One standard to judge them all - or a humble foreign policy?

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Learning is a privilege. Good teachers should be able to teach those who are willing to learn. Most districts now have special programs to separate those who disrupt the learning process for those who are willing to become educated. They are now put into special classes in groups. Man, THOSE teachers have it rough; it's like a combat zone. But at least those "students" are no longer in a regular classroom setting. But do we really need compulsory education for everyone beyond a certain point? It's obviously an abysmal failure. It's like Ragusa sometimes comments, that many of America's wounds are self-inflected, believing that "one size fits all."

But how much longer are we going to ask teachers to do the job that the parents fail to do? As a parent, it is my job to teach my children right from wrong. If you want your kids to pray, then by all means do it at home, Sunday School and Church. You don't have to make a public specticacle of Faith everywhere you go.

 

Gnarff, I'm not religious, but I'm also not a criminal. In high school, I abandoned my faith and became an atheist (I am no longer an atheist, and am now a proud agnostic), yet I was neither disorderly or disobedient. My uncle is an Atheist and was raised as an atheist, but he isn't a criminal, either. His children (my cousins) were also raised as atheists (although neither is an atheist now. One of my cousins was born again in college, and the other is now an agnostic), and they aren't criminals, either. My sister in law was raised as an atheist, by atheists, and not only isn't a criminal, but has devoted her life to to the incredibly low paying field of social work despite being qualified to do so much more.

If religion were actually necessary for order or ethics, then people who are not religious, who were raised without religion, would automatically be unethical and disorderly. Since this is obviously not true, it logically follows that religion is not necessary to instill proper ethics on the young. If it were true, my uncle, cousins, and sister-in-law would all be criminals with no ethics.

 

@Chandos and Drew: Kudos on your summations!

Gnarff, if you really and truly think that there is no way for teaching discipline separate from religious indoctrination, you're either more sheltered than I thought, or are in possession of some of the thickest Selective Vision (R) glasses ever made. Just look around you as you go through your day! Do you really think that every single interaction between humans would devolve into a fistfight or namecalling if it weren't for religion? I disagree, and here are a few examples of where I see people exhibiting self-control of their own accord:
On my daily commute - Traffic laws keep things safe on the roads
At the train station - Courtesy and manners keep the lines orderly, and make sure folks get to sit
In the lunchroom - Etiquette and manners encourage good sharing of community treats
On the sidewalk - Good sense tells us to put the litter in the trashcan, and pick it up if we miss

Here, I have to agree with you. The pressure becomes a matter of choosing between the lesser of the evils, as with all things political. Which is worse, not getting the aid or putting up with (and possibly trying to evade) the strings that a donor tries to attach? I'm thinking particularly of that appalling "no abortion education" funding that just got renewed, reluctantly, by Congress.

It's utterly insufferable, but as long as there are people, someone will feel the need to tell someone else how to live.

 

When it comes to getting along with others that they have some responsibility to educate, they have to either continure their efforts or cast them out of the school.

Yes, you have figured that out, but what percentage can't or won't figure that out? We're talking lowest common denominator here. You're just saying that you figured it out, then how does the rest of the population figure it our without a textbook?

Necessary? Evidently not. But it is a convenient way to keep order. Then everyone learns from the same rulebook, rather than relying on parents, which has not been consistent at all...

No, I'm just worrying about the lowest common denominator here. It's not the majority that you have to worry about, but the minority that don't care...

And how many are hurt or inconvenienced by the one person that doesn't obey those laws and causes a collision? It's not the majority, but the minority. Changing the way things are done has not worked for the lowest common denominator. Hence I go back to asking the Aetheists to sit down and shut up for two minutes while the Lord's Prayer is read over the public address system...

And how many actually care? Putting morality in the hands of the individual homes has not worked, so then why can't society as a whole pick up that slack?

 

Gnarff, when my parents taught me that stealing was wrong, they didn't use the Bible or the Catechism*. It made a lot more sense to them to explain to me that you shouldn't steal because stealing hurts other people. You shouldn't cheat because cheating hurts other people. You shouldn't kill because killing, well, kills other people. The fact that these acts hurt other people meant far more to me than the fact that the bible said it was wrong.** I'm not unique or special in this regard, Gnarff. The vast majority of human beings work the exact same way. We don't respect each other's health and property because failure to do so will piss off God. We do it because the vast majority of humans are inherently good.

* I was raised catholic, my mother was a music minister, and our family regularly had priests over for dinner. After a few glasses of wine, Father Loughlin would do the best Monty Python impressions I've ever heard...

**The bible also says you should stone disrespectful kids (Deuteronomy 21:18-21,), so I really couldn't care less what it has to say about theft.

