Accidents & Irony:The Strength Team! Oh No! Religious Jocks!

[Fat Man]

UP-DATE . . .

I have decided to move this topic from the OFF TOPIC section of the forums to the Sports Suck section, because this is related to sports and how sports suck.

I did this because this topic had been pushed downward by the recent spamming, and I had hoped to get some responses to my topic.

Yeah! Thanks spammers for disrupting the flow of conversation on our forums!

What the spammers do is just as bad as censorship, because it disrupts our forum conversation, just so they can push their advertising for pharmaceutical products, thinking that they are going to make money by getting paid for posting free advertising.

Well, it doesn't work, because we just ignore their ads and they get deleted.

But the damage is done, because our conversations get disrupted.

Anyway . . . . .

I hope to get some responses to this topic. OK?

And so, without further ado . . . . . . .

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OK, this is the absolute limit!

We now have religious jocks, professional and former professional athletes, coming into our schools, Elementary, Junior High, and High Schools, to evangelize!!!

First, they start out, with a positive sounding message to inspire young people to achieve, which is all well and good, but I wish they would leave out the evangelizing. OK?

But I have to wonder . . . do they try to inspire young people to achieve academically, or only, athletically, or perhaps both? I really have to wonder!!!

I would say, that most likely, it would be the latter, rather than the former, because of their evangelizing from a religious perspective, which sounds like, for the most part, anti-science.

So, my guess is, that they want young people to achieve athletically, but are really not interested in if they achieve academically, because of their position, which is mostly religious, but sounds anti-science.

At least, is dose to me.

Anyway . . . . .

Here is another one of my favorite YouTube videos by GrapplingIgnorance, an excellent high school teacher, who was forced to shut down his original YouTube channel in order to keep his job, after one of his students discovered that he is an atheist.

He was harassed by parents, and by members of the school board, in a small town where he was teaching while also helping disadvantaged young people from poor families to achieve academically, in the hopes that they could rise up from poverty after graduating.

But now, in order to continue to produce his videos on YouTube, he has had to take on a new user name, GrapplingIgnorance, and have his face in shadow and wear a black hood, while speaking on his videos, to hide his true identity, so that he may keep his teaching job.

Anyway . . . . .

Here is a link to his video on YouTube.

Accidents & Irony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu5n4HWQb_c
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Uploaded by GrapplingIgnorance on Jan 16, 2011

Strength team: http://www.strengthteam.com/outreach/content/beliefs
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While playing the video, I would pause, then type what he was saying, then play, then pause, and type some more, play, pause, type, play, pause, type, etc. etc. until I have typed up a transcript of what he had said on his video.

It took a couple of hours for me to type this up.

Anyway . . . . .

Here is my transcript of what he has said.

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This year, I had, say . . . the opportunity to attend a school assembly in public school, put on by, The Strength Team! Now, The Strength Team's web site under it's [Beliefs Tab] says some things like "We believe the Bible to be inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God. We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth . . ." blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, so, on the web site which I'll link below.

Strength team: http://www.strengthteam.com/outreach/content/beliefs

In addition to this, under their [How It Works Tab] they say, School Assemblies. "By tailoring each assembly toward Elementary, Middle, and High school students, we can literally reach every family in your community. We use these to invite students to our evening Evangelistic events where we share the message of Jesus Christ. Last year over 1000 assemblies were given."

What these guys do, is that, they go into school assemblies and they're all, like, former or professional athletes, either football players, or body builders, or things like that, and they go and perform tricks like, blowing up a hot water bottle, or bending steel rods, or and some stuff like that. They go and do that sort of things, to get kid's attention, and they lace those little acts through out their long speeches about how they got their lives together, and they found purpose in their lives, and they put on this border-line secular message as best as they can, but they slip in these little nuggets about their religion, and the whole time they coax them every five minutes by saying, "Oh, and we'll be at this church tonight, and all week we'll be at this church, and you can come see us, and we're going to do all kinds of demonstrations, and we're going to do . . . " this, and this, and this, and obviously, they do this with the intention of getting people to go from the public school to a church to come see more of these little cool tricks and once they get into a church, then obviously, like they said, they're there to spread their evangelistic message, which I think, is blatantly dishonest. It's misleading to children, which I take personal issue with.

Now, the quote I wrote down when these people were in my building was as follows . . .

"You are not an accident. Nobody in this gym is an accident. Somebody created each of you with an important purpose."

It disturbs me when creationists equate a world without God to an existence where all things are accidental. It doesn't so much disturb me because I find the idea of an ungoverned existence frightening, or even that they don't understand that an ungoverned existence does not equate to one with no order, rules of probability and/or basic structure - you know, like natural laws.

