tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post1428217245355368173..comments2024-03-22T17:35:52.045-04:00Comments on Extra Thoughts: Daniel Dennett on disarming and cagingLydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-9000063706865357892014-06-18T12:37:54.059-04:002014-06-18T12:37:54.059-04:00You failed to address anything I actually said, bu...<i>You failed to address anything I actually said, but merely reasserted what you had already said. This is a caricature, especially for those who aren't movement Van Tillians or Clarkians, but only incorporate some of their insights into a larger case. Yes, presups presuppose certain elements of Christian Theology, but the non-fideist ones do so because they see those presuppositions as necessary for making sense of the universe. You can see this even in the classical arguments for the existence of God, especially the Cosmological. Essentially, the Cosmological Argument says that causality (a precondition for an intelligible universe) leads back to God. </i><br /><br />The properties of the being "proven" by philosophical arguments vastly under-specify the Christian God. Even if those arguments were persuasive they don't justify Christian doctrine. They claim to prove the existence of a being with several very specific abstract properties.<br /><br />"Neutral" doesn't require any particular epistemology, it just cannot mean one that brings in a broad set of unjustified assumptions, like broad swaths of Christian dogma. I made the point that <i>not assuming Christianity</i> can't be considered a bias (any more than <i>not assuming Hinduism</i> or content-filled belief system X), that's all I've advocated. There is a difference between the large set of specific assumptions of a presuppositionist and the minimal assumptions of a moderate empiricist (or any other type of neutral epistemology).<br /><br />It is really hard to see how a presuppositionist argument could hold any weight with someone who wasn't already on-board. That doesn't seem like a problem for you -- a serious challenge to the notion that it could be considered <i>neutral</i>? If you want to justify deism with <i>a priori</i> arguments that's fine (I don't buy those arguments, but I'm not too interested in debating them), but I've yet to see anything that justifies Christianity without an empirical argument to help fill in the content (e.g. historical evidence or personal experience).<br /><br /><i>You clearly did not get the point if you think that the argument is "The Bible is right because it says so." Their appeal is to transcendental reasoning to show how the existence of God, specifically the God of Christian revelation, is necessary for the very intelligibility of the universe. This allows both the Bible's claim to be an ultimate authority and a non-fideist apologetic to stand.</i><br /><br />Yes, I clearly don't get how they have an <i>a priori</i> argument that shows the existence of the God of Christian revelation. One that doesn't assume what it is trying to prove, and thus have some <i>hope</i> of convincing a neutral reasoner.<br /><br />The reality is we don't form out belief system by rational deduction as toddlers. Long before we can systematically piece anything together that way we get all sorts of experience and indoctrination. My argument is that there is a distinction between an upbringing that leaves one poised and capable to enter that process with objectivity and one where thoughts are channelled (essentially with premises injected) so that a particular outcome is deeply predisposed. If you haven't had that (even if you left and returned, as WL described, who's to say those seeds weren't still potent?) then how can you feel your beliefs are justified? In a way my argument turns the presuppositionist one on its head. Presupposing can't yield valid knowledge. And it has the benefit of not requiring a large body of abstract theoretical contrivances to prop it up.<br /><br />-AAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-37517896605743704752014-06-16T14:03:13.917-04:002014-06-16T14:03:13.917-04:00Importing big chunks of Christian theology as prem...<i>Importing big chunks of Christian theology as premises is completely different from beginning with minimal assumptions and building from there.</i><br /><br />You failed to address anything I actually said, but merely reasserted what you had already said. This is a caricature, especially for those who aren't movement Van Tillians or Clarkians, but only incorporate some of their insights into a larger case. Yes, presups presuppose certain elements of Christian Theology, but the non-fideist ones do so because they see those presuppositions as necessary for making sense of the universe. You can see this even in the classical arguments for the existence of God, especially the Cosmological. Essentially, the Cosmological Argument says that causality (a precondition for an intelligible universe) leads back to God. <br /><br /><i>In comparison empiricism requires very few assumptions, and those it does make are very basic and hard to associate with an ideological bias (unless not assuming Christianity is an ideological bias, which you seem to think is, but a follower of any number of other beliefs could feel similarly).</i><br /><br />Sure, empiricism has fewer assumptions, but the argument is that our assumptions are necessary even to make sense of empirical knowledge (as well as other types). What you are essentially proposing is that we much teach kids empiricism as if it's the only rational option, and then pretending like you're being neutral when there are a lot of philosophical opponents to empiricism, whether Christian or not. If that isn't "chauvinism" I don't know what is. <br /><br /><i>In fairness, though, I should say that the more sophisticated presupps. are using what is known in philosophical circles as a transcendental argument--the existence of God is a necessary condition for the possibility of rationality. I don't disdain an argument that falls at least roughly into that category.