tinytherese Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 So I'm teaching a summer school religion class of seventh and eighth graders. There are three kids who are convinced that dinosaurs and that fossils were invented by the Nazis. It was pointed out that fossils have been found throughout the world and that there is too much evidence for the existence of dinosaurs in general for it to be refuted. One kid insisted though that Fox News said otherwise, and despite at least one other student and I warning him that Fox is biased and not entirely reliable, he still pushed this. The question of when human beings were created came up and was debated. It was basically pointed out how the first creation story talks about "the first day" and so on. In it animals are created before human beings. Then in the second creation story Adam is created and then the animals are created. God tells him to name them each but none of them are a suitable companion for him. Eventually Eve is created. This is really confusing my students and they have a hard time getting past an extreme literalist interpretation of the Bible. I've pointed out that there can be poetic licence and literary devices like metaphores and similies, but they still have a hard time wrapping their heads around that. I've pointed out to them that as long as we acknowledge that God created the world, that human beings have souls, and God created our immortal souls, that that's what really matters. In theory then we could believe in both the creation story form the Bible and evolution. What concerns me though is that most of the kids are anti-science. "Faith is right and science is wrong." One student pointed out that faith and science both come from God so they can't contradict each other when properly applied. Most of the other students however just weren't satisfied with that answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincent Vega Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 [quote name='tinytherese' timestamp='1307590642' post='2251538'] So I'm teaching a summer school religion class of seventh and eighth graders. There are three kids who are convinced that dinosaurs and that fossils were invented by the Nazis. It was pointed out that fossils have been found throughout the world and that there is too much evidence for the existence of dinosaurs in general for it to be refuted. One kid insisted though that Fox News said otherwise, and despite at least one other student and I warning him that Fox is biased and not entirely reliable, he still pushed this. [/quote] [img]http://gifsforum.com/images/image/not%20sure%20if%20serious/preview/not%20sure%20if%20serious.jpg[/img] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 Ask them how many Nazis live in Alberta, then tell them about the Badlands in Drumheller, and the Royal Tyrrell Museum. Some of the best fossils in the world come from the Alberta Badlands. It's world class in terms of paleontological research. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatherineM Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 Here's how I handle it. God, probably acting through the Holy Spirit, inspired a human author. 5000 years ago, they didn't have things like special affects and 3D movies. I think the way it happened is like how Joseph got images from God, in dreams over 7 days. I can't think of a better way for an ancient chronicler to describe his vision of the Big Bang than to say that "and God said let there be light." God is infinite. How could we possibly know how long a day is to God. The "day" God made the animals could have been millions of years long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luigi Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 Nazis, huh? I've never heard that one before.... A guy in one of my college classes - quite fundamental in his Christianity - believed in the inerrancy of the Bible, and therefore the literal interpretation of the Biblical creation story. When someone asked him about fossils, he said they were indeed created by God but were not the remains of dinosaurs (which are never mentioned in the Bible), but were in fact tests of faith.... God created fossils to test our faith in Biblical creation story.... But this guy never blamed the Nazis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xSilverPhinx Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 Blamed the Nazis? Now that's what I call creative license. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BG45 Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 [quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1307592041' post='2251548'] Ask them how many Nazis live in Alberta, then tell them about the Badlands in Drumheller, and the Royal Tyrrell Museum. Some of the best fossils in the world come from the Alberta Badlands. It's world class in terms of paleontological research. [/quote] Well much like my home state has the National Alliance based there, Alberta did have the Aryan Guard. Both groups have since disbanded...possibly because they've planted enough dinosaur fossils. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 [quote name='BG45' timestamp='1307593589' post='2251558'] Well much like my home state has the National Alliance based there, Alberta did have the Aryan Guard. Both groups have since disbanded...possibly because they've planted enough dinosaur fossils. [/quote] It's kinda sorta 'officially' disbanded, but it's still active. There are many one to two dozen active members (mind you there are over a million people in Calgary), and they hold a demonstration once a year that gets bombarded by those anti-fa types (who are nearly as distasteful, to be perfectly honest...). Anyway, I'm sure every big city has its racist elements. Look at how popular Stormfront is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BG45 Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 (edited) Definitely agreed! Totally off topic, but on the topic of racist demonstrations. When I was in middle school, my town elected its first African American mayor since it was founded in the early 1800s. News spread like wildfire that the Ku Klux Klan was coming to protest. The county spent $126,000 to protect 3 Klansmen from the near riot of crowds that were there both in support and against the Klan. As for the mayor, he went out and welcomed them, offering to shake their hands, they refused. Edit: For pseudo-historical bonus points, he was a Baptist minister like MLK. Edited June 9, 2011 by BG45 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Cat Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 (edited) If they are children, I dare say this may be normal and perhaps healthy, and may be reinforced by their parents beliefs. Because children tend to cling to the literal, black and white thinking, and familiar ideas. Hopefully as they develop they will learn to handle abstract thinking, critical thinking skills, open mindedness, and to reconcile their faith to reason. Offering the position of the Catholic Church and a contrary viewpoint now may help in the future as they develop more. Offering to them that the Bible was written as a religious text by people to comfort, encourage, and inspire others in their faith. It wasn't meant as a historic, scientific, or catechetical text. Their faith needs to be one loyal to the Church, that it is acceptable and encouraged by their Church to consider what the scientific community has to offer. But that it is up to them to decide, since Catholics are under no obligation to believe either way about this. However dinosaur fossils were discovered in the early 19th century, long before the nazi party came. Before that time I suspect we were finding fossils, but we didn't realize the age or implications that they represented. Sort of like as a child it may take time to realize the age and importance of a family heirloom. Edited June 9, 2011 by Mr.CatholicCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Normile Posted June 10, 2011 Share Posted June 10, 2011 [quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1307594476' post='2251564'] It's kinda sorta 'officially' disbanded, but it's still active. There are many one to two dozen active members (mind you there are over a million people in Calgary), and they hold a demonstration once a year that gets bombarded by those anti-fa types (who are nearly as distasteful, to be perfectly honest...). Anyway, I'm sure every big city has its racist elements. Look at how popular Stormfront is. [/quote] Huh ! ? I thought Alberta was all Nazis, the Name Alberta is germanic for Noble, bright and famous. Don't tell me you are giving up your Hitler youth merit badges Nihil. ! ed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted June 10, 2011 Share Posted June 10, 2011 [quote name='Ed Normile' timestamp='1307740925' post='2252169'] Huh ! ? I thought Alberta was all Nazis, the Name Alberta is germanic for Noble, bright and famous. Don't tell me you are giving up your Hitler youth merit badges Nihil. ! ed [/quote] [img]http://images.wikia.com/wikiality/images/a/a5/Communismmoe.jpg[/img] [spoiler][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqyY01HPx98[/media][/spoiler] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winchester Posted June 11, 2011 Share Posted June 11, 2011 Those three kids violated Godwin's Law. Expel them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xSilverPhinx Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 [quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1307765865' post='2252280'] Those three kids violated Godwin's Law. Expel them. [/quote] LOL! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sixpence Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 I remember that in Catholic grade school this topic wasnever discussed, and I had just assumed (from what I had seen in the media) that one must either be a Creationist or a Darwinist...very black and white... they in freshman high school biology (also Catholic) we were covering DNA and evolution and such and this question came up... the teacher explained that one could accept both... this was startling to me at the time! (of course now it seems like common sense)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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