Is it just for a pluralistic society to ground its public policy on religious premises? What role should religion play in such a society? Debate over questions like these has figured in theology, philosophy, political science, jurisprudence and popular culture for centuries. In contemporary Western pluralistic society the debate continues. Even for those unfamiliar with its nuances at the higher levels the effect of the standard view, as described by Stephen Carter, is immediately familiar:
“One good way to end a conversation – or start an argument – is to tell a group of well educated professionals that you hold a political position (preferably a controversial one such as being against abortion or pornography) because it is required by your understanding of God’s will. In the unlikely event that anyone hangs around to talk with you about it, chances are that you will be challenged on the ground that you are intent on imposing your religious beliefs on other people. And in contemporary political and legal culture, nothing is worse.”[1]
Carter is referring to the separationist understanding of religion and public life, the idea that in a contemporary pluralistic society significant restraint must be put on the political role of religious reasons. This restraint is negative; when a functionary deliberates over a proposed policy it is not justified for that functionary to decide to support or oppose that policy on grounds derived from religion. A corollary of this is that citizens should not try to influence public policy by appealing to religious reasons. Separationists argue that the public policy of a pluralistic society must be able to be justified by a plausible secular justification in order for it to be just to all. Religious beliefs, while utilised and followed in private, should be kept separate from public policy debates, the administration of public institutions and the deliberation of public functionaries.
Dominant advocates of this view include philosophers John Rawls, Robert Audi, Gerald Gaus and Jürgen Habermas. In “Religion as a Conversation-Stopper” Richard Rorty described separationism as:
“the happy, Jeffersonian compromise that the Enlightenment reached with the religious. This compromise consists in privatizing religion — keeping it out of … “the public square,” making it seem bad taste to bring religion into discussions of public policy.”[2]
Advocates for religious restraint typically claim that it need not be codified. It is simply a moral requirement which applies to all citizens regardless of their role within society — some form of censure rather than legal stricture is what is suggested. This is what Rorty means when he refers to it being “bad taste” to bring religion into the public square. Notwithstanding the separationists stated intention, in my thesis I will argue that this call for religious restraint is not simply theoretical philosophy, which is present in society only by way of self-imposed moral restraint or the sort of peer-pressure Carter’s quote alluded to. I will argue that the norm of religious restraint is increasingly present in our public policy and jurisprudence.
Rorty alluded to Jefferson’s famous “Wall of Separation Letter” where Jefferson set out his understanding as to how the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause should be interpreted. Tellingly, this suggests a link between the separationist philosophy and the way the religious freedom components of Bills of Rights are interpreted. These components address the very same questions I opened with; how should religion fit into a just pluralistic society? The purported answers are commonly given in slogans, “freedom of religion”, “free exercise”, “freedom to manifest one’s religion” and statements declaring the separation of church and state, opposing Establishment and so on. I say ‘slogans’ because such clauses are typically light on detail; fleshing out what they mean and how they are to apply at a practical levels, to specific cases falls to the commentators, the lawyers who propose particular interpretations in their submissions and ultimately the judiciary. The resulting body of jurisprudence reflects the perspectives of the dominant views in society.
Consider the US Supreme Court’s three leading Establishment Clause precedents: Lemon, Endorsement and Coercion. The first of the three parts of the Lemon Test requires public policy to have a valid secular purpose, a non-religious rationale must be offered for all state actions. The Endorsement Test prohibits the state from “endorsing” religion over irreligion. The Coercion Test provides that the state must not coerce religious practice; not only must it not be required, but in Lee v Weisman the application was shifted to what Justice Scalia, in his dissent, termed a “test of psychological coercion”. The US Supreme Court essentially took the view that being one of few (or the only one) to opt out of a religious practice in a public setting was considered a form of state coercion by peer pressure. I will argue that in each of the dominant Establishment tests, a requirement for the state to place a restraint on religion or for religion to be kept from public life can be seen. This stricture affects public policy and is essentially separationism in codified form.
Despite its current orthodoxy, separationism has its critics, particularly in philosophy and law. These critics collectively hold that although separationism claims to operate impartially, it, in fact, gives public hegemony to secular perspectives. Critics argue that the call for religious restraint is unjust for religious citizens as it requires conformity to secularism and thus privileges secularism over religion. Philip Quinn observes;
These principles impose burdens on religious people that [the separationist] nowhere suggests imposing on nonreligious people. … [The separationist] does not propose that nonreligious people must be sufficiently motivated by adequate religious reason for their advocacy or support of restrictive laws or policies. The lack of symmetry is striking.[3]
Christopher Eberle, Terence Cuneo agree there is a clear asymmetry in the way religious beliefs are treated by the state compared with secular beliefs. They question why religious believers, who participate in public, are required to bracket beliefs they hold as both true, important and relevant to the issue; Stephen Carter labels this “[t]he separation of church and self.”[4] Nicholas Wolterstorff argues that separationism violates the equal freedom component of a pluralistic democratic society, “Using their religious convictions in making their decisions and conducting their debates on political issues is part of what constitutes conducting their lives as they see fit.”[5][Emphasis added] Philip Devine point out that “Freedom of religion is not only the freedom to advocate religious (or irreligious) ideas; it is the freedom to form, sustain, participate in, and transmit, forms of community life”.[6] Yet separationists maintain that some form of religious restraint is not only in accord with the notion of liberal democracy but essential to it. As Rorty put it, “we shall not be able to keep a democratic political community going unless the religious believers remain willing to trade privatization for a guarantee of religious liberty.”[7]
The dominant tests seek to apply a reading of Jefferson’s “Wall of Separation Letter”; but in an article in First Things entitled “Establishing Free Exercise,” Vincent Phillip Muñoz argues that James Madison, the author of the First Amendment and a noted authority on the subject, did not intend this;
“When editing the religious freedom amendment to Virginia’s state Bill of Rights, Madison proposed the following:
‘That religion or the duty we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, being under the direction of reason and conviction only, not violence or compulsion, all men are equally entitled to the full and free exercise of it accord[in]g to the dictates of conscience; and therefore that no man or class of men ought, on account of religion to be invested with peculiar emoluments or privileges, nor subjected to any penalties or disabilities.’
Madison interpreted “free exercise” to mean no privileges and no penalties on account of religion.”[8][Emphasis added]
Munoz argues that Madison’s “no privileges, no penalties” test could unify “the no-establishment and free exercise provisions into a coherent whole that recognizes the legitimate concerns of both sides of the debate while, at the same time, respecting our nation’s founding heritage.”[9]
“no privileges, no penalties” would not require forays into students’ psychological feelings. Judges would not need to inquire if school children feel like “insiders” or “outsiders,” or if a child might perceive the state to be “endorsing” religion, which are necessarily subjective judgments. Courts would only need to ask if, on account of religion, religious citizens as such were granted a material benefit or if nonreligious citizens were subject to a penalty like a fine or imprisonment. For Newdow, the relevant question is: Was Michael Newdow’s daughter subject to some form of disciplinary action because she would not say the Pledge? Since she was not, the Pledge stands.”[10]
The “no privileges, no penalties” test upholds freedom of religion and separation of church and state by essentially permitting religion to have a place in public life as long as those who engage in public religious conduct do not gain a privilege for doing so and those who do not wish to participate are both free to opt out and are not penalised for doing so. Interestingly, the New Zealand jurisdiction’s approach, within the limited cases to date – where as long as one can ‘opt out’ of a religious practice there is no coercion, has some affinity or parallel with a “no privileges, no penalties” approach. Munoz’s appropriation of Madison has the potential to be a just way forward in both the debate within philosophy and in law. It does not have the privatising effect on religion that the dominant tests do, neither does it have the asymmetry.
I have this week been accepted into the University of Auckland’s LLM program. In 2011 I will start my studies towards a Masters of Law by thesis-only. This blog post is part of the proposal I have submitted to write it on – it may change as my supervisors and I work things out but this is the gist of what is in my head. I’d love to hear your thoughts – it will help get me thinking on where I am going with this!
RELATED POSTS:
Contra Mundum: Secularism and Public Life
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part I
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part II
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part III
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part IV
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part V
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part VI
[1] Stephen Carter The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialise Religious Devotion (1993) 23-24.
[2] Richard Rorty “Religion as a Conversation-Stopper” (1994) 3:1 Common Knowledge 1, 2.
[3] Philip Quinn “Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate” (2000) 60:2 Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 487 (book review).
[4] Carter, above n 1, 1.
[5] Nicholas Wolterstorff “The Role of Religion in Decision and Discussion of Political Issues” in Nicholas Wolterstorff & Robert Audi (eds) Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (1997) 77.
[6] Philip Devine We: A Study in Social and Political Philosophy, Ch 10 accessed 10 December 2010.
[7] Rorty, above n 2, 3.
[8] Vincent Phillip Muñoz “Establishing Free Exercise” First Things (January 2004) 139-142, 141.
[9] Ibid 139.
[10] Ibid 142.
Tags: Christopher Eberle · Coercion Test · Doctrine of Religious Restraint · Endorsement Test · Freedom of Religion · Gerald Gaus · James Madison · John Rawls · Jürgen Habermas · Justice Scalia · Law Studies · Lee v Weisman · Lemon Test · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Philip Devine · Philip Quinn · Philosophy of Religion · Political Philosophy · Religion in Public Life · Richard Rorty · Robert Audi · Separationism · Stephen Carter · Terence Cuneo · Vincent Phillip Muñoz119 Comments
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
Both Matt and yourself (and I would add many other theorists) make the mistake of assuming that New Zealand society’s negative attitude towards religion in the public square is based on rational principles. Essays such as this one and Matt’s past writing for Investigate Magazine attempt to counter the anti-religion stance of NZ society by the use of reason. This may not be the right approach to have. I’m sure the current situation is the result of many people’s decisions over a long period of time and not merely the product of a rational pathway. What I would find interesting and I hope you do as well would be for someone to undertake a Foucauldian analysis, using his genealogical research methods. Using history to show how the current situation unfolded would be very useful here.
Richard, I actually think some of the work of Wolterstorff and Plantinga on religious epistemology does engage in some of this kind of Foculdian analysis. They note certain epistemological doctrines from people like Descartes, Locke etc lead to people making certain assumptions about the rationality of religious belief they also note these doctrines have little going for them. It is interesting that one sees this kind of naive epistemology frequently in a popularised form in Dawkins et al.
Have you read Dawkins writing on Foucault? That silly scientist has no idea.
People formulate positions for all manner of reasons and frequently cannot articulate a sound case for why they hold them – we’re all guilty of this at times – but the dominant themes that influence our assumptions, those that make a lot of us lean a particular way can often be traced down from the academy. This is why I think it is a worthwhile project to tackle some of the big ideas that shape our society at their root level.
I am not qualified to undertake a Foucauldian analysis on this issue – I have not read anything more than a glance of Foucoult – so I’ll have to leave that angle for someone else. The angle does sound interesting though.
Richard, in general the rule is I try and find the best representative of a position and respond to that, which is why I respond to Tooley, Fales, Armstrong and so on on this blog. Dawkins is really not a very good example of athiesm. However, given his popularity I have begun taking note of him.
I agree however that when he writes on philosophy he is very poor, I am not alone in this assesment, Stephen Law, Michael Ruse, Al Plantinga, Bill Craig, have all expressed similar sentiments, in fact Luke at commonsense athiesm who has interviewed numerous athiest philosophers says that a similar view is fairly typical of them. So it would not suprise me if he botched Focult, he botched the ontological argument, botched Aquinas, botched the cosmological argument, failed to grasp Swinburne’s point and pretty much failed to grasp both the issues of divine necessity and divine simplicty. Why should Focault be any better?
Foucault is a bit more difficult to grasp than Craig or Ruse (he is French) so I’m not surprised if Dawkins can’t grasp him.
You should read some more Foucault, Derrida et al Matt. Many religious people brush aside poststructuralists/postmodernists mistaking them for moral and epistemoglical nihilists. However when it comes to critiquing reason and The Enlightenment there is a lot in common!
I think now all we can do is wait for Ken to come along and set us of the right track.
I think that there has to be a separation of church and state.
If I were a Muslim, for example, I wouldn’t want my kids being indoctrinated in the Catholic faith while in school.
