Suggestion For Alternative to “Scripture Class” in Australia
November 30th, 2009
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In the US, teaching a religious scripture class in a public school (government sanctioned, tax payer funded) would simply not happen. We have black latter law against that, and even in the deepest backward bible-belt backwaters, something as blatant as a scripture class is just not going to happen. Sure, teachers may try to throw in some religious messages (which they shouldn’t) but even that could lead to a lawsuit in federal court.
Not so in Australia. Despite being a country well known for its skepticism and generally secular, it seems that a vestige of the religious days still exists in some public schools in New South Whales. On the bright side, while these classes are actually being mandated by the government (seriously), they are optional for students to take and more than half of families elect to have their children opt out of these classes. Still, by law non-scripture students can’t be taught another subject during scripture class sessions. Apparently this came about because it would give them the benefit of having time for additional education and thus encourage more to not take scripture class (or that was the justification anyway). This amounts to a kind of no-compete clause that assures that schools all have dedicated time for religious indoctrination that cannot be used by any other subject.
This law goes all the way back to the late 1800’s and still applies today in New South Whales. Many other parts of Australia continue to have mandated scripture classes in public schools, but now allow students to take other classes in place of the religious classes. Only New South Whales still has a law directly preventing other classes from using the time and forcing students to choose between doing nothing and being taught religious beliefs.
ELIZABETH JACKSON: The push is on for New South Wales to join the rest of the country and offer a secular alternative to scripture classes in the State’s public schools.
At the moment many parents are unhappy about having to choose between organised religion classes and an hour spent watching videos in the classroom.
A proposal for a pilot program promises to address what’s seen as a gap in the education for many children.
Simon Santow reports.
SIMON SANTOW: In the late 1800s the Church and State agreed that religion would have a dedicated hour a week in the school timetable.
But with that agreement came a no-compete clause that still exists in 2009. If you didn’t go to scripture you couldn’t be taught other things.
SIMON LONGSTAFF: We were told by a number of parents that their children were being placed into rooms where they wither had to colour in or do something reasonably meaningless.
But even worse, we heard about the case of students who during the hour that they weren’t attending scripture had to sit outside the principal’s office, which is a place normally reserved for children who’ve been misbehaving.
Given that there are a lot of parents who don’t want their children taught Christianity (or any religion) during school time, a lot of students are spending an hour staring at a wall or doing something else entirely non-productive. Recently there has been a proposal for an alternative class.
Ethics class proposed as scripture alternative
Seven primary schools in New South Wales are offering to participate in the pilot of an ethics course as an alternative to religion classes.
The Education Act prohibits non-scripture students being taught while others receive religious instruction.
It reflects a 19th Century deal between the New South Wales government and churches.
Scripture opt-out rates can be as high as 50 or 80 per cent.
P and C Associations, church groups and the Saint James Ethics Centre say that makes it a social justice issue for students.
The President of the Federation of NSW P and C’s, Dianne Giblin, says students who opt out of scripture are being discriminated against.
“All the other young children are allowed to go off to their various faiths and look at their own ethics and their own values and morals, and the rest of the school are not allowed to do anything else,” she said.
“And this is important for these young people who are missing out on the opportunity to have a look at their ethics and their values.”
They have asked Education Minister Verity Firth to approve a pilot course on ethics, values and general religion.
Bungendore, Hurstville and Neutral Bay primary schools are among those offering to run the course.
Of course, this is not technically a religious class, so it would seem that a case could be made that it does not comply with the letter of the law. But who could possibly oppose a class in ethics? The church, of course!
Religious Panel Fights Ethics Classes in Australia
THE State Government’s religious education advisory panel will fight a pilot program that offers ethics classes to primary school students who opt out of scripture.
Instead, it will continue its support for a policy that prevents students who opt out from having any instruction, and specifically no ethical instruction, during the time set aside for scripture each week.
In some schools, that leaves as many as 80 per cent of students excluded from education for an hour each week – despite reviews dating back to 1980 recommending the policy be amended.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with “ethics class,” and it certainly is better than the alternative, but my own experience in “ethics” education is that it usually ends up being fairly dry and very philosophical. In general, something like “ethics” is often taught in a way that tends to be so open ended and full of subjectivity that it really doesn’t actually accomplish a whole lot in terms of making people more ethical. It also is an opportunity for certain interests to gain a chance to indoctrinate students with their own brand of “ethics.”
Thus, while I don’t have a problem with it, I think there could be an even better alternative. I’d propose that the time be used for a new subject in primary schooling, a subject that seems to be lacking entirely. I’d suggest calling the class “empirical studies.” Basically, the intent is to teach not a single subject in science, but rather the core of how science works and how we can come to understand and evaluate reality. There’s not very much in the term of moral judgments, just the tools to assess the facts. Ideally, I’d like to have this integrated into all subjects in school, but that might be asking too much.
Thus, I present, Steve’s hypothetical curriculum summary of primary school “Empirical Studies”
Human Perception and Common Mistakes related to it:
- The placebo effect
- Memory bias
- False memories
- Perception bias and illusions
- The ideomotor effect
- Common illusions and how simple trickery can be used for both magic theater illusions and for scamming
- Empirical data and methods used in science for reducing human factors
- Pareidolia
- Common logical fallacies
- Hindsight bias
Scientific Principles and Investigation:
- The scientific method and the importance of the steps and observations involved
- Independent repeatability and experimental review
- Controls, placebo, demographic and other
- The basics of statistics (Of course, statistics is a whole subject onto itself, so this is limited to simply why statistical significance is so important)
- Common flaws in experiments and causes of errors – including inadvertent selectivity bias, inductive logic, data contamination
- Common errors in interpretation – including coloration not implying causality, overallocation of limited data, bias toward studies with “positive” results
- Peer review, journals and how scientific information is exchanged
- Science in the media and reliability of sources
- Provability and the issues of the null hypothesis
History and Historical Case Studies:
Historical examples of mass panic, public miss-perception, hoaxes and scams are an excellent subject for those interested in understanding how misunderstanding of human perception, gullibility, panic and misleading can result in large numbers of people believing things that are not so or in myths being created and accepted. In some cases, such as those of the Piltdown Man, the 1989 Cold Fusion experiment, Project Alpha, Crop Circles and others, scientific researchers and others who should have known better were suckered into believing things that were not so. In other cases, whole movements were established and thrived on premises that now seem silly.
These are not simply curiosities, as they demonstrate the realities of how these things occur in the real world. However, as the number are too numerous for it to be covered completely in one class, it would be an excellent topic for independent study by students. For example: each student could choose a historical event or occurrence that demonstrates trickery and lack of critical thinking in the real world to research for a term paper and a 15 minute oral presentation to the class. The presentations would be distributed through the year.
