Gay and straight

[rusmeister]

So, GKC was supporting those who were arguing against the teaching of Evolution in schools? Nice.

On the quote itself, I call bull$hit -- the argument holds only if you accept the public school as the only institution that can provide education. Any child receiving instruction at a public school is likely also receiving education through the church of their parents' choice.
It sounds like GKC is arguing that a specifically anti-Christian agenda is what is effectively espoused by schools when they attempt non-sectarianism. While it is certainly possible this can happen, I doubt that is the true intention. But, it is hard to distinguish the nature of the line between 'non-religious' and 'godlessness,' especially when faced with the religious who believe that god is in all things, and who insist that espousing any policy seeking to avoid the topic of religion is a roundabout path to heresy.
Separation of church and state, please.

dw

Dukkha, your position is somewhat self-contradictory, and you would not at all appreciate it if positions were reversed. If your children received 5 days a week, from 8:00-3:00 of religious-based education, and it was justified because you had the option of opting out for an atheist school (and this under compulsory default education in the public school) or because you could send them to a special atheist school for 2 hours once a week, you would cry foul. Which is what I am doing.

You did nothing to refute GKC's argument. Calling it "bull$hit" does not answer the issues he raises at all. He IS arguing that a specifically anti-Christian agenda is what is effectively espoused by schools when they (pretend to) attempt non-sectarianism. And I argue that, on the basis of having seen it close and up-front intensively for four years as a public school teacher (an agnostic one that might not have converted were that not so). It was precisely the requirements, both of NY state and of California, as implemented by the people in control of teacher education and in the public schools themselves that led me to see that it was very anti-Christian - when I didn't believe at all.

[rusmeister]

I'll never understand what the objection is to public education that teaches the "natural sciences', and churches that teach their specific religions. The two don't need to conflict, as I've said often enough, but both insist in causing a conflict often enough. Idiotic arguments against evolution in churches, using "science" that no evolutionary scientist in the world has ever supported; and schools saying science has proven there is no God.

Well, Fist, if you don't understand what GKC was saying there, and have nothing to ask me about it, I guess you never will understand the objection. That's why I feel my conversations with you are mostly over. If you don't get that a professor , instructor or teacher can really teach a particular attitude toward life as a scheme, either by teaching that all truth is subjective, or that anything outside the natural sciences is whatever you make of it - the only truths are material truths - and that they don't need to teach it as a curriculum point, then I don't know how to transmit it to you. (It is hardest of all to transmit to those that don't want to be transmitted to.) It is taught merely by assumption, the inevitable assumption of the instructor's worldview. I AM a teacher and I can see clearly how views - both my own and others - can serve as assumed - and undiscussed - backgrounds, laying the foundation of how the child/student will think about life.

I admit that GKC is hard, especially for the neophyte - the person who has read little to nothing of him. I have said before that I read my first several books by him at a snail's pace, scratching my head, and rereading passages - which forced me to actually think - before I began to 'get his drift'. But if you don't get what he's saying, say so. If you get it and disagree, say why. (And if you ever do get it and agree,make sure to thank my post! )

[rusmeister]

F&F,

Here's the rub. the Church would say choosing to dwell on an inappropriate attraction is a an action because it is possible to push back the fleeting though or attraction. The very fact that it is possible to banish the though means that dwelling on the thought, fantasy, or attraction is voliative, that it is an action.

But, again, that's not what rus just said. He said: "The sin is in ACTING on the desire; fulfilling the lust." Dwelling on it forever is not fulfilling the lust.

But he did, in the past, say that thinking lustful thoughts in more than a fleeting way, then immediately thinking of more Godly things - that is, dwelling on the lustful thoughts - is a sin.

I just want to know which it is.

The sin is also in the action of encouraging the temptation to thought - to give in to fantasizing. Didn't you see "the Iron Giant"? When the Giant is tempted to 'go automatic' when the planes are shooting at him, he covers his eyes and says "No". www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBAllA6k_IQ (at 1:16-17 on that clip)
That is resistance to temptation and is good - not sin. So merely experiencing temptation is not sin. Encouraging/allowing it in thought or deed IS.

Everything I have said is consistent.
1) You experience a moment of temptation. You:
a) reject/struggle with the temptation or
b) you say, "Let's play with it for just a minute..."

a) is the choice to turn towards God. Immediately.
b) is our brokenness, our choice to turn away from God and towards ourselves.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

Dukkha, your position is somewhat self-contradictory, and you would not at all appreciate it if positions were reversed. If your children received 5 days a week, from 8:00-3:00 of religious-based education, and it was justified because you had the option of opting out for an atheist school (and this under compulsory default education in the public school) or because you could send them to a special atheist school for 2 hours once a week, you would cry foul. Which is what I am doing.

It isn't self-contradictory if public education is actually providing the non-religious education to all students that it should be. It is difficult to establish a curriculum that is merely non-religious, to make sure that it is at least choice-neutral when it mentions religions, and specifically does not espouse an anti-religious view. I assume that's because it's hard to consistently navigate the line between non-religious and anti-religious, especially difficult when you have activists on both sides with conflicting agendas to push.
Math should be the easiest to keep about math. Literature is more difficult, because you cannot delve too far into it without touching upon cultural values, which can easily dip into religious assumptions. Science should be as simple as math, except for when you get into biology and eventually into human species and origin. Of course religion has something to say on that topic, so how to keep neutral about it without misinforming students? The default answer should be to provide whatever current concrete answers science has to offer, and refer students to their religion of choice for spiritual matters.

You did nothing to refute GKC's argument. Calling it "bull$hit" does not answer the issues he raises at all. He IS arguing that a specifically anti-Christian agenda is what is effectively espoused by schools when they (pretend to) attempt non-sectarianism. And I argue that, on the basis of having seen it close and up-front intensively for four years as a public school teacher (an agnostic one that might not have converted were that not so). It was precisely the requirements, both of NY state and of California, as implemented by the people in control of teacher education and in the public schools themselves that led me to see that it was very anti-Christian - when I didn't believe at all.

