Catholic school funding 5

Slumberjack wrote:

So..in order to be properly considered as a rational realist, one must dabble in the irrational, or at least acquiesce to it?

It is irrational to believe you can disprove the existence of a God, Allah or even the spaghetti monster. Actual scientists know that is a fool's errand.

Science is not in the business of proving the unprovable, so you'll just have to ponder the irrational by yourself I'm afraid.

It is also irrational to think that you can prove the existence of any god or goddess including the nasty father figure that people worship in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Also don't defund catholic schools because all those catholic teachers would then have to compete for jobs without their religion giving them a leg up over other qualified applicants who do not believe in the unprovable.

I think that the future of Ontario will consist of a religious school system, and a secular school system.I think the Catholic school system needs to be opened up to all people of faiths (at least the major ones), and the curriculum changed accordingly.

Muslims, Jews and Christiians have much more in common with eachother than with atheists. Spend some time in former communist countries where religion used to be outlawed, and you'll see that.

Atheism is a religion, just as much as any of these other belief systems, and the public school system seems to have atheism as their forced religion. The fact that such an uproar was made because Muslim students wanted to pray in the cafeteria on Fridays was outrageous.

There's too many people who say they respect the right of religion, but deep down they feel it's all a bunch of nonsense, but will tolerate it just so long as it doesn't conflict with any other right or value in the slightest.

NDP aren't going to pick up a lot of supporters by advocating the end of Catholic schools, but they will make 30% of Ontarians never vote for them again. So far, they have managed to keep their lack of respect for religious beliefs out of any official statements.

Slumberjack wrote:

So..in order to be properly considered as a rational realist, one must dabble in the irrational, or at least acquiesce to it?

Depends what you mean. Personally, I go by the wealth of research which has found that much of the way our minds work is non-rational (which is not the same thing as is implied by the derogatory term irrational).

And then there is the fact that a good deal (the most essential stuff, IMO) of what is considered spirituality is completely realistic and rational.

But be my guest. Knock yourself out trying to wipe all traces of non-rational brain activity from the face of the earth. Just be careful to not fall asleep and wind up in dreamland while you're at it.

As an old Catholic apoligist once said: "Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."

oldgoat wrote:

.....stray through the eccentric, but that's not a quality I've ever really faulted. 

Well thank god for that.

Who can fix the formatting problem in this thread? 

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Who can fix the formatting problem in this thread? 

 

Fidel could easily do so, by editing out the extra [ /quote ] he inserted in post #133. But he's busy right now defending the Faith, so I wouldn't bother him if I were you.

Unionist wrote:

easily do so, by editing out the extra [ /quote ] he inserted in post #133. But he's busy right now defending the Faith, so I wouldn't bother him if I were you.

And you will probably avoid even trying to defend secular governments in this case:

US Recognizes Unelected Al Qaeda Terrorists as Syrian “Representatives” US admits Al Qaeda “amongst” Syrian rebels, recognizes them as the “legitimate representative of the Syrian people.”

Your secular governments are the biggest terrorist organizations on the planet and always have been.

And could someone please remind us of how the Church placed Galileo under house/palace arrest all those centuries ago? Because, and you know, everything and anything is relevant when making a case against Catholic education today.

Never forget.

Fidel wrote:

And could someone please remind us of how the Church placed Galileo under house/palace arrest all those centuries ago? Because, and you know, everything and anything is relevant when making a case against Catholic education today.

Apparently by 1992, a Vatican study of the Galileo tribunal produced a statement of regret about the way the Church handled the case.  By the year 2000, the Vatican's Cardinal Sodano concluded that although Giordano Bruno's death was regrettable, the inquisitors 'had the desire to serve freedom and promote the common good and did everything possible to save his life.'  Well, short of torture and burning him alive that is.  One might surmise that here in 2013 standards are a little different, but they're teaching about the 'sin' of condoms and abortion in Africa and elsewhere these days, at the cost of who knows how many lives.

Slumberjack wrote:

Fidel wrote:

And could someone please remind us of how the Church placed Galileo under house/palace arrest all those centuries ago? Because, and you know, everything and anything is relevant when making a case against Catholic education today.

Apparently by 1992, a Vatican study of the Galileo tribunal produced a statement of regret about the way the Church handled the case.  By the year 2000, the Vatican's Cardinal Sodano concluded that although Giordano Bruno's death was regrettable, the inquisitors 'had the desire to serve freedom and promote the common good and did everything possible to save his life.'  Well, short of torture and burning him alive that is.  One might surmise that here in 2013 standards are a little different, but they're teaching about the 'sin' of condoms and abortion in Africa and elsewhere these days, at the cost of who knows how many lives.

Sorry but they are your secularist gladio governments and their proxy armies in Rwanda and Uganda directly responsible for the slaughter, mutilations, rape and mass murder of 5-6 million human beings in the Congo since the 1990's. 

