Overall, almost every platform that tries to take down religious arguments seems to have a minimal lasting effect. And for every non-believer, deconvert, and those who would fight against the drivel put out by religious proponents, there seems to be its direct counterpart canceling out all the positive ground gained.
Now, you can’t ban apologetics and contrary to the title you certainly can’t shoot their messengers.
Unfortunately this is where I come unstuck. I know the key is the children, the target audience that waits passively in the wings. Unsuspecting, trusting, malable minds ready to soak up pretty much everything imprinted upon them.
This is why I mentioned the problem of reaching and educating children before they are tarnished by the grubbiness of religion does not seem to be being addressed head on.
I’ll wager every former believer who considered they felt cheated or lied to about religion would have wanted someone, anyone to have been in a position to offer them the opportunity not to have been subject to religious indoctrination.
So here is the challenge. What truly effective measures, if any, can be put in place to ensure children remain in a religiously neutral environment thus not succumbing to the type of supernatural brainwashing that cause so much societal divissivness?
Have a go.
Ark.
A Tale Unfolds 
Seems to me we would need (at least in this country) a Non-Believer with the same attributes as Trump. IOW, someone who would constantly deride the rewards (?) of “believing” to the point that folks became convinced it’s all propaganda and a tool of the conservatives (as opposed to the “liberals”).
However, when push comes to shove, I really don’t think there are any viable answers (at least in todays world) to your challenge..
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If schools were made to be all secular, and kids couldn’t be home schooled, then I think there would be a chance.
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If, by ‘secular’ you mean no faith-based ideologies, then I would agree. But seeing what’s going on in schools these days, I understand perfectly why public schools are no longer seen as a path to educating minds but simply a means to indoctrinate and create activists. The central focus of curriculum is to this end and more an more parents are getting fed up with its failures to teach even basic socializing and fundamental reading and writing. Homeschooling is one solution (which has grown five fold in ten years) but so are all kinds of alternative schooling, which now accounts for about 1/3 of all students registered as school age.
The days of blaming religion as if this alone were the reason is now far in the rearview mirror. In fact, many religious schools (and religious school boards) greatly outperform public schools in producing much higher median academic achievement. Public schools, by and large, simply lower their standards over and over again to try to compete by appearance and fewer and fewer ‘good’ public schools can stay ahead of giving in and giving up to this charade.
One of the hallmark signposts is the vast number of licensed teachers leaving the profession in droves. And before you presume this has to do with compensation (certainly that’s a part of this equation) I know it has everything to do with being constrained from actually teaching children how to think in a variety of ways and being held to a standard of academic excellence. Those goals have all but disappeared and so teachers know they are not only wasting their time and effort but their students’ time and effort, as well as being ordered to be part of a growing problem: students who are expected to remain irresponsible, selfish, self important, fragile, and unsafe. Throw in having to support and promote anti-western ideological indoctrination, mandated racism, and how to be socially divisive, and you have a slow moving systemic collapse. That’s today’s education system, where colleges and universities give out A’s as the median mark before any other considerations are taken and you have gutted what a degree, even advanced degrees, or a diploma actually means. It is a purchased piece of paper.
So, yeah, if a parent wants a child to become educated and the professionals can’t seem to be able to accomplish this task, then what alternatives are there other than homeschooling or creating more and more alternative schools (including religious ones)?
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Yes that’s more or less what I meant by secular schooling. Religion might be taught, but from a neutral, educational perspective, and certainly not just one religion.
As to the quality of our schooling we are getting? That’s a whole another discussion which probably goes beyond what Ark was initially proposing. I’d like to think the schools I grew up in were decent, but things may have changed a lot since then. I certainly didn’t experience this “Anti western” indoctrination which you speak of.Still, I do worry about the quality of education the kids are getting in our schools now. Educational standards have been steadily dropping in my country the last couple decades and it appears there has been less emphasis on teaching the sciences and math.
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My country is Canada and I’ve taught in two provinces from K-12 throughout my career and two universities as well as adult ed. I have left the profession willingly in spite of money and opportunity.āIt’s not just a gong show; it literally is indoctrination for activism and we see the results playing out now throughout the west.
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OK you clearly have a lot more first hand experience in this area than I do. What do you mean when you say “it’s indoctrination for activism”? Can you give some examples?
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This is just the latest example.
A bunch of us alerted our Minister of Education to this absolute travesty of ‘education’ sent out to every school board in Ontario earlier this year and, surprisingly, has been now been ‘suspended’ from implementation. But notice that it required intervention by a whole bunch of ex-educators to even get anyone to pay attention to it. This kind of stuff is throughout every aspect of what is taught from K-12, from ‘gender’ (I still can’t wrap my head around what this actually means other than binary sex-based stereotypes, which apparently is supposed to now be a ‘spectrum’ even though there are exactly TWO chemical interventions – testosterone and estrogen… funny, that) to ‘anti-racism’ to ‘colonialization’ to ‘residential schools’, to ‘Black History month – for example, ‘Blacks’ finally reaching 1% of the national population by 1980 yet accounts for nearly 15% of pre-1980 Canadian ‘history’ taught in public education) and on and on and on. It’s inserted into every subject. Entire fictions – mass delusions – are taught as ‘truth’ (see Residential Schools as cultural genocide as one of the worst re-writing of supposed ‘historical accounts’ ever and the burning of nearly one hundred churches without a single conviction in response). Curriculum is all about showing the so-called ‘learning objectives’ laid out in policies and nothing shows the level of indoctrination more than how much of the school year is geared to promoting certain ideological ideas by everyone from teachers and assistants to students demonstrating it on classroom walls, hallway posters, tests, projects, and daily social events. This is not teaching kids how to think, how to develop critical thinking skills, how to steelman different opinions and positions, how to negotiate differences and find common ground; it is teaching kids what to think and learning to be intolerant and racist bigots who believe in the righteous goodness of the ideology and ONLY the ideology.
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I wrote a comment with a single link but I don’t see it here (maybe diverted by WP?).
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I found it in spam.
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Probably where it belongs!
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Sorry it went to spam. No idea why.
I did approve it. Is it here?
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Is it showing now?
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Yes. It was to Liberated who asked me for examples of indoctrination so I sent along the latest travesty (here, just in case you wanted to see it for yourself without having to scroll).
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I saw your other comment but I can’t reply to it there for some reason.
Oh wow, the school systems in Canada are undergoing some wild changes it would seem. It does seem a bit alarmist to me to calling residential schools “genocide” – people love to throw around the G word these days, but then again I know little to nothing about Canadian History either. I just wish schools would focus on teaching the essentials (reading, writing, math and sciences etc) and leave the other things alone.
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You’re not alone. Very few Canadians know much about our history, either. I threw in the Residential School notion because we actually have a federal day of remembrance and our flag flew at half mast for 6 months only to be raised at Remembrance Day WITH the permission of the Grand Chiefs’ Council. This was the response a NY Times article about the ‘discovery’ of a mass grave of Indian children outside the old residential school in Kamloops, BC. Leading up to this was the ‘Truth and Reconciliation federal report that concluded thousands and thousands of Indian children were taken from their homes and forced into mandatory assimilation through these schools.