- The early 1800’s rise and fall of phrenology
- The mysticism and psychic craze of the Victorian era and the trickery involved
- The early 1900’s and the “golden age” of patent medicines and quackery
- The rise of modern propaganda in the 1930’s and 1940’s, especially the Nazi ministry of propaganda
- The Piltdown Man hoax
- The new age movement of the 1970’s
- The history of scientific investigation into paranormal claims, from serious attempts in the early 1900’s to modern examples
- Harry Houdini and the first generation of scam debunkers
- The UFO craze of the 1950’s and the history of the phenomena, going back to Kenneth Arnold
- The Cardiff Giant Hoax
- Project Alpha
- The Great Martian Invasion Panic of 1938 (the War Of the Worlds Mercury Theater Radio Show)
- The experiments conducted with Uri Geller in the 1970’s
Some of these topics might be a little advanced for introduction in early school, but that does not mean that the basics can’t be taught. Giving young students an understanding of their own weaknesses in perception and the techniques to avoid them is the first step in making scientific reasoning a way of life and of looking at the world, and not just an academic pursuit. The more advanced areas of history and statistics can come later. In any case, it’s something the educational systems of the world really seem to lack.
Perhaps it’s not my place to comment on how Australia educates their young, but religious scripture class in public school? I mean, come on guys!
This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 12:13 am and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, Education, Good Science, History, Obfuscation, Politics, religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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November 30th, 2009 at 12:31 am
What about study hall, where they can do homework on their own or recreational reading? I think an hour a day would be hard to fill with ethics or empirical studies.
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November 30th, 2009 at 1:45 am
I loved reading about a school that actually affects its students as they go through life-a sustainable education of love and hope. In the book I read called Lives of Passion, School of Hope by Rick Posner, points toward a future that may depend on the injection of heart, hope, and passion into our public schools. It is the story of the place of personal growth in public education, and how we can be inspired to create a better world.
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November 30th, 2009 at 1:46 am
One problem that New South Wales has is that they have a couple of people from Christian parties in their legislative council. If the governing labour party in NSW can get the Greens or Collation to agree to a change they can get it through but not with both of them opposed (if it came to vote I’d be surprised if either opposed it). Legislative councils tend to be elected by proportional representation which tends to fill them with fringe parties.
Of the Australian states NSW does have a relatively high level of religion (though still very low by US standards) along with the infamous Hillsong megachurch.
Paul Studier: They should just get rid of the classes without replacement.
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November 30th, 2009 at 2:27 am
Anonymous said:
Yes, of course, but since they haven’t, I presume that it would be politically difficult.
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November 30th, 2009 at 2:40 am
Paul Studier said:
I don’t know. When I was in junior high and high school. (I don’t know what the worldwide equivalents of these are, but it’s the 7th to 12th grade in the US, the schooling that goes from about age 12 to 17 or 18) the classes were about 45 minutes long.
Anyway, I have brought this up before. I contend that if the topics affore listed were taught and stressed in school, either as their own subject, or even better, if they were tightly integrated into classes on science, health, history, math and others, then we would just about put homeopaths out of buisiness and cripple many religions.
I’d like a society in which a person graduates primary school being able to read, preform basic algebra, know the fundamentals of physics and also know what the placebo effect is, why an experiment demands controls and what a logical fallacy is and how to avoid it. I don’t think this stuff is beyond the grasp of most people. I don’t think that it’s unreasonable to have it well known in the population, and I also believe that it is possible to recognize 99%+ of bad science, quackery and scams without being extensively educated in science, by just having the right mindset and knowing these things.
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November 30th, 2009 at 8:02 am
In secondary school, ages 11-16, we had RE (Religious Education) in which we learnt some of the basics about all (major) religions. One of the teachers was the local vicar, so of course was biased, but in a predominantly ‘Christian’ society that’s understandable. Parents could have their children excluded from RE. I have no idea what they did in the meantime – probably homework.
This is not something I have a problem with, provided the ‘Christian’ or other local bias is minimised. Religion should be taught in the same vein as history (with which it is closely linked), geography, art, etc. To blindly ignore religion is to blinker oneself as its effects on humanity have been and continue to be so significant. Of course there is a difference between teaching the facts of a religion (Religion X uses holy book Y and believe in Z) and teaching its dogma. The former is an academic issue, the latter an individual one and it’s important, especially given how people feel about it, that academia is used only for what it’s supposed to be for and that any dogma is not enforced by the state. Religious schools are a whole other topic…
Getting slightly back on topic, I always find the religionistas fear of the teachings of religions other to their own amusing as an indication of the insecurity in their own beliefs.
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November 30th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
[Other] Matthew said:
It is tempting to make that observation, and indeed I have myself on many occasions. It may even be true for a few. However, it’s not generally accurate, and understanding the real reason why they fear other religions (and even science) is important if you want to see why they have gone so far off the rails.
Most religions are shrouded in mystery. It is taught that you believe because it is not possible for you to know. Some go so far as to say that if you express any degree of certainty, it’s hubris. Since you can’t know anything, it’s foolish to try, and you should instead trust your Lord (or local religious equivalent thereof). This is why the very religious tend to have a hard time with critical thinking. It’s not that they fear it. It’s that it’s totally unfamiliar to them.
There is a subset of religious believers who have another twist to this. In particular, many Christians and Muslims believe in the Devil as a conscious entity who is extremely powerful. Dualists such as Zoroastrians (a religion which is actually related to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) generally believe the Devil to be *exactly* as powerful as God. This Devil (by whatever name) opposes God in all things and will seek to tempt humans to his side. He will do this by very extensive trickery, and by appealing to things like our pride. Even religious pride. The Devil, they say, will make you think you are turning to righteousness when in fact you are not. This makes him very insidious.
A Christian who believes in this sort of a Devil may fear other religions and science not because they are afraid of being proven wrong but because they fear the Devil. They are afraid of even hearing the arguments, because they fear that a satanic influence could cause them to be swayed in that direction.
Crazy? From the outside, it sure sounds like it. But these are perfectly sane people. There are two root problems. One is that they were not raised to think critically, but rather to trust implicitly in the only god who could possibly save them, and be wary of those who would tempt them away from salvation. Another is that they have taken their religious fervor too far. When people stop thinking, very bad things happen to their religions. They turn to evil very quickly at that point.
It’s easy, and somewhat reassuring to laugh at their insecurity. But they’re not really insecure. The truth is much more disturbing, IMHO.
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November 30th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Having spent twelve years getting a Catholic education, the idea that having only one hour a week devoted to religious instruction and Bible study is a burden is laughable.
However I digress – of course in what is rapidly becoming a more pluralistic Western culture, the idea of forced instruction in in public schools in any religious tradition is offensive. I would suggest however that this time be devoted to some sort of moral and ethical instruction, and in fact this is the case in many places that once had religion as a school subject.