And I am sorry to have to inform you that what happened centuries ago in Europe has absolutely nothing to do with bigotry and intolerance toward Catholics in modern day Ontario.

VATICAN NEWS: Foreign Fighters, Mercenaries, Terrorists, behind Syria Massacre "The desolation of Homs and the war of information ": the Words of a Greek-Catholic Bishop"

The world would be a far better place without state-sponsored terrorism and secularists' financial and military support for the spread and proliferation of right wing fundamentalist-mercenary wackos around the world.

Sorry to have to catapult you into future-present like this. We know that henry VIII and the rest of his insane inbred-blueblood relatives were da bomb in old Europe, but times have changed since money chased power. Today it's totally different - today power chases money under the neofeudal order of things.  And youre worried about a few Catholic kids doing well academically? Give us a break! 

Fact check: Your secularist-imperialist governments in America have imprisoned more black people than there were total people jailed during the history of the Catholic inquisition. 

But the bigots are uninterested in recent history. Which makes me believe that the bigots, pro-imperialists and closet Orangemen are merely obssessed with broadcasting their usual daily hatreds on babble.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Fidel wrote:

And youre worried about a few Catholic kids doing well academically? Give us a break! 

Never mind that that is a jaw-dropping comment, whose interests do you think are most important here - the school system or those children?

Someone up there said money is not an issue,  it's equality. Well, which is it?

Your money arguments stink, and all that's left now is for you to explain why your calls for defunding public education are eerily similar to neoliberal ideology dressed-up as talk about progressiveness in education.

What do you think neoliberals would do with the money saved by defunding separate schools? Re-invest in and strengthen public secular education?

Give it to the poor and needy?

How bout we just all work together to defund and disemploy the bastards in government who couldn't run a lemonade stand properly if their lives depended on it? Ya?

Jan, there is an example posted above of a Catholic schoolboard in Ontario providing a prayer room for Muslim students. I realize that's a little more than providing information on other faiths.

But do secular schools provide prayer rooms for Muslims in respecting students of that faith? I'd be somewhat surprised if there isn't at least one example similarly.

Thing is, I don't think the big problem is inclusion, but rather exclusion - as in virtual denial that gay people exist. If that is not correct then why not just call the group what it is?

And Fidel, I don't think anyone here is questioning you personally, so your position on homophobia isn't relevant. It's the school board and its discriminatory policy that is at issue here, and the fact that it is publicly funded without being entirely accountable.

Fidel wrote:

If all separate schools were to provide prayer rooms for every other faith in a flexible manner tomorrow, would it change your opinion of separate schools? Or would the mission goal for dismantling the separate system still be in effect? 

'scuse me. Is this mike on?

I don't know Fidel, if I repeat myself again, a bit more loudly,  like this:

will you pay attention to the fact that I have said repeatedly that this isn't about inclusion of other faiths, but rather exclusion of LGBT people?

And as for your "Will you stop fucking goats now?" framing of the question, clearly you haven't been paying attention to my stated position on separate schools.

No, I don't in principle support public funding for separate schools, and I don't appreciate that more of my income tax goes to per capita Catholic school funding than it does to the public system and my own kids. But as I have already said, it is complicated, both by the historical background of the separate system, and the fact that what I see as important Native cultural and Cree, French and Ukrainian language training is under the Catholic system.

So until there is a better option I grit my teeth on that system's indoctrination when it comes to choice, orientation, sex, the role of women, religion, and science. But I do expect a bit of give and take, and when, in the face of a bullying epidemic that has kids killing themselves and others, this church of yours can't park its dogma enough to recognize that gay people exist, and yet still expect us to pay for their arrogance and hatred without complaint, I have a problem.

If this gets to the point of actually shutting down those schools, it won't be because of others' refusal to compromise, Fidel, but of those running your system. After all, church rules are church rules, but if your school boards can be all inclusive and respect other beliefs, they can also be inclusive enough to recognize that gay people exist.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

No, I don't in principle support public funding for separate schools, and I don't appreciate that more of my income tax goes to per capita Catholic school funding than it does to the public system and my own kids.

About a third of the education budget, ~$24 billion, goes to separate schools. And about 23% of electors direct their education taxes to separate schools. Are you one of the 23% directing your education taxes to separate schools? 

Winston Smith wrote:

But as I have already said, it is complicated, both by the historical background of the separate system, and the fact that what I see as important Native cultural and Cree, French and Ukrainian language training is under the Catholic system.

So on the one hand you want to defund Catholic schools entirely, and it's because you want equity and fairness in education.

And then you mention the need to fund language training only for indigenous people and some other groups. Why only only money for language training? Apparently all of you, the Catholic Church and colonial-administrative governments past agree that there is no need for indigenous spirituality or religious studies in education. And that's because you know what's best for them without even consulting them. Never mind that traditional indigenous spiritual beliefs are, today, considered some of the most advanced and complex spiritual belief systems in the world. You tend to side with the 16th and 17th century Church and imperial order of the day, though, and make no mention of funding indigenous spiritual education.

