Comments on: Math Teacher Given Green Light to Proselytize His Christian Faith

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:11:00 +0000

And why do they latch onto the part where it mentions a Creator, but not embrace the “all men are created equal” part when it comes to LGBT rights?

By: Brian Cooper

Brian Cooper — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 21:22:51 +0000

The first amendment protects “free exercise” while prohibiting government “establishment.” (If you think too deeply about it, that makes no sense– how can you say you aren’t endorsing relgion when you singled it out for a special discussion in the constitution. But i digress.)

So a math teacher is not a robot who is only allowed to talk about math math math. He’s a human being, and human beings have all kinds of crazy ideas. And in america you get to say those out loud.

Of course there are limits. Always. Religious expression that directly denigrated others based on their religious beliefs would be discriminatory and illegal. And I expect most schools would take the ACLU’s position that the school should not allow any religous or anti-religious expression. (Another teacher had tibetan prayer flags, another something from Hinduism, another the lyrics from imagine: “imagine there’s no heaven.” Another had sports stars– whom a future civilization may mistake for our gods.)

But i actually think it’s kinf of cool for kids to see that adults who care enough about them to make education their life calling can have a diversity of views. It’s the kind of thing that might make a kid think he could write a blog about his atheism and no one would try to make him take it down.

By: John

John — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 23:28:28 +0000

You name yourself the “friendly” atheist but your site is not really that friendly.

If you despise the fundamental precepts of America, why did you come here?

By: Larry

Larry — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 01:59:27 +0000

If you’d bothered to read the entire story and then report it to your readers, you would know that MANY teachers in the school had religious references in their classrooms to other faiths (Buddhism, Judaism and Islam to name a few). The problem wasn’t that this teacher put up Christian posters, it’s that he was the ONLY teacher asked to take his religion-themed propoganda. Instead of picking on Christians, why not pick on the teachers the principal didn’t attack? No religion has a place in school at all but you shouldn’t be singling out Christians.

By: Concerned ADULT

Concerned ADULT — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:47:18 +0000

Are you people kidding me? Read the brief of the case and the court’s ruling. How can anyone here say this is unfair? Only a complete and utter moron would think this is not a FAIR and JUST ruling. Other teachers are hanging other religious slogans and statements of belief in their classrooms and this guy is singled out because his are Judeo-Christian? And somehow any of you think this is a GOOD idea?

Let me illustrate in a way many of you may be able to understand… What would happen if teachers started hanging political slogans and endorsements in their classrooms and the school board banned endorsements of same-sex marriage? Should that be fair? Or would you be outraged by the school “targeting” specific messages that you feel strongly about?

How is this any different? How can any governing body publicly ban one religion and not another?

By: Tammy

Tammy — Thu, 06 May 2010 14:54:29 +0000

Exactly what Steve posted – why is it posters of Ghandi, global warming, gay rights, Malcolm X and other worthy images to perhaps inspire the students (isn’t that what we are supposed to be doing in public schools?) are allowed in classrooms but lines from our Pledge are not? C’mon! School is about exposing students to all concepts, ideas, thoughts and allowing them to learn, grow and make decisions for themselves! We no more want them being taught only anti-religious views than you want them taught strictly religious views.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:58:36 +0000

If anyone had bothered to read the ruling you would have seen that it was based on the school district allowing all sorts of non-Christian religious postering by teachers, anti religious postering and advocacy for such causes as gay rights.
So the ruling was: you have created/ allowed a limited free speech forum for teachers to express their personal beliefs. You can eliminate all the posters or you can leave all the posters. You can’t decide to draw the line at Deist (not even Christian)posters that reflect the Declaration of Independence and the views of the founders.
Which part of this don’t you get? If the science teacher can use her classroom to advocate gay rights, why can’t the math teacher use his to to advocate deism?

By: JayDubb

JayDubb — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:16:06 +0000

Ok people: First of all, this teacher is – yes – expressing commonly known, explicit excerpts from documents of the United States of America. He teaches in a Government school, therefore it is pertinent. Secondly, his emphasis on “CREATOR” is obviously – a belief, yes – but more importantly, a statement of defense against the Darwinism that has skewed the study of natural sciences, and thirdly, finally: a traditional and honest examination of mathematics, from simple to complex, from arithmetic on up through physics and calculus does something amazing. It reveals creation, the order and elements, cause and effect thereof. It is an order revealing intelligent life, and intelligent design. The idea of a Creator is germane to science of math.

By: Math teacher must be allowed to hang God banners « Political Cartel

Math teacher must be allowed to hang God banners « Political Cartel — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:40:28 +0000

[...] the vein of consistency, Hemant Mehta (the Friendly Atheist) asks what the outcome would be if an atheist math teacher put up large anti-Christian banners in [...]

By: cathy

cathy — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:41:41 +0000

@Christophe, that’s the first thing that entered my mind when I saw that banner. Dirty minds must think alike. My next thought was, ‘wait, considering that this phrase usually only is applied to male genitals, are those that aren’t ‘endowed’ inferior?’