Oh, sure, I’m not doubting that science is the reason. But I don’t expect Christanity to “vanish and shrink,” as John Lennon put it, either.
It got semi-locked into the Geometry class because of the fact that your OP was based on it, and you have stuck pretty tightly to your position on the matter.
Honestly it occurred to me that I had a better case with the Creation angle (even had something approaching proof for it) but didn’t want to bail on the Geometry for a more convenient thing as soon as the discussion was going against me. Figured I’d stick it out and despite what others may think I have listened to and understand your opinions and concerns.
I appreciate that, and I understand.
Personally, I think that parents still have a right to teach their children about creationism. I’m not even sure if I expect students to be able to pass an exam about evolution for graduation requirements (John Mace mentioned a thread where he & Diogenes went around and around about that, to no avail)…I’m just not sure knowing about evolution is crucial to a well-rounded education. I remember mentioning in that thread that my dad probably knows virutally nothing about evolution (given his age and the fact that he has no interest in science), and he has managed to get through life pretty well. Balancing the right a child has to at least an education that will help him function in life, and the parents’ 1st amendment rights, I think that the parents win out on this one.
Well, I never said that atheism was “new”. But intellectuals build on what came before. I guess you can postulate that modern agnosticism was a fluke of nature, but I think it clearly was a progression of the thinking that permeated the intellectual environment of the late 19th century. YMMV. Maybe it was luck, and maybe it was a logical progression of the intellectual atmosphere of the time. Take your pick, but I will go with the latter.
Not sure we should get started on that here at this point but I missed that thread so I’ll state my off the cuff take on it (you can respond if you want of course or not as you like).
I understand you can get through life without knowing evolution. My issue is with it (potentially) being taught in a biology classroom or as a scientific theory. I think that misinforms people. Creation is a belief and is wholly different from evolution as a concept. To tell kids there is this evolution thingy but really it is creation leads them astray about the very foundations of science and how these concepts come into being.
With the Southern Baptists they go further and seemingly buy into a Young Earth notion. Where would that leave kids on what archeology and astronomy and geology and paleontology get us?
Do they need to know all those things to get through life? Do they need to understand the scientific method? Do they need to be able to discern between a theory and a belief? Maybe not but I do not see sending kids out of school not knowing those things as seriously deficient and troubling.
Determining the diameter of a circle doesn’t require discussion of deities to be understood fully, but then again, nobody ever said it did. What is being said is that a full understanding of the world and the way things work requires an acknowledgement that God is an integral part of it. And you want to dispute that. You want to make your irreligious opinion more valid than the beliefs of the parents of the children who attend this school. You want to be able to tell them that they can only tell their children those things at certain times and in certain circumstances that you think are appropriate. And the reason for that, I think, is that you don’t want the children to learn it, really. But that isn’t up to you, nor is it up to anyone but the people who run this school or who send their children there.
And again, there is nothing in what you’ve said that can be characterized as fact. Unless you want to prove that God doesn’t order the world and everything in it, and also prove that he doesn’t care if his people acknowledge that.
Kind of missed the relevant part of what I said, didn’t you? Of course there’s no point in making a law that had no punishment attached. But the point was that you want to punish people for expressing ideas in ways and at times that you disapprove. The real problem here is that the restrictions you are proposing are only backed up by your feelings about religion. So essentially you want to fine people or take away their livelihood for disagreeing with you. Seems pretty harsh to me. Not to mention severely dangerous and unconstitutional. I seem to remember a good bit of anger on this board about the “free speech zones” that were set up around the nominating conventions during the last election cycle. But that’s pretty much what you’re proposing here. Limit speech you don’t like to specific times and places.
There is that negative proof thing again. No one can do that because it is a fallacious argument. It is incumbent on people who say that Geometry requires a notion of God underlying it all to fully understand it to make their case. Not the other way around.
We limit speech frequently in this country. You cannot slander someone. You cannot yell “fire” in a crowded theater. You cannot incite to riot. You cannot stand in the gallery in the Senate or House and spout whatever you want without getting kicked out or maybe arrested. You cannot spout whatever you want in your classroom (disruptive) and expect to be left alone because it is free speech. Can’t do it in a theater either. As for discussing religion in the classroom you generally cannot do it in a public classroom already.
