Wow: Crazy Teacher Accused of Branding Students
April 23rd, 2008
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These are only accusations and honestly I hope that they turn out not to be true:
An Ohio 8th grade science teacher has had conflicts with the local public school over religion in the class room. John Freshwater apparently had been doing some bible thumping in science class, teaching the ten commandments, demanding repentance of his students and so on. The school, of course, had to ask him to tone it down and ordered Mr. Freshwater to remove the ten commandments from his classroom. Later he was ordered to remove a bible from his desk, which he alleged violated his first amendment rights, implying that the book was for his own personal use outside of class hours.
An investigation was launched into Freshwater’s behavior in the class room and the allegations got much worse. Students have come forward alleging that Freshwater had burned a cross into their arms using an “electrostatic device” which was apparently some kind of heat-based cutting tool used by the class. Apparently this occurred during some of his “healing” and purification rituals which he was known to have held.
According to a parent complaint, John Freshwater used an electrostatic device to burn crosses onto students’ arms. One of the students said the pain was so severe it prevented him from sleeping at night.
“The cross-burning happened during an eighth-grade science class,” Attorney Jessica Philemon told 10TV. “It happened with a science machine that uses an electric shock to cause a burn, and the teacher chose to burn a cross onto John Doe’s forearm.”
Philemon said parents complained to the district after the alleged incident in December 2007.
Given that the accusations are so serious, not simply the preaching in class, which is apparently not being contested but the disfigurement of students by burning, a practice which hearkens to the dark ages as a manner of atonement for perceived sins, one would think that a full investigation would be universally supported. Multiple parties have complained about the incident and others related and nobody is denying that Freshwater was a very outspoken and driven preacher in his classroom. However, Coach Dave Daubenmore, leader of Pass the Salt Ministries, the religious group Freshwater is part of, has demanded that the investigation be ended immediately.
To me, this is highly disturbing, because I know if I were accused of something like this which I was innocent of, I would want nothing more than to have a full investigation with the evidence allowed to speak for itself. The fact that it has taken so long for the full investigation to become public and the fact that Freshwater has been allowed to continue to teach, even after the claims of harming his students physically, seems to be based at least partially on strong support Freshwater has been receiving in the community, a predominantly conservative Christian area of Ohio.
Believe it or not, the recent rally which occurred in front of the school was in support of Freshwater and demanded an end to the investigation. It is not the first of such rallies for Freshwater, either. The local NBC affiliate has stated:
In an act of encouragement, students brought Bibles and wore homemade T-shirts to school, supporting Freshwater. A rally was also held to support him early last week.
While the investigation continues, Freshwater will be allowed to continue to teach, although a monitor will be observing his classes and interactions with student at all times. This has been called a violation of his rights and an act of “character assassination” by many of Freshwater’s supporters.
Honestly, this kind of thing scares me. It’s amazing what a group of angry and ignorant villagers with torches can do.
And no, I’m not implying that *all* Christians or religious people are like this, but the support that one can get by thumping the bible and (allegedly) searing the flesh of school kids is disturbing.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Education, religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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April 24th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Good analogy but not perfect. One difference: I’m a smoker and I know it’s not good for my health or my wallet. Looking back I would have been better off not having started but oh well. I’ve tried to quit and quit for a couple months before. I’m going to make another effort once I have a little less stress in my life. Obviously it’s not easy, but yes, I totally recognize it’s not good and I wouldn’t really encourage any non-smokers to take up the habit.
On the other hand, most religious, by very definition really, don’t realize what they’re addicted to is destructive and that they’d be better off without it. More than that, they generally want to get others to take it up too and actively try to get others to!
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April 24th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Well Dr Irene Pepperburg’s star parrot Alex has passed away, and he was the most conversational of the species to date.
“Can your birds make any vocalizations which are relevant to a situation”? Yes, that’s exactly what they can do. One will say ‘Hi’ or ‘Bye’ as someone enters of leaves the house by the main door. Another will ask for a treat if she sees someone eating, that sort of thing. But clearly they do no assign any lexical or semantic meaning to the sounds. However they do pick up this behavior on their own.