And that is a shame -- if it is happening, then it is an abuse of the system that should be as bias-free as humanly possible. I am not interested in teaching any children bias for or against a religion, and I really don't want my tax dollars spent in discussion for or against religion at all, especially if a preference is being exerted.

I think, though, that it can also be very easy to confuse non-Christian with anti-Christian policies. To the devout Christian, I imagine that anything non-Christian can be construed as anti-Christian.

Public schools should not be anti-religious. At worst, they should remain utterly silent on the subject, to preserve the separation of chuch and state. Religious education should occur in a church, and public education needs to remain focused (or be refocused as needed) on non-religious education such that *all* can benefit from it without harm, even the children of deeply religious parents who are exercising their right to use the public system that is available to all.

dw

[DukkhaWaynhim]

If you don't get that a professor , instructor or teacher can really teach a particular attitude toward life as a scheme, either by teaching that all truth is subjective, or that anything outside the natural sciences is whatever you make of it - the only truths are material truths - and that they don't need to teach it as a curriculum point, then I don't know how to transmit it to you. (It is hardest of all to transmit to those that don't want to be transmitted to.) It is taught merely by assumption, the inevitable assumption of the instructor's worldview. I AM a teacher and I can see clearly how views - both my own and others - can serve as assumed - and undiscussed - backgrounds, laying the foundation of how the child/student will think about life.

[snipped out patronizing paragraph about how difficult it is to get GKC]

Dude, we get it. GKC believed the public education system cannot fulfill its stated goal of being nonsectarian, because the world isn't nonsectarian, and the people in it cannot long pretend to be nonsectarian. His point is that teachers can and do communicate their "worldviews" along-side, underneath, and couched within the curricula they are supposedly compelled to follow. Couple that with curricula that could be designed with subtle yet nefariously anti-Christian underpinnings, and you get a slow conversion of publicly educated students away from the true path of Christianity. It is a valid point, but only if you assume that public education is the single information feed that children get as they grow up. My point is that religious education can and does happen right alongside public education, because if their parents are on-point, these same publicly educated kids are going to private church services, taking religious ed classes, going to church group functions... all of which are custom-designed to indoctrinate and reinforce the teachings of their respective religions.
If that constant feed of religious indoctrination can't stand a little bit of encouragement from a science teacher to question the objectivity of facts and truths (whether that teacher is acting appropriately within the scope of their role as a public educator or not), then perhaps that religion deserves to be scrutinized with skepticism.

dw

[rusmeister]

I don't count being unable to discriminate on the basis of sexuality oppression. Sorry. That's taking away the long held ability to oppress others.

There you go.
And I don't count the denial of immoral behavior in public as oppression. I think laws against public drunkenness a good idea and don't consider it oppression of the alcoholic, either. I think alcoholism ought to be discouraged, even while responsible drinking ought to be supported. And regardless of how you see it, I DO see it as being in the same category.
So no one is oppressing anyone, huh? We're all living in peace and happiness and all that news stuff is just, well, that's just a few radicals, right?

Would you like to specify "news stuff"? Of course we're not living in peace and harmony, but I happen to think that we should be, and that such a thing is possible. The causes of war and oppression are far flung, but I don't believe homosexuality to be one of them. I do believe religious intolerance to be one of them, though.

Sure, I can specify. I posted an NPR link. Did you read it?

I think there is intolerance no matter religious or not. The trouble is in our understanding of "tolerance". I can see how tolerance can be bad and intolerance the virtue.
You cannot have a society that both encourages the sales of poisonous mushrooms and condemns them. One attitude or the other is going to be suppressed - and woe betide the society that allows the sale of poisonous mushrooms.
If you admit that it can be possible to tolerate dangerous things that ARE harmful to a society and should NOT be tolerated, we might get somewhere in understanding. In that light, religious intolerance COULD be a GOOD thing*, and the popular tolerance the evil.
There is such a thing as irreligious intolerance. But again, did you read that article?

On "immoral behaviour" in public: again, we disagree fundamentally. The only public behaviour that should be illegal is that which harms others. "Harms" need not be literal physical harm, in my view. A drunk person shouting, throwing things, acting angrily will impinge on people's personal freedoms, in that they are likely to feel intimidated. A happy drunk with a sloppy smile, stumbling along the street, might cause judgemental frowns from the more straight laced, but is inessence harming no-one (save his brain cells). I think that many things it is illegal to do in public at the moment should be legal. Smoking pot right through to shooting heroin, to marching with signs saying "God Hates Fags." The latter is morally repugnant to me, but I can't prevent it, because it does me no harm. A sign saying "Kill All Fags" is an incentive to violence, and is likely to cause harm.

Now there is a reason, in practical law, to not distinguish between the happy drunk and the angry one, and it is that the one can become the other amazingly easily. He is no longer in complete control of himself.

* I want to bring my asterisk down here. Since we will agree that "God hates fags" and "Kill all fags" and the attitudes behind them are repugnant and anti-Christian, there's nothing to discuss here. From the Orthodox position the one is just as bad as the other, because it falsifies our most central teachings - that God really IS love and does not hate us, although He hates what we do. If I could, I'd suppress the former as well as the latter. I see it as equally damaging. It is true that it is not a call to physical violence (which may at times be a necessary thing, but not in this instance) - but it is a call to accept a lie as the truth, and so to turn away from my God on false premises - and it works pretty well, wouldn't you say?
Anyway, as soon as we admit that some things should NOT be tolerated, then the rhetorical use of intolerance becomes false - it does not clarify whether the given intolerance is a good thing or a bad thing. The badness is assumed and not questioned. As someone who likes to think, I propose questioning it.

