I pwned that annoying theist in music theory class today.
Offline Last semester in music theory class, I outed myself as an atheist and had a bit of a "falling out" with a large part of the class. One lady in particular turned on me. I complained about a professor trying to proselytize me and she said that I needed to be proselytized. She also said, "Because of my line of work, I've learned to get along with everybody." Yeah right. I can tell. :|
I just plain don't like this woman. She's annoying. Her voice grates on my nerves.
Today she showed up complaining that the book wasn't terribly clear about how to interpret figured bass numbers. She was right about that and I said, "Well, I just guessed and did the homework as best I could."
She looked at me as if I had just sprouted a third arm. "If you don't know, you shouldn't guess."
"Guessing is a good learning tool," I said. "Sometimes if you're wrong, it makes a bigger impression on you than if you got it right."
"You shouldn't guess," she insisted. "It's a terrible way to learn."
She was being an obnoxious know-it-all, so I decided to push back. "Look, I have a teaching credential," I said. "I also have a B.A. in liberal arts and a 4.0 GPA. An educated guess can be a good way to learn."
"Well, my husband has a doctorate and he says you should never guess. I wouldn't let you teach me."
"Fine," I said. "I wouldn't let you teach me, either."
The prof came in and told us to put our answers on the board. One other student and I volunteered our "guesses." The answer I put up was a rather long, intricate piece of a Bach chorale. We were supposed to fill in the inner parts (as best we could) using the figured bass numbers. The prof hadn't shown us how in class and I had been absent. The book wasn't terribly clear. But I got up there and did it anyway.
Guess whose "educated guess" was 100% correct? 
I felt like yelling in her face, "Yes! The know-it-all Christian bitch was pwned by the guessing atheist! w00t!"
Of course, saying something like this would be counterproductive. Next time I make an educated guess I might get it all wrong. That's the beauty of doing the best you can. You allow yourself to make mistakes. It's something I'm still learning because the Christian world view doesn't allow for mistakes. It asks for perfection, blatantly tells you it's impossible, but expects it anyway. Then it tells you that in order to feel okay about your imperfections you have to worship some perfect dude who died for your mistakes...oh-kay...right.
Christianity sounds so weird when you spell it out, doesn't it? The only reason it sounds normal at all is because it pervades our entire culture. People who have never heard "the good news" must collapse in paroxysms of laughter when they hear it for the first time.
So, on that note, let me celebrate my small victory over the Christian bitch. Next time I might screw up, but at least I had my day. 
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Well, I'll have a doctorate when my internship is finished. I say it's OK to guess sometimes, especially when you're making an educated guess.
Seriously, her argument sounds silly....
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
I do doubt that her being an annoying bitch had little to do with Christianity
Perhaps. And yet the window for being an annoying bitch wouldn't have been open in the first place if her christianity didn't have a problem with Iruka's atheism.
I also agree with guessing being a valuable learning tool. It's how we've learned most everything we know as a species. We guess and then we prove. Whether we prove right or we prove wrong, the guess is where it begins.
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She didn't have a problem with me until she learned I was an atheist. *shrug*
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Iruka maybe she was one those atheist/agnostics that doesn't think their own group should have a spine? Of course she could also be a scientoligst
Some Christian guy that lives near me wants to his friends to get rid of me in a drive-by. He somehow managed to get my address and everything.
All because of my atheism.
Damn stalker.
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yeah but if she was atheist and you were christian she would probably act the same - "Don't put up an answer based soley on belief..."
Oh, and guessing is fine.
I hope that when the world comes to an end I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to.
Yeah, what Vastet said that I said. Uh...whatever.
Exactly.
I'm still learning to value being proved wrong. Being raised to see only black and white made me a perfectionist and terrified of making a mistake. Last week I chose to put a problem on the board precisely because it was the one I had the most problems with. I was wrong, but it was a good learning experience.
What's interesting is I know that there are a few people in the class that don't like me because I'm an atheist. One of them dropped last week. The main one left is the loud-mouthed bitch.
Despite this somewhat unhappy series of events, I have still been vulnerable. I was the first to volunteer to put answers on the board. Since then, the prof has started making other people put answers on the board. He even called one answer "shitty"--his exact words--which was sad because I'd reached the same conclusion as the person with the shitty answer.
Oh well. I learned to watch for a certain kind of error. *shrug*
I would like to become even more comfortable in my skin, whether it is perfect or not.
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Perhaps. *shrug* Although it is usually religionists who have a problem with imperfection. Guessing is sometimes seen as an imperfection.
I'm reminded of the scene in Star Trek IV where Bones learns Spock is going to "guess" and he says, "Spock, that's wonderful!"
