To label belief in the teachings of the New Testament (which clearly teaches this- I can provide scripture references if they will help) as a "brand of fanaticism" seems disingenuous to me. Historically the word "Christian" implied a general trust in the teachings of the New Testament, even those who do not regard it as the infallible word of God.

You would have to throw out the entire book of Romans and much other New Testament text to achieve a Christian faith that does not teach death as the result of sin. Which is fine to believe, but it is wildly inconsistent with historical Christianity.

Now that I think about it, there's one thing that's been instituted in schools since just after I left them a little over a decade ago: SOLs (Standards Of Learning tests). We didn't have standardized testing when I went through (just the "test" tests to see how everything might shake out). The sad part for my area is that everyone passes the tests easily, but because failing them means you don't move on to the next grade (and no child can be left behind), the curriculum begins to focus on teaching to these tests.

That really saddens me, because it brings my old school down and doesn't do much to bring the schools at the bottom up.

If in a million years from now someone dug up Apple’s “computer dump” they would find that the earlier computers were less sophisticated and the later computers were of a higher complexity. The conclusion could then be reached that computers evolved, which would be correct. However it would also be correct that a creator(s) were the one’s responsible for the evolution.

I my mind both camps can be correct.

Jesus riding a dinosaur is just nuts. However maybe 165 million years ago God might have had a dino-saddle.

I don't know the details of "No Child Left Behind", but I can tell you one of my best friends left teaching because of it, and one major thing he talked about was teaching to tests rather than actual learning. He says that it pretty much killed any joy he had in his job.

In fact, the only teachers I have ever met that are happy in their jobs are those who teach at private schools, and they are lucky to have spouses who can support them because they make even less than public school teachers.

We’ve pretty well decided to try another school. If transportation or something else throws up a roadblock we’ll fall back on home schooling and starting her in online college classes.

She took her SAT again Saturday. Hoping for good numbers. She got close to 1800 last year. I guess that’s pretty good for a sophomore. Not really sure.

The way I understand it is that the teachers are forced to teach the tests instead of teaching the pupils how to 'learn' or the schools start to lose federal funding. If a school doesn't have a certain percentage of kids passing the tests, they get reduced funding. That part is absolutely brilliant, if a school needs more help, cut the funding so they are in effect receiving less help. That is the main reason I wouldn't be able to send my children to a public school.

I don't even know anymore! I was one of the last school years to have the long-standing "out of 1600" scores, and now I have no idea how they're graded!

How will I compare myself to everyone I meet now?

I know schools and scholarships need to have a yard stick to measure a student but it does seem like this score is a life shaping number. Talk about putting a kid under pressure.

FWIW, I was raised in a Christian family, hung around a lot with fairly Christian people, and was a Christian myself for several years -- and discussions on this BBS were the first time I ever heard of Christians who believed that death was caused by sin.

Edit: Though when I went and looked, Romans ch5 does say so. Though it's not of course even reported as being the words of Christ. Those Christians who aren't young-earthers (Catholics and most Anglicans, for instance) are pretty much obliged to concede that, even just on this planet, death existed long, long before any humans did, and thus before any sin.

Peter

It's a known bug. People are scared of death. Really scared of it, whether it's their own deaths or those of loved ones. When religion comes along with a comforting story about death, people go for that. And because religion, like love, promotes "throwing yourself heedlessly into it" as a virtue (Dawkins suggests that religion might have originated as a misfiring of the brain's falling-in-love mechanism), the very implausibility of religious precepts becomes a badge of honour for the person who believes in them. And it's certainly the case that if you tell yourself often enough that you believe in something, or that its truth is in some undefined sense "your only hope", then you do end up actually believing it.

Peter

I went to a Catholic high school and had 5 years of theology class. We were never taught anything even remotely close to this idea.

That's very surprising to me because the notion is all throughout the New Testament (not just Romans 5) and the concept is found in plenty of Christian writings, both contemporary and historical. There are several verses in Romans (not just Romans 5) and more in James and 1 Corinthians (notable in that James is a different author, so the idea cannot just be attributed to Paul). That being said, Romans 5 is probably the clearest writing on this concept in scripture.

