Sham homeschools are fostering a radical right wing fifth column
Until the 1980s homeschooling was a benign activity that affected very few children. After homeschooling became dominated by right wing Christian theocrats, millions of vulnerable children (estimates are suspect because of poor reporting requirements) became virtual prisoners in their own homes, pawns in a scheme to overthrow the United States Government and replace it with a theocracy. The theocrats scheme includes lobbying state legislatures, pressing free exercise of religion cases in the courts and collusion with extreme right wing Republican officials. The result is an almost total lack of oversight by government officials. It will require dedication for the new administration to undo the Bush administration handiwork.
Legitimate homeschools are in league with the sham homeschools because they also want to prohibit any kind of oversight or control. Although the legitimate people have a small public voice, the radical right are loaded with resources and lobbyists.
The Supreme Court gave parents the right to teach children the tenets and the practices of their faith back in 1944. (Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 164 (1944). The Prince decision, together with the Yoder vs Wisconsin decision inspired theocratic zealots to create a rebellious strain of home schooling. Lead by radicals, this movement is creating a virtual fifth column of ignorant children raised to hate democracy and to revile and distrust their government institutions. In this way, the theocrats are systematically grooming innocent children through a staged process involving homeschools, a project called Generation Joshua and the Patrick Henry College. Their aim is to quietly infiltrate, hamper, frustrate and then dismantle the government of the United States and establish a theocracy according to Dominionist theology. The theocrats plan seems to be working because the Bush administration opened the doors of government to Patrick Henry College graduates while the general public has taken little notice. But then, the devious theocrats are anything but honest and above board. They are like cockroaches, termites and other vermin that hide out of sight. They will not advocate a public position because they know they cannot win an honest public debate.
No one contemplated the political power extreme right wing Christians would usurp in the latter decades of the 20st century. Nor, how they would first systematically attack the public school system and then in frustration, how they would begin to withdraw their children from public schools in astonishing numbers. Able to mobilize thousands of parents to swamp legislatures with denial of service calls and emails, they steam rolled their agenda of removing truancy laws across the country. There was little or no opposition from the federal or state governments, who depend upon reliable telephone and Internet connections to operate. Denial of service attacks combined with bare knuckle political threats became weapons of choice and are still used today. HSLDA even brags about their success in hampering the functioning of government.
With sequestered children constantly supervised by zealous despotic parents, the indoctrination of a backward debauched religion can take place 24 hours a day seven days a week. Out of sight, the indoctrination goes unnoticed. The unfortunate children’s parents rigorously shield them from civilian authority, and they are not allowed to associate with anyone that has not been pre-approved. Parents heavily monitor and restrict radio, television, movies, the Internet and live entertainment events. When legal problems threaten, parents use the threadbare guise of sacrosanct religious liberty and call on well heeled advocacy groups like Michael Farris’s Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), Focus on the Family, The Pacific Justice Institute, and The Eagle Forum to name just a few far right heavily funded special interest groups of dubious character.
In these families, there will be no nonsense about Title 9 gender equality, or sex education or tolerance of other’s beliefs; parents are convinced they alone have the truth and all outsiders are Satan’s spawn that are going to hell. There is no effort to teach the children how to reason or make moral judgments based on logic; morality lessons consist of picked over biblical dogma.
This trend has been in place for nearly 20 years and has spawned a vast infrastructure of lobbyists, legal assistance groups, and purveyors of “approved” curriculum materials. Many curriculum materials advertise that they teach subjects in a “godly” way. Believe it or not there are even teaching materials that extend this pedagogy to mathematics!
Dr. Rob Reich (Professor of Political Science and Ethics at Stanford University ) explains what he considers is the major problem in terms of parents deliberately frustrating the development of autonomy in their children:
The problem with homeschooling and parental authority over education arises not out of conflicts over whether children should become independent adults. Few people wish to defend the authority of parents who plainly care too little. The problem arises over parents who, as it were, care too much in seeking to prevent the development of autonomy in their children. I mean to suggest that parents who wish to control the socialization of their children so completely as to instill inerrant beliefs in their own world view or unquestioning obedience to their own or others’ authority are motivated often by a fervent care for, not neglect of their children. Even when defined minimally, some parents may object to the idea that their children should receive an education that promotes their critical thinking and capacities for reflection on their own and other’s ends. Being minimally autonomous, I claimed, was in the interest of the child for personal and civic reasons. The fact that autonomy is necessary for citizenship makes education for autonomy an interest of the state as well. Thus, when parents reject the facilitation of autonomy in their children, they find themselves in conflict with both the interests of the child and of the state.
