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"why I often don't respond"
hs', i'm not out to get your response
when i address you, it's just that i think you might find interesting what i say in response to something you said, however difficult the syntax can sometime get; it's for any and all interested readers, and if on the gpc blogs i figured maybe 1 in a 100 or more would be thoughtful enough to consider my heartfelt output, maybe on babble it's a better proportion, but i just pass by here now and then, and find myself tarrying...
i find most others, with simplistic syntax, simplistic conceptually -- it is tough to swallow a whole world in a sentence, which i am guilty often enough of trying to do
"indoctrination", since the word is offensive really, i'll shoot back is only employable as a term by someone grossly ignorant of what's being criticized -- how could you deign to declare absence of critical thought from what goes on in religious ed.? THAT is offensive, it is pejorative (i take no offence, but you should know what you're putting out, you are demeaning yourself, and a humanist perspective deserves a good hearing -- why not à la Austin Dacey I got to reading because of your suggestion, who, like myself, would invite religion, if provocatively ,into the public square)
you also seem completely oblvious to the grossly deleterious function of the "religion" of our time & place, what i called "scientism", science this science that referred to in the stupidest non-analytical and downright dangerous way possible
that is a gauntlet thrown down, i can lead to some raging examples about misuse of appeals to science vs real critical thinking -- the very kind fostered by traditional reference, the very kind ideally fostered in such ed. environments
ps nb that conning's persence among gpc-ers is a telling sign that dejong could be preparing for real to take over gpc leadership, with a cadre of unfortunate support, and i'll distance myself further still from them at that eventuality
D.V., if you find the Wikipedia definitions of "indoctrination" and "religious indoctrination" offensive, you have the power to edit them to make the necessary changes. About critical thinking - you don't start with an answer (e.g. God exists and created everything, etc.). You start with questions and look at evidence. Is there any evidence of God(s)? A: No. QED
i can't care about the wikip. entry, except that your quote itself refers to perjorative use, which you seem to be feeding off
as such you are being offensive, as well as of little logic and perception
when a Buddhist or a Confucianist would want a school for their own, they don't bother all that much or at all about your "God(s)" -- on what basis will you deny them then?
and how can you not admit that secularity or scientism functions for some as religions function for others? you'd do well to consider that one deeply
why not accept Dacey's point about admissiblilty of religions into the public square, exactly what i dare from my opposite corner? but maybe we he & i are not so opposite, if you'll recall what i said at the gpc blogs about his favourable treatment of my own tradition
how can you teach anything whatsoever in one of your secular schools (never mind the knifings in the background in some...) on a scientific basis, when such stuff gets regularly overturned constantly? as human endeavour, religion bids fair to be treated just as you would any other, like science, and expect failings and betterments based upon it
do you start with a question about everything you do? when you swallow your breakfast, do you make sure you've questioned it all beforehand, if it'll get digested the same useful way as the day before? see, that's as ludicrous a framing of it as you've made of a traditional enterprise
good, neither do i, esp. not here where there is likely to be few participants -- but why evade the germane ed.-in-ontario points?
that is a cop out; i've made no digressions, all is tied in; the arguments have been variously boiled down or dilated upon, if you evade the latter, how can you avoid the former:
rel. schools produce upright citizens at a rate at least as good as non-rel
rel. parents wanting rel. schools pay taxes to uphold institutions for others producing upright citizens (and those that don't!)
ergo rel. parents should be able to fairly offer differential ed. for their own
(best to avoid framing as "religous", however, but i can accept a popular boiled version of low flavour for argument's sake for now)
re gpo:
if there is anything to authenticity, and "spirituiality" is at the stated heart of green political renewal
relgions are obviously the principal sources for learning of spirituality
religions need depth of transmission to prosper
such transmission occurs best in schools for children for very many people
gpo should revert to its original acceptance of differential schooling, incl. for religious
(but i do not care about them all that much, so this is for ideal political argument's sake)
DV:
"if there is anything to authenticity, and "spirituiality" is at the stated heart of green political renewal"
And here I thought that the $/vote relationship was "at the heart of green political renewal."
ok, guys, looks like that ratio is about the same in these parts...
bye, hs', you've completely not addressed almost anything of what i said there nor here -- and you're one of the better ones!
geo., c'mon, snipe away, i see we see some things from the same angle, but what does your remark contribute to the discussion --
you're right, even gpc has gone off in a very wrong $-chasing direction, and in re ed., focus on $ is even worse!