All in all Grays are great fun to have about, they are not loud like Amazons, but like any parrot they are messy and need attention to keep them friendly with humans.
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April 24th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Jason Rennie said:
Interesting that all those devout Christian scientists had to turn to the world of nature to make any progress toward understanding the universe. Their brilliant minds made no discernable headway when trying to work with Scripture as the basis of their speculations.
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April 24th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Ben T said:
Great, I recognize that you hate religion but as long as I keep religion on a personal level, and only talk to those who are interested in what I have to say, am I really harming you? It’s the like wise case of gay marriage. I don’t really give a hoot if gay marriage is legalized or not. Many Christians claim that it will hurt the central family value no matter what, that’s much akin to your idea that religion is destructive no matter what. I’d really like to know how my beliefs (Messianic Judaism) have affected you (Atheists) in any capacity? I’d really like to know also from Christians how gay marriage would affect them in any capacity?
I’m all for live and let live. You don’t want to believe in G-d? Great. You want to believe in G-d? Super. You want to gay? Fine. Who am I or anyone else to say otherwise? Everyone thinks they are right, myself included, but to say that there is absolutely no possible way I can be wrong, well that would make me a bigot and that is exactly how everyone is acting these days. Everyone from Atheists to Zionists thinks their way of thinking is the only absolute true thinking, and any other thought counter to their thinking is lower, sub-standard, and out right donkey dung. I, however, am open to the idea that I could be wrong. Atheists, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Pagans, Zionists, all could be wrong. Hell, the fly spaghetti monster could be the truth (even though it’s a joke against Christians). How does anyone know otherwise, that’s when every above group whips out their book of choice and says “THIS TELLS ME SO!” uh huh, exactly. I have my beliefs, you have yours. Live and let live. Have a nice day.
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April 24th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Buddy Lee said:
Oh I totally think you have the right to believe in whatever you want. I think it’s a ridiculous fantasy and harmful, but knock yourself out. Go smoke too if you want. I don’t see any redeeming value in tobacco and it’s not good for your health or budget or anything, but go smoke if you want too.
Just don’t blow smoke or god in my face.
I think the “G-d” thing is cute too. I guess the ASCII character “O” would make it a word you’re not supposed to every say or type but the dash is different even though it effectively means the same. That’s so cute.
You’re allowed to say “god” though, right? Like as in with a lower case “g” as in the statement “Zeus was a god worshiped by the Greeks” That’s ok, right? But it’s like really bad if you say “Yahweh”, right? What about the Latinized English version “Jehovah,” is that forbidden too?
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April 24th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Finrod said:
Why is it interesting? Unlike many Christians today, earlier ones believed God revealed Himself not only through scripture but through nature. In fact science was often referred to as the Book of Nature. It wasn’t because they couldn’t make headway through scriptural based things. Try doing research before you make assumptions.
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April 24th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
That isn’t to say they necessarily took the Bible literally either, but still.
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April 24th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Buddy Lee said:
To the best of my knowledge, Messianic Judaism has not become a political movement that is committed to seeing its doctrines codified into law. Messianic Judaism doesn’t try to force its beliefs on others via illegal means such as preaching in a secular classroom. Messianic Judaism doesn’t have an eschatology that believes the end of the universe is nigh so we don’t have to address problems that will impact future generations.
The minute that anyone’s faith starts impacting me, it stops being their business and becomes mine. The moment that religious practices start to harm children, it stops being a private matter.
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April 24th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Seolyk said:
Check out the life and work of Johannes Kepler for a good example of an early scientist who made no headway at all in understanding the nature of the physical universe through his biblical studies, but ushered in a scientific revolution once he was able to study sufficiently accurate data (provided by Tycho Brahe) derived from direct observation of the natural world.
Kepler started out with a clear intuition concerning cosmic structure in his mind (the idea that the relative positions of planetary orbits around the Sun were directly related to a nested series of Platonic solids). He wanted to furnish proof of his idea because he believed it would reveal the rational mind of God for all to see, and buttress the religious faith of humanity. To do this, he needed much more accurate data than he had access to. He was lucky enough to live at a time when a careful observer had obtained data of the requisite accuracy, and Kepler eventually managed to get his hands on it.
