Also sprach ryan93

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Philologos in another context:

Is it for you or me to decide [opinions are one thing] what should / should not be taught another's child? Let him who knows all and only absolute truth cast the first stone.

ryan93 respondeth:
Well, lets be honest, it is to some degree. There are some things you could "teach" a child that would qualify as child abuse, and I think that telling a child they will burn for eternity unless they follow your particular brand of a particular God qualifies. It's really disgusting.

Dawkin's had a woman on one of his documentaries who was irreparably scarred by the fear of hell instilled in her at as a child. Her rational mind knows better, but the fear haunts her, because what a parent tells you often sticks for life. Any parent who would do that to their child is a bad parent. Period.

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I continue to maintain, I being human do not have what it takes to draw the line and cast the first stone with certain assurance even in my own house with my own child. A says to his child, be this do this or get whupped AND go to hell. B says to her child, be this do this or no dried granberries with your granola AND you will winf up like George Bush and/or Sarah Palin.

The outcome to the child's psyche is not determined by truth value. One can be haunted by a beautiful truth as well as by an ugly fiction. Nor is it determined simply by presentation - I know someone who was in fear for years because of a passing statement by friends seeking to reassure her.

Even where one sees clear physical violence being done - think Holmes and the Sussex Vampire. NOT having all data, we can get it terribly wrong.

I think I have to continue to follow the Desert Fathers principle and lave interference and the outcome to the only one who HAS all the data.

Not to boast too much on my older daughter, and with the specific reference to Passover aside, here is some of my own influence now being better-passed-along, I believe, toward her share of my grandchildren ...

Right enough. This culture is incredible in the way it dumbs down talk to children - the young and the foreign can process a lot more than we assume based on their childish output.

I talk to the young more directly than in many cases I dare with their parents.

Ah yes, and that causes me to recall ...

Many years ago I got hold of some Wilkerson stuff to use while I was a youth director, and then parents began stopping their 'teens from coming and I nearly got run out altogether because dear ol' Dave had been so bold as to include some thoughts and discussion about masturbation!

Dear me - I missed that in those pieces of Brother David's I have read.

But there it is - even these days children have not absorbed the cultural taboos. Which of course is why the schools focus on socialization rather than education or even learning, the better to make ALL the foxes tailless.

Some people argue that parents teaching their children certain religious beliefs could be considered child abuse. That's stepping pretty far into parental rights on how to raise their own children, but the opponents claim they are protecting the children from being brainwashed by ignorance and fear. I wouldn't go that far, although in some cases I tend to agree, but not enough to interfere. If they want to mess up their own kids, that's one thing, but when they lobby school boards and politicians to dumb down everybody else's children that's going too far.

It should be obvious that if a particular viewpoint does not have ANY scientific evidence backing it up, and much scientific evidence that clearly falsifies it, then that viewpoint has no place in a public school science classroom. Literal Biblical Creationism is fine if taught in sociology or mythology classes, but it doesn't belong in a public school science classroom.

Michael Behe (author of Darwin's Black Box), who was the star witness for intelligent design at the Dover trial in Pennsylvania in 2005, was forced to admit under oath that if one were to redefine science in such a way to allow the teaching of "intelligent design," such a redefinition would also mean that Astrology would qualify as science.

The Dover trial also showed that intelligent design, at least in the form it was presented then, was a thinly-veiled repackaging of scientific creationism, which is based entirely on a literal reading of Genesis and had been banned as unconstitutional from public school science classrooms by an earlier court case. Look up "cdesign proponentsists" to see the "missing link" in the evidence against intelligent design in the Dover trial. In the ruling for that case, Judge Jones (a conservative appointed by George W. Bush) referred to the "breathtaking inanity" of the school board's decision to teach intelligent design and basically called the creationists liars.

N.B.: What I mean by creationist is not someone who believes in a creator. In this context, when I say "creationists" I mean those fundamentalist Christians who insist a literal reading of Genesis deserves equal time in public school science classrooms. Most Christian denominations accept the fact of evolution. Those that don't will either have to eventually admit they were wrong, or fade into obscurity as another failed crackpot cult.

So in such cases, yes, I believe I have a right to complain when certain well-meaning but badly misinformed people try to legislate ignorance for children in public schools. Let them home-school their kids if they don't want them to learn the earth isn't flat, or that humans share a common ancestor with other species. What I find really funny is that even Michael Behe admits in one of his books (The Edge of Evolution) it is a fact man shares a common ancestor with chimpanzees. However, after admitting this fact, he says it is "trivial.":roll:

Without myself having any interest in reorienting the science or even the English Lit curriculum, which frankly if properly considered out to be more objectionable to a fundamentalist Christian than Big Bang evolution science, I have to say that those who push for an educational ststem geared not to fostering original thought but to denaturing individualism are more of a danger than though those who merely espouse one "right" viewpont, be that creationist, evolutionist, deconstructionist or Freudian.