but canadians don't generally do what's right politically for themselves, so if gpc and gpo are going in a wrong diection, maybe they'll see some "success" soon
look, why don't you address some of the more left-incisive stuff i've claimed, esp. about assimilation to a $ regime by the left? how is it that libertarianish critics of financial overlordship all too easily and often correctly lump leftish centralist governance patterns with addiction to central banking &c? the latter are the ultimate stringpullers, making manipulative use of religion that should be the ALLY of a confrontational non-assimilatory left
all you secular school defenders -- what has all your secular schooling taught everyone about basics of debt & money and who controls what? is it also lost on you that someone like Tommy Douglas must have been rather religiously motivated, and that he was tailed by secret services in the service of whom? religious people?
Tommy's socialism was of the social gospel variant. He got kicked out of his church for his overiding concerns for poor people. His socialism depended on the Sermon from the Mount as the source of principles. More and more,"religious people" today are coming from a concern for self, wanting to be "saved", taking Revelations literally and looking forward to being raptured into the arms of their maker (and bugger the hindmost, men women and children). There is no comparison between Tommy's religion and this wingnut variety depending on a pathetically self-absorbed humanity.
i'm sure there are similar proportions of decently motivated religious people then as now
there has to be at least a similar proportion of decent religiously schooled as non-, for me to argue (in a crude flavourless form of argument, that maybe i can abandon now that hs' is out of it) for rel. ed. funding (which, again, i argue not for as rel. per se, but for diversity, tradition , breadth, depth -- notice my avoidance of "choice"-talk)
part of my point about manipulation of religion is the preying on that grosser side of it by unseen interests -- poor bible-belters voting against their own interests inflamed by, what, anti-abortion stuff (cf xenophobe ontarians sure to stir up a political fuss about catholic singularities); a whole world riled up by framing fake terror on muslims; the extremes that are taken advantage of are nowhere prevalent among religionists, that they are made prominent is owing to manipulation by forces the left & greens should be more forceful about pointing at & shining the light on
It might be helpful for your understanding of why these poor, religious victims of manipulation are so much more malleable than the secular humanists if you read this book:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
"so much more malleable"
M.M., why the "so much"? and why "more"? i have had interchanges with sec-hums who have proved hopelessly naive and unaware of their own assumptions, kind of what i've berated hs' & others about re modsec generally, about their lack of awareness of its functioning often as religious surrogate, with sometimes even worse and more dangerous failings
why not just point to different possibly evil inclinations of different groups?
it is better to generalize about human propensities altogether, and include modsec/sech-hum/libeff/rel-trad... as data all, not single out one as "so much more", as if others aren't so much more something in their own way, kind of treating it anthropologically maybe, and find complementary foibles
the 'scientism' posture of a skeptic, eg, more readily allied to sec-hum/modsec, is demonstrably every bit as dangerous as an authoritarian religionist
Another side to this issue are all of the LGBT teachers and students who are harassed by publicly-funded catholic school systems. I am quite aware of this because I unfortunately am a gay male in Ontario's Catholic system. When a teacher signs a contact with a catholic system, they must sign a "catholicity clause" in their contract which essentially says they must be catholic role-models both at work AND in their private life, and if they violate this they can be fired by the board. The Ontario Human Rights Commission can do very little since denominational schools have rights very broadly recognized in the Charter.
First, D V, I must say that I find your writing very difficult to understand. That may simply be because I am an old fart. But to my mind, you seem to be willing to abandon clarity to save a few dozen keystrokes. I can see that when you type "sec-hums" you mean secular humanists, and "rel-trad" is probably supposed to mean religious traditionalist. But I have no idea what you mean by "modsec" or "libeff". Having said that, I will try to respond to what I imagine is the substance of your posting.
I am going to assume that you have read Bob Altmeyer's book, as I suggested. When I assert as facts conclusions which are justified in that book by scientific evidence, I will not feel compelled to restate the evidence that Altmeyer has accumulated.
Being "hopelessly naive and unaware of their own assumptions" is a venial sin in my view. A secular humanist with these faults, who has a low RWA score, will be able to respond appropriately, and learn something when his naivete and assumptions are pointed out to him. On the other hand, a high RWA religionist will resist to the death all attempts to point out his errors. He will prefer the "truth" told to him by his authority figure to the evidence of his own senses. He will in fact be happy to physically harm someone who is targeted by his leaders as "evil". I challenge you to come up with an example of an "even worse and more dangerous failing" of a low RWA skeptic.
