RELIGIOUS MYTHS….Education critic Diane Ravitch doesn’t like current history textbooks: they aren’t crtitical enough of Mao’s China and the Ayatollah’s Iran and they imply ? gasp! ? that other cultures are as good as ours.
OK, fine. That’s standard conservative kvetching and there’s probably something to it, but Ravitch’s op-ed in the LA Times this morning also contains this odd sentence:
The histories’ treatment of religion is scandalous. The origin stories of each religion are recounted as if they were documented history rather than religious myths.
Myths? We have to fight like banshees just to make sure our biology texts mention evolution, and Ravitch wants our history books to explicitly state that Genesis is a myth?
Or is it just other religions that should be treated as myths? She doesn’t say, adding only this cryptic statement: “Many publishers have multicultural advisory boards to ensure that the textbooks contain only positive facts about religious or ethnic groups.”
I dunno, I have a feeling it’s not the moral relativism crowd that most strongly objects to religious histories being called myths. I’d name some names here, but my multicultural advisory board recommends against it….