</i><br /><br />I only tend towards incorporating some of their insights myself. I personally roll my eyes at Van Til's rhetorical flourishes against against evidentialist and "Roman Catholic" apologetics. In addition to the rhetoric, Van Til and his more dogmatic followers tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to other methodologies. I do agree with them that it is very hard to confront the non-Christian without confronting their epistemology. nate895https://www.blogger.com/profile/05539361477170574108noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-39726489247363689142014-06-16T13:00:37.004-04:002014-06-16T13:00:37.004-04:00A., you've stumbled into a bit an in-house deb...A., you've stumbled into a bit an in-house debate in Christian apologetics circles--the presuppositionalist/evidentialist divide. I was trained in Bible college to be a presuppositionalist because that happened to be the side my particular Bible college was on. Since then I have become a rampaging evidentialist, and I'm quite unsympathetic to presuppositionalism. In fairness, though, I should say that the more sophisticated presupps. are using what is known in philosophical circles as a transcendental argument--the existence of God is a necessary condition for the possibility of rationality. I don't disdain an argument that falls at least roughly into that category. (C.S. Lewis called his version the argument from reason. Alvin Plantinga has what he calls an evolutionary argument against naturalism that is in the same family, broadly conceived.) However, it's certainly only one string to the bow, and one needs lots of others.<br /><br />In any event, as you see, the fact that Nate is presupp.-inclined and that I am a nuclear-bomb-grade evidentialist has not prevented us from agreeing that giving children a neutral education across the board is a dangerous myth.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-15644058651803367522014-06-16T12:41:39.706-04:002014-06-16T12:41:39.706-04:00nate895:
No, I didn't miss the whole point. ...<br />nate895:<br /><br />No, I didn't miss the whole point. Importing big chunks of Christian theology as <i>premises</i> is completely different from beginning with minimal assumptions and building from there. As I observed before, you could concoct <i>any</i> arbitrary world view if you are allowed to pick and choose what you start with. Christian presuppositionism is just simple chauvinism wrapped in obscurantist language. In comparison empiricism requires very few assumptions, and those it does make are very basic and hard to associate with an ideological bias (unless <i>not</i> assuming Christianity is an ideological bias, which you seem to think is, but a follower of any number of other beliefs could feel similarly). <br /><br />-A<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-30930144015826066422014-06-15T22:00:00.512-04:002014-06-15T22:00:00.512-04:00I wasn't familiar with Van Til, but reading up...<i>I wasn't familiar with Van Til, but reading up about it a bit it seems like I've already made a strong argument against it. It is another theological argument that leaps to connect abstract concepts to concrete dogma. Without an empirical case that just doesn't work.</i><br /><br />You clearly missed the whole point of it then: You presume empiricism just as much as I presume more classical theories of epistemology which merely include empirical knowledge rather than make it the final arbiter of all knowledge. The basic presuppositionalist claim is that in order for intelligibility to exist, God must be there. In that sense, knowledge of God is <i>a priori</i>. Without Him, there isn't knowledge at all. Like I said, this isn't saying it is necessary to believe in God to know things, just that He must exist for anyone to know anything. <br /><br /><i>Presuppositionism is exactly like the sort of ideology I'm claiming has moral problem being taught to children. "X is right because it says it is right" is a trap, one that is usually pretty transparent and would fool nobody, but when it is accompanied by deep religious indoctrination with emotional hooks it seems it can be hard to see past.</i><br /><br />1) Presuppositionalism would only be morally wrong to teach a child if it is wrong.<br /><br />2) You clearly did not get the point if you think that the argument is "The Bible is right because it says so." Their appeal is to transcendental reasoning to show how the existence of God, specifically the God of Christian revelation, is necessary for the very intelligibility of the universe. This allows both the Bible's claim to be an ultimate authority and a non-fideist apologetic to stand. <br /><br />3) The above is what I mean when I say I would have to resort to radical skepticism if I were to abandon Christianity. If there is no God, I can't even be sure there can be an intelligible universe, let alone what its makeup is. Much less, beyond that, do I have any reason to believe my senses or reasoning abilities reflect reality in anyway. These simply aren't problems if you believe in the Christian God.<br /><br /><i>Please share.</i><br /><br />I do not have the inclination to go on a point-by-point refutation of Darwinism. Mrs. McGrew's notes on the subject are more than adequate. At the very least, I see no more evidence for the idea all living things have a common ancestor than for the idea God created unique types of living creatures. However, my point here is not mainly to argue for the truth of Christianity, but only to show that there are perfectly reasonable objections to the idea of a neutral education. nate895https://www.blogger.com/profile/05539361477170574108noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-42781860441463260532014-06-15T08:34:25.848-04:002014-06-15T08:34:25.848-04:00Actually, A., there are _vast_ "Darwinist ass...Actually, A., there are _vast_ "Darwinist assumptions" that are controlling in origins science. I have been reading up recently on the theory of "trans-species polymorphism." By this theory, (some) population genetics scientists literally use portions of the human genome to construct an ancestral tree, which they then try to use to count how many ancestors humans had to have had millions of years ago, _despite the fact_ that such a tree, taken literally, would make it look like humans and other species are interbreeding *right now*. That is to say, portions of the genome are sometimes used for population genetics estimates despite the fact that their apparent relationship structure for the recent past must be ignored. The ad hoc nature of such a theory is striking.<br /><br />Your claim that a commitment to Darwinism is purely evidence-driven is no doubt what you believe, but the often virulent and anti-evidential response to the intelligent design movement over the past fifteen to twenty years says otherwise.<br /><br />As for possible other explanations of DNA similarity, I doubt that either Nate or I wants to get involved in a lengthy attempt to persuade you, and there is a ton of material on both sides of this controversy. But one possible explanation is common design for a variety of purposes. It is amazing to see the haste to declare portions of the genome mere useless junk, and indeed _evidence_ (to which you are so deeply committed) is increasingly calling this assumption into question. Yeah, yeah, I know, the vitamin C pseudogene. Did you know guinea pigs have it too? But nobody thinks we and guinea pigs inherited it from a common ancestor. Evidently some _assumption_ in the argument is wrong. I'm working on a post right now about the claim that humans are sometimes born with tails because of one of those "common ancestry can only explain this because it's just leftover junk" claims which turns out to be egregiously false. This based on the actual content of some evolutinoists' *own theory* of the underlying genetic cause of occasional human tails. But the meme just keeps on truckin'.<br /><br />I was a theistic evolutionist for a brief time, until the evidence convinced me otherwise. That brief time was when I assumed that the "consensus of scientists" must be working from actual overwhelming evidence.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-37058671160330624452014-06-15T05:52:10.616-04:002014-06-15T05:52:10.616-04:00nate895:
I wasn't familiar with Van Til, but ...nate895:<br /><br />I wasn't familiar with Van Til, but reading up about it a bit it seems like I've already made a strong argument against it. It is another theological argument that leaps to connect abstract concepts to concrete dogma. Without an empirical case that just doesn't work. Brazenly taking on the name Presuppositionism is an interesting maneuver -- it is admirable that they own up to the fact that it is presupposing what they aim to prove, but it doesn't make it any more legitimate.<br /><br />So reason and senses (direct and indirect) are valid ways of knowing. You suggest there are others but offer no more details. Why would you need to be a radical sceptic is you weren't a presuppositionist? Presuppositionism is <b>exactly</b> like the sort of ideology I'm claiming has moral problem being taught to children. "X is right because it says it is right" is a trap, one that is usually pretty transparent and would fool nobody, but when it is accompanied by deep religious indoctrination with emotional hooks it seems it can be hard to see past.<br /><br /><i>There are alternative explanations for sharing common DNA and other characteristics besides being biologically related.</i><br /><br />Please share.<br /><br /><i>The ideological distortion has come about for two reasons:<br /><br />1) Peer pressure. If you disagree with Darwinist/agnostic assumptions, then you are berated as some kind of backwoods hick.<br /><br />2) Genuine confusion about what God does to the prospects of science. Many scientists think that if you let God do anything in nature, then all of a sudden you will be blaming the thunder on Thor. Obviously, that type of thinking is inimical to the scientific enterprise. However, allowing God to create living creatures is not the same thing as explaining everything by a kind of divine occasionalism.</i><br /><br />There are no "Darwinist assumptions", it is a conclusion that followed the evidence, not something that preceded it. "Agnostic assumptions" is a funny concept. As for peer pressure, I agree that anti-evolution views are looked down upon; but what bias do you think has them disrespected, if not a genuine belief, based on the evidence, that there is no reasonable way to doubt it? There is no monolithic, single-minded ideology behind it, if you respect science that's where the facts lead.<br /><br />On your second point, allowing God to create living creatures just isn't science unless there's evidence for it. Go ahead and hold whatever view you like on the matter, but without evidence it is just dogma.<br /><br />-AAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-34670076225600718562014-06-13T16:08:35.156-04:002014-06-13T16:08:35.156-04:00A., I appreciate your tone and am glad that you at...A., I appreciate your tone and am glad that you at least find the Wunderlich case odd. The German government's treatment of the Wunderlichs is entirely consonant with Dennett's proposal in the quotation in the main post. The German government regards religious home schooling as strongly akin to child abuse. Hence, the Wunderlichs are being treated much as a government entity in the U.S. (there have been a couple of such cases) might treat parents who were planning to take their young daughter overseas for purposes of having her genitally mutilated. The case of the Johannsons in Sweden is similar.<br /><br />You refer repeatedly to "isolation," but if you regard my examples as having any force at all, then you should see (but I don't know that you will agree) that using the term "isolate" to refer to a parent's strong desire to avoid subjecting a child to those situations is prejudicial. Parents are responsible for the well-being of their children. If it is understandable that parents would consider even some of those things detrimental to their children's well-being, it is understandable that they would want to keep their children out of those situations, aka "isolate" them *from that ideological or otherwise problematic situation or material*. But the term "isolate" conveys something more like locking a child in the attic or preventing them from interacting with the outside world.<br /><br />The German government believes that any parents who disagree with them sufficiently about the content of education as to wish to educate their children themselves are ipso facto abusive. The "ipso facto" is important. The German government truly believes that it is _harmful_ per se for children to be bonded to their parents and supportive of their parents' views. In the Wunderlich case it was held _against_ the Wunderlichs in court documents that the children finally agreed to go to the schools when their parents (seeing that it was the only way to continue to be allowed to live with their own children) told them to go. The court saw the children's recognition of parental authority and ability to be influenced by them as per se of some deep dysfunction in the family. Similar comments were made in the Melissa Busekros case approximately six years ago. The fact that Melissa (then age fifteen) agreed with her parents' moral and religious views was considered a *bad thing per se*, not because the contents of those views were crazy and dangerous (no suicide bombings here) but because the German government wants children to be more bonded to the state-defined community at large than to their own families. It is an outright rejection of what the Catholics would call the principle of subsidiarity. And if families in Germany do create "little platoons" in which families are tightly knit and children hold their parents' (conservative and Christian) moral and religious values, the state considers this abusive in itself and considers that it has a responsibility to stop it, whether in Germany or abroad.