The atheist indoctrination project

[Eudaimonist]

When Jesus Christ walked this earth and blessed all those people with teaching, healing, and food; there were thousands and thousands of people who were there and saw, heard, and were touched by Him. The evidence is overwhelming.

Good for those people who lived back then. Got a time machine handy?

In India today, there are many millions of Hindus who believe that miracle working avatars of some Hindu god walk among them. I suppose that they think the evidence of the existence of Hindu gods is overwhelming too.

God did not do this in a corner where no one could see Him. He did it in front of the world.

Technically, just a few towns on the fringes of the Roman Empire, not the world.

He showed Himself to the children of Israel and to the gentiles around that area. They saw and heard Him very clearly. That cross bore witness of His sacrifice and love. The empty tomb bore witness of His power and ability to keep a promise.

Lucky people. Too bad none of this evidence survived the first century.

You are completely without excuses.

Or I might be if I lived in 1st Century Judea.

Your self proclaimed disbelief will not stop this.

And your self-proclaimed belief will not make it happen.

Just like it did not stop Israel from becoming a nation in 1948.

Do you know that I predicted yesterday that I would come to work today, and Lo! And Behold! I did! When you can intentionally make a prophesy happen, it's great.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Eudaimonist]

You depict the coming of God as the coming of Sauron to Mordor.

But, to J.R.R. Tolkien's credit, Frodo & Company opposed Sauron, even though Sauron had such immense power to make them rue the day they were ever born. Might didn't make right.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Paulos23]

[FONT=Arial, Geneva, Helvetica]Heathen atheist, take note!!![/FONT]

*Yawn*

Why do you persist? You don't care that we convert, so why assult us with this?

 

[SiderealExalt]

Ah man I have to pass out MORE torches and pitchforks!!!!!...ShieldofFath is making me work...drat

*walks away to the torches and pitchforks emporium grumbling something about zealous Christian fanatics*

 

[levi501]

Levi, how much laughing are the people in southern California doing right now? Think about it...

I did. Please cease all contributions to the gene pool.

 

[TheManeki]

Geography lesson time.

The fires are around San Diego. You can see a mashup KPBS made at Google Maps below:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=e....334364,-119.212646&spn=4.426583,7.470703&z=7

If ShieldOfFaith is correct, why aren't these fires raging around, say, San Francisco (500 miles away), Los Angeles (120 miles away), Las Vegas (330 miles away), or Washington, D.C. (2,690 miles away)?

Instead of trying to use this tragedy as a soapbox for a particular agenda, it would be better to pray for those who have been injured and/or lost their homes. And it would be even better to materially help those who have been injured and/or lost their homes. The San Diego American Red Cross is accepting donations (I don't think it's a scam website; if it is, someone please tell me).

 

[The Bellman]

And I should care...why?

I don't care whether you care or not.

Actually, they don't. Are you actually telling me that no one outside of a government school has a different background, a different belief, a different paradigm?

Actually, they do. Of course people outside of government schools have those things; that's irrelevant. The fact is that they don't have the interaction that public schooled kids do.

My kids deal with a much wider variety of people than they would be sitting in a government classroom with other thirteen and fourteen year olds.

Again, I don't believe you. And, in advance, I don't care whether you care.

I don't know what to tell you. My kids are out and among people all the time. They're friendly. They're outgoing. They're well mannered. Are you telling me that the only people children can learn social skills with are other children?

I've no doubt they are friendly and outgoing and well-mannered. I'm telling you exactly what I've told you - that the daily interaction at a public school is something that the homoschooled lack. They may well have other interactions - good for them. That doesn't change the fact that they lack that daily interaction public school children get.

Frankly, they're better socialized than most children their age because, where government school kids are around other government school kids all day, my kids are among adults who actually expect certain behavior from them, as well as children their own age.

Sadly, they're not around children their own age or 'strange' adults (ie., teachers) to the same extent that publicly schooled children are.

 

[WarEagle]

Actually, they do.

I'm afraid they don't.

Of course people outside of government schools have those things; that's irrelevant. The fact is that they don't have the interaction that public schooled kids do.

You're right. They have interaction in the real world, not in a classroom with only other children.

I've no doubt they are friendly and outgoing and well-mannered. I'm telling you exactly what I've told you - that the daily interaction at a public school is something that the homoschooled lack. They may well have other interactions - good for them. That doesn't change the fact that they lack that daily interaction public school children get.

You're right. They do interact with a much wider variety of people than government school children.

Sadly, they're not around children their own age or 'strange' adults (ie., teachers) to the same extent that publicly schooled children are.

You're right in that they're not around as many children during school hours as government school children. However, they are around as many or more children their age outside of school hours and they're around more adults than their government school counterparts all day.

 

[The Bellman]

You're right in that they're not around as many children during school hours as government school children. However, they are around as many or more children their age outside of school hours and they're around more adults than their government school counterparts all day.

Precisely. They lack the degree of interaction with their peers that government school children have.

Thanks for agreeing with me and making my point.

 

[m9lc]

because natural disasters never happen to Real Christians(tm)

I believe the term you're looking for is "True Christians".

 

[WarEagle]

Precisely. They lack the degree of interaction with their peers that government school children have.

Thanks for agreeing with me and making my point.

That's actually not what I said, but if it helps you to sleep better believing that I did, knock yourself out.

My children have plenty of interaction with other children their age. They just don't sit in a classroom with them all day.

 

[Rossiter]

Precisely. They lack the degree of interaction with their peers that government school children have.

Thanks for agreeing with me and making my point.

