"Science" doesn't of course. But I have encountered and debated plenty of people that claim to represent "science" over the years (dating back to usenet in the 90s) that do assert such things usually using some variation of the Fermi paradox or reliance on the belief that our current level of science is sufficient to make such claims. (admittedly this might be more suited to the astronomy thread).
Religion, what's the point?
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"Science" doesn't of course. But I have encountered and debated plenty of people that claim to represent "science" over the years (dating back to usenet in the 90s) that do assert such things usually using some variation of the Fermi paradox or reliance on the belief that our current level of science is sufficient to make such claims. (admittedly this might be more suited to the astronomy thread).
It's very difficult to cleanly separate religion and faith from culture though, particularly when it has provided the bedrock for cultures around the world for millennia now. Culture is like the air we breathe - it's just there, and it influences the identity of people (for good & bad) wherever they may be.
People don't exist in the abstract. They never have and never will.
Ok but let's examine the follow on from that. If this indoctrination is a bad thing (and it seems to me that indoctrination is intrinsically bad), what do you propose to replace it with and who decides? If we were to remove any kind of religious influence from education for example...well firstly that removes parental choice, and creates a situation where third parties take it upon themselves to decide what's best for other people's children.
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Maybe, but when most people talk about their beliefs or lack of beliefs around God, they are talking about specific gods, from more or less organized religion. I don't think most people are debating Deism, and I certainly don't think most people have in mind the potentially "god like" powers of a Type 3 civilization.
There’s several of things I’d use the term indoctrination for…. But this thread is about religion, so that’s what I’m talking about.
Exactly. I’m glad you’ve finally figured that part out.And then we can ridicule part of who they are under free speech
That's the feeling I'm getting
Parents are free to teach their kids whatever they want outside of school. However, schools should be completely secular. The situation in Ireland where people are getting their kids baptised purely to get them into the local school is ridiculous. Removing religious influence from education is in fact the absence of deciding things for others. I'm not sure what you meant there at all.
I honestly don't remember ever really thinking about it. The only time you really do as a younger person is when a family member or someone close to you passes away or is suffering from a serious illness.
My mother and father grew up 1950s and 60s NI so their experience would've been different to mine. Ireland, North and South, had changed a lot in that time period. But I've asked them many times about what it was like when they were growing up vis-à-vis the church and religion, and they didn't report any real negativity about it. My father related his anger about his mother being 'churched' after giving birth, but apart from that I honestly can't think of anything else (I'll ask them again at the weekend though). Their reaction to what came out about the Magdalene laundries and so on is another story though. And whilst I would describe both as having a strong faith, there was never any deference or kowtowing shown to the church itself. My father in particular has always had little or no time for institutional power.
Ahh...well it would've been a very different experience for you indeed then.
Do you want me to literally tell you the name of the person that redefined what a "good muslim is"? It is know to all muslims for the wrong reasons and to all mathematicians for the correct ones. I care not for this type of debate. We can talk in private if the super popular and kwon cretin that took hundreds and now billions of people back eludes you.
The dark ages were not called dark at the time; obviously people at the time thought were doing the right thing, killing women, killing what we now call scientists. The church had a monopoly on learning, most people were illiterates peasants. The dark age is not misunderstood at all, it just paints the picture of what the world looks like if jessus believing people have absolute power.
What is amazing is that even through all of that stupidity and threats, there were people willing to risk it all to break canon. People that risk their literal life, many of them being killed.
Is it Al khwarizmi?
That's probably true in most cases.
Seeing that Dawkins quote again just got me thinking about a lot of interesting and, for me, fascinating conversations I've had over the years. I won't keep going down this tangent here but I don't think earth-centric abiogenesis is more probable than different versions of panspermia. I think the age, expanding nature of the universe, and other findings offer up quite a lot of interesting scenarios that are at least as probable (if not much more so) as the stale and hubric view that humans are the most advanced form of life in the universe.
I did want to know the name yeah. I'm not muslim. the problem with the "dark age" is that by historical standards it wasn't really any darker than anything that went before or much that came after. it's a nonsensical concept.
puts him right in the centre of the Islamic Golden Age. would be interested to read more.
Now that I have figured out bullying is free speech I am quite sad. Oh well.
Which would be imposing your view on others.
In any case if state secular schools delivered superior academic performance, or least results on a par with non-secular schools, then I doubt it would be much of an issue.
