What should be the goal of education?

[TSherbs]

...

Given my father's extreme right-wing views, I got enough indoctrination without full days of propaganda in the guise of education. It took me years to shed that narrow, paranoid way of thinking.....

I am glad that you escaped those limitations. I can remember, in 9th or 10th grade, when it dawned on me that I was smarter than my parents (not wiser, but intellectually smarter). That was so liberating for me. I loved my parents, and still do, but I never looked back at them intellectually again: I just forged forward. My father would become chippy and belittling at times about what I was reading, and he told me that teaching wasn't good enough for a son in his family, but I just said "fuck you" in the back of my mind and basically never told him again about what I was reading and learning. He just couldn't understand, and he was vindictive when his primacy of any kind was threatened (real alpha male). But my parents were divorced, and I never lived with him after I was 12, so I had that kind of escape also.

This is one of the problems that I see with homeschooling: even in a cooperative, the kid's educational content is no better than what the parents think is good enough. It was always someone at school, at college, or at least outside my family who would really ask what I was interested in and suggest even more challenging readings. My parents never suggested a thing. Nor would they have known of much cuz they weren't reading.

[Chuck Naill]

You really never attempted an objective discussion about homeschooling.

Yeah, I keep saying that. I don't trust it, from my experience. And like I said, it's a right that families have. I just wish that more of them would do it better---or give their kids back to the professionals at schools.

In a side note, you keep mentioning Christians and Jesus. It is not "objective" to fall back on religion, either. Especially not when you mention only one of the many faiths practiced in the US, many of which, including Christianity, that try to set up schools or homeschooling networks, to instruct their children in the precepts of their faith. Again, for athiests, or for any other people of faith other than the one in question, this is indoctrination in falsehoods. That, by the way, is an objective statement: each of the monotheistic faiths in their core teachings considers the others to be in error, if not heretical. Ahtiests believe that they ALL are (that is another objective statement).

Commandments 1-4 are all specific to Judaism and Christianity. They refer to the Judeo-Christian god. # 5-10 are common to nearly every culture on the planet and require no church or separate school or home-schooling to teach them: all schools teach these common values. (#10 perhaps the least, but this is because all of American advertising is built on the idea that we should want that the other people in the ads have).

As I said, homeschooling, within limits, is an Americn right. I just wish that they did it better. By the time a young person is about 16 (some say much earlier), their patterns of adult thinking, the limits of their adult intellectual trajectories, have pretty much been set (that's a generalization, I know--but policy is built upon general patterns). It's a shame, but many potential very sharp minds are dulled in the backwaters of American intellecual lassitude and ignorance.

We wished public schools did a better job also, Ted.

I never fell back on religion either. It’s not religious to not want your children subjected to ideas and secular reasonings which don’t support a good life with a moral center. For example, one could make an A in an ethics class without ever becoming ethical. This is a departure from classical education where topics were reasoned rather than memorizing some for a grade. You can teach someone not to tell a lie, but you have no basis within yourself to explain why. If all you why is because you think so, that’s a flimsy foundation. Again the “you” refers to anyone. This is why lying is subjective secular settings. First to have to know what truth is. And you have to see it in your best interest to be truthful.

I’d say the police officers that beat a man to death in Tennessee lacked a moral center to either leave such an environment or to stop the others.

[TSherbs]

I never fell back on religion either....

It sure looks like you fall back on religion right here:

...You can teach someone not to tell a lie, but you have no basis within yourself to explain why. If all you why is because you think so, that’s a flimsy foundation. Again the “you” refers to anyone. This is why lying is subjective secular settings....

Chuck, you are "falling back" on religious precepts here. You're just not being entirely transparent about it. It's a religious perspective to state that "secular" values are flimsy, but religion gives you a "basis within yourself to explain why." It's not even a strong argument position (I consider it specious). You also repeatedly discuss the desire for there to be more "disciples of Jesus" in the world. How is this not "falling back on religion"?

[Chip]

It’s not religious to not want your children subjected to ideas and secular reasonings which don’t support a good life with a moral center.

What ideas and secular reasonings? Be specific.

I gave up on established religion when I was about ten, because it made no sense to me. I couldn't stand the memorization and repetition (in lieu of thinking) nor the constant pressure to stamp out and punish any difference or dissent.