You see, I don't believe you when you say that somebody needs to be oppressed, so it might as well be the people you think are wrong. Nobody need be oppressed. You are perfectly entitled to take up a sign and mount a counter demonstration to a gay prode parade, you are perfectly entitled to vote as you see fit, you are perfectly entitled to belong to a group who believes as you do, and to pass on those teachings to whoever will listen. What you are not entitled to do is deny those same freedoms to others.

I don't think that PEOPLE need to be oppressed; I think FALSE IDEAS need to be oppressed. So there is no "might as well". And the difference is critical.

If I have the power, I'm entitled to do whatever I see to be right with that power. I prefer to accept an authority over me that can tell me that I am wrong, rather than be my own authority (and never ever have to admit to being personally wrong). If I am "entitled", (the passive voice in English grammar) then there is an active agent that entitles me. The king who accepted his crown from a bishop was entitled, by his own admission, that the agent was God and the Church. The state that imagines itself to be democratic admits that the agent entitling the leader power has been granted to is a majority of the people. The United States, in its founding documents, acknowledges the entitling agent to be the Creator. When Man becomes his own god, then man entitles himself - and that is far worse and more degraded than the Middle Ages. (It is a reason why we have little left of genuine democracy in our lives today.)

So if we may not appeal to God, then I guess I can entitle myself.

[rusmeister]

Dukkha, your position is somewhat self-contradictory, and you would not at all appreciate it if positions were reversed. If your children received 5 days a week, from 8:00-3:00 of religious-based education, and it was justified because you had the option of opting out for an atheist school (and this under compulsory default education in the public school) or because you could send them to a special atheist school for 2 hours once a week, you would cry foul. Which is what I am doing.

It isn't self-contradictory if public education is actually providing the non-religious education to all students that it should be. It is difficult to establish a curriculum that is merely non-religious, to make sure that it is at least choice-neutral when it mentions religions, and specifically does not espouse an anti-religious view. I assume that's because it's hard to consistently navigate the line between non-religious and anti-religious, especially difficult when you have activists on both sides with conflicting agendas to push.
Math should be the easiest to keep about math. Literature is more difficult, because you cannot delve too far into it without touching upon cultural values, which can easily dip into religious assumptions. Science should be as simple as math, except for when you get into biology and eventually into human species and origin. Of course religion has something to say on that topic, so how to keep neutral about it without misinforming students? The default answer should be to provide whatever current concrete answers science has to offer, and refer students to their religion of choice for spiritual matters.

Well, Dukkha, as I just finished saying that it does not in fact provide a neutral education, that I saw this on both the east and west coasts of the US as an eyewitness, all I can say is that your theory is not what is actually carried out in practice. What you think should be is not. And the GKC piece outlined why it can never happen in the first place, much as you may wish it could. Both theory and practice are against your position.

You did nothing to refute GKC's argument. Calling it "bull$hit" does not answer the issues he raises at all. He IS arguing that a specifically anti-Christian agenda is what is effectively espoused by schools when they (pretend to) attempt non-sectarianism. And I argue that, on the basis of having seen it close and up-front intensively for four years as a public school teacher (an agnostic one that might not have converted were that not so). It was precisely the requirements, both of NY state and of California, as implemented by the people in control of teacher education and in the public schools themselves that led me to see that it was very anti-Christian - when I didn't believe at all.

And that is a shame -- if it is happening, then it is an abuse of the system that should be as bias-free as humanly possible. I am not interested in teaching any children bias for or against a religion, and I really don't want my tax dollars spent in discussion for or against religion at all, especially if a preference is being exerted.

I think, though, that it can also be very easy to confuse non-Christian with anti-Christian policies. To the devout Christian, I imagine that anything non-Christian can be construed as anti-Christian.

Public schools should not be anti-religious. At worst, they should remain utterly silent on the subject, to preserve the separation of chuch and state. Religious education should occur in a church, and public education needs to remain focused (or be refocused as needed) on non-religious education such that *all* can benefit from it without harm, even the children of deeply religious parents who are exercising their right to use the public system that is available to all.

dw

Well since it IS happening, it IS a shame. There's no "if". The fact that the state teacher prep programs require all to accept a philosophy that specifically denies truth; that makes it purely individual, and this IS anti-Christian (and arguably anti-Buddhist, anti-Judaic, anti-Islam, etc) shows that it is all over the states, not merely in a few unfortunate schools. Teachers MUST profess an ideology opposed to the (traditional) Christian faith to be allowed in the door. They must include elements in. every. single. course. that they take showing how they will bring pluralism into the classroom - even teaching in your subject area (mine was English, but the same thing went for math teachers. I wonder how they do it...)

Well, the thinking mind can consider whether it is confusing anything at all, or whether it is correctly identifying a spade as a spade. I claim the latter here and have confused nothing.

Your own "shoulds" spring from your worldview - as do the Christian "shoulds" for the Christian. So we will have different "shoulds". And regardless of what we have in our private theories, there is a definite practice in operation and this is what I witnessed - and it cannot be repeated enough that I witnessed it as a rather undevout unbeliever, and it was so consistently ANTI the childhood faith I had rejected that I began to ask myself 'why?' If it's stuff and nonsense, why bother with a virulent and vigorous propaganda opposed to the idea of truth?... Unless there's something in it.

[rusmeister]

If you don't get that a professor , instructor or teacher can really teach a particular attitude toward life as a scheme, either by teaching that all truth is subjective, or that anything outside the natural sciences is whatever you make of it - the only truths are material truths - and that they don't need to teach it as a curriculum point, then I don't know how to transmit it to you. (It is hardest of all to transmit to those that don't want to be transmitted to.) It is taught merely by assumption, the inevitable assumption of the instructor's worldview. I AM a teacher and I can see clearly how views - both my own and others - can serve as assumed - and undiscussed - backgrounds, laying the foundation of how the child/student will think about life.