It does make me laugh though...these people people feigning faith to get their kid into a good school.
But it relates to a central truism in all debates around education, which is that parents (or at least most parents) don't actually care about education - what they actually care about is their children's education.
OK. That from a historical perspective is as close to the Moon being made of Riva.
Before the dark ages, the Roman Empire made advances that were not touched until the industrial age. The romans made highways and aqueducts while the Christian dominated Europe made...bigger temples, and hate for the jews and war.
The biggest problem of Europe is that magic jessus did not tell his flock that slavery is bad. It would have saved many millions of Africans for not going to heal in America.
No it wouldn't be imposing anything. Schools like places of work and governments should be secular so that all people from all walks of life can attend, integrate and learn together. It's a very bad idea to have the Catholics all going to the Catholic school, Muslims to the Muslim one etc. Have you actually thought any of this through?
It's not about getting them into a good school. Are you being deliberately obtuse?
Practically every school in the country has a religious ethos. There is a dearth of secular schools in Ireland. More are being built but there's nowhere near enough and demand in some areas is high that the Catholic ones will only accept baptised kids hence the reason why some are doing it.
Why should atheists or people of a monitory religion have to attend a school with the ethos of one of the mainstream Religions just because there are no other options?
From a historical perspective, he's absolutely correct. Historians do not accept the dark ages as some non-period in European history. Particularly since a lot of the things that the Roman Empire was doing continued to be done after it the West had fallen (never mind the fact that the East didn't fall for another thousand years). And the last 150 years of the Roman Empire were Christian dominated too. For that matter, you can ask the Jews how they felt about the Romans during the pagan era. As for bigger temples, the pagan Romans were the champions of temples. So many gods, and so many temples. The champions of war too, come to think of it.
I'm not saying the Roman Empire wasn't cool as shit, but let's get some perspective here.
But slavery in Jesus' time was based on the Roman system of slavery and debt.
will go off topic for no reason as we don't disagree on religion just on the idea of a dark age which I don't think holds up to modern scrutiny.
No offence but who ever said that the dark ages are a non period?(the very term is a red herring imo; combat something that was not there to combat in the first place) It is a very important period, of non-progress. That the faults of the Romans were kept on, is but a symptom of society stagnating and regressing.
The jews you can ask even today how they feel in Christion dominated areas. Antisemitism is having it's biggest home in Christianity dominated areas. This is not a secret.
It would be imposing something. It's imposing your view of how the world should be on others.
Just to be clear, my view is that if there's sufficient demand for secular schools, or in the NI context - integrated schools, then the state should endeavour to provide it.
Apologies. When you mentioned that I immediately thought of what goes on in England, and that's what I was referring to.
That's fair enough and I'll reiterate what I said above - if there's sufficient demand for it then the state should do everything it can to provide it.
I do predict that you'll still see the same differences in educational attainment between the sectors as seen elsewhere though.
These are kids who have been indoctrinated with atheism by their parents then?
I looked up info about those faith schools. Spoiler alert: they don’t do better because of their faith based curriculum.
https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/faith-schools-pupil-performance-social-selection/
Key Findings
At Key Stage 2, we find that:
- 83 per cent of pupils in Church of England schools, and 85 per cent of pupils in Roman Catholic schools achieved level 4 in reading writing and mathematics, compared to 81 per cent in non-faith schools.
- 60.6 per cent of pupils in Church of England schools, and 63.2 per cent of pupils in Roman Catholic schools achieved five good GCSEs, including English and mathematics, compared to 57.4 per cent of pupils in non-faith secondary schools.
- educate a lower proportion of disadvantaged children (12.1 per cent at KS2 versus 18.0 per cent; 12.6 per cent at KS4 versus 14.1 per cent);
- educate a lower proportion of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) (16.8 per cent at KS2 versus 19.7 per cent; 14.4 per cent at KS4 versus 16.6 per cent); and
- enrol a larger proportion of high attaining pupils(28.4 per cent at KS2 versus 23.7 per cent; 27.4 per cent at KS4 versus 24.5 per cent).
Also, they aren’t actually performing that much better…
In addition to analysing how representative faith schools are compared to non-faith schools, we also look at how representative they are of their local communities through a ‘social selection’ index. A score of 1.0 means that a school draws in from its catchment exactly the same proportion of poor students who are represented in the catchment area. Using this, we find:
- Grammar schools are the most socially selective schools, with an average score of 0.2.
