Thursday, September 23, 2010

Texan Textbooks at it Again

It's no secret that Texas is one of the largest and most populous states in the US, so naturally their stake in the textbook market is fairly important. And based on their history of decisions, you can see how this would be a problem. The most recent issue for them is whether or not the textbooks contain "pro-Islamic, anti-Christian half-truths and selective disinformation." While this theory has a small amount of truth to it, the overall idea is completely absurd.
Now, it was my belief that the Constitution called for a separation of church and state, and clearly this is a breach of that doctrine. I have no problem with teaching about religion, but trying to push for stronger Christian ideals and demonize Islam is blatantly in favor of one religion over another. I will admit, to some extent Islam is shown in a better light than Christianity in these books, and perhaps that is something to be looked into, but it is my belief that what the people backing this proposition want is much more.
But what I cannot, and probably never will, understand is why so many people hate Islam as a whole. Without a doubt the attacks by extremists on our country was a terrible tragedy, but a seemingly majority of Americans don't realize that the attackers were not typical Muslims. In fact, Islam is not the only religion with extremists, and in many cases, arguably more Islams are moderate than any other religion. People are making these and many other decisions about the treatment of Muslims based off of their own beliefs, not the facts. Most do not even realize that one of the basic teachings is peace, not just in Islam but in most (if not all) religions worldwide.
So, is this debate truly about protecting our children from pro-Islamic ideals, or is it just based on an unknown ignorance of something you are told to fear?

7 comments:

  1. Just tell them the truth and good game.

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  2. I'm waiting patiently for enough people to grow up enough to realize that all religion, of any sort, does, is evil.

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  3. They'll need to get over the truth after 100 years then.

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  4. I hate shit like this, you know what they should teach? Everything, they should give students a little bit of un-biased information from each perspective. Why shelter them from that? I don't get what the big deal about stuff like this is. I think the reason stereotypes are built is because of stuff like this. If we don't teach upcoming generations about other cultures/religions no matter how extreme they are who are they going to get an opinion from?

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  5. nice text man supp

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