To Kepler’s great disappointment, the whole exercise blew up in his face. He was unable to ever convince himself that he’d found any kind of compelling fit between various sets of nested Platonic solids and the actual planetary orbits. What was even more upsetting though, was that he eventually had to recognise that he’d found positive proof that planetary orbits weren’t even based on perfectly circular motions. Planetary orbits turned out to be elliptical. This discovery led to the formulation of Newton’s theory of gravitation, and onward to the world we live in today.
The two “books”, scripture and nature, give radically differing accounts of the same issues (although perhaps this shouldn’t be that big a deal to Christian literalists, seeing that Genesis contains two mutually exclusive accounts of the Creation). This was not fully appreciated until the birth of modern science, but once it got underway, science trumped scripture all the way down the line wherever a biblical claim could be subjected to rational analysis.
Now how about providing some examples of major scientific advances based on deep study of the scriptures, in accord with its principles?
Seolyk said:
But still what? If they didn’t take it literally, then in what sense did they take it, and which parts are we talking about?
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April 25th, 2008 at 10:09 am
ok i do have my facts straight, he didnt brand anyone the student is an atheist i know him personally and i never saw anything on his arm that even remotely resembled a cross. and it wasnt more than one student that said that. it was one single student, and mr.freshwater never branded anyone.just shut the f*** up! all of you bloggers out there need to pull your head out of your butt and get all of your facts stright, instead of getting your facts of a 100% liberal news channal i.e. FOX, abc, nbc, so on
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April 25th, 2008 at 10:46 am
nate said:
Much better we should trust some semi-anonymous poster like you that makes unattributed statements and flings insults at us.
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April 25th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
The only true statement of fact in this blog is the man had a bible on his desk.
Nothing more, nothing less.
People who attack the religious are no better than the religious who attack the secularists.
FJD
San Francisco
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April 25th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Frank said:
The news stories say that he had the ten commandments up, was participating in class prayer, was actively recruiting students to be “saved,” leading student prayer groups and had on occasions taught creationism as scientific fact. All the news gives the impression of someone who was a very religious person who could not leave that when he came to work at a public school and continued to preach in class and mix teaching with preaching.
If that’s not true then you should blame the news sources that did the interviews and reported this from the beginning because those are cited here and it seems like that info is all coming from those media outlets.
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April 25th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Frank said:
How trite. When was the last time a secularist was accused of proselytizing in a classroom? The fact remains that secularist are not mandated by the tenets of secularism to spread the word; the religious are.
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April 25th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Do not fret..What a interesting time, the people to the left who profess in having all of the answers to life, don’t even know the Truth, if it hit them in the face. They can babel all they want right now, when their time comes they too will be on their knees. Jesus said it will happen, and it will. It is not religious speculation. He is bigger that …ALL … idiotic beliefs. He will correct all of this in His time. I don’t know what this teacher did, I am just proud of all of the Christians that stepped forward to speak the Truth. Just know that all of those who don’t know the truth, will know soon enough, and just pray that they learn the truth sooner than later.
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April 25th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Well I’d like to point at least one thing out: I’m NOT by any measure on the LEFT. Actually, I don’t generally like to play the liberal-conservative left-right game because I’m loyal to neither, but if you want to define me I’m basically a moderate libertarian – I favor libertarianism but not to the extreme. I’m therefore basically a “modern conservative” or a “Barry Goldwater Conservative” more than anything else – although I’m a bit more moderate than Mr. Goldwater.
I’m a registered member of the Libertarian party and I generally have voted either for moderate republicans or conservative democratic candidates.
Don’t tell me I’m on the “Left” as I’m definitely not and I’ve had more than my fair share to say about bleeding hearts, hippies, socialists and that whole lot.
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April 25th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
cdp said:
First, I’m not on the left either. But I find it amazing that the ones who “know the Truth” are so quick to point the finger at everyone else for saying they “profess in having all the answers to life.” For one thing those who reject the bible as absolute truth will say they don’t have all the answers. Do I know what caused the Big Bang? No. Do I know at what point in Earth’s history RNA evolved into DNA? No. Do I know if this teacher is in the right or the wrong? No. I just know what’s reported.