[snipped out patronizing paragraph about how difficult it is to get GKC]

Dude, we get it. GKC believed the public education system cannot fulfill its stated goal of being nonsectarian, because the world isn't nonsectarian, and the people in it cannot long pretend to be nonsectarian. His point is that teachers can and do communicate their "worldviews" along-side, underneath, and couched within the curricula they are supposedly compelled to follow. Couple that with curricula that could be designed with subtle yet nefariously anti-Christian underpinnings, and you get a slow conversion of publicly educated students away from the true path of Christianity. It is a valid point, but only if you assume that public education is the single information feed that children get as they grow up. My point is that religious education can and does happen right alongside public education, because if their parents are on-point, these same publicly educated kids are going to private church services, taking religious ed classes, going to church group functions... all of which are custom-designed to indoctrinate and reinforce the teachings of their respective religions.
If that constant feed of religious indoctrination can't stand a little bit of encouragement from a science teacher to question the objectivity of facts and truths (whether that teacher is acting appropriately within the scope of their role as a public educator or not), then perhaps that religion deserves to be scrutinized with skepticism.

dw

Thanks! I do see that you read the piece; I hadn't previously got that.

only if you assume that public education is the single information feed that children get as they grow up.

I don't assume that. There IS a huge difference between a compulsory system that children must attend for most of the formative hours and days of their childhood and a voluntary one that might weakly counteract it over a two-hour period on Sunday morning. It's NOT a level playing field, even if we WANT our children to be exposed to ideas that differ with our own. That leaves out everything else that fills our lives (parents that work two jobs, homework, etc etc, while leaving the school as the unquestioned recipient of the lion's share of the child's time. So your last statement is specious; it's like Ebenezer Scrooge (the man of wealth and power) saying that the poor ought to go to the prisons and workhouses. It might begin to achieve validity if we reduce public school time to less than 50% of what it is now - say, 12:00-3:00, 3 days a week. Although one day a week, on Saturday evenings from 5:00-7:00pm would suit me better, and be much more poetic justice. Then I might be able to consider the fairness of exposure to so-called "non-sectarian" education. THAT is what needs to be scrutinized with skepticism - and I don't see you doing that at all...

(Edit) I would offer a simple piece of evidence that the public schools really do produce a product antithetical to the Christian faith; that most here are graduates of said system, and most, despite apparent external differences, unite against the views I present, which most of your great-grandfathers would have agreed with the common sense of, yet you now vitriolically condemn. So do public schools teach people to hate faith, faith in truth, and above all, faith in the Christian God? I'd say the answer, based on results and not rhetoric, is a resounding "yes". (Of course, to understand the whys of that people would have to delve into the history of public schools, and the thread I launched on that in DC has remained as dead as a doornail.)

[Cambo]

On "God Hates Fags:" your response again highlights the difference in our convictions. You say you would repress both expressions if you could. I would only repress the one likely to lead to actual acts of violence and oppression against gays. "God Hates Fags" is a theological statement. "Kill All Fags" is a call to arms. Bear in mind that I find the former only a little less repugnant than the teachings of your church when it comes to sexuality, at least as presented in the articles you linked. If I was going to call for the Westboro Baptist Church to be oppressed, I'd also call for those ideas within Orthodoxy to be oppressed, and in Catholocism, etc ad nauseum. But I don't want to, because the freedoms that give you the right to post your ideas here, and Fred Phelps the right to picket funerals, are the same freedoms that I and people I care about enjoy. They are the same freedoms I want homosexuals to enjoy. I can't have one without the other.

As Noam Chomsky said: "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for those we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

Seems you don't believe in it at all.

[rusmeister]

On "God Hates Fags:" your response again highlights the difference in our convictions. You say you would repress both expressions if you could. I would only repress the one likely to lead to actual acts of violence and oppression against gays. "God Hates Fags" is a theological statement. "Kill All Fags" is a call to arms. Bear in mind that I find the former only a little less repugnant than the teachings of your church when it comes to sexuality, at least as presented in the articles you linked. If I was going to call for the Westboro Baptist Church to be oppressed, I'd also call for those ideas within Orthodoxy to be oppressed, and in Catholocism, etc ad nauseum. But I don't want to, because the freedoms that give you the right to post your ideas here, and Fred Phelps the right to picket funerals, are the same freedoms that I and people I care about enjoy. They are the same freedoms I want homosexuals to enjoy. I can't have one without the other.

As Noam Chomsky said: "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for those we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

Seems you don't believe in it at all.

I think that theological statements ARE a call to arms. It may be spiritual arms, and the war a spiritual war, but that makes it none the less a war.

I don't think Noam Chomsky's philosophy is thought out to the end. The assumption behind that statement is that there is no final truth to come to - or that it doesn't matter, which is the same thing. My first principle is that it is possible to come to a final conclusion and determine that a contradictory view is wrong. On that basis, while it is logical to want to understand and teach why other views are wrong, it is illogical to insist that they be given the same footing as the truth.

Speaking of the modern assumptions around tolerance, diversity and so on, the difference I see between my views and yours is that I spent some years steeped in the best and most eloquent expressions of the views you express (not necessarily all of them, but certainly all that you have expressed here on this topic) - I even read Chomsky for a while, esp after Sept 11th - but that almost no one has had any but the most cursory exposure - if that - to the views I do accept. Most object to the many of the same things I object to in faith and Christianity. Few have read thinkers like Lewis, almost nobody Chesterton (let alone Orthodox thinkers).

I'll readily admit that nearly everybody knows the worst in Christian thought, it being published in the news every day, or better thought badly presented - but I don't see evidence, for instance, of people thinking up to the level of realizing that discrimination CAN be good, and tolerance bad - to really think about all of the rhetorical terms floating about with pre-programmed judgements that bring about knee-jerk reactions. If I say "intolerance" with the pre-programmed assumption of "bad" (dogs growling when the bell rings) or "diversity" with the pre-programmed assumption of "good" (dogs pant and wag their tails), then I am not asking, but is the intolerance or diversity good here or not, and if so, why or why not? I am not thinking at all. If anything, I am being manipulated by people who DO think, just as Pavlov manipulated his dogs. And that's only one example of learning to think vs not thinking. 'Evil euphemisms' www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/on_e ... misms.html was another lesson I owe to GKC - once having grasped the principle, I now see them everywhere. We can see them easily enough in a foreign culture. It is much more difficult to see them in our own culture because we are raised to perceive them as normal and natural. But those are just examples. And they are decidedly counter-cultural today.