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November 30th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
DV82XL said:
That’s not really the point. It’s unacceptable to have any of that in a tax funded school. Even if it is 10 minutes of prayer, that’s still no good, especially if it is mandatory. It’s not simply the amount of indoctrination but the fact that it is basically giving a government endorsement of the belief over others or for that matter, over no belief.
DV82XL said:
Have you ever taken an ethics class? You can see my little chart of how they work on the side. My experience with “ethics” is that an ethics class will never actually tell you that it’s wrong to steal a candy bar from a store, but it will give you about 200 arguments for it being ethical, 200 against it and 200 for it being neutral.
I don’t see how it actually improves anyone’s practical ethics to have students sitting around talking about the question’s like at what point it is justified to intervene in the name of justice against a culture that is oppressing another culture when from their point of reference, it is an act of benign intent.
We can sit around all day talking about how if we agree that it is justified to resort to torture to find the location of a nuclear time bomb in New York city, then is it justified to find a truck bomb in Cleavland or a hand grenade in Fairbanks? Also, is the magnitude of evil determined by the intent or the end result? What level of risk is it acceptable to expose the non-consenting populous to? Does informed consent require preemptive disclosure or is it the responsible of the consenter to seek information?
I’ve taken a couple of ethics classes. They didn’t make me feel like I was any less likely to do something bastardly. They did make me feel like a small amount of my sanity had been worn away.
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November 30th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Yes I have at university many years ago, when it was the study of descriptive and prescriptive ethics and was taught by the philosophy department, not theology. The trip that they are pushing on kids now in the lower schools is just more of the same crap they are getting in just about every other subject these days.
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December 1st, 2009 at 1:50 am
I took an ethics class. It fulfilled a liberal arts requirement. I didn’t actually learn to be more ethical. I learned what Buzz generally indicates.
The conclusion:
1. All ethics are open ended and in the eye of the beholder
2. We have no right to judge the actions of another
3. You can justify anything you want if use the correct argument or type of theory
4. As a caucasian, American Male who has come from a family with a reasonable amount of money, I’m a very bad person, I’m all that is wrong with the world and I should be very ashamed of myself.
Yeah, seriously. I don’t know how philosophy students can tell up from down when they complete a series of those classes. But really, I can’t imagine how a modern ethics class could possibly just come out and say “No, you shouldn’t do that, it’s just plain wrong.” A statement like that is totally taboo these days.
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December 1st, 2009 at 2:58 am
Chem Geek Gregor said:
Well descriptive ethics is an empirical investigation of moral beliefs, so one would then say: “at this time, and in this place, this culture had this set of moral values” and then look at the impact of this set of values on the historical path of that culture.
For example during the establishment a Dutch hegemony in what is now Indonesia in the early 1800’s, the Dutch invaded Batavia, now known as Jakarta. The ruling class their seeing their imminent defeat, used the last weapon in their arsenal to rob the Dutch of a victory: they all killed themselves. They did this totally convinced that by denying their enemy an honorable victory, the Dutch would retreat in shame and Batavia would be saved.
As you can imagine this move didn’t exactly have the desired impact on a group of European mercantile imperialists.
But this can be analyzed as a clash of moral systems, and it serves as an illustration of what happens when you make the unwarranted assumption that your system of morals is universal.
Normative ethics is the branch of ethics that investigates standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions; in essence the principles in play that a culture uses to determine whether an action is right or wrong. This is the study of classical theories like utilitarianism, Kantianism, and a raft of others that offer an overarching moral principle to which one could appeal in resolving difficult moral decisions.
The idea here is no so much about adopting one of these ideologies over another, but to examine the logical underpinnings of each, and the impact they have had on human attitudes.
These are useful studies, and for me provoked more reflection on my own moral and ethical stand, than any of the wishy-washy B.S. I have seen students subjected to since.
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December 1st, 2009 at 3:55 am
DV82XL has a point about how ethics class can be very useful and it may have a place in primary school, but I also like drbuzz0’s suggestion. I think those themes are all very important. A seperate class subject would be good, but the other thing that would be good is if they were very strongly stressed as a foundation in all science classes. Like instead of teaching physics and chemistry and biology subject matter alone, if those themes could be repeatedly stressed in all science classes. Maybe having seperate study to go into them separately too.
I don’t know how they should do it, but that is all important for science literacy and it is something I don’t think I’ve heard many schools talking about as important. I like the idea of logical fallacies and also of human perception and bias being taught. I mean, I so often hear people using anecdotal evidence to justify a quack product and I just think “Nobody ever explained to these people (or if they did, it didn’t stick) why counting on another’s perception and anecdotes of this is not useful” It’s really ignorance of this that sends people worshiping a grease stain on someone’s driveway.
Maybe part of it is that the classes in science (and in other subjects) are not taught in a good consistant way that makes them connect to the underlying importance of these things. I mean, it’s usually Chemistry, where you memorize some chemical formulas and then it’s summer break and then you come back and do the same with biology, while leaving behind chemistry and never bothering with it again. Then comes summer break and then it’s time to memorize physics equations and forget biology.
Maybe “Empirical studies” could be the first science unit of schooling. It would be taught in something like 8th grade, as the introduction to the sciences. then you would teach chemistry, physics, biology, earth science and so on, but with those all keeping to the “empirical studies” principles and reviewing them with each new unit, like “This is what we know and this is how we found out and this is why the scientific method worked here and these are some mistakes that had been made.” If you did that, it would help add structure to unify things.
I think that the scientific facts would be more meaningful if the reason they were important and the methods which produced them were more central. Also, if science becomes more meaningful, then maybe that could lead to more being encouraged to peruse it as a career.
I guess this isn’t just science though, because some of it is philosophy and some is health and some is history. That would be another thing though, if they could get more give and take from subject to subject that might also be useful.
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December 1st, 2009 at 8:35 am
Well, I went through both the QLD and NSW school systems last century (went through in the last old HSC year, 2000).
QLD was good – students could (and in my case, did) opt-out on their ownsome from RE, usually clearing off someplace like the library, either to read (my favourite), do homework, or snooze (runner up). That’s what ultimately led to my discarding english catholicism as crock and **** before the berlin wall came down – I amused myself reading that execrable piece of “literature” known as the Bible – at least the King James edition. I can’t remember if the school library had other versions.
I’m not surprised that NSW still has this bull**** – I usually (unsuccessfully) to make enough trouble (favourite being, after being rumbled reading a book, “You read your work of fiction, I’ll read mine”) and get chucked out. Eventually my old man relented and sent a note with me, but he shouldn’t have had to in the first place – it semed to me that the QLD system trusted the students somewhat more than NSW did.
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December 1st, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Buzz0: I love it when you put up a religion topic.