The only problem is that none of it is true.
There are detailed documents about every Indian student who attended any residential school including day schools (there’s an ongoing case with a ‘survivor’ – what we would call a ‘graduate’ or ‘attendee’ – who thinks a $10,000 ‘settlement’ for her ability to withstand going to school like everyone else was ‘mandated’ to do should be closer to the $150,000 ‘settlement’ paid out to ‘survivors’ of those who boarded at these schools).
Go ahead and please check for yourself: not a SINGLE body has been uncovered from these ‘mass graves’ ie ground penetrating radar that locates soil anomalies and disturbances. In the case of Kamloops, for example, over two hundred disturbances (in an apple orchard) now turn out to be most likely tiles from a long abandoned septic system.
This is a public hoax. But to add insult to injury, those who dare criticize the conclusions of the TRC with documented facts is now considered ‘hate speech’ and some members of Parliament want to make ‘genocidal denialism’ supposedly carried out by blood thirsty colonialists to serve mandatory jail time… I guess to be properly ‘reeducated’ and to stop committing ‘thought crimes’.
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We are teaching children a false history. We take the man who advocated strongly for public education including schools on or near reserves (he was presented with a petition by over 150 Chiefs to do please do so) and who – in spite of strong opposition – implemented it (there was a recession at the time) and vilify him so strenuously that one of Toronto’s most esteemed universities had to be renamed. His pictures and statues have been removed and his contribution a mark of black shame on the country because… you guessed it… his support for residential schools (many First Nations are in remote areas and of small population so these schools were designed for residents. There was a waiting list and the schools also took in orphans and children whose families were unable to care for them. The native population went from a low of 77K when these schools were implemented over 150 years ago to many millions today… I guess because this ‘genocide’.
I raise this issue because the indoctrination of today’s students is so overwhelming that most haven’t a clue about the reality they have inherited. And it’s taken less than 50 years to do so. There is no unifying feature that draws Canadians together and losing our history dismantles the last plank. We have a generation now taking control of institutions and businesses who honestly believe the country and its founding liberal values unique in the world is a product of imperial colonization that stole everything from the natives, implemented lasting harm, and need to offer redress for the crime. It’s lunacy because people have not been taught what is the case. And this crosses all kinds of curricula and many different ways leading us to a population truly ignorant about reality. Even in science, the push is on to make equivalent ‘other ways of knowing’ like stopping construction because it interferes with – get this – land based ‘whale songs’ that pass information from the whales to its animal relatives on land.
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Hmm. From what I’ve read about these ‘residential schools’, it seems like they were trying to assimilate the indigenous people’s culture into the dominant western culture at the time, often against their will and which included forcefully taking people from their parents. It reminds me of what happened to the aboriginal Australians, and to a certain extent, what happened in New Zealand history to the MÄori. Sure, they ‘may’ have received some education, but at what cost is it acceptable? Maybe the powers that be thought they were doing the right thing (our way is better than your way, so we want you to be like us) – this was a typical attitude for many Europeans in the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Wikipedia has quite a bit of information on the effects of the residential schooling (with sources!) and a lot of high ranking people have apologised, even if the identity of the bodies found hasn’t been verified. if there was a forced assimilation of the native peoples culture then that could still probably amount to genocide, even if nobody was killed. I do find it concerning you don’t believe it happened despite the large amount of information out there.
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Your concern should be directed at selling a false narrative to ‘fit’ with the colonialization mantra: a faith-based Just So story that bolsters Critical Theory and attacks liberalism intentionally. It’s still faith-based indoctrination.
But it doesn’t surprise me you think these things because it’s widespread mis- and disinformation. It’s a belief narrative in Canada. As I said, almost no one actually knows the history in Canada because we don’t teach it and so reports that are at best full of factual errors and at worst fictitious are released as if fact.
For example, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Report is literally filled with false claims presented as if truthful. They’re not. Yet it is this Report and its recommendations to address those false claims that the ‘progressive’ governments – federal and provincial – then take into account for supposedly corrective measures today (costing so far well over 100 billion tax payer dollars). What’s missing is the first part – truth. Without that, there can be no honest reconciliation of honest grievances because the redress policies and legislation do not address reality but a narrative that isn’t true. How successful can this approach be? And why should it matter?
Well, it sets up for the vilification of those that built a truly remarkable and tolerant rich country with the notable exception of five hundred years of direct contribution by those who now claim to be perpetual victims: the hundreds and hundreds of Chiefs and Councils who very much shaped this ‘colonial’ sham now sold in place of history. If the people who were responsible for the TRC actually checked their ‘facts’ they would find out that residential schools produced not only vastly better living and health conditions for natives who attended than the communities they came from, reduced the rate of illness and deaths of indigenous students, but graduated people who went on to become pillars of the ‘colonial’ state in every field and institution. Hundreds and hundreds of such people now completely but oh so conveniently forgotten. No one seems to know that every student that attended had to apply with their parents consent and be accepted (orphans were given over by tribal Elders), which is why there were waiting lists. Sometimes lasting for years. Because the schools received money per student that stopped when students left or died, there is overwhelming documented evidence that there were very ‘missing’ children in spite of the TRC claiming thousands and thousands. And there is so much more, not least of which is the historical fact that it was the Chiefs themselves – and not some evil cabal of cigar smoking white industrialist plotting with governments – who advocated very strongly to get their children ready for this ‘colonial’ world and that the federal government responded to, not with suppressing force but with schools! The reason behind this push from native leaders was that there was an indigenous school in Ontario that regularly produced very successful graduates that the other Chiefs very much wanted available for their own people and this was the central reason for their advocating for Residential schools… not by some imaginary genocidal occupiers but by concerned and responsible leaders from various First Nations. No one seems to remember that Canada’s first Prime Minister and founding father McDonald also granted voting rights to natives… in the 1800s! No one seems to care that natives themselves at this time called the border between the US and Canada the ‘Medicine Line’ because life had way more opportunity north of this border than south of it and the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) was created specifically to help protect natives of the West from US retribution for armed uprisings as well as get rid of the whiskey trade causing mayhem amongst the first nations people. That meant spending taxpayer’s money to firm up this border and impose the Crown’s law on everyone.
