The Problem with Religious Moderation

[ArtK78]

I am sure that it is a federal or state law that children can leave the classroom during the prayer. Of course, kids want, above all, to fit in, so this option is not likely to be widely exercised.

 

When I was in high school, also in New Jersey, there was a "moment of silence" at the beginning of each day. My first period class was Wind Ensemble, and the band director always emphasised that this "moment" was not necessarily for prayer. I think that he put it a little stronger than that, but this was many many years ago, so I can't say for sure.

Trust me when I say that it was much more blatant in Woodbury. There was School Prayer each day. Not a moment of silence. Not an allowance for children leaving the classroom to participate in prayers on their own. We had sit at your desk with hands together each morning type prayer, along with the Pledge of Allegience.

[Vampyr]

From a 30-year-old New York Times article:

 

In drafting the First Amendment, the framers were mindful of the civil strife that followed whenever government recognized a particular religious creed. Even the most trivial state sponsorship of religion, James Madison argued, must be placed on the same continuum as religious persecutions carried out at the state's behest.

 

''Distant as it may be, in its present form, from the Inquisition it differs only in degree,'' he once wrote.

 

Class.

[Vampyr]

Trust me when I say that it was much more blatant in Woodbury. There was School Prayer each day. Not a moment of silence. Not an allowance for children leaving the classroom to participate in prayers on their own. We had sit at your desk with hands together each morning type prayer, along with the Pledge of Allegience.

 

Oh, I totally believe you; I was was just noting my experience, different (and a bit later) from yours.

 

Edit: the "moment of silence" didn't last long. It was struck down by the state Supreme Court as a way to sneak prayer in. For me it was a good opportunity to finish my coffee before I had to pick up my clarinet. Oh, and the "moment" of silence was actually a minute, and the teacher spent the minute pointedly looking at his watch.

[PassedOut]

Trust me when I say that it was much more blatant in Woodbury. There was School Prayer each day. Not a moment of silence. Not an allowance for children leaving the classroom to participate in prayers on their own. We had sit at your desk with hands together each morning type prayer, along with the Pledge of Allegiance.

That was really bad. Just guessing, but I imagine that situations like that continue until some family takes it to court. And the fact that the family will then face the wrath of the community must factor into the decision to take that step.

:(

[ArtK78]

Woodbury didn't care about the holdings of the Supreme Court. It fought to keep prayer in the schools into the 21st Century. I believe Woodbury finally gave up, as it kept losing and it was costing a lot of money to fight a losing fight.

[kenberg]

Ken:

 

My experience is different than yours.

 

When I was in second grade, my family moved from Woodbury, NJ, to Cherry Hill, NJ. Until we moved, I was the only Jewish kid in my entire elementary school. And I am talking about public school. We had prayer in the school every morning, and Christmas carols and Santa Claus in December. My mother did make it clear to my teachers and the Principal that we were Jewish and we did not believe in any of that "stuff." The result was, as a 5 year old, I had to explain to all of my classmates about Hanukkah. It didn't matter that I really didn't know much about Hanukkah - I was Jewish and I had to do that. Sort of like Kyle in South Park.

 

We moved to Cherry Hill in late February 1964 - when I was in second grade. Cherry Hill was a much more affluent community that was about 25-35% Jewish. Needless to say, my environment changed dramatically.

 

Interestingly, Woodbury continued to have prayer in its public schools until the last 10 years or so. Supreme Court - who cares?

 

Interesting. I'm trying to think of details. One that seemed odd at the time had to do with summer camp. Stan, who was Jewish, went to the YMCA camp rather than the Boy Sout Camp. Those were the two options then. I asked him about this because of the C in YMCA. Apparently the Y was more welcoming than the Scouts. Now I think it is officially the Y. Certainly the M part is gone, more women than men in the gym. And we no longer swim in the nude.

 

My wife tells me that I can be remarkably oblivious, so maybe you should not take my thoughts on this too seriously. I think "oblivious" is an underrated personality trait, but it sometimes does lead to thinking things are, or were, better than they are/were.