Other rich countries are already encouraging indigenous language training in native schools as part of the regular curriculum. In some experiments in the U.S., overall academic results are better in those schools than for English/American language-only schools. Nothing doing in Canada, though. According to opinions in this and dozens of other threads on this third rail issue, all is well in Ontario except for that darn separate school funding. And now you tell us that you are being forced against your will to pay extra to Catholic schools.

It's an interesting point of view  to say the least.

I don't know where your numbers are from Fidel, but I live in Saskatchewan.

The breakdown here in Saskatoon is that property taxes pay about 48 percent of funding for public schools, only about 30 percent for the Catholic system.

There are other sources of funding, but basically provincial general revenue pays a larger portion of the Catholic system (over 60 percent) than it does the public system (under  50 percent).

But as I also said, it is complicated, and there are other things to be weighed against that imbalance.

I have no idea what you are getting at with the rest of your comment, and I can't see how it relates to any of my points.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

I don't know where your numbers are from Fidel, but I live in Saskatchewan...

I have no idea what you are getting at with the rest of your comment, and I can't see how it relates to any of my points.

And I am in Ontario. That's in Central Canada, and I am posting in a forum under a heading entitled, Central Canada. Sorry for the mixup. I never voted for this duplication of government bureacuracies over ten large provincial boundaries and territories. Did the bastards annex Saskatoon when I wasn't looking? It figures.

Fidel wrote:

And I am in Ontario. That's in Central Canada, and I am posting in a forum under a heading entitled, Central Canada. Sorry for the mixup. I never voted for this duplication of government bureacuracies over ten large provincial boundaries and territories. Did the bastards annex Saskatoon when I wasn't looking? It figures.

No Fidel, but the point is you should already know where I live,  so why did you even ask me that question?

Yes this thread is primarily about the Catholic school system in Ontario, and I'd venture to say I have stayed a bit closer to the topic than you have. But I'm perfectly justified in pointing out my experience with that same system here.

Alright then, it's settled. And if you ever want to discuss Catholic school funding in Ontario, just let us know.

Who cares?

What actually matters is that the school board in question isn't made of quite the same stuff as the noble teachers you are talking about.

So you expect the public to support a system in which progressive teachers have to pay lip service to their beliefs, your rate-payers don't have to take any responsibility for who they voted in, and any good work that doesn't pass church dogma can only get done under a brown paper wrapping.

Sounds to me like enabling a dysfunctional system, and helping it to not recognize that it has to change. How about instead  your members see the writing on the wall and realize that if they want to oppress and exclude they can pay for it themselves?

quizzical wrote:

the peoples of Turtle Island are not the primitive savages white people were taught they were.

Most definitely.

It's not that I think FN spiritual beliefs [i]aren't[/i] "advanced and complex", or that the first peoples of Turtle Island are/were "primitive savages". That couldn't be further from what I think. I just don't know how one can begin to compare and categorize some spiritual beliefs systems as more advanced and complex than others. I think every set of spiritual beliefs that I've ever come across could accurately be described as "advanced and complex", so to single out indigenous beliefs as somehow exceptional struck me as the type of romanticisation that most of the FN people that I know find grating.

onlinediscountanvils wrote:

quizzical wrote:

the peoples of Turtle Island are not the primitive savages white people were taught they were.

Most definitely.

It's not that I think FN spiritual beliefs [i]aren't[/i] "advanced and complex", or that the first peoples of Turtle Island are/were "primitive savages". That couldn't be further from what I think. I just don't know how one can begin to compare and categorize some spiritual beliefs systems as more advanced and complex than others. I think every set of spiritual beliefs that I've ever come across could accurately be described as "advanced and complex", so to single out indigenous beliefs as somehow exceptional struck me as the type of romanticisation that most of the FN people that I know find grating.

i don't think "christianity" as a spiritual belief is advanced or complex. i took it as a st8 compare by fidel. and  his admitting  his catholic church is far behind. ;) 

i look at spiritual 'beliefs"  pretty matter of factly and don't factor in 'others' wanting to romanticize millenia beyond christianity old spiritual knowlege.

i personally think spiritual education should'nt be in public schools other than information as part of socials. when rational thought is finished developing and a child is then an adult they can delve wherever they wanna.

if parents want to brainwash their children outside of school time then they can. my mom taught me comparative spiritual beliefs throughout my childhood. and provided educational resources for many. her belief is there is no ONE truth or way of the spirit and it's our own choice when we're an adult. she's pretty much all 'bout CHOICE though.

my dad's family (the white side) were devout catholics and i've seen the result of the brainwashing they all suffer from today. some still are. and as i said before here my FN grandma lives in Chetticamp and it's totally dominated by the catholic church. she's much less brainwashed than her children though. she's got no use for religion mainly 'cause she recognizes what it did to her Peoples and how it took her children away from her.

nothing good came from the catholic church to my family and it still isn't!!!!!!!