- This means that on average the odds of a pupil in a grammar school being eligible for free school meals are one fifth of those for all children in their local area.
- Of the 100 most socially selective schools in England, 65 of these are grammar schools (including some ‘faith grammars’).
- Secondary faith schools have, on average, a socially-selective score of 0.7.
- This means that the odds of a pupil in a secondary faith school being eligible for free school meals are around two thirds of those for all children in their local area.
- In the top 100 socially selective secondary schools, 30 of these are faith schools and 17 of these are non-academically selective faith schools – raising concerns about their admission arrangements.
- Primary faith schools have similarly socially selective intakes.
- The difference in attainment between faith and non-faith schools at Key Stage 2 is largely eliminated after controlling for prior attainment and pupil characteristics – and is so small as to be educationally insignificant.
- At Key Stage 4, also adjusting for pupil characteristics, pupils in faith schools achieved the equivalent of around one-seventh of a grade higher in each of 8 GCSE subjects. This is a relatively small attainment gain.
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Finally! Had been waiting for one of you lot to come back with either that or "Indoctrination with scientific beliefs" rebuttal.These are kids who have been indoctrinated with atheism by their parents then?
Modern historians very rarely use the term dark ages, and almost never (or possibly literally never) in the wholly negative way you're suggesting, of society stagnating and recessing, of non-progress. You don't have to go out and buy any history books to confirm this, just do a search in Google Scholar.
I never claimed that they do better because of their faith based curriculum (if by faith based curriculum you mean the particular religious teaching provided in the school) or as Moby put it - Kids are doing good in maths and science because they were told to believe that Jesus the son of god is real.
Honestly 90% of the time no one really knows what you lot are on about given most of it is filled with fantasies and imaginary stuff.I never claimed that they do better because of their faith based curriculum (if by faith based curriculum you mean the particular religious teaching provided in the school) or as Moby put it - Kids are doing good in maths and science because they were told to believe that Jesus the son of god is real.
Religion pretty much puts any other drug out there to shame.
Yes you did.I never claimed that they do better because of their faith based curriculum (if by faith based curriculum you mean the particular religious teaching provided in the school) or as Moby put it - Kids are doing good in maths and science because they were told to believe that Jesus the son of god is real.
No, I referred to the ethos of the school.
Walk it back all you want, but you said: “as I understand it schools in the US with a religious ethos of some kind tend to perform better than their secular state counterparts. And that’s something which is certainly the case on this side of the Atlantic, demonstrating perhaps that this kind of ‘indoctrination’ is very beneficial.”
The proof is: the schools perform marginally better because they’re selective in their admissions, not because of any benefit of their religious “indoctrination”/“ethos”/“curriculum”/whatever word we wanna out there out to make you feel better about saying it.
Its pretty simple really, as the days go by science proves, creates and discovers more and more and the bible (or whatever religious text someone relies on) continues to prove absolutely nothing (still waiting for that repeatable religious test I can do that turns water into wine)
Still though, as long as what someone believes isn't forced on their neighbour and doesn't cause harm then believe in whatever you want to believe in.
Still though, as long as what someone believes isn't forced on their neighbour and doesn't cause harm then believe in whatever you want to believe in.
Yes, they call it less and less that. The term meant the lack of evolution of humanity, between the advances of the Romans and close to the industrial revolution, the renascence (do you know why they call it that?). History like all facets of life is more and more infected by the virus of "don't upset" the believers.
The terms are not of importance anyway; what was done during those times is. Europe went through a dark time of thought dominated by the church. A few hundred years lost of study and free thought. As Europeans we like to feel superior to the islam state or other retards with similar thoughts; but we were right there juts a few hundred years ago.
It would be imposing something. It's imposing your view of how the world should be on others.
Just to be clear, my view is that if there's sufficient demand for secular schools, or in the NI context - integrated schools, then the state should endeavour to provide it.
Apologies. When you mentioned that I immediately thought of what goes on in England, and that's what I was referring to.
That's fair enough and I'll reiterate what I said above - if there's sufficient demand for it then the state should do everything it can to provide it.
I do predict that you'll still see the same differences in educational attainment between the sectors as seen elsewhere though.
These are kids who have been indoctrinated with atheism by their parents then?
