Don’t laugh. A Houston Baptist University English prof observes:
As in most schools I’ve visited, Mars Hill’s curriculum balances pagan (i.e., Homer, Aristotle) and medieval Christian (i.e., Dante, Chaucer) authors with major authors from the last 500 years of European and American literature (i.e., Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Faulkner).
In contrast, Western society today is increasingly eager to cut itself off from both its Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman roots. America’s elite universities, and increasingly non-elite ones, have rapidly jettisoned requirements for courses in Western thought (in 2011 the pro–liberal arts group National Association of Scholars documented the “near extinction” of Western Civilization from core curricula at top colleges). If the seeds for this wholesale abandonment were sown in the protests of the 1960s, the anti-Western flame became a wildfire in 1988, when protesters at Stanford University famously chanted, “Hey hey, ho ho, Western culture’s got to go.” Louis Markos, “The Rise of the Bible-Teaching, Plato-Loving, Homeschool Elitists” at Christianity Today
In the United States, homeschoolers rose from (National Center for Educational Statistics) 1.7 percent of the student population in 1999 to 3.3 percent in 2016, with over 100,000 believed to be using classical Christian programs.
It will be interesting indeed if the legacy of the thought traditions that provided a basis for science in the western world ended up being carried on mainly by devout Christians. While the official science world continues to mires and beclown itself in a war on objectivity.
Hat tip: Philip Cunningham
If there’s a correlation, it’s likely because home-schooled Christian kids spend more time living in the physical world. They’re outside more often, and they have to do useful work around the house. You learn more serious science from cooking and gardening and sewing and setting mousetraps than you do from either Aristotle or Dawkins.
It will depend on the standard of home-schooling. There seems to be a presumption that it is superior to school-based tuition and it may well be in some cases. But, if children are being denied access to some areas of science simply because it is held to be in conflict with their religious beliefs, then their education is lacking to that extent. They are being taught, in effect, to fear even knowing something, that knowing the principles of the theory of evolution, even if they do not believe them, is a threat to their faith. At its most extreme it can reinforce a tendency towards reclusive and cultish behavior.
As we have been told many times here, many of the great scientists of the past were Christians of varying degrees of devoutness, Their beliefs didn’t prevent them from making great contributions to science. The only potential problem is where there is a conflict between the dogma of their faith and what science indicates. If religious belief – or political ideology – trumps scientific theory in any case where there is a conflict then you will have religious or political Lysenkoism.
To avoid arguing generalities, can you point to a homeschool curriculum that does this? (treating the principles of evolution as being problematic to teach even as an incorrect viewpoint)
Do that do that in Classical Conversations? Apologia? Berean Builders? Veritas Press? Sonlight?
Would like to know which one you are referring to so I can help people avoid it.
Sev, you leave off the impacts of some key effects studied by educators, including the two-sigma challenge. It turns out that the factory model curriculum is grossly inefficient and that approaches based on higher interactivity and targetted mastery in sound order overwhelm the alleged advantages of our factory curriculum schools. That’s one reason I have thought that digital tech may be helpful in individualising and promoting interactive learning. As for the alleged superiority of education in soul-crushing ideologically imposed a priori evolutionary materialistic scientism dressed up in the lab coat, that is utterly fallacious and in fact under the condemnation of causing little ones to stumble. Instead, learning the nature, strengths and weaknesses of science in a context of logic and studying sciences informed by relevant history, would have advantages. KF
Seversky, apparently completely oblivious to the irony of it all, states:
as to:
A true statement in so far as it goes. Christians were at the founding of every branch of modern science. You will be very hard pressed to find ANY atheists on the list of founders of modern science.
Even Darwin himself was dependent on (faulty) theology, (and was not dependent on experimentation and/or math), in order to make his ‘one long argument’ for evolution is his book “Origin”:
as to:
This is where Seversky starts to go off the rails. Far from ‘preventing’ them from making great contributions to science, their Christian beliefs are exactly what enabled them to make their great contributions to science. Science is simply impossible without presuppositions and/or beliefs that can only be grounded with Christian metaphysics. (Indeed, that is why it was necessary for Darwin himself to use faulty liberal theology in order to try to make his case for evolution)
as to:
The irony in that statement is literally dripping off of every letter of the statement. The conflict between the dogma of Seversky’s faith in Darwinian evolution “and what science indicates” is found at every turn in empirical science. Here a few “conflicts”, (i.e. falsifications), of Seversky’s faith with the scientific evidence. ‘Conflicts’ that Seversky simply refuses to ever accept as genuine conflicts with his faith, indeed, ever accept as outright falsifications of his faith in Darwinian evolution:
Verse:
as to:
Again, the irony in that statement is literally dripping off of every letter of the statement. Lysenkoism was a political campaign conducted by Trofim Lysenko, his followers and Soviet authorities against genetics and science-based agriculture. Stalin himself was “enthralled” by Lysenkoism. Soviet Russia, besides persecuting scientists who disagreed with Lysenkoism, as should be needless to say, was an atheistic hellhole with the blood of tens of millions of its own citizens on its hands.
