From here:
“At the end of the week I had an idea to fill little plastic eggs with treats and jelly beans and other candy, but I was kind of unsure how the teacher would feel about that,” Jessica said.
She was concerned how the teacher might react to the eggs after of a meeting earlier in the week where she learned about “their abstract behavior rules.”
“I went to the teacher to get her approval and she wanted to ask the administration to see if it was okay,” Jessica explained. “She said that I could do it as long as I called this treat ‘spring spheres.’ I couldn’t call them Easter eggs.”
Rather than question the decision, Jessica opted to “roll with it.” But the third graders had other ideas.
“When I took them out of the bag, the teacher said, ‘Oh look, spring spheres’ and all the kids were like ‘Wow, Easter eggs.’ So they knew,” Jessica said.
Just imagine if someone had had the temerity to suggest that Easter eggs are a symbol of Jesus’ resurrection. Would the S.W.A.T. team have arrived in time to contain the threat or not?
Can you hear me banging my head on my desk and screaming from where you are?
Yup.
Political correctness run amuck.
Politically correct, scientifically accurate, not, but what do teachers know?
The correct response
You mean rather than symbols of the Germanic dawn-goddess Eostre, after whom the term Easter was named?
You do realise Christianity is a Johnny-come-lately when it comes to equinox festivals? Oh, sorry, you didn’t.
And your point is? Assuming that you have one. I really don’t understand why David puts up with you. It really isn’t any sport debating folks who resort to insult rather than reasoning. Oh well, to each his own.
It’s because of my well known tolerance, inclusiveness and generosity.
And the conviction that buffoons consistently entangle themselves in their own glaikery.
I had to look that up. Good word!
Yes, lovely word. Circumstances begging for its application are legion but actual instances are sparse. Wordnik resorts to quoting me for an example of its use.
The school is not named. Only the girl’s first name is used. “At the end of the week” could easily mean April Fools Day. Hmmm? (The story seems to have gone viral, though.)
Folks, this is the kind of PC garbage you’re supposed to admire, and it comes from the political left. Talk about dumbing down the country….
Forgive me, but it’s you seem obtuse; my point seemed fairly clear. The OP was complaining about political correctness and the distancing of Easter from the formerly accepted Christian myth.
So my point was aimed at the false assumption that Easter is ‘really’ about Jesus’ resurrection.
Easter has been a celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection for the last 2000 years. Its origins as a pagan festival are well-known and irrelevant.
Incidentally, your referring to “the formerly accepted Christian myth” is a delicious example of your reasoning ability and must mean that you no longer view Christianity as a myth. Welcome aboard.
Even more head banging……..
So – your point is because the holiday that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus borrowed its English name from a pagan holiday, it therefore isn’t about Jesus after all? (In many other languages, it borrows from the name for Passover – in French, Paques, for example) That’s the best logic you can come up with?
Sorry to say, Mike, but it has been the “fashionable” approach for decades to pull the supposedly clever, “oh, you didn’t know that this Christian observance actually came from paganism……how gauche!”. It is much like the need for those with personal perspectives left over from the late 60s to roll their eyes when suburbia is mentioned. Extremely predictable. The shock value of this kind of behavior disappeared long ago, and there never was much other reason for spouting such “wisdom”. Yes, I think many people are well aware that Chritianity was pre-dated by non-Christian perspectives; they even used to teach this to children when we had real schools. However, those cultures you mention were in existence over 2000 years ago. How far back do our progressives need to dig in order to show us how “enlightened” they’ve become? Isn’t that long enough to firmly implant the symbolism of the Christian Easter with the concept of new life? As in Jesus’ Resurrection, and — yes — Easter eggs — NEW LIFE is the common denominator of the Easter theme.
Jane – you grabbed the wrong end of the stick to beat me with. It’s not only pre-Christian festivals but other festivals around the time of the spring equinox that you and others seek to squash flat with your bible. As you well know, easter eggs are nothing to do with Christianity – please stop trying to steal them.
Finally, having dropped the stick you proceed to shoot yourself in the foot. The very point you make about pagan festivals – they happened long ago and are now irrelevant – surely apply to yours. To quote David, slightly altered
There, fixed it.
The whole point of this story is that the word, “Easter” was forbidden because of its connection with Christianity, not because it comes from some ancient pagan festival. The origin of Easter is irrelevant. It is it’s Christian connotation that makes it unacceptable to the politically correct.
Oh my, Mike. What is it in your own life that makes you need to take it out on Christianity? All of your arguments come across as red herrings only, and at a pretty elementary level of logic at that. If this is the best that the persecutors of Christianity can do, I think we need not worry as much. By the way, Christianity supports far more than chocolate Easter eggs each Spring, in case you were worried that’s all we do.
Well, Jane, it’s hardly “the best that persecutors of Christianity can do”; it began as a post about (non?) Easter eggs, so you can’t expect too much.