Yet, you will stand there and confidently tell everyone that you know the absolute truth of everything? That you are certain this or that will happen or that Jesus said one thing or the other? Were you there? No, you read it as a second hand story in a book. You will say with 100% confidence that **you** have all the answers to life.
On the other hand, I’ll admit right now that there are plenty of things I’m not certain of and there’s always a chance I’m wrong on certain things. The “Truth” as I see it is only based on what I can learn or observe or figure out. I base it on evidence and if there is evidence against what I think then I’ll have to reconsider.
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April 25th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
cdp said:
the secret priests will take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth….and all the earth will flame with a holocaust of horror and terror.
One pile of bull**** smells the same as another.
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April 25th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
drbuzz0 said:
How is that not left? That’s completely secular and opposed to Jesus and his message even if you call yourself a conservative or say you are for good things and morality and living well then you’re not because you clearly deny the Truth which will always set you free.
We know what Jesus said and he is coming back so if there is any doubt by anyone it will all be cleared on his return. Christ belongs in school because he belongs everywhere and we should never forget him. He needs to be taught about in all schools so that the children can learn the Truth and the Good News and be saved. I think it should be illegal to deny Christ.
The Supreme Court is full of left people like you which is why they have tried to stop it. If you are not devoted to Jesus then you work for the devil and they do and so do you! Everyone knows it!
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April 25th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Devoted said:
You wouldn’t understand the message of Jesus, if the Christ Himself beat you over the head with it.
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April 25th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
It appears that some think that ‘right wing’ is synonymous with ‘Christian Fascist”. It is not. Fundie Christianity has more in common with the anti-rational forces of the ‘left’ than it has with capitalist conservitism. In a Christofascist theocracy, capitalism would not long survive.
I am ‘right wing’ in the sense that I’m pro-capitalism and libertarian. I’m ‘left wing’ insofar as I’m socially progressive (in the sense that I believe that adults should have the right to conduct their private lives as they will, providing no other people are harmed in the process). Right and Left Wing are terms derived from the ‘Estates General’, a sort of Parliament which the King of France could call on to advise him if he wished it. Representatives of the three ‘estates’ sat in the chamber before the king. On his right were the nobles and the clergy (the first and second estates), and on his left sat the commoners (the third estate). When Louis XVII called for a sitting of the Estates General in 1789, the subsequent turmoil and revoulution saw the birth of the terms ‘right wing’ and ‘left wing’ to label the general political tendencies of the time. Most of the original ‘left wing’ positions would today be seen as conservative (most of the third estate representatives were lawyers, merchants, professionals, bureaucrats, and other prominent commoners).
Over the subsequent 220 years, the terms have undergone a number of metamorphoses. You need to look at the historical context whenever the terms are employed.
All of which just goes to show how the right/left terminology often conceals more than it reveals. It simply isn’t that useful a label.
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April 26th, 2008 at 12:56 am
If I was in charge, I would crucify him. lololololololololol
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April 26th, 2008 at 1:55 am
“Why is it we never hear of an evil atheist teachers branding students with the letter ‘A’?”
Probably because there isn’t such thing as an evil atheist, since a true atheist doesn’t believe in anything.
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April 26th, 2008 at 7:59 am
DV82XL said:
Because There is no such thing as an atheist teacher. Atheism = the disbelieve in a god of any kind.
That´s the reason why no one harasses you on the streets to join the faith of Atheism.
Jason Rennie said:
Abortions have also nothing to do with Atheism. The hell where do you guys live? In a cave?
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April 26th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Why is it that Americans (it´s obvious because I don´t know of any other kind of country that has only left or right to vote) love to label each other. For you guys it´s only left or right, up or down, bible thumper or baby eater, black or white. Never in the world would anyone come to the conclusion that you can be Atheist and against abortion, or Religious and for Abortion for example. It´s possible, I swear. normally humans are very deep. But you think “tell me the political orientation of someone and I know what kind of cereal he/she prefers”.
