Nothing in that post (which I did read prior to posting) negates anything I said. You jump from the statements made in the parent-post to the idea of being "sheltered" or not being exposed to "evil". It seems you missed both the parent's point and my point.
Just let go of your bigoted preconceptions and just respect others, even if you disagree or don't understand.
Did I make a comparison between governments then and now?
You were the one who posited the "fanatic crackpot" position that somehow, in your twisted view of reality, homeschooling fosters hatred and leads to concentration camps.
You jump to the conclusion that homeschoolers (even those that homeschool to avoid the "less-than-social" behavior) are not exposed to "evil" or they live some kind of sheltered life.
I was homeschooled but when I went to college at 14 (because of the superior education I received), I got plenty of exposure to "evil". Even before I went to college, my parents owned apartments and I was exposed to all sorts of people. They also owned a clothing store where I learned all sorts of things about human interaction. My dad was also a water-well driller, so I learned about good honest manual labor when I worked with him a full 8 hours a day and did my homework in the truck during lunch and to and from the job site (that's a full day's worth of school work in a couple of hours... the power of homeschooling).
In addition, when I was in college, once people got over the fact that I was so young, I had no problems socializing. I made many friends that were much older than me and they are still my friends today.
Now I am an attorney (graduated from a top-tier law school) and married and we're homeschooling our kids.
So next time you think about ripping on homeschoolers, maybe you should try to actually know what it's about instead of accepting all the stereotypes and hype. Otherwise you're just a bigot.
Yeah because it was homeschoolers that put people in concentration camps, not the government. Hitler with his mandatory homeschooling programs is what spread hatred of Jews.
No, numbskull... subsection (3) says that parents have "prior" right... which means that the parent's right to choose education supersedes any state interest. That's what "prior" means.
Homeschoolers consistently out perform public schoolers every year (at least in America they do... where we don't let our government run amok). The argument could, therefore, be more easily made that it is public school which denies children well-rounded and limits their education.
I would think that Germans, of all people, would have learned the danger of putting such blind trust and faith in their leaders. Because that worked out SO well for you in the last century.
I guess Sylvester McMonkey McBean was right... "No, you can't teach a Sneetch".
You expressly want the government to decide for everyone what Truth is. Down this way lies utter madness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth."
Not to mention the fact that if this same philosophy (government deciding truth) had been applied 100 years ago, we would have been excluding secularist ideas... that wouldn't make secularists too happy, would it? So why do it to Christians? Or Jews? Or Muslims? Or any other religion? Or non-religion?
I take it you went to public school. But despite that exalted education, you weren't able to overcome your own bigotry. Should we hold homeschoolers to a standard that public school cannot meet?
Your comments are highly offensive. You are making snap decisions and claims about homeschoolers and you don't know anything about them, save what you have learned from the hype in the news.
In addition, you instantly think that the solution to your perceived problem is to "outlaw home schooling". You want to see a revolution on your hands, just try it.
I was homeschooled as a child by religious parents. But they believed Franklin's statement that, "When Truth and Error have fair play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter." I only wish more secularists believed that. Instead they want the power of government to enforce their opinions.
Because of the vastly superior education I got in home schooling (which took about 3 hours a day, unlike public school's 7 hours... and they still can't get the kids to pass the tests), I was able to go to college at the age of 14. Being home schooled, I took the GED... and got the highest scores ever in my state. I went on to go to law school (having scored in the 98th percentile on the LSAT to get into law school) at a top ranked school and now I am a practicing attorney.
Now, do you think that I am going to send my kids to public school? Not on your life. And yet you want to outlaw it because the government can't guarantee that there won't be a "religious perspective". Not because I can't guarantee how I will educate my child, but because the government can't. So I'm punished for the government's failings. Is that how you view it? Well, guess what... that, coupled with your ignorant proclamations about homeschooling, makes you a bigot.
