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But when it reaches the point where you can't get kids to learn anything, and the troubles at home cause them to fail in droves, you have to address the problem if you want to do your job at all.

No, you don't have to become a nanny state to address family problems. Parents have to address their children, and society has to address the family unit on a much larger level. The state cannot function as surrogate normalized family. It can't for very long without giving rise to despotism. You might recall some failures on your side of the pond.

...the vision of frontal teaching has been thoroughly analyzed, found to be lacking for most elements of education...

At what point was the ineffectiveness of the talking-head model not obviously deficient? It was *already* obvious that if you spend time in as small groups as possible, educational achievement directly increases. I think humanity has known this pretty much...forever. Apprenticeship, guilds, etc.. What's always worked better will in the future still work better. That said, statistics *can* tell us which kinds of institutional teaching methods are the *least inefficient* compared to the gold standard of 1-on-1 methods, or simply put to score a rhetorical point: homeschool methods.

The bad is the assumption that you can do a better job than someone who actually learnt all about it.

It's clear at this point you don't understand homeschooling. It is varied. In our situation, we pay a regionally accredited Catholic school for their materials and access to instructors - actual teachers. Our kids are registered in that school, which has 16000 students. They are available by phone, chat, video, email, etc. at all kinds of hours. We, as parents, make ZERO pretense to be experts at anything the kids learn. That's stupid, and your assumption is based this misunderstanding. A child needs 2 things to learn: access to quality media on a given topic and 2) access to people who are experts on given topics. Between our paid services and the internet, none of these are lacking. In fact, we have the opposite problem. We have so many choices of where to get expert answers, the overwhelming thing is narrowing down what sources use. It can be harder than it sounds. Go to a homeschool convention in the US if you care. It's a bazaar of resources bigger than you can possibly get your mind around, even the small regional ones.

The law is for the lawless

I lifted that quote from 1 Tim 1:8-9, which says in full: "We know that the law is good, provided that one uses it as law, with the understanding that law is meant not for a righteous person but for the lawless and unruly, the godless and sinful, the unholy and profane, those who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers...". Here, St. Paul is talking about Jewish law, specifically the 10 Commandments, upon which the understanding of Western law resides. Paul's greater point is that good people who do right don't need restraints on them. In that sense, law protects good people from bad people. The freedom of bad people gets restrained, not the freedom of people of goodwill.

In Germany, it is a

This is a popular myth. In fact the Pilgrims came to the New World so that they could practise their own brand of oppressive religion without interference, not only from governments but also from private citizens who didn't share their particular brand of crazy. (Read up on William Brewster's time in Leiden.)

By the time of the revolution, the Pilgrims found they had to strike a formula that would allow them to rub along with godless - and, worse, papist - libertines in the South and elsewhere. Which is why they came up with the formula of strong states and cities setting laws at the local level.

> Slavery.

You do know that to a useful approximation the entire abolitionist movement was rooted in Christian churches, right? Same for the Civil Rights movement a hundred years later. Meanwhile the godless social experiments from the French Revolution on were all horror after horror, mass grave topped by larger mass graves themselves topped by pyramids of skulls.

Even better food for thought. The underlying theory behind the successful American experiment requires a god, the whole "All men are created equal, endowed by their creator...." business was specifically designed to put fundamental human rights beyond the power of kings AND parliments. And I still haven't seen a god-free replacement that even shows promise as a competing philosophical basis for a free society. Which is kinda annoying as an agnostic, the best I can offer up is that our philisophical understanding is still rather primitive.

Exactly. Both ends are nuts. On the one end we have folks who hear the Monty Python "Every Sperm is Sacred" song and don't realize it is a joke. The other end is in favor of infanticide. One is nuts and one is evil, neither is a sensible position. Problem is that science can't settle this one and the only solution most religions offer is the one that is nuts.

The only solution possible is to recogize the problem, err as much on the side of caution when drawing the legal line as practical and get on with other problems. But the godless progressives made a Holy Sacrement out of hoovering babies out of feminist wombs and refuse to even debate any sort of compromise position even as almost every progressive legal scholar now admits Roe V. Wade was a horrible decision.

When will you socialists learn that stealing from the rich is un-Christian? Maybe you people should get a job and save up your money for a REAL Rolex watch instead of supporting the godless communists in China who make these cheap imitations.

If you whiners had any family values then you would be supporting SOPA. SOPA supports American corporations, and American corporations give the 99-percenters jobs. So if you socialists want a job then you should support SOPA. What you people should be protesting against is Entitlements like welfare, unemployment insurance, free education and Medicare and Medicaid. If people would actually pay for what they use then the 99-percenters would be contributing to the economy by flipping burgers and pumping gas instead of protesting against the god-fearing corporate leaders that are trying to make America great.

