Another Reason To Leave Christianity
Jolene found this on a shelf in her new living environment. Figured I’d buy it.
African Religions & Philosophy, by John S Mbiti.
This is an excellent book thus far and I might leave Christianity as a result. If not really, I’ll think about it a lot. Crazy idea to have an AFRICAN write about AFRICAN IDEAS instead of all the crap written by NON-Africans. How novel.
Here is an excerpt:
“It is not enough to learn and embrace a faith which is active once a week, either on Sunday or Friday, while the rest of the week is virtually empty. It is not enough to embrace a faith which is confined to a church building or mosque, which is locked up six days and opened only once or twice a week.
Unless Christianity and Islam fully occupy the whole person as much as, if not more than, traditional religions do, most converts to these faiths will continue to revert to their old beliefs and practices for perhaps six days a week, and certainly in times or emergency and crisis.
The whole environment and the whole time must be occupied by religious meaning, so that at any moment and in any place, a person feels secure enough to act in a meaningful and religious consciousness.
Since traditional religions occupy the whole person and the whole of his life, conversion to a new religion like Christianity and Islam must embrace his language, thought patterns, fears, social relationships, attitudes and philosophical disposition, if that conversion is to make a lasting impact upon the individual and his community. ” (pg 3)
Being A Student Makes Me A Better Teacher
Working on critical analysis with my juniors. Objective, historical, psychological, feminist, post-colonial, the works. Kicking their butts.
I’ve never been one who is at a want for practical illustrations to get them to understand a concept. Usually it’s making sure they are school appropriate. There are always countless examples that illustrate a point perfectly, but you just can’t say.
As we’ve been going through this process I’ve had daily epiphanies while teaching: I’ve been writing papers for my MFA using these strats. By this point in my life it’s sub-conscious. I don’t even realize that I am doing it, or plan in out in advance. I simply see the world and literature in these shades of critique.
So I throw examples at them from my own student life. Failures and successes. They seem to appreciate. Remembering that I’m in the same boat that they are in. I have papers to write with deadline, that will be graded just like they do.
Every now and then I make an overhead of something I turned in, either from undergrad or more recently, for an example. It’s great when they catch spelling mistakes or informational errors my profs had missed.
Its almost like we’re all human trying to figure this education thing out together. Go figure.
I Shouldn’t Be Proud Of This
But I am.
Yesterday a physics teacher in our building decided that it was appropriate to tell a room full of students that my philosophy classes were useless, for, among other reasons, it doesn’t deal with objective truth, facts, or things that can be proven.
The room was half filled with my philosophy students. They gave him hell. That’s why I love them. But he ignored them, and ran over their thoughts and emotions.
Then they came and told me. I’m not so easily bullied. So . . .
Today I swung by that same class, towards the end of the period, and told him that I was stopping by so I could learn pure, objective facts, and gain real truth from him. Then proceeded to ask him to teach me ANYTHING about physics WITHOUT quoting from a philosopher. Or about biology. Or any science really. Of course I then listed the great names of physics and biology, some of the modern and ancient founders, who were ALL philosophers as well as scientists and mathematicians.
I should probably feel bad that when he tried to save face, I caught him in multiple contradictions about the nature of mathematics, objective truth, language, empiricism, epistemology and .. . . well, everything. Applying the simplicity of Socrates: use the words the person just said against them. Show that they are full of it by what they themselves JUST said.
Eventually I left. I was only there for five minutes. Maybe less. The smiles on my students’ faces were reward enough.
The fact that one of them was so “proud of me” that she bought me lunch, also helped.
I’ll probably hear about this in some way on Monday. Called to the office. Told that it was ‘unprofessional.’ I probably won’t even mention the fact that he attacked my course and my effectiveness in the school first, which was also ‘unprofessional.’ Or that he was bullying my kids. Or the fact that he often talks out of his butt and doesn’t completely do his job. But I won’t. I’ll turn the other cheek at this point, since I’ve already bludgeoned his.
Un-Christ-like? Yeah. Probably. Though I could make the argument that confronting lies in the same manner that they were presented is a viable option, meekness aside. But I won’t.
However, even in light of possible consequences, it was SOOOOOOOO worth it to make a pompous person eat their words in front of my kids.
. . .Hell, party of one?