But you’re right. Christianity does support far more than chocolate Easter eggs. Anti-choice movements, anti-gay legislation, the refusal to allow dignity in dying – the list goes on and, well, you know it I’m sure.
Chocolate Easter eggs? If only.
So you advocate abortion, euthanasia and sodomy. Only for atheists, presumably; you do realise that the aforementioned are an evolutionary dead end?
Your word games are showing, David. No-one “advocates” abortion, merely the right to decide; ‘euthanasia’ leaves out the somewhat relevant issue of an individual’s right to choose their treatment, and sodomy, well, what consenting adults do in private is their own affair (society puts up with all manner of Christian churches, after all).
Instead of “abortion, euthanasia and sodomy”, why not keep it simpler and more truthful. It’s about choice, choice and choice.
Don’t know where the Easter eggs went, though.
Having introduced a red herring, you are now complaining that I’ve wandered from the topic and am following your red herring. Brilliant.
But since we are on the smelly trail: as I pointed out, if atheists do choose non-productive sexual activity and death-cult medical procedures, you will naturally select yourselves out of existence. Also brilliant.
My head hurts .
David,
Funny that Mike B. doesn’t mention the aborted babies’ “right to decide” whether they become murder victims or not. All that much-vaunted “tolerance” and “right to decide” seems to apply only to select individuals. Of course, Mike B. feels he need not be “tolerant” to Christians, and only walking-talking-out-of-the-womb women get the “right to decide” whether they and their unborn children will spend quality time together at an abortion clinic or not; the child’s considerations are incidental, to say the least. I would say that their babies start the debate with the obvious handicap of not having developed expressive language yet.
Mike B. is caught up in the old, predictable, “do as I say, not as I do” routine. He will scream TOLERANCE forever and ever, Amen, but is the first to abuse the notion. The Mike B’s of this earth are rampant; they are the useful idiots of the leftist ideology. I do strive to love the sinner, though, and forgive the sin. I have noticed that the secular religion to which Mike B. belongs apes the concept of sin (and virtue) — though in secular terms it means any refusal to bow to political correctness — but they take it no farther than that.
I wonder if Mike B. realizes that his own Christian name is — at least generally — in honour of the Archangel Michael. I further wonder why he doesn’t change it to one of the contrived nonsense monikers of the day, as labels and semantic meanings appear to affect him to such an extent. See “Easter”.
Enough said. This thread is beginning to remind me of arguing with a 13 yr. old (though, yes Mike, 13 yr. olds have a “right” to their opinions as well, just in case you were planning to use that as another “aha!” moment).
Jane, it’s interesting that two different posts here end with the Christian side flouncing out saying ‘Enough, I won’t play anymore’. If you’re talking about 13 year old behaviour…
I won’t rehash arguments you’ve heard anyway. My one point is about your use of words. If you insist on defining abortion as the “death of a child” the words you choose give you no other option. Facts can’t sway you. All I’d ask – if you ever deign to think about it – is what exactly happens, to take separate ovum and sperm to “child”?
Obviously it can’t be a “child” at the moment of conception: the cell doesn’t even divide for a day or so. And a merely fertilized egg has no more independent human attributes than say a liver cell – no one claims a liver cell is an independent human being with full rights and social status.
At what point does this collection of cells begin to justify being called more than that? All I’m suggesting is that the words are less easily defined than you say.
That’s all. I’m not here to enrage you.
No, Mike. It is simply that I can see there is not a whole lot behind you, in terms of being able to put forth and support an actual debatable position. You want to exude depth of thought, but you do not. You are depending on the fashionable, cliched, surface arguments of the day. You betray a good deal of your background in the way you are going about this, and I have experienced that those persons of such attitudes and perspectives are simply parroting the crowd mentality of the present “progressives”; nothing original there, and no point wasting my time on it, as I am doing right now. I feel a bit sorry for you. Maybe life will provide lessons.
Good-bye, and have a blessed Easter.
You were once “at the point of conception”. So was I. We are both human beings. That batch of cells, at the point of conception, if left unmolested and permitted to grow, at nine months gestation will be born a human being. The only difference between those cells and the new born is time.
Jane, your attempt to make this ad hominem is noted, as is your walkout: something the weaker side often resorts to:
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/scientology-spokesman-storms-out-of-nightline-interview_b26736
Kate, your dealing with the point is appreciated.
Of course it’s true, looking backwards, that every human being has progressed from those cells to being born. But it doesn’t work like that looking forwards: something like one third of (recognised and unrecognised) pregnancies don’t go to term. There’s no inevitability about the process. So to define EVERY such batch of cells as a potential human being is kindof misleading, though at least I see where you’re coming from.
Mike, if you are going to complain about ad hominem comments, you should really clean up your own act. Your previous posts here are full of them.
To the point, now. Every human being dies, eventually. That doesn’t make us any the less human. Every fertilized egg that survives will be born a human baby, just as every baby who is born, who survives, becomes an adult. There is no inevitability in that process either -that doesn’t make the baby less human.