<br /><br />I cannot help thinking that Daniel Dennett would most heartily approve.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-52428399031157682132014-06-13T12:36:27.236-04:002014-06-13T12:36:27.236-04:00Thank you, that was a great answer and helps me se...Thank you, that was a great answer and helps me see a lot where you are coming from. I could actually add a lot of examples of inanity to the list now that you've got the ball rolling, and I'm sympathetic with many of the examples you list. I just don't see withdrawal as the the only way to deal with these sort of problems. Learning to coexist with differences of opinions, including ridiculous ones, seems like a pretty important skill. I can understand the preference to homeschool and I'm not against it at all, in general, in fact my partner and I considered homeschooling our two very seriously before ultimately deciding not to on the basis of their learning styles.<br /><br />Again googling, it seems the book you mentioned *was* banned, and I would agree it is too explicit. Not that it couldn't be handled by a mature adolescent, but because there's no good reason to push the boundary, esp. when it will predictably be offensive to many. Pop-tart gun thing is silly, but it seems the boy was an ongoing problem and previous incidents were part of it. Of course the NRA will jump on it to make some political hay. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/pop-tart-case-gun-appeal-school-officials-say-the-problem-was-ongoing-misbehavior/2014/04/30/c5727900-cc6f-11e3-93eb-6c0037dde2ad_story.html). I think it's inclusion hurts your case more than helping it and shows the triviality of a lot of the concerns. If you get worked up into a frenzy it is easy to start seeing every little thing as an abomination. Really the parents are the ones who did harm to their child their, bringing the media in and circling the wagons around their son when it sounds like he needed some serious discipline. Not for eating a pop-tart into a sharp of a gun, but for eating a pop-tart in the shape of a gun deliberately to be disruptive within the context of repeated behavior issues. I don't think making a mockery of the suspension sends that child the right message at all.<br /><br />Again, I'm not against the idea of homeschooling at all. I think that not all parents are capable of doing it well, and I think if the decision to do it is based primarily on the desire to isolate the child from ideological views, regardless of ones competence to guide their education (and the incompetent will very likely be poor judges of that), then it can be a bad thing. I can see why a country might choose to ban homeschooling for that reason. Laws infringe on freedoms. Maybe I'm a phenomenal driver and I'm safe doing 120mph on the freeway, but that choice isn't mine to make in our society. In Germany they've made the choice to prohibit homeschooling and while I do think it is unfortunate for some people, I don't think it is the insufferable oppression it is being made out to be here. It is a social policy with complex pros and cons and *reasonable* states can differ on it. The Wunderlich case (which I also hadn't heard of -- probably the censorship of the liberal media) is odd, if there's no reason to think they are abusive to their children I don't see why they wouldn't be allowed to leave the country -- I imagine that ruling would make others who want to homeschool leave *before* breaking the law, maybe that is the goal.<br /><br />-AAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-18633531719584545242014-06-12T14:20:18.035-04:002014-06-12T14:20:18.035-04:00the standard logical arguments for the existence o...<i>the standard logical arguments for the existence of God don't connect to specific religions, they just refer to a sterile concept.</i><br /><br />Yes, to some extent. However, I think that ultimately these arguments demand the type of personal God that is only available in Christianity. A sterile philosophical god is not only boring, it seems to not jive very well with what the philosophers reason about him already. A benevolent personal God not revealing himself to his seems extraordinarily odd at the very least. Before you bring up the other Abrahamic religions based on revelation, I would say that it can be demonstrated that they are inconsistent with their own premises.<br /><br /><i>The apologetics I've seen always seem to use historical (i.e. empirical) evidence. Is there another way, that itself can be justified?</i><br /><br />I am not saying we can't know things via sense perception. I'm just saying it isn't the end all, be all of knowledge. Furthermore, what we can know through sense perception is limited. Our sense perceptions in these contentious cases are also filtered through our worldview. Where I might see a miracle, you might attempt to find the mad scientist responsible for creating the technology necessary for such an unbelievable feat. <br /><br /><i>Are you saying that your belief in Christianity is the foundation for your epistemology? </i><br /><br />I can see how this would not make sense to the uninitiated in the thought of Cornelius Van Til. To an extent, yes, my epistemology (such as it is as an amateur) is based on Christian belief, but not in the sense that I took Christian belief for granted and then made up an epistemology. Rather, I think the ordinary ways human beings gain knowledge, or even the ability to have knowledge, is dependent on the existence of the Christian God and the Truth of the Scriptures. If I were to abandon belief in Christianity, then I would have to become a radical skeptic of some sort. Note that I'm not saying non-Christians are incapable of having true knowledge about the world, or even that their knowledge is necessarily inferior to that of Christians.<br /><br /><i>We piece together the puzzle by looking at what we can observe...</i><br /><br />I did not say that evidence is irrelevant to the question, merely that what is taught as the scientific method is. At least, it is not applicable in the same way it is to chemistry, medicine, etc., which leaves its conclusions more in doubt than those disciplines which are universally accepted. Furthermore, the evidence you cite requires interpretation. The "evidence" seems to me to usually boil down to evolutionary assumptions plugged into existing data to create a model. There are alternative explanations for sharing common DNA and other characteristics besides being biologically related. Which explanation you prefer depends on your philosophical presuppositions. <br /><br /><i>If you think that the standard scientific view on it is ideologically distorted then it'd be great to hear why you think so.