You folks are so brainwashed by your competitive livestyle and Government that you just can´t be rational about anything anymore. As long as you people divide each other you will never step forward, but spinning in circles.
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April 26th, 2008 at 11:01 am
bleh said:
It’s not quite like that. There are two big parties in the US but the parties are very weak and the vote is generally for the individual who might be anywhere in a political spectrum regardless of the party and may even oppose much of what the party in general normally supports.
Also it’s not a parlementary system and so in general you don’t ever have one party with complete control even if they have a majority in the house and/or senate, especially because there are a lot of swing voters.
The “labeling” and the “black and white” thing has a lot to do with the fact that you generally don’t hear from the majority but rather from the vocal minority of extremists.
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April 27th, 2008 at 5:27 am
bleh said:
Exactly how I feel whenever I see an argument by the two USA sides – It does get boring and repetetive as well – they need to start thinking outside the box ans seeing things grey rather than black or white- see a little nuance in things and stop assuming that just because the North Americans believe something or think of something a certain way then the rest of the world should too
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April 27th, 2008 at 5:28 am
oo sorry- and more to the point here- when this sort of thing happens in the UK the teacher is not allowed to continue teaching until the investigation has been completed- why is this guy allowed to continue?
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April 27th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
The controversy on this thread seemed to die down suspiciously quickly. I wonder if the youngsters who posted in favour of Freshwater ceased because they were all ordered not to view this site anymore?
Just a bit of idle speculation…
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April 27th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Finrod said:
But of course – they’ve all contaminated themselves as witnesses, both in the investigation and any subsequent court actions in this matter. Bet someone got a gag order put on them for that reason.
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April 28th, 2008 at 3:46 am
nate said:
i love how this guy lists FOX news as a liberal news outlet, when you say **** like that you loose all credibility
Devoted said:
so i supose your pro Nazi right? cause they were all over persecuting people who denied crist. theres millions of dead jews to prove it.
DV82XL said:
long live Cthulhu. lol
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April 28th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Hello all.
I’ve taken the time to read through the article and all the opinions published here.
First of all I’d like to tell you a true story from my own life, which I remembered, while
reading. During a period in my childhood I attended a christian school. It wasn’t really my choice,
but anyway it happened. The teacher/preacher there was really a radical/enthusiastic/dedicated
christian type. In fact his influence was pretty strong and one day I was even persuaded under
his influence to “trust Jesus”. After that happened, one girl in our class suddenly started telling
people that I said that “I would rape her and rip her clothes off”. I never even thought anything
like that, much less dared to pronounce such words. However the principal heard it as did my parents.
To this day I ponder why that girl said those things.
Anyway now I don’t consider myself a christian perse. I never did really figure out what one of those
really was. One day I finally had enough of churches and arguments and feeling guilty and
all that stuff. So I figured – if God exists, He certainly has to be above all this madness and
certainly wouldn’t approve of me living in fear and confusion, all caused by church people.
So I asked God – If you really exist, please show me another way. I don’t like all this church
stuff. I don’t like christians. I don’t like the Bible. I figured if there was a God and if He
was powerful, He could show me another way. If there wasn’t a God, well, I wasn’t losing anything.
Now I do have reason to believe in God. But that’s me. I’m not saying that everyone else has to
as well. I also believe in intelligence. I believe that without a strong and critical mind, I would
be much worse off. I also teach others to improve their minds and their thinking. If God is intelligent,
I can only learn to understand Him better that way, with a clear and developed mind.
God isn’t the church. God isn’t religion. For those who want to know the truth (truth, by the way,
is endless and depends on what you want to know about) should just focus on certain questions – What, if anything is God really? How could I even know if God exists? How could I know what or who God really is? Those who love truth keep learning all of their lives. It’s wise to speak about truth concerning this or that. There are facts and essences of things. There is reality behind this or that word. When we are ready,
we discover a little truth or reality. If we learn some truth about something (even religion) that doesn’t
necessarily mean that we are owners of “THE TRUTH”. It just means that we have learned something
important.
I say let’s learn to speak less and listen more.