A measure of just how thoroughly the theocrats took control of the US Department of Education can be gained by the comments made by Jack Klenk, Director of the Office of Non Public Education at the U.S. Department of Education at a recent meeting sponsored by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA a vociferous foe of homeschool oversight ) and featuring eight congressional representatives . Here is part of the HSLDA report on their web site:
Mr. Klenk has served in the Department for over 20 years, and he talked about how he has seen homeschooling start and grow through the years. He also acknowledged that the Department of Education has heard the homeschool community’s message that the “federal government must leave homeschoolers alone,” and will honor that message. He closed by sharing his and the current administration’s belief that “homeschooling is good for children, good for families, and good for society.
Have we no right to expect impartial judgments emanating from such a high government official? Mr Klenk has hopefully departed to other pursuits by this time, if he has not been fired.
The corrupt Bush administration and his allied theocrats were determined to surreptitiously undermine and drag down the government of the United States. Accordingly, it should be obvious to Americans that the Obama administration must act decisively to regulate homeschools on an urgent basis.
Professor Rob Reich proposed the following provisional framework some years ago:
A PROVISIONAL REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR HOME SCHOOLING
Recall that the purpose of these regulations is to help ensure that the state’s interest in providing a civic education for children is met, and to protect the independent interest of the child in developing into a free or autonomous adult. … I propose three minimal regulations. The results of the democratic process might yield additional regulations, which would not necessarily be inconsistent with my views, but these seem to me the bare minimum, as follows:1. All parents who home school must register with a public official. The state needs to be able to distinguish between truants and home-schooled students, and it needs a record that specific children are being home schooled so that its other regulations can be enforced.
2. Parents must demonstrate to educational officials that their homeschool curriculum meets some minimal standard. The minimal standard will include academic benchmarks as well as an assurance that children are exposed to and engaged with ideas, values, and beliefs that are different from those of the parents. For instance, every home-school curriculum should include information about a variety of religious traditions (I believe this should be the case, as well, for public and private schools.) Parents are free to teach their children that their own religious faith is the truth, but they cannot shield children from the knowledge that other people have different convictions and that these people are, from the standpoint of citizenship, their equals.
3. Parents must permit their children to be tested periodically on some kind of basic skills exam. Should home-schooled children repeatedly fail to make progress on this exam, relative to their public or private school peers, then a case could be made to compel school attendance. Label this educational harm. (The same kind of educational harm surely exists in some public schools, of course. And this is one reason that I believe parents should have the authority to hold the state accountable for public schools by pulling their children from failing schools and enrolling them elsewhere.) In short, these regulations amount to the following:
• The state registers who is being home schooled.
• The state insists upon a curriculum that meets minimal academic standards and that introduces students to value pluralism.
• The state tests students periodically to ensure that minimal academic progress is being made.Would many home schools be unable to meet these regulations? …. If creating and enforcing regulations would prevent even a few children from suffering educational harm or from receiving an education that stunted or disabled their freedom, the regulations would be worthwhile. Strictly enforced regulations ensure that parents do not wield total and unchecked authority over the education of their children. What is at stake here is not a question of social utility or stability, whether home schooling could threaten democracy. What is at stake is the justice that we owe children, that they receive an education that cultivates their future citizenship, their individual freedom, and that teaches them at least basic academic skills, skills that are necessary for ably exercising both their citizenship and their freedom.”
I wish I could be as sanguine as Rob Reich, because our democracy could clearly be at risk if millions of compromised children continue to go through this warped religious soaked system. In addition, why settle for minimum standards?
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week1020/cover.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7630851222567912489#docid=5881186192356745364
God’s Next Army
Documentary about Patrick Henry College for homeschooled evangelical children.
http://www.truthout.org/article/christian-reconstructionists-trying-take-dominion-america
http://www.parentalrights.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={1F86E588-AA4A-43A1-998D-D9BF4FBE4D09} Michael Farris brags about denial of service attack.
About Michael Farris and sham home schools:
http://a2zhomeschool.com/homes
Purge of Professors at Patrick Henry
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/5/26/83129/0021
http://www.publiceye.org/christian_right/dominionism.htm
Reports on the web include:
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm#_edn14
http://www.theocracywatch.org/
http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v19n3/clarkson_dominionism.html
http://www.theocracywatch.org/chris_hedges_nov24_04.htm
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/1/5/155457/0298
http://a2zhomeschool.com/homeschool/2009/06/16/reconstruction-theology-and-home-education/
Books
American Fascists, The Christian Right and The War on America, by Chris Hedges
Kingdom Coming, The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg
American Theocracy, The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury by Kevin Philips
http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2047
Write These Laws on Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling
Author: Robert Kunzman
Product Code: 3291 ISBN: 978-080703291-6
Copyright Date Ed: 08/01/2009
A compelling look at conservative Christian homeschooling families—and the worldview that could radically alter American political and intellectual life.
