Child abuse ?

[Something completely different]

It appears that some people in this thread believe that they have the right (or at least, the government does) to control what parents teach their children. This is of course entirely based on their own preconceptions about what is real; completely ignoring the preconceptions of others. In other words, it's an undeniably selfish position to hold.

Who? Where? When?
And what a very nice way of deprecative wording you chose.
"govermeeet! bad!"

I dont perceive in any kind of way that I have the right to tell people how they should educate their children.
I believe the goverment should have the right to set standerds on: what is education and what is not. And actualy I dont eaven believe nor perceive that, I know that, because it is the law in my country, and I am defending the case for this kind of regulation because it works here and hasnt jet shown any signs of doing harm to our sociaty.

Compulsery school attendance, is not regulated on a federal level but on a state level.
Parents are thereby bound by state law to let their children attend a certain (variating) number of school years.

State, legaly mandated age to start school, legaly mandated years in school:

Baden Württenberg: 5-7 , 9 years

Bayern: 5-7 , 9 years

Berlin: 5-6 , 10 years

Brandenburg: 5-7 , 10 years

Bremen: 6 , 12 years

Hamburg: 5-6 , 9 years

Hessen: 5-7 , 9 years

Mecklenburg Vorpommern: 6 , Until student is 18 years old

Niedersachsen: 6-7 , 12 years

Nordrhein-Westfalen: 6 , 10 years

Rheinland-Pfalz: 6 , 12 years

Saarland: 5-8 , 9 years

Sachsen: 6-7 , 9 years

Sachsen-Anhalt: 6 , 12 years

Schleswig-Holstein: 6-7 , 9 years

Thüringen: 6-7 , 10 years

The sections of the state code of laws concerning these mandates are:
§§ 73 - 76 SchG (Württenberg uses federal law), BayEUG (couldnt find paragraf), § 42 Berlin SchulG, § 39 BbgSchulG, § 54 Brem., Hamburg (couldnt find paragraf), § 59 Hess, § 42 SchulG, Niedersachsen (couldnt find paragraf), §§ 37,38 SchulG NRW, §7 SchG, Saarland (couldnt find paragraf), couldnt find paragraf for the rest.

Now these are facts, writen in black on white paper on state law! And not some lunacy or perceived fantasy of a individual planing to restructure and rewrite laws and the educational sector of a sociaty in general, thereby ignoring others - as you accused!

These laws were past by democraticly elected goverments!

And I can back these claims up:

http://www.alinki.com/artikel/382/

http://www.bildungsserver.de/Schulrecht-72.html

Just because science is held as a good method for determining what is true by the majority of people, does not make it the only way of determining truth, nor does it give that majority a right to impose it on others.

No, but it gives the right to point out the lies, fallacies and outright nonsence of others!
Aswell as it gives a monopoly on determening what can be called truth within the scientific community and can adorn itself with the adjective Scientific.

Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot, and you were a science advocate in a sternly religious (and anti-science) country. Would you be fine with your countrymen denying you the right to teach your child your beliefs? I doubt it.

Difference is, I dont live in Saudi Arabia or Iran - and there is a big difference between those countries and where I live, and I will not let my country turn into christian Iran by giving people the right to add the adjective "scientific" to their mental rubbish and pose as if it then were legit.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Science is not a method for establishing absolute truth. It is a method for establishing empirical truth, which is wholly different. For starters, whilst empirical truth is often seen as "more accurate" than other forms of truth because it can be verified and tested experimentally, one of the core principles of science is falsifiability...in other words; any "truth" obtained through science and empiricism must be able to be disproved in some way. .

There is a german term for that kind of "knowlege" which people spread, believing that it is true when in fact it is missinforming and not true, which I couldnt find in the dictonary: "Halbwissen"

For starters:

"Empeiria" is greek and translates to expirience, Ratio is "Latin" and translates to reason. The first precusors on the school of empirism were the philosophers who came before Socrates and Socrates himself - then called Sophism. Platon was the precusor of what would later be known as Idealism.

In the 17th and 18th century, Rene Decartes, Baruch de Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz would built up further on the ideas of Platos Idealism and founded the school of Rationalism. Plato saw Ideas as the the highest form a possible knowlege and all other cognetively perceived things as potentialy deceiving, built up on this school of thought the named above 17th and 18th century philosophers came to the conclusion that one should daught everything except for the reasoning mind which one uses for that process of daught.

Whilest philosophers as Francis Bacon, John Locke and David Hume built their philosophical theories on Empirism, meaning that knowlege could only be aquired through a process of induction (observing the surroundings with cognetive methods) and the resulting deduction (drawing conclusions out of what has been observed).



In the 18th century, the philosopher Immanuel Kant tried to unite both schools of philosophy (rationalism and empirism) in his theory of the Categorical Imperative, which states observations have to be evaluated by ones personal reasoning in order to draw conclusions and form struktures out of the observed non-struktures, the guiding principle behind his categorical imperative is "Have the courage to use your own reasoning" advacating personal responsibility over general laws and is considered to be the first step into the direction of "a individuals personal rights and liberties".