Anyway, actual history doesn’t suit the colonial/occupier/genocidal narrative (and its mandatory inherited guilt and shame I guess passed on genetically through skin tone from every European ancestor) now widely believed to be true. (Remember, not a single body has been found to support the narrative of ‘mass graves’ of indigenous children.) And of course we cannot notice for even one second notice that no indigenous tribe has a written language until AFTER the Residential schools organized and implemented a national drive to capture these language in print, that all kinds of dictionaries were created to facilitate the storing of native history in writing, that many schools worked hard to create education taught in local native languages,and so on. Thousands of people dedicated their lives living in these schools to provide education and all of them are now considered Very Bad People for doing so, for organizing, funding, building all kinds of sport and art centres for these far flung communities nor have any clue about how many of these ‘terrible’ schools produced much celebrated world touring teams and choirs and dancers. All of this history is stored in documentation completely ignored by those people who honestly believe the worst about the builders movers and shakers of this extraordinary country that somehow found a way for historical enemies to live and work together in peace, order, and good governance. All of this… down the toilet while we sell a ‘history’ that paints the worst possible picture and will tear apart the country. Well done, ideologues. You can destroy shit. (Snapping fingers for applause, I guess.)
This is why this kind of faith-based indoctrination in schools I think is probably far, far more divisive and destructive a belief to the social order and attacks what unites disparate groups into ‘a people’ than schools geared to indoctrinating students on behalf of religions.
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The effective measure can’t be put in place because it is inhumane to separate children from their deluded parents. It would greatly help though if society didn’t perpetuate the idea of immaterial entities. GROG
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You consider separating them from mum and dad the only way?
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Education is the key.āGet religion out of the schools and there needs be a fact based curriculum. The faithful only know their own. A bit of education about the many religions helps to create skepticsāSigh! If parents would teach their kids the difference between real and imaginary, we wouldn’t be in this mess. GROG
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Now we are talking politics.
Great idea and one I have raised before as have others out there, but how is such a policy instituted?
How is it made part of standard school curriculum?
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Actually by the time kids go to school it is too late. The indoctrination begins and continues at home by parents who believe in the supernatural (heaven) and think they are doing the right thing.
How many times have we heard from people like Hitchens, deGrasse Tyson, and many others that the supernatural doesn’t exist? Hitch even says the crucial thing is rejection of the supernatural dimension. Heaven is the dream that needs to be snuffed out. GROG
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Most people join religions because they are looking for community, friendship, and approval. The indoctrination comes afterwards.
If we welcome and embrace more people into our lives, we may save a few.
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So you think there is no real way to curtail this at source, with the children?
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Of course. Welcome children into your home. Any children.
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Ooh.. Tricky.
Or are you looking more toward adoption?
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Not adoption, but a welcoming. If children experience other people’s homes and lifestyles it widens their understanding of the possibilities.
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If, for example most of the kids in the locale go to the same church how would we even get them near such an environment without a huge push back from their religious parents!?
BTW, did you come right with the yoga video?
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You are focussing on the religion, not the families. Think in terms of community gatherings, street parties, festivals, backyard barbeques, anywhere that families get together. They usually involve food š
I haven’t tried the yoga video yet, but I will.
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I like this idea. There needs to be more community based initiatives which aren’t attached to religion.
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Basically you can’t change people’s beliefs, but you can learn to just let them alone.āReligion is dying out slowly,āat least as a public display, and maybe in a hundred years or so it will be down to the places where it all started anyway.āJust in our lifetime we’ve seen religion sliding to the back of the bus, as it were,āand we are no longer condemned for not attending church services that ran for hours, and rules that hung over us like demented crows…
Religion, like any other rule based event, thrives on attention.āTake away the attention,āand it will fade out on its own.
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Teach children how to think for themselves.
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How do we gain access to millions of Muslim children, say, to achieve this?
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You can’t because they are surrounded by believing adults. In order to teach children to think for themselves, you need to be an adult that thinks for themselves.
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I think you’re right…. and there is the answer and the problem.
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The law should allow children when they get to over 16 years to sue their parents for mental abuse.
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Now THAT is a novel approach I have not heard before!
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Things is, the 16 year old likely lives at home, and where do they live while fighting their parents in court. Do the parents kick them out? That does seem likely when you consider how many religious people kick their non-conforming kids to the curb. And, who believes them? At age 16 I knew my parents weren’t well. They were successful in the community and a mess inside the home. No one would believe me. As well, though I knew things were warped, I also didn’t understand the damage that my brain and body were going through until much later in my adult years. I knew they weren’t well but I also believed it was my fault. This is common with children.
If one wants to start somewhere, I don’t think it can be the children. For the most part, children are surrounded by adults. You can’t go to the church pastor/preacher etc. and tell them you are being mentally and religiously abused. Oh, you can, but you set yourself up for further abuse. Same with parents, same with the community, same with the educators.
We need a world of people willing to consider that they might be wrong. Seeds of doubt. I plant them every time I go to my hairdressers. š
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I think, and I use the word lightly in my case, we “intellectuals” are responsible to raise our kids to think for themselves. I have done my part. I never beat them over the head with my non belief, but I was always honest when the questions came.
4 of the 5 kids I have had a hand in raising are non believers. The one believer is mentally ill. So there’s a data point for you.
If we try to inspire other peoples kids to be non believers, I’m afraid that would make us as bad as they are. I fear the best we can do is try to keep the insidious encroachment of religion out of our public schools.
Religion appears to dying a slow painful death. I’m sure there will always be a cult somewhere. But morons going to be morons, and grifters going to grift.
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HEAR HEAR Shell!!! Yes! š
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if you want to see how far we have fallen, check out some of those ‘street’ questionnaires, and wait (possibly forever) for the answer…”giggle giggle snort snort ahhh state? you mean where I LIVE?āOh, is that what a state is.āsnicker snicker. I guess I live somewhere, ah, um, maybe cleveland?”
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Ā I never beat them over the head with my non belief, but I was always honest when the questions came.
IMO, this is the BIG difference. In “Christian” homes, the kids are indoctrinated as soon as they’re able to walk via “Sunday School” attendance. And even before that, there’s the usual “religious” activities at home (bible reading, prayers before meals, “Thank You Jesus” exclamations, etc.)
Indoctrination breeds indoctrination.
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i’ve had occasion to become close friends over time with people who happened to be from strictly run religious families:āsadly, few of them fared well.āIn a strict family like that, you do not make mistakes, you learn to live with the sins you made, forever.āThere is no forgiveness,āno divorce, no ‘finding your niche” because it’s been preordained from birth, practically.āAnd any mistake is a sin.āThe priest might forgive you,āthe minister might caution you against doing it again, but in the family you’re a failure.
And there is no climbing out of that rabbit hole, no matter how you try, you’ve been judged and condemned, and it follows you alll the way.āāā
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What a terrible waste of a life.
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This is the kind of ‘waste’ that doesn’t show.āOutwardly these are successful people, working hard, getting ahead.āThey still (as their parents did before them) attend services regularly,āpray facing the right direction,ābut there’s something there, a faint aura of sadness, of things missed or denied.ā
It’s also one thing to choose a religion that suits you; another to be born into it, with no choices offered.ā
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Not ALWAYS! But frequently.
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Prayer is a large factor in encouraging belief in the supernatural. This basic belief that heaven exists, then bolstered by the claim of being special children of a loving God is a strong force in establishing the delusion of heaven and supernatural entities. The ideas are formed at home, not at school. Parents and relatives are the real culprits in the God delusion. GROG
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I can’t say much about what they do at home. I don’t agree with any of it, but this country was, supposedly, formed with the notion of individual freedoms.