[Cambo]

Chomsky's philosophy is thought out to the end. You just don't agree. The end he reaches is that even if there is actual truth, and we believe we have attained knowledge of it, we shouldn't deny people the right to say and do things we know to be wrong. That quote above? He said it in defense of a Holocaust denier. The denier was being thrown in prison for writing a book claiming the Holocaust never happened, and Chomsky spoke up for his freedom of expression. He never spoke up in defense of the ideas in the book, in fact he openly said that he found the book itself, and the man who wrote it, morally repugnant and factually inaccurate. Put another way, Chomsky knew the Holocaust happened, knew this man was wrong to deny it, but defended him anyway. I would defend your right to speak as you do about homosexuality for exactly the same reasons.

The assumption behind Chomsky's philosophy, basically, is that we have the right to be wrong, and the right to be wrong very loudly and publicly. I agree, if that wasn't obvious by now.

[Fist and Faith]

I'll never understand what the objection is to public education that teaches the "natural sciences', and churches that teach their specific religions. The two don't need to conflict, as I've said often enough, but both insist in causing a conflict often enough. Idiotic arguments against evolution in churches, using "science" that no evolutionary scientist in the world has ever supported; and schools saying science has proven there is no God.

Well, Fist, if you don't understand what GKC was saying there, and have nothing to ask me about it, I guess you never will understand the objection. That's why I feel my conversations with you are mostly over. If you don't get that a professor , instructor or teacher can really teach a particular attitude toward life as a scheme, either by teaching that all truth is subjective, or that anything outside the natural sciences is whatever you make of it - the only truths are material truths - and that they don't need to teach it as a curriculum point, then I don't know how to transmit it to you. (It is hardest of all to transmit to those that don't want to be transmitted to.) It is taught merely by assumption, the inevitable assumption of the instructor's worldview. I AM a teacher and I can see clearly how views - both my own and others - can serve as assumed - and undiscussed - backgrounds, laying the foundation of how the child/student will think about life.

But there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with teaching the natural sciences from a natural science perspective. At the same time, your children will learn about God from you and the priest at your church. Why do they need to learn about erosion and multiplication from somene with your religious views? It's fine if you want your children to learn everything that can be learned by someone who will teach it with that particular attitude toward life. But I don't. So why can't we just have the natural sciences be taught as natural science? I see what you say to DW at the top of this page. But it's not 2 hours once a week. Your kids get instructed in your faith well more than that. Every moment they are with you they are being taught from your view. From you, from the friends you visit and have over, from church, from church-organized activities... All of that surely balances out being taught natural science without it being taught as part of the Orthodox worldview.

Public education should be about things we all agree are facts. How to read and write. How to add, subtract, multiply, and divide; and even some more advanced math. What happens when sunlight hits a leaf.

I admit that GKC is hard, especially for the neophyte - the person who has read little to nothing of him. I have said before that I read my first several books by him at a snail's pace, scratching my head, and rereading passages - which forced me to actually think - before I began to 'get his drift'. But if you don't get what he's saying, say so. If you get it and disagree, say why. (And if you ever do get it and agree,make sure to thank my post! )

Why did you bother putting such effort into trying to "get his drift" when your initial efforts were negative? Why did you put so much into it in the hopes that you'd come to understand him? Why did you think he was worth the extreme effort that you realized it would take?

And there's not point in saying why I disagree. I've told you some general things, and ali has told you many specifics. You say our interpretations of what he says are wrong. We think they are not. Do you suspect that's going to change?

[DukkhaWaynhim]

GKC is apparently a fan of taking 1000 words to say what could be said in 50. I wonder if it isn't an attempt at some sort of filibuster... either don't give the opponent time to express their opinion, or perhaps just impress them with the weight of his prose? [/snark]

Euphemism and political correctness can be difficult to navigate, but that sword can be and is used by all parties. We just don't object when the euphemism paints our particular viewpoint in the most positive way. Language is a tricky thing, of course we all know that. There is a plastic connection between denotation and connotation, that changes from area to area, and from time to time. That's why it is dangerous to take old writings and try to interpret them literally, because the words don't necessarily mean the same things that they used to.

dw

[rusmeister]

GKC is apparently a fan of taking 1000 words to say what could be said in 50. I wonder if it isn't an attempt at some sort of filibuster... either don't give the opponent time to express their opinion, or perhaps just impress them with the weight of his prose? [/snark]

Euphemism and political correctness can be difficult to navigate, but that sword can be and is used by all parties. We just don't object when the euphemism paints our particular viewpoint in the most positive way. Language is a tricky thing, of course we all know that. There is a plastic connection between denotation and connotation, that changes from area to area, and from time to time. That's why it is dangerous to take old writings and try to interpret them literally, because the words don't necessarily mean the same things that they used to.

dw

Very true stuff, and no argument (regarding euphemism et al). I find it to be a huge problem for people of modern assumptions in reading, for instance, GKC - and I suspect that what you touch on is a contributing factor - that some people (Adam Gopnik comes sharply to mind) really do forget about local context of place and time and simply apply our understandings today.

