DISQUS

Hemingway and J.D.Salinger aren't idelogical cult figures. And they DO NOT taste good with ketchup.

I can only agree to being puzzled by people claiming to have a personal “love” relationship with Jesus. The weirdest manifestation of this in my mind is the bumper sticker that says "Real Men Love Jesus".

(Theological conundrum for Drew... would that be adultery?)

Brian, you know your own children, you know the circumstances of your school district, and, to the extent that it is humanly possible, you know your own capabilities to help your children to learn. I obviously do not, so I am not in a position to sit in judgment in your particular case. I can only speak in general.

I have off and on visited home schooling web sites and have engaged some home schoolers in conversation and I have often heard the claim that "home schooled children do better than average." This statement is usually made with absolutely no reference to any sort of study that might provide a basis for it. Usually it is made in conjunction with the claim that their own children are "above average" but with no reference to the way in which this was assessed. And, of course, we (and they) don't know what their children would be doing in the public school. Maybe WAY above average.

This is much like the anecdotal evidence that suggests that all children in Lake Woebegone are above average. It should be treated with more than just a dose of skepticism. And yet it is stated and passed on as if it were a self-evident truth. I just don't think that is right, and it very well could lead someone into making a very bad decision for themselves and their children.

In only one case was a reference provided. This was a study conducted by a religious advocacy organization, one that engages in legal and political action to defend fundamentalist home schoolers. In other words, lawyers who are religious zealots on a crusade. I have never seen this study to assess it in detail, but I think, once again, skepticism would be in order.

This same organization cites studies that show that a teacher's credentials are not very well correlated to student success. From this we are supposed to believe that anyone, under any circumstances, can successfully teach their own children as well as - no! better than - a trained and educated public school teacher. Of course, such studies are all conducted among a population of practicing professional teachers, working with others in a supportive environment, not just anyone off the street. Once again, this is what you get from lawyers on a religious crusade.

You mention that one of the major failings of our public schools is the fact that too many parents rely on it solely to educate their children. The fact is that for many people this dependence is entirely reasonable for many reasons: economic, interpersonal, and simple intellectual competency. A single mom with an 11th grade education and a full-time minimum-wage job is not going to be able to add much to her child's education, and I think it is entirely right for the public schools to be expected to shoulder the burden.

You also mention that your public school district welcomes volunteers to help children learn to read. You take this as an indication that the school and the parents have failed. There are many reasons why a school would welcome volunteers, and it is probably the failing schools that would be least likely to do so. My own school district welcomes volunteers. Like yours, it is one of the best in my state, and we have a very good (not perfect) record of teaching our children to read. My guess is that the school system does this in order to foster a spirit of support for education and as a way of giving enthusiastic parents a chance to help out. I don't see this as being in any way negative.

Over all, I don't fear homeschooling will turn out droves of dumb children. Just quite a few - along with quite a few smart ones. There are just not that many people who will actually attempt it. It is, past a certain point, completely impractical and could never be a viable alternative to public schools. But since a child's education is at stake, it demands oversight, and if that oversight becomes burdensome, the state has every right to require attendance at a real private or public school.

RE: homeschoolers outperform publicly schooled children on academic tests.

Actually, selected homeschoolers outperform schooled children on tests adminstered by organizations that advocate for homeshcoolers.

Your own experience is an example of such selectivity.

But, regardless of your children's abilities or your credentials, if you are using a state-provided curriculum and your children are taking standardized tests, it sounds to me like you may very well be providing for a quality education that supports the public goals of universal, free, compulsary education. In that case, I would have no argument. The California ruling, however, does not seem to support those public goals.

Consider that some of these (cough, cough ahemassholeSahem cough cough) actually pull this (cough, chough ahemShhhhitahem cough, cough) on their OWN KIDS. Whether it is real or not, it is all too beliveable.

The California's State Terminator says that the decision "confirms the right every California child has to a quality education and the right parents have to decide what is best for their children."

Obviously, he is a politician, and not a critical thinker! What happens when a parent decides that what is best for his child is to forego a quality education? This is not just a theoretical question, this is what is happening in the case under reveiw.