We also learned about proper evolution and legitimate science in the appropriate classes. To attribute death to sin would have been absurd, regardless of what it says in the Bible.

We were always taught not to take the Bible literally as well. Though none of the classes was a deep Bible study at all.

Also, this was high school. I didn't attend a Catholic grade school, so it's possible the had already covered this theme there and everyone was just supposed to know it. I just find it strange that I'd never even heard an inkling of it throughout all of high school.

Everything I remember about sin in a religious context from school, involved the afterlife. And in Catholicism not all sins are equal either.

Ditto. I find it rather quaint. Either reproduction wasn't part of God's plan, and God added sexuality post-sinning (which we already know isn't true, because God created Male and Female, it was only post-sinning that they got red-faced about being nekkid), or God doesn't understand the concept of exponential population growth.

Cris, I think the problem is that this thread is like watching a car crash - it's morbidly fascinating...

Like I told a Reverend friend of mine, I think the best way to relate science and religion is to use Venn diagrams:

O O

There's simply no point in debate as an attempt to persuade or find agreement since there is no common foundation upon which to build consensus.

Most religion sits on dogma(*) with which, *given its tenets*, you can prove anything in an otherwise self consistent manner.

However that tenet is wholly inconsistent with a purely scientific view that, by definition, challenges (and hence rejects) the dogma and this prevents any meaningful comparison.

You can apply the same logical transformations within the religious framework but the results as a whole are meaningless outside it even though vast swathes will be identical. So a "religious view" of semiconductor theory probably doesn't have a problem with dogma until you follow it down to the "so how old is a proton then" - by which time you've left semiconductor theory far enough behind that you can ignore the discontinuity and still make decent systems to broadcast your evangelistic TV on.

Science accepts this framework is fuzzy and open to challenge.

However religion cannot - dogma cannot be wrong. Evolution is the elephant in the room. Religion is *designed* to ignore inconvenient little things (not many Christians don't believe in protons or claim that nuclear energy is miraculous... ) but some things are just so clearly fudged that once you say "well actually god was only relevant several billion years ago to light the blue touch paper and *everything* else is explained by science"... things kinda start to crumble.

The predictable human mob response to a social threat: deny it by whatever means necessary and, essentially, get violent. (Not that the US is particularly prone to this kind of response at this point in their cultural evolution. Hey, we Brits had the crusades a while back!)

Anyhow, that little dig aside .... why are religion and science in such conflict again?

My opinion? In ages past religion provided a much more comprehensive and consistent view of the world. Occams razor favoured the polished and refined stories presented by the array of religions in the world.

This conflict did arise a while back until Galileo taught the church a lesson that Microsoft claim as their own : embrace and extend.

However, over the last few decades humanity has, through science, expanded it's collective comprehension of the mechanics of the universe to an astounding degree. The balance has shifted and whilst religion has learnt to manipulate our emotional responses and focus on the ethereal it simply cannot explain anything in the tangible world better than science.

I think the writing is on the wall and the religious meme doesn't like that one little bit.

(*) Amusingly, in an ironic way, the dogma appears to have been (intelligently?) designed to evolve through the gift of imperfect interpretation by mortals, without which religion would be stuck with a somewhat malaprop set of rules.

Regardless of one’s religious beliefs I find it very insulting to the religious community that someone should suggest they believe in God because of a mental defect.

I guess it is very convenient to squelch someone’s opposing views by calling them mentally deficient.

Hitler tried to “squelch” the Jews that way.

I don't think that's what he was trying to say, really. Our brains are geared to find humanity where it doesn't exist, and I personally feel that religion is an element of that. I am not religious, but I don't have a problem telling you that I see a face when I look at a power outlet any more than telling you that this appears to be moving.