Some good points being made by commenters. I did the Catholic school thing, but I was fortunate that I had a Jesuit education. Yeah they taught the party line, but then they also taught what the other religions, and “non-religions” (which really are religions), believe in. They would make us defend either side in some classes. This really helps to develop critical thinking and an understanding of where people are coming from. All religions and non-religions have belief systems that will have faults, fallacies, and things that can only be accepted on faith. For example, I dare a “secular scientist” to tell me what there was before the “big bang”. It cannot be done and the scientist can only have some sort of a belief (not factual) system of what there was. Typically, we each settle on a system of beliefs, then defend them “to the death”. I know that my belief sets have faults, but so do yours! Destructive criticism of other beliefs sets is counterproductive. Arguing against other belief sets may be productive but needs to be done with a full understanding of the other’s side.
I don’t have a problem with religion in schools. Personally I think the United States total ban on religion in schools deprives children of the chance to develop sound moral values. I love reading ethics, and I have a brother who is an expert in business ethics. But as noted by some, ethics alone has some drawbacks. What religions impose is a moral imperative. I believe that children should be given a set of moral imperatives, and then take ethics classes to apply critical thinking to the moral imperatives. This is the route I took in my education, and I thanked God for that education when I was faced with some really tough realities in Viet Nam. The moral imperative of “Thou shalt not kill” is tough to reconcile with the realities of combat.
Enough for now.
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December 1st, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Unlike some others in the skeptic/rationalist camp, I’m not necessarily opposed to religious schools in the form of catholic school or some other privately funded school that parents choose to put their children in and is either paid by the institution or by parents fees. As long as the school teaches math, literature, history, science and so on to state standard levels, that’s fine with me. If they want to teach religion on their own time, that’s the choice of the parents to seek that out.
Any private school that lives up to academic standards, in my opinion, is going to provide some more choices and competition and parents should have the liberty to do so, as long as their children are not denied education of secular subjects to the same as others.
It should be pointed out that religious backing of schooling does not necessarily conflict with good science education. Not all people who belong to a religion believe the earth is literally 5000 years old. Some of those I have seen at Skeptic events seem to think this is the case. That is just the fundamentalists and you can still teach science in a Catholic or other kind of religious school. Some fine institutions are backed by the Church, for example the University of Notra Dame and numerous hospitals are Catholic, Methodist or Jewish.
That said, I strongly disagree that religion should ever be taught or promoted on tax payer dollar or sanctioned by a government. The US is a bit unique in that this is traditionally bared from happening. Many other countries have a tradition of official recognition of one religion over others. Personally, I think this is one instance in which the US, and any other countries with such separation, have the right idea. I’m not going to tell anyone else what to do, but I personally like separation of church and state.
I am not saying that government should endorse atheism or make it the “official” policy. The policy should simply be that the government represents the interests of people who believe there is no god, believe a variety of things and that the government does not officially recognize or endorse any nor does it dispute any. It is not their department or place to promote any belief or belief over lack of belief.
leg said:
I’d respond to that by saying that we don’t know everything, but we’re trying to learn more and always getting better. However, if you want an answer and don’t mind whether it is true or not, I can go ahead and give you one that I just made up on the fly. Okay, here’s mine: The Flying Spaghetti Monster did it.
In other words, I don’t consider it better to have an answer over not having an answer if that answer does not have some kind of backing in the bigger question of “and we know this is the case because…?” I would rather get an honest “I don’t know” than a tall tale.
But regarding the big bang, I think some cosmologists might say that there was nothing before, because as far as we can tell, that is when the current time stream started. But as far as why it did? how the universe came to be? Very smart people are working very hard on that one.
leg said:
The one thing I take direct offense about is the idea that religion is necessary for morality. Personally, as someone who doesn’t have any religion, I don’t think I’m completely devoid of morals. I doubt I could ever murder someone and live it down. I’d probably go crazy with nightmares of it, even if I really hated them.
I generally derive morals from a combination of what I think are the basic liberties of others (they should not be violated) such as property, life and what I think needs to be prohibited to keep a civil society combined with a general distaste for causing unnecessary pain to any others. Of course, when some of these come into conflict, it would be a judgment call.
Religion teaches morals, that is true, but it teaches morals that are not necessarily ones I’d consider good or constructive. Many Muslims interpretative the Koran in a manner that gives a moral imperative to crash planes into buildings or blow up infidels. They never stop and ask whether this is a logical or just thing to do, because the morals are absolute.
In Christianity and Judism, some commandments are difficult to argue with. “Thou shall not steal” is one that seems to be one in nearly universal agreement. Others, I don’t know are really morals I’d want anyone to feel compelled to have.
For example: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
First of all, I see an implicit condoning of slavery there, which I have a BIG problem with. Secondly, I don’t see a problem coveting that of others. Hell, in a capitalist society it’s just about required. I’ve bought things before because someone I knew had them and I really liked them and wanted one for myself. Besides, it’s one of those “thought crime” things, where it’s basically impossible to avoid
Then there’s “But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.”
That’s not something I think matters, however I do believe it would be entirely wrong and immoral to force someone else who lives amongst you to not work on a day that they wanted to, just because you believe it.
leg said:
Having not been in the battlefield, it is probably not my place to judge what that might be like. I’m sure it is far beyond what I could imagine. When it comes to war, I don’t think there’s any argument that sometimes things that are ugly, unfair and downright horrible happen. For example, innocent civilians killed because they happen to live near an important target or life, limb and property being lost in the crossfire or because of an error or even as part of a campaign. Therefore, the best way to reduce the effects of war is to try to avoid war unless absolutely necessary.
leg said:
I believe that there is pretty widespread agreement that the translation to “though shalt not kill” is a reference to murder, because the Bible clearly condones killing in defense and even as punishment. Some have suggested “Thou shalt not murder” and some versions are “thou shalt not kill thy neighbor” which implies someone who is part of your community and otherwise civil (and not a soldier who is trying to kill you)
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December 1st, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Question for LEG:
Is it therefore your assessment that teaching religion in school is going to make students act better as members of their society and be prone to doing less bad things (like cheating on taxes, stealing from a store, committing murder, driving drunk, leaving the scene of an accident, cheating on their spouse, lying about important things) and to do more good things (like helping their elderly neighbor shovel snow, volunteering to a worthy cause, picking up trash they see on the sidewalk)?
That seems to be the core of some of the issue here.