Reports on the web include:
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm#_edn14
http://www.theocracywatch.org/
http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v19n3/clarkson_dominionism.html
http://www.theocracywatch.org/chris_hedges_nov24_04.htm
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/1/5/155457/0298
http://a2zhomeschool.com/homeschool/2009/06/16/reconstruction-theology-and-home-education/
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Hereditary Religion: Cultural Genetics
The End of Hereditary Religion is pleased to publish this article written by David McAfee, a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This is part one of a multi-part treatment on the subject of Hereditary Religion. We look forward to more articles by this talented young writer.
Richard
My interest in the field of Cultural Genetics began two years ago during an interview with a university student for a local magazine. His name was Mike and he was a second-year Theater Major at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I had the chance to speak candidly with Mike and asked him a series of questions regarding his religious preferences and freedoms, his answer to one question in particular would surprise me more than the rest. I asked Mike a very simple question, “Do you consider yourself a religious person?” A 2001 American Religious Identification Survey indicates that 81% of Americans DO associate themselves with a specific religion, so a “Yes” would not have been cause for alarm. Instead, Mike paused for a moment and answered “I’m half Catholic and half Agnostic.” Before I responded, my mind was filled with ideas of what he could have meant, some blend of Catholic intrigue mixed with skepticism perhaps? Upon elaboration I discovered that Mike’s mother was a practicing Catholic and his father was not associated with an organized religion.
When I describe the “genetics” of religion, I am referring to a phenomenon that I came across during the course of my research and, to me, implies the thought of religion as something similar to heritage; it is passed on from generation to generation via the parents. For example, people who have extremely limited knowledge of the Bible or its implications may still choose to classify themselves as Christians on the basis that their parents do so. This phenomenon of our nation’s children inheriting religion is often overlooked because the perpetrator guilty of indoctrination is not a dictator or cult leader, but their own parents. In the course of my research and daily life, it became increasingly apparent that many Americans consider themselves “religious” with extremely limited knowledge of the beliefs and practices of the particular religion simply because of their parents, peers, and popular culture.
When a child is growing up, there is a crucial period in which they begin to ask questions about life and wonder about the origin of existence. In a religious family, these questions are typically answered by creationist ideas in the home, church, or Sunday School. Once these beliefs are instilled in the child, it becomes a part of his or her identity. So much so that, in many cases, the child will grow up and forever identify themselves with that specific religion without question or skepticism. This is not to say that all religious parents pass on their faith to their offspring, but it seems as if it is just as likely as inheriting hair or eye color. For an idea as important as religion, it is a shame that Americans simply take what they are taught from family at face value as opposed to studying, questioning, and learning about multiple religious traditions in order to make an informed decision.
It seems to me that more and more people are treating their religious affiliation as if it were an inherited trait as opposed to an individual right and a decision not to be taken lightly. The momentous event of choosing a religion, or lack of religion, should not be a mindless reflex but a carefully scrutinized moment in life… and the key to this moment is information.
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You do not have to take your children to church
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There is a presumption that children must be taken to church. This presumption is based on centuries old tradition and the full backing of religious institutions that rely on new converts to keep their faith alive down through the ages.
Morally this is reprehensible because it treats vulnerable children as instruments. Treating others as objects or as instruments to satisfy a desire has been recognized by moral philosophers as repugnant since the days of Kant. Why are children any different? What makes it morally OK to treat children as instruments in a scheme to promote a certain brand of faith?
Secondly, the notion that a child who does not like the faith you chose for them will suddenly recover at age 18 from 15 years of being subjected to a deliberate mind control program is simply risible. There is no reset switch you can press to set a child’s brain back to it’s pristine state at age three. In fact, brain scientists have shown that the brain is actually changed physically by early learning (age 3 to 7). Those changes to the brain are extremely difficult to overcome. Logically, childhood is actually the longest stage in our lives because we retain the memories of childhood for a lifetime.
Do people break the locks on their religious cage? Yes, but usually at great emotional cost. Sometimes people suffer anxiety and depression for years as they break away and recover from religion. Family relations can be stretched to the breaking point.
Personal narratives tell the story of “making up their own minds”. Poignant accounts can be found all over the web at recovery sites established by people seeking mutual aid and comfort. Every faith and sect is represented. The biggest sites look to be for Catholics, Mormons, and Pentecostals.
