In other words, you'll allow private schools, but only if you agree with their curriculums?
The Federation, what would it take for you to join?
- Thread starter T'Girl
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In other words, you'll allow private schools, but only if you agree with their curriculums?
Absolutely right!
Because there is a difference between neutral teaching of things as history, e.g., by definition neutral, proven and/or factual sciences as mathematics and biology, and just plain belief, faith and ideology. If it were all the same, the bible, the quran and the torah would be taught around the world in every school.
You should not be able to "teach" kids about christianity the same way as you shouldn't be able to teach them about stalinism. If at all, only from a neutral point of view in history.
1. There is no such thing as a "neutral" point of view in history. History is the process by which a culture fashions out of the events of its past a narrative meaningful to its present circumstances; it is the process of assigning meaning to the past, not the past itself. All of history has a point of view, and it is silly to pretend otherwise.
2. You don't think parents should be able to teach their kids their religious beliefs and their political beliefs? Really?
So where does that stop?
How is telling a parent that he or she cannot teach their children that Stalinism is the best political system any different from a fundamentalist Christian theocracy banning parents from teaching kids that men and women are equal? Who are you to decide what beliefs are and are not acceptable for a parent to teach their children? And what about the fundamental right of a parent to rear his or her child in a manner he or she deems best, provided that child isn't being abused?
It's an incredibly dangerous slippery slope to start saying that parents can't teach children one set of beliefs or another. I think it's reasonable to establish a set of educational standards and goals which parents must teach their children if they are home-schooling them -- they ought to be proficient in algebra, for instance, or they ought to be able to show strong reading comprehension and dissection, or they ought to know about a given era of history, and, yes, they ought to know the factual details of the theory of evolution even if they do not believe in that theory.
But to start banning some teachings in addition to requiring others, frankly, opens up a huge can of worms, and represents a fundamental threat to parental rights.
It was my intent not to just provide you with just two options rather to let you select a position on a "sliding scale."
Translates as no rights for unborn citizens, if someone kills a pregnant woman could we still charge the killer with two (or more) homicides as we current can? And if so, how can the state still maintain that the second person murdered is not a person?
That just minimum wage, right?
I've thought for some time that exile would actual be a good punishment for certain crimes, either following a period of incarceration or instead of. This is assuming that we could find another state willing to accept the offender. It would be a way of dealing will third time losers without the expense of life imprisonment.
As oppose to treating children as the property of the state? From a certain way of looking at it, children do "belong" to their parents, because the alternative is the state.
I spent two years at a private Christian academy, if I may say so the academics were superior, I likely learned more there than my following three years in a public school. Watching a public school teacher attempt to teach us a leason in European medieval history without even once mentioning religion was to say the least interesting.T'Girl said:
Lack of moral instruction is one of the reasons that parents pull their children out of public schools
(if they can afford it).
You do realize that relatively few Christians believe in the young Earth theory right?
Where are you getting this?
In the end everyone, no matter to which school they went, needs to be equally qualified. Otherwise you'll get a bunch of wimps who think men and dinosaurs lived happily together and that the moon is made of cheese, in other words: you will end up with a bunch of Bill O'Reillys. So in the end there has to be a centralized exam that everyone needs to take.
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School should provide education about religious beliefs, too. About the historical facts and the possible interpretations of the texts. Fundamentalists are homegrown.
As long as it's diverse and they aren't saying one is better then the other I would agree. But as a parent myself I don't want a school preaching to my daughter, that doesn't seem right to me.
I said education, not preaching.
I wonder if the Federation permits circumcision.
Quoted for truth!!!
Ultimately, this is a question that can never definitively be answered. The basic question at hand is this: When does legal personhood begin? If we were to take my hand, chop off my finger, and then keep my finger alive by storing it in a chemical nutrient bath, for instance, you and I would probably agree that my finger is not a person, even if it is human, but that it is instead just a collection of cells.
So, the question is, when does the collection of cells growing in a pregnant woman come to constitute a person rather than just a collection of cells? Does it happen at the instant of fertilization? Does it happen when the fertilized egg implants on the uterine wall? Does it happen at some point between implantation and birth? Does it happen at birth?
To me, the most reasonable argument is that personhood is contingent upon the development of a functional human brain which processes and responds to external stimuli. I would argue, you see, that the thing that makes a human being a person is the presence of a mind far more complex than could exist in, say, a cat, and that as such, a collection of cells that has not yet developed a brain capable of responding to external stimuli has not yet achieved personhood (and therefore citizenship). To me, then, it's reasonable to say that before then, it's a collection of cells with no more a state of personhood or citizenship or possession of legal rights than my dismembered finger, and that after it develops such a brain, it is in fact an "unborn citizen" worthy of special protection from the state.