 

No doubt though that Christmas was the dominant holiday. As a kid in a Protestant family, it never crossed my mind that this might be a difficult issue in other families. I can well imagine we did carols at school. This is tricky. I like the music. With good will, good intentions, and some good sense, I think we can keep the music from all faiths w/o theological oppression.

 

And were there prayers at things like school assemblies? Yes, I think so. Certainly at high school graduation. By then I was well into my rejection of religion and I just suffered through it. We all had had a lot of practice at not listening to adults.

 

Bottom line, I may have overstated the lack of religious interaction in schools at least when we think of large events. In day to day life, I don't think it was much present. Lurking somewhere maybe, like a prowler. Or the NSA.

[mike777]

To be fair Christmas is a national holiday. Now if you want to just get rid of all of them ok, but that is perhaps another thread.

[Vampyr]

Woodbury didn't care about the holdings of the Supreme Court. It fought to keep prayer in the schools into the 21st Century. I believe Woodbury finally gave up, as it kept losing and it was costing a lot of money to fight a losing fight.

 

Incredible that they thought that spending money on that was more important than spending it on educating the children.

[Vampyr]

Anyway, this topic of prayer and religion in schools is boring. I had hoped that when the LHC business got tapped out 325 would move on to crop circles, or depictions of UFOs in Medieval paintings, or the "moon landing".

[nige1]

Now you guys from the Bible belt, start mobilizing your own counter protest action to get all these unproven theories removed from the school curriculum as well.

Deductive proof belongs to the realms of Logic, Philosophy, and Mathematics. Science proper relies on induction from observation and experiment. Hence the strength and weakness of a scientific theory is that it accords with known reality but is refutable by a single confirmed exception. Most of us are certain of nothing. For certainty, we may well have to fall back on blind Faith and Religion.

[mike777]

Deductive proof belongs to the realms of Logic, Philosophy, and Mathematics. Science proper relies on induction from observation and experiment. Hence the strength and weakness of a scientific theory is that it accords with known reality but is refutable by a single confirmed exception. Most of us are certain of nothing. For certainty, we may well have to fall back on blind Faith and Religion.

 

 

Just to be clear....mathematics is not proper science?

 

anyway see my numerous posts on this subject several years ago.

[nige1]

Just to be clear....mathematics is not proper science? anyway see my numerous posts on this subject several years ago.

Mathematics: Queen of the Arts and Handmaiden to the Sciences :)

[mike777]

Mathematics: Queen of the Arts and Handmaiden to the Sciences :)

 

ok mathematics is a handmaiden..got it.

 

as far as deductive vs inductive and why we care in this discussion.....I bet most forum members forget what the hell the difference. we are old/

[blackshoe]

Do you really think Higgs bosons or string theory are taught in high schools? And Bible teaching or study is not banned, mandatory prayer is. You can study the Bible in any religious school, or in any public school as literature. Public schools should not favour one religion over another (although they do all the time).

When I was in high school I would have found a comparative religion course, with readings from say the Bible*, the Quran, the Bhagavad-Gita, and maybe a couple of other things (the Gilgamesh epic? The Tao Te Ching?) interesting. A really enterprising teacher might have brought in a Catholic priest, a Protestant minister, and a Rabbi to give us their view of their respective religions. An Imam too, if one were available (I don't recall hearing anything about Islam in the sixties). I don't think there would have been objections to something like this from parents, but I could be wrong.

 

* the Catholic version, one of the Protestant versions, and the Jewish version - with an eye towards "what's different, besides the obvious 'only Old Testament' in the Jewish version?"

[mike777]

When I was in high school I would have found a comparative religion course, with readings from say the Bible*, the Quran, the Bhagavad-Gita, and maybe a couple of other things (the Gilgamesh epic? The Tao Te Ching?) interesting. A really enterprising teacher might have brought in a Catholic priest, a Protestant minister, and a Rabbi to give us their view of their respective religions. An Imam too, if one were available (I don't recall hearing anything about Islam in the sixties). I don't think there would have been objections to something like this from parents, but I could be wrong.

 

* the Catholic version, one of the Protestant versions, and the Jewish version - with an eye towards "what's different, besides the obvious 'only Old Testament' in the Jewish version?"

 

really in Hs?

 

I went to a silly univ hs and I found nonsense in my summer course. 1970

 

I found out college teachers can be idiots when in Hs.

