This outburst makes me ashamed that I was born in Illinois. Obviously there are some people who still think “freedom of religion” only means that “everyone is free to practice my religion.”
This outburst makes me ashamed that I was born in Illinois. Obviously there are some people who still think “freedom of religion” only means that “everyone is free to practice my religion.”
It’s a mitzvah in our religion to “know how to understand the atheist”. I don’t want it to have equal footing in my private school for my children, but for public schools, personally, FWIW, I’d rather no religion, including atheistic ideas, be taught whatsoever. Just let them teach academic subjects; they have a hard enough time getting that right.
scratch “understand” write “answer”
Sorry, but “atheistic” is non-religious, by definition. You can’t brainwash children to think only in terms approved of by a specific religious group, and still teach them real science, if the two are incompatible.
Neither science nor the theory of evolution are anti-religious. They’re anti-superstitious, and the latter conflicts with dozens of stories from various cultures and religions about how the Earth came into existence, but religion does not have to mean superstition. It’s quite possible to believe in a creator that creates by setting the universe in motion and then stepping back to let it work, with or without watching over it as it does.
Where did I say that teaching science is teaching atheism? Yes, I know that evolution doesn’t have anything to do with theism per-se, I don’t have a problem with public schools teaching it as a theory, and whether or not they do is not the key of my decision to send my own children, when I have them, to yeshiva. I was responding to the topic of your post, which doesn’t seem to have much to do with the topic now.
If you insist though, I don’t think there’s any incompatibility with science and hashgacha protis (divine providence). Science simply says that things happen in a certain way, given certain laws. No reason why those laws can’t have a certain loophole called G-d’s miracles if he so chooses. (Though we believe that whenever possible, G-d minimizes miracles. For example, the parting of the Sea of Reeds occurred with a strong wind at the same time. G-d prefers not to disturb the natural order.)
What you said was “[…] for public schools, personally, FWIW, I’d rather no religion, including atheistic ideas, be taught whatsoever.” That’s what I was responding to, that it’s impossible to teach non-religiously without teaching atheistically, since atheistic means non-religious.
As for the rest, I think we’re in violent agreement, or at least close enough that I don’t see any point to quibbling about the details.
It’s simple not to mention theology in public schools in an educational setting. Even your example, science classes, don’t have to say “there’s no such thing as a miracle”, which, if you recall philosophy 101 in college, is not a statement that is epistomologically valid anyway according to Hume.
A good scientist (or science teacher) could never say that anyway, because miracles are outside the realm of science — they’re neither testable or repeatable. The most an honest scientist could say is that science has never been able to prove the existence or non-existence of them.
When I was in middle school, in the early-to-mid eighties (before the Edwards v. Aguillard case was decided), state law required my science teachers to talk about Biblical Creationism as well as evolution, as if both were equally valid scientific theories. Even then I couldn’t believe it — there was nothing scientific about it, no evidence or experiments presented that backed it up (as all the other science we were taught had), nothing but some several-thousand-year-old stories. Being forced to talk about it in science class was about the worst thing possible for convincing the students of it, because it just pointed out how unscientific it really was by comparison.
Well, that’s because they don’t understand the creation account, and we do.
<smug look>
I don’t expect people to teach Oral Torah, or any other form of religion, in public schools. Nor do I want it, any more than I’d want Jewish children to be taught xtianity, l’havdil, would I want little non-Jews to be taught Judaism in a public school. I think the above was most likely inappropriate. It points out, however, the need for school vouchers as a good way for parents to get the education they want for their children without anyone having their toes stepped on.
He who pays the piper calls the tune. If you get the government to pay for private schooling, the government is going to feel entitled to dictate what the school teaches — and that’s a bad idea, considering the kind of people who are drawn to government service are often ones who have an agenda.
They already do that to some extent, they dictate certain academic subjects must be taught, with certain content, in private schools already. I doubt they’d have the same level of interference that they do with public schools in any case, certainly worth the trade-off in educational freedom. Also, in Canada, for example, the government does pay for parochial education; I don’t see any signs of things getting interfered with there. Though of course, as you know, Canadians would attribute that to their superiority; Canadians being nearly as smug as Mac users. 😉