</i><br /><br />The ideological distortion has come about for two reasons:<br /><br />1) Peer pressure. If you disagree with Darwinist/agnostic assumptions, then you are berated as some kind of backwoods hick.<br /><br />2) Genuine confusion about what God does to the prospects of science. Many scientists think that if you let God do anything in nature, then all of a sudden you will be blaming the thunder on Thor. Obviously, that type of thinking is inimical to the scientific enterprise. However, allowing God to create living creatures is not the same thing as explaining everything by a kind of divine occasionalism.nate895https://www.blogger.com/profile/05539361477170574108noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-68375230711951380732014-06-12T09:07:35.341-04:002014-06-12T09:07:35.341-04:00Oh, how about all the stupid incidents of little b...Oh, how about all the stupid incidents of little boys getting in trouble for pretending to play with guns. The pop-tart incident? (He ate his pop-tart into the shape of a gun.) These stupidities are becoming ubiquitous since the schools' "no-tolerance policies."<br /><br />The anti-bullying programs that are about bullying kids with traditional moral views.<br /><br />The incredibly objectionable books kids can be and sometimes are being assigned in high school literature classes. (I switched home pages years ago after a conservative news organization included excerpts from a gay p*rn "novel" that a teacher was having students read as part of Advanced Placement English. I believe that was in Illinois.)Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-43510064732961556522014-06-12T09:03:03.369-04:002014-06-12T09:03:03.369-04:00Then, yes, there's the science and human origi...Then, yes, there's the science and human origins stuff. Yeah, I know, you think people are crazy if they find this non-neutral or remotely objectionable, but you asked for examples.<br /><br />Then there's the extremely strong push on environmental activism. Even from the perspective of free-market economics, even if one were not a Christian, one could get tired really quick of one-sided portrayals of environmental issues, government programs, environmental law, etc., and the ways in which this stuff is purveyed widely in public (and also for that matter some Christian) schools.<br /><br />And don't even get me started on peer pressure and all the dysfunctional ways of interacting that kids develop in groups. They range from little girls spending huge amounts of emotional energy wanting to be part of so-and-so's club, which is unhealthy and pointless at best, to kids loudly and extensively jeering at one another if they are virgins at the age of fifteen and sharing all sorts of pornographic, trashy talk, images, etc. <br /><br />These are just examples. The idea that ideologically objectionable content and ideas are only a small smidgen of school is absurd. Any school or educational context (including a home school) is going to have ideological and moral content at multiple levels and in multiple ways. In a sense, that's how it _should_ be. So one has to decide where one wants one's child educated.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-34353572756987469452014-06-12T08:56:22.007-04:002014-06-12T08:56:22.007-04:00A., I could write reams and reams of stuff in answ...A., I could write reams and reams of stuff in answer to your claims that there is only a small amount of ideology in a public school education and that a child's education can be or should be mostly value-neutral with only small drips of values and morals. The fact is that I simply don't have time to write the book-length treatise that I could write in response to this. There are so many examples that I literally don't know where to begin.<br /><br />I'm going to give a _few_. I suppose you'll blow them off, but the point is just here that reasonable people _could_ object to these. I don't know if you will blow them off because you'll say that reasonable people couldn't object, or if you'll blow them off because you'll say they aren't enough, or what, but I don't imagine you'd be impressed even if I wrote the book-length treatise, so I'm not going to try.<br /><br />Let's start with something fairly mild: What _can't_ be done, said, or discussed in a public-school classroom. Suppose that a classmate dies or some disaster happens and the kids want to talk about where we go when we die, or they need spiritual comfort. The teacher, even if a devout Christian, cannot pray aloud and cannot give them what he believes to be the true answer to these ultimate questions. The same is true in discussing sex or a great many other topics: The teacher is hobbled by extreme interpretations of the First Amendment.<br /><br />A taboo on religious beliefs is going to have an influence on children. It is understandable that parents should want their kids in an environment where there can be a natural flow of ideas on religious topics and where they are treated as normal not as akin to pornography.<br /><br />Speaking of pornography, the sex education materials purveyed in many schools are bizarrely pornographic. Many, many reasonable people could object.<br /><br />Or consider how California has led the way in integrating (this was explicit, so don't talk to me about conspiracies--it was right in the light of day) into the whole curriculum the glorification of homosexuality. The idea was to do with homosexuality and other non-traditional sexualities what has already been done with minorities, women, and feminist gender roles--to drop random claims throughout history and other textbooks that so-and-so was gay (pause to celebrate his achievements as a "gay man" or whatever), portrayals of alternative families throughout the curriculum, and so forth.<br /><br />Political and moral content can and does come up even in more naturally neutral fields, such as in mathematics word problems. It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to realize that people writing the curriculum are going to have to make up their minds as to what sorts of real-world examples to use. And of course an initiative like the one in California positively _mandates_ that they try to include "Heather has two mommies" types of examples in all sorts of subjects, be it math, social studies, or whatever.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-88054977934756304672014-06-12T01:04:25.543-04:002014-06-12T01:04:25.543-04:00Lydia:
"The question is whether it makes sens...<br />Lydia:<br />"The question is whether it makes sense to talk about a child's *education as a whole* from K-12 as value-neutral in any meaningful or valuable sense. I think that's obviously impossible and silly, which makes it all the more important not to pretend that it is possible and then impose something that is advertised by the powerful elite as a value-neutral education on everybody's children against their parents' wishes."<br /><br />I guess I'm just not seeing the vast value-content in the standard curriculum. Individual teachers may occasionally slip in a personal slant on something (more often than not I'd think a Christian slant, given the demographics, but whatever), but for the most part I think it is fairly neutral. I agree that the growth and development is much more than just learning facts; morals, values, purpose, passion are all part of it too and I don't think public schools typically provide much of that outside of the rare gem of a teacher. The fear seems to be that what little of that is doled out in schools will somehow undermine what the child gets at home. That seems crazy to me. Even with full days, five days a weak, the small, random, unfocused drips of ideological tilt a public school education imposes on a child can't possibly compete with what a parent can give them. The only exception to this that I can see is if what the parents are providing is so out there that it can't survive exposure any outside ideas.<br /><br />"Powerful elite" again suggests a conspiracy of some sort. I think we'd need to get into specifics to clarify this. Do you think *all* subjects are being used to purvey propaganda, or just some (like sex education)? Which things are problematic?<br /><br />-A<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-21704506356346156192014-06-12T00:42:47.325-04:002014-06-12T00:42:47.325-04:00nate985
"But I'm questioning whether such...nate985<br />"But I'm questioning whether such neutrality is possible, or even desirable. For instance, I am not an empiricist, and there is no dictate of reason that demands I become one in order to prove my Christianity. The very idea of having to prove everything via sense perception and sense perception only is inimical to supernatural religious belief. It would be very difficult to detect a spiritual being via an empirical test, by definition."<br /><br />If not with empirical evidence how do you justify your beliefs? Not asking for specifics, just what tools you use. I don't see how logic alone can do it, the standard logical arguments for the existence of God don't connect to specific religions, they just refer to a sterile concept. Connecting any argument to specific religious content (e.g. Jesus's divinity, God as a personal being, etc.) seems to require something more. The apologetics I've seen always seem to use historical (i.e. empirical) evidence. Is there another way, that itself can be justified? I don't understand "faith" as a valid way of knowing (as opposed to believing without valid reason) so if that's it I'd need some elaboration.<br /><br />It seems to me that at *least* the means of establishing how you know must be neutral, otherwise they are circular. So it is more that possible or desirable, it is essential.<br /><br />"I believe that common human assumptions necessary for reason itself demand theistic, and beyond that, Christian belief. "<br /><br />I just don't see how this can make sense. Are you saying that your belief in Christianity is the foundation for your epistemology? That has to mean that the Christianity is un-justified, or self-justifying ("The Bible is true because it says it is the true word of God"?) This just doesn't fly because you could construct *any* belief that way.<br /><br />"You can't observe, much less repeat, where we came from, so the scientific method doesn't even seem applicable."<br /><br />This is just a failure of imagination. Evidence doesn't have to be direct. We piece together the puzzle by looking at what we can observe -- shared DNA, in a clearly branching pattern, the continues consistently with each new discovery; fossil records the mesh perfectly with that evidence; and much more. The amount of consistent, corroborative evidence really is undeniable. There is no point in me trying to hash this out here, you can google it and get a million sources. But, and this is important, this is where neutrality is critical. If you go to a creationist page you will get a lot of mumbo-jumbo that will easily bewilder someone without the background to sort it out, and easily convince someone pre-motivated to take it seriously. If you think that the standard scientific view on it is ideologically distorted then it'd be great to hear why you think so.<br /><br />Here's a short, well written, and I'd say neutral, wikipedia article that is pertinent and even a bit entertaining (IMO): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precambrian_rabbit<br /><br />-A<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-51748155665608501682014-06-11T19:53:22.889-04:002014-06-11T19:53:22.889-04:00But the question isn't whether there's a d...<i>But the question isn't whether there's a distinctively Christian and atheist way to teach algebra! I doubt that anyone in this thread would maintain that a parent would never want to hire a non-Christian to tutor their child in any subject. The question is whether it makes sense to talk about a child's *education as a whole* from K-12 as value-neutral in any meaningful or valuable sense.</i><br /><br />This is true. My rhetoric is more about education overall, not the elementary subjects that all must learn and are taken for granted. I'm not saying non-Christians are incapable of imparting important knowledge about the world, or that they have no access to the truth. Not even a movement Calvinistic Presuppositionalist would say that, and I'm somewhere in between that and the more Classical views. However, we do impart our philosophies through education, even at very young ages, and that can permeate much of the curriculum. I would also still argue that in order for these more neutral fields where the knowledge is agreed on by virtually all parties, that those still point ultimately to the Creator.nate895https://www.blogger.com/profile/05539361477170574108noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-66143207784393799882014-06-11T18:47:36.462-04:002014-06-11T18:47:36.462-04:00I may be, in some fields, more likely than Nate is...I may be, in some fields, more likely than Nate is to talk about a neutral starting point. But there is going to be variation even within a particular field of knowledge. Boyle's Law is one thing. Human origins is another. Number theory is likely to be more metaphysical than basic arithmetic, and so forth.