Is this news to people reading this article and will it shape your thinking about hereditary religion?
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A Strange Form of Indoctrination
The Western religions by no means have a monopoly on childhood indoctrination. This is perhaps one of the more bizarre examples of that:
Boston boy enthroned as Buddhist sect head in Darjeeling
The journey from Jigme Wangchuk to His Holiness Galwa Lorepa; the journey from Boston, USA to Drukpa Sangag Choeling Monastery in Dali, near Darjeeling town in North Bengal was definitely a trying and testing time for both 11-year-old Jigme, his parents and his sister.
However, for the Drukpa Kagyu Sect of Tantrayana Buddhism (Lamaism), it was a time for boundless exhilaration as they had found one of the Gyalwa Namsum (Three Victorious Ones) after a long gap of more than 700 years.
Born in Boston, USA, Jigme Wangchuk was identified as the first reincarnation of HH Galwa Lorepa of the Drukpa Kagyu sect, a reincarnation after more than 700 years. With Jigme Wangchuk coming to Darjeeling even his parents have sold their family business in the USA and come to Darjeeling to stay here and serve him. His sister also will be studying in Darjeeling henceforth.
Talking to HT, he stated it is a big transition. “I do miss being a joyful school boy. I miss my home, my grandparents, aunts and uncles. However, being a Rinpoche is such a great honour and I feel blessed with my past responsibilities.
“My parents keep visiting me here in the monsatery and they told me that they have moved here to serve me and take care of me. As for my friends, I will contact them through emails,” he added.
HH Galwa Lorepa has withdrawn himself (own will) from Grade 5 of St. Peter School in Boston. Henceforth he will be continuing his monastic studies in the Druk Sangag Choeling Monastery in Darjeeling.
However, the transition from a USA schoolboy to one of the heads of a Buddhist sect has not been an easy one for the family. Dechen, mother of Jigme talking to HT stated, “He used to always talk of his past life but we did not take it seriously, dubbing it as a young mind fantasies. Two years back we were visiting South India on a holiday. One afternoon at the Kagyu Nalanda Monsatery in Mysore, Jigme suddenly stopped playing and started narrating his past life as if in a trance.”
…
Perhaps the parents should have trusted their first instinct about this young boy’s childhood fantasies – now he really believes that he is a reincarnation of some 700 year old religious guru.
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Freedom of conscience is the root of all our freedoms
Freedom of conscience is the root of all our freedoms because no one can be a self directing individual free of parents, governments or religious institutions without this bedrock principle. The men most responsible for the bill of rights, Jefferson and Madison, had a clear notion that freedom of conscience was the principle they were protecting in the first amendment. Madison wrote: that religion “must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate”.
Accordingly, secular parents do not steer their children towards atheism, if they are wise. Instead the idea must be to explain the religious “menu” so that when they mature, children can place an order intelligently. This is the essence of the Humanist ethos. People of limited imagination believe that everyone shares their way of looking at the world and cannot put themselves in a humanist’s shoes. Theists think they are commanded by their holy books to dominate and control their children. I suppose they just cannot fathom the notion that children are persons in their own right with their own life to direct as they see fit. Or, that the prevailing ethos among atheists and Humanists is to NOT dominate their children but to help them learn how to make decisions for themselves based on rational thinking and self reflection.
Children did not ask to be born and they are under no obligation to fulfill some master plan of their parents and especially some master plan of a religious institution. Teaching a child to think for themselves is the best insurance a child could have against being duped into a cult or other controlling group of people. To succeed, the insidious indoctrination process must diminish the ability to reason. Instead of how to think for themselves, children are taught dogmatism and to distrust their own ability to think.
There are clearly different outcomes for children raised to enjoy intellectual autonomy (personal independence) and those burdened with intellectual heteronomy (the condition of being under the domination of an outside authority, either human or divine). In many churches, homes, and faith schools, children are taught intellectual heteronomy. I quote from Donald Capps’ book, “The Children’s Song, The Religious Abuse of Children”:
“What is at stake here is the freedom of children to think for themselves and to feel secure in the knowledge that adults will not hold their expressions of intellectual autonomy against them. Especially where biblical literalism is taught and practiced, and where punitive attitudes towards sinners are voiced and countenanced, children are unlikely to experience such freedom to think and reason for themselves. Rather, they are likely to feel that it is wrong for them to think for themselves and that, if they do, they are likely to incur the disapproval, if not the wrath, of precisely those adults who have power over them. Fearing the negative consequences of their exercise of intellectual autonomy, they are likely to overreact, to place even greater strictures on their own freedom of thought than these adults may have required of them.” (p. 59)
Parents who promote intellectual heteronomy likely grew up in such a stifling environment themselves and simply cannot imagine any other way of thinking or being. This is a key argument for ending childhood indoctrination. The chain must be severed once and for all. Every parent who contemplates imposing their religion on their children should study Donald Capps’ book before they do that.