I wouldn’t want to have to decide if Islamic apostates could legally be terminate.
“These principles impose burdens on religious people that [the separationist] nowhere suggests imposing on nonreligious people. …”
Whoever wrote this is not living in the real world, and certainly not in North America, where half the people seem to have to remind the other half that there is such a thing as separation of church and state, seemingly on a weekly basis.
Clearly, just imagining that there is a cohesive, like-minded community of ‘religious people’ is preposterous.
Sure if we stretch our imagination and imagine that there is a body of Christ, who you are either with or against, and that this ‘body’ is the sum total of ‘religious people’, then we might imagine legislators putting forward bills to the effect that the community has that worldview.
Sadly, it is too easy for a minority with a paricular agenda to circumvent the majority opinion, by loading school boards and such, presumably imagining that they are doing Godly work, to effect change in the majority’s worldview through their children.
You wouldn’t want your children coming home from school praising Allah or ‘gawd-forbid’, Satan, now would you?
Seems to me, Matt, you are willing to paint your brand of Christianity, and ‘only’ your brand of Christianity, as ‘religion’, to narrow the meaning of ‘religion’ to suit your purpose of demonizing the hated secularism, here.
I’m saying that although all the different religions and denominations would, no doubt, agree with you in principle, you’d have a giant religious squabble when it comes to stuff like teaching Creationism or teaching Islam in school or entrenching Islamic holidays and such.
The same kind of thing goes for the abortion issue and the wearing of condoms, taking the pill and such.
The only solution, as far as I can see, is to let people find their balance between public life and their religion by themselves.
Don’t you agree?
Sadly, it is too easy for a minority with a paricular agenda to circumvent the majority opinion, by loading school boards and such, presumably imagining that they are doing Godly work, to effect change in the majority’s worldview through their children.
An interesting comment, given I’ve heard people in the secular education system stating quite openly that this is their objective – to change society through children.
More interesting is your assumption that the majority should rule. This appears to contradict the rest of your comment.
I think now all we can do is wait for Ken to come along and set us of the right track.
I am insulted by your implied insult you bottom feeding cretin.
What you fail to realize is that I am a rational scientist who only accepts evidence, not logic.
This article is a thinly vield attempt to discredit spontaneous generation, written by stupid people who fail to grasp just how great a philosopher I am.
I would quote Dawkins to refute you, but that would be over your collective heads.
Now excuse me, I have to write a reply to Matts refutation on another thread that explains that he didn’t actually understand what I said because he showed that what I actually said was embarrassingly ignorant.
I am a scientist, and I have spoken. Fear me!!
Nowhere did I say that I am calling for the joining of church and state, I am calling for a more just approach to the way we treat the plurality of views in our society.
Pboyfloyd wrote: “If I were a Muslim, for example, I wouldn’t want my kids being indoctrinated in the Catholic faith while in school.”
I am a Christian and I do not want my kids being indoctrinated in secular views while in school. Yet The Education Act 1964 requires that all teaching in state primary schools must be secular (Section 77). So in order for me to have my kids educated according to my views I must pay over and above my taxes for private or integrated education or simply forgo an income and home educate them. The Education Act places a burden on religious parents that does not fall of secular parents.
The reality is that we live in a pluralistic society with a plurality of views. In such a society we need to make policies that are fair to all. It is not ok to rule one set of beliefs in society to the backseat and another to the front. All views should be on the table. You don’t solve plurality by having the state adopt and operate from predominantly one view.
Finally, the suggestion that only those who are religious disagree was a joke right? I won’t bother responding to that.
You seem to be willing to deliberately miss the point here. If a Jewish kid, a Hindu kid, a Muslim kid, a Catholic kid and an atheist’s kid all go to a secular school, which is not anti-religious, simply non-religious, then they all go home to be happy little Jews, Hindus, Muslims and Catholics.
If the school decides to NOT be secular but to prescribe to one of these religions, there’s going to be a lot of unhappy campers showing up at PTA meetings.
It has nothing to do with majority ‘ruling’, and more to do with the majority not oppressing. You’re just turning tables on the oppression thing by trying to make the religious one big happy family and secularism be some kind of ‘other religion’, which it is NOT.
Wow, Fake Ken, this is what passes for Christian Philosophy these day?
And you, Madeliene, you’re main problem seems to be that the school system isn’t in the business of teaching everyone your brand of Christianity, as would a private school of your choosing, no doubt?
“More interesting is your assumption that the majority should rule.”
It’s not a question of whether the majority ought to rule or not. If a band of Satanists took over your local school board and started buying texts promoting their drivel, you’d be apoplectic, wouldn’t you?
Now I’m sure the same goes for Bible literalists or Hassidic Jews etc. etc.
What do you imagine is the ‘thing to do’ here? Maybe we could all decide that your brand of Christianity is the least offensive to everyone and have the schools promote that? Hey, anything to get Madeleine out of the house??
hey pboyfloyd,
Got a question, when public schools teach science, shouldn’t they mention evolution with a disclaimer saying that its a contended theory and present both majority and minority evidence for and against it? Instead of peddling it to kids having religious beliefs as the be all and end all of how things got here.
I mean saying everything came out of primal ooze contradicts pretty much scriptural essentials integral to the belief systems of the religionists that god or gods created people out of mud clay, blood etc. I mean would teaching evolution in Public Schools be offensive then to religionists with a different view of how life origins came to be?
And also in Soviet Russia, classrooms were filled with enforced indoctrination of marxism, which is a different type of secularistic ideology; anyone holding to creationists or backward views of science were summarily denounced or ostracized. pboyfloyd, kindly note that within the family of ideologies of secularism. They are benign ones like yours where separation implies peaceful tolerance whilst others separation implies violent excision of non-desirables vs state purity and ideology. So before you tough talk Matt about how his brand of christianity is the least offensive. Think through your own camp first and look at the shit there, just a reminder.
Secularism should itself be free of atheistic biases and implications. It must be neutered of all agendas including humanistic policies designed to minimize religious influence in society and maximize godlessness at the same time it should keep in check harmful religious beliefs, ideologies and cults from both believing and non-believing groups
“Got a question, when public schools teach science, shouldn’t they mention evolution with a disclaimer saying that its a contended theory and present both majority and minority evidence for and against it? ”
I think that teaching Evolution in school is simple. Maybe there ought to be disclaimers to parents for all science classes that the material being taught is to ensure that the kids can pass the exam and that they are ready for the next level class up on whichever subject it is.
There’s not much point in teaching kids to go to universities to try to have religious discussion with their professors, who no doubt also wish the students to simply learn the material.
If I took a course in Astrology, there wouldn’t be much point in me facing off with the teacher that it is all drivel, would there? Similarly, if I went to seminary, there’d be little reason for them to pass me if I objected that, “There are no gods, not even one.”, at every opportunity, right?
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of view, the best universities teaching medicine these days, are pretty sure that it doesn’t matter what your religion is, as long as you absorb the material, which includes Evolution
Similarly an astronomy professor is not about to put up with questioning every day if he happens to get a student who thinks that the sky is a dome and God and the angels dwell just above that, isn’t that right??
I don’t recall anyone being forced to go to a real university when there are Christian universities available.
High school students who are being taught Evolution can simply take for true what they like and disregard what they don’t.
I really cannot respond to your comparison of our schooling with totalitarian state schooling since i’ve never been subjected to a Catholic school in a Catholic country or anything similar.
Lastly, Evolution is not abiogenesis and it’s up to the individuals concerned if they feel that God had a hand/has a hand in things or not, or how literally they wish to take the Beginning stories.
That last sentence looks like a pretty good disclaimer to put on the cover of every single text book, note book, on every subject, perhaps even ‘The Good Book’, yes?
High school science lessons are not able to cover theological/philosophical objections, you must realize this.
Seems to me that if you wish to argue against Evolution, you at least ought to know what it is that you are arguing against.
Since Evolution is science, for example, you’d likely be happy to know the difference between a scientific theory and a non-scientific meaning of the word.
Or perhaps you’d just like to equivocate on this because you have an anti-science agenda???
I imagine that only a mean brat of a smartass kid would try to convince his peers that they’re not going to fall because gravity is, in fact, ‘only a theory’.
Now, I’ll tell you straight up that pushing the issue with even more wordplay, (“But gravity is a fact.”, for example), isn’t going to advance your position at all, just expose you willful ignorance to understand.
Got a question, when public schools teach science, shouldn’t they mention evolution with a disclaimer saying that its a contended theory and present both majority and minority evidence for and against it
No, because that would be lying. There is not scientific debate as to whether evolution happened, and, although people place different emphases on different parts of it, there is no alternative theory to the modern evolutionary synthesis to describe how it happened.
People are free to believe whatever absurd thing they want, but I don’t think it’s too crazy to demand only science is taught in science classrooms
Madeleine,
@ 11.21am you said:
“So in order for me to have my kids educated according to my views I must pay over and above my taxes for private or integrated education or simply forgo an income and home educate them. The Education Act places a burden on religious parents that does not fall on secular parents”.
This, of course, is not completely true, as there are three types of school: state, private (or registered or independent) and state integrated schools. State and state integrated schools are government funded. Private schools receive about 25% of their funding from the government,[5] and rely on tuition fees for the rest. State integrated schools are former private schools which are now “integrated” into the state system under the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act 1975 [6] “on a basis which will preserve and safeguard the special character of the education provided by them”. According to Independent Schools New Zealand, an advocacy group for private schools, about 86% of all school-aged children attend state schools, 10% attend state integrated schools and 4% attend private schools.[5] In addition, parents may home school their own children if they can prove that their child will be “…taught at least as regularly and as well as in a registered school…”,[7] and are given an annual grant[7] to help with costs, including services from The Correspondence School. The percentage of children home schooled is well under 2% even in the Nelson region, the area where it is most popular,[8] but there are many local and national support groups.[9][10]
So, whatever choice you make for your child educationally, myself and every other Kiwi taxpayer, will be contributing towards that choice, even if we don’t agree with it.
Next you say:
“The reality is that we live in a pluralistic society with a plurality of views. In such a society we need to make policies that are fair to all. It is not ok to rule one set of beliefs in society to the backseat and another to the front. All views should be on the table. You don’t solve plurality by having the state adopt and operate from predominantly one view.”
Given your perspective, I would suggest the adoption of a similar model to the one put forward by the British Humanist Association, namely that “all pupils in all types of school should have the opportunity to consider philosophical and fundamental questions, and that in a pluralist society we should learn about each other’s beliefs, including humanist ones”.[9] They would like to see a reformed subject such as “Belief and Values Education” which was inclusive of secular positions and – unlike Religious Education at present – covered by the national curriculum. For many years they have also supported local humanist volunteers on the SACRE bodies which currently determine the RE syllabus for each local authority area.
At present we allow our two daughters to attend the weekly “Bible Class” that is delivered in their state secular primary school by a christian organisation. While only providing a very narrow view point, it does at least provide some starting points for discussion cocerning all aspects of religion, spirituality, belief, etc around the dinner table every Thursday.
At present, our eldest is leaning towards paganism and our yougest is still undecided. However, I had to smile when, totally unprompted, she declared that given all the other beliefs people have, (remember we are talking about an Aucklnad school with 43 ethnicities as of their last count) she couldn’t see how thay could all be right! How true!!!
So, I’ll leave you with an apt quote, which, given its’ biblical origin, you should also enjoy:
“Out of the mouths of babes” Psalms 8:2
This question remains unanswered: “It’s not a question of whether the majority ought to rule or not. If a band of Satanists took over your local school board and started buying texts promoting their drivel, you’d be apoplectic, wouldn’t you?”
People who support allowing religious views to influence public policy ought to consider this question carefully.
People who support allowing religious views to influence public policy ought to consider this question carefully.
You *do* realise that some Christians (not myself mind!) believe that’s exactly what’s *already* happened?
The schooling question assumes the state should have a role in education which itself is debatable.
A potential solution is that the state only mandates that children be educated (again a debatable point) and individuals set up their own schools with their own programs. If you want to teach atheism, evolution, Marxism, global warming, astrology, Hinduism, naturopathy, or whatever combination then so be it, and parents of like mind can choose your school. If you wish to teach a Christian worldview then parents could choose that as they wish.