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April 29th, 2008 at 3:16 am
this is absurd. this man is accused of BURNING STUDENTS!!! regardless of his religious beliefs, that is not okay. the fact that i felt the need to bring that up in this whole thing just points out how horrifying this whole thing is. it doesnt matter if the man is christian, muslim, scientologist, or anything else, hell even buddhist!!! if the allegations are false, then an apology should be made, thats what happens. this man is no martyr and people have gone through much worse on false accusations. if it is true, then he should be in jail, and for a very long time. the school should really do better psychological evaluations of their employees.
this investigation is neccessary, and the outcome is important. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RELIGION!!!l
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April 29th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Devoted said:
Read up on the early church. Sure, people back then believed that Jesus of Nazareth would return to earth, in the flesh, and would liberate them. but even John the apostle believed it would be by then end of his life, not thousands of years later.
and as far as being illegal to deny Jesus as Christ: it would be very possible to make the argument that everyone should deny Jesus as Christ. After all, the history of the Church is one of, if not the most blood stained tale around. More people have been murdered for no other reason than to force people to pray to the “King of Kings”. Some of the most sadistic and tyrannical leaders of history have been Popes.
If the man called Christ really did come from heaven and damn people to eternal hell, the deepest pits there would be quickly filled by the fear-mongering dooms-dayers and the hate mongering hypocrites.
You say I’ll go to hell. I say having your opinions and outlooks would be more spiritual bondage and torment than my hell ever could be.
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April 30th, 2008 at 1:29 am
nate said:
Are you sure you know the kid? I think you’re just pulling somethin’ outta your ass to put online. Did he wear sleeveless shirts? Teacherman might’ve burned the kid on the upper arm.
Anyways…there are a lot of teachers out there (well maybe not a lot, but enough to piss me off all through my middle and high school years in the south) who’ll push their religion on students. Lucky for me, my 8th grade science teacher was…not quite…atheist…it had something to do with numbers.
Whatever. My art teacher in 9th grade told me (and my older brother who was a year ahead of me) that we were going to go to hell because we had “satanic” symbols on our jewelry. And yet I was his best student with the highest grade average. I just looked different, and wore a pentagram ring as well as the ring my boyfriend gave me with the seven planetary symbols (my brother has assloads of piercings everywhere). He forbade me to draw a pentagram on my final portfolio cover, but I did it anyways, and it brought my grade down. I left the class a couple of times because of it. He preached to us constantly in the class, but nobody complained. He was a nutcase and did way too much acid in the 70’s, but he never burned anyone.
In defense of the teacher, some students are just that ****in’ spiteful.
Still, I agree with a lot of people here, until the cops/whoever get to the bottom of the investigation, he should not be allowed to teach. Damn, people are stupid. Particularly bible-humping (I prefer that term to bible-thumping ^^) maniacs who try to preach in their classrooms.
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May 2nd, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Local paper has assuances from parents attorney that photos do exist of the cross burned into student’s arm
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May 8th, 2008 at 2:09 am
i would like to apologize to all of those who have had such interactions with those people who are calling themselves “Christians”. i am a firm believer in Christ and i stand firm against what most of those people are saying. i don’t think it should be illegal for people to deny Christ because i believe God wants us to choose to follow Him. i don’t think that teacher should be preaching in the classroom because it’s against the laws that have been set before him and the Bible talks specifically about obeying law authorities. but i also don’t agree with the people who say “live and let live”. i will tell you my beliefs but will in no way force them on you. if nothing else you’ve learned a little more about the people you live around whether you think i’m crazy for believing what i believe in or if it all makes sense to you. Christ came to this earth to fulfill his Father’s plan and to be an atoning sacrifice for all our sins. i don’t believe on any level i’m wrong but you have every right to believe that i am. i hope every day that i don’t come across as one of the Christians that so many of you have come in contact with that have given such a bad name to Christianity. i think the closest thing that to this that comes to mind is the view many people around me have towards black people. i live in an area that was at one time heavily populated by white people and has now become a place where white people are an extreme minority. there are a lot of stupid black people that give the race a bad name when i know plenty of black folks who are great people. so i hope you meet some good Christians who know why they worship the one they say they worship and quit running into all these folks who are talking out of their rear end. i will not be banned from looking at this sight from any one so keep posting and i’ll keep responding.