 

The point being, of course, that even when we're using religion as our guide we must resort to reason. It's pretty much impossible to literally follow the Bible, as the Bible is rather contradictory. So you must use reason to decide which aspects to follow. Or, well, you could let a member of the church use reason on your behalf, but someone is employing reason.

 

Exactly. I shudder to think what life would be like if we actually followed the bible literally. Disrespectful children would be stoned to death, adulterers and homosexuals would likewise be stoned, women would be bought and sold like cattle, rape victims would be forced to marry their rapists...not a pretty picture.

 

Gnarff, I'm confused. Do you really think that reading the Lord's Prayer over the public address system is going to change the way people act? That defies belief. Especially considering not everyone is Christian. For someone who is Jewish or Muslim - to name just two religions that are common enough to be seen in every school - what do they get out of the Lord's Prayer? Also what benefit do people who were raised without any religon get? It's not enough to just hear the words - you have to listen to them, believe in them, and then act the way they direct. In other words - you have to have faith in that system of belief, and unless you are already a Christian, you don't have that.

 

Gnarff, some of the worst criminals/criminal acts in history were religious... think of the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, Charles Manson.... Religion does not stop people from doing terrible things -- sometimes it gives them a reason.

 

Gnarff, I find you and your ilk as frightening and threatening as I do Osama bin Laden's gang.

 

We are getting a bit far afield here, IMO. Have we come to a consensus on being humble in foreign policy? To me this means one nation should not impose its form of government on other nations but respect their right to choose what they feel is best for them. Of course if the other nation feels what is best for them is to attack my country or impose their view point on my country I'll get a bit belligerent.

 

Isn't that going a little far? The religious right has its problems, but killing people in order to further their fascist agenda isn't one of them, is it? The Christian Right doesn't advocate murder.

 

There's a far greater likelihood of the Christian Right having an adverse impact on my life than of me being killed by a Muslim extremist. Balancing the increased risk of one against the more dire consequence of the other does a lot to balance the scales.

 

Absolutely right.

 

The point is that they taught you. There are an increasing number of children that don't get taught these days...

I'm not sure about your figures. Society is simply reducing their standards so that more is acceptable...

That part of the law was specific to ancient Israel, before the more advanced morality was included in the New Testament. That part of the law was fullfilled with the Death of Jesus Christ. Please learn what you are talking about before you pick one line to serve your purpose. No matter how tempting it is to stone people that break the law...

That's where you need to study carefully. A lot of what you call contradictions is explained quite nicely...

Not by itself, but that as part of the solution. By trusting morality to the parents, you forfeit the standardization of standards. Christian teachings are the most convenient way to standardize this.

It's called free agency. You of all people should be familiar with this. Further, you should also know how the aforementioned all basically broke most, if not all of the commandments in the process of what they do. Do you also judge America by the Criminals?

Likewise, I fear the anti Christian sentiments more than any Muslim terrorist. The Terrorist only wants to kill me. The anti-Christians want to change society, and I think that what they've done is responsible for the decay in society...

Who is more likely to hurt me? A nut job with a bomb or a person that does not care who he hurts that wants my wallet?

It is argued that you only want to take out something that inconveniences you. What if that comes packaged with the means of keeping society together? You thoughtlessly chip away at the mortar of the wall, assuming that the bricks are just going to stay there on their own. Over time, thar mortar is eroded away, and eventually, the wall itself crumbles under the pressure. That's what I see. You take out religion in school without replacing it's function--or worse, denying it's function altogether, not believing there is anything to replace. And society, like the wall in my analogy, will crumble under the pressure.

Interesting that nobody answered my question about how many people suffer for the one that disregards the rules...

Back to the topic, as long as one third of the world's population is pissed off at the US, they really have little alternative but to stick their nose in where it otherwise wouldn't belong...

 

Just because I've left the Church doesn't mean I lack theological education, Gnarff. I was raised Catholic by a devout music minister. I was confirmed as a teenager. Hell, I was even an altar boy. I've studied the bible, I've read the Catechism, and I've taken classes on theology beyond what was already required of me in order to be confirmed in the faith. I'm not some ignoramus blindly grasping at straws.
Mathew 5: 17-18: 17"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Let's examine this, shall we? Christ may or may not* have fulfilled the law, but where does Christ say that his fulfilling the law will abolish or loosen it? He never makes that assertion. In fact, he makes quite clear that the law is binding (not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law) until heaven and earth disappear. Has it disappeared, yet? Didn't think so. The Law is still in effect. At least it should be...