“A potential solution is that the state only mandates that children be educated (again a debatable point) and individuals set up their own schools with their own programs. If you want to teach atheism, evolution, Marxism, global warming, astrology, Hinduism, naturopathy, or whatever combination then so be it, and parents of like mind can choose your school. ”
What kind of atheism do you think that I could get away with teaching? How much could I charge to get kindergartners to chant, “There are no gods, not even one!”??
Or do I have to add God-hating 101?
Tripping Christians for fun?
Exactly what KIND of atheist are you, anyways??
How to kill and eat your Christian baby after you’ve kidnapped it!
Robbing, Raping and Pillaging for dummies!
DNA, not just for breakfast anymore!
Why DID the chicken cross the road? Genetic imperative.
Atheist Rule No.1, We don’t talk about Fight Club
(Hey, there’s way more than I thought. I could fill out an entire day.)
David “No, because that would be lying. There is not scientific debate as to whether evolution happened, and, although people place different emphases on different parts of it, there is no alternative theory to the modern evolutionary synthesis to describe how it happened.”
That was no the question though David, Alvin did not say there was scientific debate over evolution, he said it was a contended theory. Your assumption seems to be that if something is not debated within the discipline of science then its not debated. The problem is that some people have theological criticisms of evolution.
You suggest only science should be taught in science class that’s fine if your only teaching evolution as the best supported scientific theory, however if you go beyond that and teach its true then you have to either (a) claim these theological critques are unjustified within the canons of theological research (b) claim theological critques can be dismissed regardless of their merits. Both (a) and (b) however are not science, (a) is theology and (b) is controversial philosophy and so could not by your reasoning be taught in a science class.
Unfortunately in class rooms today they don’t teach evolution as the best scientific theory they teach it as true, and once you do this you are making by implication both scientific and theological statements, you cannot then after doing this say theological questions are out of place in a science class.
TAM I don’t get the objection it seems to be if we allow religion to influence public life, the wrong religion might do so therefore religious people should only allow secular views to influence public life.
In otherwords because from the perspective of religious people its possible a religious view they think is mistaken by rule, it follows they should guarentee a secular view they think is mistaken should rule.
This seems an avoidance. TAM I’ll ask you what I asked the rationalist society president in a debate a few years ago. Compare three situations.
1. Athiest student taught catholicism in public school
2.Catholic student taught contraceptive education at public school
3. Fundamentalist student taught evolution at public school public school.
My question is how can 1 be unjust and 2 and 3 be just. The rationalist society btw supported 3 and 4 and railed against 1.
pboyfloyd –
Your analogy comparing evolution with gravity is flawed…
Scientific theories are attempts to explain phenomena.
Gravity is a phenomenon NOT a theory.
Evolution is a theory NOT a phenomenon.
I get the distinct impression that Atheists think their non-belief is somehow a default rational position and that all other [religious] beliefs are irrational deviations. Consequently they beleive their right to non belief trumps any others right to believe. What they dont seem to understand is that this is just as much as imposition of a particular philosophy/ world view as any of the potential examples they sometimes protest against.
So back to Matts questions, in what possible way its it any more
unjust that children from a secular family be taught Christianity than children from a christian family be be obliged to recieve their education within a strictly secular format?
Matt, I take no issue with #1 as long as the catholicism were not taught to the exclusion of other faiths. In fact, I received my elementary school education in the Canadian province of Newfoundland & Labrador at a time when the public board (a consolidation of Protestant boards) made religious education compulsory but the curriculum was not influenced by any particular faith. I can’t recall whether there was any discussion about atheism/agnosticism but there certainly would be if I had any say in it. I am assuming that you would not have any problem with your children being introduced to the concept of atheism at school in the same way that I have no problem with my children studying the Bible. I guess I shouldn’t assume that because you might be afraid of the eternal consequences of your children embracing an atheistic worldview.
Rawls’ conception of the requirement of public reasons to justify policies that people of different moral/political backgrounds can accept seems to me to be the best way to accomodate efforts by those who would seek to regulate the lives of others based on their religious dogma. But I am not well read in this area and l am looking forward to reviewing Madeleine’s thesis.
Ignoring nonsensical BS arguments from fundy atheists aside;
Matt do you think that a competent surgeon, dentist, neurologist would need a comprehensive knowledge of darwinian evolution theory in order to practice effective treatments?
Thanks
“Gravity is a phenomenon NOT a theory.
Evolution is a theory NOT a phenomenon.”
Don’t be ridiculous. Evolution explains all the diverse forms of life on this planet. That would be a (say it with me) PHENOMENON.
“I get the distinct impression that Atheists think their non-belief is somehow a default rational position.. ”
Gee, do you think? Can you imagine anyone having a position that they don’t think is rational?
Do you imagine atheists(Atheists?) thinking, (shaking hands in the air by their ears), “I don’t believe that there are gods ‘cos I’m CRAZZZZY!”???
This is such a sneering, slough-off putdown that I don’t think it’s worth trying to explain to you.
On topic, I gave good reason why the state could not possibly please everyone if they adopted a religious position, including other religious people. People disagree about religion and no one wants their kids being indoctrinated in the ‘wrong’ one. That’s a rational position that we can all agree on without raising the spectre of totalitarian state governments and such.
Seems to me that if I were to ask any one of you Christians if you would want your legislators to push bills promoting any other religion but your own, instead of being offended at the idea, you just ignore it because you don’t want to admit it.
Madeleine can’t get a state babysitter who agrees with her religion while she pursues her career?
Life is tough, Madeleine, you’ll just have to take the time to teach your kids your religion yourself and send them to Sunday School and stuff like that.
Hey, maybe you could read C.S.Lewis to them at bedtime. Sum up with, “What he’s saying honey(if that what you call them), is that we have feelings, that’s why we’re Christians!”
You could go on to list the kind of people you love, the people you can get along with, and finally the people that you hate(or at least look down on)..
“..in what possible way its it any more
unjust that children from a secular family be taught Christianity than children from a christian family be be obliged to recieve their education within a strictly secular format?”
Because the secular format is the NON-RELIGIOUS FORMAT!!!! It’s not the anti-religious format that you seem to be stuck on.
If teachers are implying that religion is nonsense, then they are not doing a service to students of the various religions and ought to be burned at the stake. Well, maybe not, but if they were given texts which imply that religion is bad or wrong, they should be advised to explain that that is a mistake. Texts should not be promoting atheism and neither should the teachers but the teachers ought not to be teaching religion in science class either.
TAM wrote: “It’s not a question of whether the majority ought to rule or not. If a band of Satanists took over your local school board and started buying texts promoting their drivel, you’d be apoplectic, wouldn’t you?”
I would not send my kids there and I would object to my tax dollars paying for such a school.
Likewise, I would not send my kinds to a school with secular ideals, textbooks, philosophy, I am equally “apoplectic” at the though of my kids being taught that drivel and my tax dollars funding it.
So why is ok for me to be apoplectic when it is satanism but not when it is secularism? Both are affronts to my beliefs and how I am trying to raise my children. Why do I have to accept one view but I am allowed to object to the other?
The answer very clearly is that secularism is privileged in New Zealand and secularists are seeking to have their views treated very differently to all others at law.
People who support allowing secular views to influence public policy ought to consider this question carefully.
BTW I think Bethyada’s idea is the only real solution to the school problem, have no state schools, if you insist on the state funding education then give every child a school voucher and let their parents spend it at whichever school they choose – secular, atheist, satanic, catholic, pagan, jewish, islamic, christian.
“1. Athiest student taught catholicism in public school”
But what if hinduism, islam, buddhism etc. etc. is right? Or, gawd-forbid, what if it is true that there are no gods, not even one?
“2.Catholic student taught contraceptive education at public school.”
No problem. Less Catholics the better(LOL). Nono, they could be excused from that class or use it as an object lesson in what the dirty (fill in your worldview here) believes and allows.
“3. Fundamentalist student taught evolution at public school public school.”
Well, they’re trying to ‘get through’ to him/her at least! If school is offensive to them they could go to skool, you know, at hoam.
We seem to be coming back to Evolution a lot.
Any of you guys who like this, “Evolution is just a theory.”, canard, what is your definition of life?? Because I’m thinking that this is just a definition problem here. Not including the, “..just a theory.”, vs., “..scientific theory.”, thing.
So, what is life?
“..the though of my kids being taught that drivel and my tax dollars funding it.”
The love of money is the root of all evil. Pfft, but you don’t believe that at all, now do you, Ms. Career?
Matt you just earned your first footnote in my thesis – I am definitely swiping your 3 propositions.
Pboyfloyd’s answers are telling:
“1. Athiest student taught catholicism in public school”
But what if hinduism, islam, buddhism etc. etc. is right? Or, gawd-forbid, what if it is true that there are no gods, not even one?”
Atheist students should not be taught Catholicism in a public school because there might not be a God or because another belief set might be correct.
Well it might not be true that atheism or secularism is the right approach so that is equally an argument for not letting those values come into state schools either.
““2.Catholic student taught contraceptive education at public school.”
No problem. Less Catholics the better(LOL). Nono, they could be excused from that class or use it as an object lesson in what the dirty (fill in your worldview here) believes and allows.”
By this argument there should be no problem with atheist, agnostic or secular students being taught the Catholic approach to sex education in public schools, your “less Catholics the better” surely entails that you believe the more atheists, agnostics or secularists the better.
Further, atheist, agnostic or secular students could be excused from that class or use it as an object lesson in what the Vatican believes and allows.
““3. Fundamentalist student taught evolution at public school public school.”
Well, they’re trying to ‘get through’ to him/her at least! If school is offensive to them they could go to skool, you know, at hoam.””
Likewise, an atheist, agnostic or secular student being taught creationism at a public school could be justified on the grounds that the teachers were just trying to get another viewpoint through to those students and if that is offensive to them then you know one of their parents could just leave the workforce and home school them.
The inequitable asymmetry in the expectations secularists have for tax paying Christian parents is both astounding and telling. This little exercise again shows the privileging of one belief set over another.
The comments here make it clear that secularists are blind to the bias of their own position. Secularism is not neutral, it is secular.
If God exists, it is undoubtedly the most important fact in the world. To have a curriculum that assumes the non existence of God for the sake of neutrality is not neutral. One may choose to define it as non-religious but it is anti-religious. It favours teaching material written by persons who deny (or are ambivalent that) there is a God thus biasing material towards an anti-God perspective. The non-involvement of God in history is treated with higher validity even if it is untrue.
Further, claims that secularism is non religious does not address the issue. Denying the supernatural is a theological claim. One cannot argue that he has no religion because he denies the supernatural when such a claim is inherently theological. This way of framing the debate is disingenuous: Let us talk about the role of religion in public life and my position is neutral because I think religion is untrue.
A preferable way of addressing this is to call the various positions worldviews. Christianity has an extensive worldview addressing the nature of God, the world, knowledge, economics, art, and more. Secular, humanist, Marxist, and various other atheistic philosophies have extensive worldviews. As do other religions. These are in conflict with each other. To favour a secular worldview is to be bias toward it and against other worldviews.
Matt
The problem is that some people have theological criticisms of evolution
You said at much before, and I still think it’s an incredibly weak argument. If someone wants to put a theological position ahead of of science then they are welcome to., but they hardly need a special warning for when the need to be anti-science.
pboyfloyd –
“Don’t be ridiculous. Evolution explains all the diverse forms of life on this planet. That would be a (say it with me) PHENOMENON.”
If you are going to make a comparison of phenomena you should compare “the diversity of life on this planet” to “gravity”.
If you are going to make a comparison of theories you should compare “Evolution” to “Special Relativity”.
“If you are going to make a comparison of phenomena you should compare “the diversity of life on this planet” to “gravity”.
If you are going to make a comparison of theories you should compare “Evolution” to “Special Relativity”.
Not that I think that you’re interested, but the ‘theory’ part of Gravity is that it is universal, and the ‘theory’ part of Evolution is that it is driven by natural selection.
On the other hand, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity, is the physical theory of measurement in inertial frames of reference.
“Further, claims that secularism is non religious does not address the issue.”
Sure it does, unless you are saying that public education and common law ought to be ‘in the interest of’ one particular religious group.