Spock is nonplussed. Kirk reassures him by saying that Bones is more comfortable with Spock's guesses than he would be other people's facts...or something to that effect. Vulcans, in their perfectionism, have a problem with guessing, too.
I'm still learning to be more comfortable with my imperfections.
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Yeah, it was kind of bizarre, which is why I reacted so strongly. She told me I was wrong to guess and that she wouldn't let me teach her (even though I have a credential). Those are strange things to say. It's a bizarre thing to start an argument over. *shrug*
She doesn't like me. Apparently there isn't too much I can do about that development, so I'm going to let it go as best I can.
I still have 2 and a half(ish) more semesters of this.
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Hmm... I dunno that what you did would accurately be called "guessing" though. It would seem that you understand it well. You can call it "guessing," and there is of course nothing wrong with making an educated guess...
But figured bass numeration dictates the answer, as long as the bass is given and proper voice leading is understood; the rules of tonal harmony make it as straight forward as an algebraic equation or a logical argument.
I think you may just intuitively understand the rules better than the person in question. Whatever the quality of the text you're using is irrelevant. If the professor can't explain it in terms of the numerals indicating intervals above the bass, then the professor is shoddy.
I don't know about anyone else, but I've learned best from guesses and mistakes. I tend to remember the correct answer when I've struggled and still don't quite "get it."
For example, I took Spanish in high school. Each week we have a vocabulary test which I usually aced because we all knew exactly which words would be on the test.
One week the teacher threw in a word from several weeks prior and very few got it right.
I still remember the Spanish word for life is vida.
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Correct.
I don't know that much spanish though, but you're right.
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The only thing useful I can do in spanish is order alchoholic drinks
Oh, right... but good work pwning that bitch.
I don't know that your theory sequence will be similar to what mine was--I'm guessing that you're in second year theory--but third year theory drops tonal harmony and gets into the really interesting stuff; it's something to look forward to, rather than dread, imo.
And get laid.
Oops!
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The exercise was non-harmonic notes (passing tones, neighbor tones, etc.) and the book did a piss-poor job of explaining it, really. The book was shoddy in this regard.
The prof likes to send us home with an unexplained assignment on occasion just to see how we do. This was one of those times. He hadn't lectured on non-harmonic tones at all.
Yes, I employed educated guesses and did okay. *shrug* I did okay because I used what I did know to fill in the missing information as best I could.
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This is first year, second semester: figured bass to fill in non-harmonic passing/neighbor tones.
As for theory, I'm enjoying it (and yes, looking forward to advanced harmony), but I'm not sure why I'm doing all this except I love music.
I'm a decent vocalist and I'm getting better.
What I really need is comprehensive sight-reading in piano. Right now my health isn't allowing comprehensive anything, unfortunately.
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On a little side note, I find this line of arguing very annoying. She is relying on what her husband says, and implies that this makes her argument right. I have encountered this a few times now, the person tries to repeat the knowledge of someone they know without understanding the actual underlying thoughts (I had some christian pull out his father's scientific credentials on me when I started arguing against his ignorant view of quantum mechanics), and thinks this is somehow good enough.
Following this reasoning: My dad is a carpenter. So I guess that makes me able to build furniture? I don't think so...
Edit: triple post
Edit: triple post (I hate my ISP)
We shouldn't guess? How does she live?
She would never win at Jeopardy.
Isn't she technically "guessing" by being a Christian?
I'd say that her real intent was to naysay you, no matter what. If you were friends, she might have supported your guesses...
Oddly enough, one of the few memories I have of my college music class was writing a paper on some subject, and then finishing it by saying "If I may hazard a guess..."
I then scratched that part out.
When I got the paper back, she wrote (paraphrasing from a memory from 17 years ago):
"Chris, these papers are just to demonstrate that you know the subject. As far as that goes, they don't interest me, because you're just repeating back what I told you.
What really interests me is when students want to go past the material, and take guesses. Next time, don't scratch your guesses out, I'd love to read them."
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
Aaah, I see. In that case educated guesses is all you can do; it's the whole point even, heh. I dunno what that chick was talking about. She obviously didn't either. :P
In my opinion, it's so much more important to teach young people to think and reason than it is to regurgitate information. Where would we be if all anyone could do is parrot back what had been told to them previously? I would suspect that all research would have come to a screeching halt eons ago.
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Exactly.
Even though I went to a "Christian" college, they taught me how to think. An "C" paper was a well-written paper that regurgitated information. An "A" paper was a well-written, well-researched paper that took the original information and based on that, hypothesized (guessed?) new material. If your hypotheses were based on known information and were reasonable, you got that "A."
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