Posted on 08/24/2008 2:16:12 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
...In February, the Florida Department of Education modified its standards to explicitly require, for the first time, the state’s public schools to teach evolution, calling it “the organizing principle of life science.” Spurred in part by legal rulings against school districts seeking to favor religious versions of natural history, over a dozen other states have also given more emphasis in recent years to what has long been the scientific consensus: that all of the diverse life forms on Earth descended from a common ancestor, through a process of mutation and natural selection, over billions of years.
But in a nation where evangelical Protestantism and other religious traditions stress a literal reading of the biblical description of God’s individually creating each species, students often arrive at school fearing that evolution, and perhaps science itself, is hostile to their faith.
Some come armed with “Ten questions to ask your biology teacher about evolution,” a document circulated on the Internet that highlights supposed weaknesses in evolutionary theory. Others scrawl their opposition on homework assignments. Many just tune out.
(Click link for full article)
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Few conservatives ( God-believing, agnostic, or atheist) are against compulsory education.
Conservatives generally believe that all parents and all private schools should be held to the same standards as the government. If government allows illiterates and innumerates to receive high school diplomas then **that** should be the **same** standard for everyone! If government promotes a big, hairy, illiterate and innumerate 14 year old to the 9th grade, then parents and private schools should be allowed to do the same.
I personally argue against government schools, and police compelled attendance at them, because government schools are utterly incompatible with the First Amendment, free practice of religion, and government establishment of religion, as well as free speech, free assembly and free press.
Conservatives pay for food stamps. If you want to make an argument against public schools or against compulsory education, go ahead, but the fact that religious people have to pay for them doesn't carry much weight.
How nice of you to bring up the topic of food stamps. All education in the U.S. should follow the food stamp model.
Food stamps are redeemed in private grocery stores. The middle and upper classes **PAY** for their own children's food. **Everyone* (poor and wealthy alike) use private grocery stores.
We should adopt the same model for education. Middle and upper class parents should **pay** for their own child's education in a private school, and we should have tax credits for those willing to support the education of the poor who would also attend a **private** school.
Everybody pays taxes for something they don't like.
There is no provision whatsoever in our Federal Constitution for education. These matters should be returned to the states.
Our federal Constitution has, and likely every state have, First Amendment protections. Police threat compulsion to attend a government school and the very existence of government schools are utterly incompatible with First Amendment Rights.
Please remember that no school is religiously neutral.
Government schools are not religiously neutral and **must** establish and champion the religious worldview of some citizens and destroy the religious worldview of others. The government also totally crushes all the other provisions of the First Amendment for those children who are under police threat to attend them.
People who don't read pay for libraries. People who don't drive pay for roads. Liberals pay for the war.
Roads and libraries do not use police threat to imprison citizens ( who have committed no crime) in government buildings 6 to 7 hours a day and bus them around in big yellow buses that look like prison work gang buses. Roads and libraries do not **order** people to shut up, forbid them to publish, order children to assemble with people of the government's choosing, forbid religious expression, and pour a government religion into the minds of captive children. Government schools do all of the above.
Roads and libraries do not threaten parents and children with armed police, court, and foster care action if they are not patronized. Government schools do.
By the way, our government has provisions for people to lobby against libraries, roads, against **government schools** and for privatization of universal K-12 education.! Conservatives are doing that. We will prevail.
Liberals pay for the war.
The liberal/Marxists didn't complain about Clinton's wars. ( Or bombing of aspirin factories.)
Anyway...Our federal Constitution specifically outlines the procedures for war. The liberal/Marxists are completely free to lobby for an Amendment to the Constitution. The Constitution has specific provisions for this.
Tens of millions disagree.
If your children attended a private school of your choice, and the IDers attended private schools of their choice, why would you care?
I know this is a foreign concept to you, but science doesn’t investigate or think about religion. There is no such thing as God centered science.
>>>>>>>What you fail to understand is science isn’t NON-God centered either. Science doesn’t belong to an exclusively atheistic club.
In time, all Christians, except for a few FReepers, will come to terms with evolution, as they have come to terms with heliocentrism.
>>>>>>>It’s not that Christians have so much of a problem with Evolution being taught, although there are gaping holes and lots of unexplained problems in the “theory”...we have a problem wth godless liberals pretending they know what they’re talking about, are objective, all while ignoring that godless liberals have been DISASTROUS in public run schools WHILE censoring and suing ID into silence!