I did think you couldn't have been talking about Ireland with some of the responses so fair enough on that. The Church in the South anyway pretty much has a stranglehold on public schools and is seemingly reluctant to give them up. There are a few ear-marked to be switched over but there are issues with parents not being happy about it and protests etc so they can't just switch a school over to a secular one. Successive Irish govts haven't ensured enough houses were built or sorted out our healthcare system despite pumping billions into it and naturally education is also a bit of a shitshow in this regard. At the founding of the state, the Church was happy to provide schools and the govt was broke and quite religious so let them at it. Unfortunately, very few of the secular revolutionaries survived so we were left with de Valera. We're still dealing with the legacy of that in the South. All new schools are secular but it's not moving fast enough at the moment.
I'm still not sure about your contention that religious schools are somehow better or that the absence of something can mean you're pushing something on others. Are there some studies you're basing your opinion, about the quality of education, on?
My belief is that education should be free and available to all so by that token all public schools should be secular and inclusive. Private Schools can do what they like and if people want to pay to send their kids to one of a specific ethos then so be it. However, as I said the public ones should be secular, inclusive and integration is extremely important if we don't want to end up with a polarised society in twenty, thirty, or forty years' time. I know the last part is a joke and yeah it's possible that you can be indoctrinated into anything but my parents let me know what their thoughts were and told me some believed and some didn't and that there were all sorts of Religions and it was really up to me as to what I believed in, but it really wasn't discussed much. They were either atheist/agnostic at the time. To be honest I'm still not really sure of the exact nature of what they believe and it wouldn't have bothered them if I decided to go to Mass after learning about Christ in School or to become a Buddhist after being exposed to that.
You have no idea how much you sound like the principal and management of the school I went to growing up. We have 4 religious books for 1 actually useful one. Spent like an hour a day praying. Had constant events where we'd be reciting religious verses. The fecking houses which were like categories that kids were divided into for events and such were all named after Hindu gods. And all the fecking time they couldn't stop going on about ethics, culture, moral goodness. We had a fecking subject called 'Culture Course'. And how my religious fanatic parents used to think I was being sent to a pure heaven like place where no bad thing could ever happen.
I lost 6 points out of 100 in science in the finals and all I could think of was how that wouldn't have happened if I wasn't asked to waste so much time going through that garbage instead of actually learning something useful. The worst part was how much pride and narcissism that lot running that school had, as if they were doing such a good thing for the society by rubbing centuries old rubbish onto kids at the age where they are supposed to learn and be educated. Zero doubt the same lot would go back home and conduct marital rape with their wives, discriminate people with darker skin, refuse to touch people with lower castes, blame rape victims for wearing the clothes of their choice, etc.
I actually just posted a study a little bit above this that shows the schools he mentioned in England only do marginally better and only because they are selective in who they let in.
Not walking back on anything.
That specific sentence was a little wind up just for you. I did use inverted commas around indoctrination and prefaced it with perhaps.
I said the ethos of the school contributes to the difference. And the other factors obviously include the kind of family life that religion or faith encourages.
The differences in NI go some way in demonstrating the point, where the sector which services what was once the discriminated against side of the population outperforms the state sector which the once dominant population avails of.
Thanks those figures are hardly something to hang your hat on. Very Christian of them to take in a lower % of disadvantaged kids and those with special needs.
Well I’m genuinely sorry that you had that experience. Had I had it too, then I may have developed a similar outlook to yours.
Truly amazing.
Yes indeed. I’m sure Jesus would be very proud.
I was expecting a meme.
It was no big deal here. Of the 12 years of schooling, I spent 6 years in a convent school (run by nuns) and the other 6 in one embedded with Hindu traditions.
So I am in a decent position to say how laughable it is to assert having religious values taught in a school has any effect whatsoever to the educational growth of any student.
@Carolina Red the study that you shared is also true in France, it applies to religious schools and in general to private schools. In reality public schools are better, they simply on average start with worse students, that are in worse social conditions and with a larger difference of level between pupils which require more work and yet the end product is roughly the same.
In the UK many Catholic schools do well but will be all girls schools and/or highly selective as you say. I went to C of E primary, the other side of the same coin, which for all intents and purposes is the common school system in the UK with some "light" religious aspects (we'd go to church many times a year, all school plays were Christianity themed etc. and we sung hymns exclusively). What pains me is that age for children is when they need to be learning useful things and yet, 30 odd years later, I remember word for word about 20 hymns about a God who I am certain doesn't exist and a religion I see as no more than a piece of fantasy literature which got a head of steam up and changed the world.