RE: There's a huge difference between a ten-week abortion and putting a newborn in the microwave.

Indeed there is. Thank you for acknowledging that. We are constantly being bombarded with the claim that "abortion is murder". The claim is that "its a child, not a choice". There is an extremist tendency to equate abortion with infanticide and some of the horrific executions of children we have heard of some deranged parents carrying out. What you said above was "I'm not willing to allow people to kill their children just because..." If you do not want to be considered an extremist of this sort, you might want to chose your words more carefully.


RE: Most pro-choice apologists among careful philosophers do in fact acknowledge that abortion is killing.

What I said was that many moral, intelligent and thoughtfully people have come to the conclusion that they are not "killing their children." I did not say they were not killing . I said they were not killing their children . I do not consider a zygote, a blastocyst, an embryo or a foetus to be a child. Neither does the consensus of the medical profession. Nor do our laws.


RE: A careful pro-choicer would say that it's a morally allowable instance of killing one's child...

I think you need to look up "child" in a dictionary. Although not a dictionary, here is a quote from the Wikipedia entry on "child":

"A child (also called bairn in Northumbria, Scotland, and parts of Northern England) is most often defined as a young human being between birth and puberty; a boy or girl. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority. 'Child' may also describe a relationship with a parent or authority figure, or signify group membership in a clan, tribe, or religion...."

Then they have some pictures - Children in a doorway in Jerusalem - Children in Namibia- Girls in Xinjaing in northwestren China. Not one zygote, blastocast, embryo or foetus among them.

A careful philosopher would not characterize a zygote, blastocast, embryo or foetus as a child, especially since the term child implies the developmental, social and moral status which is the point of the dispute. A pro-choicer who did so would be incredibly stupid.


RE: We obviously disagree on the metaphysics if you think I didn't exist a few second before I was born...

I don't think I said anything about a person's existence a few seconds before birth. What I said was that the law, as a practical matter, may solve the problem of a gray area between two qualitatively different stages of development by considering all of the gray area to be within one or the other stage, whichever is more just. The whole "one second before birth" problem is avoided. Metaphysics has nothing to do with it.

Since I don't really pray, I probably have no business contributing to this topic, but I have given it a bit of thought in the past. I have a suspicion that religious experience is grounded in human experience in such a way that those of us who are not religious can none the less find a correlation or a sympathetic note in their own experience. In this way, I conceive of prayer as an expression of hope, and especially with the experience of having exhausted all means to an end and having only hope left.


I am reminded of the atheist who, while trying to start her car, was overheard mumbling "come on, spaghetti monster, come on".

Enjoy the National Aquarium. Also take in the Baltimore Science Center BUT don't pass by the...

AMERICAN VISIONARY ART MUSEUM
http://www.avam.org/

They have an exhibition put on just for you: All Faiths Beautiful - Be it deeply personal, a work in progress, a torment or a blessing - what we believe and especially what we don't is our most precious life-shaping, human experience.

Also, the Baltimore Museum of Industry - http://www.thebmi.org/ - great for the kids!

After reading the previous article (Should Atheists Respect Religion) I visited the links to PZ Myers' site. "Puerility" is a very respectful way of describing what I encountered there.

The question for me is not whether atheists should respect religion, but whether anyone at all should respect PZ Myers. Let alone pay him any attention. Who reads that garbage? This is as puzzling to me as is the existence of "shock jocks" and over-the-top ideological radio talk shows.

I have just started reading Rawls' Political Liberalism, which specifically address the question of respect and toleration in a free, pluralistic, liberal democracy. How can we maintain freedom, justice and political stability in the face of a plurality of "comprehensive doctrines" including many claiming to have a monopoly on "the truth." The introduction contains a brief but insightful sketch of the history of religious tolerance and freedom of conscience in Western civilization. It is all about responsible liberal citizenship.

