Sep 13 2008
Reiss: Science lessons should tackle Easter Bunny
DO-AS-YOU-PLEASE, Faraway Tree, Friday (NNN) — The Easter Bunny should be discussed in school science lessons rather than dismissed, says Professor Michael Reiss, director of education at the Royal Society and of infiltration at the Discovery Institute.
“If pupils have strongly-held family beliefs about the Easter Bunny, such ideas should be explored,” he said. “Easterbunnyism, Fatherchristmasism or the contemporary militant Tooth Fairy jihadist movement are best seen by science teachers not as a misconception but as a world view. This is more valuable than simply banging on about ‘reality.’ Reality-based thinking is vastly overrated and certainly won’t prepare children for a career in the City or in government.”
Rev Prof Reiss, a biologist and Church of England minister, estimates that about one in 10 children is from a family which instructs its children in the Tooth Fairy theory of dentistry. “Obviously, these are from the stratum of society with more spare 50p pieces.”
Simon Underdown of Oxford Brookes University disagreed. “With so much to be crammed into science lessons, it is not a worthwhile use of time to include lessons on Easterbunnyism. We have monthly standardised testing to coach pupils on.”
The Royal Society quickly put out a statement affirming that it is opposed to such concepts being taught as science. Professor Richard Dawkins is working on a children’s text on useful ways to quickly construct street-corner gallows and burning stakes for rehabilitation of the religious.
Get daily email alerts of new News of the News! Come on, sign up, willya?
Personally I like the “Great Pumpkin.”
Seriously, when I found out there was no Santa Clause, it was the first time I realized my mother could lie to me. I still remember it. I think it’s better to enjoy the fantasy with your child, but tell them it is just pretend - from the beginning.
Thanks for the article.
I agree with Kyellis. Teaching children about Santa Claus, as if it is actually true, sets them up for supernatural thinking. Tell children fantasy stories but be clear that they are just fantasy.
Indeed, some people have realized, when their parents told them about Santa Claus, that God and Jesus were in the same category.
I seem to remember that I stopped believing in Jesus long before I stopped believing in Santa Claus. After all, there’s tangible evidence every Christmas that Santa Claus exists.
To equate rational belief in God with the Easter Bunny is infantile and fatuous
“rational belief in God”
See, that’s the phrase that, professionally, I’d expect you to know better than. Particularly talking about creationism.
Heron got Pwn3d
“Seriously, when I found out there was no Santa Clause, it was the first time I realized my mother could lie to me. I still remember it. I think it’s better to enjoy the fantasy with your child, but tell them it is just pretend - from the beginning.”
Actually, I would argue that this story represents why we should have these things: its important to realise that EVERYONE can screw with your head.
You’ve insulted the holy Easter Bunny (nsfw), so me and all other Easter Bunniests are extremely offended. Prepare to die!
Belief in God is not dependent on Creationism which Reiss doesn’t believe in. The whole premiss of this silly article makes it a non-argument. You atheists are just fundamentalists.
Fr Heron,
By your logic, firefighters are fundimentalists for wanting to stamp out a fire in a burning building. Same principle at work, they see a problem and need to put it out.
Now, to further explore what they stated, yes, belief in an Easter Bunny is technically in the same vein as a belief in God, for both require a leap of faith, so to say, where there is no physical evidence for either ones existance. Some might call it foolhearty, I call it brave. For, to believe in the divine is and of itself a leap of faith, for if there was no faith, would there be any divine to begin with? No, I say, there would not be. So, rejoyce in your faith, knowing that it is special, and unique to yourself. The problem here is with some who have a lack of faith trying to force an agenda to try and reinforce that dying and weak belief. That if they can convince someone else, then that will reinforce their own belief. How can their faith be secure in such a situation? Reminds me of those guys unable to address homosexuality. Their own masculinity is unsure, so they focus on someone elses.
If you have faith, then rejoyce in that, and let those without be as they are. Else, did you have faith to begin with? For, as my former pastor reminded us one week, “Thoth weighed the heart, not the mind. Thinking you are faithful, acting faithful, ment nothing to him. Only if you were in your heart of hearts could you pass to the afterlife.”
From the wikipedia entry for the book Terry Pratchett book Hogfather:
“The book is about the nature of belief, in particular that people need to believe in small things there is no evidence for, such as Hogfathers and Tooth Fairies, in order to believe in larger things, such as Justice and Hope. As Pratchett says elsewhere, fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind; it doesn’t take you anywhere, but it tones up muscles that might.”
I suspect that religious belief would not be so prevalent if it was not evolutionarily adaptive.
“Now, to further explore what they stated, yes, belief in an Easter Bunny is technically in the same vein as a belief in God, for both require a leap of faith, so to say, where there is no physical evidence for either ones existance.”
There is more evidence in the existence of the Easter Bunny or Santa Clause then there is of God, Santa and the Easter Bunny leave me things, God just leaves me wondering…
Funnily, I never think of a God as a “person.”
http://waxingpoetically.today.com
http://artfromtheoutskirts.today.com