They can worship empty Budweiser cans for all I care, but keep your B.S. out of the schools. The rest of us don’t want our kids exposed to your Budweiser can worshipping nonsense.
I heard that hops died for their sins. But whatever… š
But you are correct, the main place the indoctrination/abuse takes place, is the home. Unfortunately religion is not considered an indoctrination crime. In some cases it should be.
I knew some kids in very religious families when I was growing up. They always seemed a bit odd somehow, and terrified of pissing off their parents. Even as kid I could sense there was something not right there…
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I had a similar situation and feeling when the religious kids in my class, after the very few times I did go to church, commented very positively on my attendance. Already they were proselytizing! I quite resented it. GROG
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Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? A wise historian once opine ed that “the medium was the message” — and today’s predominant medium is the smartphone carried by practically every man, woman and child across the globe.
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Ark, here in the States, particularly the South, fringe South, and much of the Midwest, reaching children around the ages of 10 to 17 will be a hard twofold struggle:
1) the biological parents or parent or guardian(s) which have some degree of theistic belief/indoctrination, and
2) the voracious growth of private, religious-affiliated schools and “Charter” schools (most of whom are also religiously-affiliated) throughout the aforementioned regions of the U.S. and those curriculums having their chosen religion included, e.g. bible studies, chapel attendance, and prayer (Christian mostly) in classrooms.
Regarding #2, the consequences of these private and charter schools popping up everywhere over the last 30–40 years has been the cancer of those states using the School Voucher system. What is the SVS you ask?
From ProCon.org, an excellent unbiased non-profit organization that publishes the pros and cons of the nation’s biggest issues/conflicts. I’ll share the direct link of its SV system below or in reply-comment under this. But the site lists 4 pros and 4 cons to our SV system. I will only list the cons:
Con #1 — Tax dollars are intended for the better secular education of all children, not the private religious education of a few.
Con #2 — School vouchers funnel money away from already-struggling public schools and children and redistribute tax dollars to private schools and middle-class children.
Con #3 — School vouchers fail to accommodate and support disabled and special-needs students.
Con #4 — School vouchers do not improve studentsā academic performance.
And #4 is a very revealing fact over the last 4-5 decades in the U.S. because our average IQ is 97 (2022) and since at least 2005-2006 or earlier the IQ of Americans has been declining. Checkout the “Flynn Effect” if you want and have the time. But there are some very reasonable hypotheses as to what is causing this decline. It is MY hunch that all the states with SV systems over the decades and its growing, thriving private/charter schools and now private religious universities are one significant cause to America’s dumbing down.
So to answer your final question, for us here in the States and my state of Texas and those like us we must 1) stop undermining public (secular) schools and universities with U.S. tax dollars going also to religious campuses, and 2) somehow find a method/solution to un-indoctrinate the parents/guardians of the children and teenagers.
HAH! š Yeah, #2 there is a walk in the park isn’t it? š
———————
Here’s that link to the ProCon.org page on school vouchers:
https://www.procon.org/headlines/school-vouchers-top-4-pros-and-cons/
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Illiteracy in Canada where the vast majority of students attend publicly funded education – both in functional reading comprehension and the functional ability to work with numbers (numeracy) – have increased dramatically over the past 30 years (2023 ~40% illiterate by high school graduation). Public education is a provincial concern so different provinces have different systems. Public money in Ontario – with just under half of Canada’s population – also publicly funds Catholic schools K-12. Illiteracy is lower in this system (but also rising dramatically ~32%). Other privately run religious schools generally have significantly lower rates.
Blaming ‘religion’ doesn’t fit these data. Just sayin’.
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Out of interest, is religion being blamed for the rising illiteracy rates?
Did I miss something?
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Just the opposite, Ark. And because of evidence.
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See spot run
Spot runs after the ball
The ball is yellow..
Too difficult?
š
Need more emojis?
When most people under 15 think grammar is their mother’s mother you know you have a problem.
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Remember, this cohort is the most ‘plugged in’ group online. This is the quality of ‘the mob’ directing organizational and institutional policies by spineless administrators trying to avoid their toxic engagement through social media appeasement. This is the cohort indoctrinated from the cradle with ‘social justice’ and activism on its behalf, promulgated by people who think so well of themselves and their own moral compass accepting and deserving their right to impose on others how to ‘be better’, how to be ‘on the right side of history’, how to elevate DEI in every nook and cranny of the private sphere where reality is the construct and the faith-based personal beliefs – aka personal truths – the ultimate reality everyone must accept or be charged (quite properly, of course, being a extreme right wing, religious wing nut, white supremacist, islamaphobic, transphobic, gay bashing colonizer) with a non criminal crime of causing offense.
As I said, we live in the Age of Stupid. And we’re only at the front end of this Age.
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I consider my own kids outside of this age of stupidity.
Each graduated A’s pretty much throughout, each has their own reasonably successful business, are independant, and most importantly support Liverpool.
Of course that last bit was down to critical thinking and sound evaluation and nothing to do with their father threatening them with all sorts of unspeakable things if they as much as mumbled Arsenal or Manchester United.
As you can see, I run a very open-minded family unit.
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Regarding my own favourite sport team, of course all the Great Unwashed cheer for the other lesser ones. My fandom – unlike all those of the Heathen – is a hard earned right after just the right amount of suffering in the Wilderness.
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The story has been revised. It now reads:
See spot run
Spot runs after the ball
The ball is a racially marginalized ball of color.
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I suspect most here have various kinds of Christianity in mind when talking about its slow death. And criticize this religious belief and the indoctrination of children within it for all kinds of good reasons.
But this not the case for Islam where what we properly call indoctrinated extremism – adherence to brutal and discriminatory scripture – is the religious norm and the number of its adherents growing by leaps and bounds throughout the west unfettered by criticism because doing so even has special term of rebuke: Islamaphobia. And the sheeple go along with this. Suffering from Islamaphobia is now considered an intolerable moral failure and a character flaw so egregious that anyone can be smeared with it and then treated as some kind of right wing extremist worthy of professional, cultural, and political cancellation. And so we have participated in helping people ‘do better’ throughout the west – including atheists who really should know better – to fall all over themselves making sure that this protected and privileged religious belief no matter how extreme – both Sunni and Shia – can be enabled with specially designed civic protections and to widespread self-congratulatory cultural applause.
We are SO living in the Age of Stupid. And it’s not going to end well.
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There used to be something called the age of consent. If we could establish that to be 18 years old, with no exceptions we would have a start. Of course the churches weasel and whittled that age down to as little as 11 years old and I heard of an 8 year AOC but I can’t verify that.
You can avoid certain age limits, like having parent’s sign a consent form so their underage kids could join the military, so those would have to be curtailed, too.