Actually, I rather think that you ARE trying to say that, but without actually saying it, if you see what I mean.
This whine:-
““One good way to end a conversation – or start an argument – is to tell a group of well educated professionals that you hold a political position (preferably a controversial one such as being against abortion or pornography) because it is required by your understanding of God’s will.”
And this whine:-
“This compromise consists in privatizing religion — keeping it out of … “the public square,” making it seem bad taste to bring religion into discussions of public policy.”
And this whine:-
” [The separationist] does not propose that nonreligious people must be sufficiently motivated by adequate religious reason for their advocacy or support of restrictive laws or policies. The lack of symmetry is striking.”
They all seem to be suggesting that separationist, secularist and atheist are three different words with roughly the same meaning.
The argument pits this misconception against another misconception, that is that the religious(of the various religions) are all in agreement with each other.
There seems to be another underlying false conception that not only are all religions basically the same, but that they are all, and/or the members are all libertarian, by default and/or by dint of their faith/religious membership.
This is clearly not the case. Why would anyone imagine that a socialist Christian(or a Christian who happens to be a socialist), for example, would do anything less than laugh at this post?
Seems to me that Matt and Madeleine are inside a small bubble(libertarian Christian) trying to tell us that they speak for, not only ALL Christians, but all religious persons.
(Now’s the time to break out that No True Scotsman fallacy that you’ve been saving.)
pboyfloyd nailed it.
David, two things, first, you seem to think that accepting criticism of scientific theories from other disciplines is “anti-science” not sure why this follows. Is it somehow essential to being pro science to think no other discipline can ever offer correction? I don’t take this attitude to other disciplines.
Second, your response misses the point somewhat, which was that non science should not be taught in a science class. Now suppose current scientific theorising suggests X. Another discipline suggests not X. The only way one can affirm X is true is by making the claim that scientific theorising is more reliable or accurate than the other discipline. The problem is this affirmation is not part of science, its a interdisciplinary claim and involves making comments about other disciplines.
So given your own claim about limiting science to the science class on what basis do you allow this claim to be implicitly taught.
It seems that people are quite willing to allow non scientific claims in the classroom when it strengthens the hegemonic status of this discipline, but when it questions science its not allowed.
You said at much before, and I still think it’s an incredibly weak argument. If someone wants to put a theological position ahead of of science then they are welcome to., but they hardly ed a special warning for when the need to be anti-science.
Pboyfloyd, when you say evolution is correct because it explains something you show its an abductive inference and not the phemonena being explained.
I don’t see why denying this is a problem for some scientists, the fact that something is an explanation, based on an inference and not directly percieved, does not mean its false, unjustified, irrational and so on.
But when people deliberately distort the epistemic situation that tends to make people suspicious.
TAM I pointed three cases which appear on par and asked why one is just and not the other. How is calling this a “whine” and claiming “falsely” I pretend to speak for all religious people address this.
This kind of comment simply confirms the sucipions I have of some skeptics, that any argument which has a conclusion they agree with is compelling, no matter how many straw men, ad hominen, diversions and so on it contains.
pboyfloyd Sure it does, unless you are saying that public education and common law ought to be ‘in the interest of’ one particular religious group.
It is going to be in the interest of some over others whatever the solution is. Perhaps one solution is which basic view of law and public policy maximises the liberty of individuals with competing worldviews (if one values liberty).
But what is of interest is how you would define secularism as a basis for law and public policy. what are the principles that you claim are neutral?
You said at much before, and I still think it’s an incredibly weak argument. If someone wants to put a theological position ahead of of science then they are welcome to., but they hardly need a special warning for when the need to be anti-science.
Views on epistemology by their nature must take priority over science.
David, two things, first, you seem to think that accepting criticism of scientific theories from other disciplines is “anti-science” not sure why this follows.
Really? I would have thought it was pretty straight foward that is someone’s beliefs from a non-scientific field
prevent them from accepting scientific facts then thery are being anti-science. When a libertarian refuses to accept
even the most basic findings of climatology because of their ideology they are being anti-science. Just like an
environmentalist who refuses to accept the most basic studies on the effects of genetically modified organisms,
or fundamentalists who won’t accept the overwhelming evidence that evolution has happened.
Now suppose current scientific theorising suggests X. Another discipline suggests not X. The only way one can affirm X is true is by making the claim that scientific theorising is more reliable or accurate than the other discipline. The problem is this affirmation is not part of science
Or what gets taught in science. By all means have discussion on what Bethyada calls worldviews in social studies, or even use ID-creationism as an example of the difference between the way science works and other fields. But if you want to understand biology then evolution is the only game in town.
The (grand) theory of evolution is not particularly comparable to the theory of gravitation. One is a theory of how things happened to occur in defined specific time and place, one is about the nature of attraction for all time and space; that is the difference between how things were, and how things are; how things happened versus how things happen to be.
Biological evolution is more comparable to cosmological “evolution.”
Of course one can object to the theory of evolution based on scientific criteria. The amount of scientific evidence against evolution is so vast I could never think it a true explanation of the diversity of life.
Notice something weird about Matt’s three cases:
“1. Atheist student taught Catholicism in public school
2.Catholic student taught contraceptive education at public school
3. Fundamentalist student taught evolution at public school public school.”
They are about the pupil being exposed to something, rather than about what a secular school should teach in a pluralist society.
Approaching from this (more correct) angle:
1: Yes a public schools should teach Catholicism, also other Christian sects and other religions and non religious life stances. Part of growing up in a pluralist society is the appreciation of differences and their nature. This helps to prevent conflict (and clearly when such comparative religion/life stance is not taught violence often results). I look forward to the day when our schools provide such a balanced education.
2: Contraceptive advice should be taught appropriately in public schools. This knowledge is also part of growing up. Ignorance in these areas has caused so many life tragedies.
3: Evolution should of course be taught in public schools as well as other sciences. Ignorance of science is again the cause of so many problems in society.
So put the proper way, Matt, what the hell is your problem??
Of course if you are a parent who wishes to deny knowledge to your child in these areas, then you either home school or excuse the child from the specific classes. I believe denial of knowledge is a form of child abuse, and clearly ignorance in these areas is going to make the child prone to all sorts of problems as she grows up.
“It is going to be in the interest of some over others whatever the solution is.”
There is no problem. There’s not a problem for me if I were a Christian or a Hindu or a Muslim or a Buddhist.
It is you that is branding secularism as anti-religious, and that does not make it so.
“Pboyfloyd, when you say evolution is correct because it explains something you show its an abductive inference and not the phemonena being explained.”
No, Matt, they’re not guessing. If they were, and it just coincidentally agreed with genetics, that would have been astonishing, yes?
Matt, Evolution is a fact. When we do it, it’s called farming. Of course all the different life forms on this planet didn’t get here by someone farming them, so the proffered method that Darwin theorized was Natural Selection. Some would call this same effect, adaptation**.
We can influence animals* to evolve by breeding, making them smaller or larger or tamer and such, imitating natural selection but to our own purposes. We can influence the evolution of bacteria by over-use of anti-biotics.
Now there are many disingenuous arguments out there by people who have no idea that Evolution is a fact or why we can plainly see that it is a fact, but so what? That’s what the classes are FOR, don’t you see?
There are also relevant arguments about how the process actually works, and these are valid within the scientific community and certainly not failure of science or some opening for some ‘other discipline’ at all.
Finally, there is one way, and one way only to prove that Evolution is false, and that doesn’t include misdefining words or appealing to some old book or by reasoning alone.
Find the contradictory evidence and you’ll win a Nobel Prize. What could be simpler than that?
I suppose Ray Comfort asking, “So where’s the crocodiles with ducks wings?”, is simpler, in a more simple-minded kind of way, but he’s not going to be lauded for advancing science with that kind of tripe now, is he??
*No-one saw a wolf turn into a chiuaua, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, over many generations, as evolution works, right?
** Seems to me that the Young Earth Creationists have a huge dilemma which they’re willing to ignore, in that they claim just the kinds of amimals were on board the Ark and that those arch-types have evolved into all the different species we see today. A super-explosion of evolution is required from the presumed landing of the Ark, until present day.
This kind of thing leads me to believe that you are willing to ignore the science, misrepresent the science, constrain and nitpick any explanation of the science(abductive inference?), all for the sake of your ideological worldview. Not necessarilly for the Christian ideological worldview, mind you, unless you’re now going to admit that Catholics aren’t ‘real’ Christians???
Define life, Matt, and unless you are anti-science, you can look up the definition of life and define life without quoting your Scripture.
This can’t be too hard for you, surely.
David, two things, first, you seem to think that accepting criticism of scientific theories from other disciplines is “anti-science” not sure why this follows.
Really? I would have thought it was pretty straight foward that is someone’s beliefs from a non-scientific field
prevent them from accepting scientific facts then thery are being anti-science.
Well no its not straightforward and in fact does not follow at all, here are two examples of the kind of reasoning involved:
suppose a biologist puts forward a particular theory lets call it X, a mathematician comes to the conclusion that the theory has mathematically impossible implications and so is false. Could we say that the mathematician was obviously, anti biology?
Or to take another example, suppose a physicist puts forward a theory about the world and uses a carefully constructed argument to support it. A logican reads the argument and points out that the argument contains a really subtle fallacy in logic, which is quite commonly made to the untrained logician. Is the logician obviously anti physics?
In both cases the answer is no.
Your suggestion apparently is that mathematicians should simply accept whatever biologists say, even about their own field of expertise, and even when the biologist has no mathematical expertise at all, merely because he is a scientists and to fail to do so would be anti science.
You write “Or what gets taught in science. By all means have discussion on what Bethyada calls worldviews in social studies, or even use ID-creationism as an example of the difference between the way science works and other fields. But if you want to understand biology then evolution is the only game in town.” Agreed, in biology as currently practised evolution is the best current theory, but that’s different to saying evolution is true. To say evolution is true one has to commit oneself to one of the following propositions (a) Genesis is non literal (b) Genesis is literal but biblical inerrancy is false. This means you have to make statements about other disciplines. But like you said “non science should not be taught in science classes” so neither (a) or (b) can be affirmed in science class which means one cannot justifiably in a science class claim evolution is true.
“The amount of scientific evidence against evolution is so vast I could never think it a true explanation of the diversity of life.”
This is ridiculous. This just is not true. There is no scientific evidence against evolution at all now.
Are you going to tell me that animals don’t adapt to their environment over time?
Are you going to tell me that each species is so unique that it cannot possibly be descended from a differerent anscestor having some other species as it’s descendants?
Or are you just denying evolution in a ‘macro’ sense because that affronts your sensibilities? Not exactly ‘scientific’.
Trouble with you guys is that you imagine old books to be the best, just because you feel that applies in your Scripture. That doesn’t work in science, ask Ken Miller, a devout Catholic, by the way.
Another incredible bit of theological “logic” from Matt:
“To say evolution is true one has to commit oneself to one of the following propositions (a) Genesis is non literal (b) Genesis is literal but biblical inerrancy is false. “
What a load of crap.
One can establish the truth or otherwise about reality without having to consult ancient mythology. Surely?
One looks at the evidence – and there is a huge amount of that in the case of evolutionary science.
Philosophically or epistompologically one, of course, can agree that in science we don’t usually talk about “truth” becuase our knowledge is always incomplete, amenable to new evidence and is improving all the time.
But in the vernacular some things become so obvious that only the most stupid contrarians would refuse to describe them as true. The fact of evolution is one of those.
“..suppose a biologist puts forward a particular theory lets call it X, a mathematician comes to the conclusion that the theory has mathematically impossible implications and so is false. Could we say that the mathematician was obviously, anti biology? ”
These ridiculous thought experiments of yours are so bogus. A biologist gets his math wrong? Are you completely insane?
Now why don’t you quit beating around the bush and tell us the ‘real’ so called discipline that might disagree with a biological theory.
My mind boggles with how fast and loose you are willing to play with words here. So a biologist makes a theory and all that that implies, has it peer-reviewed and accepted, then a mathematician comes along and says, “Nope, you forgot to divide by two there, WRONG!”, as if a theory is, once again a guess, an abductive inference.
Very disingenuous of you here, tch tch.
pboyfloyd
Sorry, I made a mistake, General Relativity is a theory of gravity not Special Relativity.