The truly disturbing part of that false equivalency is the scientific ignorance that makes Creationists blind to their own irony. Their position of a God creating us just as we are today, and the planet six to eight thousand years ago requires them to consider a myriad of individually clarified pieces of scientific evidence from multiple disciplines to be circumstantial and accidental.

It's the creationist position that requires it to be an accident or coincidence that chimpanzee and human genomes are more than 98% identical, and that fossils from around the world have been independently discovered, dated, and studied - contradicting biblical claims about earth-age and species development. It's they who believe earth dating techniques including carbon, dendrochronology, amino acid racemization, palomagnetic, and others performed by separate scientists in separate locations consistently yield remarkably similar results about the age of our planet just happened by accident. They all must be a flukes!

Adversely, all of that evidence makes perfect sense as a cause/effect relationship with the span of time reflective of our earth's actual age here where I live - in reality. The overwhelming similarities between humans and other primates, as well as the presence of vestigial structures like our tailbones and appendix makes perfect sense when accepting evolution for the factual explanation that it is. Natural selection has explained the series of causes and effects for the documented changes in a variety of species, including ourselves.

To believe that we were created just as we are today all stemming from a single pair of people six to eight-thousand years ago would require all that evidence to be the result of some accident rather than a well explained series of events. They must also believe that their God either intentionally or accidentally designed us with a tailbone we don't need, an organ that just sits inside of us waiting to burst, inadequate knee cartilage, dangerously narrow birth canals, and an immune system far too weak to fend off the viruses, which for some reason he blessed with an observable ability to evolve.

The ungoverned series of cutthroat trial and error that is natural selection also accounts for the obvious existence of flaws such as psychopaths and sociopaths who gain pleasure from the misery of others or are literally incapable of empathy. Those varieties of people are understandable for a race of slowly evolving primates.

However, If we're attributing their design to an all loving God who wants all of his creations to perform according to his perfect standard and eventually ascend to Heaven, we must file them under the accident category. It's either that, or the important, specific purpose God created them for, was to murder and torture other people until society brought their actions to halt through imprisonment, therapy, or death. I think The Strength Team needs a new angle.

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Yeah! Don't ya just love this?!?

The question that comes to my mind is this . . . . .

What about the students in our schools who happen to be Jewish, or Muslim, or some other faith, or no religion at all?

Both Jews and Muslims, do not believe in the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and neither do I! Sorry 'bout that!!!

I believe, that people should all have a right to their own religious beliefs, but that they do not have a right to force their beliefs on other people who do not think the same way as they do.

And, while these athletes come into our schools, and do all kinds of tricks, like blowing up hot water bottles until they burst, bending cold roll steel rods, and smashing concrete blocks with their fists, etc. etc. (see videos on The Strength Team web site - link posted above) to impress children with their athletic abilities, while evangelizing to the students, again, I have to wonder . . .

Instead of impressing children with feats of super-human strength, why can't we instead, of having athletes come into our schools to inspire young people, why can't we have professional scientists, like Astronomers, Physicists, Biologists, Biochemists, Paleontologists, Geologists, etc. etc. coming into our schools, to inspire children to achieve academically? Eh?

WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY! OH WHY CAN'T WE DO THIS INSTEAD???

Back in the 1980s and up to the early 1990s, the Astronomer Carl Sagan went into schools to talk with the students, before he died of cancer in the summer of 1996.

We need more professional intellectuals coming into our schools to inspire young people, instead of a bunch of moronic athletic monkey-boys with an anti-science attitude and a religious fundamentalist agenda!

It is this over-emphases on sports in our schools that is the cause of the declining quality of education in American schools over the past 50 years or so.

Back in the early 1960s when I was in school, if you didn't like sports, or were a nonathletic student who was not good at sports, or had a physical handicap that kept you from excelling at sports, you were labeled as unpatriotic at best, or a Commie at worst!

Then, in the late 1960s and the 1970s, you were called a nerd or a geek. But we nerds and geeks took ownership of those terms, and are now proud to proclaim ourselves as such!

Now, anybody who is not into sports, is now labeled as a "fag" which is rather hypocritical because it's a known fact that there are professional athletes who are homosexual.

So, first one's patriotism was questioned, then one's masculinity was questioned if you didn't like sports.

What next???

Will young people in the future be told that they are anti-God and that they're going to Hell if they don't like sports? Eh?

Yeah! I can see that coming!

Any time athletes are involved, that is, the jocks, any time they're involved in anything, no matter what it is, it invariably leads to even more bullying, and more brutality, and more gutter-thuggery!

And now, young people might be subject to religious bullying in our schools. That's all we need!