How many of you are at home reading Slashdot right now instead of watching christian television with your children? How many of you donate 10% of your income to your local tele-vangelist?... oops, I forgot you people are unemployed: don't wanna work and don't wanna live in Christ.

At least Bob Parsons is a Christian, a Christian and an elephant hunter. He is against counterfeit watches. I can't understand why the Slashdot community wants to support illegality and criminality. The people against SOPA are un-corporate and un-Christion. Socialism never worked in Soviet Russia, and it isn't working in Canada under their version of Obamacare. Please folks, STOP SOCIALISM AND SUPPORT SOPA!

I'm thirsty. Thirsty for a firsty.

FIrst post for Jesus. He's the reason for the season my bitches. Merry Christmas to all of you, including you Godless heathens

Well if you discount religionists killing religionists, which is exactly religion killing people, then you have the great examples of Hitler and Mao and Stalin. BTW Hitler did not attack the Catholic Church or the idea of a god... he wasn't a godless atheist.. he was more like a Deist and saw the utility of cozying up to the Catholic Church.. thus we have the phenomena of the Furher's Pope and all that.

As for Mao and Stalin, they were both believers in an anti-scientific irrational system of thought, which is religion's original sin.

But even if you tally up the corpses of the 20th century, you still can't match the body count of all previous centuries. Century last does distinguish itself in body count for a given century but that entirely owing to the fact that there are many more people and we're so much better at killing large numbers of them.

The major religions are irrational belief systems each and everyone of of which exhorts it's followers to systematically convert , or failing that, slaughter anyone of a different belief. There is no out around or through this basic fact about religion.

Every generation needs to hear again exactly what religion is and does to people in this world and our generation's tellers are Dawkins Hitchens Harris and Dennett.

I DEFY anyone to read God Is Not Great and The End of Faith and afterwards maintain both the assertion that religion is a force for good in society and their own good conscience at the same time.

What exactly are "godless politicians"? I thought politicians were far too stupid to be Atheists, and, AFAIK, the vast majority of American politicians are Christian - 434 Congresspeople are. And also, what is "Nazi Darwinism", and how exactly does it differ from normal Darwinism?

The problem with "leave it to the states" is that, though the effects of bad legislation are limited, the effects of good legislation are likewise limited.

Such arrangement is less problematic so long as you have freedom of movement - people can move from the state where they feel persecuted (be it because of attitude towards gay marriage, oppressive drug laws, oppressive gun laws, or godless politicians teaching Nazi Darwinism to their children) to another state that better fits their ideal of what the society should look like. And, yes, I understand that moving is not a simple or cheap affair, but it it still accessible to most citizens. On the other hand, when the law is implemented on federal level, it's much harder to dodge it.

Or better yet, get a godless, amoral atheist to take-out the IT priest.

The atheist gets off on taking a life (which he doesn't value, because he's godless and amoral) and you can replace the IT person with someone more compliant.

Everybody wins!

You people shouldn't be giving to Godless corporations.

Give to your local televangelist. Your donation will go towards quality, family oriented, Jesus-centric shows; instead of the secular humanist heathenism that you see on TV stations like PBS.

So if you ever see the God-fearing Pastor Jake on late night T.V. thumping his bible to the beat of gospel singers, just pick up the phone and call the 1-800 number listed at the bottom of the screen. Operators will be waiting for your credit card number. If you don't have a credit card, borrow your parent's credit card when they are sleeping. Remember, it's all for Charity.

Not only that, if you follow Pascal's wager through to its logical conclusion, it leads to horrific actions.

Consider: it is of infinite benefit to die and go to heaven. Children who die with faith are guaranteed to go to heaven. Children who do not die have a non-zero chance of growing up and becoming godless atheists, which means that they will not go to heaven - which is, relatively, of zero benefit.

This means that allowing a faithful child to grow to maturity and, potentially, lose their faith is one of the worst things you could do; it is far better to kill them right now, in order to ensure their entry into heaven.

Therefore, if you accept Pascal's wager, you ought to kill your children right now; otherwise they might grow up and become atheists. Not only that, you ought to kill all the faithful children you can find, for exactly the same reason.

Of course, you won't be going to heaven yourself if you do this; but that's a small price to pay, if you save all those children at the same time.

Your premise is only true if you discount that God, in all his wisdom, is unable to see the future and would not know how said children would turn out. You limit God, and that is your downfall.

