Foyle, my question is how you distinguish state from church indoctrination of children, and how you know that the beliefs the state inculcates in its indoctrination are not irrational and similarly vicious as other religions or belief systems?

I don't think you have any rational, non-arbitrary criterion by which you can distinguish them, but if you do, what is it?

To
a) confuse society with the state,
b) personify the community as a decision-making entity
c) use a double standard by which you criticise the irrationality of church indoctrination, turn off the same critical faculty and merely baldly assert the beneficence of state indoctrination,
are only signs of your superstition of state-worship.

This is the same irrational belief system underlying your neo-Keynesianism which believes that "we" (mystical abstract superbeing - the State - that can magically suspend the laws of nature for man's benefit) can create wealth out of nothing by stamping special ritual symbols on pieces of paper "monetary policy". It's just irrational fetishism, fully on a par with any other bone-shaking or superstitious charlatanry. That's why whenever I have challenged you on it, you have never been able to defend it but by circular reasoning, thus proving me right and you irrational. And that's why you avoided answering my question, isnt it? It rationally disproves you.

If a belief can't be falsified, it's irrational. I say that your belief is irrational because you can't show how it can be falsified, but if it can, how? How can it be proved wrong?

runner
Why can't people choose moral values and standards without believing the dubious cosmology of Genesis? btw where in the New Testament does it say marriage must be monogamous?

Jardine, I'm not sure what you mean by a belief system. If you mean a set of beliefs about some aspect of our universe than can only be held on faith because there is no verifiable evidence attesting to it, which is what religious belief is, then I agree with you that the state should not be imposing "belief systems" on children. But if you mean a set of beliefs about how some aspect of the universe, such as a human body or a jet engine or a bioverse,works, and there is currently a set of such beliefs that is almost universally agreed to by those expert in it, then I think that is something that the state can teach children provided that, as is always the cease, the children are taught NOT that this is the only possible truth for ever, but that it is the best explanation available at the moments and will remain so until something presently unforeseen is discovered that requires that it be modified.

This, after all, is probably the main difference between religious belief and scientific belief. Religious belief, because it is presumed to comprise knowledge given and guaranteed by God, can never be questioned or modified (witness Runner's helpless entrapment by his belief in the literal truth of Genesis). Scientific belief is only ever "true" until the next discovery that requires its modification, at which time it is modified, as verifiable evidence requires, without fear of earning a God's wrath. Of course, some religions do change their dogma (albeit slowly and reluctantly) when the evidence of its error becomes too powerful to ignore (witness Galileo), but they seem to have this incredibl ability to carry on as if, in the process of changing one of their god-given, irrefutable beliefs, they have exposed neither their beliefs nor themselves to scorn.

Jardine K Jardine,
You appear to have never heard of axioms or you are prepared to completely ignore the concept.
Two very well known sets of axioms are firstly those which underlie the Constitution of the USA -
Thomas Jefferson Declaration of Independence
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
And, secondly, those which are the foundation of Euclid's Plane Geometry -
"To draw a straight line from any point to any point."
"To produce [extend] a finite straight line continuously in a straight line."
"To describe a circle with any centre and distance [radius]."
"That all right angles are equal to one another."
The parallel postulate: "That, if a straight line falling on two straight lines make the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, meet on that side on which are the angles less than the two right angles."
Although Euclid's statement of the postulates only explicitly asserts the existence of the constructions, they are also taken to be unique.
The Elements also include the following five "common notions":
Things that are equal to the same thing are also equal to one another.
If equals are added to equals, then the wholes are equal.
If equals are subtracted from equals, then the remainders are equal.
Things that coincide with one another are equal to one another.
The whole is greater than the part.

'All my close adult friends are Secularists or Skeptics and/or Humanists.

says it all Foyle. Expand you base and open your mind.

Foyle
Not sure what you’re getting at there.

Why is it an axiom to say that all men are created equal?

My working definition of an axiom is a proposition that is either conceded, or cannot be denied without performing a self-contradiction.

E.g. “All human action takes place in time”. One either concedes it, in which case there is no issue, or one denies it:
“No it doesn’t.”
in which case one performs a self-contradiction because the denial takes place *in time*, so the denier performs a self-contradiction by the act of denying it. Therefore it is axiomatic that all human action takes place in time.

Another example would be “All human action consists of preferring one thing to another.”
To deny it consists of performing a preference of one thing to another. Therefore it’s axiomatic.

According to this theory, “All men are created equal” is not an axiom because by denying it – “No they aren’t” – I don’t necessarily perform a self-contradiction – indeed I demonstrate that the proposition is untrue so far as others don’t equally deny it.

GlenC
I agree with that, save for any conclusion as to the proper role of the state.

The problem as I see it is that many of the beliefs and arguments in favour of state education suffer from the same defects and irrationalities as the irrational beliefs and arguments for religion and religious indoctrination of children.

Human beings seem to have a curious double nature. On the one hand they are capable of a high degree of rationality, such we see as in mathematics, logic, and technology. On the other hand, in all cultures and all ages, they show a propensity to believe things that are either blatantly illogical, if not bat-sh!t mad, or so highly dubious that their truth value should be regarded as negligible, e.g. the Old Testament accounts of the origin of
a) the planets
b) species, and
c) languages.

It’s not just that the superstitious tendency is illogical, but that it is a prime vector of corrupt, exploitative, abusive, and unnecessarily divisive behaviour.

In modern times, I believe the predominant form of this religiosity revolves around belief in the State. Basically the church has been replaced by the State in the popular imagination of the just authority of a monopoly corporation, a selfless superbeing, concerned with our moral and material well-being, that supposedly communes with defective man’s true higher teleology. It ha superior knowledge, and goodness, and competence. It can cure the sick, fine-tune the climate, know best what children should be taught, and solve the natural problem of scarcity by creating wealth out of thin air by printing paper with special squiggles on it. It’s a superstitious belief based on demonstrable fallacies.

For example, imagine a religious cult compelled all children to attend for indoctrination, the timing, place, funding, content, qualifications, personnel and all conditions of which were to be decided unilaterally by the religious authorities.

We would immediately recognise the irrational components of the justification, the potential for corruption based on a conflict of interest, and the great vector of divisive, anti-social irrational behaviour that such an arrangement would represent.

But substitute the State, and all of a sudden we get this assumption that this is fundamentally different, and presumptively social rather than anti-social, beneficial rather than exploitative, and economical rather than wasteful and stupid.

Now maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. But when I ask its apologists to say by what rational criterion they distinguish it, I’m not getting very satisfactory answers. Foyle at first ignores the issue, then assumes what’s in issue, then answers with irrelevance and what appears to be diversion or evasion. At best it’s circular and confirms my allegation of irrationality.

And you answer truly as to the rational merit of mathematics, but this gives no reason
a) why the State should be teaching it any more than a religious sect, or
b) how the bulk of subject matter taught could claim any such rationality or be anything but indoctrination with the same issues and problems as religious indoctrination.

Is that not so?