Sorry, but I'm not the least bit impressed by someone who can blow up a hot water bottle until it bursts, or by someone who can bend three-quarter-inch cold roll steel rods over the back of his neck, or someone who can smash bricks with his bare hands, or some other animalistic feats of super-(human?) strength.

And then, they'll probably use their super-athletic abilities to bully and intimidate the other students into conforming to their narrow minded religious beliefs, while at the same time, also instilling an anti-science, and an anti-intellectual attitude in general into their fellow students.

Sorry again! But I'm not at all impressed by feats of great primitive animal strength.

Now, if intellectuals were to come into our schools who can inspire young people to achieve academically, and show them how to do science, and some really fun experiments, and show them some really fun ways to learn algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus, and make learning fun, to spark their curiosity of the universe around them, then, I'll be impressed.

I am far more impressed by academic abilities, by artistic and musical talent, than I will ever be by athletic abilities, which impresses me, not at all.

If some moronic jock were to demonstrate his super athletic abilities to me, I would say "OK, fine! But now, can you read and write at the adult level? If not, then . . . . . get the fuck out of my face!!!"

And also . . . . .

If I'm not able to to perform the same feats of physical strength, and have no interest in sports, then I don't monkey-boy getting out his Bible (a special illustrated edition at the first grade level with lots of cartoon drawing to make it easier for morons to understand) and start preaching to me that I'm going to Hell just because I don't like sports!!!

Yeah! I can see this sort of thing coming down the pike in another decade or so!

[Earl]

I'm not sure you'll find my response to be much to your liking, Fat Man. But since you want members of this forum to respond to your post, I shall offer my two cents' worth.

First of all, as a member of a local non-institutional church of Christ, I happen to be a creationist. I'm one of those "fundamentalists" you don't like. But since I haven't studied any biology for decades, I'm not prepared to engage anyone in debate concerning the question of whether human beings are the result of evolution or the result of special creation by the power of God. I'm not conceding my position; I'm simply saying that I'm not properly equipped, intellectually speaking, to engage in such debate. That's one of the reasons why I've not argued with you about evolution in this forum.

I might remind you that there are highly intelligent people who believe in the Genesis account -- including my brother-in-law, who is one of the best radiologists in this country. He's also a member of a local church of Christ and definitely believes in the Genesis account. Considering his standing in the medical profession, he's certainly no dummy, needless to say.

That being said, I do agree with you that the public classroom setting is not the place for evangelism. As a Christian, I will say that believers are commanded by the word of God to evangelize; but there is a right way and a wrong way to do something. And there are special considerations to take into account. If my daughters were not in school, as a New Testament Christian, I would not appreciate a member of some church that taught false doctrine to attempt to evangelize them at school. So, I certainly respect the situation of Jews, Muslims, atheists, or anyone else who doesn't want their children to be evangelized as a captive audience. The church of the New Testament was never intended to be the government of a country. There is absolutely no sanction in the New Testament for the persecution of nonbelievers, as the New Testament church is a spiritual institution that fights a spiritual battle.

This issue makes me sad for several different reasons. Of course, scientists and members of other professions who can make presentations that would interest and inspire students should be invited by school authorities to speak to them. Now, as to why the Strength Team are invited into schools is concerned, my conjecture is that school officials are searching for some way to provide moral teaching to students at a time when this country has been in moral decline for some time. The purpose of this is so students will be less likely inclined to make wrong choices. Of course, there's the problem of evangelizing. As I just indicated, I respect the position of Jews and other religious minorities; but I also believe that there is a great deal of hostility directed against evangelicals by people such as the ACLU who want to secularize this country and marginalize believers so they will have next to no influence in society (such as opposing same-sex marriage, which the ACLU and most liberals support).

As far as the member of the Strength Team are concerned, I agree with their basic beliefs which were quoted above; but I'm afraid they also teach denomination doctrines that are unbiblical. I will say, though, from my own experience and observations that people who have committed themselves to conscientiously following some kind of biblical code of morality are generally kinder and more conscientious in the way they treat others than are many people who don't have strong religious convictions. Of course, I do realize that there are religious cranks who are intolerant of others as people and don't treat them right.

I think the Strenght Team members mean well, but they use a method of evangelizing that is not biblical. People in the New Testament who became Christians were never converted by the allure of gimmicks. They were converted by the message itself. A lot of evangelicals assume that if they can attract people to their church buildings by giving them hot dogs and popcorn, they will listen to preaching. The problem with that approach is that once there are no more hot dogs and popcorn, the people who came for them will leave.

I don't scorn these guys for upholding moral standards, though. I'm sure they mean well, although I may disagree with what they believe about how a person is saved. But concerning moral standards, if these standards were adopted by more students, the bullying would decrease.