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December 1st, 2009 at 11:05 pm
leg said:
A moral imperative is a principle originating inside a person’s mind that compels that person to act. It is a kind of categorical imperative, as defined by Immanuel Kant. Kant took the imperative to be a dictate of pure reason, in its practical aspect. Not following the moral law was seen to be self-defeating and thus contrary to reason. Claiming as religion does, that it is the divine voice speaking through the human spirit is superstitious balderdash.
drbuzz0 said:
I have all sorts of issues with this. I was lucky because I too was educated by Jesuit (Dominican Sisters in the lower grades) and the people that taught me were first educators and then members of religious orders. Their ministry, particularly the in the case of the Jesuits was, a leg said, to hone young minds, not brainwash students with dogma. Unfortunately as we all know that was not universally the case. The stories that have emerged of child abuse, not just sexual but physical and mental, make my blood run cold, because I know just how impossible it would have been in those days to get someone to believe me if I were to accuse any wearing the cloth of these outrages.
Religious instruction should not be part of any State mandated (nevermind paid for) education at any level, in fact I would pull public funds from any university that still grants degrees of any religious type.
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December 1st, 2009 at 11:52 pm
DV82XL said:
Well, let me rephrase that: I do have some issues with religious schooling, but in general I’m not going to say that there aren’t schools with a religious affiliation that do a good job of educating in non-religious subjects. In fact, I am aware that some Jewish families send their children to Catholic schools, because they are of superior quality to the local public schools.
Child abuse at the hands of an educator is unacceptable. It should be noted that it happens in secular environments and schools and public schools as well.
I’m certainly not against private schools, if they meet or exceed the standards of public schools. The question of whether or not a private school can teach religion or be religious oriented, I think that you have to allow for this, because it’s not state sponsored and the parents go out of their way to send their kids to it. They could just as easily do it on their own time.
Much as I dislike parents indoctrinating their children with religion, I don’t think it can or should be stopped. That really tramples parental rights when you start talking about telling parents that they can’t tell their children that there is a god and read the bible as well. If parents can teach their children to pray, then they can pay someone else to do that. It really gets to the point of tyranny when you pry into homes and private institutions to verify that children are not told there is a god.
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December 2nd, 2009 at 12:31 am
drbuzz0 said:
And does this extend to indoctrinating children with any idea or set of ideas? No, it does not and everywhere even in the States there would be no issue closing down a school that taught that non-Whites are subhuman vermin, and Jews are some kind of a disease. But dress up the bigotry in mysticism and call it Faith, and you can get away with just about anything.
We rail against all sorts of stupidities, those of us that have taken on the mantel of Septic. In many ways we are like the Anchorites, the pillars of the Early Church, and like them we have to be true to our calling (as it were) and that to me means no exceptions. Anyone that is feeding a captive group BS for whatever reason is our enemy. Children are a captive audience in school almost by definition and therefore fall within our sphere of concern.
The key concept here is ‘captive’. Freedom of speech, is the freedom to disseminate your ideas without hindrance – it does not imply any right to be heard, it doesn’t guarantee an audience or permit you to force anyone to hear what you have to say. Nor does it get you off the hook for what you say if it causes harm to an innocent party.
Look, even parochial education isn’t what it used to be because the teaching orders don’t attract the same quality of people that they used to. Even most so-called Jesuit schools are lucky to have even one on staff anymore. The Order licenses schools to use the name as long as they stick to a certain curriculum, and pass annual inspections by a Father-Visitor.
The Churches served their communities well in the past when they provided that which the State was unable to at the time. But that time is past and now religion and schools need to be decoupled the same way the US recognized at the founding of that Nation that government and religion needed to be decoupled. To me it is just a logical progression.
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December 2nd, 2009 at 1:11 am
There is a difference between saying “I have a problem” with something and saying “it should be illegal.”
I don’t like parents teaching their children religion or indoctrinating them or brainwashing them or whatever term you want to call it. I don’t think the government should tell people how to raise their children beyond any direct harm physically or sexually or whatever, but as far as the values they are taught? That is something that the government just can’t deal with because it would mean no limit on power and even in your own home, on your own time, they’d have a say in what you do and have to verify it.
DV82XL said:
I disagree. Fred Phelps and his family/cult have a group of children who are primarily educated by them in a kind of warped home schooling. They are taught non-Christians, gays and anyone outside their narrow belief system is damned to hell. There are also families who dress their kids in white robes and bring them to KKK meetings.
This is not grounds for removing their children or shutting down their operation.
DV82XL said:
Yes, and surely no school funded by the public should have any religious aspects, but what of education provided by the parents, on their own time and with their own funds?
Do parents have the right to tutor their children or to hire someone to do so? Do they have the right to encourage their children to read and learn beyond school on their own? I would think so. Do they also have the right to read the bible to their children and teach their religion? I’m not saying that I like that happening, but if you are proposing that it be illegal for parents to teach their children what they believe, then the next question is how do you police this?
Can you imagine a society in which there is a punishment for telling your child that there is a Jesus and that the bible is true? The prisons would overflowing! You’d need a court officer in every living room
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December 2nd, 2009 at 2:07 am
Q said:
If you think about it all cultures in fact do set collective limits at one level or another on what parents can and cannot teach their kids. Teach your kid to be a pickpocket, for example, and you will find yourself up on charges of corrupting a minor, and I’m sure we can think of any number to things of that nature. So the fact is that there are limits. What I am saying is that religion still as an aura of untouchable privilege about it that is getting old. Why is it OK to indoctrinate a child with lies about the workings of the world when it come to ’spiritual’ matters, but not when it comes to legal matters?
Religion has hidden behind a totally unjustified claim of indemnity from the obligations that are required of every other element of society, and this is wrong.
When the framers of the US Constitution separated church and state it was in full knowledge of how important the church had been in the development of the their culture, but they also saw establishmentarianism was limiting social development in England, which was why they made sure it could not happen to their new nation. This in a time when it was a given that the head of any state ruled as God’s anointed agent on Earth, it was as radical an idea as any of the radical ideas that they came up with in that document.
Well to me the time has come where all the privileges of religion should be disestablished, and that includes what can and cannot be fed to minds of minors below the age of reason. It is just the logical conclusion of a process that has been going on for over 200 years.
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December 2nd, 2009 at 4:23 am
DV82XL said:
Well, I don’t think you’re going to get very far with that. Seperation of church and state is one thing, but what you’re suggesting amounts to coming down against religion in a way that few are going to support. Even in mostly secular countries like those in Europe, you’ll likely encounter enough respect for the church or for those who do believe, even as a minority, that you’ll not get that kind of level of action.
In the US? In Australia? Forget about it! Even moderate secularists are not that far onto it.
If you really think that there should be some kind of limit on what children are taught to the point that religion can’t even be taught by parents, you’ve picked a losing battle. You should set your sites on something more obtainable.
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December 2nd, 2009 at 5:24 am
I’m not setting my sights on anything, I’m just trying to make the point that religion isn’t something that SHOULD have any special privileges or automatic respect, and that most of the secular arguments that tend to justify its exceptional status are prima fascia erroneous.
