated to education, they seemed to be. They and other religious groups seem to be singlehandedly responsible for education in many parts of the world.

[Athena]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary People don't like people who think they are superior because they are educated or successful, for one. People want to be successful, so taking out others crowding the m,arket also seems like a good idea. Bottom line, educated people can be arrogant and alienate the uneducated, the uneducated take on a mob mentality (which is pretty much how humans function) and take out those who seem to be in their way.

But, but the more we know, the more we know we don't know much at all. I am extremely ignorant of most everything. I know just enough to ask questions about some things.

[Athena]

Quote by: phoenix_fire Please cite. <sidebar>Where do you come up with asinine things like this?</sidebar>

I don't remember the bible quotes, but know of them because I helped by grandson work on a paper about popular medival quotes and we happened on biblical quotes warning of the dangers of too much learning. It was fun to chose these quotes for the paper, because it was a school paper.

However, we could start with Genesis and the idea that there is a fruit of forbidden knowledge. Like lets make knowledge of germs and the importance of sanitiation forbidden for a couple of thousands of years, but scare the hell out of people with fear of a punishing God.

Then we could go on to all the rants about being decieved, and how Satan is the great deciever. And all that stuff that really has made Christians afraid of learning, especially learning about other religions, for thousands of years.

But the quotes I wish I could find again are, about learning is bad for our nerves.

[phoenix_fire]

Quote by: Athena I don't remember the bible quotes, but know of them because I helped by grandson work on a paper about popular medival quotes and we happened on biblical quotes warning of the dangers of too much learning. It was fun to chose these quotes for the paper, because it was a school paper. However, we could start with Genesis and the idea that there is a fruit of forbidden knowledge. Like lets make knowledge of germs and the importance of sanitiation forbidden for a couple of thousands of years, but scare the hell out of people with fear of a punishing God. Then we could go on to all the rants about being decieved, and how Satan is the great deciever. And all that stuff that really has made Christians afraid of learning, especially learning about other religions, for thousands of years. But the quotes I wish I could find again are, about learning is bad for our nerves.

Erm...I can tell you right now that you're not thinking of stuff from the Bible. And no one in the Church takes the Adam and Eve thing as being against education. NO ONE. I can find you some verses about how being informed is a good thing.

Now, you can probably find some religious literature from different time periods saying something along those lines. If you're really lucky, you might even find where some cleric took a verse way out of context to make such a point. But the Bible does not say that. AT ALL.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Niether did the meideval church, apparently, considering priests were the only ones educated back then.

[CoffeeSaint]

A lot of this depends on your definition of education. If being educated means being able to follow a specific pre-determined line of reasoning and come to a defined conclusion (the ability that makes one good at standardized tests), then yes, religion supports and promotes that and does it very well. If education is defined more as the ability to question and criticize already determined paths and conclusions, and thus to force stronger proofs or even new ideas, then religions are not strongest when teaching people to question authority and think for themselves. Not that religions don't ever teach that, but at some point it breaks down: at some time, the questioner has to stop questioning because to do otherwise would mean questioning god. I don't believe that religions teach us to do that.

I think it is this second definition of education -- which I would term free thinking, or creativity -- which leads to the slaughter of intellectuals by totalitarian regimes. It is free thinkers who lead rebellions, or at least foment them.

I would think, then, that there are some religious institutions that see themselves somewhat like totalitarians, and would want to squash free thinking as counterproductive to their goals. For the most part, however, I think that religious institutions are simply not the greatest educators, because they cannot truly teach us to question; they already have at least some of the answers.

[Gods_Mercenary]

I think it is this second definition of education -- which I would term free thinking, or creativity -- which leads to the slaughter of intellectuals by totalitarian regimes. It is free thinkers who lead rebellions, or at least foment them.

I disagree, it's normally power hungry people who lead opressed people to rebellion.

[CoffeeSaint]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary I disagree, it's normally power hungry people who lead opressed people to rebellion.

Not at all; creative, free-thinking idealists start the rebellions, but because they lack a strong grasp of real power and politics, they get swept aside by the power-hungry Machiavellians. Castro could not have existed without Che Guevara; ditto Lenin and Trotsky. But once those totalitarians take power, they wipe out the people like Guevara and Trotsky; the people who are similar to the power-hungry dictators get co-opted into government positions. Hence, Stalin.

[Jack]

...being educated means being able to follow a specific pre-determined line of reasoning and come to a defined conclusion (the ability that makes one good at standardized tests)...

...education is defined more as the ability to question and criticize already determined paths and conclusions, and thus to force stronger proofs or even new ideas...

This relates to my protest that schools need to teach the young how to think more than it needs to teach what to think.

[CoffeeSaint]

Quote by: Isherwood This relates to my protest that schools need to teach the young how to think more than it needs to teach what to think.

Give it time. Schools will keep moving toward teaching what to think until they implode and people teach themselves how to think. It's already happening with home school and independent internet/distance learning. Just a little bit more accessibility, and there will be no more public school.

