Yes, you are right. And although I was aware of this faction before I started reading the SDMB, it is here that I became aware of how fervent some of them are.
Before this thread is taken over by your fear of the “Atheists Who Blame All Evil On Religion” monster under the bed, I have a question for you.
If God is “obviously” already in math and science classes, are those who are taught math and science without this oh-so-important factor included being given a complete education?
There’s a fringe element for everything, but I know and interact with a lot of atheists and the vast majority of them would disagree with OP’s opinions in this thread. Even on this board, I think Whack-a-Mole is kind of on an island.
Unfortunately, I’m all booked up. You?
No. I said that it is true within their theology. If it isn’t within yours, then I wouldn’t expect the math class at your school to include it.
Not to give Diogenes more props than he is due 
, I will again repeat a fairly brilliant line from much earlier in the thread…what they are teaching doesn’t contradict anything known to be true about math. If you would rather not include anything outside what is known to be true about math, then that’s great. If you want to add some theology into it as long as it doesn’t contradict anything that is known to be true about math, then that’s great, too. See, you don’t have to believe anyone created math in order to understand how math works. So, I personally would not consider it an “oh-so-important” factor. Not for the general public, anyway. But I’m not going to presume for someone else whether they should consider it an important factor.
And question for you…you put “obviously” in quotes. Does that mean you are quoting me? Because I don’t think I ever said that it is “obvious” that God is in math. I personally believe that there is nothing obvious about that at all. What I said was that some folks believe that God created math and is a part of math.
Oh, and BTW, I’m not the least bit afraid of atheists. I was simply stating a fact that I have seen this desire to erase God from our culture demonstrated thoroughly on this board. The thing I find more scary is that some people believe that it is OK to trample on the 1st amendment to make it so. Anyone of any stripe who thinks that is an acceptable way to get what they want scare me, whether atheist or anyone else.
This is also true, and I want to make it clear that I do not put all or most atheists in this category.
Thank you for the clarification. I believe that percentage of atheists that want religion banished from all aspects of society is fractional at best, but I can even see their side in this. In the vast majority of religious wars that have occurred throughout the centuries, atheists have automatically been the losers, thus causing what might be called justified paranoia.
Sorry to butt in, Czar, but you and I often have exchanges about things like this, so I hoped you wouldn’t mind. 
I just wanted to say that I thought your question entails a non sequitur. What is important and what is learned in school are not always the same. It is obviously important, for example, that you have learned how to close threads and conduct other duties critical to your moderation. But you did not learn these things in school. And by the same token, God is unimportant to you (one would think). And so there’s no point in saying anything to you about God while teaching you math. That’s how children in public schools learn about God. They are taught about Him and how everything in the universe glorifies Him outside of school.
Frankly, I’m not even sure there has ever been a “complete education”. Who (other than **Whack-A-Mole ** ;)) would even decide what that is?
But if the children are being taught that God is important in school, how can the parents know if the concept of God that is being taught in class is the same as what they are taught at home, unless the parents attend the same classes? If you can agree that every family will have different ideas about God, and the school, because of internal policies and obvious time constraints, can only teach one idea, then by necessity most of it will conflict.
Right. Which is exactly the decision the parent of a child in a religious school has made, namely that what the school teaches does not conflict in any significant way with what the parent wishes.
Given the tremendous costs of starting up and maintaining private schools, does this not mean that only the larger religions with the deeper pockets will have the advantage of having thoroughly indoctrinated students(taught religion in home, church and school). Parents of differing sects will have the choice of sending the children to either public school or a private school that might conflict with their beliefs. At least in public school, their beliefs wouldn’t be subverted by other beliefs that are somewhat the same, but not quite.
I think this is an area that’s pretty much up to the parents, though, isn’t it? I’m not going to waste a lot of time worrying about whether people have schools available to them in which they can teach their kids their religion. If they can’t find one that suits them, they can homeschool, as many of them do.
Should there not be standards for education, public and private? This is why I worry about the future of our country-the attitude that the future of our country’s children should only be the concern of their immediate kin.
I try to contribute some time and effort but it is meager at best.
I see now that I jumped into the middle of a thread without being aware of the specifics under discussion. I will now slink away and hush my mouth :o
Maybe I missed something, but I don’t think anyone in the thread has said that schools should be able to teach that 2+2=5 and the moon is made out of cheese if they want to. I think we all agree that some minimal academic standards are appropriate. At issue is whether supplemental religious instruction detracts from basic math instruction which would otherwise be identical to what you’d find in a public school.
I think most people here are OK with minimum standards. What WaM is trying ot do is put maximum standards on subjects-- you can teach all about geometry, cover every minute detail, but no mention of God allowed. If states have a graduation exam, as CA does, I have no problem with requiring that private schooled students and home schooled students must pass the same exam. I believe that is the case in CA for private schools, although I’m not sure about home schooling.
The post of mine you quoted was strictly referring your post, regarding parents educating their children in their religion…this is not a concern of the state. They can either find a private school that is close enough to their theology to suit them, start their own if they can find enough like-minded people, or homeschool. Whether or not they can find a school that suits them in this regard is not my concern, and shouldn’t be anyone else’s, either.
As far as the public having a say in how children are educated in general, I tend to have a libertarian attitude about this. But I don’t have a problem with setting academic standards.
If it stayed supplemental I wouldn’t be too worried, but I’ve seen nothing solid that indicates that is the norm. In fact, according to a chart linked to earlier in this thread, standards state by state are spotty at best.
And it seems that your interest is to deny the possibility that someone might come to God thru mathematics, as Pascal seems to have done.
So you seem rather to have missed the point - you were alleging that there could be no connection between God and other forms of knowledge, and that the mysticism of theism necessarily made it impossible to be a able mathematician. Both of which points are demonstrated to be wrong by the example of Pascal.
So is your other assertion about unquestioning acceptance of religion. Pascal began by denying everything, and then attempted to find out what was undeniably true. Hence the famous “cogito, ergo sum”. He then went on to admit the reality of God.
But if your point is that people should “find God in their own way”, then feel free to MYOB about how they do it. It is none of your concern if they find it in a math class in a private school.
Regards,
Shodan
I also worry, but often for another reason - the attitude that the future of our country’s children is a subject about which parents should not be allowed to have any say, if it offends those who cannot sleep at night knowing that somewhere, someone disagrees with their pet notions, about religion or anything else.
Regards,
Shodan
That was Descartes.
I don’t disagree with your larger point.