Could you enforce something like this de jure? No, of course not, but can it happen de facto most certainly. There are all sorts of cultural norms from my youth that have fallen by the wayside, and several more have risen out of nothing. What seems to be important is getting people to stop accepting certain things out of habit, or out of a belief that this is the way everyone else thinks.
Look at the status of women in the West, yes there were laws passed alright, but it was a cultural change that made promoting a women to a management position possible, because it was cultural change that allowed the men under her to accept it.
At the last place I worked, one of the Team Leaders gathered his all male crew together to tell them that he had left his wife and children to live with another man that he had fallen in love with. This had zero effect on his crew’s attitude towards him, and zero impact on his career, as he was promoted about 18 months latter. One of the guys that had been working there for over forty years told me he was surprised at how little this coming out had effected his opinion of his boss, because in the the old days, “we would have dragged him out into the parking lot and set him on fire” for making such a confession.
Every journey starts with a single step, and any American my age that has seen things go from “you there boy” to “Mr. President” in our lifetime, cannot claim that radical, unimaginable change cannot happen in a short time.
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December 2nd, 2009 at 3:47 pm
DV82XL said:
Uh… Well, I would imagine that any time someone comes out as being homosexual, modern culture is so strongly geared to political correctness that it is impossible to criticize them for anything. I mean, if someone says “I’m gay and I just left my family” you have the say “Oh good for you, so glad you’re coming out and being true to yourself.”
I would actually be somewhat horrified what that guy had done. I mean, to up and leave your spouse and family after years of marriage, years as a father and so on? It’s one thing to get a divorce because both partners are simply not capable of getting along with eachother and would be happier split, but to just say “Hi honey, I’m home, but only to get a few things and then I’m off… I met someone else… have a nice life!”
I’d say in this situation there are two possible positions he is in:
Either he is bisexual or has some attraction to men and women or at least is somewhat confused or somehow could live either life. In that circumstance, then I’d say it’s just plain wrong to leave one person because, despite not actually having any differences, you allowed yourself to fall for someone else and thus abandon your commitment. Like I said, if the marriage was bad, that’s one thing, but if it’s a situation of “I’m perfectly happy with my wife, but I think I’d be even happier with this person” then that’s not acceptable. Especially given that that mentality almost always turns out to be just a temporary infatuation that ends up blowing up just as much.
OR
The guy is truly an exclusive homosexual who is not happy with a woman, has never been happy with her and went through the motions anyway and repressed his real feelings due to cultural morays or something. In the second case, I think he still has an obligation to think “how do I come out and be the person I really am and do it in a way that is not traumatic on my family and my wife and minimizes their financial, social and other burdens.”
That might mean that he should first come out and seperate, but get his own place, and not move in with another man, and not go public with his relationship, because both at once could be a bit much to swallow. It would be a lot easier to first seperate and establish a good relationship with his children and take the new relationship with the other man slow.
I know plenty of people who have experienced the divorce of their parents, even in adulthood, and it is not generally easy. I don’t know any who had their father turn out to be gay, but I do know a couple who just came home one day to what they thought was a good family to find out that “Dad doesn’t live here anymore. He has a girlfriend he moved in with” and that is a lot more traumatic than having parents first agree to seperate and then divorce and have both parents spend time assuring them that they still mattered before moving on with their lives.
Personally, I can’t imagine my parents divorcing – they get along quite well and I’m certain my father is not gay. However, if they did divorce, I am sure that the first concern of my father would be making sure that me, my sister and my two brothers knew he still cared about us more than anything and that he wanted to make sure that there was amicable adjustments to things.
I really think that even if you’re gay, just up and leaving someone, concerned only for your own happiness and without thinking about the bigger picture is downright bastardy. He may not want to deal with figuring out how to break it to his family and keep his relationships healthy, but years of commitment that his wife put in and the fact that he brought children into the world means something and they deserve more consideration than that. At the very least he should have stopped to consider this.
It wouldn’t make much difference if he did this with a hot young lady he met at a bar or anyone else, regardless of their gender or orientation. My opinion of him would be forever tarnished, dramatically.
But… that would not be politically correct. HE should be supported for his courage in coming out and being himself and championed for his homosexuality, regardless of whether or not it breaks any hearts or drives his children to suicide.
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December 2nd, 2009 at 4:03 pm
drbuzz0 said:
What you say is true that political correctness forces people to keep thier opinions to themselves in these cases. My point was not that everyone supported his acts, in fact I personally agree with your analysis wholeheartedly. My point was that there had been a sea-change in attitude that allowed him to function at work as if indeed he had admitted to an extramarital affair with a woman. Having that happen, and a family broken up over it is unfortunately not that unusual, but doesn’t always make it impossible for the guilty party to do his job just because it happens, and would hardly have provoked violence due to moral outrage. This is the big change.
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December 2nd, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Q:
You asked, “Is it therefore your assessment that teaching religion in school is going to make students act better as members of their society and be prone to doing less bad things…” and conversely, good things.
Absolutley not. We all have free will. My assessment is that a child needs a solid fundation of what is right and what is wrong. The question becomes: what is right and what is wrong? This is normally set by the community and generally dominated by religious groups and intersts. All major religions have a written code of conduct, such as the ten commandments, that is time tested. Across the religions and where these codes match, they are pretty universal: for example, don’t be bonking your neighbor’s wife and don’t be killing folks. These codes provide a foundation for a functioning society and the preservation of the human race. Whether these codes came from God (superstitious mumbo-jumbo?) or came from man’s ability to reason makes no difference – they work as intended, to preserve society. However a lot of religions like to put non-universal add-on codes, e.g. our religion (way of thinking and comporting oneself) is the only way, or “interracial marriage is an evil thing”. This is where religions get off base. Can government set what is right and what is wrong? Sure. That’s what laws are all about. Can we trust government to keep out mumbo-jumbo superstition any more than religions? Can we trust government to not enact off-base laws. No. Look at the global warming scam. Look at the government’s role in eugenics in the 1930’s.
It all comes down to control. Who’s controlling me? Who’s controlling my children? I believe I am better off when I have more control of my own life. I may cede some control to a religious group in the interest of filling a need, e.g. a reminder to do good. I am pretty well forced to cede a lot of control to government. In the latter case, I generally resist any effort by government to take more control. In the former case, I can just say “take a hike” to the religious group without much in the way of consequences. This is why I disagree with DVX in that I think religions SHOULD get special privileges because religions are a counter to government. I agree with him that religions should not get automatic respect – they need to earn it. So does government. Marxism has demonstrated that it is far worse than any of the fringe religious sects in this country (the KKK, Black Panthers, etc I don’t consider to be religious sects).
DVX: you had a typo that said, “… Septics…” instead of what I suspect you meant – Skeptics. Freudian slip? : ) Though I have some disagreements, I love your cogent arguments. I should have guessed you were Jesuit trained.