Already it is a very interesting read. I am not even past the introduction, so I cannot speak definitively, but he states that he will introduce the concept of a reasonable comprehensive doctrine, and that his definition of reasonable will be drawn so as to specifically allow religious doctrines. It will be interesting to see how this concept can be applied to notions of respect vs. mere tolerance and even opposition to other's basic beliefs.

My all-time favorite bookstore is a seminary bookstore: the Seminary Co-op Bookstore of the Chicago Theological Seminary.

RE: You present a complete non sequitur. Abortion is indeed legal, but how does it follow from its legality that they aren't killing their children?

Abortion has been a historical fact over many hundreds, even thousands of years. It has been legal, illegal, supported, discouraged and ignored but it has never been treated as the moral equivalent of infanticide or murder. Apparently you think that a poor, unmarried, 16 year old girl who terminates an unintended pregnency so that she and her future children can enjoy a decent life is the moral equivalent of (to cite a recent example) a woman who puts her child in the microwave oven and turns it on. I'd say that your moral sentiments are severely out of whack.

The legality of abortion means that many very intelligent, thoughtful, moral and concerned people have come to the conclusion that they are not killing their children. The considered opinions of the supreme court; medical professional organizations; governments of multiple states; of multiple countries; many, many religious organizations and theologians are not to be lightly dismissed, and citing legality is a legitimate way of making that point.


RE: I've heard that claim, but the only evidence I've ever seen backing it up has relied on misuse of statistics

The relationship between restrictions on abortion and the incidence of abortion comes from a synthesis put together by the Guttmacher Institute: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_IAW.pdf.

"Legal restrictions on abortion do not affect its incidence. For example, the abortion rate is 29 in Africa, where abortion is illegal in many circumstances in most countries, and it is 28 in Europe, where abortion is generally permitted on broad grounds. The lowest rates in the world are in Western and Northern Europe, where abortion is accessible with few restrictions."


RE: As for the law, laws can always be changed.

The law is evolving towards greater sympathy for the plight of the living, breathing, real person whose actual life will be affected, not towards the mere potential of an undeveloped embryo or foetus. Between 1995 and 2005, 17 countries liberalized their laws to increase access to safe abortion while three countries tightened restrictions.


RE: There are also people who think moral status develops gradually as the organism's complexity increases, but I think that view has some really disturbing implications

The law deals with this problem all the time, and has been since the beginning of time. You pick a developmental stage that is early enough to be clearly not infanticide, and late enough that the woman who is making the decision is not being treated unjustly. This is what the supreme court did. Problem solved.


RE: If my mom had aborted me, it would have been me she was killing.

As one philosopher to another, I'd say that is definitely not true.

RE: It’s getting a bit distasteful and tiresome. Anyone else a bit squeamish over this?

yes. Yes. YES!

Here is a link for anecdotal (and other) evidence for the prevalence of abortion amongst those who are "pro life".

"The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion" http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html

Drew has it right, Jeremy.

"I’m not willing to allow people to kill their children" They aren't killing their children. Abortion is legal, it is a right at the highest level of our law, and you have already lost that one.

"So abortion laws take priority over forcing people to accept unwed mothers."

Then you are not going anywhere. Even if you do get general laws against abortion, enforcement will not be practical. Those societies with the lowest abortion rates are those with the least restrictive abortion laws. Even those who protest abortion outside the clinics are often found inside having one. For some abortion protesters, "everyone's abortion is wrong... but mine".

Drew's approach is more practical, more humane, and essentially the best you can do. Your extremism will cause us all, and especially the more vulnerable amongst us, more problems than it will ever solve.

Chris, you probably missed this - I am pro CHOICE. I don't think abortion is in any way, shape or form like murder, rape or theft. Not even counterfeiting!

Abortion is NOT against the law, and it is held to be a woman's right at the highest level of our law.

Legal abortion is only right or wrong within the context of the circumstances of the individual making the decision. As a society, we can reduce the necessity to make that decision, and to the extent that we want one or the other decision to be made, we can change the specific circumstances that would influence her one way or the other. And by this I mean alleviate the negative social impacts on the life of he woman, not make it harder for her to get an abortion.

