RE: Was at least the first life form created?
October 18, 2009 at 8:54 am
(This post was last modified: October 18, 2009 at 12:39 pm by rjh4 is back.)
(October 18, 2009 at 1:43 am)Eilonnwy Wrote: First, I never said everyone who is home schooled is schooled that way for religious reasons. I'm simply saying it is a fact that many religious people home school to deny their children access to education that conflicts with their religious belief. If you do it because you think you can provide a better education, that's fine. But it's a well established fact that religious reasons are often a primary reason, especially among fundamentalists. I'm not hating on home schoolers, I think it's great if parents can do it. However, home schoolers are given different standards and don't have to take standardizing testing, so the statistics on home schoolers doing better is warped. To me that's a problem, and allows some (Note: Not all) fundamentalist religious home schoolers to fall way below basic education standards and deny their child good scientific education, of which the video was an example. I'm quite aware that video is not representative of every home school child everywhere.
Besides, I was only providing a general example about willful ignorance of science. It happens in many other areas, not just home schooling.
You still have not provided and support or reasoning for your statement that many homeschool families do it so their children "won't learn science". You seem to be saying that "religious reasons for homeschooling" = "so children won't learn science". I see no reason for making that leap. Instead of providing reasons you keep changing the focus of what you are talking about and then begin talking about something you appear to know very little about. (For information on what homeschoolers must do in each state, visit HSLDA.) What, for example, is your basis for saying homeschoolers do not have to take standardized testing? In my state, VA, unless you homeschool through a religious exemption clause in the law, you must do standardized testing each year in order to be approved for the next. I do know that it is a lot of work and effort to get the religious exemption and I personally only know of one family who has done this. For us it is just as easy to comply with the regular homeschooling laws. So we must do the standardized tests each year. You also say that it is a "fact" that "many religious people home school to deny their children access to education that conflicts with their religious belief". Now I am not going to bring up burden of proof or anything but if you are going to say something is a fact, I really think you should include some support for it, which you have not. As for my family, we homeschool for several reasons, but the "religious" ones are so that their education can be from a Christian perspective. Does that mean they are denied an education of things that conflict with our beliefs? No. They are exposed to it all but then taught why we believe what we do. Seems like a balanced way to do things. And I can assure you that even though we are fundamental Christians, we have never considered homeschooling so that our children "won't learn science".
(October 17, 2009 at 11:49 am)downbeatplumb Wrote: I'm curious. What is your religious reason to home school?
Hopefully I answered this to your satisfaction above.
(October 16, 2009 at 2:45 pm)Darwinian Wrote: And don't forget that all the other Gospels were written later and so the other disciples would have been even older.
I guess this would depend on who you think is right. See Markan Priority. Even this wikipedia entry admits that for about 1800 years people thought that Matthew was first. From something else I read online, this thinking may be returning to scolarship. As I said before, I think one needs to read all the information for and against and decide for themselves what they think.