Other theories of gravity can be found here… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternatives_to_general_relativity
“Not that I think that you’re interested, but the ‘theory’ part of Gravity is that it is universal, and the ‘theory’ part of Evolution is that it is driven by natural selection.”
Wikipedia agrees with my definition of scientific theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory).
You appear to think of Evolution as both a theory and a phenomenon.
Pboyfloyd
I said “Pboyfloyd, when you say evolution is correct because it explains something you show its an abductive inference and not the phemonena being explained.”
You answered
”No, Matt, they’re not guessing. If they were, and it just coincidentally agreed with genetics, that would have been astonishing, yes?”
Read what I said again, I did not say it was “just guessing” I said it was based on an abductive inference, that is an argument to the best explanation, you yourself acknowledged this. An inference used to explain phenomena no matter how well established is still an explanation of the phenomena not the phenomena itself.
”Matt, Evolution is a fact. When we do it, it’s called farming. Of course all the different life forms on this planet didn’t get here by someone farming them, so the proffered method that Darwin theorized was Natural Selection. Some would call this same effect, adaptation**.
None of this shows that evolution is not an explanation of certain phenomena rather than the phenomena itself. Well esthablished explanations can be considered facts. Again you confuse the issue of wether a theory is true with wether one can justly claim it’s a phenomena as opposed to an explanation of the phenomena. Being right in your conclusions does not justify you making false claims about the epistemological status of the conclusions. Scientists would do well to note this.
”Now there are many disingenuous arguments out there by people who have no idea that Evolution is a fact or why we can plainly see that it is a fact, but so what? That’s what the classes are FOR, don’t you see?”
I see science classes are for showing that fundamentalist Christainity is false?
That actually was my point. Religious freedom is supposed to prevent the compulsory inculcation in children that their religious beliefs are false.
If I set up classes to show that atheism was false and required your children to attend them would that be compatible with your religious freedom? Why then is it Ok to do this with fundamentalists, apparently you think they don’t have the rights you do just because you think their religion is false.
“There are also relevant arguments about how the process actually works, and these are valid within the scientific community and certainly not failure of science or some opening for some ‘other discipline’ at all.”
This is quite mistaken, first the discipline of philosophy of science and the discipline of epistemology address these questions. Second, suppose science does work like Z and produces results Y. Another discipline correctly works according to Q and produces the result not Y. One can’t resolve this dispute by asking scientists think or asking how science works. We can only resolve it if we ask how two separate disciplines relate to each other and that is not a scientific question.
“Finally, there is one way, and one way only to prove that Evolution is false, and that doesn’t include misdefining words or appealing to some old book or by reasoning alone.”
That’s an assertion, suppose a book is (a) the word of God and suppose that books says (b) God did not used evolution, then one has reliable testimony that evolution is false. No empirical evidence is needed at all if (a) and (b) are the case.
The fact that scientists may not recognise this as a valid method does not mean its not a valid method. Scientist are not experts in religious epistemology.
Find the contradictory evidence and you’ll win a Nobel Prize. What could be simpler than that?
No all you need for the noble prize is to get elected by saying “yes we can” with really good rhetoric. And reading a teleprompter.
“I suppose Ray Comfort asking, “So where’s the crocodiles with ducks wings?”, is simpler, in a more simple-minded kind of way, but he’s not going to be lauded for advancing science with that kind of tripe now, is he??
I see last time it was find a Catholic geocentricist on the net, now its Ray Comfort, do you really think its honest to find the most silly or ridiculous example and fob it off as a mainstream example.
I could do the same with atheism, find the closest village idiot whose and atheist and claim his silliness proves something. It wouldn’t.
*No-one saw a wolf turn into a chiuaua, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, over many generations, as evolution works, right?
Well if I had made claims about Chiuauas and wolves this comment might be relevant. But I didn’t so its not.
Seems to me that the Young Earth Creationists have a huge dilemma which they’re willing to ignore, in that they claim just the kinds of amimals were on board the Ark and that those arch-types have evolved into all the different species we see today. A super-explosion of evolution is required from the presumed landing of the Ark, until present day.
Again if I were a young earth creationist or had advocated YEC this might make a point, but I am not and did not, so again this really has nothing to do with the conversation accept your ability to find silly straw men.
“This kind of thing leads me to believe that you are willing to ignore the science, misrepresent the science, constrain and nitpick any explanation of the science (abductive inference?), all for the sake of your ideological worldview. Not necessarilly for the Christian ideological worldview, mind you, unless you’re now going to admit that Catholics aren’t ‘real’ Christians???
Err No, I refered to an abductive inference because that’s what evolutionary theory is, that’s not a distortion or a lie you yourself said it was. As to my “distorting evidence” sorry no where did I make any claims about the evidence for evolution so again you are simply attacking things I never said.
What I did ask you is to explain how
(a) teaching atheists that fundamentalism is true in a public school
Can be a violation of ones freedom of religion
(b) teaching fundamentalists that fundamentalism is false in a public school.
Can not be, your only response seems to be that you think fundamentalism is false. Unfortunately freedom of religion is not limited to religious perspectives that are true. Its not a right to hold a true religion. It’s a right to hold a different religious perspective to those that may dominant. It exists precisely to protect unpopular religious minorities.
Define life, Matt, and unless you are anti-science, you can look up the definition of life and define life without quoting your Scripture.
I never said one needed to quote scripture to define life, but for the record I suspect that defining life is not as easy as citing a scientific definition. Most scientific definitions assume that all life is material and physical and that’s a controversial metaphysical claim.
Pboyfloyd
Whats bogus is the way you distort others writing.
These ridiculous thought experiments of yours are so bogus. A biologist gets his math wrong? Are you completely insane?
Well you ignored my logic example ( which is not far fetched). But I think your response above is quite revealing apparently you think biologists would never make mathamtical mistakes which a trained mathmatican would pick up any one who thinks biologists could ever do this are insane.
My mind boggles with how fast and loose you are willing to play with words here. So a biologist makes a theory and all that that implies, has it peer-reviewed and accepted, then a mathematician comes along and says, “Nope, you forgot to divide by two there, WRONG!”,
Well I did not use the example of a simple math equation such as dividing 2 by 2, that was what you wrote not me. It seems quite conceivable to me that a biologist could postulate a theory which had an implication he may or may not have thought about which could be falsified by complicated math. My point however is elsewhere, if he did would it be anti biology to accept the critique
” as if a theory is, once again a guess, an abductive inference.” Sorry an abductive inference is not a guess, perhaps you should understand things before you start making silly claims about them. There are three basic kinds of argument, deductive, inductive and abductive, all are inferences not guesses.
Now why don’t you quit beating around the bush and tell us the ‘real’ so called discipline that might disagree with a biological theory.
Because that’s not my position, my position is simply that science is not the only real discipline and its possible for some questions to overlap disciplines. When this happens its extremely arrogant for scientists to ignore what other disciplines say or dismiss them because they are a different discipline, and even more arrogant for high-school teachers, who frequently only have a BSocSci to do this.
Ken not “theological logic” just good old fashioned logic learnt in any first year text.
Its simply the observation that the conclusion of a logically valid argument can only be false if one of the premises is false.
Take the argument
[1] The Bible is inerrant
[2] Genesis taken literally teaches that evolution is false
[3] Genesis should be taken literally.
Now these three premises, by standard rules of logic, entail that
[4]evolution is false.
Hence the argument is formally valid.
If Ken wants I can put them into standard logical form and perform the derviation using first order logic if he likes.
So according to the normal rules of logic one can deny the conclusion [4] unless either [1], [2], or [3] is false. The falsity of [4] therefore entails the falsity of [1] [2] or [3].
You seem to have made the elementary mistake of thinking that shouting “crap” can falsify a valid argument. That’s a mistake as well.
It does however illustrate how some scientists arrogantly make comments about subjects they are not trained in and then say things about those subjects which any practioner of the subject can see is evidently false.
Ken so if Catholicism was taught to atheist students as “true” , or evolution was taught as merely “one way of understanding the world”. You’d have no problem?
Matt – crap is the right word as in “crap in crap out.” Anyone who can count to 3 can set up a logical argument to produce crap out of good logic. Just start with crap.
Exactly what you did with: “[1] The Bible is inerrant:”
The basic problem with theology – it is circular. It uses its conclusion for its premise.
As for: “If Catholicism was taught to atheist students as “true” , or evolution was taught as merely “one way of understanding the world”. ”
One would be lying then And most parents would be against teachers lying to their children.
Matt, your theology is confusing you. Teaching about religions and life stances is teaching about beliefs, customs,communities characteristics. Not facts.
Teaching science is teaching about facts and their use in theories which help to formulate and organise the facts.
Science is about reality. Religious/life stance education is about beliefs and customs.
Mind you – some of your lot would prevent you children from receiving religious/life style education (because it is not indoctrination in the “one true faith”) as well as science.
Hardly fair on innocent children, is it?
A last comment from me,
Matt, those aren’t examples of what I’m taking about. Of course research drawing on methods from other fields can be critqued by an expert in that field. But when could a theologian critque a scientific theory? More to the point, evolution (in the sense of universal commom descent) is a scientific fact, if you deny evolution for a religous reason then you are chosing religion over science and that sounds a lot like being anti-science.
But really, the scary thing for me in this thread is the way a lot of participants seem to think the goal of education is to instill a world-view into children. The goal of secular education isn’t to tell children religion is wrong, just to not let them aquire the tools to decide for themselves
And Reed. Considered probably evolution is both a fact (phenomenom if you want) and a theory.
Matt, I think you will find that most atheists have no problem whatsoever with their children being exposed to religion. You then ask whether we would have a problem with them being taught that Catholicism is true. Well … that would be selling them short, wouldn’t it? Why not teach them about all the word’s religions (and non-belief) and let them make up their own minds. I realize that is a radical notion to those who wish to indoctrinate their kids with their chosen dogma but I refuse to indoctrinate my kids.
“Well you ignored my logic example ( which is not far fetched).”
It IS far-fetched, Matt.
Biologists are not in the habit of waking up in the morning with an ‘aha!’ moment, writing it down, getting it peer reviewed and accepted as a theory, then a couple of days later getting a call from a mathematician that they’ve got their sums wrong!
It just doesn’t happen that way. I know this is likely news to a lot of commenters here, but you have to take my word for it. Really.
There is just so much wrong with the things you say Matt, I get a comment written and realize that I haven’t covered half of what I wanted to say.
So what that your logic can be perfect if your premises are wrong?
Still, I’m thinking that it is a definition problem. Since evolution is a life science, I’m thinking that all we need to know, to advance the conversation a bit, is how you define life.
How do you define life?
Pboyfloyd, if you think scientists never publish things which include subtle logical fallacies, or rely on logical inferences which are dubious or metaphysical errors or rely on false epistemological premises all of which would be fairly evident to a person in the relevant field you are gravely mistaken.
TAM how would you respond to the following argument, which btw defenders of ID have made:
I think you will find that many evangelicals have no problem whatsoever with their children being exposed to evolutionary theory. You then ask whether we would have a problem with them being taught that evolutionary theory is true. Well … that would be selling them short, wouldn’t it? Why not teach them about alternative understandings of origins and let them make up their own minds. I realize that is a radical notion to those who wish to indoctrinate their kids with their chosen dogma but I refuse to indoctrinate my kids.
I support TAMs’ comments from his 4.18pm post.
Namely, that as a teacher with some twenty odd years in the classroom, I feel that the latest changes to the NZ School Curriculum, that has the fostering of “Critical Thinking Skills” in pupils as an essential element, is to be applauded.
Personally I’m an atheist, but I would not want an atheistic indoctrination to take place, or a religious one, or a marxist one, etc.
We need our kids, of which I have two in the system at the moment, to be able now more than ever before, to be able to critically analyse the huge amount of information that we are bombarding them with on a daily basis, so that they can decide for themselves what they decide to believe.
This of course, then leads to the next challenge and that is to have a consistent, unbiased delivery of such content.
Now that opens up a whole new set of problems!
“I think you will find that most atheists have no problem whatsoever with their children being exposed to religion. You then ask whether we would have a problem with them being taught that Catholicism is true. Well … that would be selling them short, wouldn’t it?”