Besides that religious apologist cannot defend Christianity without lying. We need to stick that label on them, if they persist accuse them of violating the Ninth Commandment (bearing false witness, etc.) and then follow that with “I knew you weren’t a True Christian(tm)!”
Since the Christian Nationalists have taken the kid gloves off, we should also.
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Easy peasy (and they call us dogs dum!) … … teach ’em the Law Of Contradiction (Aristotle? Memory fails) which is to the effect that “Contradictions are impossible”. There can be NO contradictions. But there can be false premises.
Find yourself an apparent contradiction and look to its premises, one (or more) of which will be false.
Yes? No? Maybe?
Again I offerā
āa loving compassionate gentle omnipotent god and a napalm-scorched dead baby. Need more? Try Dachau, Buchenwald, Auschwitz and any or all of the others … I can wait.
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Teach comparative religion in Grade 3 or 4 or 5. A full year course which presents the stories from the world’s various/numerous religions. Nothing heavy, just a look at the creation myths and modern day music and practices. Crack the shell… the kid will do the rest.
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Agreed. Now how do we get it into schools?
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It already is. We had it in Grade 8 or 9. It works because it shows the kid that people everywhere make up/made up stories. Practically, though, it’d have to be through the Dept.’s of Education while setting their curriulums.
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Back in the day, we had comparative religion in grade 8. I always believed it helped me realize the world was bigger than my church and ancestral beliefs. We had a text with glossy photos of places around the world and their religious/spiritual rituals.
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Keep it simple. Butā
if we have to use words of more than one syllable, teach ’em all the Law of contradiction, namelyā
Contradictions don’t exist. Find an apparent contradiction then look to its premises, one (at least) is false.
(Try, for example; “The loving, compassionate, all-wise all-merciful, all powerful God” … in the context of Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Auschwitz etc etc (there were quite a few).
When you run out of those consider the Holy Inquisition …
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School ’em at home.
Failing that, help ’em with their homework, butā
āteach them about discretion, and knowing when/how to apply it.
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I always felt that homeschooling can be a dangerous tool,āespecially if the parents have their own agenda.āIt also isolates kids from the push and shove of competiton with other kids their own age.āThere is no satisfaction like being the first one in a class with the right answer.ā
And frankly,āmost parents who homeschool (at least around here) do indeed have their own agenda.āKids need to learn how to work inside of a group, or how to make their own choices.ā
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That’s a tricky one. Religious indoctrination usually begins in the household. You can’t interfere with what goes on in their private lives unless you took the kids away from their parents – which would create a whole another set of issues. What you can do, is remove any religious nonsense from schooling, and do away with homeschooling (which coincidently many of these parents seem to love). Homeschooling should really only be reserved for cases where a kid doesn’t have access to any schools in their region. Growing up, these kids would spend a significant portion of their lives in secular schooling, so hopefully their minds would be more open, and they would consider the problems of their own religion, even if not initially.
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Growing up, these kids would spend a significant portion of their lives in secular schooling
Heaven forbid that they might actually learn about the world outside of church! š±
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Thats all part of my wicked plan mwahaha!
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Hi. Ark I think you misunderstand a vita point in the religion in public square debate. To the Evangelical / Fundamentalist religious people there is no religiously neutral stance. Either you believe as they do, worship as they do, hate who they do … or you are the very enemy they fight against. To these people they are the one and only true Christians. No others have a right to the name in their minds. So as I said there can be no neutrality on religion to or for them. Either you join them, or you are their enemy that they must crush. Anyone who suggests they shouldn’t push their radical rabid deity on everyone else, including other people’s kids regardless of the parents beliefs, is the very Satan they fight against and must be destroyed. For them the right o push their god on your kids, their hates / beliefs on your kids in public school is called parental rights, but for parents who don’t agree to that then those parent don’t have parental rights. Rights for me to oppress you is good, rights for you to object to my religious oppression is persecution of them and a violation of their religious rights. Your rights about not having a religion forced on your kids … what are you a Satan loving heathen. Hugs. Scottie
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Hi Scottie. In Canada, parents have no legal rights. Seriously. Children do, of course, but not the very adults held legally responsible for them. How do you think this is working out?
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Hey Tildeb, still the same old argumentative cuss I see. Question, you used to tell me you were an atheist liberal. How is that working out for you? You seem to imply that Christian run schools are better than public ones for students? Still an atheist? Still a liberal?
See I long stopped dealing with you as a reasonable actor, a person who could evaluate evidence and accept you were wrong. You are an activist for your personal bias, beliefs, and intolerance. In truth you are a person who argues constantly to force your view on everyone else because you can not tolerate the idea that the modern world has progressed and moved forward away from the regressive past you seem to fight so hard to return to and maintain. You are intolerant of any new ideas since you were in your prime, you seem to think that what you knew as valid decades ago should still apply today. However modern understandings in medical, social, and physical science has advanced to where they do not agree with your outdated way of thinking. You can not stop the advancement of knowledge and acceptance just because you want things to remain as they were, just because you disagree with the modern understanding of science and the social acceptance of equality and inclusion. You seem to simply be saying it was better in the past, it was better before all this modern stuff / ideas, everything has gone to hell and it is now all bad and turned to crap. See how much better it was when we had …
You push lies and myths as a way to reinforce your outdated views / assumptions yet when shown the correct data you refuse to admit your information was incorrect or stop using that same talking point.
That is why I won’t be drawn into one of your it is not working we need to return to the old way of thinking, the old way of doing things arguments. Simply put children are not property, slaves, nor mini clones of the parents / guardians. They are individuals learning, developing, growing into the people / person they will be as they gain understanding of the world around them and of themselves. Yes kids have rights. And yes parents in Canada do have rights, but not the right to force a growing young person to deny who they are and force them to be a straight cis perfectly conforming mini clone of the parent. The parent can not force a nearly young adult to accept the religious beliefs of the parent either. And no I am not interested in hearing a rant about how aggrieved parents are because they can not force a young person into some form of conversion therapy or some such nonsense. We both know where it will lead and personally I don’t think Ark needs that on his blog, nor do his readers need to be inundated with days of long comments with you spouting stuff I have to spend hours fact checking then correcting only to have you move the goal post or shift the question, then return to the thing I already showed you was incorrect that you still think is true and still keep pushing.
Again … still atheist and liberal Tildeb? Or willing to admit you are a right wing conservative ready to join the US Republican Party. Goodbye. Hugs. Scottie
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Whoa there, camel (referencing this)!
Yes, very much an atheist and absolutely a classical liberal. Obviously, we are a dying breed.
Many people (at least in Canada) are shocked to find out that parents really do have no legal rights in all kinds of legal cases before the courts. And they are shocked because usually being legally responsible for someone assumes some kind of attached legal rights to facilitate this responsibility. Hence, the surprise. The difference between reality and belief about it in this case, however, has to do with those very liberal values I support: parents as a group or class do not have any legal standing, you see, whereas children as individuals do. This is as it should be once anyone reaches the age of majority as a full adult and citizen. That principle is at the heart of liberalism, Scottie, where individuals are the base unit and not constructed social groups. But in this topsy turvy world of virtuous ‘progress’, we find groups and classes are now indeed being granted legal status (and privilege)… but only in ways that align with ‘progressive’ ideology and never against it. So that is not working out well as any liberal worth the title should have known it wouldn’t. In fact, social cohesion in the west has never been worse. But that’s ‘progress’ for you, I guess.