<br /><br />But the question isn't whether there's a distinctively Christian and atheist way to teach algebra! I doubt that anyone in this thread would maintain that a parent would never want to hire a non-Christian to tutor their child in any subject. The question is whether it makes sense to talk about a child's *education as a whole* from K-12 as value-neutral in any meaningful or valuable sense. I think that's obviously impossible and silly, which makes it all the more important not to pretend that it is possible and then impose something that is advertised by the powerful elite as a value-neutral education on everybody's children against their parents' wishes.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-86305233423375882602014-06-11T18:04:50.596-04:002014-06-11T18:04:50.596-04:00Their consciousness and self-interest ultimately w...<i>Their consciousness and self-interest ultimately will be sufficient grounding for their rights, so nothing will rest on subjective whims.</i><br /><br />Grounding their rights in a certain level of consciousness and self-interest is <i>your</i> subjective whim.William Lusehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15928946919078483848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-45728445030134304552014-06-11T16:11:02.687-04:002014-06-11T16:11:02.687-04:00If you want to believe that a Biblical view is obj...<i>If you want to believe that a Biblical view is objectively true then you need to justify it without taking its veracity as a premise. To do that you have to start with logic and empirical evidence and work out what makes sense. To the degree that any starting point isn't neutral it is 'walled off'.</i><br /><br />But I'm questioning whether such neutrality is possible, or even desirable. For instance, I am not an empiricist, and there is no dictate of reason that demands I become one in order to prove my Christianity. The very idea of having to prove everything via sense perception and sense perception only is inimical to supernatural religious belief. It would be very difficult to detect a spiritual being via an empirical test, by definition.<br /><br />I believe that common human assumptions necessary for reason itself demand theistic, and beyond that, Christian belief. <br /><br /><i>I'm not sure what alternative to methodological naturalism you propose for science.</i><br /><br />I am not as inimical to "methodological naturalism" in science as to how broadly the term "science" is applied. For repeated, testable or observable phenomenon, yes, I believe appeal to only secondary causes is necessary and desirable. However, when we start trying to explain everything using only naturalistic phenomenon, then there is a problem. This is most obviously seen in origins debates. Even attempting to ask "science" the question "where do we come from" I think is a category mistake. You can't observe, much less repeat, where we came from, so the scientific method doesn't even seem applicable. nate895https://www.blogger.com/profile/05539361477170574108noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-37265257672274948652014-06-11T09:03:58.465-04:002014-06-11T09:03:58.465-04:00Nothing that Nate or I have said depends upon a pr...Nothing that Nate or I have said depends upon a premise such as, "If a school is not a Christian school it is an atheist school." In fact, I thought Nate gave a balanced answer concerning variation from one school to the next and the variationof individual teachers. I would add that charter schools are a whole phenomenon on their own and have introduced more variability still into the educational system.<br /><br />However, there are certainly ways of treating religious topics that are faux neutral while actually being tacitly negative and hostile, and I think that is a legitimate point that Nate was making. <br /><br />In any event, as I said from the beginning, the education of a child is not a matter of limited technocratic conveyance of knowledge. If we were merely talking about teaching how to do arithmetic or algebra problems or when to use capital letters, there might be something to such a picture, but education *as a whole* is a much bigger matter and is fraught with worldview issues. Anywhere that a child spends a large portion of his day (as in the case of a bricks and mortar school, whether public or private) and learns about subjects from history to math to sex education is going to be a place where a great many of a child's values are formed. This should be mere common sense. To pretend that at that level a child's education in general can be neutral is so obviously wrong-headed as to be actually dangerous, because things will be taught as "This is mere neutral information, how could anybody but a crazy person possibly object to having this taught to their kids?" when it is nothing but. And indeed, we've seen that again and again and again in the public schools.<br /><br />What the Dennetts of the world are demanding at its core is that people's kids be turned over to them to raise. They may graciously allow the children to go home and spend their time around the edges with their parents, who can then try to convey some of _their_ values to them in that time. Along with letting the kids sleep of course. And if the kids aren't just too tired of being educated (which they may well be) and want only to relax (which they may well). But the great majority of the children's most alert and teachable hours are to be spent with "experts" who will teach the approved materials and ideas.<br /><br />That some of us find this attitude and approach repugnant and totalitarian both in spirit and in execution is, I realize, so weird to you as to seem like an indication that we have some dark intention with regard to our own children. We must want to keep them ignorant and hyper-controlled.<br /><br />Well, that's what you think, and this is what we think.<br /><br />I still maintain that a liberal with more imagination, sense, and perspective would see Dennett's ideas as extreme and creepy. Such a "reasonable liberal" would distance himself from Dennett (and from the outlawing of home schooling in Germany, for that matter), not defend them. I used to know a few such liberals, but they seem to be a dying breed. Evidently you're not one of them.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-83002443739501868382014-06-11T08:33:24.492-04:002014-06-11T08:33:24.492-04:00I like the way that, if I understand you correctly...I like the way that, if I understand you correctly, A., you "suspect" that the vast majority of families who want to home school in Germany and is being forced not to (it is illegal, period) would do a "bleak" job of educating their kids. Prejudiced at all? How do you even know that? So you don't care about the Wunderlichs who literally *cannot leave Germany* because, gasp, they might home school their children abroad! Which is a crazy situation. Home schooling is not child abuse. The hubris of the German government not only to outlaw home schooling within its borders but to prevent families from leaving its shores lest they home school elsewhere is simply staggering.