Yes, and only the "religionist" on "either or any side" of that kind of debate would be inherently lacking the intellectual honesty to here agree.


Now that I am getting to know you better, I think I understand what you mean there and I completely agree:

People who disallow any particular kind of thought for students to consider are actually pushing ignorance -- a lack of intellectual awareness of even a mere theory of whatever kind -- onto them.

So then, maybe we can agree here ...

1) Science belongs in the science classroom and only science should actually be taught there
(even though an awareness of religious thought at least could be mentioned or referenced there);
2) Religion should not ever be taught as alleged "science" anywhere.

I maintain that telling a child, implicitly of explicitly, that unless they follow the bizzare and often plain wrong teachings of your God, they will be "in the scorching hot wind and boiling water", or be "cast into hell" for eternity, is child abuse.



Be that as it may, casting the shackles of scripture ("Thou Shalt lies in the path...") onto a malleable, trusting mind is unfair. Perhaps malleable was the wrong word; brittle seems more appropriate, a child can easily be broken by the Gestalt that is presented to him. And I believe that the prospect of being hurled headfirst into The Fires is enough to break someone, to alter every action and every though and every word that child does, thinks or says for the rest of his life.

It's a dirty trick; circumventing a persons rational, thinking mind by planting your ideas in them at a undeveloped, unquestioning period of their life. As the Jesuits would have it, "Give me a child for for his first seven years and I'll give you the man". The idea sickens the Religious majority for children born of a "cult", but it is somehow a morally right thing to do in respects to their own child.

It denies the child a right to choose their faith, to actually have a decent shot of acquiring the truth. It's a sad fact that a child's religion correlates to that of a parents; even the Religious should see that their faith is a coincidence of geography, not their own unique path to Truth.

I could stand back, holster my pebbles, and turn an eye to what I perceive as evil. Certainly, I don't have all the answers, I can't prove I have any answers beyond doubt. But I cannot ignore what I perceive to be the inexorably wrong that is manipulating the trusting nature of young minds, to get them to believe in your version of your god, to bind them with Absolutes, to scare them wittless, and to deny them the opportunity to find their own Law, not the one purported by He who claims "All the values of things - glitter on me".

Also sprach mich.

Problem:

1) You assume that the non-necessity of a direct relationship is equal to the lack of a relationship. This is kind of false, as a person could be covered with lacerations and feel no pain, but that does not show that pain is not a result of lacerations.

2) If child abuse is supposed to exist, then we do have to make lines. These lines are not a function of "absolute knowledge". Perhaps if I beat my child, it WILL have the best psychological result, however, based upon what information we have, we're better off not allowing such actions. The same idea holds across a number of fields. Even though knowledge is limited, our skepticism cannot hinder our willingness to go forward.(we can get it HORRIBLY WRONG just can't stop us, as "we could be HORRIBLY WRONG" stands on so many fields that... we may as well die if we are that frightened to act) We have to aware of the limitations of our knowledge, but philologos, I continually will criticize your standpoint as centered on either an arbitrary or a destructive skepticism, as it seems to me that if we follow "philologos logic" a person isn't better to say that a piece of toast is a piece of toast or a fire-breathing dragon, as in either case, truth is beyond our meager perceptions.

3) The idea that some religious doctrines are harmful is put forward by psychologists. In fact, I personally believe these doctrines are harmful, and not even just on a psychological level, but in terms of the proper development of a human-being. Few people escape even the most ret*d religious doctrines, yet... these doctrines, being that they are ret*d, are clearly preventing these people from getting closer to truth and often pushing them away from truths, even with consequences for the rest of us.

4) Your final statement is stupid: "leave interference and the outcome to the only one who HAS all the data". You don't have all the data, so HOW THE HELL do you justify a God, when you won't even justify what every sane person sees with their own senses!?! This is why I think your skepticism is arbitrary, and I honestly think that it is a dishonesty on your part to be skeptical towards whether toast is a dragon, while believing in your magic man as a basic assumption is just alright. I mean, seriously, you swallow a camel and yet only strain out a gnat when it comes to every belief against your religion, but when God comes into play, you swallow a gnat and strain out a freaking camel! Seriously!? I mean... come on, that's just ridiculous.