Well, you have to remember these are people that subscribe to their worldview: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED!
I could have sworn you asked for some examples of neutral school concepts.
Oh I forgot to mention, there are a few here displaying their BLATANT failed results oriented “issues” associated with their failed godless liberal public school upbringings...
reading incomprehension...
no intelligence allowed...
lockstep marxist tactics and so on...
If you want to make an argument against public schools or against compulsory education, go ahead, but the fact that religious people have to pay for them doesn’t carry much weight.
>>>>>>>>> EXCEPT of course for the majority religious people fed up with failed schools, lawsuits to silence them, lies about godless liberals somehow being objective and so on...
So once again, you’re claiming that interrupting science class to ask “gotcha” questions of the teacher, preaching on the bus to people just trying to get home from work, and ruining people’s ability to enjoy movies you think are immoral is part of the free exercise of Christianity? And that other people just shouldn’t let it bother them? That’s your understanding of Christ’s message?
>>>>>> Nooo but it sure seems to be YOURS!
I suggest reading the New Testament to understand Christ’s message.
AND review the myriad lawsuits.
You might find a few to fit your worldview but the vast majority won’t be Christians attempting to inflict their wordlview but exactly the other way around.
then they should be taught the findings of science without all the crap about nonexistent controversies.
>>>>>> nonexistent controversies??????????
that’s pretty rich...I’ve seen some denials in my time, I guess all those lawsuits really are all made up figments of our imaginations...
Well the latter is completely unacceptable.... :^)
Cheer up, YHAOS! God still rules the world, and His purposes will be achieved in the end. So stand in the Light of His Truth and Grace, bearing witness to Him in all things. America needs yet another Great Awakening. Maybe the time is ripe for one, right about now.
Thank you so very much YHAOS for your astute (and poignant) essay/post!
I've read the arguments on both sides of that, and I don't think that model would work for education. The assumption is that some system of private schools would spring up to serve those who could only pay the minimum. But with compulsory education plus a food stamp model, I'm convinced we'd have a system with some lousy private schools (probably lousier and more costly than the public school system we now have) offering education at the minimum price to those who couldn't afford anything else, and private schools like the ones we have now but whose prices would rise by an amount about equal to the vouchers or tax credits. You don't have to mandate that people eat--people will work to be able to afford food anyway, and food stamps can operate as a supplement. But that's not necessarily true of education. If you have compulsory education, then you have to force some schools to admit the people who can only afford (or will only pay) the minimum that the government supplies or reimburses. And those schools would be subject to the same restrictions on religious content as the public schools are, and we're back to square one.
Please remember that no school is religiously neutral.
Well, you know I disagree with you there, despite your claims that it's self-evident. I think I'll go back to my original plan of just not engaging you on these issues. I will keep reading to see if you ever answer my questions, though.
Marxism is our nation's **most** serious threat. It isn't Islamofascism.
Marxists and their Useful Idiots are now found throughout all of our nation's social institutions ( except for the military). They are in all the arts, our schools and universities, film, journalism, every social welfare agency, in our government bureaucracies, and even in the Senate and House of Representatives.
Schools are the Marxists **most** important weapon. Unless we shut down government K-12 schools, Marxists and their Useful Idiots will succeed in indoctrinating the next generation of voters. We will lose our freedom in the voting booth.
Gee! Then it should be very easy to describe a religiously neutral school. I have asked you how you would handle only a **few** of the many issues all schools must decide. You haven't described this mythical religiously neutral school because you would be forced to admit that education is never religiously neutral and this includes government schools.
I think I'll go back to my original plan of just not engaging you on these issues.
Again, you will not describe a religiously neutral school because to do so would force you to admit that a religiously neutral school can not exist.
Also, you comment about not "engaging ( me) on these issues" reminds me of the little boy with hurt feelings who takes his ball and goes home.
I will keep reading to see if you ever answer my questions, though
This has been a busy thread. I have addressed every point that you have made in all your posts from the last day or two. Have I missed a post of yours? If so could you direct to the post I may have missed. I am more than willing to fully answer any question that you might have. With more than 400 posts I do need a little direction in finding you questions.