[Athena]

Quote by: Right of Center Well that's an interesting concept I suppose. Do you really believe Christians frown on education? That assertion is false. One looks at students that attend Catholic private school that crush public school students on every test. That doesn't sound like Christians are against education. Christians are opposed to biased education that disintegrates their positions. Two examples are sex education and evolution. Christians and many other groups say that evolution is just a theory and that teaching it as truth in science class with no other alternative is wrong. Christians oppose government sanctioned sex education because they believe that it is a private personal matter that should be handled within one's home. They also oppose government teaching sex education and avoiding to promote abstinence.

In the past Christians have been much more against education than they are today. The bible says many things, and unfortunately I do not remember the exact quotes warning against too much learning, but there was a time when these bible quotes were more important than they are today. While you justify today's Christian concern about what children are taught, in the past it was forbidden to teach the Greek paganism that is the foundation of democracy. Attitudes towards Aristotle and Plato have changed and then changed again. This is true for both Christians and Muslims. If all we know of life is what is so today in our own little part of the world, we will have a lot of arguements, and this gets very tiring. Here is a basic example of past thinking....

Anti-intellectualism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [edit] Religious fundamentalism Much modern American anti-intellectualism originates from the commonly held view among conservative Christians that the current form of public education subverts religious belief. The validity of this view, in fact, was well substantiated by the spread of atheism and Deism among the educated during the Enlightenment, and was deep-rooted even before that time. Hence, for instance, the New England writer and Puritan John Cotton wrote in 1642, "The more learned and witty you bee, the more fit to act for Satan will you bee." More recently, an anti-intellectual current is claimed by some in the works of Fundamentalist Christian cartoonist Jack Chick. In his anti-evolution tract Big Daddy? for example, he depicts the academic establishment as intolerant and elitist in their rejection of creationism. [6] Some Christians, while not considering education an inherent evil, object to what they perceived as "un-Christian" elements, especially in public schools (K-12) and colleges and universities. Focal points for fundamentalist criticism are comprehensive sex education, and evolution.

[Jack]

It's already happening with home school and independent internet/distance learning.

Yes, that's encouraging.

Just a little bit more accessibility, and there will be no more public school.

Then what will you do for a job?

[CoffeeSaint]

Quote by: Isherwood Yes, that's encouraging. Then what will you do for a job?

Oh, I'll be an acclaimed author long before that happens. I just need someone to buy my book.:)

[Athena]

My computer is giving me fits, so forgive for not getting the site address. The following is a Muslim explanation about the importance of education, inresponse to what The Genius said. Truly Islam promoted education from the beginning and they had many libraries, incontrast to Christians who burned libraries and destroyed knowledge wherever they spread, killing those would not be converted to the very limited Christian dogma world view.

However, Jews could not agree with this Muslim concern more. When Hellenism spread and took hold all around them, they were horrified by their sons taking up Hellenistic ways, and for the first time, made a real effort to educate their sons to be Jews and reject other ideas. As said, Christians detroyed libraries and knowledge of others, and taught Christian dogma. Does any one see a problem growing here?

Where we look for truth makes a huge difference. I maintain we should look to nature for truth and use the scientific method for determining truth. I believe archeologist and geologist are manifesting the Resurrection and that we all should be a part of it. The following Muslim concern makes an important point, and this brings us to the importance of liberal education verses education for technology. But my foucs a none religious focus, verses a religious focus that I believe is the source of serious conflict. A democracy turns science and nature for truth, not religion.

The Muslims today are the most humiliated community in the world. And should they persist in following the same educational program as given by their colonial masters, they will not be able to recover themselves from moral and spiritual decadence...... Now how can we become Muslims in the true sense of the word? First let’s define what a Muslim is. A Muslim is not a Muslim simply because he’s born one. A Muslim is a Muslim because he is a follower of Islam, a submitter to the Will of Allah. We’re Muslim if we consciously and deliberately accept what has been taught by the Prophet Muhammad (S) and act accordingly. Otherwise we’re not true Muslims..... The main purpose of acquiring knowledge is to bring us closer to God. It is not simply for the gratification of the mind or the senses. It is not knowledge for the sake of knowledge or science for the value of sake. Knowledge accordingly must be linked with values and goals.... On this knowledge depends whether our children and we are true Muslims and remain true Muslims. It is therefore not a trivial to be neglected. We do not neglect doing whatever is essential to improve our trades and professions. Because we know that if we do neglect, we will starve to death and so lose the precious gift of life. Why then should we be negligent in acquiring that knowledge on which depends whether we become Muslims and remain Muslims? .... One of the purposes of acquiring knowledge is to gain the good of this world, not to destroy it through wastage, arrogance and in the reckless pursuit of higher standards of material comfort.... Another purpose of knowledge is to spread freedom and dignity, truth and justice. It is not to gain power and dominance for its own sake. Obviously, what we may call the reservoir of knowledge is deep and profound. It is a vast and open field that is not limited. It is impossible for anyone to gain anything more than a fraction of what there is to know in the short span of one’s life. We must therefore decide what is most important for us to know and how to go about acquiring this knowledge. The following ahadith shows how important and how rewarding knowledge is. "He who acquires knowledge acquires a vast portion." AND "If anyone going on his way in search of knowledge, God will, thereby make easy for him the way to Paradise."