~a reasonable mind
oh yeah . . . if any Christian claims to know it all he/she clearly has a lot to left to learn. God is to vast and complex to even attempt to comprehend in this lifetime.
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May 8th, 2008 at 3:21 am
nate said:
Now that’s a Fair and Balanced statement if ever there was one…
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May 8th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
reasonable wrote:
“so i hope you meet some good Christians who know why they worship the one they say they worship and quit running into all these folks who are talking out of their rear end. i will not be banned from looking at this sight from any one so keep posting and i’ll keep responding.”
So why do you worship the one you worship?
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May 8th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
first i’d like to correct my typo: “sight” should be “site” . . .
now to answer the question. i worship the One i worship because He deserves to be worshiped. I believe that He created this entire universe and everything in it that is good. i believe He created all of man kind, including you and i. i don’t know about you, but i’m going to worship someone who is that powerful. then after all of the thousands of years of the people He created disobeyed Him and often showed hatred toward Him, He sent His son to die on the cross for them/us/those who haven’t even been born yet. THEN after Christ lived a perfect life and proceeded to take the sins of the world on the cross, He rose from the grave 3 days later. i don’t understand how anyone is not amazed by that. i don’t know about you, but when this world is over i’d like to be on that Guy’s side. He’s done some pretty amazing things and He is still doing some amazing things, and there are still amazing things yet to come. i worship the one i worship because He is great and glorious, because He is omnipotent and omnipresent, because i like the fact that i can’t understand everything about Him, but most of all because He loves me and the Bible tells me so.
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May 10th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
CHRISTIANITY – The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree… Yeah, that makes PERFECT sense.
Religion is ridiculous.
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May 11th, 2008 at 1:27 am
i’d like to say that you’re being ridiculous . . . but in not so many words, you got it spot on . . . the human race does a lot of ridiculous things . . . at least the ridiculous thing i take part in brings me eternal life in paradise . . . and by the way Christianity at perfection is not a religion, it is a lifestyle
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May 11th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Corn Bread wrote:
“CHRISTIANITY – The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree… Yeah, that makes PERFECT sense.”
Actually until one has actually studied something with a sound, analytical mind and actually tried something, it’s not really right to form one’s own opinion about it. That goes for world religions too. The sad thing is that when it comes to this or that religion, people don’t take the time to really study it and see what it’s really all about at the core. I find this true about eastern religions and about christianity too. In fact the biggest cause of conflict and misery in our world as I see it is total misunderstanding and ignorance, Misunderstanding and ignorance come from people, who don’t know how to get to the core of this or that subject, religion, etc. Christianity is actually spoiled by people, who call themselves christians, as we can even see in this blog. The article here about Mr. Freshwater is just another example of stupidity by someone, who calls himself a christian. When one gets to the core of something, say christianity, one finds that it has nothing at all to do with the ten commandments. The ten commandments are actually a part of judaism, not christianity.
I do find that the longer I live in this world, I do actually see more and more “evil” per se in people. I see more and more that people need to learn to love others and forgive them. That, again, would be a core belief of christianity.
As far as the garden of eden story, that was written by people way before anyone even imagined christianity. I’m sure that that story has much more to do with symbolism and mystery, that anything literal. Christians too, need to work on their critical thinking skills and it wouldn’t hurt if they opened an ear to people from other religions and ways of life once in a while. If they really believe in God, they should allow God to teach them in different ways.
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May 11th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Wisdom Seeker said:
The reason you don’t see much of this happening is that a person develops the skill of critical thinking, all religious belief comes under question.
Christianity demands the worship of Christ crucified, that is to recognize that it is through this blood sacrifice that salvation is effected. To believe this it is necessary to believe that you are tainted with original sin, thus it’s impossible to ignore the roots of this faith in all its bloody and illogical whole.
If you choose to worship an uncrucified Christ, then the message is no different than many other philosophies – in fact it is rather simplistic and incomplete.