As an attorney, part of my practice is dealing with juvenile delinquents. When a juvenile is arrested or put on probation, who is expected to pay the court fees, bail, restitution, etc....? The 13 year-old who isn't allowed to work by law? No. It's the parent. Why? Because in our society we think that parents are responsible for the outcome of their child.
I wonder why that is. Public schooled children spend 7-8 hours every day in school, plus travel time too and from school of maybe another 1/2 hour, plus time the kid spends at home doing homework. And that's if the kid isn't involved in extra-curricular programs, which can take an extra 2 hours every day. The national average for time parents have available to spend with their school-age child is about 4 hours per day. So school gets them for 7-10 hours a day and parents get them for about 4 hours per day. And they want to blame the parents when the child screws up.
Well, the roots of the word "atheism" are: "a" (the negative modifier), "theos" (meaning god or gods) and "ism" (theory, practice, or belief). Regardless of how you have chosen to redefine it for your own purpose, atheism, by definition is the belief (practice/theory/etc...) that there is no god. Therefore, when people say "atheism", I will always assume that they actually mean "atheism" unless they clarify beforehand. This conversation is about atheism.
Approach it from this angle... "theism", by definition simply means "the belief in a god or gods" and there is no specification as to which god or gods. Therefore, there are multiple branches of theism, but in order to be categorized under the broad umbrella of "theism", they must all share the common belief in a god or gods.
Therefore, since "atheism" means belief in no god, whatever sub-branch of atheism you may identify with, you must accept the common belief in no god.
they do not conclude there is a God therefore they are not Theists, they are Atheist.
I can use that logic too... The atheist affirmatively says "There is no god." The agnostic would not say that, so they cannot be an atheist. Therefore they are theists. Does that sound right?
The agnostic is completely neutral on the existence or non-existence of gods. They make no affirmative statements either way and are therefore NEITHER theist or atheist.
When it comes to practice, the agnostic may act as if there were no god, but practice and belief are two separate things. But I've met plenty of agnostics who attend church regularly because they're "covering their bases", so to speak.
Religion is merely the set of beliefs about the "cause, nature, and purpose" of the universe.
By that definition, atheism IS a religion because atheism attempts to explain the "cause, nature, and purpose" of the universe entirely using science. It may not rely on mysticism, but that is not a necessary element of religion. The only necessary element of religion is a set of belief regarding the "cause, nature, and purpose" of the universe.
Atheism says nothing of God.
The very word itself means the "belief in no god". "a" is the negative modifier, "theos" means "god or gods" and "ism" is the doctrine, theory, practice, or belief. So it is a negative assertion on gods... far from saying nothing.
Well of course it is, that's what makes it a belief.
I was with you all the way up until there... you are misusing the term "belief", inserting the presumption that all belief is fallacious. But that is incorrect, since we all believe that the Sun will rise. Belief is not the same as "belief without proof". Ever heard the phrase "seeing is believing"? Seeing is proof and with proof, you believe. A better word would have been "faith" because that is, by definition believing in that which is not seen
There is a substantive difference between "no belief in god" and "belief in no god". The prior is an absence of belief and makes no claim as to the existence of a god. The latter is an affirmative statement of the non-existence of a god. The prior is agnosticism, the latter atheism.
For some reason you are tying belief with god. This belies an inaccurate understanding of the term "belief". Look it up. Few definitions of "belief" refer to deity.
Well, no one ever said it was an "organized" religion, but what is a religion anyway? Now, I know I'm going to metaphorically be stoned for saying this, but follow the reasoning...
From Dictionary.com "Religion" is defined as:
1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
(The other definitions are quite redundant... "A set of beliefs", "A group of people who share a set of beliefs", etc... So, we'll just skip them. Of course, someone could always craft a definition that is carefully worded to specifically exclude atheism, but that doesn't seem intellectually honest to me.)