We are ok with all that but my notion somehow makes me an enemy of free speech and the Constitution? I believe a school (any school) is a unique venue and I think children are fair game for closer scrutiny and protection by the government. These are formative years and children are impressionable. I have not argued that ALL discussion of God be cut off in a private school. Merely that kids get their God lessons in classes dedicated to doing just that (and as I said if they want to show how God is in Geometry there fine…I am not denying anyone of their rights to make that case).
But why should they have to prove it to you? You don’t agree, but so what? You still haven’t made any kind of case that leaving mention of God out of the classroom, or putting it into the proper box of theology class is necessarily better for the students.
All true. But those things are restricted because there is proven harm associated with them. The examples I snipped are more involved with trespass or disturbing the peace than with free speech issues.
As they say on those law and order shows, asked and answered. Public and private schools, government funding and private providers, apples and oranges. You know, that pesky thing about separation of church and state. It doesn’t just work one way. If it keeps religion out of the public sphere, it also keeps government out of religion.
The think is, you still haven’t come up with any reason other than “I don’t like it” to support your argument. If it’s okay to teach them that God is involved in everything and integral to everything, why does it matter where it’s done? All I’ve seen so far is pretty much the equivalent of “just because”. So the big question I have is “why”?
*And as before, bolding mine.
I think it is better for the students to have it separated. One is math. The other is theology. The school is blurring those lines. If they want to say that it is not blurring, that it is relevant, it is incumbent upon them to prove how that is so because it is quite literally impossible for anyone to prove that it isn’t.
I understand that but you were painting me as some hater of free speech and I am pointing out we do limit it in many cases. It is separation of church and state but it certainly limits free speech as well. The notion is not a new one.
I have stated my “why’s” before.
Would you be ok with it if they ascribed geometry to gremlins or invisible pink unicorns? Would you be ok with it if they ascribed geometry to Satan?
I find the notion here that the only harm worth considering is if the kids leave geometry and do not actually know any geometry. As long as they can pass a geometry test quite literally anything else is fine (as long as it is not actually illegal).
As stated above I think blurring these lines is not helpful to the students albeit in some more subtle ways. And it goes beyond geometry. I have shown it is likely they teach Creation in lieu of evolution and described my issues with that a few posts back. What other skewing may occur teaching EVERYTHING through the lens of their faith? How might they handle things like the Inquisition or the Holocaust or the Crusades? How do they approach their discussions on US government and the separation of church and state? How might they approach studies of geology or astronomy?
I think it is silly to specify no God in geometry but say it is fine in Biology (or vice versa). Rather I think it is simpler to say just teach the course sans God (unless of course it is something like a history class on the Reformation or something)…whatever the course is. They can still have school prayer and religion classes that discuss how God is in all those other things and bible studies if they like.
Sure, but this hardly sets intellectuals apart. It is one of the quintessential characteristics of mankind as a species.
It’s not incumbent upon them to prove it to anyone, actually…that’s the point. If they want YOU to believe it, it would be. If they just want to believe it themselves, then it’s not.
I would be…I don’t care who they ascribe it to in a private school.
I don’t think that’s the only harm worth considering, I just haven’t heard you give evidence of any other kind of harm.
Who knows? But you haven’t shown that they change any of the accepted scholarship in those areas, and even if they did, again, you haven’t shown any harm.
In this religion and in this school, God will be in everything, and as I said earlier, even if they don’t actually say so in the classes in question, they will get their point across some other way. Frankly, it’s a losing battle on your part.
I’d be very curious what other harm (beyond not knowing geometry) you would consider worth paying attention to.
You said you do not care who they ascribe geometry to. So say they are some extreme sect of Luddites and view geometry as evil. They teach it but also teach that Satan is really behind it all and they are only teaching it so the students know how to spot it and avoid it where possible. That is ok? Those kids are being done a good turn here? Just so long as they know geometry?
Ok, so that may be a stretch of an analogy but they may be doing something along those lines with evolution. And FWIW I have never used geometry in my life either (not even to measure a room…just look at floor plans for that) and could live without it personally (I actually hated my geometry class and teacher in high school…would have been very glad to not have bothered).
Invisible gods, pink fairies, black demons, green aliens…IT DOESN’T MATTER.
Just the opposite, in fact - you need to demonstrate how the students’ ability to learn geometry is being significantly damaged.
The burden of proof is on you, because the presumption is that parents have their children’s best interests at heart, and you, as a stranger, are less qualified to make that judgement. IOW, it matters not even a tiny bit that it bothers you to have God mentioned in a private school. If those who graduate from such a school can demonstrate the same average level of competence in geometry as everyone else, your misgivings are irrelevant.
