Who am I to tell Christians to stop supporting government education?

RazorMouth ^ | 7/28/02 | Jim Babka

[ohioWfan]

That's a logical absurdity. An action is either Morally Right or it is Morally Wrong, reagardless of how God "works out" the end result.

Correct. The choice we made to send our kids to public schools was morally RIGHT. Next question?

And someone actually summoned you to participate in this discussion?! Interesting.
I may leave the Presbyterian Church we are members of, and go back to being a Baptist, if thinking like yours is part of Presbyterian 'Orthodoxy.'

Your problem is that you have taken your narrow political ideology, and contorted it into what you claim is spiritual truth. Bad idea. I prefer sticking with Scripture alone to come up with moral right and wrong.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Next question?

Okay...

Is it Moral for Christians to seek to share in the division of Stolen Property??

Your problem is that you have taken your narrow political ideology, and contorted it into what you claim is spiritual truth. Bad idea. I prefer sticking with Scripture alone to come up with moral right and wrong.

I haven't said word one about any particular political ideology. This is an incredibly simple and unequivocal Eighth Commandment issue, plain and simple.

Is it Moral for Christians to seek to share in the division of Stolen Property??

[Illbay]

Give me an example of someone you know who became "spiritually dead" because they attended public school.

These kinds of statements are just bumfuzzling to me! It's like "once you're in the trance of Hillary!, you're doomed to a life of degradation, despair and periodic abortion."

That's just silly. MOST public schools are decent places; there are quite a few that are not, and they poison the well for everyone else because attitudes like yours arise.

Our school system here locally is fabulous. They don't do any of the moronic things people like to post here on FR--those things always happen "somewhere else."

It's called "living in Texas."

If kids are turning out immoral and corrupt, then maybe you need to look at the whole package. I'm amazed at the number of "Christian" parents I see who nevertheless allow some of the more evil influences of the world into their homes because "everybody else does/sees/wears this, too."

This kind of influence is FAR more devastating in its effects than what a kid my be experiencing in school, because IT IS THE HOME. The environment in the home is far and away more influential than what a kid is going to "learn" in school.

To me, this blaming of public schools and acting like they are the very pits of Hell is disingenuous. It's like the ancient children of Israel, who were so immature in their thinking that they would heap their sins on the "scapegoat" and pretend it's the goat's fault.

This is a wicked world generally. You owe it to your kids to PREPARE them to "live in the world but no of the world" in your home. Copping out and blaming it on public schools ain't gonna get you anywhere come judgement day.

[ohioWfan]

Well, presuming I have figured out what you're talking about since you refuse to tell me, I would say, that if it is immoral for Christians to share in stolen property, then to be consistent, you, sir, should never drive on an Interstate, just to name one example.

As to whether or not your premise is spiritual, and not political, I would say.......yeah, right! You're not going to catch me in your cute little trap, OP.

[ohioWfan]

This kind of influence is FAR more devastating in its effects than what a kid my be experiencing in school, because IT IS THE HOME. The environment in the home is far and away more influential than what a kid is going to "learn" in school.

OH, AMEN, AMEN!!

Our kids were not permitted to watch all kinds of TV shows and videos, or go to movies that most of their friends in the Christian school were allowed to go to.

IMO, the roles have been reversed in many cases. We supported and prepared them at home, so that they would be equipped to handle being out of the home, whereas many parents of kids in Christian schools allow them to see things at home, and rely on the school to teach their kids.

There is no panacea here. There is no absolute decision to be made. Even in Ohio, there are schools which support morality and truth.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

I would say, that if it is immoral for Christians to share in stolen property, then to be consistent, you, sir, should never drive on an Interstate, just to name one example.

Not a particularly good example. While it seems to me that user-fee Tollways work just as well as Interstates, the fact is that the Gasoline Tax more than pays for all Highway budgetary requirements. Indubitably, the Government brings vast quantitiites of Graft and Corruption into the Equation, but by comparison to other Government "programs", the Highway system is a model of Ethical administration. The User of the Highway pays for the Service (with his gas taxes), the Non-User of the Highway does not pay for the Service (since he purchases no gasoline).

User pays. Non-User does not pay.
If we have to have Government programs, let them be structured thusly.

By contrast, have you offered to re-imburse the Property Taxes stolen from all your fellow Christian home-schoolers and private-schoolers to subsidize your kids Public Schooling?

Because as long as any Non-User (private-schooler or home-schooler) pays even one dime of compulsory taxation into a Government Schooling system which he does not use and does not want, anyone who supports the Public School system is just a thief dividing spoils.

Belly up to the bar, there's plenty of grift for everyone. It's free to the public, thanks to all the people who are compelled to pay for that which they do not use and do not want.

As to whether or not your premise is spiritual, and not political, I would say.......yeah, right! You're not going to catch me in your cute little trap, OP.

This is a straight, uncomplicated, and utterly simple Eighth Commandment issue. Nothing more, and nothing less.