As for the rest of your… contribution… I’ll leave you with the uncomfortable truth of pointing out the recently released WPATH files demonstrating what I’ve been saying for year: we’re allowing a massive medical experiment to unfold on children leaving a wake of real harm to real people in real life… something I have also and always been against – you know, valuing the individual as I do as a good liberal. And it’s a rather lonely place these days, I’ll admit.
But here’s the main thing: with the release of the WPATH files, now we get to find out who is actually ethical – and able to change their much ballyhooed ‘just-be-kind’ opinions and beliefs based on best evidence and facts to align with reality – and who is not. Let’s see who the ideologues really are, the modern day snake oil conmen. Or, as Colonel Jessup from a Few Good Men questioned, let’s see who can handle the truth and who can’t without shattering their brittle ideological world. And, I gotta say, I’m feeling pretty good these days because, unlike many atheists, I have remained steadfast on allowing reality to arbitrate my beliefs about it. If I recall, once upon a time you did, too.
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Oh I had forgotten how you always have to have the last word, even when wrong.āAccording to the latest largest ever study done, 94% of people who transitioned were very happy and satisfied.āhttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/07/trans-survey-transition-gender-affirming-careā
The study also cited a Dutch research from a few years ago that was based on clinical follow-up studies of adolescents with childhood gender dysphoria who received puberty suppression, gender-affirming hormones, or both. The Dutch research found that “none of the youth in adulthood regretted the decisions they had taken in adolescence”.”https://www.newsweek.com/what-data-shows-about-transgender-detransition-regret-1807448
As for your WPATH comment.āI will leave you with this.āHugs.āScottie
Despite its grand title, WPATH is neither solely a professional body ā a significant proportion of its membership are activists ā nor does it represent the āworldā view on how to care for this group of people.āhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/09/disturbing-leaks-from-us-gender-group-wpath-ring-alarm-bells-in-nhs
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Like any good old fashioned religious fundamentalist of any cult/denomination, you are trying (constantly) to present an ideology that does not comport with reality but tries to replace it. (And this is what is going on in schools today from kindergarten to advanced degrees.) This kind of religious-like certainty when it comes to your faith-based beliefs about ‘gender’ has a cost when implemented in our medical systems that I point out to be a real time massive medical experiment on children. I think this kind of religious indoctrination when masquerading as a social/political ideology carried into, and widely applied throughout, the public domain matters greatly because of the harm caused. (Hence, the demonstration revealed by the leaked WPATH files – of dismissing exactly this lack of concern about harm caused – by WPATH members not because of significant and growing contrary evidence raised against its recommendations – poor to very poor supportive evidence in its favour – but because the concern about harm doesn’t matter to the ideologues.)
To help you, Scottie, understand the reasoning error you make that lies at the heart of your faith-based beliefs about why ‘transgender health care’ is not an ongoing medical experiment on children, you need to understand the difference between defining and describing expressions of the sex binary. You are making a category error over and over and over absolutely blind, deaf, and dumb to committing this. This is the same error all people make who falsely believe sex is not binary. And an excellent short video explains exactly this here that has exactly NOTHING to do with me or any of the multiple moral and character flaws and evil intentions you assign to me that you believe motivates me to (mis)understand the reality-replacing biology you find yourself religiously adhered to, that commits the grave sin of conflicting with your religious-like fundamentalist beliefs you maintain. Realign you beliefs to comport with reality, and the intolerant religiosity you exhibit will evaporate instantly into the make-believe world from which they came.
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Hi Tildeb. I use facts and quote my sources. again see this.
Despite its grand title, WPATH is neither solely a professional body ā a significant proportion of its membership are activists ā nor does it represent the āworldā view on how to care for this group of people.āhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/09/disturbing-leaks-from-us-gender-group-wpath-ring-alarm-bells-in-nhs
Hugs. Scottie
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From the referenced article:
There is a battle raging over how best to care for children and young people struggling with their gender identity, with ever increasing numbers of European countries choosing to take a more cautious, less medical, approach after finding the evidence base underpinning those treatments to be wanting.
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Yes Nan, the article does state the battle. But it makes clear the battle is not being drive by the worldwide majority of medical communities. But instead being driven by anti-trans activists, conservative fundamentalist groups, and the odd fringe medical groups / providers. Just like covid anti-vaxxers such as ragnarsbhut and the frontline doctors led by the demon seed doctor Stella Immanuel and Florida surgeon general Joseph Ladapo.
Remember all the scams / misinformation that has driven this new worry such as the totally made up and complete discredited social contagion theory, or the totally made up scandal of the hospital not certifying / following procedures with trans patients before dispensing drugs against the parents wishes along with doing sexual surgeries on minors. Quite a scandal if true, but it was not. The person making the sensational claims misrepresented herself as someone with direct knowledge and she was not. Even the patients mothers said she was lying. But Tildeb pushed it on my blog as such a tragedy what the new social order was subjecting kids too.
Best wishes Nan, as you say, you may be stuck not being comfortable with the advances in society, but that doesn’t make them wrong or that they need to regress. Hugs for you Nan. Scottie
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I know Ark observes correctly that, when it comes to promoting religious beliefs, “the key is the children, the target audience that waits passively in the wings. Unsuspecting, trusting, malable (sic) minds ready to soak up pretty much everything imprinted upon them. This is why I mentioned the problem of reaching and educating children before they are tarnished by the grubbiness of religion does not seem to be being addressed head on.”
My point to this is that children are the target audience for something at least as grubby as religion, namely, any faith-based belief and this practice is not just widespread but, in the west, massively exceeds the quaintness of teaching ‘religion’. We are teaching an ideological model that absolutely relies on exactly the same kind of faith used by religious promoters.
I don’t think we can offer meaningful solutions and solve these kinds of problems when we can’t even agree on what the problem is. The problem, I argue, is promoting faith based belief in whatever form it takes and not just religion.
To demonstrate just how imbedded this kind of problem is,
“Yesterday CNN published an article by senior writer Tara John about the UK National Health Serviceās newly skeptical stance toward youth gender medicine. The main takeaway, which is big news to observers of this debate, is that the NHS will no longer provide puberty blockers to young people, other than in research contexts. (As for cross-sex hormones, a relatively strict-seeming regime is set to be implemented, and they will be offered to youth only āfrom around their 16th birthday.ā)
As myself and a number of others pointed out, the article contains a sentence that is, in context, rather wild: John writes that āGender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned genderĀ āĀ the one the person was designated at birthĀ āĀ to their affirmed genderĀ āĀ the gender by which one wants to be known.ā But of course, whether youth gender medicine is medically necessary and evidence-based is exactly the thing being debated, and anyone who has been following this debate closely knows that every national health system that has examined this question closely, including the NHS, has come to the same conclusion: the evidence is paltry. Thatās why so many countries, including Sweden, Finland, the UK, and Norway have significantly scaled back access to these treatments for youth.Ā¹ So itās very strange to see this sentence, which reads as though it comes from an activist press release, published in a news article in CNN, an outlet that generally adheres to the old-school divide between news and opinion.”