Both Madison and Jefferson were strongly against any establishment of a state religion, although the practice was widespread in the original colonies. Today the most dangerous threat to our free and open society is coming from theocrats that sincerely want to sweep away the constitution and institute biblical laws. Seriously, and they managed to get G. W. Bush elected twice. Ok, I am drifting off topic.
Today, the institutions and parents do every thing they can to thwart the ability of children to grow up with a mind that is untainted by a particular flavor of faith. Parents are swayed by clerics, family members and co-religionists. However, freedom of conscience is an inalienable right which “people cannot possibly relinquish to civil government”. — Madison (or if you follow the logic to parents or priests).
Yet parents and clerics step all over this right for the simple reason that they are in a position to do so and they claim children are too young to exercise such a right. Well they are too young, but who says children need to choose at the ripe old age of three, or four?
Why on earth is religion different? Because it is religion, that’s why and a majority of religious people and the clerics want it that way because they know it will get harder to impress their wild improbable dogma on an adult mind. For all the noble justifications offered, there is little doubt that the institutions are in this indoctrination game to save their institutions. Which makes children simply instruments of their plan. In any other sphere of human activity, using others as instruments is an abhorrent practice. Not where religion is concerned.
The incredible fact is we reserve a special measure of loathing and disgust for people who mistreat small helpless animals or helpless people. Why? Precisely because they are vulnerable and helpless.
The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved Our Country–and Why It Can Again
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An Ethical Dilemma: Childhood Conversion in Christian Fundamentalism
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University of Sydney
Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies
Masters Dissertation
This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Master of Peace and Conflict Studies by Melissa Ruth Juliet Bennett.
24-June-2009
An Ethical Dilemma: Childhood Conversion in Christian Fundamentalism
http://www.julietbennett.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Ethical-Dilemma-of-Childhood-Conversion-in-Christian-Fundamentalism1.pdf
I strongly recommend reading Ms. Bennett’s dissertation, but in the interests of brevity will simply reproduce her conclusion here.
Conclusion
The child is the forgotten citizen, and yet, if statesmen and educationists once came to realise the terrific force that is in childhood for good or for evil, I feel they would give it priority above everything else. All problems of humanity depend on man himself; if man is disregarded in his construction, the problems will never be solved. –235 Montessori, The Forgotten Citizen
In addressing the scenario posed in Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations of a war between cultures, the accepted practice of enculturation must be considered. Recognising that some enculturation is a necessary basis for education it is critical that it is combined with cultivating the student’s ability to question traditions and to challenge the status quo should it be required. A fundamentalist paradigm transmits beliefs without engaging in critical thinking, with priority placed on conforming to a state of mind that combines belief in a single absolute truth with a complete trust placed on an authoritative book or person. In the case of Christian fundamentalism, this paradigm translates to the conviction that there is one True God, the Bible contains His authoritative word, and of a single exclusive path to salvation found only by conforming one’s mind to the narrative the church prescribes. As a consequence any person who does not conform to this narrative is seen as having “rejected God”, choosing instead to live life by their own rules and worship “fake” gods. These are their beliefs and consequently they bring their children up to believe the same thing; creating a perpetuating cycle of violence.
Many fundamentalists are not aware that their unchanging truth is in fact a new interpretation of a truth shaped by theological debates and politics over the last two millennia. Most are unaware that their interpretation of the Bible has been distorted by the modern paradigm from which they see it. They do not realise that by adopting a simplistic literal interpretation, without regard for Jewish midrashim and the role of mythos, prevents fundamentalists from understanding the “more-than-literal” meaning that the authors embedded in their writings. When children are brought up with in a fused premodern-modern paradigm based on a single unchangeable truth, they struggle to interact with the postmodern world and its many truths and constant change.
Insecurities grow as the now adolescent or adult fundamentalist feels that the basis from which they understand reality is under threat. If there is no absolute truth then how is one to distinguish what is good from what is evil? How can one evaluate all the conflicting truths that surround them? These fears lead to an even more distorted version of their religion, one caught up in identity and ideology.
Note: Juliet Bennett is seeking advice concerning publishing her dissertation. You can forward information to me.