This is not an argument that is very popular these days. Plenty of pro-lifers believe that personhood and citizenship begin the instant a sperm cell enters an ova, and plenty of pro-choicers (and I've been swayed by this argument in the past, though at the moment I'm coming down against it) believe that a woman has the right of absolute control over her body, up to and including the right to terminate a pregnancy for any reason whatsoever or for no reason at all, and if it happens to kill a fetus with a developed brain that has been reacting to external stimuli and displaying unique behavior, well, too bad.
The most fundamental problem with my argument, though, beyond the fact that it's not one which ideological extremists will ever like, is simply this: It necessitates the presence of a legal fiction. Just as the state cannot administer tests of psychological development to every individual throughout their adolescence in order to determine the specific date upon which that person has developed the psychological maturity to be granted the rights of a legal adult, but must instead rely upon the legal fiction that a minor achieves psychological maturity upon reaching the age of 18 years, the state has no way of constantly monitoring the development of every fetus to determine exactly when a brain capable of responding to external stimuli and exhibiting unique behavior has developed, and must then rely upon the legal fiction of saying that the brain has developed by a certain point in the progression of the pregnancy.
Generally, that has translated to the idea of trimesters, and to the idea that an abortion should not be legal after the first trimester.
A higher minimum wage than what we have now, but in essence.
I reject exile. A person has a right to citizenship and nationality, and an inherent right to live in his/her state of citizenship. If the entire world, especially, has been united as a single state, then not only is there nowhere else to send him/her, but you're violating their inherent right to live on Earth and their right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.
Sci said:
If they could, I wouldn't be surprised if a figure like six months of age were arrived at.
But then the cessation of outright infanticide is recent enough in the West, compared to the size of human history, and certainly not the case in the world at large.
I wonder if the Federation permits infanticide.
Actually, given the involvement of aliens, all sorts of assumptions viz. abortion would really fall apart.
@Sci
Well, we don't agree. Of course history is never going to be that factual as, say, mathematics or physics; but it must be taught at a level as factual, as non-nationalist and as non-patriotic as possible. Of course you will get the "National socialist Germany started the war", but that doesn't justify you plainly counter-arguing "So we were the good ones, therefore we won". See, teaching religion as fact or making a whole class out of religious studies does exactly that. It says "christian values and morals" (don't get me started on that) are what you need, period. No discussion. I am totally against having a class titled "religion". If anything, you can include it in history, as in the inquisition, the crusades, catholicism and protestantism, secularism & theocracy or, in your case, the founding of the US and the separation of church and state.
Alternatively, in classes such as ethics, philosophy and psychology, of course religion can sometimes be discussed as well. At times, not mainly.
Also, after thinking about it for a long time, yes, actually, I'd definitely vote for a law prohibiting parents teaching them ideological worldviews as fact. Under this law, you couldn't tell them that christianity, national socialism, stalinism, young earthers or ID are right. I'd approve of that. Seeing how many children are in fact, without any chance of disputing that, brainwashed by their religious parents and go on brainwashing the rest of the world, yes, such a law would be a "blessing".
Regarding abortion:
Strangely, I agree with you if I understood you right. I am, though, for the right to abort later on in cases of rape or such. ~3-4 months are ok for normal pregnancies.
I see it this way: A fetus has the potential to develop into a human. Until it develops a brain, there isn't even any potential for a consciousness and for sensory input to exist. Therefore, it lives the same way any microorganism lives. It just "is". This doesn't negate that it is a human being, which is no problem in my eye, since a dead body is still a human being. Dead, but human.
Also, as I see it, a baby becomes person status when it is born. I consider it important that the living being can look at the world for the first time, since I think once one has seen the world, one is more than just "in existance". You are then interacting with real life.
Regarding the murdering of pregnant women: While I don't find it fair to sentence such a murderer for killing two actual people and would not judge circumstances like that this way, the baby - although not a person - still existed. While it can be aborted in the first few months, parents do expect it to become their child. That's the reason that murdering a pregnant woman is more than just murder. The taking away of the potential human in expectance of two people, no matter if one of said people doesn't exist anymore.
Well, we don't agree. Of course history is never going to be that factual as, say, mathematics or physics; but it must be taught at a level as factual, as non-nationalist and as non-patriotic as possible. Of course you will get the "National socialist Germany started the war", but that doesn't justify you plainly counter-arguing "So we were the good ones, therefore we won". See, teaching religion as fact or making a whole class out of religious studies does exactly that. It says "christian values and morals" (don't get me started on that) are what you need, period. No discussion. I am totally against having a class titled "religion". If anything, you can include it in history, as in the inquisition, the crusades, catholicism and protestantism, secularism & theocracy or, in your case, the founding of the US and the separation of church and state.