Yes it’s true, the fact that “every fertilised egg that survives will be born a human baby” doesn’t make the baby less human… but the qualifying phrase “…that survives…” points to issue of the fetus being less black and white: in nature, some will survive, some won’t, whatever we do.
Thus I suppose my argument is: to imbue cells that may OR MAY NOT develop into a human, with human rights equal to those of a developed human, is where the anti-abortion argument over-reaches itself.
They already are human. They may or may not live, but they already are human. If nothing goes wrong, nine months later a baby is born. Some newborns will survive, some won’t, whatever we do. Does that mean the newborn isn’t human?
Of course a newborn is human. But the trouble with your argument comes before, when you say
thus presuming what you seek to prove. Whereas my query is: as the ovum itself isn’t a “human being”, and as it takes time to develop – post-fertilisation – from its original form (just cell division at first), how could the attribute of humanity – and full human rights – be there in an instant?
So when, in your view, does the “attribute of humanity” arrive and why?
Does it arrive instantly?
Does human essence precede human experience or is it self-created by the experience of existing?
– if the former, why would it not be present as soon as the genetic make-up is determined at conception?
– if the latter, why can’t you kill new-born babies who have no experience?
I’m not presuming what I seek to prove, I proved it quite a few posts ago and didn’t feel the need to repeat myself. I will rephrase.
When sperm meets egg, if it lives and remains unmolested, a baby will be born. You’ve already conceded that babies are human. The difference between the fertilized egg and the baby is nine months. The difference between a new born and a nine month old is nine months. You’ve conceded that the baby is human, as is the nine month old – so, the fertilized ovum is also human.
I’d be interested to see how you could prove that the fertilized egg is not a human being. You’ve assumed it, but you haven’t proven it.
Why can’t it be called a child? All the stuff that will make that child up is present at the moment of conception. Why is that not a child?
Jane, no-one here – as far as I’m aware – is “perusing” this for the object of “entertainment” or holding any views up to ridicule.
Of course the whole issue is in many cases also a personal tragedy. I’ve witnessed the tears of a friend who had an abortion and carried the mental scars from it many years later – but she was nevertheless sure it was the right thing to do. That’s why the object of any government or law should surely be to reduce the numbers of abortions and unwanted pregnancies. What’s so odd to an outsider is that it’s often the same very lobby that calls for abortion to be outlawed that also protests against the Plan B ‘morning after’ pill, condoms and better sex education. Yet all the evidence is that the more work that goes into the latter, the lower the rates of abortion.
I’m less familiar with cases from the US and Canada than with the situation in Ireland. There a state ban on abortion (with the bizarre corollary of a ban on contraception) meant misery and suffering for women on a vast scale. It didn’t even stop abortion, it just made it even more horrible and lethal.
Kate, you say, “The difference between the fertilized egg and the baby is nine months.” Forgive me, but this sounds like a slogan. As we discussed above, and you agreed, it isn’t even true in a lot of cases as not all eggs became babies. In fact the difference between a fertilised egg and the baby is a vast amount of (to use Jane’s description) “staggeringly awesome” development. You also said,
Actually, it isn’t. Its growth requires a host of nutrients (famously, iron). This is like saying an acorn is the same as an oak tree. I presume the implication – again – is that were it so, you get to make the equation of early stage fetus = human child. In this case such a statement is demonstrably false.
David, you ask very big questions about essence and existence.
I’m aware of a running debate in some scientific circles about the usefulness (or not) of philosophy. I’d like to think it helps but in this case the notion of “human essence” seems to be a way of smuggling in the conclusion you wish to reach. On the other hand we all recognise what you mean by it, so perhaps it does point to something real.
But to try to answer your question, and perhaps try to answer some of Kate’s too: I think this is based on a misunderstanding of what DNA does. In fact the “genetic makeup”, as you call it, is generated progressively, by interactions with the environment and by complex internal negotiations within an increasingly complex embryo. To assert that 46 chromosomes in a cell is sufficient to define a person is a form of biological reductionism, something I would not have associated with you. DNA is wonderful enough without imputing near-supernatural abilities to it.
Perhaps it does sound like a slogan, that doesn’t make it false. The fact that some fertilized ovum don’t live to grow into babies doesn’t mean that they aren’t human. Some babies don’t survive to adulthood – does that make them less than human?
Take that logic a little bit further and you could assert that a five year old isn’t human because he has to eat. The 46 cromosomes present in the fertilized ovum, if left unmoloested and nothing goes wrong, will grow into a baby, just as a baby, if given the right conditions to grow, and nothing goes wrong, will grow into an adult. My equation stands.
Going back to the “Easter started as a pagan festival” myth for a moment, this article effectively dispels the cloud of fog that emanates from certain quarters that would like to diminish the significance of Jesus’ resurrection.