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Religion and The age of Consent
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The following article comes from a secular writer in the UK
In The Times on 18th Jan 2008 the Rev Peter Mullen claimed that not teaching children the Catholic Faith was a form of child abuse. I am finding it hard to find sufficient words to show the contempt that I have for this man and this idea.
Instead I post an article that I actually wrote before the deluded Rev Mullen published his and I ask: If children are not mature enough to drive a car before they are 17 years old, then why does the church claim they are mature enough to select a religion before that? After all, driving a car is no where near as important as God…
Religion and the Age of Consent.
The age at which we can legally do all manner of exciting sounding things is a constant annoyance when we are too young; a source of great bragging when you are just over that age and your friends are not; a much too low a limit as soon as you become a parent!
At 16 a person can get married with their parents’ permission. A person can have sex and actually create a baby without parental permission. (I consider that parental guidance might be a little more useful in the decision to make a baby)
At 17 years old we allow a child to drive. In the UK we have no restrictions on what type of car, or what power that car has and in reality the only constraints are that the average 17 year old cannot afford to insure a powerful car: buying a half rusty 1970 super car is actually cheap however. But nevertheless we parents still allow our hugely inexperienced offspring to borrow our cars and hope they are responsible enough to drive safely.
At 18 we allow the ingestion of potentially fatal poisons for pleasure: tobacco and alcohol. We also allow this newly qualified adult to fight and die in the armed forces. Most importantly, from a democratic point of view at 18 years of age the right to Vote and decide the fate of your neighbours is activated. This is often considered the most important of the age related limits as a vote directly impacts everyone in the country.
The experience of society has set these age limits based on when society considers the average youngster has reached a sufficient level of responsibility to be trusted with the choices that are now permitted.
The most important thing about these limits is that no parent has the right to over-rule the law. The protection of the child and as a direct consequence of that, the protection of others is the first priority.
Where am I going with this?
Leaders of the various religions tell us everyday that the most important thing in a life (any human life) is their relationship with God. Those religions are of course in opposition to each other, but in modern times their doctrine has been subdued, to an extent, to prevent a repeat of the crusades. However they all believe they are right at the expense of all the others.
The legal ages of consent, or to put it another way, the age at which we expect a certain level of responsibility, as detailed above are ‘earthly,’ or for the purposes of this article, non-spiritual.
The church (I use that as a generic term for all religions) would probably support an increase in the age of consent for sexual relations. It is also likely that they would support a significant increase in the age of consent for homosexual relations and state that a 16 year old is not sufficiently responsible to make such a decision. More to the point many religions would still support a ban, effectively claiming that no person is able to make such a decision for themselves: the proper standard of heterosexual behaviour having been set by God.
So if a person under 18 years old cannot be trusted to vote responsibly, and a person under 16 cannot be trusted to make responsible decisions about sex, and by the very teachings of religion these are trivial when compared to the relationship with God, why on earth do we allow children to make a decision about their eternal soul?
When a person selects a God, or a Religion, or even a sect of a religion are they not simply voting?
Following the reasoning above the age of consent to select a religion should be about 36 if the relationship with God is twice as important as being able to vote! Or is it 3 times more important? Or is it infinitely more important? Of course religion must claim that to be true otherwise at some point a theist would have to admit that the ability to vote legally in an earthly election would be more important than God, when obviously nothing is more important than God.
Continue this article at the following Livejournal page:
http://reasonaboveall.livejournal.com/#reasonaboveall777
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America’s Most Stupid Person?
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Shaneen Barron is the woman’s name. The news video is from the Denver, CO ABC affiliate and was picked up and broadcast by CNN. Don’t say the CNN news producers cannot judge a priceless film clip when they see one. The clip is probably up on YouTube or many more video servers by now and is sure to go viral, but you can watch the original here:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/video/20704892/index.html
A search for Shaneen Barron turns up about 35,000 hits on Google. Here is a rant posted on Craigslist for Denver.
Keep your kids out of school and let them watch FOX all day like you do.
. Are you scared? You should be since George Bush made made enemies of this country faster than he could kill them. You are nothing more than a racist and a sore loser. You pass an opportunity for your childeren to listen to encouragement from the President of the United States of America to attempt to stimulate insill the desire within them to stay in school and make something of themselves. It then gives you the opportunity to talk to them about it and create an open channel of discussion between you and your childeren – God forbid!!
I am glad your dirtbag kisds won’t be in school. .
. I am a die hard card carrying member of the GOP and I am disgusted by you. .
. Your kids will have no more contact with mine – and you know who this is.
