Fundamentalists and education

[Plaid Adder]

We were talking to our neighbor the other day and she told us something I had never known about the town where I live. There is this big Baptist church in the area--one of those boxy things that looks like it should be in a strip mall--and apparently this church runs a cleaning service staffed entirely by college-age women. (They are all going to some local Christian college affiliated with the church, of course.) I thought, well, that's in character; what else would they want to train these women for except keeping house? Then our neighbor said something that was kind of scary.

She said she had tried this cleaning service for a little while, but she gave up on it because the women they sent over "couldn't make decisions on their own." If something went wrong or if they had to interpret an instruction she'd left or if they came across a situation she hadn't told them about, they had to wait for her to come sort it out. She also overheard them calling the guy who ran the service to ask for permission to do extremely simple and trivial things--the kind of thing that she herself would have done without asking anyone about it--and then clapping with joy when they got permission. Also, she said, they couldn't drive. These neighbors have a semicircular driveway and it was just too much for these women, who would back onto the lawn and have to be disentangled by someone before they could get out into the street. Eventually, our neighbor decided that wrangling the Christian cleaners was more work than doing it herself, and that was the end of it.

She said she got kind of a disturbing "cultlike" vibe off them. Our neighbor works in the public school system, and she asked one of these women one time what she wanted to do once she got out of (Christian) college. She said, "Oh, I'm going to teach in the public school system." Our neighbor said, "I don't think so." "Why not?" "Well, because your college is not accredited." This woman had no idea either that the college she was going to wasn't accredited or that her ed BA from an unaccredited college was not going to qualify her for a job in the public school system. Oh well, I'm sure the plan is for them all to be married with 6 kids before they ever get around to looking for jobs.

So this is how they're training the would-be teachers of the future. Kind of makes you want to go stick your head in a bucket.

Aieee,

The Plaid Adder

[xchrom]

1. this could be funny if they weren't determined

to make everybody else like them.

and if not -- then too bad for reults that befall you.
and they'll be all too happy to deliver said results.

[rasputin1952]

2. After spending a lifetime fighting for women's rights, I find

it deeply disturbing that so many women would simply toss those years away and just act like some kind of jello-spined creature incapable of self thought.

We do not march backward, we appear to be running backward at great speed, searching for the darkness because what we saw in the light scared us to death.

For crying out loud, can't people be allowed to think for themselves? Does it not occur to some of these women that the male they are asking for advice/guidance from might be far more flawed than anyone else this person comes in contact with?

"Cult" is the correct nomenclature for these groups; just as Charlie Manson demanded complete loyalty, just as bush demands complete loyalty, nothing but evil and carnage can come from this...:(

[rodeodance]

3. thinking for themselves in not in the curriculum -so it seems.

......For crying out loud, can't people be allowed to think for themselves? ......

[MN ChimpH8R]

4. Gawd and Jeebus have already done your thinking for you

Just listen to Pastor Eustace and he will tell you what you should think and do. He has a hotline to Gawd, don't you know. :sarcasm:

[Kailassa]

10. Nice school, free drinks every lunch-time. :-)

[havocmom]

5. Handmaid U. Make people helpless and they belong to you

Just like what the corporatist are doing with Americans, male and female. Make everyone think things are just too much and they will always have to rely on some corporation to take care of things.

Corporate farms are the final frontier near as I can figure. Make it so no one can survive without paying through the nose for sustenance and you have enslaved the entire population.

Wanna subvert the dominant paradigm? Learn to grow some veggies. Teach all the kids you can to garden. Show people they are not helpless and that they can exert some will and change things. THAT is a very important lesson and gardening is one way to illustrate it. Try something new, learn what fails, what works, keep trying until you have made a new reality. That is the lesson they don't want anyone to learn.

It is easier to spot what they are doing to make women helpless, but they are doing it to men also. They just have to make sure the women will accept being led around by men so the men have something to feel superior about and don't look to closely at the reality of their own existence.

[rkc3]

6. Yup, and in every household, the rule for these monkeys is...

God first, then the husband, followed by the wife, and lastly the kids.

I happened to be flipping through the channels and a somewhat (if not a bit smarmy) handsome evangelist was was talking about how women should be subservient to their husbands. I came back through about 20 minutes later and he was still hammering the point home.

I have enough trouble organizing my day, I couldn't imagine the difficulties of managing my wife on a full-time basis.

[havocmom]

7. "...difficulties of managing my wife on a full-time basis." LOL

Pity Havocdad. His primary degree is in wild life management and then there is ME to deal with ;)

The religious right is real big on reminding the followers that it's just fine for a man to take a rod to his wife, so long as it is no thicker than his thumb. Gee, one would think only guys with delicate hands would get lucky!

I will deal with poverty to the point of being destitute (and HAVE, as a matter of fact) rather than have someone be my master. Perhaps I am a relic, but my daughter is even tougher. Hope we keep that mean gene alive in the species!

[rkc3]

8. I wish your daughter all the best - there needs to be a few women

out there with backbone to stand up to idiots like these.

I taught my daughter sarcasm at a very early age (and at 9, I sometimes regret it), so I can only hope she won't put up with that shit for very long.

[havocmom]

9. The Gift of Free Will. Wasn't that something from God?

Seems to me the height of blasphemy for fundies to disregard that precious gift. And seems anyone who insists on it would be doing the work of... SATAN? :evilgrin:

Can't figure why people who are so vocal about their allegiance to a devout faith would also want to refute one of the foundations of that faith. Oh, yeah, it's really a cult pretending to be a faith.

Yes, our daughters face some serious threats. Mine is old enough to handle most of them. Hope your daughter finds others who share freedom. It can be a very lonely path sometimes. But you did well to teach her a broader view.

[rkc3]

12. The foundation for most fundies is...

Do as I say, not as I do.

So the disregard of many Christian tenets is to be expected. The bigger problem is that there are a good number of morans out there who have been sold down the river by this admin and others on the premise that by supporting the admin, they are also supporting jeebus' work - and nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, they will bend over backwards to tell us how bad the libruls are while ignoring the fact their their lord and personal savior is one of the biggest liberals of all time.

Even further, this country is an experiment in liberalism. The knuckleheads who risked their lives to come here hundreds of years ago wanted a nation where they could worship in their own manner without fear of persecution - we've almost lost that in this country.

And the funny part is that you can point these facts out to most morans and they will stare blankly at you lke you've just signed your ticket to hell. It would be a crying shame if it weren't so funny to watch.

[Kailassa]

11. Speaking of Fuzz-brained Fundies ...

I had one trying to explain the problem with modern marriage. Apparently a married couple becomes an animal and if it has two heads it will be confused and go nowhere. The Christian alternative to the two-headed marriage beast is for the lady to not have one, and allow the man to do all the thinking.

I sincerely agread that I didn't want my relationship to be a two headed beast, and that I'd much prefer mine to be a two-backed one. The poor man fled.