I've read the arguments on both sides of that, and I don't think that model would work for education. The assumption is that some system of private schools would spring up to serve those who could only pay the minimum.
Is the minimum adequate?
For instance my alma mater, St. Joan of Arc, charged a mere $2,383 for the 2002/2003 school year. I believe it was giving the children an excellent education. Yes, Exeter may be charging far more but are the parents actually buying education? I would say no. For that extra money the parents are buying social contacts and a country club environment for their children. Social networking, manicured lawns, indoor swimming pools, saunas, and weight lifting rooms are not "education".
The evidence is now in. Teachers and principals are willing to open private schools and more than willing to serve the neediest among us.
There are more people willing to open charters and/or voucher schools than the state will allow, and the waiting lists for the vouchers schools and charter that do exist are **enormous**! This is proof that the free market is responding and will in the future.
Since you feel that the free market will fail these students then you should feel no threat to lifting the caps on charters and vouchers. Hey! You are convinced the free market will not respond. If this is the case, then there will still be plenty of kids in the government schools.
I also have a link that shows that nine out of ten voucher schools do a better job with their students as compared with students who were not accepted in the lottery. This is the gold standard model of study for comparing the effectiveness of vouchers with government schools.
But with compulsory education plus a food stamp model, I'm convinced we'd have a system with some lousy private schools (probably lousier and more costly than the public school system we now have) offering education at the minimum price to those who couldn't afford anything else, and private schools like the ones we have now but whose prices would rise by an amount about equal to the vouchers or tax credits.
The evidence comparing those accepted by lottery to those rejected by the lottery overwhelmingly show that the private schools do a better job than the government schools. ( Yes, I have a link.)
You don't have to mandate that people eat--people will work to be able to afford food anyway, and food stamps can operate as a supplement.
This is a valid point, and explains why we don't have mandatory feeding laws. But...As I posted previously, most conservatives are not opposed to compulsory education lawa.
Conservatives only ask that private and home schools be held to the same standards as government schools. If illiterate and innumerate is good enough for a government high school diploma, then illiterate and innumerate should be the standard for **ALL** schools. If the government tolerates a 40% to 50% or more dropout rate in its schools then that should be the standard for home and private schools.
But that's not necessarily true of education. If you have compulsory education, then you have to force some schools to admit the people who can only afford (or will only pay) the minimum that the government supplies or reimburses.
As in the previous paragraph there is a difference between an adequate amount to fully educate a child and the amount needed to provide country club facilities, social networks into the upper classes, manicured lawns, indoor swimming pools, and weight lifting rooms.
As I posted previously the free market is responding to even the hardest to educate. Look where the voucher and charter schools are being set up and they are educating children from the most dysfunctional families in the U.S.
And those schools would be subject to the same restrictions on religious content as the public schools are, and we're back to square one.
The Supreme Court ruled otherwise concerning religious K-12 voucher schools in Ohio. Also, we do not see these restrictions on colleges and universities. What is a Pell Grant? What is the GI bill? They are ***vouchers** for a college or university!
In #347 I said I started to answer your questions but discovered that my answers were repetitive, and so listed four statements that could be mixed and matched to answer each question. It should be easy to figure out what principle(s) go with each answer.
Also, you comment about not "engaging ( me) on these issues" reminds me of the little boy with hurt feelings who takes his ball and goes home
Believe me, you have not hurt my feelings. I think you're a bit of a crank on this issue, but as I've said before, at least I admire your lack of hypocrisy--you're not asking for affirmative action for your religious beliefs and calling it "fairness," as so many others do. I just don't think we're going to get anywhere--you're going to keep saying "schools are either God-centered or godless" and I'm going to keep saying "that's a false dichotomy" indefinitely. I just figured we'd stop while things were still cordial.
If so could you direct to the post I may have missed. I am more than willing to fully answer any question that you might have.
In posts 329 and 394, I asked you some questions about how you handle the "godlessness" of other interactions with the government in the public arena.
Regarding Catholic schools: the ones in my area, at least, expel students who are troublesome and don't have to accept students with special needs. That makes it a lot easier to keep costs down, compared to the public schools who have to accept everyone, provide transportation and special instruction for kids with learning problems, and so on. Who's going to take those kids?
If you have a link to a study of voucher schools that takes the question of selectiveness of the student body into account, I'd like to read it.