Is atheism a "set of beliefs"? Of course. Namely, it is the belief in the non-existence of a god. Does this set of beliefs concern the "cause, nature and purpose" of the universe? The "cause" and "nature" part are given by science and the "purpose" part is simply a negative... there is no "purpose" as theists would understand it. Notice the rest of the definition uses words like "especially", "usually" and "often", which means that those items are typical, but not necessary. So religion does not necessarily require a "superhuman agency" or "ritual observances" or even a "moral code"... most do, but it clearly is not necessary.
Now, I'm not saying that atheism is the same as theism, clearly they are not. But perhaps we are drawing unnecessary distinctions because of a Pavlovian response to the word "religion". Who ever said that religion=theism? It may usually carry that connotation, but must it? When we look at the word "religion" antiseptically, what is there to recoil from?
A religion is nothing more than a set of beliefs and we all have beliefs about a great many things. Religion is merely the set of beliefs about the "cause, nature, and purpose" of the universe. So? We all have beliefs about that. Atheism is merely the religion that does not choose to rely on "superhuman agency or agencies" to explain the "cause, nature, and purpose" of the universe.
So, I guess our hands are tied, huh? I thought encouraging our congresscritters to impeach was a better suggestion than storming the White House and physically hurling him from his exalted station.
But perhaps you're right... maybe we do need to just have a coup.
Yeah, I wish there was a guideline for what government should and should not be doing. Maybe we could write it down and stick strictly to the things laid out in writing. Let's just hope some power hungry jerk-offs don't come along and try to "loosely interpret" (i.e. ignore) our list, 'cause that would defeat the whole idea.
And how in the world do you think that law is going to get passed?!?! Do you even know who makes the laws? It's the very sycophants we want out! They aren't going to do anything that weakens their power. We can't wait for them to allow us to do it, we just need to do it. Throw him out in the street and hold a new election.
Mr. President, with the United States and the world facing the largest "recession" since the Great Depression, the Dollar continuing to plummet, and an out of control national debt, what are you doing to tighten America's belt to get through this tough period?
POTUS: We're gonna send men to Mars and a couple of asteroids! Plus, we're gonna see if there's anything new on the Moon since we last went up there.
But, um, we already don't have enough money to bail out failing companies, conduct an unnecessary war in Iraq, and all the other projects that costing billions and are working to erode the value of the dollar. Why would you commit us to more non-vital spending?
POTUS: BLAAAAAHHH!!!! It's MARS, man! MAAAAAARRRRRRRSSSSS! Once we find little green men, all of our money problems will be OVER!
So, we just tolerate it? Maybe if we started impeaching these miserable sycophants and hurling them from their exalted station for their campaign lies, we could actually start getting DC cleaned up.
I, like many on here, have often been wrangled into doing tech support for friends and family and one thing that drives me nuts is when one of my loved ones blames the computer when things don't go right. They'll say, "My computer just deleted my e-mail!", when in actuality, they hit the back button. They see no connection between the actions they takes and the results they get.
But what's worse is when they go around clicking "OK" to just about anything that popped up on their computer. Why? Because clicking "OK" made the box go away. Never mind that now they're signed up for every "Internet Accelerator" and their computers are completely bogged down with garbage. But hey! The "OK" box went away.
Now that I am a lawyer, I find that people do the same thing all the time with all sorts of things. This situation is no different. Would you go around clicking "OK" on any and every box that pops up on your computer? No?!? Why not? Because you realize that clicking "OK" MEANS something to the computer and it will go right ahead and DO whatever you Okayed.
Well, giving out your CC# is the same thing. So when you give your CC# or sign up for something "free" (didn't your mom ever tell you that there's no such thing as a free lunch?), why would you not look carefully at what you're agreeing to? That's like clicking OK without reading the box.
This is the precise reason that we have the phrase "Caveat Emptor."
But now we want government to protect us from our own stupidity? I say let people get screwed over. They'll be smarter next time.
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Nothing in that post (which I did read prior to posting) negates anything I said. You jump from the statements made in the parent-post to the idea of being "sheltered" or not being exposed to "evil". It seems you missed both the parent's point and my point.
Just let go of your bigoted preconceptions and just respect others, even if you disagree or don't understand.
