When I worked at a large home school co-op in Texas, I took a lot of phone calls asking about homeschooling. I was stone cold shocked at how many parents were being told by the school system that they should home school their child, or even told that they HAD to home school their child. Sometimes it was because a child's needs were not being met and a teacher or guidance counselor really thought the parent could do a better job at home. But a lot of these parents were clearly being told to home school because their child was a problem for the school and they wanted them out. This was obviously much easier for the school than having to kick them out (if they could even do that). So, if those kids do not do well homeschooling, who is going to get blamed? And what would the point be in having the school system regulate them? :glare:

Our audience was also lively. They laughed out loud at the trailer for the next Twilight movie, the part where Bella is stalking the deer in the forest. That was not the response they were looking for, I'm sure. :D We had a ball. Good fun.

What a beautiful explanation from your own experience! Sometimes one has to see how these things work in reality to grasp them. The Catholic Church can be obnoxious in how boldly it steps out there and defines things. To define is to post a flag in the earth, and that is bound to draw fire from all sides. But glossing over it and just doing the same thing by "feeling" has risks as well. Tough roads to walk, either way.

We had a military parish, and our RCIA leader was very good, but he may have been not so good from the perspective of a newcomer... we had been considering our move to the Catholic Church for a decade! It is very hard for RCIA leaders, I guess, to know how to approach the variety of people they serve. I could not go by myself, and that is why it took 10 years. We had to watch the Episcopal Church swirl down the drain of relativity, lacking a coherent authority, in order to see where all that led. What a painful, painful process. But when we all were received together, it felt right. Still, knowing what I know now, I do not know I if I would do it the same way again. Very tough stuff. Either way you will have to have faith. It helped me to know that the Church is a patient mother. Many things happen in "Church" time that are far, far slower than I often want to see. Your journey can be like that. Take your time. Some very dear friends of ours, who were with us on part of that journey, will be received into the Church this Easter. I am so blessed by that. Patience in these things pays. :001_smile:

Similar experience for my ds and dd, so I can relate. :bigear:

Religion is the poised cobra or you are the poised cobra? Very ambiguous the way you wrote it. Interesting, to say the least. Myself, I likely would have died in a gas chamber in times not so past. I'm sorry, mammaduck, I really am. That was definitely not my intention. You can see clearly in my posts that my intention was pretty much to make a singular point. But if you want to make peace, by all means, do so. I will not take it any further.

Lol. It is THIS world you were born into. This one. And the particular attributes of This World include religion. And philosophy. In legion. And you practice them in your own way, just as every human has since he/she became human, whether you believe you do or not. You need not study them or hold a personal interest, but having respect for their influence (real, empirical influence that could be found, not your pet hypothesis), is required of anyone with a science credential if science has any hope of not evolving away all together, because science doesn't exist apart from a basic belief in the existence of an objective truth, and a kind of brutal integrity (gifts given in the West from a deeply religious tradition). Again, this really cuts to the heart of my points in this thread. As to the lethal brew, politics, although it is unavoidable and can be used wisely, is nothing more than a broadened term for the structures in place to serve people in meeting their often very selfish aims, and it will combine with religion or science in a similarly dangerous manner. We can observe this in history, have to be blind not to see it, so your preference for blaming religion for all evils done historically is really just that. Your preference. Again, if insults and humiliation are all that can be said (and what better humiliation is there than calling theists irrational and if that doesn't work, telling them they are irrelevant - a kind of shunning), then I guess this thread is dead.

Thanks for popping back in here and responding. Sorry if it seems like "gobbledy-gook" to you. I don't really think your comment was a statement of fact because there really were people who provided a testimony in the Gospels; whereas, the Potter characters are fictional, so that is not really a statement of any kind of fact that I comprehend. I did consider that you might believe in God, so my comments were more generally directed. The point is more that as a culture we are moving in a direction that uses nonsensical arguments to say that believers are irrational. It is so common that they even get picked up by believers. I guess I am the only theist that is tired of being called irrational, especially in irrational ways. :confused:

It was a joke; how dumb do you think I am? :D No, this is called back peddling. Your comments have powerful implications, and I could mine similar ones from this board and from comments on articles all. day. long. You could have used any number of ways to make the point you are claiming to make and not used the crazy person suggesting. Perhaps you should start working on moving away from the poisonous rhetoric. Every time someone openly and aggressively mocks and shames a believer suggesting that they are not thinking rationally, the implication that they are not qualified to do science is being put forth. If you do not want to participate in that process, then don't do it. Okay, now here we may have common ground, if you could muster the will to have some common ground with a theist. I know well that pseudoscience practiced in the name of religion does not do religion any favors, but I have seen it practiced by atheists, too, just for the record. It is equally ugly, and sometimes it is for less cheery reasons. But make no mistake, there is an issue in the scientific community, and it does not want to sort out all these subtleties. There are many, you may be one, that do not want any believers to practice science. There are many that do not want them to exists. As a Catholic, I have to cope with the reality that there are Catholics that do bad things. I have to take responsibility for that. I have to own them and try to manage them, the best I can. I think the scientific community should be expected to vet itself, too. But don't read more into that than I intend. All I am saying is that I can clearly see a vicious bias in science that has the potential to be very destructive, and it is not at all scientific but is part of human nature. I have blathered on enough, and I have to go to bed. Work comes early. Thank you for the discussion and being a good sport. I do appreciate it! And you can have the last word. Feel free to say I have nice rhetoric, or maybe good use of emoticons, or something nice about me, you know, just saying I am not insane would be nice. (Says she from the asylum! :lol:)

Then perhaps we should close the courts, because what testimony will really ever be able to fully take its place? Even scientific information has to come from people? They lie and get confused, too? Even in groups. There is no believing anything if honesty is not a value that is deeply cherished. Even worshiped. Again I say, sand is a terrible foundation. We are trying very hard to build on it in our current culture, and you can do so for a while. But it won't last forever.

What is anyone claiming to be true that this is the reverse of? :confused: The trend toward atheism is very obvious. It is the reasons that matter, and you don't want to ponder those very deeply, I see. But there are other issues to consider, and given that the best scientific minds in history did come from inside the Church, in fact, the scientific method came into being within the context of a deeply religious world, suggesting that being religious and being scientific is some kind of impossibility is rather... unscientific. Here is my point again. Which you will likely ignore again. Atheists do not own the scientific method, and keeping theist out of science circles is a growing threat because more and more atheists are resorting to fear, intimidation, and shame (which you can clearly see in this and every similar thread) as a way of influencing the beliefs of up and coming scientists and the population. This method of influence is nothing new, and it always ends BADLY.

Thank you for describing my comments as "rhetoric." That truly is the nicest comment I have ever had on this board. God bless you for that. :D You can then note what part, exactly, was it that was "empty," in your view, because you did not respond to any of it except the one part I already conceded. I have no doubt that many of the stats will come up with increasing atheism. It is the sect taught in public schools and in higher education, so it is perfectly logical that it would be the school of thought that is growing. Personally, I know a number of budding scientists who will definitely be keeping their beliefs to themselves. The growing number of closet theists will probably go unnumbered. What you really need to answer to, however, about your post, is the slander of calling people who are believers "crazy," or otherwise implying as much. Scientists, if they are going to hold an atheist philosophy, must defend it in the arena of ideas without resorting to fear, intimidation, and shame as means of gaining believers. It is a poor method of convincing people of anything. How do I know that? Because the Catholic Church has been there, done that, and evolved. ;)

More proof of the NEED for unbelievers to rely on shame to make headway. Do you have proof that religiosity is on the decline among scientists? And if it is, can you say why? Perhaps fear, shame, intimidation? See, we would have to be very, very honest to look at it empirically, wouldn't we? We could not harbor a hatred for religion and look honestly, now, could we? Arguments from zero authority are not very compelling either, and scientists are making less and less headway in being believable due to their declining ethical underpinnings. Sand is not a good foundation.

I can't think of the author, but someone said something to the effect that the average comprehension of written history today is not very good. Most people really do believe we know more about and understand pre-historic man better than people living in the time of Christ. Hey, are you subscribed to the Catholic Laboratory on facebook? Great stuff! The scientific history of the Church is overwhelming and very interesting. And it ain't over by any means! ;)

I'm sure the real people that gave testimony would be amused at being considered fictional characters. Perhaps we had better shut down the courts if we cannot tell the difference, and if the testimony of humans is of zero value when it does not line up with someone's predetermined beliefs. This really is nothing more than purposeful obfuscation. I see it all the time coming from non-believers who don't want to work very hard, comments referring to a "spaghetti monster" and nonsense like that. As if the greatest minds in history are dumber than they are because they entertained the idea of a God. Simple and complete propaganda with no other purpose than to un-inform the already un-informed to their point of view by demeaning and shaming believers. In a culture that is rapidly not very intellectual adept, this method of influence truly is very powerful. But it is what it is. Nonsense.