Consider: it is of infinite benefit to die and go to heaven. Children who die with faith are guaranteed to go to heaven. Children who do not die have a non-zero chance of growing up and becoming godless atheists, which means that they will not go to heaven - which is, relatively, of zero benefit.

Of course, if you're Catholic, you know perfectly well that children all go to heaven. It's only after they've chosen the Faith as adults (Confirmation) that this problem exists.

What if the real god is judging us on how rationally we behave in a godless, toy universe he created?

A silly assertion. What if we really aren't having this conversation of our free will, but it's being predicated by a supreme being? I could come up with any number of alternative universes in which we might be having said conversation.

It's not silly at all; a fundamental flaw in Pascal's Wager is the assumption that we can know that any given God values and rewards belief, when the converse is every bit as possible. Thus, non-belief--or indeed any behavior or state of mind--becomes a valid reaction to the "wager", rendering it entirely useless as a guide.

What if the real god is Allah, Shiva, Zeus or Odin?

The premise remains. Sure, Pascal was speaking from a Christian POV, but the logic is still valid.

What if the real god is judging us on how rationally we behave in a godless, toy universe he created?

A silly assertion. What if we really aren't having this conversation of our free will, but it's being predicated by a supreme being? I could come up with any number of alternative universes in which we might be having said conversation.

Pascal presents the options that Christianity is right, or atheism is right.

Looking at the bigger picture: He presents us with the idea that one option has an outcome favorable over the other. Of course, you can blind yourself with pedantic chicanery and conclude whatever you want to conclude.

This is what I love about religious debates: No one can prove their position, so it all boils down to faith. Yes, even atheists profess a faith that there is no Supreme Being.

Not only that, if you follow Pascal's wager through to its logical conclusion, it leads to horrific actions.

Consider: it is of infinite benefit to die and go to heaven. Children who die with faith are guaranteed to go to heaven. Children who do not die have a non-zero chance of growing up and becoming godless atheists, which means that they will not go to heaven - which is, relatively, of zero benefit.

This means that allowing a faithful child to grow to maturity and, potentially, lose their faith is one of the worst things you could do; it is far better to kill them right now, in order to ensure their entry into heaven.

Therefore, if you accept Pascal's wager, you ought to kill your children right now; otherwise they might grow up and become atheists. Not only that, you ought to kill all the faithful children you can find, for exactly the same reason.

Of course, you won't be going to heaven yourself if you do this; but that's a small price to pay, if you save all those children at the same time.

Pascals wager has a fallacy so huge I'm surprised you haven't tripped and fallen into it.

He misses the obvious -

What if the real god is Allah, Shiva, Zeus or Odin?
What if the real god is judging us on how rationally we behave in a godless, toy universe he created?
What if the real god hates worship and wants to be left alone?
What if...?
What if...?

Pascal presents the options that Christianity is right, or atheism is right. He misses an infinity of other possibilities, all as likely as christianity (i.e. unevidenced).

On top of which he also discards any idea that living under delusion in a godless universe may have downsides.

Pascal's wager is, to use the modern vernacular, a crock of shit.

Other countries are full of either godless heathens or socialists. Didn't you pay attention in school?

Actually, Fox News expressed doubts that Norway was a democracy. They're fair and balanced, right?

Going through his comment history is almost like reading satire, which pulled me in.

It's actually a troll, but it works because he's trolling Christians on a predominantly agnostic/athiest site. There is SO much that gives him away, starting with the "These atheist-backed scientists" as if Christians are anti-science. The fact is, over half of US scientists are, in fact, Christians. From conversations I've had here, many athiests don't think science and religion can coexist, and don't seem to be able to (or perhaps want to) understand that science answers "how" while religion answers "why".

Then there's the "it is clearly outlined in the Bible that God created Adam and Eve 5,000 years ago". Um, no, the bible doesn't say that. Not anywhere. There isn't a real preacher in the entire world that believes the earth is 5k years old. Some dimwit a couple hundred years ago did some faulty math, and somehow people believed the nonsense.

Then there's "I wish these scientists well with their work and pray that they will break free from the yoke of grants from godless individuals and governments." One google search dispells this lie.

Pastor Golf is a wolf in sheep's clothing. A very stupid wolf.

My friends in the Word,

These atheist-backed scientists have surely fabricated these so-called "sleeping mats," as it is clearly outlined in the Bible that God created Adam and Eve 5,000 years ago. Note that I am not questioning the existence of these mats, as these could have possibly BEEN used by Adam or one of his descendants after being thrown out of Eden, I am questioning the "evidence" of their age from the so-called "carbon-dating" process. I wish these scientists well with their work and pray that they will break free from the yoke of grants from godless individuals and governments.

Your friend,
Jake