Alternatively, in classes such as ethics, philosophy and psychology, of course religion can sometimes be discussed as well. At times, not mainly.
Also, after thinking about it for a long time, yes, actually, I'd definitely vote for a law prohibiting parents teaching them ideological worldviews as fact. Under this law, you couldn't tell them that christianity, national socialism, stalinism, young earthers or ID are right. I'd approve of that. Seeing how many children are in fact, without any chance of disputing that, brainwashed by their religious parents and go on brainwashing the rest of the world, yes, such a law would be a "blessing".
Regarding abortion:
Strangely, I agree with you if I understood you right. I am, though, for the right to abort later on in cases of rape or such. ~3-4 months are ok for normal pregnancies.
I see it this way: A fetus has the potential to develop into a human. Until it develops a brain, there isn't even any potential for a consciousness and for sensory input to exist. Therefore, it lives the same way any microorganism lives. It just "is". This doesn't negate that it is a human being, which is no problem in my eye, since a dead body is still a human being. Dead, but human.
Also, as I see it, a baby becomes person status when it is born. I consider it important that the living being can look at the world for the first time, since I think once one has seen the world, one is more than just "in existance". You are then interacting with real life.
Regarding the murdering of pregnant women: While I don't find it fair to sentence such a murderer for killing two actual people and would not judge circumstances like that this way, the baby - although not a person - still existed. While it can be aborted in the first few months, parents do expect it to become their child. That's the reason that murdering a pregnant woman is more than just murder. The taking away of the potential human in expectance of two people, no matter if one of said people doesn't exist anymore.
I'm going to argue semantics here. Children don't "belong" to anyone. The terms you're probably looking for is one used in UK's Children Act 1989: parental responsibility. Note that the term is not parental rights, because the rights of children supercede the rights of parents if those parental "rights" adversely affect the child (in UK law anyway; I've never studied US law so don't know the details of it). The question is where that line is drawn, and when the state should intervene for the benefit of the child.
To keep on topic, the Federation would, of course, practice religious tolerance (provided those religious beliefs did not adversely affect anyone else) but I would hope that every child would have to learn at least the basics of science, so that a child from, say, a fundamentalist Christian family would still learn the basics of evolution. Besides, I have difficulty envisioning how Creationists would explain the existence of all those different planets and species anyway.
Of males or females?
I must say I'm a bit appalled. I know that that's the argument from all the homeschoolers worldwide, especially in the US. Freedom. Even if it includes making your children stupid; but, please: Why is there such a thing as compulsory education, anyway? To educate children! By allowing homeschooling and religious schools where they only or also learn that god made us, you're effectively ruining education and bring society back to...when, the 1800s?
a: God made everything
b: God works in mysterious ways, therefore you cannot understand
c: Go back to a
EDIT:
macloudt said:
a: God made everything
b: God works in mysterious ways, therefore you cannot understand
c: Go back to a
EDIT:
How about neither?T'Girl said:
Religious schools (just like all private schools) in America have better academics and college preparation than public schools, much lower drop out rates too.
http://www.publicschoolreview.com/articles/5
Home schooling too tends to produce superior educated children, but I sure there are isolated incidents of average and poor academic preparation.
When it comes to evolution, we had lessons on this in Christian school, as well as creation science, intelligent design and several other origin of species concepts. But when I was in public school our secular teacher (who also taught evolution) made it clear to us that there were many different ideas on how life formed on this planet
As I understand it, evolution is taught within most Christian home schooling programs and Christian religious schools. There seems to be an increasing trend among some Christian high schools and colleges to abandon creation science in favor of theistic evolution (intelligent design) -- the concept that creation of the species happened on earth over a protracted period of time, and that God employed adaptation as a tool to create the many species that we see today. This was one of the concepts I was instructed in.
With all respect, your ideas of Christians seems to be either stuck in the Victorian era, or is base upon a extremely small (but vocal) group of individuals. And not the mainstream majority.
That would seem to be the role of the public school system.
My grade school education was on various US Air Force bases around the world, then one year in a Brazilian fishing village school (my father's idea of cultural immersion), then the two years of private, finally public school. Public school was the only educational environment where any student was allowed to disrupt class and bring the education process to a grinding halt. If I had pull some of the things I saw in High school while I was in grade school, the principal would have called not my parents, but my father's commanding officer, who would have pull my father immediately off the flight line to deal with it. In other words it didn't happen. In Brazil disruption weren't tolerated, so you studied. In America private schools, if counseling doesn't stop the disruptions, you're simply and quickly expelled.
Human females forbidden, Human males no government legal position. Or perhaps a stipulation that the procedure (on males) is performed by a trained professional.
"Don't worry Honey, nothing a good Rabbi couldn't fix."