While this is true for many homeschoolers, it generally isn't for those with parents who decided to teach them due to crappy schools rather than to shelter them from anything. Those parents make an effort to provide their children with plenty of extracurricular activities where they interact with kids their own age. Bash the parents who don't if you want, but don't tar everyone with the same brush.

Just have to stick up for the way I was raised.

 

[The Bellman]

That's actually not what I said, but if it helps you to sleep better believing that I did, knock yourself out.

Sorry, but that's precisely what you said:

You're right in that they're not around as many children during school hours as government school children.

My children have plenty of interaction with other children their age. They just don't sit in a classroom with them all day.

And here you say it again. Your children do not have the same degree of interaction with other children as do students at public schools. That's two separate posts in which you've admitted it.

 

[The Bellman]

While this is true for many homeschoolers, it generally isn't for those with parents who decided to teach them due to crappy schools rather than to shelter them from anything. Those parents make an effort to provide their children with plenty of extracurricular activities where they interact with kids their own age. Bash the parents who don't if you want, but don't tar everyone with the same brush.

Of course it's true for all homeschoolers. It's obvious. Whatever extracurricular activities homeschoolers might do, non-homeschoolers spend around 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, studying and interacting with their peers. That's 30 hours a week that homeschoolers don't spend.

 

[Bombila]

I don't know a lot about US public schools, nor do I have any particular prejudice against homeschooling, which isn't as common in Canada as it appears to be in the US. But publicly schooled children here do spend a lot of time outside the classroom interacting with the community. I have a close relative in Grade 12 now. She's been on numerous one to three week trips to other provinces through her school, has been involved in various programs where local businesses take school kids into the workplace for a week or more, participated in dozens of school initiated volunteer projects with seniors, veterans, and young children, plus countless other extracurricular experiences initiated by the school she attends, which is a pretty standard school.

One thing I suspect, based on what I've read, is that Canadian teachers are way better paid than American teachers. Here it is considered a very well compensated profession, with lots of opportunity and encouragement for upgrading skills.

 

[WarEagle]

Sorry, but that's precisely what you said:

Actually, it’s not what I said at all. What I said is that my children have just as much interaction with children their own age, they just don’t do it in the place you’d like.

And here you say it again. Your children do not have the same degree of interaction with other children as do students at public schools. That's two separate posts in which you've admitted it.

Again, I didn’t say that.

I said that they socialize in a place other than the classroom, not that they don’t have as much socialization.

Maybe if you’d been home schooled, you’d be able to read.

 

[WarEagle]

One thing I suspect, based on what I've read, is that Canadian teachers are way better paid than American teachers. Here it is considered a very well compensated profession, with lots of opportunity and encouragement for upgrading skills.

The myth of the poor, half starved government school teacher is just that: a myth.

Most government school teachers are actually very well paid, especially considering that they only work nine months out of the year, get Christmas and Easter break, and have a week long convention in the middle of the school year.

 

[selfinflikted]

When Jesus Christ walked this earth and blessed all those people with teaching, healing, and food; there were thousands and thousands of people who were there and saw, heard, and were touched by Him. The evidence is overwhelming.

Funny that. Thousands and thousands were "touched' by him, yet no histories exist of such a person, save for the myths in the bible.

Levi, how much laughing are the people in southern California doing right now? Think about it...

Tick, tick, tick...

That's disgusting. You should really think before you "speak". I call this word vomit.

*Yawn*

Why do you persist? You don't care that we convert, so why assult us with this?

If for no other reason that it makes him appear "better" than us, if only in his own mind.

 

[wanderingone]

The myth of the poor, half starved government school teacher is just that: a myth.

Most government school teachers are actually very well paid, especially considering that they only work nine months out of the year, get Christmas and Easter break, and have a week long convention in the middle of the school year.

Teacher's salaries differ from town to town. Since we have no standardized school system we also have no standardized pay system for employees. In some areas salaries are decent, in others they are terrible. New teachers in NYC often make less than $30,000 a year. The highest paid teachers in NYC are not making anywhere near what one needs to support a family in that city. In my area school ends at the end of June and begins in September so they have 2 months of summer break. Many have to spend summers teaching (there is summer school you know) to supplement their income, and many use the summer and holidays to do continuing education because they need master's degrees to make the top salaries.

 

[wanderingone]

So far, we're right. Not only are our kids miles above their govenment schooled contemporaries, they're also learning things that public schools don't teach, including Latin (my son is thirteen and he already speaks Latin better than I do), rhetoric, philosophy, economics and the Bible.

We had Latin in my middle and high school, my sisters and I took it, my daughter took Latin in her high school.
Your local schools don't teach economics? Philosophy was part of the general social studies curriculum, but was also available when I was in school and when my kids were in high school (a couple years ago) as an elective. I prefer the school not teach my children the bible except in reference to world religious studies.

And then there are things such as good manners, interacting with a wide variety of people, modesty, etc.

I don't know how kids in school wouldn't interact with a wide variety of people, my high school had 5,000 students, when my daughter attended it was still over 4500, my son's school had just under 3,000. They see half a dozen teachers a day, meet people from all over who come in as speakers, visit colleges and various local cultural centers... they have dress codes (now if you want your kids covered head to toe, yeah public school isn't going to insist on ankle length skirts or head coverings, but they won't stop you either)

It's certainly appropriate to make choices for your own children, but public schools (not government, the government doesn't run the schools) are different in every city you go to, so you can't really generalize as you do. My youngest is in a private school because we feel it's the right place for her, but the claims you make about what is and isn't available in public school aren't necessarily true for anything outside of the schools you are familiar with.