Homeschooling

Good point! My sister isn't catholic, but sent her kids to the school because she says that have a good curriculum. I can't say for sure. Haha, yes, I do. That's too funny that your life and mine are so close, and yet somehow we met in an obscure internet forum. You know, I actually fornicated with a young lady on one of the picnic benches some years ago. Don't worry, I'm sure it has since been sterilized. We're talking like 15 years ago Yes, this is absurd and totally unfair to expect the teachers, who get payed shit as it is, to front that money. It's bullshit. Yeah, I was gonna say! You're totally right. What I don't understand is why it is that way and what can we do to fix it? There is a system of honor in those cultures that run pretty deep. We're talking centuries upon centuries of tradition here. Shame-based techniques used by the parents to foist on their children, sometimes with massively unrealistic demands, is a common theme. That isn't right either, because the kids have a huge amount of shame when things aren't going exactly how mom and dad envisioned it for themselves, as if their kids are their play-things.There needs to be some balance. It is good that they push their children to a degree, and to instill respect, a good work ethic, etc, but not to the point where a child's only motivation for success is fear-based.As a comedian, I'm sure you can appreciate Dr. Ken's stand-up. In an interview he explained how he became a medical doctor (and still is) and that his parents were initially very upset with his career choice. Until, of course, they saw how successful he was at his trade. Plus, according to him, he still is certified and keeps up with medical training. Edited by Admin, : Remove personal info, fix quote.

---

"Political correctness is tyranny with manners." -- Charlton Heston

Onifire,I'm ref your first post in this discussion. You are correct and yes, I for one, did give a little bit more of a PC answer then you did, but I was hinting at the same thing by using terms like "inner-city" and "suburban".Our failing school system here in the "city" vs. right next door's blossoming "suburban" system can be explained by race make up and also economic make up.

I knew you were the moment I read that you were a cop. I have a few cop friends who work in Miami, I get what you experience - if you know what I mean You can't, or are not allowed, to say the truth. Which is that certain races do tend to lend themselves to certain behaviors. I'm hispanic, and I gracefully accept certain traits and behaviors are prone to my race. This is true for all areas. Economic make up and "place in society" go hand in hand with the environment you live in.I can only imagine that the school system in your area that is not doing well is predominantly balck or mix (hispanic/black), right?I feel your pain in that you can't in good conscience send your children there. But we have to remember, if you neglect a certain group within your society, it can, and as you can see, affect you who has no ties to this group. So it benefits us ALL to help each other.- Oni

I just stumbled onto the following story about christianity and homeschooling. Enjoy!http://home.entouch.net/dmd/mom.htmEdited to fix link.I had several pages openned and I guess I copied and pasted the wrong one. Haha. Thanks, the wise one.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

That link is to one of the two stories that Glenn R. Morton had posted of his own experience in which "creation science" had driven him to the verge of atheism. As eye-opening and thought-provoking as it is {*} and as much as I personally have recommended it many times in the past and still do, it does not have anything to do with homeschooling.Morton also posts other "Personal Stories of the Creation/Evolution Struggle" at No webpage found at provided URL: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/person.htm, including the other version of his story. Among them is "Testimony of a Home Schooling Mother" at No webpage found at provided URL: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/mom.htm, in which she expresses her concerns that while giving the children faith, churches are failing to give them the intellectuctual tools to hold onto that faith:

quote:

---

(from Glenn's intro)
We talked for a long time about how Christians who home school act scared to let their children be exposed to ideas they don't like. They have a spirit of timidity when Christians are supposed to go out and take the world rather than huddle shivering together.

​

(from her letter)
Thanks for the info about your web site. ... , but the part that interested me most was the "testimonies" of people who either lost their faith or came to near to doing so. It seems in most cases the biggest factor was the shock of hearing evidence that contradicted their views--and hearing it for the first time! I think this is an area that churches need to address. Even if they want to hang on to young earth creationist views, they at least need to prepare their youth for the very effective assault by "facts" that they will encounter at college. (I suppose part of their reluctance to do so hinges on the fact that should they themselves examine the facts, they may find their own "faith" shaken. Of course, I believe that basing your whole faith in Jesus Christ upon a presumption about the age of the earth is a poor foundation for faith.

​

...

​

Even churches that don't support one view over another don't bother to address the faith-shaking issues that college kids will face: I can imagine many of those professors we heard at the conference skinning alive the believers in their classes. Churches do a good job of giving kids the spiritual tools they need for a fulfilling relationship with Jesus, helping them to steer their spiritual boat, so to speak, but they don't give them any intellectual tools. Steering the boat becomes moot if the the believer's boat is on the verge of sinking.

​

I am not sure why youth directors don't perceive this need except that perhaps the kids themselves don't perceive it. In the warm embrace of their youth group, they aren't facing many intellectual challenges and so don't even know about the minefields that await them. Perhaps the majority of youth don't plan to do much thinking at college anyway. I don't know, but from your website and my own anecdotal experience, I think this is an issue that churches need to address.

---

{* Footnote: Part of my development in studying "creation science" was in trying to figure out how creationists think -- I had actually started out thinking that once they learned that their claims were false, they would deal with that fact instead of the reactions of deep and vicious denial that I got. When I first heard about Morton was also when I first learned of the dangers that "creation science" poses for its followers' faith.From the intro I had written on my old web site:

quote:

---

Morton's story was the first real indication I had that creation science destroys faith. At the 1986 International Conference on Creationism, after he delivered his paper critical of Flood Geology, John Morris of the Institute for Creation Research challenged him. Morton chopped Morris off at the ankles with two questions, the second of which was "How old is the earth?" To which Morris responded, "If the earth is more than 10,000 years old then Scripture has no meaning." Morton then said that he had hired several geology graduates of Christian Heritage College {which formerly housed the ICR}, and that all of them suffered severe crises of faith. They were utterly unprepared to face the geological facts every petroleum geologist deals with on a daily basis.

​

What I did not know at the time was that Morton was himself fast approaching his own crisis of faith, because the hard facts of geology kept showing him that the teachings of creation science were utterly false, teachings that creation science had taught him had to be true if Christianity were to have any meaning. Out of that crisis of faith was born Morton's attempt at harmonization.

---

}

Tebow's pre-Wonderlic prayer request falls flatEven his teammates/prospective teammates/locker room buddies don't want to hear his crap.

---

"Some people think God is an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Othersfor example Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einsteinconsidered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws."-Carl Sagan"Show me where Christ said "Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones." Gay people, too, are made in my God's image. I would never worship a homophobic God." -Desmond Tutu