Precisely my problem with secularism being privileged in our primary schools TAM – teaching them from within the framework of secularism being true would be selling them short, wouldn’t it?
“Why not teach them about all the word’s religions (and non-belief) and let them make up their own minds.”
Why not indeed? I pay taxes to schools I don’t use because they operate from within a “secularism is true” framework and instead we forgo one income to do exactly this with our children. Why do we have to suffer financial penalties that secular families do not? Because secularism is being privileged in New Zealand.
“I realize that is a radical notion to those who wish to indoctrinate their kids with their chosen dogma but I refuse to indoctrinate my kids.”
I could not agree more TAM.
Paul I agree with your 6.10pm post. But how are we to achieve this if schools must be shut down in order for religious theory to be taught?
Madeleine,
Given your latest comment, you appear to have ignored the info I supplied concerning NZ Schools funding in my post yesterday, so I’ll repeat it again for you.
@ 11.21am you said:
“So in order for me to have my kids educated according to my views I must pay over and above my taxes for private or integrated education or simply forgo an income and home educate them. The Education Act places a burden on religious parents that does not fall on secular parents”.
This, of course, is not completely true, as there are three types of school: state, private (or registered or independent) and state integrated schools. State and state integrated schools are government funded. Private schools receive about 25% of their funding from the government,[5] and rely on tuition fees for the rest. State integrated schools are former private schools which are now “integrated” into the state system under the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act 1975 [6] “on a basis which will preserve and safeguard the special character of the education provided by them”. According to Independent Schools New Zealand, an advocacy group for private schools, about 86% of all school-aged children attend state schools, 10% attend state integrated schools and 4% attend private schools.[5] In addition, parents may home school their own children if they can prove that their child will be “…taught at least as regularly and as well as in a registered school…”,[7] and are given an annual grant[7] to help with costs, including services from The Correspondence School. The percentage of children home schooled is well under 2% even in the Nelson region, the area where it is most popular,[8] but there are many local and national support groups.[9][10]
So, whatever choice you or any other parent makes for their children educationally, myself and every other Kiwi taxpayer, will be contributing towards that choice.
Madeleine,
You said:
“The reality is that we live in a pluralistic society with a plurality of views. In such a society we need to make policies that are fair to all. It is not ok to rule one set of beliefs in society to the backseat and another to the front. All views should be on the table. You don’t solve plurality by having the state adopt and operate from predominantly one view.”
To achieve this and given your perspective, I would suggest the adoption of a similar model to the one put forward by the British Humanist Association, namely that “all pupils in all types of school should have the opportunity to consider philosophical and fundamental questions, and that in a pluralist society we should learn about each other’s beliefs, including humanist ones”.[9] They would like to see a reformed subject such as “Belief and Values Education” which was inclusive of secular positions and – unlike Religious Education at present – covered by the national curriculum. For many years they have also supported local humanist volunteers on the SACRE bodies which currently determine the RE syllabus for each local authority area.
This would then become an integral part of the normal school timetable, such as the Health component that already exists.
@ pboy
“..suppose a biologist puts forward a particular theory lets call it X, a mathematician comes to the conclusion that the theory has mathematically impossible implications and so is false. Could we say that the mathematician was obviously, anti biology? ”
These ridiculous thought experiments of yours are so bogus. A biologist gets his math wrong? Are you completely insane
You do realise dont you that this is pretty much exactly what happened with Sir Fred Hoyle.
His calculations led him to beleive that evolution as described simply didnt have enough time [given the age of earth] to have happened. He proposed some ideas about panspermia/ aliens seeding planets with life to bypass the lack of available time..
Also Dr Werner Gitt has published on the disparity between Information Theory and Evolution.
And as a negative example Richard Dawkins showed an embarrassingly complete misunderstanding of probability theory in “Climbing Mount Improbable.
So no comment one way or the other on the above, but its not a bogus thought experiment. The very problem Matt suggests happens in science not infrequently at all.
Madeleine you have a completely dishonest understanding of “secularism” to call it “privileged.”
“Secularism” refers to arrangements and moral outlook making possible for people with different religious and non-religious persuasions to live together.
To rant against “secularism” as you do is to oppose harmony in our pluraidt society and to desire imposition of your own religious views on all.
Secularism works in everyones favor – religious and non-religious. The alternative is either a theocracy or an atheocracy (to coin a word). Just like dictatorship is the alternative to democracy.
Secularism does not work in everyone’s favour Ken. It affronts my religion. Not only do you misunderstand secularism and privilege but you also misunderstand religion – particularly Christianity.
You also misunderstand the alternatives, you wrote “To rant against “secularism” as you do is to oppose harmony in our pluralist society and to desire imposition of your own religious views on all.”
For the tenth time in this thread, I do not seek to privilege religion, I am advocating for dialogic pluralism – you’ll note the term being used multiple times in my post. Try to grasp that there are other positions out there.
Paul only state schools are fully funded, I’m yet to discover an integrated school that doesn’t ask for a few grand per child per year plus uniforms, plus fund-raising commitments. Private schools are even more expensive and home education requires one parent to forgo full-time work – the bi-annual payments are only about $390 for the first child then a sliding scale from there – hardly makes up for the lack of income.
The only ‘free’ option are state schools and what are they again? Secular.
For any taxpayer who finds secularism an affront to their beliefs, as it is for me, a Christian, then my only option to be able to live in accord with my beliefs is to either compromise them or pay more. No secular parent in NZ is in this position.
Ken wrote “Madeleine you have a completely dishonest understanding of “secularism” to call it “privileged.””
Section 77 Education Act 1964 “…the teaching shall be entirely of a secular character.”
Entirely secular means there is no room for any other viewpoint.
The Education Act privileges the viewpoint of secularism over every other viewpoint.
I have to pay more than every secular taxpayer to educate my children in a way that is compatible with my beliefs.
Secular parents have a financial advantage that Christian parents do not.
Who is being dishonest Ken?
You are the one telling the Christians that secularism does not affront their beliefs – I suppose you know more about what we believe than we do – is that yet another other omniscient science power we are not aware of?
Madeleine,
Firstly, I completely agree that you have to pay more if you choose a private or state integrated school, but the point I was making, is that ALL NZ taxpayers still contribute towards those schools.
In addition, virtually all fully funded state schools ask for a donation, have costs related to uniform, etc and put pressure on their parent community to help with fund raising.
In fact, generally speaking, the higher the decile rating, the higher the expectation with regard to parents helping support the school financially, so I wouldn’t agree with your definition as to them being “free” as being true either.
Secondly, do you have any thouights about my perspective regarding the adoption of the “Values & Beliefs” proposal of the British Humanist association?
I think that this is even more important given the multi-cultural make-up of NZ, that will see children of hugely varying beliefs and values being thrown together.
I would advocate that unless we can allow them to understand each others perspectives better, we are simply setting up problems for later, which could have dire consequences given what has happened in some other countries with large immigrant populations.
bethyada The amount of scientific evidence against evolution is so vast I could never think it a true explanation of the diversity of life.
pboyfloyd This is ridiculous. This just is not true. There is no scientific evidence against evolution at all now.
None? Zero? There is absolutely nothing in all the data we have collected in the world that may be difficult to reconcile with the theory of evolution?
You are a public education success story. 🙂
Are you going to tell me that animals don’t adapt to their environment over time?
My original post mentioned the grand theory of evolution. I agree that animals adapt, and change. That offspring differ from their parents has been known since time immemorial. Theories about artificial then natural selection antedate Darwin, and natural selection was advocated by creationists prior to Darwin.
Darwin claimed that animals that were never related are derived from common ancestors. He also claims the mechanism for the same is natural selection. I dispute this claim. I deny Darwin’s hypothesis. Unfortunately these 2 processes, observable variation acknowledged by all, and common ancestry have been given the same term—evolution. Macro- and micro- evolution lack accuracy, but suffice for the discussion.
Are you going to tell me that each species is so unique that it cannot possibly be descended from a differerent anscestor having some other species as it’s descendants?
There is a category of difference that shows that one type of animal never came from another. Goats and sheep may have derived from the same animal and mutation may make it difficult for them to interbreed now, but a falcon was never a reptile.
Or are you just denying evolution in a ‘macro’ sense because that affronts your sensibilities? Not exactly ‘scientific’.
I deny it because there is no scientific evidence for it. And I dispute it because it contradicts what we no about the degenerative nature of information transfer.
I am cautious about how far to take this diversion. It is a common diversion and only tangentially related to the post.
But it serves to note that whatever people may think about the theological implications of evolution, there is the objection that teaching children evolution by common descent is teaching bad science.
Matthew Flannagan You seem to have made the elementary mistake of thinking that shouting “crap” can falsify a valid argument.
Well that is my Monday quote for tomorrow!
Madeleine – care to describe the difference between “secularism” and “dialogic pluralism”?
Surely it is silly to claim “secular means there is no room for any other viewpoint” when “secular” arrangements are inclusive. They enable all the religious and non-religious viewpoints to exist and interact because none is given privilege.
That fact that you rant against ” secularism” exposes your motive of desiring privilege for your own ideological viewpoint,
“Secularism” is not a viewpoint. it is an arrangement which allows co-existence of different viewpoints by denying special privilege to any of them.
“Secularism is the concept that government or other entities should exist separately from religion and/or religious beliefs.”
And of COURSE this is an affront to your beliefs, Madeleine, of course it is. As you have mentioned, your kids not learning your beliefs in school is an affront to you and no doubt Christianity not being a tax funded state religion is an affront to you.
That’s hardly Ken’s fault, and that exchange and a few to me from Matt shows just how rabidly you two will argue your points, never allowing any point to go unchallenged.
Matt, I noticed that you refuse to give a definition for life. I’m sure you have one, and I’m sure that it has God in there somewhere. That stuff about scientists being wrong epistemologically and metaphysically is a dead giveaway that you seem to want science to include your dualist philosophy, basically forcing at least the science taught in schools to include or be compromized with the inspired revelations of your choice, no doubt.
You ‘simply’ want the science taught to all children to be harmonized with your scriptures, isn’t that right?
Evolution would just phase into Intelligent Design, now, tell the truth, wouldn’t it? Because there is no compromise with people as thin skinned and fanatical as you, is there, be honest??
You’re a soldier of Christ and you’re out to win! Tell us the truth, don’t hide your agenda of Christianizing government and government bodies such as schools behind the vaguer ‘religion’ now.
Tell the truth, you’d like to abolish the public school system and go back to some mythological age where the school marm taught the kids to be good Good xenophobic Christians, where to be good or evil meant only that one was or wasn’t following their teachings of what was good and evil,that being exactly equal to being Godly or evil.
Oh, and yea, no relationship between a falcon and a lizard eh?
You do KNOW that feathers are adapted scales, right? Wonder what the genes of a falcon and a lizard have to say about there being ‘no relationship’?
Or are geneticists making it up as they go along too? Perhaps the field of genetics ought to be reserved for only the truest of true believers who might use it to help defend us against evil bacteria and viruses but never to compare ‘kinds’ of animals. Such a thing being ‘Satan’s’ work, right?
Some dictionary definitions for Ken – the first 5 that came up on google:
From the free dictionary:
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary:
WordIQ:
Your Dictionary:
WordNet:
Apparently Christians are supposed to be able to live in harmony with a viewpoint that “rejects religion, esp in ethics,” and thinks that “religion should not be involved in the organization of society,” “that disregards or rejects any form of religious faith and worship.”
Christianity is supposed to be compatible with the idea that “one’s own life can be best lived, and the universe best understood, with little or no reference to a god” and “a doctrine that rejects religion and religious considerations.”
Forcing Christians to live under a state with this view, making them pay taxes to it is upholding freedom of religion and free exercise only if you drink Tui.
Re bethyada’s little problem with falcons and reptiles. There’s a nice little facility at timetree.org using genetic data to work out common ancestors. Reptile is too vague but the data shows that a common ancestor of the falcon and snake (Congo snake) lived 360.5 million years ago ( mitochondrial shows 356.1 and nuclear DNA shows 362.8 Mya)
OK Madeleine, you have shown us how you can select definitions from dictionaries to fit your bias (and avoid the descriptions I have given).