On GKC's wordiness, I'll grant that he takes longer to say things. Only I have come to be convinced that this is necessary. Saying things shortly is very often poor exposition. Concision may express ideas succinctly, but it also leaves the door wide open to the dozen objections to the idea. What GKC generally does is deal with the dozen objections before they are raised. he hits the important sides and questions that people really do want answered, and answers before he is asked. So no filibuster at all. It is precision of thought that is the issue here; and Hilaire Belloc stressed that in his essay "On the place of Gilbert Chesterton in English Letters". www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/Belloc-essay.txt

[rusmeister]

Chomsky's philosophy is thought out to the end. You just don't agree. The end he reaches is that even if there is actual truth, and we believe we have attained knowledge of it, we shouldn't deny people the right to say and do things we know to be wrong. That quote above? He said it in defense of a Holocaust denier. The denier was being thrown in prison for writing a book claiming the Holocaust never happened, and Chomsky spoke up for his freedom of expression. He never spoke up in defense of the ideas in the book, in fact he openly said that he found the book itself, and the man who wrote it, morally repugnant and factually inaccurate. Put another way, Chomsky knew the Holocaust happened, knew this man was wrong to deny it, but defended him anyway. I would defend your right to speak as you do about homosexuality for exactly the same reasons.

The assumption behind Chomsky's philosophy, basically, is that we have the right to be wrong, and the right to be wrong very loudly and publicly. I agree, if that wasn't obvious by now.

Thanks, Cambo,
Only I don't think that is the end. Why SHOULD we anything at all? To my thinking, the verbs "should" and "ought to" are modal verbs that confound both the subjectivist (the one who denies an overarching absolute over the relatives) and the unbeliever. The modal verbs "should" and "ought to" presuppose meaning and purpose - that something is "better" for us - which automatically implies "good". If there is no transcendent meaning, then those verbs lose their meaning. there is no reason why I "should" anything at all. Of course, going to the very end of meaninglessness as a philosophical view means that nothing has any meaning - even the very thought about meaninglessness.

All questions, including "Why shouldn't we deny people the right to say things?" (a rather broad stricture) come down to the basic question, "What is truth?" What is the origin and nature of man, what is his purpose, from where (if anywhere) do we derive "rights" from, etc...
If we have different answers, then our 'shoulds' will be different. One may even be holding a self-contradictory position and not be aware of it..
Should we defend one's right to publish and distribute "Mein Kampf"? Or pedophilic material? Why or why not? If I defend one's right to say absolutely anything at all, that means 'absolutely anything at all'. If I make exceptions, then I must justify why I make the exceptions.

I would say that if man were a perfect being there would be no need to forbid anything. Man would have the wisdom and common sense necessary to know what is foolish and actually destructive and what is not. That not being the case, however - we CAN destroy ourselves - the interest in preventing our own self-destruction, be it slowly or quickly, is a logical basis for forbidding certain kinds of expression, if one has the power to do so. If this be admitted at all then the argument of limitless freedom of expression must be discarded. Then we can proceed to other questions. But if we do not tackle the first question - what is good? - we will never come to agreement on other questions. What is the truth about human nature, what really is good, and what is the human ideal toward which we should work? Since we start off with different answers, we are already in trouble.

[rusmeister]

I'll never understand what the objection is to public education that teaches the "natural sciences', and churches that teach their specific religions. The two don't need to conflict, as I've said often enough, but both insist in causing a conflict often enough. Idiotic arguments against evolution in churches, using "science" that no evolutionary scientist in the world has ever supported; and schools saying science has proven there is no God.

Well, Fist, if you don't understand what GKC was saying there, and have nothing to ask me about it, I guess you never will understand the objection. That's why I feel my conversations with you are mostly over. If you don't get that a professor , instructor or teacher can really teach a particular attitude toward life as a scheme, either by teaching that all truth is subjective, or that anything outside the natural sciences is whatever you make of it - the only truths are material truths - and that they don't need to teach it as a curriculum point, then I don't know how to transmit it to you. (It is hardest of all to transmit to those that don't want to be transmitted to.) It is taught merely by assumption, the inevitable assumption of the instructor's worldview. I AM a teacher and I can see clearly how views - both my own and others - can serve as assumed - and undiscussed - backgrounds, laying the foundation of how the child/student will think about life.

But there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with teaching the natural sciences from a natural science perspective. At the same time, your children will learn about God from you and the priest at your church. Why do they need to learn about erosion and multiplication from somene with your religious views? It's fine if you want your children to learn everything that can be learned by someone who will teach it with that particular attitude toward life. But I don't. So why can't we just have the natural sciences be taught as natural science? I see what you say to DW at the top of this page. But it's not 2 hours once a week. Your kids get instructed in your faith well more than that. Every moment they are with you they are being taught from your view. From you, from the friends you visit and have over, from church, from church-organized activities... All of that surely balances out being taught natural science without it being taught as part of the Orthodox worldview.

Public education should be about things we all agree are facts. How to read and write. How to add, subtract, multiply, and divide; and even some more advanced math. What happens when sunlight hits a leaf.

Ah, Fist my old friend, do you not know the old Klingon proverb which tells us that revenge is a dish best served cold?... Oh wait, wrong reference.

Seriously, all rules have exceptions, and all ideals are to be worked towards.
It's not that they NEED to learn from someone with the same worldview - certainly we can learn from anyone. CS Lewis's main instructor in his teenage years was an atheist logician - and Lewis did become atheist for the following 15-odd years. But when we speak of ideals, then we must ask what we want, not merely, "what must I accept?". There are definite deleterious effects from having teachers of other world views, if we hold our own world view to be true. The step from our children questioning what we really know to be true to outright rejecting it is a rather short one, and watching your children go down destructive paths is a rather high price to pay for this carelessness about how they were raised and taught. There are no guarantees even in the ideal, of course, but we should certainly want to stack the odds as high as we can.

If you saw what I said to DW, then consider it. Most parents do not get lots of 'golden hours' or 'quality time' with their children - they have to fight for it - while the school is given that quality time without a fight - and it's not even individual teachers that I am speaking of. It is the hidden curriculum referenced by Gatto - what they learn simply from being in an institution, whether they are in class or not or paying attention to a teacher or not. So the playing field is still enormously un-level. For the single mother who is working two jobs it is simply impossible, especially for the Christian one. Her children will grow up mostly alienated to her views - just as I watch my siblings' lower-class children grow up.