I wanted to jump back to an older message:

This sounds vaguely like the "voucher" proposals that have been bandied about. Public education, much like the various debates on national health insurance, is one of these things where everybody pays in (via property tax) and even those without kids in the system see a benefit (a better educated society). If/when you start allowing people to pull money out of the public pot and spent it privately, you're creating an odd scenario. You have public money going to less-regulated private schools. Arguably, public money should come with public constraints i.e., the very constraints that private schools often exist to work around. The biggest example constraint is that public schools don't recognize any one "true" religion to the expense of others. Private religious schools, pretty much by definition, would find such constraints unacceptable.

As a secondary issue, something like choose-your-own-school would be relatively effective in large cities, where there's enough demand for just about any possible kind of school. In smaller towns, though, there simply isn't enough student demand for schooling, which would mean that a bunch of competing private schools would never achieve the sort of critical mass that you need to have specialized teachers, making everybody poorer as a result.

(Aside: I was about to add "successful sports teams" as another side-effect of the lack of critical mass, except there are a number of sports-first private schools around the U.S. these days where other educational goals are unquestionably of secondary importance. Such parents will sometimes uproot themselves and move hundreds of miles to get their kid into one of these sports-focused schools. I'm confident that this isn't a good general-purpose solution to the school choice problem.)

Which is why the support for this has sorta died out. Most religious schools have administrators that recognize that with public money comes government control (which is not necessarily bad). But, if your institution primarily exists because you don't want the government removing your religious beliefs from education, you've got a problem.

Hence the public schools don't want a voucher system, since they'll lose funding. Most religious private schools don't want a voucher system, since they'll lose control. So pretty much all you have left is the non-religious or marginally religious schools that still want it, and that's a huge minority.

I don't think Dawkins was suggesting that religious people in particular are mentally deficient or defective compared to others: I read it more as saying that this defect is common to all human beings. Religion, after all, appears to have evolved independently multiple times: every remote and hitherto-uncontacted human society ever discovered has practised it. Which I guess means that if being defective is defined as being abnormal, it's atheism which is defective when compared to the broad span of human existence during which religion and its precursors held sway. Rationality itself is to some extent a battle against human nature.

Peter

There are many different explanations as to why humans have always had religion. Believers will point to this and say that part of being human is the desire to be in touch with our Creator, and the differing religious views are a product of a broken world that glimpses the truth, but only sees it dimly. On the other hand, were I not a believer, the view that I would tend to gravitate toward is Nietzsche's notion that humans require religion in order to have meaning and value, thus it was a tool that ensured our survival as long as we could accept it. The great tragedy in this view is that (as I see it) once man gets "rational" enough to question religion you are going to end up with nihilism, a pretty bleak end. This perspective makes more sense to me than than to view religion as a defect. It is either real or a tool- in either case it has provided value to us to get us to where we are as a race. The question is whether atheism is a step forward into rational thinking or a step away from the Creator who intends us to have a relationship with Him.

What I find most distressing is that most people end up somewhere in the middle, and that is the worst place to be. One of my favorite lines from my favorite band in a song about not believing in religion is "If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice"; while I disagree with the song in general over it's rejection of organized religion, I think that point is critical. Most people seem to not accept OR reject religion- they simply live in the middle where they go through the motions of faith, but they don't really believe in anything substantial. These are the people who do not realize that "God is dead", at least in they way they relate to him, but they keep attending church, saying prayers and signing songs, and doing all the other religious stuff they deny with the rest of their lives. I don't mean to be judgmental- it just seems a waste to sit in the middle where faith exists as a ritualistic adherence to something that really doesn't make a difference in your life.

I think it is genetic, to some part. That is why I think it's the next step of evolution. We can't continue to expand our knowledge as a race by standing still. Atheism is the next step towards a better understanding of our world and the other humans we share it with. Far from closing the door and ANY theory it opens it up to investigate all possibilities and seek the evidence to prove the theory.

I've always felt that what other people see as their god I see as my own internal dialogue. Your subconscious mind seeping into your conscious good be seen as divine guidance from a creator I suppose.

Cheers

Cris

The voucher program didn't exactly die.....

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=1342966

I live in Indiana. Never thought of it as a "ground breaking state."