The values such as compassion, fair dealing, loyalty, etc. that I hold true don't depend on any religion, nor are they religious property. They can be taught as part of religious observance, but exist apart from all the myths and tales and smells and bells and hierachies and hates and persecutions.

[Chuck Naill]

It’s not religious to not want your children subjected to ideas and secular reasonings which don’t support a good life with a moral center.

What ideas and secular reasonings? Be specific.

I gave up on established religion when I was about ten, because it made no sense to me. I couldn't stand the memorization and repetition (in lieu of thinking) nor the constant pressure to stamp out and punish any difference or dissent.

The values such as compassion, fair dealing, loyalty, etc. that I hold true don't depend on any religion, nor are they religious property. They can be taught as part of religious observance, but exist apart from all the myths and tales and smells and bells and hierachies and hates and persecutions.

I think what you are referring to are Natural Laws that C.S. Lewis discussed in his work Mere Christianity. Those are laws everyone would agree are true, but seldom keep.

In 1979 I had just become a "Christian". My first child had been born two months later. When she was four we put her in a private school and later a private Christian school. While it may have been okay, I wanted something different than what the public schools had offered me where people kept their teaching jobs but were not up to the task or not. I was willing to pay. I did pay and not because I could readily afford it. I also wanted a venue where I could complain if required. I wanted teachers who loved my child and were willing to help them.

I wanted teachers who considered themselves in a service for my child. I didn't want to experiment. I wanted smaller classes. I wanted an acknowledgement of a higher power, and a commitment to classical virtues, temperance, prudence, fortitude, and justice.

Like you, I struggled with "religion" and like you, after my experience with an atheist teacher, walked away. When I was 24 I decided that Jesus was the biggest lie ever or the greatest human that ever lived. I decided to dedicate myself to some investigational reporting and learned to use Greek language resources to study the text for myself. I found this process enlightening which caused some problems with the pastor in the church where I attended as well as with my family. However, I was convinced that what Jesus said was both true and practical.

So, if a law says to tell the truth, that's useful, but to see that the law to be truthful is also a provision for a good life is something else. It is also possible to decide to treat others as you would have them treat you. I tried but was more unsuccessful than successful. I found trying to keep rule hard if not impossible, and there were rules for which I think we both would agree are both important and essential.

I've gone through some transitions over the years. I've been in valleys often. If there is some power that will allow me to love others and to treat them as I would want them to treat me, I'm all for it.

[Chip]

I didn't struggle with religion. I simply don't need it. This world is enough.

Nor do I need some "power" outside my own sense of decency and fairness to make me treat others well.

[Chuck Naill]

When I say struggle, it’s not bad thing. I struggled with any interest for which I was drawn.

You’re a rare one, Chip. I wish you continued success being always decent and fair with others.

[TSherbs]

... If there is some power that will allow me to love others and to treat them as I would want them to treat me, I'm all for it.

For sure. As long as that "power" does not have other worse pernicious consequences or qualities. Religions are often big package deals. Approach with caution!

[Chuck Naill]

Americans endured years now of one man falling to tell the truth, bearing false witness and not caring one bit about whether it killed people from contracting a virus or if many were harmed and some killed so he could stay in office. Ever consider if that man had simply followed the concept of treating others as he would want to be treated. At a time when situational ethics abound and many could care less about classic virtues, have we progressed? Are we better off writing off ten simple concepts for living? Someone imaged what society would appear if everyone did their respective tasks with the idea that they were preforming their responsibilities in a way they would want other to do? It is worth considering.

Take any situation as apply the Golden Rule. When is it inappropriate?

I am trying to make the case for discipleship and how it can produce a good life today, and not just something in the future. I am in the process of learning what that means myself.

[TSherbs]

Take any situation as apply the Golden Rule. When is it inappropriate?

The Golden Rule is good. But it is limited when the person asking it of himself or herself believes in punishing (or killing) the self and others in order to weed out the weak. There are some people who use their hard-hearted lack of value for human life in order to inflict it on others. "I suck, we all suck, we should be rid of ourselves." The Golden Rule does not help in those callous situations where the individual does not expect to be treated well himself. Another line in this mode of thinking is, "I don't expect any sympathy or help, so don't ask me to help anyone else."