If done honestly, the teaching of creationism or intelligent design in a public school science class room would be unconstitutional, but not for the reasons one might think. IF done honestly, it would not be pushing Christianity in the public schools, it would be bashing it. IF creationism is examined using the principles that apply to all of science, the children would be coming home telling their parents their beliefs are false. You think the parents are upset now because children are taught evolution is true. Wait until their children are taught that not only is evolution true, but a literal reading of Genesis is false!

Now I won't say that the Bible is necessarily false. It is a fact, established long ago way beyond any reasonable doubt, that a literal reading of Genesis is NOT supported by the evidence of the physical world. That is not being intolerant or hateful. That is describing reality, like it or not. Yes, Genesis and other creation myths could be mentioned in science class, something to the effect that some people believe some things that seem to conflict with scientific facts. A teacher daren't say more than that, and it shouldn't take more than two minutes out of the whole semester.

Creationism would deserve "equal time" in a science class room if and only if it could explain the evidence equally well. Doesn't that seem reasonable? As it is, ALL the scientific evidence supports evolution and none falsifies it, and NO scientific evidence supports creationism and much falsifies it. Even if you don't agree with that statement (which is supported by many thousands of peer-reviewed papers and at least a dozen major court cases the past forty years), look at it from my point of view. Assuming what I say is correct, does it really sound fair or even rational to give "equal time" to creationism in a science class room? Do you really think that presenting it as an alternative to evolution and implying or outright claiming it has as much evidence to support it (when it actually has none) is doing anything to help foster original thought in children?

Most of the Creation Science types [ignoring simple creationists, who are mostly harmless] to whose words I have been exposed are seriously inimical to the ideal of original thought. The Dogmatic Materialist evolutionists and Big Bangers [ignoring simple evolutionists who are mostly harmless] to whose words I have been exposed - mine own brother included - are very down on original thought.

The dogmatic non-thinkers, whatever their specific dogmata, in my opinion should not be allowed near a classroom or a school board, and have no business in Biology, Theology, Physics, Linguistics or any other science [properly understood].

Howeverm they have mostly taken over the schools and the labs and the journals and I know of no way to dislodge them.

I do not think either creation or evolution should be taught. Give people some techniques and turn them loose on data to evolve theory, do not feed them theory to shape data.

But nobody likes an uncool iconoclast.

[quote="Philologos"

I do not think either creation or evolution should be taught. Give people some techniques and turn them loose on data to evolve theory, do not feed them theory to shape data.

But nobody likes an uncool iconoclast.[/quote]

Lets not teach physics either. It only took 1800 years to get from Aristotle to Galileo. What's a little time among friends.

ruveyn

With Science is that you can be a dogmatist, and be mostly correct. The scientific methodology (evidence, theory, peer review) ensures in most cases that what you are unthinkingly sprouting is accurate. I dislike dogmatic sheep as well, but for the most part they are harmless, so long as they know their respective stuff. They just make awful researchers.



So, we should scrap 600 years of accumulated knowledge, give pupils the same methodology (because looking at an event, and trying to think why it happens like that, and then trying to prove yourself wrong is how knowledge is acquired), and expect to see a coherent theory re-evolve in time for the exams?

People should not pretend to know something, unless they really understand the evidence for it, where it came from, and the ins and outs of the theory. I know about Evolution in that sense. I know about Newtons laws to a lesser degree, and I accept thermodynamics because I know that Physicists are following the same methodology to acquire knowledge that I use.

It's even worse than that. One of the contributors to a 1984 book edited by Ashley Montagu called Science and Creationism made the very good point that this controversy isn't really a conflict between science and religion. It is a conflict between the science of 2000 A.D. versus the science of 2000 B.C.

Philologos, do you really want to deprive children of the advantage 4000 years of study gives them? Also, we're talking middle school and high school here (with possible early mention of the subject in elementary grades). Once children are taught how to think for themselves and reason critically from evidence, sure, then let them examine the data and see whether or not it is better explained by creationism or evolution. BUT that runs into the problem I mentioned in my earlier post to this thread. That would be the State (in public schools) bashing a Church (fundamentalist Christianity), when the children learn for themselves how out of touch with reality a literal reading of Genesis is.

A better approach is to teach the science, not the controversy, at least in science classrooms. The controversy would make a good subject for a sociology class. And for teachers whose students are heavily indoctrinated fundamentalist Christians, the teacher can say whether or not they accept the fact evolution happens, they need to know certain things for exams if they want to pass the class, and they can still learn those things even if they disagree with them. Besides, there's the chance that if exposed to the evidence, and taught to think for themselves, some children might break free from their parents' brainwashing (even though that brainwashing is applied with the best of intentions).