Vouchers are alive and well, because, regardless of whether the schools themselves want them, the politicians want them, and many religiously-motivated voters want them, because it means more money for religious education. I don't think they're really worrying about issues of governmental control -- I guess they figure they can always deal with those issues after they have a foot in the door.

The voucher concept is making its way to healthcare as well, though the red team is finding that it's not politically popular to take away guaranteed benefits and swap them for only a guaranteed contribution toward that category of benefits, with the recipient being responsible for paying the remainder. It will be interesting to follow these education voucher programs for a few years to see if they run into similar problems, especially as the "haves" flee the more troubled public schools.

Agreed. I quit the church scene, because I found it a waste of time. I find it much more worshipful and have always felt a deeper connection with any notion of a Creator, by going out into nature, and interacting with the stuff that was created, than by sitting around singing hymns and listening to a preacher (not that the latter couldn't be interesting). Over time, I came to the realization that I don't honestly care about the notion of an after life. If I am choosing my behaviour based on whether or not something will further my chances of getting into heaven, or bringing me closer to God, or whatever, then I'm not doing it because it's the right thing to do, but because I have the ulterior motive of going to heaven. It feels like I'm trying to buy my way in. I'd rather just live my life as ethically as possible, and do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. If there is no heaven, so be it, I didn't waste my life trying to please a non-existing god. If there is a heaven, then I either make the cut because the way I lived my life pleased the god, or not, in which case the god and I don't seem to see eye to eye, and I'm unconvinced I'd want to be there anyway.

I will just point out that the Bible does not teach us to choose our behavior based on whether it furthers our chances to get into heaven, though people have continually attached this concept to Christianity over and over again. Admittedly, some of the language Jesus used might lead to this conclusion at a cursory glance, but it doesn't take deep diving to realize his goal was to convict of sin rather than prescribe a recipe for entry into heaven.

In fact, your goal of living as ethically as possible because it's the right thing to do is completely consistent with the Christianity I believe in; the only difference is the idea of the necessity of salvation and how you determine what it means to live ethically. But insofar as gaining entry into heaven, at least according to the Bible, if you are making so-called ethical choices to gain heaven, you're doing it wrong.

The reason I go to church and participate in Christian activities is because I believe it pleases God and brings me closer to Him (which I realize you stated is not a reason for you to change your behavior); for me, closeness with God is a reward in and of itself. I can tell you that the best moments of my life are Tuesday evenings and Sunday mornings when I participate in corporate worship of my Creator and Savior. Heaven is more of the reward I receive now in this broken world, but made perfect.

Ok,

I definitely agree that the fear “nothingness” after death is a contributing factor to the desire to believe in a higher power as well as an afterlife. However I have always thought the other driving factor to “religion” was the need to herd. I’ve really never thought that a “love” feeling was obtained from religion (maybe for some). It seems like religion goes hand in hand with a communal activity (church). Most religious practices take place in a group setting. Most religions don’t have many individual worship activities and if they do it is usually something to boast about to the group. I’ve always then concluded that the friction, or at times violence, between religions erupt from the “our group vs. them” mentality. That’s how two seemly peaceful groups that teach love and kindness can end up killing each other.

I’ve never been one to have a strong herding desire so team sports, organized religion and to some extent politics have never interested me much.

In response to the original question, you should see if your state offers Post-Secondary Enrollment Option, often referred to as PSEO. This program lets honor students like your daughter take college classes on a college campus instead of high-school classes in their senior year. The state and school district pay for tuition & fees, though you may need to buy some books. A couple of my friends went to college full time in their senior year and basically had 25% of their degree paid for through this program. Certainly, this will be more expensive next year than home schooling or going to the other public school, but it's nothing compared to what you save by missing an entire year of college expenses. Long term, this is a fantastic value.