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December 2nd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
leg said:
There were lot of typos in last nights postings. Ill have to pay more attention
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December 2nd, 2009 at 4:23 pm
I like DrBuzz0’s idea in response #0 for classes in the foundation of science, and would go as far as to say that incorporating it into other science courses is not an adequate substitute, but should be a prerequisite.
I suggest splitting the material by grade level, starting with the Human Perception section in grade 2, the Scientific Principals section in grade 3, and History and Case Studies in grade 4. (Grade 1 will probably be needed to learn to read well enough to read the text books.) By grade 5, the student should then be ready to start a general science class, followed by specific science classes (physics, chem, biology) at grade 6+.
And don’t forget to include the Broken Window Fallacy.
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December 2nd, 2009 at 4:34 pm
When my parents divorced (which was not a bolt from the blue, it was clear that it was coming) both my mother and father got new places and sold the house. This was because neither wanted it to look like one was “walking out” on us. They wanted it to be an equal split, as opposed to appearing one left the other.
My father did not date or entertain women publicly for more than a year. However, the woman he started seeing, I very much suspect, he was actually seeing all along (maybe even before the divorce.) However, he kept it on the down low. They did not move in together until even later.
My mother did similar. She didn’t openly look for anyone else to date for a while after, but I don’t think she had anyone lined up before hand, as my father did (or so it would seem).
Anyway, I know why my father did it like this. He probably wanted to just move in with her, if he had it up to himself, but if he did, my sisters and I would never have come to visit him. It would have been way too awkward with the other woman there and it would started one of those mom/stepmom competition things or she would have taken on the whole persona of “the woman who broke up our family” and it would have meant I would have not had a very good relationship with my father either.
Anyone who has experienced this should know what I mean.
I think my parents did the right thing. I mean, clearly my father wanted us to come over and continue to spend time with him and he felt more for my sisters and I than he did for making a new life. That was one thing that I think a lot feel, like that their parent is making a new life that does not include them.
I know if he had moved in with a woman right away it would have strained things badly. If it had been a man? That would have been way to much to adjust to! It would have been way too weird.
So, despite the fact that I have nothing against gay people, I don’t think I would have not felt like the guy had not shown a very selfish and inconsiderate side.
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December 2nd, 2009 at 4:46 pm
leg said:
Marxism is nothing to aspire to, that is for sure. It has a long and bloody history of failing to meet the promises it makes.
However, there is a strange side to it. Despite officially not recognizing religion, there is often a kind of religion of the state. Stalin seemed to recognize especially well that religion had power and he worked to create a pseudo-religion that exploited this. There were places of pilgrimage and reverence, such as Lenin’s tomb and statues and monuments to the ideals of communism and to individuals who became symbolic icons of them. Not only in the USSR, though, party leaders in communist societies often become figureheads in a kind of cult of personality. There is a great deal of pomp and circumstance and ceremony to glorify the state and the ideals that it supposedly stands for.
I sometimes wonder if eliminating current religions might not be such a good thing if the void were filled with something worse.
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December 2nd, 2009 at 6:44 pm
drbuzz0 said:
I know what you mean. My parents divorced about a year and a half ago. I’m getting used to it, but it’s all been so unsettled. It was deeply traumatic, because my father did exactly what you described. One day, he just called home and told my mom he wasn’t coming home. He was moving in with one of his other girlfriends. (Yes. Plural. I didn’t know about that. I’ve learned a lot in the last couple of years.)
Truthfully, if I’d known about his cheating ways for years, I wouldn’t have minded so much. It’s the lying that bothers me.
Engineering Edgars, you’re so right — if he’d stayed alone for a while before moving in with her, it would’ve felt more natural. Instead, I find it very hard to form any kind of positive thought about her. I know now that he was dating her for several years before he left my mother. And several other women; it seems that this woman is the only one who didn’t kick him out when he lost his very well-paying job. (Indeed, leaving my mother was part of that. I think if he hadn’t been caught in office hanky panky, and hadn’t lost his job, I suspect he would’ve kept the status quo.)
I don’t even know, really, how I feel about my dad anymore. I was always proud of how close, and how loving my family was. It took the divorce to reveal the ugly truth, that we were horribly dysfunctional all along, and that much of it was built on lies. The hell of it is, I don’t know *which* parts were lies and which were not.
If he’d left for another man, I think it would be worse. I don’t have any problem with homosexuality, per se. But if he left my mother for a man, it would mean that he’d lied *even more*.
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December 2nd, 2009 at 8:33 pm
leg said:
Arguably there was a time when the Church provided a political balance to offset the power of the State, but those days are long past. There are more than enough organizations that serve as watchdogs, and action groups that no one class of these need be afforded special privileges, particularly ones that claim contact with the supernatural. And that is exactly what they are; in essence no different in kind to those that think they can see the future in a crystal ball, or the fall of Tarot cards.
drbuzz0 said:
Please understand I do not wish to see the dissolution of organized religion, I am not suggesting that people should be told what to believe. In that regard Marxism would be no different than any other militant faith, demanding unquestioned acceptance of its precepts.
What I think is wrong is forced indoctrination of young people which is being done in faith-based schools, as I’m sure many here would have an issue with a school that had students carting about a copy of Das Kapital all day and expected them to work reference to it into all their other studies. This is the fundamental hypocrisy here: the right to catechize kids with one form of superstitious nonsense is defended as fundamental to the workings of a free society, but doing it with another is sedition. I’m sorry you can’t have it both ways.
The other thing that makes me laugh, is that Christian faiths in particular, make a central tenet out of voluntary acceptance of dogma, almost all require that adherents go through some ceremonial affirmation of this. So if the Spirit is going to fill their hearts, why the need for brainwashing beforehand? I don’t recall being told that I had a choice in the matter as I had already been baptized and thus committed.
We have matured to the point where we can have a level playing field in these ideas. It is a violation of our claim that we are for freedom of thought and then defend some (not all) groups’ privilege of cultivating their ideas in children, regardless and without oversight.
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December 2nd, 2009 at 8:47 pm
I am pretty sure my parents separated more because they seemed to be unhappy with each other as opposed to wanting someone else. It was not a surprise as it had been an issue for at least a year (actually, a lot more, but the writing was on the wall for about a year). My father started officially dating a woman and introduced us to her about a year after, but I am sure he was seeing her before. I would not say he kept it secret but he kept it on the down low. He kept it discrete.
I don’t know how long he was seeing her. I suspect that he started before the divorce (which would not have been that big a deal, because they were already basically separated and on their own.) I don’t know how long. I don’t especially want to know. I don’t ask. She is actually a fairly nice woman who I like just fine, but I know why my father kept it low profile (it may not have even been serious to begin with). He did not want us to feel his affections were a matter of competition and he did not want us to think it was “another woman” or to hate her for it. It really wasn’t anyway, but it would have been hard if he had moved right in because after the divorce I know I felt like I wanted to spend more time with both parents and make sure that they still had a good relationship with me.