And there still remains the gap in understanding - your idea that one can be taught "facts" as distinct and separate from worldviews is something that is misses something in education. If a subjectivist teaches math, then their very attitude towards mathematic absolutes must be the same (if they are consistent subjectivists) as toward everything else - or they are not really subjectivists, but mere materialists. And even a materialist teaches a different attitude towards whatever is being studied - the whys, the motivations, are all part of the teaching - not mere facts alone. The Christian sees all things as proceeding from God, and having purpose and meaning in that light. Including the light that hits the leaf. What does it mean? What are we to make of it? How am I to understand what I am being taught? That answer is provided by the worldview, not by facts.

I admit that GKC is hard, especially for the neophyte - the person who has read little to nothing of him. I have said before that I read my first several books by him at a snail's pace, scratching my head, and rereading passages - which forced me to actually think - before I began to 'get his drift'. But if you don't get what he's saying, say so. If you get it and disagree, say why. (And if you ever do get it and agree,make sure to thank my post! )

Why did you bother putting such effort into trying to "get his drift" when your initial efforts were negative? Why did you put so much into it in the hopes that you'd come to understand him? Why did you think he was worth the extreme effort that you realized it would take?

And there's not point in saying why I disagree. I've told you some general things, and ali has told you many specifics. You say our interpretations of what he says are wrong. We think they are not. Do you suspect that's going to change?

Well, mainly because he had had such a profound influence on CS Lewis, who I had already "gotten".

I don't think all your interpretations are wrong. I think some of them are. When Ali gets that GKC is saying that paganism is a thing that died a complete death throughout the civilized world, that had a fixed life span, her interpretation is absolutely correct. How she feels about that is something else.

I think a big thing to consider is the enormous impact and following this man has. If he is just another second-rate thinker, it makes no sense. Why on earth would intelligent people, many with PhD's, organize Chesterton societies, and even schools? Why has so much intellectual effort been thrown by so many people into exploration of the man and his works? Above all, the drive and fervor of people who see his relevance today? It makes no sense at all if the man doesn';t have something worth saying - if there is not some important germ of truth in what he is saying. I'd say the same thing about Freud, for crying out loud. It is a lack of intellectual curiosity to NOT be interested in that phenomenon.

Sure, maybe you think he's nobody; just a dead writer from a bygone era - I would assert that that is from a lack of (more than passing) acquaintance. Again, if the Ballad of the White Horse is what shows you different, what works for you, then let it be so. if it is his poetry, let it be so. If it is his bubbling humor - which even Ali, a hostile reader, noted, then let it be so. He had no enemies, and even his philosophical opponents admired him. That he was admired by GB Shaw, HG Wells, Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene, Harold Bloom, Frederick Buechner, Evelyn Waugh, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, Karel Čapek, Alan Watts, David Dark, Paul Claudel, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Andrew Greeley, Sigrid Undset, Ronald Knox, Kingsley Amis, W. H. Auden, Anthony Burgess, E. F. Schumacher, Orson Welles, Dorothy Day, Gene Wolfe, Tim Powers, John Shirley, Garry Wills, H.L. Mencken, David D. Friedman, Neil Gaiman, Michael Crichton and Franz Kafka, in a word, people of vastly different backgrounds and beliefs, ought to say something very important about the man.

Perhaps you'll be able to see past the 2-dimensional nature of your disagreements with him to see the 3-dimensional man (if you have a lens wide enough ).

[Fist and Faith]

There are definite deleterious effects from having teachers of other world views, if we hold our own world view to be true. The step from our children questioning what we really know to be true to outright rejecting it is a rather short one, and watching your children go down destructive paths is a rather high price to pay for this carelessness about how they were raised and taught. There are no guarantees even in the ideal, of course, but we should certainly want to stack the odds as high as we can.

If you saw what I said to DW, then consider it. Most parents do not get lots of 'golden hours' or 'quality time' with their children - they have to fight for it - while the school is given that quality time without a fight - and it's not even individual teachers that I am speaking of. It is the hidden curriculum referenced by Gatto - what they learn simply from being in an institution, whether they are in class or not or paying attention to a teacher or not. So the playing field is still enormously un-level. For the single mother who is working two jobs it is simply impossible, especially for the Christian one. Her children will grow up mostly alienated to her views - just as I watch my siblings' lower-class children grow up.

And there still remains the gap in understanding - your idea that one can be taught "facts" as distinct and separate from worldviews is something that is misses something in education. If a subjectivist teaches math, then their very attitude towards mathematic absolutes must be the same (if they are consistent subjectivists) as toward everything else - or they are not really subjectivists, but mere materialists. And even a materialist teaches a different attitude towards whatever is being studied - the whys, the motivations, are all part of the teaching - not mere facts alone. The Christian sees all things as proceeding from God, and having purpose and meaning in that light. Including the light that hits the leaf. What does it mean? What are we to make of it? How am I to understand what I am being taught? That answer is provided by the worldview, not by facts.

You are being stubborn. There's no reason we need to teach anything about 2+2=4 other than 2+2=4. How do I understand that? What am I to make of it? You're inventing silly arguments that don't exist in order to push for God in Public Education. Everybody gets to decide what 2+2=4 means in the grand worldview.

And why do you do this in the first place? Your view is still winning. A large majority of people believe God created everything in six days. Despite everything being taught in school. So what's happening in the majority of homes and churches must be doing okay.

We do need public education. Or at least certain standards. You can teach your kids at home, but they have to learn certain things. Certain things that we all need to know. So you have to meet standards in your homeschooling. Why is that? Because I don't want kids to not know how to read, write, do basic math, understand basic principles of science... What's going to happen in this world if we stopped pub ed right now? You think all the kids would grow up knowing as much as they will with pub ed? Is that how it was working before there was pub ed? The literacy rate was as good as it is now?