While I, like most leftist inclined individuals, confess to being a "moral relativist" to some extent, I do hold some values as absolute. Most importantly, I accept the scientific method as the only valid approach to finding truth in everyday life. Evidence matters to me. I can accept that others disagree with my conclusions, so long as they have some reasonable, evidence based way to come to their different conclusions. But I regard the mind set of the high RWA individual, who rejects all evidence that contradicts his belief system, as an unqualified evil.
Please do demonstate this assertion. I don't believe there is any basis in fact for it whatsoever.
But "logic" and "evidence" are just as much "belief systems" as religion is.
Is this about to break into a "who is the most bloody-minded" , soppy kind of back and forth? Not "religion in schools"?
Only if you are a solipsist. In which case, discussion is pointless.
Yup.
If you regard a philosophical discussion as "soppy", then I suppose it is that.
M.M., I guess I shouldn't figure a thread 'll be read top to bottom, somewhere up there i kind of invented those abbreviations (for fun, too, eh?) and stuck with it.
Altmeyer I'll have to try to get to later, I only just now could glance at that one webpage you linked, sorry.
(btw, look, i'm not staking out nothing here, i really was so into this greens & ed. stuff, theoretical & practical, for some time among "greens", it really does wear like an old shoe, so when i saw the topic revisited, i thought why not have some more fun...)
and i'm only just now acquainted with sdo & rwa (a whole lot more obscure than my short forms) -- but i hope i'm an old breath of fresh air (possible?)...let me read up a bit and maybe then go at it on your terms
as for the requested demo re "scientism", i'm right in the middle of battling maybe the most egregious example of rigid orthodoxy since...the Catholic Inquisition? (see, told you i was a disinterested defender of catholic schooling in Ont., see also above), vs the monstrous industry-abettor-regulator-"scientific" nexus behind what is fairly described as the most potent destructive health and environmental matter of our day, re "electrosmog", esp. re microwaves; it would be an example to thresh out in a renamed thread, but the examples i could bring of an "atheist" or a "skeptic" or a "scientist" -- the best among them have via that naivete i spoke about allowed themselves to be owned by that nexus, and it is every bit as bad as what being in lockstep with one's leader could be, nay, worse, because it is a rough equivalent of that cruder rigidity all the while claiming a higher more rational ground that is thereby spoiled ; and just as the manipulative know to manipulate religious attitudes for their unsuspected purposes, same for reference to "science"
"While I, like most leftist inclined individuals, confess to being a "moral relativist" to some extent, I do hold some values as absolute. Most importantly, I accept the scientific method as the only valid approach to finding truth in everyday life. Evidence matters to me. I can accept that others disagree with my conclusions, so long as they have some reasonable, evidence based way to come to their different conclusions. But I regard the mind set of the high RWA individual, who rejects all evidence that contradicts his belief system, as an unqualified evil."
That statement is just plain soppy. You may "confess" to being whatever you want, but your generalization about folks of the left is nonsense. It sure as shucks ain't from science.
D V, I feel your pain. There are certainly many bureaucratic officials who callously use "science" to enforce their whims. I have followed the controversy over the harm/not harm of low level radio frequency radiation. In my opinion, the question is still unsettled, but that is only my opinion. There is definitely evidence of harm, but not conclusive evidence. Still, I would not choose to live under a high tension power line. I suggest that if and when really convincing evidence appears, there will be little or no resistance in the scientific community to accepting this evidence. In contrast, there is abundant evidence of evolution, and Christianists still reject it and will continue to reject it, no matter what. That is the crucial difference.
OK, I confess to soppiness as well. Clearly you see things differently than I do, but in my own life experience, those with leftist leanings have been more likely to be able to accept that their own cultural norms are not absolute, and that people from different backgrounds may see things differently than they do, including some issues that are considered ethics. Of course it isn't science, it is just my own personal, fallible observation.
I started to type out a few things after reading a bit into Altmeyer, but too soon to post. So before I quit for the night, I see your comment about the "scientific community" and "evidence" and "resistance", and I think, communities (plural) not community, inadmissibility of evidence, failure to deal with something outside of one's comfortable paradigm making for plenty of resistance. And standing behind it all the manipulative few who dictate the unfortnunate ultimate language, $, dispensation of which mostly determines what too many of them "scientists" will say or even look at.