Category: Kids/Padawans

Climate change is an important issue, but could being religious affect how important you think climate change is. Today on Fox News:

• The hosts of Fox & Friends Sunday were discussing Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s pledge to be guided by faith if he wins in 2024, noting how religion is often referenced more by Republicans than Democrats. Co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy took that a step further, saying liberals only see Earth as the endgame while conservatives look beyond. “For them, where we live right now, this place, Earth is it,” she said. “So everything’s on the line here for them. They think, as you said, they can perfect this Earth. Those of us who have faith don’t believe that, and we believe how we act here determines where we go after. And so we got to behave.”

It makes sense, if the afterlife is the ultimate end in life, this world becomes less of a concern. Which is scary if you are not religious!

Was America founded as a Christian nation?

That question has served a variety of political causes since July 4, 1776, from legalizing persecution and aiding runaway slaves to fighting Nazis and Communists.

The scholars in the article have spent years reflecting on the intersection of American religion and nationalism. Their answers to the question invite us to examine the motivations behind the controversy: Why do so many people think the country’s Christian history is so important? READ HERE!

Come up with a list of commands for an imaginary religion that members of its church probably wouldn’t obey…

Once one of the most influential and powerful organizations on earth, there are increasing signs the Catholic Church may be entering its twilight. Read this article and brainstorm some ideas about why people are leaving the Catholic church.

CNN reports that an attempt by some Texas lawmakers to put the 10 Commandments in every classroom has failed. The Republican-controlled Texas State House failed to advance a controversial bill on Tuesday that would have required public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom.

• (ABOVE) Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who was then state Attorney General, attends a press conference celebrating a U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing a Ten Commandments monument to stand outside the State Capitol in 2005 in Austin, Texas.

QUESTIONS:

1. Is it wrong to mandate the scripture of a religious tradition in classrooms?

2) Would it be appropriate to display The Golden Rule, which has appeared in many religious and non

religious contexts throughout history?

3) Instead of banning the ten commandments in classrooms, would it be a better idea to display it

along with the moral codes of many other world religions and secular sources? They are an

influential part of our history …

Make a list of all the religious symbols you can make using soda pop boxes …

Darth Harley walked slowly with Darth Bowser as Harley tried to reason his way through a problem.

H: It was weird. Marty just showed up in a dress today and said he wanted to use the girls’ bathroom.

B: How do you feel about that?

H: I’m sure it would make the other girls uncomfortable.

B: It used to make a lot of people uncomfortable when white people married black people, but we now know there’s nothing wrong with that. People being made uncomfortable isn’t necessarily a reason to think something is wrong …

H: But what about sports? It’s unfair to let men compete against women in sports like swimming.

B: Then how can it be both right and wrong?

H: Maybe we’ve created a problem because we’re asking the wrong question. Worrying about boys who identify as females using the girls’ bathroom is only a problem if there are only two bathrooms. If there was an extra bathroom for transgender females, this wouldn’t be a problem. Sports are the same. If boys who identify as girls don’t want to compete against boys, then invent a new division for transgender girls. When they saw it was unfair for someone who was 6″4 and 260 pounds to wrestle or box against someone who was 5″7 and 130 pounds, they didn’t get rid of boxing or wrestling. They made different weight divisions.

B: It’s in seeing a false dichotomy that we can often find wisdom, Harley. It was a paradox that respecting transgenderism seemed both right and wrong, but this problem came from trying to fit transgender people into the traditional categories of either male or female. In seeing transgender as a new category on its own, transgender people are able to receive the respect and dignity they deserve.

Darth Harley was sitting under a beautiful, lush tree taking in the warm afternoon sun and enjoying a Harry Potter audiobook. His master Darth Bowser saw what he was doing and, visually upset, approached Harley.

B: What are you doing?

H: I’m reading. I was going to learn to do it with my eyes, but read-aloud is easier, whether someone reading aloud to me in person or on audiobook. I tried reading with my eyes, but that’s hard. Actually, I don’t know any kids who read with their eyes anymore except for texting and facebook and stuff.

B: I see you have no marginalia for what you are reading. You’re just sitting there absorbing the book like a spunge.

H: What’s “marginalia?”

B: That’s when people used to read and make notes on the page of the ideas that were coming to them about the book, like what the story reminded them of, or how what they were reading connected to something many pages earlier.

H: Oh, I don’t do those things. With audiobooks you have to focus on letting the story unfold, so there is no time for relating or reflecting.

B: Audio books can be good for training you imagination to picture what you are reading, but there is much more to it. For instance, do you understand a book better the first time you read it, or the fourth time?

H: The fourth of course.

B: Why is that?

H: I guess because reading a book isn’t just like someone taking a walk and describing what they see, but also the different parts of the book are connected and so on a fourth reading you really see how the end is already an acorn in the beginning that is about to grow into an oak tree.

B: And non-fiction?

H: It’s the same in that later ideas are connected to earlier ones so connecting through reading in this way helps you see, not only the trees, but also the forest.

B: So I guess you want to trade in your audiobook for the real thing now?

H: No, not yet. This is a peaceful easy day suited for peaceful easy reading. I’m happy to just let my imagination create a world for me today. I’ll save the heavy lifting for another day!

Question:

When you read this article below, what do you thing are some of the most important points it makes about literacy?

Accepting the reality of a less literate age

“When your power eclipses mine I will become expendable. This is the Rule of Two: one Master and one apprentice. When you are ready to claim the mantle of Dark Lord as your own, you must do so by eliminating me.”
―Darth Bane, to Darth Zannah

Amy watched as her friend Darth Harley stared intently at a picture of a box.

“I don’t care what that old fool Bowser said,” Amy said with frustration. “You really are looking at a box and there is no way to unsee it.”

Amy hated to see her friend struggle to understand Bowser’s ridiculous claims and ideas, but Harley was obsessive in that way so she left him to his impossible task and went skipping with a few of the other kids.

Harley had spent enough time with Darth Bowser that if his master saw something as difficult and important, he needed to think further on it.

“I need your help, master,” Harley thought. A focus and calmness came over Harley and he imagined Darth Bowser as an interlocutor asking him questions:

• H: I can’t see it master. I can’t see beyond the cube.

• B: Everywhere and at all times people are told to see cubes because that is what is important. They chase the lie of the whole and miss the truth of the parts. They ask: What’s the theme? What’s the main idea? Everywhere and at all times people see the box as the truth and the most important when all the box is, is a lie their mind is telling them. Learn to see beyond the cube, Harley.

Harley looked intently at the cube. Somehow, it was there and obvious to anyone who looked at it, but somehow it was not real… Then, Harley had a flash from the Muse. He took out a piece of paper and drew the cube, but in 2 parts: the inside and the outside:

Later in the day, Harley found Bowser and related his success in beginning to see beyond the cube.

• B: Wherever there is a whole, there are lies that are itching to erupt from them. Tell me, my young apprentice, if you flip a coin a thousand times, how many should turn up heads?

• H: Half

• B: Good, and with all that mathematical and scientific knowledge about probability can you predict the outcome if I flip this coin right now?

• H: No master. There is so much still to learn. THUMB’S UP!