Did I make a comparison between governments then and now?
You were the one who posited the "fanatic crackpot" position that somehow, in your twisted view of reality, homeschooling fosters hatred and leads to concentration camps.
You are a bigot.
Thank you. I agree wholeheartedly.
You jump to the conclusion that homeschoolers (even those that homeschool to avoid the "less-than-social" behavior) are not exposed to "evil" or they live some kind of sheltered life.
I was homeschooled but when I went to college at 14 (because of the superior education I received), I got plenty of exposure to "evil". Even before I went to college, my parents owned apartments and I was exposed to all sorts of people. They also owned a clothing store where I learned all sorts of things about human interaction. My dad was also a water-well driller, so I learned about good honest manual labor when I worked with him a full 8 hours a day and did my homework in the truck during lunch and to and from the job site (that's a full day's worth of school work in a couple of hours... the power of homeschooling).
In addition, when I was in college, once people got over the fact that I was so young, I had no problems socializing. I made many friends that were much older than me and they are still my friends today.
Now I am an attorney (graduated from a top-tier law school) and married and we're homeschooling our kids.
So next time you think about ripping on homeschoolers, maybe you should try to actually know what it's about instead of accepting all the stereotypes and hype. Otherwise you're just a bigot.
Yeah because it was homeschoolers that put people in concentration camps, not the government. Hitler with his mandatory homeschooling programs is what spread hatred of Jews.
Jeez... get a clue.
No, numbskull... subsection (3) says that parents have "prior" right... which means that the parent's right to choose education supersedes any state interest. That's what "prior" means.
Homeschoolers consistently out perform public schoolers every year (at least in America they do... where we don't let our government run amok). The argument could, therefore, be more easily made that it is public school which denies children well-rounded and limits their education.
I would think that Germans, of all people, would have learned the danger of putting such blind trust and faith in their leaders. Because that worked out SO well for you in the last century.
I guess Sylvester McMonkey McBean was right... "No, you can't teach a Sneetch".
You expressly want the government to decide for everyone what Truth is. Down this way lies utter madness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth."
Not to mention the fact that if this same philosophy (government deciding truth) had been applied 100 years ago, we would have been excluding secularist ideas... that wouldn't make secularists too happy, would it? So why do it to Christians? Or Jews? Or Muslims? Or any other religion? Or non-religion?
As you say... madness.
I take it you went to public school. But despite that exalted education, you weren't able to overcome your own bigotry. Should we hold homeschoolers to a standard that public school cannot meet?
Your comments are highly offensive. You are making snap decisions and claims about homeschoolers and you don't know anything about them, save what you have learned from the hype in the news.
In addition, you instantly think that the solution to your perceived problem is to "outlaw home schooling". You want to see a revolution on your hands, just try it.
I was homeschooled as a child by religious parents. But they believed Franklin's statement that, "When Truth and Error have fair play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter." I only wish more secularists believed that. Instead they want the power of government to enforce their opinions.
Because of the vastly superior education I got in home schooling (which took about 3 hours a day, unlike public school's 7 hours... and they still can't get the kids to pass the tests), I was able to go to college at the age of 14. Being home schooled, I took the GED... and got the highest scores ever in my state. I went on to go to law school (having scored in the 98th percentile on the LSAT to get into law school) at a top ranked school and now I am a practicing attorney.
Now, do you think that I am going to send my kids to public school? Not on your life. And yet you want to outlaw it because the government can't guarantee that there won't be a "religious perspective". Not because I can't guarantee how I will educate my child, but because the government can't. So I'm punished for the government's failings. Is that how you view it? Well, guess what... that, coupled with your ignorant proclamations about homeschooling, makes you a bigot.
As an attorney, part of my practice is dealing with juvenile delinquents. When a juvenile is arrested or put on probation, who is expected to pay the court fees, bail, restitution, etc....? The 13 year-old who isn't allowed to work by law? No. It's the parent. Why? Because in our society we think that parents are responsible for the outcome of their child.