***WHERE*** on earth did you learn that government exists to "enforce rules"??????? HUH??? ( yes, I am shouting! I am in shock!)
Government exists to protect out ****RIGHTS****!!!!!!!
So I still wonder if you expect that in other areas of your interaction with public agencies. Do you expect the police to keep the tattooed, shorts-wearing public away from your kids in the town square?
The government purpose is to protect **RIGHTS**. People with tattoos have a human and First Amendment RIGHT to freely assemble in the public domain. Non-tattoed people have the First Amendment and God-given right not to assemble with them. Government is not sending out armed police to **force** non-tattooed people into the public and/or private sphere where people with tattoos freely assemble.
Govenrment schools though do threaten parents with police and court action, and they do **force** children into it schools. Yes, parents can ransom their children by paying a Freedom of Religion and Conscience Tax ( private tuition) but if they can't afford the tuition the government will use armed police if necessary to force children into its government buildings.
There are religions that forbid tattoos, and I bet if I looked I might find a religion that requires tattoos. A child from either religious group should not be forced by the government into an prison-like school environment where they will be tempted by others ( who are considered "Kool" and fashionable) to abandon their religion. This action by the government is not religiously neutral and it violates our First Amendment Right to free assembly.
And ( except for tattoos)...your answer does not address post #344. It does not explain how government can resolve the many conflicting religious, cultural, and political issues surrounding curriculum, holidays, scheduled events on religious holy days of the week, music, art, foods, hair, tattoos, body piercings, dress, co-education and/or single sex education. ( And, these are only a few of the hundreds of religiously non-neutral decisions that all schools must make.)
Do you expect the courthouse to drape the statue of Justice when you have jury duty?
Our Constitution provides for courts and the military....but....I bet the Amish and a number of other religious sects are not required to serve on juries.
1. A religiously neutral education ("education" meaning the instruction delivered by the agent of the government, i.e. the teacher) does not require preventing a child from discussing his religion with his fellow students, or "protecting" them from being influenced by it.
Our First Amendment guarantees our God-given right to freely assembly. The government does NOT have the right to force children into its schools and force them to assemble with other children talking about or even proselytizing bout their religion.
Our First Amendment guarantees our God-given right to speak freely and the few places where this is not true are clearly outlined in our Constitution ( courts and the military for instance). No where are schools mentioned and no where does it say that a citizen can speak freely without government interference except when imprisoned in government schools. **That** is not found in our Constitution,... Yet,... every day children are in government schools under police threat and ordered to be silent most of the day, not only about religion but **everything**!
And...your answer does not address how government can resolve the many conflicting religious, cultural, and political issues surrounding curriculum, holidays, scheduled events on religious holy days of the week, music, art, foods, hair, tattoos, body piercings, dress, co-education and/or single sex education. ( And, these are only a few of the hundreds of religiously non-neutral decisions that all schools must make.)
2. It's not the responsibility of the government to prevent your children from associating with other people you might not approve of, or from enforcing stricter rules than safety and the prevailing social norms require. If you're worried that associating with people with tattoos is going to tempt your child to abandon his faith, you'd better not let them ride the bus or go to the mall either.
We have a God-given right ( outlined in out First Amendment) to free assembly. Government schools **trash** that right every minute of every government school day.
Government has NO right to force children into government holding pens ( mis-named "schools") and force them to associate with people who do NOT have tattoos.
Government has no right to force children into its prison like building and forbid children from associating with people with tattoos.
Government has NO right to force children who have tattoos into its buildings and then force them to associate with people who do or do not have tattoos.
Government has no right to do this but does it every school day to children (who have committed no crime) in its prison-like schools.
And...your answer does not address how government can resolve the many conflicting religious, cultural, and political issues surrounding curriculum, holidays, scheduled events on religious holy days of the week, music, art, foods, hair, tattoos, body piercings, dress, co-education and/or single sex education. ( And, these are only a few of the hundreds of religiously non-neutral decisions that all schools must make.)
3. If the "free practice of your religion" requires you to interfere with others' pursuits--if it requires you to disrupt a classroom or start preaching on a bus or shout Bible verses during "immoral" movies--you should stay home.
The government does not force people to go to ***private** movie theaters, or ride buses, and owners of private property have the right to control the behavior of those within the boundaries of the owner's property. Except for courts and the military ( provided for in our Constitution) people can choose not to enter government buildings as well, and many people live their entire lives choosing not to ever visit a government building! Unlike government schools, police will not be knocking at their door.