Hs can be not so bad..but still idiots.

 

mbA OF COURSE CAN BE SILLY TEACHERS

[32519]

So who’s fooling who here? In the first 7 years of schooling (after newcomers have learnt to read, write and count) basic education covers things like elementary maths, elementary history (especially that of your own country), elementary geography, elementary biology, elementary literature (punctuation etc.). In the next 2 years things like accountancy, science, economics, business economics, arts, additional languages etc are introduced. In the last 3 years of schooling the pupils choose those subjects which they have an interest in.

 

Under U.S. law, religious education is forbidden in public schools, except from a neutral, academic perspective.

My argument was that all this unproven speculative crap should also be forbidden to keep the playing ground even. An easy solution for both sides of the argument is to introduce religion and science fiction as optional subjects for those who have an interest therein to exercise their freedom of choice under the constitution. When I was at school we had so-called “physical exercise classes” which were immensely popular amongst most of the kids. They covered anything from swimming to athletics training, or just a fun game of sport where mixed teams of boys and girls played against each other, whether that was hockey, soccer, netball, baseball etc. These fun games were used for talent spotting as well, for those who never realized they were any good in whatever sport, and were subsequently invited to join formal coaching classes after schooling hours in the relevant sport. To make room for these optional subjects in a 5-day school week should be fairly simple.

 

So I put to you again – those who have seen through this façade fobbing itself off as physical science should stand up and launch a counter protest campaign to have it forbidden in public schools as well. In what way does the constitution of the USA force you to subject yourself to being taught all sorts of unproven theoretical crap when even those dreaming up these wilder and weirder theories are in disagreement amongst themselves about them!

[gwnn]

They are not teaching about Higgs bosons in high schools. You are pushing at an open door. Furthermore, science will honestly tell everyone which parts are speculative and to what extent their theories are confirmed by experiments. There is good evidence for the existence of the Higgs boson (certainly much better than God's) but not as conclusive as for the existence of electrons or boron atoms. Religion often wilfully hides or changes contrary evidence and very rarely starts with a disclaimer like many scientific talks ("this is still a work in progress but at the moment it seems like..." "the results are a bit puzzling so we need more data to make sense of it but there is a slight tendency that...").

[32519]

There is good evidence for the existence of the Higgs boson.

Now physicists prepare to construct the even Larger Hadron Collider

 

Quote:

Barely five years after the Large Hadron Collider began smashing atoms together in a bid to solve the mysteries of the universe, scientists are already planning to replace it with an enormous machine four times as large.

 

Another quote:

Scientists are also in dispute about which particles should be tested. Some experts favour colliding protons, as is done in the 27km-long LHC, citing the ability to reach far higher energies and extremes of conditions in an attempt to simulate “Big Bang”-style conditions. Others are in favour of using electrons, as they are easier to direct and the results of tests easier to interpret.

 

Let me put it to you guys yet again – the fact that you are still attempting to simulate “Big Bang”-style conditions must be glaringly obvious that the pressure is building up on you to start producing tangible results. I have posted it higher up in this thread but it needs to be repeated again – THE FLAW IN THE BBT IS GOING TO BRING DOWN THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION AS WELL. THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION IS 100% DEPENDANT ON THE BBT. WITH NO BBT YOU HAVE NO UNIVERSE. WITH NO UNIVERSE YOU HAVE NO EARTH. WITH NO EARTH YOU HAVE NO THEORY OF EVOLUTION. BYE-BYE TO BOTH!

 

You guys must be entering panic mode. When the guys in the Bible belt in the USA are successful in their counter protest campaign, banning science fiction from being taught in schools, the pressure on you is going to increase. I bet you a BBO dollar any day that more and more sober minded people are starting to shove the flaw in the BBT back into your faces. Man, how I would just love to witness all your squirming and pathetic counter arguments as you try and face down your adversaries.

 

The fun is just starting!

[gwnn]

Yes, your blatant nonsense refuted several times over but now written in caps has convinced me. Maybe you should write a paper in all caps? Have your plots use exclamation marks as data points instead of crosses?