I wonder why that is. Public schooled children spend 7-8 hours every day in school, plus travel time too and from school of maybe another 1/2 hour, plus time the kid spends at home doing homework. And that's if the kid isn't involved in extra-curricular programs, which can take an extra 2 hours every day. The national average for time parents have available to spend with their school-age child is about 4 hours per day. So school gets them for 7-10 hours a day and parents get them for about 4 hours per day. And they want to blame the parents when the child screws up.
Well, the roots of the word "atheism" are: "a" (the negative modifier), "theos" (meaning god or gods) and "ism" (theory, practice, or belief). Regardless of how you have chosen to redefine it for your own purpose, atheism, by definition is the belief (practice/theory/etc...) that there is no god. Therefore, when people say "atheism", I will always assume that they actually mean "atheism" unless they clarify beforehand. This conversation is about atheism.
Approach it from this angle... "theism", by definition simply means "the belief in a god or gods" and there is no specification as to which god or gods. Therefore, there are multiple branches of theism, but in order to be categorized under the broad umbrella of "theism", they must all share the common belief in a god or gods.
Therefore, since "atheism" means belief in no god, whatever sub-branch of atheism you may identify with, you must accept the common belief in no god.
they do not conclude there is a God therefore they are not Theists, they are Atheist.
I can use that logic too... The atheist affirmatively says "There is no god." The agnostic would not say that, so they cannot be an atheist. Therefore they are theists. Does that sound right?
The agnostic is completely neutral on the existence or non-existence of gods. They make no affirmative statements either way and are therefore NEITHER theist or atheist.
When it comes to practice, the agnostic may act as if there were no god, but practice and belief are two separate things. But I've met plenty of agnostics who attend church regularly because they're "covering their bases", so to speak.
Religion is merely the set of beliefs about the "cause, nature, and purpose" of the universe.
By that definition, atheism IS a religion because atheism attempts to explain the "cause, nature, and purpose" of the universe entirely using science. It may not rely on mysticism, but that is not a necessary element of religion. The only necessary element of religion is a set of belief regarding the "cause, nature, and purpose" of the universe.
Atheism says nothing of God.
The very word itself means the "belief in no god". "a" is the negative modifier, "theos" means "god or gods" and "ism" is the doctrine, theory, practice, or belief. So it is a negative assertion on gods... far from saying nothing.
Agnosticism says nothing of God.
Well of course it is, that's what makes it a belief.
I was with you all the way up until there... you are misusing the term "belief", inserting the presumption that all belief is fallacious. But that is incorrect, since we all believe that the Sun will rise. Belief is not the same as "belief without proof". Ever heard the phrase "seeing is believing"? Seeing is proof and with proof, you believe. A better word would have been "faith" because that is, by definition believing in that which is not seen
There is a substantive difference between "no belief in god" and "belief in no god". The prior is an absence of belief and makes no claim as to the existence of a god. The latter is an affirmative statement of the non-existence of a god. The prior is agnosticism, the latter atheism.
For some reason you are tying belief with god. This belies an inaccurate understanding of the term "belief". Look it up. Few definitions of "belief" refer to deity.
Well, no one ever said it was an "organized" religion, but what is a religion anyway? Now, I know I'm going to metaphorically be stoned for saying this, but follow the reasoning...
From Dictionary.com "Religion" is defined as:
1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
(The other definitions are quite redundant... "A set of beliefs", "A group of people who share a set of beliefs", etc... So, we'll just skip them. Of course, someone could always craft a definition that is carefully worded to specifically exclude atheism, but that doesn't seem intellectually honest to me.)
Is atheism a "set of beliefs"? Of course. Namely, it is the belief in the non-existence of a god. Does this set of beliefs concern the "cause, nature and purpose" of the universe? The "cause" and "nature" part are given by science and the "purpose" part is simply a negative... there is no "purpose" as theists would understand it. Notice the rest of the definition uses words like "especially", "usually" and "often", which means that those items are typical, but not necessary. So religion does not necessarily require a "superhuman agency" or "ritual observances" or even a "moral code"... most do, but it clearly is not necessary.
