Religious Freedom Versus Freedom Of Speech, the unstopable force meets the immovable Options

[bryden42]

Ok, So I am all up for free speech and whilst not a great fan of religion I also up for anyone believing in whatever they wish but an interesting situation arose for a teacher friend of mine the other week and I thought that I would field it to you guys to discuss.

It goes like this:
Teacher is asked by small girl (who is a Pentacostalist christian)
"how long can someone hold their breath for?"
Teacher (with alarm bells ringing) asks
"Why do you want to know?"
Little girl replies
"last Sunday the pastor was telling us about jonah and the whale, And I was wondering how long jonah could have held his breath for"
Teacher replies
"I think that that story is meant to be allegorical"
Small child gets Irate and says
"No its not our pastor says so, and he said that anyone that saidit was is going to hell"

Now there are a number of things that concern me about this story (Respect for elders and the brainwashing of small children not withstanding) what concerns me here though is the fact that after the outburst the teacher in question left the conversation and walked away, Why? because of fear of losing a job. This leads me to the question where do you draw the line between being able to say what you want despite the religious implications and religion being able to control what is said, for example the Hamas party has recently said that it does not recognise Israel and its right to exist or believe what it does (not an exact quote but deffinately the upshot of).
Of course I don't recognise any religions right to tell me what I can or cannot say or do does this make me an extremist? (of course I have enough respect for others beliefs to live and let live).

Any body else any thoughts?

[Mata]

It would certainly be an interesting test case. I'm not sure what the argument would be against the teacher: clearly there would be some approach stating that they were infringing the religious wishes of the family, but the teacher is employed by the state to educate and give accurate information to students who ask for it. Any ruling suggesting that the teacher should not answer questions about the natural operation of the world, in case a physics lesson demonstrates that water does not spontaneously turn into wine, would be very interesting to see enforced.

To me, a teacher's duty is to inform students about the operation of the natural world. The duty of religious leaders appears to be to convince people that there are also potential supernatural events in the world, and a religion teacher is there to explain the competing supernatural interpretations of the world. The teacher's answer about Jonah should be accurate, and the child's questions about the contradiction between that and the Bible story should then be explained with 'that's why it's regarded as a miracle. I don't teach the Bible, so you'd better talk to your pastor about that.'

I think that the concept of miracles is important in life, because serendipity is necessary for optimism. Christianity can provide a reasonable and ethical approach to the world, but it also needs to recognise that it is primarily a moral framework, and such things need to be adaptive to help their believers function in society. The teachings of Jesus are basically sound, the problems come when all Bible stories are understood and taught as being the literal truth. Not having any faith in the possibility of miraculous luck would sap any hope for good outcomes in bad situations. Yes, it's more rational to believe that bad events result in bad endings, but isn't it more useful to believe that, by apparent luck, great benefits can come out of bad times?

That's a little off-topic, but my point is that I think that the teaching of miracles to children has its place in building an optimistic view of the world at an early age. We can all get bitter and cynical when we're older, but if we once believed in magic I think that helps us get through life. Yes, there are levels to this so indoctrination must be viewed differently from promoting an open and curious mind, but I think that overall it can create a happier adult.