Now tell us how the NZ Education act defines “secular.” After all this is the specific meaning you are objecting to in practice.
Wow, Madeleine, some of those definitions seem to have been written by people with the exact same axe as you to grind.
It is so easy to Capitalize a word, Atheism for example, and assume opposite dogma and doctrine for it. You are all constrained to love God, therefore Atheism must promote God-hating.
“Apparently Christians are supposed to be able to live in harmony with a viewpoint that “rejects religion, esp in ethics,” and thinks that “religion should not be involved in the organization of society,”
Seems to me that you are proposing a compromise of sorts, where non-religious people just have to live in a society that is inoffensive to you.
But there’s no compromise between magical thinking and non-magical thinking at all. Describing reality without various god-beliefs is just what modern science does no matter if you try to create an agenda for it by dragging the argument into philosophy and beating it with that stick.
Certainly the rulers of Western Capitalism feel that they have epistemic warrant to be the rulers of society, and religion is, at least part of this.
How could I know this? Seems preposterous? Well, there’s you Madeleine, slipping in that you are affronted, at least partly because your taxes might be supporting the spread of the terrible godless science, that science is overstepping it’s boundaries because it clashes with your worldview and that scientific theories ought to be forced to pander to your religious beliefs.
I feel I ought to be affronted by this, but it’s hardly surprising. Of course the rich and the powerful want to compromise with the poor and the weak by being affronted at the notion of any compromise.
This is exactly what is wrong with secularism, isn’t it? It is a compromise that you are not willing to make.
I typed ‘secularism definition’ into Google and copied and pasted the first 5 dictionary results. That is not selective selection Ken, neither is it an axe to grind Pboyfloyd, it is simply just what the first 5 definitions said.
Perhaps Ken, you should write to Google and ask for your definition to be ranked first.
Regardless, any viewpoint that requires me to omit God from all I do, to not place Him first, to not be permitted to bring His will, His laws for any situation or task into every single thing I do, is a viewpoint at odds with my faith. This is what you do not get. You seem to think that asking a Christian to turn this off or leave it at home is something that is compatible with their faith. It is not. It is an affront to their faith.
You wrote: “Now tell us how the NZ Education act defines “secular.” After all this is the specific meaning you are objecting to in practice.”
The drafters of the Act made their understanding of what it means for teaching to “be entirely of a secular character” very clear in s78:
I have italicised the key parts, which brought together with the key parts of s77 tell us:
77 In every State primary school … the teaching shall be entirely of a secular character.
78 the school as a whole, may be closed … for the purposes of religious instruction given by voluntary instructors
Before I begin the legal analysis I will clarify a legal interpretation 101 basic: where an Act does not include a term in a definitions section (as with the Education Act 1964) that term is to be interpreted by: 1) precedent.
Where there is no precedent, 2) context, words take their meaning by surrounding words and clauses, they are not to be read in isolation. 3) Their plain and usual meaning according to a dictionary.
Setting precedent aside for a minute, let’s start with context which anyone with a law degree should be able to do immediately without having to log into a legal database (it is good practice to do this first then check to see where the court has settled the matter):
Read together 78 tells us precisely what “secular” in 77 means. If 77 was to mean that secular teaching meant that all viewpoints could be taught as theories in state schools then there would be no need for 78, no need at all to close the school and use volunteers to teach religious theory.
Only secularism must be taught all the time – if you want to teach religion the complicated procedure of closing the school and not using any staff member on the state tab must be engaged.
In addition to showing a clear preference or privileging of the viewpoint Secularism over the viewpoint Religion, this demonstrates clearly that the view of secularism the Education Act subscribes to is something along the lines of the dictionary definitions that were a the top of Google’s list – like the Oxford’s “the belief that religion should not be involved in… education.” The Oxford definition conflicts with the most important commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” There is no room in this commandment for omitting God from anything we do.
A brief look at the precedent and commentary for the meaning of secular in the Education Act bears this out, secular means not religion, no prayers, no invoking of God, no religious instruction.
“You do realise dont you that this is pretty much exactly what happened with Sir Fred Hoyle.
His calculations led him to beleive that evolution as described simply didnt have enough time..”
Sir Fred Hoyle, the great biologist, whose theory of biology was peer reviewed and accepted by mainstream biology until some mathematician proved him wrong??
Too bad we didn’t have some means of verifying whether Fred Hoyle was a biologist, whether he ever had a mainstream biological theory.
And he was proven wrong by mathematics, you say.(a bad guesstimate)
(Doesn’t this just prove that any authority can get his/her view on any subject into public discourse, especially if it rails against godless science?)
Guess this opens the door to suggesting that all science which doesn’t or can’t have a little Christian apology added on the end must be bad science, as Matt seems to be suggesting.
David
I think you missed my point… my comments to pboyfloyd were only to point out that it is flawed to compare evolution (in the context of evolution being referred to as “just a theory”) to gravity because gravity is not a theory.
If pboyfloyd wants to make a legitimate comparison he should compare “evolution” to “general relativity” or to some other actual theory that he considers is as well established as evolution.
“..if the School Committee .. after consultation with the Principal, so determines…any class..or.the school as a whole, may be closed..for the purposes of religious instruction given by voluntary instructors approved by the School Committee and of religious observances conducted in a manner approved by the School Committee.”
So the Committee and the Principal can organise a Xmas Concert or somesuch.
And this is a bad thing as far as you’re concerned?
I don’t think you actually read the gist of that, being so affronted at reading the words ‘school closed’ that you didn’t notice it was for the purpose of letting the school be used FOR religious purposes, and not closing the school in the event of the school being used for religious purposes.
What’s wrong with you? You’re going to look into the legal ramifications??? Are you nuts?
Quit this nitpicking Reed. Just look up Theory of Gravity.
Pboyfloyd in the same way that I would not presume to tell Ken how to analyse soil samples or Matt how to analyse Scripture, stick to your knitting when it comes to legal analysis…
Ken Perott on freedom of speech in public:
“Non-religious people have the right to be free from interference by religious people and organisations, freedom from proselytising,”
http://www.aen.org.nz/journal/2/2/AENJ.2.2.Perrott.pdf
The Bill of Rights on freedom of speech in public:
Section 15: “Every person has the right to manifest that person’s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, or teaching, either individually or in community with others, and either in public or in private.”
Of course there’s nothing stopping school staff, in their capacity as religious volunteers in forcing their students to sit through an Easter Sermon(for example), in a technically ‘closed school’, because no one mentioned to the kids that they didn’t have to.
Who, in their right mind would announce that Religious Education is strictly voluntary to a bunch of kids? They’d end up preaching to a bunch of empty chairs.
And if some students happen to not agree that this Religious ‘Education’ is necessary for them, there’s always ‘glowering’, ‘stunned silence’, and affront that they’d imagine for a second that the teacher doesn’t know best, right?
We can only imagine that conversation, “You WILL sit and listen to this preacher!”, “But it’s voluntary!”, “Yes, I’m forced to be here, technically off the clock, so what, this is still school and I’m still in charge!”, “But school is closed!”, “How do you know that, who told you that, what kind of Atheist told you THAT??”
“Volunteer” threatens kids with punishment, demands letters of permission from parents for excuse from religious services and grumbles that he cannot claim these hours as tax-free since he/she is technically off the clock.
Seems to me though, that your school rules, although technically secular, are bending over backwards to give raging theists the opportunity to make their case to the kids.
What could be the reason for Madeleine’s outrage here? That the school would need to perform these word ‘acrobatics’ simply to indoctrinate the kids?? Perhaps it is an affront to Madeleine that teachers are allowed to choose whether they are Christians or not?
So what is your point Murph? Seems to me that secular authority is willing to walk that line between recognizing that a lot of people are religious and them helping those religious people proselytize to captive audiences.
Indeed we ought to have all the, “Pfft, so much for GOD!” s out of any school texts and I’m guessing we do. But you guys aren’t happy with that, no. Your not going to be happy until God is wedged INTO school texts, right?
Pboyfloyd wrote: “Of course there’s nothing stopping school staff, in their capacity as religious volunteers in forcing their students to sit through an Easter Sermon(for example), in a technically ‘closed school’”
Ah, yes there is, it is called the Education Act 1964 and the Bill of Rights Act 1990. Then there is the precedent of Rich v Christchurch Girls High and the Human Rights Commission guidelines and the Ministry of Justice and Education guidelines.
Ignorance of the law aside, you miss entirely my point. I was not objecting to the fact there is not compulsory religious instruction in schools – something I do not support as I have said repeatedly both in the original post where I endorsed a no privileges, no penalties or opt out approach and in the comments.
My point is that all these qualifications placed on religious instruction are not placed on any instruction that comes from an overtly secular viewpoint. There is no requirement to close the school if Christian students are being instructed in a secular perspective, nor is there a requirement to bring in volunteers. On the contrary, what is considered a violation of someone’s rights when it is a religious person instructing a non-religious person is actually legislated policy when a secular person instructs a religious person. The asymmetry and privileging of secularism is glaringly obvious.
Again, I am not calling for a reversal of this practice, I am calling for symmetry,
Matt asks how I would respond to the following argument: I think you will find that many evangelicals have no problem whatsoever with their children being exposed to evolutionary theory. You then ask whether we would have a problem with them being taught that evolutionary theory is true. Well … that would be selling them short, wouldn’t it? Why not teach them about alternative understandings of origins and let them make up their own minds. I realize that is a radical notion to those who wish to indoctrinate their kids with their chosen dogma but I refuse to indoctrinate my kids.
Matt, I have no problem with kids learning the theory of evolution also being provided with an explanation of the “theory” put forward by IDers as long as that explanation also included a copy of Kitzmiller v. Dover.
@pboy
Sometimes your sarcasm and lack of reading comprehension skills discredit you and make your replies rather ignorant.
Sir Fred Hoyle was an astronomer and mathematician whose expertise in these scientific fields lead him into direct conflict with aspects of chemical evolutionary biology. ie a science vs science conflict with no religion involved. Evolutionary biologists reject his maths but that just proves they are expert biologists rather than expert mathematicians. Who is right is open to debate, they may both be. It does however provide a modern example of different scientific disciplines reaching contradictory conclusions, which was the thought experiment Matt proposed and you ridiculed. An apology might be in order.
“Quit this nitpicking Reed. Just look up Theory of Gravity.”
Its possible to live as though evolution is “just a theory”, trying to live as though gravity is “just a theory” would probably be lethal, hardly nitpicking !!
You’re asking for the impossible, Madeleine, and I think that you know this, your supporters know this, that you know your detractors know this, yet you just keep trying to tell us all that this is reasonable.
Example. If I started a class in magic. 40 kids show up and start learning how do do magic tricks. Where am I supposed to inject ‘God’ into this to satisfy your ‘need’ to have it not be ‘predisposed’ to secularism???
You see? You seem to be wanting classes to be artificially injected with, or artificially be taught from a Christian perspective. But I don’t believe that your perspective is a particularly normal or average view.
We don’t all foam at the mouth at the thought of teachers not assuming every student would be being done an injustice(or every student’s mom and dad) if every class didn’t start with, “Today, it is God’s Will that you learn (whatever).”
I happen to think that whatever you decide to do is YOUR will, and it would be doing youngsters an injustice to force them to imagine that their life decisions are simply them complying to another’s will. Seems to me that that kind of thinking is open to abuse. For example, someone believing that it is God’s Will that they gun down an abortionist, when it is Pro-Lifer’s will that ‘someone’ ought to gun down abortionists or that it is perhaps not a bad thing to gun down abortionists.
This exact same indoctrination and brainwashing is abhorred when other religions do it..
I’m saying that some of these kinds of incidents are cases of people being brainwashed into giving their life over to a political cause in the name of something else entirely.
Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy.
“Sir Fred Hoyle was an astronomer and mathematician whose expertise in these scientific fields lead him into direct conflict with aspects of chemical evolutionary biology. ie a science vs science conflict with no religion involved. ”
Matt proposed that there could be a biologist with a biological theory which might be disproved by someone in an entirely different discipline, for example mathematics.
Madeleine suggested that Sir Fred Hoyle was, in fact, this exact scenario.
Basically, I said no.
“Evolutionary biologists reject his maths but that just proves they are expert biologists rather than expert mathematicians.”