[hrothgar]

THE FLAW IN THE BBT IS GOING TO BRING DOWN THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION AS WELL. THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION IS 100% DEPENDANT ON THE BBT. WITH NO BBT YOU HAVE NO UNIVERSE. WITH NO UNIVERSE YOU HAVE NO EARTH. WITH NO EARTH YOU HAVE NO THEORY OF EVOLUTION. BYE-BYE TO BOTH!

 

And yet, somehow, the theory of evolution predates the Big Bang Theory by a significant margin you sociopathic loon...

[hrothgar]

In what way does the constitution of the USA force you to subject yourself to being taught all sorts of unproven theoretical crap when even those dreaming up these wilder and weirder theories are in disagreement amongst themselves about them!

 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

[WellSpyder]

WITH NO BBT YOU HAVE NO UNIVERSE. WITH NO UNIVERSE YOU HAVE NO EARTH.

Extraordinary! I thought maybe you had a different idea of the origins of the universe and the earth. But if we accept the statements you have made here then you have just proved the BBT since I think we are all agreed that we do indeed have an earth.

[gwnn]

This was an entertaining debate BTW:

Don't worry if you don't understand some of the cosmology-related jargon, WLC also clearly doesn't :)

[Trinidad]

They are not teaching about Higgs bosons in high schools.

That depends on the school system. I would expect that in many Dutch high schools the discovery of the Higgs boson was discussed extensively.

 

But the Netherlands, as you may know, has a differentiated school system. All children (except for special school kids with e.g. learning disabilities) go to the same elementary school until they are 12. After that they go to different school types. There are basically 4 school levels:

 

• 
   
  
• Vocational schools, preparing for "hands jobs"
  
• Middle general education, preparing for a next vocational school with more white collars (administrative assistants, etc.)
  
• Higher general education, preparing for college (elementary school teachers, nurses, small business owners)
  
• Preparatory scientific education, the only high school level that gives access to university (called VWO, Voorbereidend Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs in Dutch)
  

 

I would estimate that about 5-10% of the kids go to this VWO. The remainder is shared about equally between the other three levels.

 

The VWO takes 6 years. After the first 3 years of general education, the students get to chose a direction (natural sciences, economics/history/geography, languages and literature). In the last two years they have to study Dutch and English but are pretty much free to pick any 5-7 (depending on the exact "subtype of school") subjects from:

- 2 types of Math (you can pick both)

- Physics

- Chemistry

- Biology

- Macro-economics

- Micro-economics

- Geography

- History

- Latin

- (ancient) Greek

- French

- German

- Frisian (2nd, local language in the Netherlands)

- Spanish

- Chinese

 

At the end of their VWO career, the students will take a national exam for Dutch, English and the 5-7 subjects that they chose. (It is not automatic to pass. I guess about 15% fails.)

 

You could imagine that it would be good to discuss the Higgs boson with high school students if the class you are teaching consists of the top 10% of the kids, and from those the 30% that are talented in natural sciences.

 

In fact, this is a link to the 2013 national exam in Physics for VWO. Look at question 4 on page 10-11.

 

Obviously, this does not prove the general statement that "the Higgs boson is taught in high school". But it does prove that -in some school systems- some high school students will learn something about the Higgs boson.

 

Rik

[helene_t]

I would estimate that about 5-10% of the kids go to this VWO. The remainder is shared about equally between the other three levels.

According to wikipedia, it is 20%. A more authoritative but less readable statistic is available from the CBS (Statistics Netherlands), http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=80040NED

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voorbereidend_wetenschappelijk_onderwijs

 

In addition to those who start VWO directly after primary school, some will upgrade HAVO to VWO. In 2008, 1727 pupils went that way according to CBS (http://www.cbs.nl/NR/rdonlyres/74DF1519-5B7B-4E41-AEC6-1BC342976764/0/2010doorstroomgediplomeerdenvmbohavovwombo4profielsector.xls), but that will be less than 1% of a total year cohort. That the number is so low surprised me, I know lots of Dutch people who have upgraded their HAVO to VWO. One friend even went the whole way upgrading a MAVO to Gymnasium but I suppose that is very unusual.

 

Of course the number of pupils that complete VWO is lower than this.