I think it would also be a little disrespectful to move onto someone else so immediately and would be embarrassing to my mother. I would say both my parents still have enough respect for each-other not to do something tactless for the sake of it. Neither of them will speak ill of the other in front of us. Although, I often get the impression that they have to bite their tongue. It would be a difficult thing to put the offspring between sides like that.
If he had been a homosexual? It would have been hard, because I think I would have been left so confused. Did he just marry my mom because he felt obligated to marry a woman? Did he really love her but he later realized he preferred men more than women? Did he always know he was gay, consciously or was it one of those self-denial things? Had he stuck it out for the sake of us? It was confusing as is. It would be a lot to bite off at once.
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December 2nd, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Lets see if we can try to get this on track again.
I like the idea of teaching scientific methodology. It’s obviously not taught enough.
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December 3rd, 2009 at 1:18 am
In medieval universities, the trivium comprised the three subjects taught first: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. I would like to see that brought back.
Where is everything else? The other subject are folded into these three and taught as extensions. For example mathematics has a grammar in counting and definitions; a logic in its operations; and a rhetoric in proofs. You can subdivide almost every subject that way.
Presenting them this way helps create a very rational and analytical mind, which is why it was the norm for over a thousand years. why is it not any more? The great H. L. Mencken, wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. . . . Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim.. . is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States . . . and that is its aim everywhere else.
Mencken was being perfectly serious here. Our educational system in the West is Prussian in origin, and that really is cause for concern. The Germans designed a system of indoctrination that would supply their factories with workers and the army with solders, preconditioned to expect other to do their thinking for them. This was not lost on those that fought Germany during the last half of the 19th century and the first part of the 20th. This was the model that was used to build the public schooling system everywhere.
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December 3rd, 2009 at 2:40 am
DV82XL said:
I guess that is some of the goal as it stands, but I again would go back to something that I have said before: With government, there rarely, if ever is a single unified goal. The school system is administered at the national, regional and local level by a combination of elected officials, appointees, administrators and so on. No doubt there are some who do indeed intend to create an educational enviornment which will aid in developing young minds. There are a few who did want that, but after spending long enough in the system, gave up on it. There are others who want to indoctrinate students and some who want to push a given agenda. A hodgepodge of policies, commonly designed by committee.
My experience with the public educational system exposed me to a number of concepts which were obviously full of compromise. A few others which were clearly a vestige of a age past and just not removed and others that were fairly descent.
I can give a couple of examples. The New York Regence Board (the governing body for New York State schools) had a concept that they wanted all schools to implement which was to have something called a “preformance prompt” which was a plan for integrating classes in a way that would make the subjects more unified.
Anyway, the idea was actually very good, in principle, but it was very obvious that it had been an issue of “design by committee” where the descent concept got watered down, cut back and compromised to the point that it didn’t really do anything useful and became a burden to fulfill the requirement, as opposed to an opportunity. The school didn’t commit much to it and just did a half-assed job on it because they had to do it.
I saw this all the time. Concepts like a health class – good in principle. High school students really would benefit from learning the facts about things like STD’s and safe sex, the issues of drug use and social problems it causes and so on. Of course, when it came down to it, it was a waste of 45 minutes. It was a class that was spent watching film strips from the 1970’s and “learning” about drugs from laughable material not much better than “Refer Madness” with a huge focus on pot and how it makes your head explode and kills everyone within a 75 foot radius. Of course, only limited info on things like sexual hygene.
Now, we all know why this is the case. It’s a political committee thing or someone trying to avoid getting sued or voted out. So anything like condoms and birth control is basically out. (it was actually mentioned and talked about, but only briefly and usually indirectly) They can’t even mention abortion or anything even indirectly related to that one. The official state line on drug policy is that pot is the biggest single problem.
Then another example I can think of would be gym class. Again, in principle, given the state of health these days, it would be a good concept to have physical education. Yet, when implemented, it turns out to be a lot of wasted time standing around with the jocks whacking the dweebs with dodgeballs.
Good intentions, I would think, but completely devoid of much useful after making its way through the paperwork and committees.
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December 3rd, 2009 at 4:31 am
Good article, I am from Tasmania and when I was in primary school we could opt out of religious education classes and instead do things like maths or english…. If we got a note from our parents that is.
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December 3rd, 2009 at 10:55 am
drbuzz0 said:
And, of course, there is the other side of the coin. If you give the state complete power over education, you have the spectacle of children being indoctrinated into whatever philosophy is favoured by the government the day or even just the educational establishment.
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December 3rd, 2009 at 11:42 am
Matthew said:
And indeed this is exactly what has happened. As I wrote up thread there was a well considered plan to temper public education with conditioning that would produce a pliant, and obedient workforce, modeled after the Prussian system all over the world, in fact it was the impetus for public education to being with.
Consider the following:
” A lower middle class which has received secondary or even university education without being given any corresponding outlet for its trained abilities was the backbone of the twentieth century Fascist Party in Italy and the National Socialist Party in Germany. The demoniac driving force which carried Mussolini and Hitler to power was generated out of this proletariat’s exasperation at finding its painful efforts at self-improvement were not sufficient.”
–Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History
In the nature of things, government schools and those private schools which imitate the government model have to make most children dumb, allowing only a few to escape the trap. The problem stems from the structure of our economy and social organization. When you start with such pyramid-shaped givens and then ask yourself what kind of schooling they would require to maintain themselves any mystery dissipates. School is a conflict pitting the needs of the social machinery against the needs of the human spirit.
However the argument that this can be somehow balanced out by allowing religion a role in this process is short-sighted to the extreme. First, one group of demagogues won’t neutralize another under the best of circumstances. More importantly though is that at a fundamental level religion too has no use for a questioning population with a good grounding in dialectics, making their program little more that the other side of the same coin.
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December 3rd, 2009 at 1:44 pm
DV82XL said:
Agreed. Frankly, the best solution is probably to do classes in logical fallacies and propaganda techniques (examples can be taken from some high school classes taught today – my thoughts on the “universally evil male and universally victimized female” meme I was force-fed by multiple teachers do not bear repeating in polite company), with social indoctrination *explicitly* left in the hands of the parents.
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December 5th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Interesting article DrB. Sadly I don’t have time at the moment to read the entire discussion in the comments.
I am from Queensland and while I was in primary (public) school we had religious classes for about an hour each week. Almost everyone in my class thought it was a joke, but we went along with it mainly because the guy teaching the class was genuinely nice and we didn’t want to offend him (he was also an amputee).
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