<br /><br />But you think this is no problem and reasonable. Sweet, yeah, that tells us how "mild" your version of Dennett's "disarm and cage" is.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-80758891917658294472014-06-11T03:02:36.876-04:002014-06-11T03:02:36.876-04:00I'm not sure what alternative to methodologica...I'm not sure what alternative to methodological naturalism you propose for science. What would a supernatural law of physics look like? Would it have equations? Would it be measurable and testable? If it was wouldn't it then move into the realm of nature, rather than super-nature? Perhaps we might discover inexplicable gaps in our ability to explain things (there are actually quite a few) and attribute those to the supernatural. This has been done a lot through history and there is a rich tradition of those gaps being squeezed as scientific knowledge grows. I'm not sure what reason there is to prefer to attribute the remaining gaps to supernatural causes rather than undiscovered natural laws. There's no pragmatic value for science to do so -- it would only curtail potential future discoveries -- thus methodological naturalism. It isn't an ideological premise at all, it is a logical one.<br /><br />-A<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-17839372849836481502014-06-11T03:01:54.529-04:002014-06-11T03:01:54.529-04:00nate895,
I've said that I do think people can...<br />nate895,<br /><br />I've said that I do think people can and do come to the conclusion that Christianity is true freely (or as freely as anyone else). I also think there are indoctrinated atheists, who have come to their belief through irrational processes. I'm not saying that reason obligates everyone to wind up with any specific set of beliefs, just that if you care about objectivity in beliefs you can't wish to indoctrinate. <br /><br />If you want to believe that a Biblical view is objectively true then you need to justify it without taking its veracity as a premise. To do that you have to start with logic and empirical evidence and work out what makes sense. To the degree that any starting point isn't neutral it is 'walled off'. Nobody is ever going to work their way from first principles to a complete world view with logical deductions alone, there will be plenty of short cuts all over the place, but wanting objective belief we want to strive to do the best we can. People will end up in different places and that's a good thing, that enables ideas to be exchanged and view points sharpened by the challenges poses by others. <br /><br />When the priority is placed on maintaining a dogma that healthy exchange of ideas is replaced by inbred ideas. The most troubling thing I'm hearing here is that the absence of Christian assumptions -- which is to say _neutrality_ -- is being disparaged as atheism. If a public school isn't theistic, that doesn't make it atheistic. It seems to me that a some homeschooling happens with the specific goal of avoiding neutrality, and framing everything within a biased ideological framework. I find that immoral. I'm not taking the claim that there is no neutral stance seriously. Yes, there will always be impurities (but I'm pretty confident that more teachers slip a bit of theistic bias into public schools than atheistic) but by and large it can be neutral. I think only someone looking at it from an extreme could see it any other way.<br /><br />This is also why I don't find the 'persecution' of homeschoolers in Germany that was mentioned all that problematic. I was unfamiliar with the situation before it was raised here, but doing a bit of googling what I gather is that they do prohibit homeschooling, though it still happens to some degree. They also have religious schools that receive public funding, as well as standard (neutral) public schools. This all seems pretty reasonable. There was a crackdown on a sect that was imposing corporal punishment on children a few years ago which got some attention because the children were removed (not sure how that played out) and a case where a family sought asylum in the US because they were going to be fined and their children forced to attend public school. The German education system rates well above average by international standards. Nobody is saying what can and cannot be taught to children to supplement the education they receive in public school. What is so appalling? A tiny minority of parents could provide a better education than this by homeschooling, and the majority who would homeschool wouldn't. Among those who are doing it because they are concerned about the *ideological* upbringing of their children I suspect the numbers would be very bleak.<br /><br />-A<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-33162189191398108572014-06-11T02:02:39.986-04:002014-06-11T02:02:39.986-04:00WL: "This is incoherent, presuming as it does...WL: "This is incoherent, presuming as it does that these two things will 'develop' in tandem, and that the objective value of a human being's existence rests on the subjective emotional whim of someone else."<br /><br />I don't follow. Their consciousness and self-interest ultimately will be sufficient grounding for their rights, so nothing will rest on subjective whims. I'll actually retract that their rights come from the bonds with others, those are different right altogether, rights of those others.<br /><br />-A<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-51600399663634413382014-06-10T20:45:21.240-04:002014-06-10T20:45:21.240-04:00"Are you saying that public schools are '..."Are you saying that public schools are 'atheist' schools?"<br /><br />While it might not be the case everywhere, in general, yes. Public schools teach materialistic naturalism generally speaking. The idea that there might be something more than what we can see and touch is entertained lightly, if at all. It mostly depends on the district, school, and even specific teacher. My school in Washington State was thoroughly materialist. My biology teacher made it a point to explain to us how the Virgin Birth was impossible via "science." One hardly tempted fate by daring to apply any aspect of the idea that God rules the universe to any work. In what way is that not atheism, or at least an agnosticism that presumes atheism?nate895https://www.blogger.com/profile/05539361477170574108noreply@blogger.com