Indeed I think that we ARE agreeing that people belonging to other disciplines do NOT contradict theories of people in other disciplines, which I’ve been trying to say to Matt all along.
” Who is right is open to debate, they may both be.”
It’s fine by me if that is what you want to think, but then this case is NOT a case of a member of one discipline disproving a theory of another discipline at all then, is it??
” It does however provide a modern example of different scientific disciplines reaching contradictory conclusions, which was the thought experiment Matt proposed and you ridiculed.”
What? Just because you can conclude with the equivalent of ‘you’re wrong’, doesn’t make me wrong. You practically ridiculed Matt’s thought experiment right along with me without even noticing.
” An apology might be in order.”
Well, I’m not holding my breath for an apology from you guys, but it’d be nice, sure.
Murph – thanks very much for the two quotes (and providing the link to my article):
“Non-religious people have the right to be free from interference by religious people and organisations, freedom from proselytising,”
http://www.aen.org.nz/journal/2/2/AENJ.2.2.Perrott.pdf
The Bill of Rights on freedom of speech in public:
Section 15: “Every person has the right to manifest that person’s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, or teaching, either individually or in community with others, and either in public or in private.”
I think these stress important points about secularism:
1:The rights to freedom of religion, belief, speech conscience, etc., and,
2: The right to not have dogma, belief imposed on one. To be free of coercion in representation, etc.
That is that the pusuance of human rights by one individual or group should not violate the human rigthts of another person or group.
These principles are important to the way we run our society – including arrangements for education.
Every religion, life stance, belief system has the right to participate, as equals, in public debates, to put forward its position for democratic consideration. Such consideration should be on the merits of the arguments. This carries the responsibility of recognising the right of the majority to determine final decisions. Also that these decisions not abrogate the right of minorities. The implication of this is that in the area of state customs, celebrations, work customs, etc., that no one belief is imposed on all (even if that belief is held by the majority of the population), no one belief is presented as held by all (as in for example public prayers imposed on everyone in a work place or non-sectarian public gathering and in the language used by state officials).
So secularism provides for everyone’s rights, enables everyone to participate in public discussion and to perform their own social, ethnic and religious rituals. But at the same time as respecting those rights it also respects the rights of others with different beliefs.
On the one hand this will usually mean that public and state celebrations are either devoid of minority (and majority) religious and life stance beliefs (we can see this with the development of inclusive ceremonies and celebrations in our society – for instance most Christmas celebrations). Or that in some situations attempts are made to include a range of such beliefs and life stances to encourage both diversity and unity.
This seems to me completely reasonable and respectful to all. I think most religious people actually accept this secular arrangement (although many ignore the fact that they often exclude non-religious life stances from the celebration of diversity – mind you it’s up to those with those life-stances to be a bit more assertive).
There are some religious people who don’t accept this – who wish to impose, for example ,Christian or Muslim prayers on state organisations, state and non-sectarian public celebrations, work place situations, etc.. They violate our bill of rights because freedom of religion and belief does not mean freedom to impose these or represent others as having them. Because to do so violates these very rights for others
I suggest Madeleine is promoting that undemocratic attitude with her unjustified tirade against secularism. Against these rights described in the bill of rights.
Think about Madeleine. Can you describe a single way your human right to pursue your freedom of your religion and its expression (with the qualification that its does not violate these same rights for others) is violated in our secular society?
Madeleine – for Christs sake be specific about what you mean by a secular viewpoint. I don’t see it as an ideological viewpoint at all – it is a democratic organisation of society.
For example – do you describe science as “a secular viewpoint.”? Social studies? PE? religious education? Biology? Mathematics? (What else do they teach at school; these days).
Perhaps you mean anything that isn’t religious instruction. or dogma. Your religious instruction or dogma.
“..it is called the Education Act 1964 and the Bill of Rights Act 1990.”
There’s nothing stopping fanatical, religious mouth-foamers from breaking secular law, since they disagree with it.
Another instance of Christians taking both sides of an issue at the same time here, I see.
Your case reference there seems to agree with me that the religious have ‘bin there, done that’ and got caught at least once. I think that it is fair to assume that the defendant in that case pleaded, “Doing God’s Will.”, no?
(No, of course it isn’t fair, that would necessitate you agreeing with me on a trivial point, wouldn’t it?)
Here you seem to be suggesting that no one speeds because there are laws against it, and such.
““Quit this nitpicking Reed. Just look up Theory of Gravity.”
Its possible to live as though evolution is “just a theory”, trying to live as though gravity is “just a theory” would probably be lethal, hardly nitpicking !!”
What does whether it’s possible to live as though evolution is ‘just a theory’ have anything to do with theory of evolution being exactly equivalent (not just analoguous) to the theory of gravity.
It’s the ‘just a theory’ versus ‘scientific theory’ that we were discussing in the first place, and it seems to me that one may well live their entire life being anti-science if one wishes or one may live their life believing that science is explaining reality, but one cannot do BOTH at the same time.
Seems to me that we especially cannot aver that we are certainly not anti-science, but that Evolution is ‘just a theory’, if it has been explained that it is no such thing.
Would kind of be like me saying, “There are no gods, not even one, thank God.”
Get over it … theory of evolution is just not that necessary for day to day life. Hardly anything (if any at all) needs theory of evolution. On the other hand, you can’t build anything much without understanding of gravity.
Evolution is virtually unobservable. Some bacterias ‘developing’ enzyme to digest things they normally could not is probably as far as we can observe.
If anything, evolution theory is breeding ground for psychos believing they improve human gene pool by killing the weak and helpless.
Ken I have given a very clear explanation as to what I mean by secular viewpoint above and in my new blog post, The NZARH and the Privileging of Secularism.
@ pboy
Which part of, Fred Hoyles mathematics directly conflicted with evolutionary biology, did you not understand . Its pretty simple the maths disagreed with evolution.
One science discipline disagreeing/disputing/reaching different conclusions than another science discipline over the same subject matter.
So no we are not in any kind of agreement and Matts thought experiment stil has real world examples.
Monday quote…
You seem to have made the elementary mistake of thinking that shouting “crap” can falsify a valid argument. Matthew Flannagan…
Jeremy.
I know I said I was done here, but you have your example backwards. No one disagrees with Hoyle’s maths (how could you disagree with exponentiation or multiplication!). Biologists disagree with the biological assumption upon which his calculations are based.
(And he was kind of nuts, which doesn’t matter if you’re right, but he wasn’t)
” Who is right is open to debate, they may both be.”
It’s fine by me if that is what you want to think, but then this case is NOT a case of a member of one discipline disproving a theory of another discipline at all then, is it??
Actually if they are both right it could simply mean a third set of factors are involved that neither is aware of, which would effectively mean they are right but for the wrong reasons. This of course is unacceptable and would leave both positions unproven and subject to dismissal until further evidence was found.
However you are being deliberately obtuse again, the comment
” Who is right is open to debate, they may both be.”
was simply me not taking sides within the example given.
Madeleine – I asked a specific question which would ahve been simple for you to answer:
“What do you mean by a secular viewpoint. I don’t see it as an ideological viewpoint at all – it is a democratic organisation of society.
For example – do you describe science as “a secular viewpoint.”? Social studies? PE? religious education? Biology? Mathematics? (What else do they teach at school; these days).
Perhaps you mean anything that isn’t religious instruction. or dogma. Your religious instruction or dogma.”
Why avoid it?
OK you have produced two articles in a row attacking secularism – you obviously are on a roll, carrying out a campaign. And that needs to be countered.
But if you can’t actually answer that question – what is the whole point?
Anon – “Get over it … theory of evolution is just not that necessary for day to day life. Hardly anything (if any at all) needs theory of evolution. On the other hand, you can’t build anything much without understanding of gravity.”
Isn’t that silly. Humans have built amazing constructions without understanding gravity. We understood the heliocentric solar system without understanding gravity. We didn’t need to wait for Newton and Einstein to do that.
And yes humans have been involved in domesticating animals and plants, in agriculture for at least 10,000 years. We didn’t need to understand the theories underlying evolution – we just observed it in practice.
“Evolution is virtually unobservable. Some bacterias ‘developing’ enzyme to digest things they normally could not is probably as far as we can observe.”
Well we have been observing it, and using it, for over 10,000 years. Even though we didn’t understand it.
As for your breeding ground for psychos – perhaps you have something there. Those in denial often show psychological problems. Or is that just a factor of their religion?
“Which part of, Fred Hoyles mathematics directly conflicted with evolutionary biology, did you not understand ”
Hey, which part of, “any idiot can say that” don’t you understand.
It doesn’t matter that an authority in another field CAN dispute scientific theories, it matters if they REFUTE scientific theories in those other fields.
Matt’s thought experiment surely just doesn’t leave them debating whether the mathematician is right or no.
His thought experiment might as well be a biological theory versus anyone who wants to say, “I dunno about that.”
Hey, maybe that’s exactly what Matt was getting at?
Take the Theory of Evolution versus, yea, anyone who wants to say, “I dunno about that.”
Still, that ‘other discipline’ thing went for a long walk.
Another thing about this ridiculous argument that we seem to be failing to address is the fact that scientific fields are not strangers to mathematics in the least, so in Matt’s thought experiment he is kind of cheating.
To put it simply, there’s a good reason why science students are known to say stuff like, “I’m doing fine, but the math is hard.”, and not stuff like, “I cannot wrap my head around biology since God seems to be missing.”, or, “It doesn’t seem to be God’s Will that I become a biologist.”
Oops! Cat’s out of the bag now, I guess.
Matt – crap is the right word as in “crap in crap out.” Anyone who can count to 3 can set up a logical argument to produce crap out of good logic. Just start with crap.
Problem is Ken freedom of religion is not limited to only those views you consider crap. The fact someone express a view you think is crap does not mean they have no freedom of religion.
Exactly what you did with: “[1] The Bible is inerrant:”
The basic problem with theology – it is circular. It uses its conclusion for its premise.
that would be a valid answer if “the bible is inerrant” is the conclusion theologians argue to.
That would be no more circular than assuming science is a reliable method in ones theorising. After all attempts to prove with scientific reasoning that science is reliable is also circular.
As for: “If Catholicism was taught to atheist students as “true” , or evolution was taught as merely “one way of understanding the world”. ”
One would be lying then And most parents would be against teachers lying to their children.
I see, so apparently you think freedom of religion only applies to those who hold the true religious perspective. because creationists and Catholics do not one can discriminate against them. Got it.
TAM wrote “Kitzmiller v. Dover” I see one must learn bad legal reasoning in school must they?
Funny how those who demand accuracy and truth in schools are so quick to want to teach pop philosophy of science when it suits there agenda.
Why not a series of lessons on the realist and anti realist debate in Philosophy of science, so students can learn that there is debate over wether science actually gives a true picture of the world or merely is a useful model for empirical prediction.
Why not let them learn about Kuhn’s work on how science works within paradigms and does not in fact follow the evidence where it leads but in fact works with in a paradigm and continues to do so when the evidence is against it. Or the studies that suggest theories are usually advocated before the evidence is avalible for them, the evidence often being discovered decades latter. These are all well known studies and issues within secular Philosophy of science.
Instead we should give them Dover.
Matt, I would applaud any high school that made philosophy a compulsory part of their curriculum.
Hey Madeline, stumbled across this through your involvement in the “religion and the public square” discussion you’re to participate in next month.
I did my LLB Hons seminar paper on the freedom of religion in New Zealand; very cool to see someone else at Auckland get amongst it! Was wondering – who have you got as your supervisor? Best of luck with your LLM, hope it’s going smoothly.
The question of who is my supervisor is rather up in the air at the moment. Because of the nature of the topic and the fact that the most obvious supervisors both have large chunks of sabbatical looming, the theory is that I will have 3 supervisors. I say theory as it does not yet seem clear precisely how to effect that… The three are: Paul Rishworth, Richard Ekins (both law faculty) and Chris Tucker (philosophy faculty).
While I am waiting for it all to be sorted I am just getting on with knocking off the compulsory Law 788 requirement and getting my resources together and my reading started.
Anyway glad to hear that others like yourself have trodden this path. It is an important topic and too few people are working on it in NZ.
What aspect of freedom of religion was your honours topic on?