In other words, totalitarian atheism itself is what enabled the persecution of anyone who dared question Lysenkoism in the former Soviet Union. And yet, with no sense of irony whatsoever, Seversky apparently sees no problem whatsoever comparing Lysenkoism with Christianity.
Shoot, we don’t even have to go to the former Soviet Union to see atheists trying to dictate science by government decree, nor to see them persecute anyone who dares dissent from the pseudoscience of Darwinian evolution.
Right here in present day America atheists have managed, by deception, to flip the original intent of ‘separation of church and state’ on its head so as to legally prevent any designed based alternatives to Darwinian evolution from being taught in public schools. And have also systematically persecuted anyone who dares question the validity of Darwinian orthodoxy.
In fact, the term ‘separation of church and state’ does not even appear anywhere in the constitution but is a term that was lifted out of context from one of Jefferson’s personal letters to the Danbury Baptists, and then twisted almost 180 degrees out of its original context. The term ‘separation of church and state’, as Jefferson originally intended it, meant that the Danbury Baptists could rest assured that they were free to exercise their religion as they so fit completely free from any government interference. I.e. The first amendment was originally devised to protect the church from the state’s influence, not to protect the state from the church’s influence.
Darwinists, (in large measure via the 180 degree twisting of ‘separation of church and state’), are notorious for legally trying to stifle free speech when it comes to Darwinian evolution
Most importantly, enforced Darwinian orthodoxy, via Lysenkoism style persecution of anyone who dares dissent from Darwinian pseudoscience, is rampant within American academia:
Bottom line, since Darwinian evolution has no empirical evidence substantiating its grandiose claims that all life on earth arose via mindless processes, (indeed Darwinian evolution is contradicted by the empirical science at every turn), Darwinists are forced to enforce their pseudoscience on public schools system by legal fiat, i.e. by twisting the original intent of ‘separation of Church and state’ 180 degrees out of context, and by ruthlessly suppressing any dissent of Darwinian orthodoxy in academia. In short, Darwinism, as it is maintained in America, actually is very much in the style of Lysenkoism of the former Soviet Union.
And all this irony is apparently completely lost on Seversky.
Apparently, Seversky is completely blind to the fact that Darwinism in and of itself, is a dogmatic belief system, even a religion, that is far more intolerant of any dissenting views than mainstream Christianity is.
There are some newer schools that mix homeschool with classroom. Two days a week in classroom with kids, the rest at home. It’s a nice combination.
The Christian homeschoolers I know teach against Darwin with ID friendly or creationist material. The kids can simply go outside in nature and see the glory of God in creation. Darwin is rendered a very silly joke by then. Fighting materialism does not hurt one’s scientific education at all.
@ Silver Asiatic: ‘Fighting materialism does not hurt one’s scientific education at all’.
In fact, fighting materialism is fighting superstitious belief.
‘Universes pop out of nothing’. Lulz.
The poet William Auden came to the kind of realization that we mention often here:
“If, as I am convinced, the Nazis are wrong and we are right, what is it that validates our values and invalidates theirs?”
The Nazis could certainly be right under the ideas of Darwinism or materialism, although there really isn’t even a need to determine right or wrong in that system.
TF
Interesting. Materialism is anti-scientific.
johnnyb @ 3 – see Silver Asiatic’s comment @ 7.
^^^^^ HUH???
You do realize that teaching children about some of the abundant evidence against Darwinian evolution IS NOT ignoring evolution do you not?
Public schools are the ones who ignore scientific evidence that may contradict evolution in that they simply refuse to ‘teach the controversy’: For one recent example, out of many,,,,,
In other words, public schools are indoctrinating students into Darwinian evolution by only allowing a severely biased presentation of evidence. They are not educating children to think for themselves, with a full presentation of evidence, whether they think Darwinism may be true or not.
Bob O’H
johnnyb @ 3 – see Silver Asiatic’s comment @ 7.
…can you point to a homeschool curriculum that does this? (treating the principles of evolution as being problematic to teach even as an incorrect viewpoint)
In the case, I mentioned, the principles of evolution are taught as an incorrect viewpoint.
There’s really not much to talk about here. The “principles of the theory”, to the extent that anything is agreed-upon are quite simplistic.
seversky:
There isn’t any scientific theory of evolution to teach.