Now, I'm not saying that atheism is the same as theism, clearly they are not. But perhaps we are drawing unnecessary distinctions because of a Pavlovian response to the word "religion". Who ever said that religion=theism? It may usually carry that connotation, but must it? When we look at the word "religion" antiseptically, what is there to recoil from?
A religion is nothing more than a set of beliefs and we all have beliefs about a great many things. Religion is merely the set of beliefs about the "cause, nature, and purpose" of the universe. So? We all have beliefs about that. Atheism is merely the religion that does not choose to rely on "superhuman agency or agencies" to explain the "cause, nature, and purpose" of the universe.
Not to be argumentative, but communism was actually preached as a kind of religion with all the religious fervor trappings that go along with.
So, I guess our hands are tied, huh? I thought encouraging our congresscritters to impeach was a better suggestion than storming the White House and physically hurling him from his exalted station.
But perhaps you're right... maybe we do need to just have a coup.
Yeah, I wish there was a guideline for what government should and should not be doing. Maybe we could write it down and stick strictly to the things laid out in writing. Let's just hope some power hungry jerk-offs don't come along and try to "loosely interpret" (i.e. ignore) our list, 'cause that would defeat the whole idea.
And how in the world do you think that law is going to get passed?!?! Do you even know who makes the laws? It's the very sycophants we want out! They aren't going to do anything that weakens their power. We can't wait for them to allow us to do it, we just need to do it. Throw him out in the street and hold a new election.
Mr. President, with the United States and the world facing the largest "recession" since the Great Depression, the Dollar continuing to plummet, and an out of control national debt, what are you doing to tighten America's belt to get through this tough period?
POTUS: We're gonna send men to Mars and a couple of asteroids! Plus, we're gonna see if there's anything new on the Moon since we last went up there.
But, um, we already don't have enough money to bail out failing companies, conduct an unnecessary war in Iraq, and all the other projects that costing billions and are working to erode the value of the dollar. Why would you commit us to more non-vital spending?
POTUS: BLAAAAAHHH!!!! It's MARS, man! MAAAAAARRRRRRRSSSSS! Once we find little green men, all of our money problems will be OVER!
That's very... Nikita Khrushchev of you.
This just in: Presidents lie!
So, we just tolerate it? Maybe if we started impeaching these miserable sycophants and hurling them from their exalted station for their campaign lies, we could actually start getting DC cleaned up.
I, like many on here, have often been wrangled into doing tech support for friends and family and one thing that drives me nuts is when one of my loved ones blames the computer when things don't go right. They'll say, "My computer just deleted my e-mail!", when in actuality, they hit the back button. They see no connection between the actions they takes and the results they get.
But what's worse is when they go around clicking "OK" to just about anything that popped up on their computer. Why? Because clicking "OK" made the box go away. Never mind that now they're signed up for every "Internet Accelerator" and their computers are completely bogged down with garbage. But hey! The "OK" box went away.
Now that I am a lawyer, I find that people do the same thing all the time with all sorts of things. This situation is no different. Would you go around clicking "OK" on any and every box that pops up on your computer? No?!? Why not? Because you realize that clicking "OK" MEANS something to the computer and it will go right ahead and DO whatever you Okayed.
Well, giving out your CC# is the same thing. So when you give your CC# or sign up for something "free" (didn't your mom ever tell you that there's no such thing as a free lunch?), why would you not look carefully at what you're agreeing to? That's like clicking OK without reading the box.
This is the precise reason that we have the phrase "Caveat Emptor."
But now we want government to protect us from our own stupidity? I say let people get screwed over. They'll be smarter next time.
You don't think "suck my balls" is eloquent? :(
The SCOTUS can suck my balls... it's still unreasonable.
When HIV melds with the flu, I'm moving to Alaska.