You might do a fantastic job of educating your kids. But I have several neighbors who I'm quite sure would not. Not everyone knows how to teach a child to read. And not everyone thinks it's important to read. Some very religious people don't want their kids knowing anything they do not learn from them (the parents). Some parents want their kid to go get a job when they're 11, so they can help pay the bills. And some parents aren't paying the slightest bit of attention. I don't want children growing up without the most basic knowledge. This can't possible be considered a good situation. What will the world do with them? What will they do with the world?

Why did you bother putting such effort into trying to "get his drift" when your initial efforts were negative? Why did you put so much into it in the hopes that you'd come to understand him? Why did you think he was worth the extreme effort that you realized it would take?

Well, mainly because he had had such a profound influence on CS Lewis, who I had already "gotten".

There you go. You had a very good reason to assume Chesterton said some seriously important things, so you put the effort into trying to understand him, even though it was very difficult.

OTOH, most here do not have any such reason. What we've read of him has not been impressive. Not in content, and not in writing style. Also, you say he has had a huge influence on you. Well, we disagree with most of what you believe and say, so that's another reason to assume we won't get anything of value out of him. And even though I am a much greater fan of Lewis' style, I sure don't agree with his beliefs. Yet another "pupil" of Chesterton whose beliefs tell me I don't agree with Chesterton.

And yet, again and again and again and again, you throw out snide remarks about how nobody here will read him. No, we won't. I imagine most of us read the snippets you post. They address a specific point you're trying to get across. That's fine. We won't agree with them, but we read them. But no, we will not read thousands or hundreds or dozens of pages.

Perhaps you'll be able to see past the 2-dimensional nature of your disagreements with him to see the 3-dimensional man (if you have a lens wide enough ).

I'm entirely willing to believe he's got many sides to him. But it doesn't matter. I think Asimov is published in every major section of the Dewey Decimal System. Talk about well-rounded! But I'm not going to read all of his stuff, either. Does that bother you? No, because it's not Chesterton's well-roundedness you want us to believe. It's his religious views you want us to believe.

[Vraith]

I'll chime in with [somewhat akin to Fist's last point]: There are tons of people who are worth reading/understanding/respecting, yet not agreeing. Sometimes GKC's style annoys me...sometimes he makes me laugh [in a good way, not a sneering way].
I have a significant degree of respect for Freud's accomplishments, given the context he existed in, despite the fact that he was pretty much wrong about everything.
Augustine and Aquinas [related more to your bailiwick] are worth knowing about.
There is no perfect unbreakable connection between "valuable" and "right"
But there IS a necessary connection between the claim "accepting/allowing X will destroy the culture" and the proof/fact of it doing so.
In many instance it seems you're saying "we need to teach the right worldview, so they can learn to live with what is." Whereas I think it is more important to teach what is [and ALSO the gaps where we don't know] in order to allow them to build a worldview.
The greatest gift children HAVE is the innate impulse to question.

[rusmeister]

I'll chime in with [somewhat akin to Fist's last point]: There are tons of people who are worth reading/understanding/respecting, yet not agreeing. Sometimes GKC's style annoys me...sometimes he makes me laugh [in a good way, not a sneering way].
I have a significant degree of respect for Freud's accomplishments, given the context he existed in, despite the fact that he was pretty much wrong about everything.
Augustine and Aquinas [related more to your bailiwick] are worth knowing about.
There is no perfect unbreakable connection between "valuable" and "right"
But there IS a necessary connection between the claim "accepting/allowing X will destroy the culture" and the proof/fact of it doing so.
In many instance it seems you're saying "we need to teach the right worldview, so they can learn to live with what is." Whereas I think it is more important to teach what is [and ALSO the gaps where we don't know] in order to allow them to build a worldview.
The greatest gift children HAVE is the innate impulse to question.

Thanks, Vraith,
This seems reasonable to me.
My problem is that any proof of X or any assertion of what IS is founded on a worldview. So no matter what you teach (your conception of what "is") you will also concurrently be teaching a worldview - and that worldview will NOT be listed in the curriculum. It will be assumed. One of the great advantages of my Baptist high school was that they shouted their worldview from the housetops and hollered it amidst all of the curriculum. It allowed me to consciously think about what they posited. (And I fervently accepted it for a few years, too.)

Questioning is fine. But, as GKC would say and some here do not want to discover, the purpose of asking questions is to get answers. The purpose of reasoning is to come to a conclusion. (And thus that last chapter of "Heretics" www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/heretics/ch20.html
So while we are lauding the ability to question, let us also laud the ability to obtain answers.

If we don't have the right worldview, we do have at best an incomplete understanding of what is, and at worst a flat-out wrong understanding. The more correct our worldview, the more perfect our understanding of what is. It seems that you start from an assumption that we know "what is" and from there can proceed to discover a worldview. I say it is at least as much the other way around. We know what "is" because we see it a certain way; we interpret the facts in that way.

You can't have a non-sectarian education. There is no such thing. The sect that controls NY and CA schools, teachers and administrators is decidedly pluralist - there-is-no-truth; truth-is-what-you-make-of-it. If you profess that, you're in. Deny it, and you're out. Some people here are of that sect and will applaud it. Others, like me, deplore it. But there is no denying that it IS a sect, a group of people that have a definite worldview and intend that it should be taught (with no intention of discussing it publicly).

[DukkhaWaynhim]

If we don't have the right worldview, we do have at best an incomplete understanding of what is, and at worst a flat-out wrong understanding. The more correct our worldview, the more perfect our understanding of what is. It seems that you start from an assumption that we know "what is" and from there can proceed to discover a worldview. I say it is at least as much the other way around. We know what "is" because we see it a certain way; we interpret the facts in that way.

But these worldviews are judged right/correct by whose standard? Yours? The OC? RCC? US Congress? Time Magazine? The King James Bible? The Koran? Statistical average of Joe's opinions from the street? Southern Baptists? God Himself?

dw