‘Kids, you are semi-evolded monkeys with no value and no purpose. Morals are illusory. Now be good and don’t do drugs’.
Bob –
That is a similar phenomenon where I teach homeschool co-ops. However, the claim by seversky was that the students are not even taught what evolution says. Let me reiterate seversky:
There is nothing in the description by Silver Asiatic of fear, or of avoiding the principles of evolution. It’s just that, for most people, the principles of evolution are self-evidently incorrect. For those with philosophical training (as most homeschoolers receive, having explicit education in philosophy, fallacy detection, and formal logic), the failure of evolution to overcome the modest hurdle of the principle of sufficient reason is sufficient to reject it,
SA, a note, by way of expanding “Nazi” — national socialist German workers party — i.e. Fascism is right of Stalinism but is left of almost anything else. They hit on a cleverer solution than, shoot the capitalists. Turn them into cartelists under control of the state and its Nietzschean superman political messiah. They won’t realise by and large, that the gold plated chains around their wrists are chains, not a fashion statement. Unless, they are foolish enough to get out of line. For reference, see what Milch et al did to Professor Hugo Junkers. Milch was apparently a former employee of Junkers. Let’s just say his family was so incensed they refused to entertain the Nazis at his funeral after he had been hounded to death, Junkers, of course, as in 52, 87, 88 and the Jumo series of piston and jet engines. KF
JB, so far as I am concerned, once it was clear that D/RNA is machine code with associated execution machinery, thus algorithms and language at work in the heart of the living cell, it was irretrievably over. There is precisely one credible source with adequate empirically warranted capacity to cause language, and it is not blind chance and/or mechanical necessity! KF
KF
It’s interesting. I think the biggest problem has been a misinterpretation of Dignitatis Humanae and this has gone on for almost 60 years now. Religious liberty has been viewed as a function of Enlightenment liberalism which regards the state as a means of insuring personal freedom and thus as a reductionistic way as simply preserving one citizen from harming another.
Mussolini died while trying to rewrite the Communist Manifesto.
What is left of communism? Does it make much difference?
One could argue that leftist ideology is based on resentment. Combine that with power and one gets 100 million dead.
But this is a diversion from home schooling.
Jerry, actually, Frankfurt school type cultural marxism, aka critical studies has become one of the major academic and education policy driving forces. It and linked forces have wrecked English Literature, have done serious harm to Civics, history and law, and much more. It is part of the game to dismiss the US Founders and framers as racist, slave owning or condoning, women oppressing dead white men who are thereby dismissed. As a result, the crucial breakthrough, paid for in blood, that opened up modern liberty and self government, is being taken away, making children vulnerable to political messianistic manipulation. We can go on and on. KF
SA, we need to get back to the civil peace of justice, which is the due balance of rights, freedoms and duties. In turn it reflects built in law rooted in our creation in God’s image but manifest to the reasonably sound moral thinker. The undermining of God-awareness in the civil society has done great harm to our civilisation. KF
Seversky says: “They are being taught, in effect, to fear even knowing something, that knowing the principles of the theory of evolution, even if they do not believe them, is a threat to their faith. ”
Actually, I think you would be surprised at just how much they do actually study the Darwinian paradigm. You seem to think they are never taught it so as to protect these kids from learning about something that is “a threat to their faith”. But actually I think the opposite is true. They are taught it, but are also taught how to properly evaluate the claims, hypotheses, and beliefs of evolutionists as well. They learn proper thinking skills that do not prevent them from questioning the consensus like all good scientists should be able to do. Of course there are probably examples of bad teaching, but actually many are being taught not to be afraid to question the consensus views like good scientists should be able to do.
Well, I believe it is an axiom of our Cristian faith that we are called upon to draw order out of chaos, and because the process is ongoing, so must our endeavours in that direction. So much for anti-ID thinking, the randomness that, in reality, promotes chaos and entropy, the antithesis of design.
How ironical, this tragic, probably terminal, corporate entropy that Boeing is currently undergoing. Fred Hoyle, thou shouldst be living now.
“‘Seversky says: “They are being taught, in effect, to fear even knowing something, that knowing the principles of the theory of evolution, even if they do not believe them, is a threat to their faith. ”’
There are theories and there are theories. Serious thories and Dawkins-type theories. Darwins’ fall into the latter category.
You can only marvel at the obtuseness of Dawkin’s wonderful dictum that the world only lends itself to empirical, scientific investigation (It only appears to be designed).
Starting off from a bizarre fantasy as his original hypothesis, trashing a cornerstone of the scientific method, takes some beating ; on a par with his definition of ‘nothing’.