Not really. You see, the whole construct falls apart because your premise hasn't yet been accepted. If we don't accept your premise that lawlessness is on the rise due to secularization, any argument you make based on it fails before it even begins. I'm not even going to consider that question until you've successfully proven your premise that (1) crime, lawlessness, etc is going up and (2) it's happening due to secularization.

* It is commonly argued that the law will not actually be fulfilled until the second coming.

 

"More Advanced Morality" is nothing but effective spin doctoring. Did you ever consider that maybe God realized that people were having a hard time living up to the rigors of His laws, so he dumbed them down to make them easier for the masses to swallow? Maybe God is the original progenitor of the lowest common denominator approach to public policy.

Don't try that with me, honey. I've been asking you the same question since you joined SP, and I'm still waiting for an answer. Why should non-Christians be forced to live in accordance with Christian rules?

 

That really is what Drew and myself pointed out earlier as well. Rally just puts in more succinctly.

However, I think it even goes deeper than that. I would appear that not only would Gnarff like others to live by Christian rules, but by a very specific subset of Christian rules - Mormonism to be precise. Set aside for a moment that seperation of church a state requires that no specific religion is endorsed at schools, and the fact that there are non-Christians attending these schools. What percentage of Christians are Mormons? 1%? Maybe 2%? It can't be a big percentage. There are probably several million Mormons around, but there are a couple of BILLION Christians.

The other obvious problem with forcing people to live by religious standards is you get like what we have in the middle east - where people are punished for not following religious doctrine. No thanks - I'll do my best to teach my kid right from wrong and take my chances that he turns out OK.

 

Just wanted to point out something I found rather amusing...

Project much? That's kind of what you're famous for, Gnarff.

Ok, two things...

I gotta hand it to you...it really takes some major balls for someone who so regularly displays such utter ignorance of the history of the religion he's so devoted to to say things like this, especially when you consider to whom you're saying it.

This Bud's for you, sir.

 

They should not, in order to secure the peace - that is the lesson derived from the religious wars that raged between Protestants and Catholics in Europe. That is really an important point. Our separation of church and state rests on it. The decisive point is the difference between

• promoting your faith through the state to others
• and being content with non-interference with matters of faith

Faith is private. It's between you and your conscience. What's happening in an outside world is not your concern as long as non-interference is being maintained. How that looks practically is another matter.

There will always be people for whom non-interference is insufficient, if not outright heresy - think of those Christians demanding intelligent design to be taught in schools, in order (according to the Discovery Institute's wedge strategy) to "defeat scientific materialism" represented by evolution, "reverse the stifling materialist world view and replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions" and to "affirm the reality of God in order to "renew" American culture by shaping public policy to reflect conservative Christian, namely evangelical Protestant, values.

Another bit, added for thought, is a great miscomprehension about the so-called 'Theocrats' of the Middle East: First, what is this "Theocracy"? Considering that it covers countries as diverse as the Papal State, Tibet or contemporary Iran the term has little meaning, which suggests it is being used as a label. I have recently heard a nice line that describes Iran as being run by the Muslim equivalent of the moral majority. I think that's quite apt. How would the US look like if being run by the moral majority according to their preferences? One prime expression of freedom of religion is the consequence that my religion would have no bearing on my legal standing. I haven't looked that up, but I am confident that a majority of conservative US Christians hold the view that only a Christian is fit to be president.

As for the "Theocrats" themselves: They are not clergy in the Western sense. They are Doctors or Masters of the Religious Sciences of Islam including the Islamic Law [sort of like Jewish Rabbis]. I cannot find anything wrong with people with the Islamic legal education to participate in the political life of their country. Western governments do employ lawyers too. The difference is that the applied law in question comes from an entirely different, religious, background.

Of course, there are in my view two fundamental problems with theocracy. One is that a theocracy must naturally be based on one religion, which means you'll have problems with establishing freedom of religion under such a system. The other problem is the question of separation of powers, since if your authority derives directly from god (or gods, depending on whom you choose to believe), lesser mortals have no business questioning it. But then, you find the intellectual arguments for it in the works of St. Thomas, or the late Ayatollah Khomeini.

One should not underestimate the attraction of a political and social system in which all your actions are "godly", where there is no distinction between sacred and profane since the Spirit of God is imbuing all of the society (and that in particularly is the case in Islam as a 'seamless garment') - at least in theory.

I think it is important to keep that in mind when reading Gnarff. Don't get yourself into the trap of dismissing what is probably his sincere belief by fact checking and discounting if it fails your test. Faith is not a factual thing, and I don't think that Gnarff stands out in his community for his ignorance of his faith. In fact, I think he rather represents the mainstream in his community.