[TSherbs]

The problem with the Ten Commandments is that it is quite limited psychologically and asks for very little on the positive action side. It is mostly a series of specific "don't"s. It lacks, for example, a request that one honor oneself and all living things (it asks only that we honor our "mother and father," which perhaps can be expanded to mean "elders"). It asks nothing about trying to understand others, giving comfort to others, focusing on growth or even on spirituality and goodness. It asks nothing of parents or elders or communities. It asks nothing of kindness. Or even love. Nothing of perseverance, diligance, or harmony. Nothing about ambition. One of my biggest problems with my religious (Protestant) upbringing (I had a lot of church in my youth and teen years) was that I received ZERO sophisticated leadership or instruction or wisdom about any of these more complicated challenges that I was going to face as an adult. None! (my parents didn't do it, either, and they were Sunday-school teachers at one point). I have had to look well beyond Christian core commandments and Jesus' teachings (some of them are made up and very likely not connected to that man from Galilee) to get the more complicated, more actionable positive charts for living.

[TSherbs]

The Ten Commandments is more a list of rules that an ancient judge posts on the saloon doors of a village to remind them what he will punish the citizens for if they transgress and end up before him....

[Chuck Naill]

It is possible to see the big 10 differently. The other night I told my grandson to never gamble. What was my motivation? Restriction of fun? No, it was love. I see the big 10 as love.

[Chuck Naill]

Take any situation as apply the Golden Rule. When is it inappropriate?

The Golden Rule is good. But it is limited when the person asking it of himself or herself believes in punishing (or killing) the self and others in order to weed out the weak. There are some people who use their hard-hearted lack of value for human life in order to inflict it on others. "I suck, we all suck, we should be rid of ourselves." The Golden Rule does not help in those callous situations where the individual does not expect to be treated well himself. Another line in this mode of thinking is, "I don't expect any sympathy or help, so don't ask me to help anyone else."

I was surprised at your comments about “human life” given our other conversations, Ted.

[TSherbs]

Take any situation as apply the Golden Rule. When is it inappropriate?

The Golden Rule is good. But it is limited when the person asking it of himself or herself believes in punishing (or killing) the self and others in order to weed out the weak. There are some people who use their hard-hearted lack of value for human life in order to inflict it on others. "I suck, we all suck, we should be rid of ourselves." The Golden Rule does not help in those callous situations where the individual does not expect to be treated well himself. Another line in this mode of thinking is, "I don't expect any sympathy or help, so don't ask me to help anyone else."

I was surprised at your comments about “human life” given our other conversations, Ted.

What? I don't understand.

I am quoting what other people have said. I don't see what your "surprise" is. Please explain.

[TSherbs]

It is possible to see the big 10 differently. The other night I told my grandson to never gamble. What was my motivation? Restriction of fun? No, it was love. I see the big 10 as love.

Well, of course. You love your grandchildren.

But there is no commandment given to Moses from God that he or the Jews or you do so. That is my point. All those kinds of things are missing from the list (and I mention several other important life virtues and practices).

[Chuck Naill]

It is possible to see the big 10 differently. The other night I told my grandson to never gamble. What was my motivation? Restriction of fun? No, it was love. I see the big 10 as love.

Well, of course. You love your grandchildren.

But there is no commandment given to Moses from God that he or the Jews or you do so. That is my point. All those kinds of things are missing from the list (and I mention several other important life virtues and practices).

God loved Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. The big ten were provided out of love as was my encouragement toward my grandson.

Why would you tell a person not to covet unless you knew where coveting would lead? Can you think of any of the big 10 that were to punish or be mean spirited?

[Chuck Naill]

Is it enough to just be kind in deed? What if you did something that appeared to be kind, but the motivation was to look good? What if you had impure thoughts that you’d be embarrassed if anyone knew? We all have them.

The disciple wants to be rid , as much as possible , of those inward, private thoughts.

A disciple wants to be truthful, kind, trustworthy, brave, faithful, etc. This only possible if you have no fear.

[TSherbs]

It is possible to see the big 10 differently. The other night I told my grandson to never gamble. What was my motivation? Restriction of fun? No, it was love. I see the big 10 as love.

Well, of course. You love your grandchildren.

But there is no commandment given to Moses from God that he or the Jews or you do so. That is my point. All those kinds of things are missing from the list (and I mention several other important life virtues and practices).

God loved Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. The big ten were provided out of love....

This is off my point. Nevermind.

[Chuck Naill]

Why did you even respond? Lol!! I’ve noticed a pattern.