If you tell children that you can guarantee that Jesus loves them and answers their prayers, you are lying because you can no more guarantee that there is a god than atheists can guarantee that there isn't. When you lie to children, you are certainly not educating them.

If you tell them that many people believe in gods of many different kinds, accompany this with balanced accounts of the essential characteristics of at least the major world faiths and the good and bad things that have been and are being done in their names, and reassure them that they don't need to commit themselves to any religious belief at all unless and until they want to, you are educating them.

No school should be allowed to exist, whether supported by public money or privately funded, that lies to children by telling them that there is a god without doubt. All schools, public and private, should be required to teach children about all the major belief systems they are likely to encounter, and all schools should be required to expend as much effort in acquainting students with the impediments to the god hypothesis as with justifications for faith.

If this happy situation arose, maybe the supporters of doctrinaire schools, like the author of this article, would be less pushy.

Tony Lavis writes

' Higher than the quality of education offered at some of those nutty religious schools where they prteach - the 't' is silent - that evolution is a lie.'

Not nearly as nutty as the secularist who push the evolution myth with its godless secular values. Even people indifferent to God don't want their kids eating the fruit of secular dogma annointed by pseudo science. The fruit is immorality from 12 or 13 years old (younger in some cases) , drug taking, suicide, rebellion etc.

Thank God that parents in Australia have the choice to save their kids from this failed social engineering. The only mantra left to them is the need of more money instead of addressing the idiotic secular dogmas that lead to moral and social chaos.

>>The fruit is immorality from 12 or 13 years old (younger in some cases) , drug taking, suicide, rebellion etc.<<

A good science education turns people into suicidal drug abusers? And I thought I had enough to worry about with the profound visual impairment that I have been assured by such reliable sources of medical advice as you will be the inevitable result of all the I time spent conducting myself in the solo symphony as a teenager.

Cheers,

Tony

Kevin Donnelly continues to be quite sloppy or selective with his sources - and in some cases parades evidence that doesn't stack up.

Just one example from his piece illustrates the problem. The research done by Paul Miller and Derby Voon was based on ICSEA and other data from My School version 1.

It has subsequently been proven that the ICSEA values for schools were simply not accurate. We know this because of the extent to which they have been adjusted since. Most commonly ICSEA values for non-gov schools have gone up, those for gov schools have gone down. Comparisons between schools based on the earlier data are laughable.

If Kevin Donnelly doesn't know this then it says something about his lack of rigour. If he does know this - and still cites this research (?) - then it says something else entirely.

Which is it, Kevin

'A good science education turns people into suicidal drug abusers? '

Could be true. Have you seen that Chemistry teacher in Breaking Bad?

I still love you runner. I don't agree with your religious beliefs or your judgmental ways, but by god I find you amusing.

Comforting too. I get all edgy when I see an abortion topic you haven't posted on yet.

You're a national treasure, and you never disappoint me.

BTW: I don't think it is immoral to rebel. didn't Jesus rebel? I know Luke Skywalker was a terrorist that's for sure.

Tony,

'Deadbeat parents who don't care about their child's education as anything more than a convenient child-minding service while they spend the day at the pub do not way up the relative merits of private vs. public schooling: they send their child to the nearest public school because it's free.'

That's pretty much me! Except for the pub bit, but I would if I could that's for sure!

I still maintain I learn't nothing of much real value at school except how to read and add up, and how to survive the law of the jungle.

>>Could be true. Have you seen that Chemistry teacher in Breaking Bad?<<

Yes but I've met a lot more chemistry teachers who didn't give up the good life of a steady income and 12 weeks holiday a year for violent, risky and poorly ventilated underworld of illegal amphetamine manufacture. All of them now that I think about. Apart from that one in the made up story on the TV.

>>I know Luke Skywalker was a terrorist that's for sure.<<

Luke Skywalker was not a terrorist! The Empire were totally fascist: just look at their uniforms - the ones for the Imperial Navy not the stormtroopers. Straight out of the Hugo Boss catalogue. It was made obvious from the opening moments of Star Wars Episode IV: Before George Lucas Went Crazy. In the crawl at the start it refers to 'the evil Galactic Empire': not the friendly Galactic Empire or the Peace and Freedom Loving Galactic Empire. Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance were noble freedom fighters battling to save a galaxy struggling beneath the iron jackboot of a totalitarian regime.

>>I still maintain I learn't nothing of much real value at school except how to read and add up, and how to survive the law of the jungle.<<

I went to school on the east coast of Australia where there was not much jungle to be found so I had to rely on the Cub Scouts interpretation of the Jungle Book. As far as I can tell the basic idea is that talking wolves are okay but you should beware of talking tigers. The last bit seems like common sense: I'm not so sure about this business of trusting talking wolves.

Cheers,

Tony