I really thought Paul Graham's essay " Why Nerds are Unpopular" perfectly described my experience in high school. In this essay, Graham makes the point that public schools are basically places to store children while (usually both) parents are off working. Anything they learn is purely secondary. That basically makes public schools prisons, which is exactly what my high school looked, felt and smelled like. The cruel, "bullying" schoolkid culture has gotten some publicity lately, but nobody seems to notice how similar the schoolkid culture is to gang-based prison culture, and for essentially the same reason: people forced against their will to be in a useless institution with tons of petty rules and bureaucracy with very little control over their own lives. Violent criminals may deserve to be in such a place, but I sure resented it when I was in high school.

Graham's advice to us nerds is to hang on and wait it out, because high school is a dystopian fantasyland that bears little resemblance to real life, which begins in college. Graham assures the kids that things will be instantly different in college, and again, this was my exact experience.

In my opinion, there is absolutely no positive value in the high school "social" experience. Get your kid out and into college where they can develop real relationships, where ideas and thinking is valued and where they can begin to see the bigger world that is around them. Aim higher than just a high school diploma or GED for your daughter and see if she can finish her last year of high school with a year head start in college.

I also find the rest of the discussion on this topic very interesting. It's amazing how quickly the debate goes to school policy. As an anti-collectivist person, I can't help but point out that the root of the problem is having the federal government up to its neck in school policy. Not only does the federal government have no authority to meddle in schooling, but when it does, groups will battle for ideological control over curriculum.

Why not let individuals at the community level create the schools in the image they please? Let the Christians make Christian schools, and let the reason-minded create secular schools that actually prepare kids for the technical world. Then let the parents choose where to send their kids. If a community wants a public school, then let them build one and create a community school board to oversee it. When the federal bureaucracy controls things, we get schools in the image of drivers' license bureaus, watered down, inefficient behemoths that accomplish nothing except political correctness. The result is America ranked 37th in math education, despite being among the highest per-capita spenders on education. A genuine free market in schools and school labor would solve this almost overnight.

Colleges don't escape federal meddling either. I hear many news stories about the "soaring costs of college", but not a single one manages to see the obvious cause. Just like government-created expansionist monetary policy of essentially zero interest rates caused a huge boom in housing prices, artificially-low interest student loans with easy qualification and ever-increasing limits are causing a boom in tuition prices. It's no more complicated than that. Money expansion leads to rising prices. Period.

The result is 22 and 23 year old college graduates saddled with over $100k in debt that can't be bankrupted away. That kind of debt, at that age, basically condemns a person to a hand-to-mouth life. Have you seen the studies that show how if a person in their twenties contributes to a retirement fund from 20 years old to 30 years old and then stops, and another person starts at 30 years old, then the 30 year old contributor will never catch the 20 year old in savings? That's compound interest, and the same applies to debt, only in reverse. Policies that encourage that level of indebtedness by young people are totally reprehensible.

I would also recommend the movie "Waiting for Superman", if you haven't seen it yet.

Jim

Thanks for your input on the PSEO. My wife, who is way farther down the road on this than I, has mentioned this option. It's good to hear positive feed back on these programs. As it stands now I believe my daughter is ready for college however my stance has been "Well if you can take it for free in high school why pay for it in college."

If she can attend college (which is a way better option) and have part of the tab picked up I am all for that.

At lease we have until next fall (guess that's not really to far away seeing how early schools start).

I had quite the opposite experience -- I had a great time in high school, and loved being there. I certainly wasn't one of the social elite, and spent my share of lunch periods playing D&D in the library. I don't think I ever went on a date, and was never invited to any parties. I was less than fashionable. However, I played on the basketball and volleyball teams, ran track and cross-country, did lighting and other technial stuff for theatre and fashion shows, and did all the math and programming competitions. My final semester was calculus and the top level art class. So despite being on the lower end of the "popular" range (certainly above the smelly kid who was rumoured to have come to school one day with the afterbirth of his dog's puppies still on his clothes), I interacted with a pretty broad range of people (including the smelly kid). I recognized the petty rules and bureaucracy, and just didn't put up with it. I basically did what I wanted, but the reason I got away with it when most other people didn't, was that I had the grades, so it was largely overlooked.