That’s why logic and religion have always had a strained relation – in the end they’re not really compatible.
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May 19th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Anyway now I don’t consider myself a christian perse. I never did really figure out what one of those
really was. One day I finally had enough of churches and arguments and feeling guilty and
all that stuff.
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June 10th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
reasonable said:
I totally agree, especially with the last part. Christianity isn’t about doing what’s right and not doing what’s wrong, it’s about living for God, loving people, and forgiveness. By loving God and building a relationship with Him, you become more like him. By becoming more like him you start to live like Him, and that’s where all the rules of right and wrong come into place. The “christians” who try to be perfect WITHOUT God and through their own work end up becoming bitter, crazy people, such as the king of Spain during the Inquisition. Now, I’m not saying Christians are perfect, because we’re not. The difference between us and everyone else is that we have the Creator of the universe by our side helping us live each day in this complex world we live in.
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June 10th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
alb4 said:
What breathtaking hubris! You have deluded yourself into believing that the whole universe exists for you. The arrogance of such a stand can only come through ignorance of just how small and meaningless this world is in the vastness space and time. Worse you base this viewpoint on the ravings of the madmen of a minor desert peoples that were the doormats of the ancient world – constantly being invaded, or driven into slavery – that salved their pride by making themselves out to be a ‘chosen people.’ This would be funny if it wasn’t the same thing that abandoned kids do when they fantasize about powerful parents that cannot openly acknowledge them, but are still helping them in secret.
Grow up and face the truth; it’s pathetic for adults to have invisible friends.
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June 21st, 2008 at 12:41 am
bleh said:
Oh oh. Here we go. But you’re really no different from us then…apparently we Americans like to label everything, just as you have labeled Americans as wanting to label everything. So you must be an American yourself, because you’re labeling us, like we Americans like to label everything. Please…get off your European (I assume) high horse and get educated.
It’s obvious you’ve never taken the time to have a real conversation with any American. You just watch your tele and see what all those “News” channels have to say and take your conclusions from there.
Your whole comment was rather ridiculous. You’re basing it on a complete stereotype, and that is just as ignorant as saying you can’t be religious while also believing in abortion.
The fact is, the majority of Americans dont really care for the two-way party system either…its just what is glorified in the media…And many, many Americans (or PEOPLE as I like to refer to them) ARE very deep and DON’T label everything as either “black or white.”
To my real comment: This teacher should absolutely be fired. I think all teachers should be NEUTRAL while they are in the classroom…after school is out and the students have gone home, they can believe whatever it is they want.
But school is supposed to be place where you are EDUCATED…not brainwashed or manipulated…and our kids deserve to hear from both sides of the spectrum so they can come to a conclusion all on their own, without missing any information.
There IS a place for God and religion: and its called CHURCH.
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June 21st, 2008 at 12:50 am
Psychodiva said:
Again, you must be another one of those Euro-trash idiots who only knows about the US via Television. And if you had an ounce (or shall I say pint…liter?) of intelligence, you wouldn’t believe it.
If you all think America is such a stupid place, then why would you even bother taking time to “see an argument by the two USA sides” or even commenting on a story that happened within the US?
America DOES NOT …repeated once more for the idiots…DOES NOT…see everything black and white… YOU…yes YOU…just see what is portrayed by the media. And they’ve got you exactly where they want you, because you are stupid enough to buy into their lies and claims.
I think it’s really sad that many people outside of America try to put ALL Americans into this one category. You’re very ignorant in your beliefs.
If you’ve ever been to America, or taken the time to discuss something of substance with someone who is in America, you might be surprised to learn that not everyone in America is either liberal or conservative, Atheist or Christian.
Its why we’re often referred to as the “melting pot” of the world…because the ARE so many different cultures, ideas, beliefs in this place.
Please, GET EDUCATED! For your own sake…Please do it.
Intelligent people know that there are definitely more than “two sides” to America.
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June 21st, 2008 at 9:02 am
I think it’s funny how people from a place that still echoes with the sound of jack-boots crunching in the streets, and the screams of the victims of death-camps, who had to call on the Americans to save them from themselves, can take such an narrow view of that country to-day.
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