. If you are afraid, then move to Europe or better yet the Middle East where they do shove religion down kids throats – ever heard of separation of Church and State – maybe your mom took you out of school that day…
. Just remember how many African American childeren were 14 years of age on last election day – they will all be voting in 2012 – so get used to having a black president. .
Obviously the lack of oxygen affect some of us more than others.
Do you sense the author of this post was in a hurry to express his thoughts? And here is a blog post by a Republican who is distressed at losing his party to right wing Christians.
America’s Most Stupid Person?
I know we’re not supposed to call these people stupid, but Shaneen Barron of Highlands Ranch, CO may be the most stupid person in the country. She’s on film crying because the President of the United States is going to give an address to tell school kids to work hard and take responsibility for their educations. And hand-washing. He’s also going to tell kids to wash their hands.
And that’s reason to go on TV and cry? Because her kids will have to listen to “that?”
Being a conservative does not make someone stupid. Crying on TV because President Obama wants to give a fluffy speech to kids about working hard and taking responsibility for yourself makes you a complete moron.I can’t get the video to embed, so click here to see the face of hysterical idiocy.
The link doesn’t function when pasted into Amazon’s software. Here is a link to Huffington Post article:
Here is a comment that I thought was germane:
This right wing politics is getting pretty crazy. But what do you expect when so many right wing religious believers have rejected a scientific worldview and believe in a Flintstones history. This sector has always been pretty adept at adopting technology to get their message out, however irrational it may be. They appropriated radio after the Scopes trial and built an alternative cultural infrastructure and continued to use TV in the same way, and finally decided to use the city machine model, (perfected and formerly used by the democrats) to build political power in the last 30 years. We are witnessing the results of years even decades of the acceptance of modern technology built on a Flintstones worldview (it wasn’t the Flintstones fault). It’s enough to make you crazy–well not you.
On Wednesday, September 16th and again yesterday, Friday, September 25th, on the Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel interviewed a self-described former Republican, former evangelical, former rightwingnut person, Frank Schaeffer, author of the book Crazy for God, who made the interesting and profound remark that those “crazy” people who are sitting by their television sets watching and believing Glen Beck and waiting for the Apocalypse and Armageddon, for whom bad news is good news of the coming debacle, for whom facts are unpleasant diversions created by the Anti-Christ and his minions to deceive us and make us unsure of the coming End Times, are in fact living their own morbid and insane prophecy—they are truly the “Left Behind.”
They are left behind by science, which they were taught was difficult (for their teachers) and that science, like in the middle ages, conflicts with gospel they have been force-fed since childhood. They are left behind by technology, which is basically indistinguishable from magic for them, yet they employ it on a daily basis. They are left behind by the evolving culture, which now includes persons from places on this planet about which they have no idea. They are left behind in every way important to the growth and good mental health of human beings and they are frightened and resigned to a fate they cannot escape. They hope that their bodies and souls will be taken up in a Rapture of the Righteous, even while they thieve and scheme against every tenet and principle of their so-called Christian faith. They are so left behind the logic of their situation they cannot see the ugly irony of their existence … and there is a feeling among most of the rest of us that these people are lost forever, better left to themselves to fester into seething hatreds and to consume their own kind in pitches of religiously tainted political fury.
There are those who are preying on these people, of course. There have been snake-oil salesmen and Elmer Gantrys since the beginning of the republic and on back into the recesses of time. Humans do prey on weaker, more frightened humans, and their methods have become quite refined over the years and centuries.
James Brett, OPED News
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Left-Behind-by-James-Brett-090926-83.html
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An insightful personal narrative of an apostate
- Image by ruSSeLL hiGGs via Flickr
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/9fg1b/atheism_vs_theism_may_seem_like_a_battle_of_wits/
It is generally common for atheists to consider that the arguments against religion boil down to science, the facts, debate, etc. It puzzles many why someone when faced with all the evidence for evolution for example would still choose to ignore it. I think that many atheists are ignoring the REAL issue, the true reason why it is hard for someone to reject their religion.
I was raised Christian all my life, in a VERY fundamentalist home. I was taught the earth was 6,000 years old created out of nothing, heaven, hell – the whole thing. I was taught how important it was to witness and attempt to “convert” others. I was taught that even bad things, really bad things, had some sort of divine reason and plan attached to them. I believed this into my early twenties.
When I was finally faced with the irrefutable facts, and raw science behind them, I let go – very reluctantly – of my cherished beliefs. It was not easy, It was like wrestling a priceless gem from someone who would just not let go of it.
When you reject religion, its not like – rejecting the earth is not flat for example. With something like this you can say “Oh ok, now I know” – but religion has a much darker and deep rooted hold on a person, and a much more profound effect.