[meadsjn]

There's only been one good child ever born

Can you refer me to the Bible passage that says this? No? Oops -- must have been sourced from some nasty propaganda you read.

Aside from the multiple translations of the Bible, and a multitude of religious denominations, each family, in this country, is free to believe and worship as they choose. I choose not to take my children to church where "authorities" lie about what the scriptures mean. By the same token, I and millions of others would rather not subject our children to the fallacies of public school teaching (such as revisionist history, fuzzy math, etc), or to the horrors of the "socialized" juvenile mobs.

There are many good people in the world; and there are many truely evil people. Someone who would condemn innocent children to the darkness of ignorance, and to the lies of socialism, is evil him/herself.

[Illbay]

The day your child is born, it is subject to being exposed to lies about EVERYTHING. Kids also pick it up at a pretty early age, when they find that lying suits their purposes. I have a real difficult time right now with my 12-year-old daughter who thinks nothing of lying if it keeps her out of trouble.

She might have been "taught" this by the outside world, but that teaching has always and emphatically been countered by teaching on our part. In the end, she will need to choose.

You cannot keep children shut away from the world and then expect them to deal with it, never having had the things they've been taught by their parents challenged in any way. That makes for a very weak faith, and in fact it adds to that "ignorance" you're so appalled by.

[ppaul]

Once when I was considering homeschooling a girl spoke up and said, "They have to enter the real world at some point and time." That's a true statement and I'd just as soon they learn to deal with it now...with my world view interjected as a balance, of course.

If you spent every waking hour that you can with your children, when they are not in school, you cannot "balance" the coercive power of the indoctrination your children are exposed to for most of their day. The "educators" are trained professionals in the art of conforming children to the values of the State, and, in "weaning" your children from parental authority (which is a major goal of Horace Mann/John Dewey educational philosophy ascribed to by all the major "education" degree offering colleges and universities).

[ppaul]

Belly up to the bar, there's plenty of grift for everyone. It's free to the public, thanks to all the people who are compelled to pay for that which they do not use and do not want.

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical. -- Thomas Jefferson

[Salvation]

There is no limit to the positive influence solid Christian families can have in their schools, because they have an Omnipotent God with them.

My kids all went to public school and were some of the students that teachers raved and bragged about becuase of their positive Catholic attitude.

If I had it to do over again, I would put them in private parochial schools.

i still stick by that always wise yet seemingly mundane statement--Follow the money, honey.

[Illbay]

However, the lack of Christian teaching, coupled with the incredible peer dependency that goes on in public schools is generally not conducive to raising Christian kids.

I disagree that this is as malevolent as many folks like to make out. In the first place, it isn't the job of the school to teach "Christian teachings." That's the job of the parents. I don't WANT my kids to be taught religious instruction in school. Of all the subjects that might be taught, that is the one most fraught with danger, as people "interpret" things the way they want to.

Rather, in the arena of public morals and ethics, etc., the motto of the public schools should always be that of Hippocrates: "First, do no harm." Beyond teaching basic ethics--the kind that crosses virtually all religious boundaries, such as not to lie, cheat, steal, or harm someone else--the schools can pretty much stay out of the "Christian teachings" business and I'll be perfectly happy.

The problem isn't that kids aren't being taught what you call "Christian teachings" (the meaning of which, let's be honest, are going to differ from family to family). Rather, in too many places they are being taught the values of quite ANOTHER religion, Humanism. When they start teaching my kid the "how-tos" of adolescent hetero- and homosexual practice, they've obviously stepped WAY over the line.

If they will just stick to academic subjects and leave the other garbage out of it, I'll be happy, and I'll take responsibility to give my child his religious training.

In the end, raising "Christian kids" means helping them cope with a world that is at best indifferent and at worst openly hostile to their Christian values. They have to live in this world, and it does none of them any good to shield them completely from it.

That is why, IMO, you DO have so many kids from fundy Christian homes who "go wild" as soon as they get a little freedom. I'll never forget a guy I used to work with; he was a Mennonite from southern Indiana, and all the way through college, when he went to Mennonite schools the entire time, he was shielded from the outside world.

Then came time for him to leave college, and home, and he entered the working world completely unprepared for what he found: booze and sex.

When I met him, that's what he was into and had been into for several years since he went into construction management. He said "I never knew the fun stuff was out here, and as soon as I encountered it, I decided I'd been repressed long enough."

This is the result, IMO, of a completely unrealistic attitude on the part of parents. While you can and must shield them from the absolute worst of the world, things that the reasonable person will regard as unacceptable, you have to know they've got to go out into the world girded about with the armor of God, and they have to recognize the protection that armor affords.

They have to be able to choose the good from the evil based on the merits. Otherwise, they may find themselves wholly unable to defend their values in the face of the enticements that Satan has in store for them.

[Illbay]

Sorry, but educators are no such stereotypical thing. Most school teachers are decent working people just like you and me. They aren't liberal leftist firebrands just itching to indoctrinate your children in the Hillary! way.