Government schools though have police power to force children into government control. If a parent can not ransom the child by paying extra in private school or home schooling expenses, police stand ready to force that parent and child into government control. Once in the government school every First Amendment ( human rights) Right is utterly TRASHED by the government!
And( except for tattoos...your answer does not address how government can resolve the many conflicting religious, cultural, and political issues surrounding curriculum, holidays, scheduled events on religious holy days of the week, music, art, foods, hair, tattoos, body piercings, dress, co-education and/or single sex education. ( And, these are only a few of the hundreds of religiously non-neutral decisions that all schools must make.)
4. Some issues, like those around holidays, will require sensitive negotiation among people of good will, and the answers will probably vary from place to place.
There are a fair number of religious holidays that parents do not want government **forcing*** down their children's throat. I would hope that Americans have enough calcium in their backbone to stand up and be insensitive about it. Our First Amendment is supposed to protect us from government ***forcing** other people's religious, cultural, or political holidays down our children's throats. The four that would especially gag me would be Ramadan, Kwanzaa, Cinco de Mayo, and Day of the Dead,
Government schools that force the holidays of some citizens onto other less favored citizens are NOT religiously neutral!
And ( except for holidays and tattoos)...your answer does not address how government can resolve the many conflicting religious, cultural, and political issues surrounding curriculum, holidays, scheduled events on religious holy days of the week, music, art, foods, hair, tattoos, body piercings, dress, co-education and/or single sex education. ( And, these are only a few of the hundreds of religiously non-neutral decisions that all schools must make.)
How many times can I write: We must begin the process of privatizing universal K-12 education.
How can this be construed as my wanting government to impose my ideas. Huh? I want government **out** of the education business. With government **out** of the education business you will not have government affirming your ideas. Others will not have government affirming my ideas. You choose a private school that most closely fits your family's worldview. Other choose schools that conform to their's.
This is even more loopy. You want teachers to drop what they're doing in order to make some religious point for you? What if the teachers are members of some other faith, or atheists? Should they be forced to pray in order to make your religious point for you?
If we begin the process of privatizing universal K-12 education, you would choose a private school that was not "loopy". Your neighbors would choose schools that conform to their values ( although you might consider those values "loopy".)
Why the Ten Commandments? Why not the rules of some other religion? Why do you need the public schools to do your religious instruction for you?
I want to begin the process of privatizing education. You would choose a private school for your children that teaches a religious worldview with which you were comfortable. I personally would homeschool. Other parents would choose private schools that upheld their family religious traditions.
So, a religiously-neutral approach to education is unconstitutional while constantly advancing one religion in schools is? That's certainly a novel view of 1st Amendment law (which is 180 degrees from decades of SCOTUS decisions).
There is no such thing as a religiously neutral education. A religiously neutral education is impossible. It can not exist. This is axiomatic.
SCOTUS has already ruled that vouchers to parochial schools are constitutional. It was an Ohio case. By the way we have had vouchers for religious colleges and universities since shortly after WWII.
Basically, you want the schools to teach your religion for you.
If we begin the process of getting government out of education, government will have no opportunity to teach **your** religious worldview, **mine**, or that of anyone else.
You keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means.
Axiom: 1 : a maxim widely accepted on its intrinsic merit 2 : a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference : postulate 1 3 : an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth ( Merriam Webster)
It is self evident. NO school is religiously neutral. Government schools are not religiously neutral. If you do not believe this then try to describe one. It should be easy for you, and I will have great fun blowing holes right through it.
Oh, I'm cheerful enough(in spite of what I said previously). Be at ease about that. { 8^)
"God still rules the world"
Indeed He does. And it may be that His will is that we have another Great Awakening. Or it may be that His will is that our own failings of understanding and appreciativeness shall serve to bring us down; a hard lesson for the generations yet to come. So, here's to the once and future Republic; whatever its fate, may it serve to His glory.
It will I'm sure. And my heart tells me we are privileged to live in this time.
“But I understand that desperation requires desperate measures, and your side lost the battle back about the time of The Enlightenment.” [excerpt]Hey yote, I can't help but notice that your up to your old elephant hurling tricks...
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