Regards,
Shodan
Well, present some, and we’ll consider it. Seriously, I’m not trying to be difficult here, I just can’t conceive of the harm. It seems you can’t either, 'cause we’re 6 pages into this, and you still haven’t posited - much less proved - harm caused to these children in this class. You’re forced to reach far down the slippery slope to construct absurd what-ifs instead.
Yep, that’s okay. As you say yourself, geometry is not exactly a requirement for a full and fulfilling life in modern America.
I would consider it “harm” if they taught that balancing your checkbook was the work of the Devil and you should trust in the bank to do things accurately because they’re guided by the Will of God. That’s the sort of legal “harm” I don’t think you’ve showing happening at this school.
As for the Creationism angle, yes, I do disagree with it being taught AS a science. It just isn’t. And for that reason, I cringe when I hear it’s been included in a biology class, because I do think small minds are muddled easily when it comes to this sort of thing. I would be much happier if it was kept out of even private religious schools’ *science *classes, yes. But in the end it does not harm me personally (unless they’re also teaching kids to commit crimes against those who don’t believe in Creationism), and it doesn’t harm the kids in a meaningful way (that is, no one died or didn’t get a job because he thought Creationism was a science), so the small amount of philosophical harm it does the children is far less than the philosophical harm we’d cause to those teachers, the children, our nation and its Constitution by infringing on both Free Speech and Free Exercise of Religion by legislatively banning it.
And really, that’s a big ol’ ditto for the geometry class. As no one has been able to come up with any “harm” worse than muddled thinking, I’ve concluded that the small harm of muddled thinking is far less offensive than the greater harm of trampling on the Constitution. Have you seen the poor dear lately? She’s not looking so healthy as it is…
I’d personally talk with my own children and say, “look - let’s examine this Creationism thing and see if it meets the requirements of “Science”. Is it a falsifiable theory? No. Is it testable? No.” And so on.
The funny thing about this discussion is that I know that several people arguing against your premise have a particular interest in science, me being one of them. More particularly, I my dream career is to be an evolutionary biologist, and I believe that a deeper understanding of evolution is invaluable to psychology and understanding human behavior (my undergraduate degree is in psychology, and this is also an interest of mine). BUT, having said that, I think I would have gotten along perfectly fine if I had never learned about it. I don’t think it would have done me any damage whatsoever, and therefore I simply can’t justify the bending of the Constitution to fit someone’s unsubstantiated opinion that not learning evolution properly might be harmful.
True. At any rate, the side discussion we’re having is interesting, but not really pertinent to the topic that spawned it-- ie, that it is entirely unremarkable that Newton believed in God, even though he pretty much invented (what we now call) classical physics. In the same way, it would be entirely unremarkable to learn that a prominent physicist today does not believe in God. Not because one is smarter than the other, but because of the times in which they lived.
Regarding the teaching of Creationism as science: As much as I roll my eyes at that idea, unless you are a biologist by profession, you just don’t need to know about evolution. Half the country already doesn’t accept evolution as being true even though most of us do learn about it in school. Requiring that private schools teach evolution is simply too much of an encroachment on the 1st amendment, as the state has no compelling interest to make sure every kid gets exposed the evolutionary theory.
So, put Darwin’s theory on a mandatory graduation exam if you wish, but recognize that it may be 1 or 2 questions out of 100, and will rarely be a make or break deal on whether or not someone passes.
Okay, I think we can agree on the substance of that. 
We limit in cases of actual harm, which you haven’t even come close to proving. In the absence of such proof, it’s always better to let well enough alone. The default should always be less limitation, rather than more.
The thing is, you really haven’t. You just keep saying you don’t like it, and you’re worried about the possibilities, but you haven’t given us any substantive indications of how blurring the lines causes anybody harm. You keep wandering off into huge ‘what-ifs’ and sliding down that slope. You seem to be saying that just thinking that God could be involved in everything is a harmful idea. But you haven’t proven that, and lacking such proof, you don’t really have an argument.
The other thing is, you lost a lot of credibility when you started implying that people are arguing against you because they agree with this teaching. That “What if they were teaching about the IVP” thing just makes you look like you don’t really have anything to say. In case you haven’t noticed, the people who disagree with you in this are all over the map, theologically. It’s not a matter of sharing a faith, it’s a matter of principle.