While it's true there are some, particularly in the education establishment and the halls of academe--the schools of education--they are not the rule. They simply get all the press.

I repeat: If your kids can't handle views that counter the values you are trying to instill, the only way you're going to be able to keep them from 'sin' is to lock them in the basement and feed them through a tube in the wall. That's Satan's idea of a great plan, but not the Lord's.

[Illbay]

Can you give me a source for that quote? I see it from time to time but have never been able to find the source. I suspect it may be yet another Internet Legend-type quote, since at least taken out of context as it is, then Jefferson thought CONGRESS was illegal.

[George W. Bush]

OPie: GWB and I will be going over to Jerry's house Friday and stealing all his property at gunpoint. But we're not selfish!! This is not for us, it's "for the children". We're going to be pawning Jerry's stuff and giving away the proceeds to the neighborhood kids. You're invited to send your kids over for a cut of the swag "if the Lord leads you" to do so.

Jerry_M: Why can't it be you and me going over to GWB's house to steal his stuff? In other words, why am I the victim?

I would suggest that Jerry and I should go to OPie's house to rob him. It would resolve several potential problems with the proposed robbery of fellow-Christians, to wit:

1. Jerry_M and I are both Southern Baptist and OPie is not. By allying to rob OPie, there would be no danger that we might inadvertently promote ecumenism provided our armed robbery of OPie was strictly confined to Southern Baptist perpetrators.
2. Jerry_M and I are, at last report, more heavily armed than OPie, so we could expect to catch OPie in a withering crossfire if he resisted. Baptists do generally strive for a pragmatic basis in formal association with Southern Baptists from other churches.

[don-o]

A position is well stated here. I disagree.

Your kids are being "taught questionable material" every time they pick up a popular magazine, turn on the television, go to the mall and look at the latest fashions in the clothing stores, hang out with friends engaging in typical adolescent talk, go to a movie rated anything above "G", and a host of other activities.

This is true. But, what if parents actually work hard to guard children from such things as this? What if a parent keeps popular magazines out of the home; requires permission for TV to be turned on (and does not watch himself), avoids the mall, save for dire necessity; vettes any and all friends that kids want to hang out with; and actually go to movies above G rating with their kids?

This all is possible to do.

To me, there is no THREAT to being exposed to ideas that aren't compatible with your family's spiritual values. To me, the THREAT is not equipping kids with the reasoning skills and ability to think critically so that when they encounter the larger world--where they're INEVITABLY going to be exposed to "questionable material"--they can put it in perspective.

Theoretically, this is correct. Practically, though, it fails; because of time and timing. If I turned my kids loose in the world on a daily basis, then needed a couple hours of daily deprogramming, first they would rightfully resent it. And second, I could not do it.

The better alternative is to take parental responsibility for the children's formation. Pay the price to keep them close and let them develop discernment and thinking skills over time. Make sure they know their values, and why they are the best values.

IMO. it is both unfair and unrealistic to think that six year old children can sucsessfuly resist all the inputs that are mentioned above. I can see no practical way that I could do damage control, if I sent them out into the "world" every day.

snip

But it's another simply to have them exposed to alternate ways of looking at the world, even if those ways are wrong. If your children are prepared to think critically about these things in light of what they know, they will never be threatened by them.

Again, no argument on the theory. But, I will stick with keeping them close, taking the time and making the sacrifices to do my best to try to keep the sludge oot of their minds and hearts for as long as possible.

[Illbay]

Okay, I found it. It IS by Jefferson, and it is from a Bill that he introduced when he was a member of the Virginia Assembly, in 1785. The Bill was entitled

The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom

Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men,have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporal rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labors for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that, therefore, the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to the offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow citizens he has a natural right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honors and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles, on the supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency, will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

And though we well know this Assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no powers equal to our own and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law, yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.

Thus, taken out of context Jefferson appeared to be saying that ANY opinions, etc., were not to be "furnished contributions of money" by compulsion (i.e. by action of government).

As I said, that would mean, then, that Congress is a "sinful and tyrannical" institution, since it is essentially a paid service from compulsory taxes to spread opinions at least a few of which are BOUND to be "propagations of opinions in which" nearly everyone "disbelieves."

But in fact, Jefferson was talking about the COMPULSORY CONTRIBUTIONS TO RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS, which before the enacting of the U.S. Constitution four years later, was still routinely done in the former British colonies.

The moral is: You have to be very careful how you bandy quotes around. Often, taken out of context, their meanings can be twisted to suit the agenda of the one putting them forth. And that's intellectually dishonest.

[Illbay]

What if a parent keeps popular magazines out of the home; requires permission for TV to be turned on (and does not watch himself), avoids the mall, save for dire necessity; vettes any and all friends that kids want to hang out with; and actually go to movies above G rating with their kids?

Well, that was my point. In other words, I think we often use "public schools" as a scapegoat, because we aren't paying attention to the things that REALLY matter.

We're not tending to things at home, in other words.