Out of that school philosophy, Karl Popper formed the idea of Critical Rationalism - the Idea behind this school is that through induction observed stuktures are not only be formed into theories but are to be constantly falsified, which is detailed in his book on epistemology: "The Logik of scientific Discovery".
The epistemological school of philosophy which tries to falsefy existing theories is not called empirism but Critical Rationalism.


http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empirical
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_rationalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper

If that possibility exists, empirical truth is not absolute truth.

IF it exists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconic_phrase

Thus, whilst you may think science is the best method for obtaining truth, it isn't the only method, and there are plenty of people who believe other methods are either equal or better.

What exists?/What can be? - Metaphysics/Ontology
What is good? - Ethics
What is human? - Antropology
What is the meaning of what we say?/What can we express? - Philosophy of Language (Ludwig Wittgenstein)
What is beautyfull? - Aesthetics
What is Nature? - Natural Philosophy
Which arguments are valid? - Logic

Nice subjects if you specialise on a education in philosophy, or a other subject which, for a better understanding requires experties in such ereas art-aesthetics, linguistics-philosophy of language, sociology - antropology)

But on the subject of natural science there clear and common understanding that the method of Critical Rationalism is used as the method of aquireing knowlege - the scientific community is not a democracy! it exists within a democracy! Scientific theories are proposed and have to go through the process of peer review! What survives this process is then known as knowlege!
We live in a reality in which this concept has achived usefull knowlege for the progress of our species, hence sitting in a maths, biology, chemisty or physics call and endlessly debating if the things the students are suposed to know actualy can be known? do exist? are logical? are pritty? are moraly correct? is a waste of time!

To deny these people to teach their own children their views is an ultimate violation of their rights as both humans and as parents.

I do not deny any parent to raise their children in a religious way.
That would be a violation of the constitutional right of freedom of and from religion.
But it strikes me as ironic, how some people who applauded the circumcicion bann in Germany, because of it being a violation of a individuals health, defending a a fundamentalists "right" to indoctrinate his or her kids into a potentialy harmfull thoughtprocess for sociaty.

What is scientific knowlege and what is not, should not be detrmend by a zealos housewife, nazi dad, racist redneck or other religious loons.

The scientific community has a absolute monopoly on determening what is scientific knowlege and what is not. Therefor the standerds of school education should be set by that community and it`s teaching made mandetory to preven potentialy dangerous missinformation.

As for these children not being able to integrate into society; it seems that empirical evidence would cast doubts on your theory. You see, astoundingly, the vast majority of religious beliefs have no impact on people's everyday lives in society. The UK possibly proves this more than most countries; we are one of the most multicultural places on Earth, home to people of countless faiths and races, and we all seem to (for the most part) get on just fine. I have atheist friends, Christian friends, Muslims friends, and even Hindu friends. We all see the world differently; we all believe in different things, but we all respect each other enough to not make it as big an issue as you seem to want to make it.

Have you got statistics to back any of this up, or do you to claim to have an argument when all you have is baseless assumptions and predictions.

Now here are the most religious states in the US:
(poll asked question: are you religious?)

85% Mississippi
82% Alabama
80% South Carolina
79% Tennessee
78% Louisiana
78% Arkansas
76% Georgia
76% North Carolina
75% Oklahoma
74% Kentucky
74% Texas

and here is a statistic showing the least educated states:

http://www.statemaster.com/graph/edu_bes...ated-index

Oh dear! How they fit together.

I couldnt find state statistics on homeschooling, but I found a rather great answere to "why homeschool?" which helps me perfectly underline my point.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?...055AAy86G1

Now, I have to say that this opinion of mine is based on a assumption, but at least I can give a source to the statistics on which I base my assumptions.

And maybe eaven try to compare them with the results of the 2011 PISA study:

http://www.focus.de/schule/schule/tid-81...27570.html

Well falling behind.


You accused me of being a person who forces educational values onto people on a basis of nothing!
Good and fine to be a liberterian, but to simply stick to ones views and thereby ignoring reality is like falling out of the 50th floor of a skyscraper to then whilest falling constantly telling oneself that everything is going to be alright - not acknowleging that the impact is the importent part.

a garden might be pritty, but useless when built in tchernobyl.

And to enter a debate without facts and statistics to back any argument up, is waking on a frozen lake without knowing if the ice is thik enought to hold ones weight.


In the end, maybe homeschooling isnt that bad and helpfull for sociaty - but it certainly is when conducted by non-educaters in a intolerant indoctrinational way.

On the subject of integration - you can not tell me that the average evangelical, homeschooled, homophobic bigot, who refers to everything outside of his sect as "evil secularism" or the average anjem choudary is a integrated member of sociaty.
These peoples behavior is practicaly the deffinition of the word "parallel sociaty" and to let these people indoctrinate more and more people for their cause will further the unhealthy process of creating a parallel sociaty.