That’s the kind of faith-based belief taught in schools, which is then carried into the world by ‘good’ students and ‘kind’ people who do not see themselves as activist ideologues pushing their faith on others without permission or merit. They do not see themselves as religious ideologues but as some kind of narrative ‘guardians’. These folk are the new fundamentalist preachers regardless of what professional title they may hold. Those who are against indoctrinating children with faith-based beliefs that are contrary to reality need to better recognize when it is being exercised and then respond to it the same way they would for any other religious imposition and insertion into the public domain. This shit has to be challenged because, like with any other religious belief, we have to draw a line when real people in real life are subjected to real harm in the faith’s name. That is what is unfolding today as so many atheists either stand by and do nothing or go along to get along. This has to stop.
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I came across this from Greg Lukianoff (FIRE) and recognized many of the following points you regularly use when you ‘communicate’ with me. Because I accuse you of being a believer of and preacher for today’s ‘progressive’ religious ideology especially concerning ‘gender’ (not all ‘religion’ taught in school involves teaching about various gods and scriptures but it does implement an identical ‘faith-based belief system’ of this reprobate Critical Theory ideology taught by equivalent indoctrination), you use a variety of boilerplate tactics to dismiss my real world evidence that demonstrates the validity of my accusations. Of course, you don’t see it that way. You are a True Believer, after all. So, for your elucidation, consider these points about tactics and then reread what you wrote to me:
The Obstacle Course
The Obstacle Course consists of a number of rhetorical dodges and logical fallacies you might be familiar with:
The Minefield
If you clear the Obstacle Course, you still have work to do. The Minefield is about attacking the person making the argument rather than the argument itself, otherwise known as the ad hominem fallacy. This is why youāll see that the Great Untruth of Ad Hominem underpins these tactics:
The Perfect Rhetorical Fortress
Rikki and I describe this in detail in āCanceling,ā but in short, the Perfect Rhetorical Fortress consists of a series of questions that serve as barricades to having an argument on its merits or substance. Youāll be amazed by how effectively each identity-related barricade of the Perfect Rhetorical Fortress allows anyone inside of it to cover their ears when they donāt want to meaningfully engage with an argument they donāt like.
The first barrier is a tactic I call fasco-casting, which consists of labeling people āconservative,ā a āright winger,ā āfar right,ā āfascist,ā or the hilariously absurd āneo-confederate,ā whether they actually are or not. As Shrier herself has said, āconservativeā in this space is simply another word for a bad person. And since bad people have only bad opinions, anyone who can be labeled conservative ā or even āconservative adjacentā ā can be dismissed without further consideration. Despite being more of an old-school liberal, Shrier is constantly called conservative or conservative-adjacent by her critics. She wouldnāt make it past step one.
Next up, youāre taken through what we call the āDemographic Funnel,ā which uses identity characteristics to negate people as legitimate interlocutors without addressing their arguments: Whatās the speakerās race? Whatās the speakerās sex? Whatās the speakerās sexuality? Is the speaker trans or cis?
Being on the wrong side of these questions immediately justifies your being shut down ā and it ends up allowing about 99% of the population to be dismissed without a single counterargument. If Shrier could somehow convince her opponent that she is not in fact a conservative, sheās still a cis white woman and therefore easily dismissed anyway.
And the thing is, even if you do happen to fall into the very thin sliver of people who check all the right identity boxes, it doesnāt matter. All of that is kabuki anyway ā the rhetorical equivalent to taking a knee and running out the clock. The truth is that you can be smeared and dismissed as a traitor for having the wrong opinions. Tactics in this āJust Kidding!ā column of the Perfect Rhetorical Fortress include questions like:
And if all else fails (which it wonāt), you can abandon all pretense of staying on point and making a cogent argument by darkly hinting that something else is whatās really going on. All you have to do is ominously allude to the notion that something other than the issue at hand is really what the problem is. Say, āWell, really this was all about āa contextā in which other bad things were happening, so the community was rightfully upset ā even if I was wrong,ā and youāre home-free.
If it isnāt clear by now why Rikki and I call it the Perfect Rhetorical Fortress, itās because itās designed to be invincible ā and it is.
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Uhhh, Ark … do you have any blog rules on personal attacks?
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Nan, I’m not sweating it because Scottie is demonstrating what a faith-based belief in action looks like: he believes what he says and I would prefer to know that up front and out in the open. This is what free speech looks like in action and I, for one, accept that. If that’s the cost of open and honest differences of opinion, then so be it; it is one sided in this case because, as I have always said, I really do believe Scottie’s heart is in the right place even if he allows his beliefs to take him somewhere else. His personal attacks are misplaced in truth but he doesn’t know that because he believes so strongly they are not. His beliefs does not alter reality but it is an excellent example of what can happen – even to kind hearted people – when people grant their personal beliefs so much authority. Even as an atheist, Scottie does not see that he has given in to the kind of belief that can drive people to do and say things for reasons that have nothing to do with what’s true, what’s real, but are motivated by something else entirely – in this case his need to defend what he sees as an ‘attack’ on sexuality which he has confused with gender ideology and queer theory. My hope, of course, is that someday he recognizes the kind of faith-based preacher he has allowed himself to become and that is not going to happen if his speech is curtailed by administrators fearful of the ‘offensive’ content and who wish for – in fact, insist – a more ‘congenial’ atmosphere. Congenial has a rather unfortunate tendency to morph into straight up censorship that tries to hide behind ‘the common good’. The common good, however, is served best by open dialogue even if it sometimes includes offence. That’s the price we pay and I, for one, can easily bear it.
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@Nan
Who’s attacking whom?
Did someone mention my, squint, false teeth and gimpy leg again?
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See my email.
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Sorry Nan, since when is telling the truth a personal attack.āI remember something about if the shoe fits …āHugs.āScottie
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I was taught that in discussions between people who adamantly disagree, it’s best to point out and reference facts. To attack the other person’s viewpoint by use of the pronoun “you” makes the discussion personal … and the facts being presented tend to become null and void because the neutrality has been lost.
Your second paragraph to tildeb starts with: See I long stopped dealing with you … and it continues to be a personal attack throughout that entire paragraph.
However, it seems Ark is not concerned with such matters, so I’m just explaining the reason for my comment to him (And besides, my thinking is no doubt influenced by the “50’s.”).
Have a nice day.