There were times I was actually in tears thinking about the fact that there was no “afterlife” – and that those I had loved who had died – were really dead. They weren’t watching me, or having some hand in guiding me. They didn’t still “love me”. That was pretty depressing.
It is strange how religion gives you a way to reject the reality of death – which I guess does help to ‘ease your suffering’, that you “know they went to a better place” – but it also prevents proper mourning. When someone you love dies, and they tell you on their death bed that they will see you one day in heaven, you are more prepared for them to “die” because you know they aren’t really “dead”.
To reject heaven and accept atheism – is not merely about science, facts, beliefs, etc – it is about accepting the reality of all those who have died – being really dead. It is accepting the same reality about everyone you love NOW one day being – really dead. It is accepting the same reality about YOU one day.
The older you are, the more dear loved ones have passed away, the harder it will be to reject the notions of religion. To reject religion requires the re-mourning of everyone who you love who has died.
Death is just one piece of a very complex puzzle. If you have spent your whole life “living by faith” – and you have made decisions “by faith” that have resulted in really bad situations in your life, you now have to own up to the fact that these situations came about because of YOUR choices. You do not have God to take the burden of this. You can no longer say “This happened because God has some plan for my life”
By rejecting religion, you must also reject the notion that you can avoid responsibility for poor life situations. That too is a hard pill to swallow.
Next, you must reject the idea that your path is somehow guided, that God is walking with you, that you are not truly alone as you walk through life. Imagine a man walking through a room on planks of wood suspended over spikes with large holes to fall in if you take a wrong step. He always manages to take the right next step, but he is never afraid because he “knows” that this is a solid wood floor he is walking on. Now turn on the lights.
To reject religion means to accept the idea that you CAN fall – and fall HARD. It means you have to recognize that up until now you have been fortunate – but now you have to force yourself to think about your next steps.
If you have been spending your life “following Christ”, or witnessing to people, to the extent of even studying this in college, or spending hundreds and hundreds of hours reading and studying the Bible, praying, etc – only to find out that ALL of it was utterly and totally useless, then you have another hard pill to swallow. Imagine swallowing that pill as an older person.
To accept this means to accept that you have lived a large part of your life in vain, while thinking it was purposeful. Talking to such a person about atheism is similar to telling them that their whole life is without purpose, misguided, and that they have missed out on the only opportunity they will ever have to live life.
Surely one can then see why the concept of atheism is offensive and infuriating to so many people.
Then there is the concept of a personal relationship with God. The idea that God and you are “friends”. That you are somehow “above the world”. That you are living in a bubble safe and protected by God himself.
To reject religion, means accepting that you are just like everyone else – and in fact, worse off than most and behind the race because of your past religious belief. To someone who has spent a lifetime believing they are special in this regard, a piece of them is gone, never to return.
Worse than this, such a person values their imaginary relationship with God more than any aspect of their REAL personality. Who you really are takes second stage to your supposed relationship with the almighty.
Rejecting this is surely very difficult, as it entails rejecting a large part of the perceived value someone has in themselves.
I know I have not covered it all, but I hope I have helped to show that there is more to the picture of “religion vs atheism” than merely science, and facts.
The emotional side of religion is by far a larger and darker obstacle than any other that would stand in the way between someone’s freedom from delusion and accepting reality.
There are professional people who specialize in “deprogramming” those who have been captured by a cult such as the Moonies. Society grudgingly approves, with reservations because cults are judged to be “dangerous” and harmful. But try to deprogram someone from a mainline “religion” and now you will encounter blatant open hostility from every quarter. This means there is a double standard. A person who succumbs to the mind control program of a cult deserves help to extract themselves. The theology practiced by Catholics, Mormons and other mainline religions is just as non-nonsensical and can harm the mental state of adherents just as much as the most superstitious cult. Why doesn’t the principal of harm apply here?
There are many self help groups on the web that offer advice and encouragement. But woe to the person who sets out to forcibly separate an individual from a religious faith. It has to be because there is wide spread denial that the fear mongering and guilt inducing methods used by mainline religions are not harmful. If only that were true.
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What if your child becomes religious.
The fifth in a series on nonreligious parenting. Hosted by Dale McGowan, editor and co-author of “Parenting Beyond Belief” and “Raising Freethinkers.” Dale McGowan gives us a great argument in favor of letting children decide the important questions in life for themselves. In our laws and mores there is the embedded concept that whoever must deal with the consequences of a decision is entitled to make that decision. No one else, not the state, not parents, not the Pope.
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