Dear Flo,

As McReal said, it's a tu quoque argument. Also, many have called GW "The New Religion", and certainly many adherents are as zealous as any Christian I've encountered, and with even less valid reason.

Or do you think that it's ok to present contentious opinions as fact, as long as you hold the same opinion, just not in RE?

Dear LB Loveday
You wrote, “Surely you jest. Teachers trot out baseless "truths" portrayed as fact all the time.” I doubt that very much because teachers — public school teachers anyway — are constrained by approved syllabuses. Syllabuses may endorse only those truths for which there is convincing evidence on the basis of the best contemporary knowledge. If teachers “teach” truths in conflict with their syllabus, they ought not and, for the most part I’m sure, do not. But my point was not so much about what teachers do as what syllabuses prescribe. Except in Special Religious Education, syllabuses do not allow highly dubious beliefs to be taught as facts. SRI is the only subject in which it is “proper” for teachers — usually unqualified volunteers from the local parish — to tell the children what they like. The only assurance they need before they proselytise is faith in the rightness of what they think. That is the situation that I suggest is unacceptable in any school, but particularly in a secular public school. And Flo is right: you’ve climbed into the wrong boxing ring.
Glen Coulton

Why not show the movie 'The Life of Brian' in RE class then the kiddies can get all the facts about Christianity they will ever need to know. "Blessed are the cheese makers.." Forget Mathew, Mark, Luke and John just read the Gospel According to Cyril.

'You wrote, “Surely you jest. Teachers trot out baseless "truths" portrayed as fact all the time.”'

I clearly remember my Geography/Science teacher warning of the coming ice age and the 'fact' that their would be no oil by 2000. Keep dreaming GlenC

L.B.Loveday, Thursday, 16 December 2010 9:57:44 AM
runner, Thursday, 16 December 2010 10:41:26 AM

It is fallacy to argue for or against a proposition on the basis of proposing another proposition in another subject/argument might be wrong, or someone said something somewhere that suggests inconsistency somewhere else - the tu quoque fallacy.

runner, so what? Climate science was much more speculative back then, and is only in its infancy now. In the 1970s everyone thought oil would have run by now.

Quote: I clearly remember my Geography/Science teacher warning of the coming ice age and the 'fact' that their would be no oil by 2000

My wife's Year 11 (Adult Entry) English Teacher rejected her essay on the usage of nuclear bombs with the words "that's not what I wanted".

The wife wrote accurately that she would have been unlikely to have been in the class had not the bomb been used in WW2 as her father was a POW and would have been unlikey to have lived much longer if not for the timely end to the Pacific WW2 occasioned by the bombings and hence she'd have not been conceived.

Apart from that, she should be marked on English grammar, spelling, sentence and paragraph construction, logic to a certain extent; certainly she should not have to agree with the teacher's stated opinion that it was unconditionally wrong for her father's life to have been saved in such a manner.

Quote: Syllabuses may endorse only those truths for which there is convincing evidence on the basis of the best contemporary knowledge.

I suggest you read Gillard's proposed 2011 (or 2013, or) curricula. Or talk to my daughter.