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I expressed the ideological capture and teaching indoctrination aspect as today’s version of yesterday’s religious teachings in public education. Because both are based on divisive ideas that rely on faith, both are equivalently worthy of being both harmful and destructive to teaching students how to think well, how to think creatively and critically. Both kinds of messengers representing equivalent faith-based beliefs should be shot, so to speak, but failing that drastic action, certainly the message – to believe in something metaphysical because we’re told to believe in it to be a ‘good’ person – should be removed from education entirely and evidence-based learning should be re-established as paramount.
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Ah Tildeb.āThe old man shout at clouds argument.āThe world is changing, it is becoming different and I am not liking it so it must stop changing, growing, and progressing with new knowledge and ideas.āNo more new ideas please, I don’t agree with them.āHugs.āScottie
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An excellent example of what we are teaching kids and the pernicious effect this reality-denying ideology can have on the culture generally, look no further than Google’s AI called ‘Gemini’. The algorithms used are based on what what ‘righteous’ people presume are necessary.
“It was a display that would have blown even Orwellās mind: search for images of āNazisā and Googleās AI chatbot shows you almost exclusively artificially generatedĀ black Nazis; search āknightsā and you get female, Asian knights; search āpopesā and itāsĀ women popes. Ask it to share the Houthi slogan or define a woman, and Googleās new product says that it will not in order to prevent harm. As for whether Hitler or Elon Musk isĀ more dangerous? The AI chatbot says that it is ācomplex and requires careful consideration.ā Ask it the same question about Obama and Hitler and it will tell you the question is āinappropriate and misleading.ā
“āI was not shocked at all,ā he toldĀ The Free Press. āWhen the first Google Gemini photos popped up on my X feed, I thought to myself:Ā Here we go again.Ā And:Ā Of course.Ā Because I know Google well. Google Geminiās failures revealed how broken Googleās culture is in such a visually obvious way to the world. But what happened was not a one-off incident. It was a symptom of a larger cultural phenomenon that has been taking over the company for years.ā
That’s what we’re teaching throughout the Academy misnamed ‘education’ and this is but one tiny sliver of an example of its result. The problem remains teaching any faith-based ideology be it religious or ‘progressive’ or ‘far right wing extremism’. We need to get back to teaching how to respect reality and let it decide what beliefs have knowledge merit over and above our contrary beliefs about it that do not.
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Remember when Google’s code of conduct was “Don’t be evil”?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
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Yeah, and then the Chinese market beckoned…
We will reference this time as, “Back in the good ol’ days…”, or “I remember a time, not so long ago, when…”
And now we have ‘progressive’ed!
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Sorry Tildeb, my reply to your comment before this one should have gone here after this one.āPlease reread it and mentally move it here.āThanks.āHugs Scottie
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Having just returned (again) after a wee hiatus … let me once more draw attention to the weirdo crank lunatic known as Ayn Rand, quoting an earlier weirdo crank lunatic called Aristotle.
Their rule is quite simple; silly words to the effect thatā
“There is/can be no such thing as contradiction. Contradictions are impossible. Wherever you find an apparent contradiction, look to its premises; ‘cos one (at least) of them is false”.
So?
So look at God and His unique qualities, then consider (again) the Free Will of Mankind and God’s omniscience. Sure, I keep pounding this point ‘cos no-one has ever convinced me of any fallacy therein. If anybody doesn’t see what I’m driving at just let me know and I’ll cheerfully explain (not everybody ‘gets’ me).
This point is the thin end of the collapse of deism but few utilise it. We need more thinkers …
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Feel free to extrapolate…
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Sorry, Ark. I did it again. I quoted something with links and it has gone into moderation, I compounded the error by commenting to you by replying a moderated comment! This whole internetty thingie…
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Should he showing now. Let me know if not.
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Hey Ark, I would like to notify you of Roger’s participation in dialoguing/debating(?) my 3-part series, “Paul, Acts, Forgeries & Marcion.” You are welcome to join in with his independent angle… as a “Believer.” I’d very much enjoy your participation since I did the series for your benefit.
Anyway, check it out over on his blog, referencing my series. Thanks mate! š
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His take as a believer is somewhat too convoluted for my taste.
I have recently called a halt to proceedings with the pastor, Jonathan Waite as when pushed on specifics – would you believe the Noachian Flood of all things – he started the old Theological Two Step and began waffling on about seeing things through the lens of different worldviews and shovelling the Christian version of the stuff I lay on my garden to help amend the soil in my vegetable garden.
As Roger concludes… What do you, dear reader, believe.
Well, belief is somewhat like faith, and you must surely know my feeling about faith?
But each to their own.
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I have to throw something in here related to the limits that “believers” will go in their efforts to prove and convert a person to their POV.
As you may recall, I have a blog dedicated to my book (escapefromreligion.wordpress.com) and on the site, I have a “Contact” page. I don’t recall ever getting any kind of feedback via this page … until yesterday when I got a loooong email from “Tom” at EmeraldLeafMinistries.com. I don’t think I need to elaborate what he had to say.
It’s truly amazing that these folks actually think they’re going to convert someone via methods like this. Especially when they’re directing their evangelizing to a person who has CLEARLY outlined the reasons they LEFT the faith.
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Believers will do almost anything and try almost any approach,even trying to come across as hip or cool or trendy thinking.
Eventually, however, they are obliged to fall back on the indoctrination they suffer from or wilfull ignorance they refuse to acknowledge.
At times it becomes simply nauseating.
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Extrapolate … love it~!
And now, wrt the above, dare I remention once more yet again, and even repeat myself, by rererererererererererestating that the two Great Claims of the religiosi are that (a) God gave humankind Free Will, and (b) God is omniscient. So? (Meaning: does this insane old dog (moi) have a point here, or is he (as the Aussies would say) “Barking up a gum tree”?)
Yes. Indeed I do. My point is simply that God’s vaunted ‘omniscience’ blows it for Mankind’s vaunted ‘Free Will’.
To explain for any who may not divine my drift (ouch~) God’s omniscience means that He knows what you (or I, or any other player) are going to do long before we do. Millions of years before, eternities before (if the religiosi are to be believed). So if He knows what you are going to do, do you have Free Will to choose? (Clue: no. You don’t.) Or, with the certain outcome set rock solid and certain long before you are even born can you do anything else? Actually,are you/we free to do anything at all other than what God knows you/we are going to do? (Answer = no.)
God’s vaunted ‘omniscience’ blows it for Mankind’s vaunted ‘Free Will’ … yes? No? Maybe?
No credence is ever given to this point … which should be blasted from loudspeakers all over, and used to trigger debate.
(And you will have noticed that I always try to discuss good ole God in the present tense.)(Give the wee bugger credit for His omnipresence, He’s even reading over my shoulder as I hit these keys ā and your shoulder as you are reading. Cute wee scamp, isn’t He …)
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Then again, if no one ever mentioned it as children grewāup,āGod would not exist for them…he would have as much influence and validity as little red riding hood.āAnd people would have to accept the blame (and credit) for what happens in their lives.ā
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