So, if you want young, unmarried women to have babies, you should be willing to help them out when they do.

While it is the other side of the issue, those who don't take the approach adovcated by Drew would be confronted with the difficulties of enforcement. It is a fact that, however unplesent, aboriton is not a difficult or extereamly dangerious medical procedure. The equipment and the expertise (in the large majority of cases) to "do it right" just is not that hard to come by. Given the situation Drew describes, it would not be difficult for a young woman to take the chance and chose to terminate the pregancy, law or no law.

The amature and black-market abortion is not unthinkable and is, in fact, a common reality in those parts of the world where abortion is illegal. In fact, the rate of abortion in a population GOES UP as the law becomes more restrictive. The reason is simple: Those societies that allow abortion also tend to take Drew's approach, and the result is a win-win for both sides of the issue.

Chris, Since I am Pro-Choice, my response is, why don't you leave them alone to do the right thing, as they see it? And if you realy don't think their choice is right, then YES, you DO have an obligation to help them towards what you think they should do.

Let me add that I agree with Drew, that there is a lot we can do to help alleviate the difficulties that confront young people in difficult situations whatever their choice. And if we can help to keep them out of a situation that requires making a difficult choice, I think it should be considered with both an open mind and an open hart.

Boy, you've got me. I read the link and it sure is mystical! Personally, I prefer God to keep his ontos to himself, but that's just me.

While I would use the term respect for the appropriate civil attitude towards most "comprehensive doctrines", the minimum political regard for other's ideas and convictions would be toleration. Some convictions, such as, for instance, racism, require only toleration, and even then the "practice" of such doctrines may be prohibited within limits (for instance, public accommodation.) Of course, religious practice is to be given the widest latitude possible, but one can find examples of religious practice, not mere belief, being proscribed.

I'm not sure why an atheist would not be allowed non-empirical value claims, but the consequences that you project for mutual disrespect are indeed a real possibility and constitute more than enough of an argument as far as I'm concerned.

Besides, diversity of belief makes the world an interesting place and mutual respect makes that diversity all the more enjoyable.

Respect is a bit of a fuzzy, emotional, and interpersonal concept and thus open to misunderstanding, failures to communicate, and hypocrisy. Often I think that Drew is a bit TOO sensitive about atheistic disrespect, but in many cases, he is right on target.

One practice I find particularly distressing is the US vs. THEM blame game. Divide humanity up into two mutually exclusive groups. Compare the very best of US and the very worst of THEM - US wins! But wait! There's more! Now it's THEM's turn - pick the very worst of the US team and compare to the very best of the THEM team! Now THEM wins.

This can go on forever... in fact, it has!

RE: Atheism makes sense, but is quite inconsistent.

Huh? How is it that anything makes sense, and yet is inconsistent?

Watching Jesus Camp? Prepare to be mocked. The little girl compares and contrasts her sect's worship practices with those characteristic of yours. She has to be forgiven - she is too young to be anything but innocent.

Best part - knowing more about the Rev. Ted Haggard than anyone in the film does at the time.

I would like your opinion of Ted's cameo - Maybe my memory is failing me, but I remember him as the one person in the film that comes across as an actual, real, full-blooded human being. I almost, but not quite, feel sorry for the guy.

The book tries to show "how bad things can get when you try to make sure nobody gets upset or experiences emotion" and here they are trying to keep the kids from getting upset or experiencing emotion! It sound to me like these "responsible adults" need to read this book! What a bunch of over-protective idiots!

RE: After all, in this day and age, there’s so much effective contraception - and the unwillingness to use it effectively stems from the same weakness that caused them to say “no” to abstinence in the first place.

My view is that this is comes close to blaming the victum. As a parent of a young man who has started to "experiment" with his girl friend, I can tell you, first hand, that it is NOT easy for a young girl to obtain hormonal birth control AND retain her dignity and privacy. It is not impossible, and, of course, it is very easy for young men to get prophalactics - so I am not trying to exagerate the situation. But there are SIGNIFCANT hurdles and they have been set up delibertly. My view is they need to be removed.