Good cover-up George! so lets all feed our children bull-sh@t! Its that the way your system works? is it?

EVO

George has had experience in living under state tyranny. I have not had such experience, but some of my family have. One of the characteristics of state tyranny is the inculcation of official views in a number of areas. One area is religion. It may be an official religion where there is a state church, and the precepts of that church are taught in the state schools. It may be an official atheism as part of an ideology which includes atheism. Both are wrong in my way of thinking.

I am an atheist. Most people are not. I do not feel it is child abuse for a parent to teach a child views that I think are wrong. It is child abuse to mistreat a child, not to show a child love and to deprive a child of the necessities of life.

Thomas Jefferson who believed in freedom of expression said, "Let error stand as a monument to truth!" Freedom of expression means the freedom to promote views that I or others might find loathsome. The freedom to say what agrees with the official view of the state is found in the worst tyranny.

Although I don't agree with some of George's views I feel it is tyranny to say that he shouldn't have those views, express them and promote them to the best of his ability.

In that I am in complete agreement with George.

As I said, there are tolerant as well as intolerant adherents of atheist world views. EVO2 provided here an example of the second kind while david f provided an example of an atheist of the first kind.

Dear George,

I find you response very presumptuous. You even go to the extent of asking how I would achieve my supposed goal of controlling what children are taught as though I wanted to do that, or even thought that it could be done.

I’m not suggesting that the government ban parents teaching creationism. Just because something is abhorrent, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it should be outlawed. The consequences of banning parents from raising their children to be ignorant would far out-weight the consequences of letting it happen, just as the perceived consequences of children accessing pornography online are far less dangerous than the consequences of government censorship - according most people anyway.

When I use the term “abuse”, I particularly have in mind the 80% of home-schooled children who are kept away from schools by their Christian fundamentalist parents in order to ensure they don’t learn anything that might lead them reject a literal interpretation of the Bible. Or these creation organizations that take children through museums and teach them to reject everything there; having them repeat statements out aloud to ensure that it's drilled into them.

This is child abuse because it is abusing the naivety of children and taking advantage of their young minds when they are in their prime.

Thanks for your response, George, but I don’t believe you have provided a very good reason for me to change my mind I’m afraid. Whether or not it should be outlawed is a side issue, it still constitutes abuse as far as I’m concerned.

It is a non sequitur to assume that the legal status of something (or the consequences of banning a said act) determines whether or not it is abuse. It is also a non sequitur to assume that because someone believes something is abuse, then they must want to ban it.

There are varying degrees of 'abuse'. It's not all black and white.

Grim,
You haven’t said (unless I’ve missed it) where you disagree with me in what I wrote about Mendel. Is it not true (perhaps I’m mistaken) that the term neo-Darwinism was coined in forced response to the world’s discoveries in genetics?

Adam,
You are right in saying that there is nothing inherently wrong with emotion. However, there is something wrong with an ‘argument’ that is nothing more than an outburst of emotion. The heart shouldn’t overrule the head.

Though the posts of yourself and others do contain some good thoughts, my contention that this topic is often overruled by emotion is only confirmed when you come back at me with talk of ‘child abuse’, of ‘vulnerable’ children being taught ‘stupidity’ from those of an ‘ignorant mindset’. This is a perfect example of an emotional outburst. You need to show what is wrong with something before you start labeling it ‘abhorrent’.

As for those posts containing more positive remarks, if there are any that challenge my contention, I could try and give my response. However, that could develop into a full on creation/evolution debate. I’ve been down that road before. I’ve argued for tens of pages. This is perhaps not the best place for a formal debate. And I doubt we’d settle the issue here.

However, I will attempt answering a few objections if you wish. Though I would certainly appreciate a lowering of the volume on things like ‘child abuse’ and other such nonsense.

Bugsy,
“Invalidate natural selection?” Who’s attempting that? I already said earlier that I agree that natural selection is an observable phenomenon. I also said that such observation was written about well before Darwin.

AdamD,
I admit, in the post I reacted to, you did not mention explicitly what you were describing as “indoctrination“ and “child abuse”. I just inferred - perhaps erroneously - from your other posts that you meant Christian, or even any religious in general, education. Sorry if I misunderstood you.

On the other hand, “abuse” may mean a couple of things, but “child abuse” means only one thing: an act, or series of acts, that is outlawed. If you did not want me or others draw that conclusion you should not have used the term: somebody who is “pro choice“ would not call abortion murder because it would follow that he/she wants it outlawed, since “murder” is a term reserved for an act that everybody agrees is a crime.

As for indoctrination, if used in connection with six-day-creationism, I would perhaps still not use that term, but would not object if somebody else did. However, I know that often even on this forum ANY education into a Christian world view (including mine) is being referred to as indoctrination. Apologies, if your opinion about Christian education in general is not that crude and rude. If I called education into a Nazi or Marx-Leninist world view an indoctrination, very few people would object. However, the reaction would be quite different if I called indoctrination ANY education into an atheist world view.

I do not understand what you mean by “creationists”. I like the definition where evolutionism is an ideology masquerading as pseudo-religion based on the scientific theory of evolution. Symmetrically I would call creationism an ideology masquerading as pseudo-science based on belief in an “intelligent designer”, whatever that means. So one can accept evolution without accepting evolutionism, and e.g. the Christian model of Divinity without accepting creationism: the two acceptances are compatible. In this sense creationists are “evolution-deniers”.

I agree, it is a disservice to a child to prevent it from learning English, maths, science (including evolution): it cripples it, makes it less able to exist in our society. Religion is only marginally related to this.