the tyranny of religion within democracy

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But nobody here is evaluating the contributions of science versus religion. The problem under discussion is how to keep kids from being indoctrinated by religious parents without violating the basic rights of parents to convey their viewpoints to their kids. Probably one way would be to provide kids with mental tools to discover for themselves the basic analysis of reality. Surveys in the USA indicate that if this is successful it would create a lot of family dissension.

Actually, have you read much radical libertarian theory? Some libertarians DO want to abolish the government, the ones who don't often times do so because of the position of government as a lesser evil than no government rather than ones that think that government is absolutely good. Finally, it isn't a bandwagon fallacy, I merely stated what I thought and gave myself a label, to call it a strong argument seems ridiculous.


Also, you still fail because you fail to recognize my position. You still assume what morality is without a reason to claim what it is exactly. "intolerance, racism, meaningless wars, sexism, genocide, explotation, and well just about any injustice" are basically meaningless. Who says that tolerance, acceptance, peace, life, equality are good and who says what justice is? As I have argued, most of my opponents assume morality without constructing it/proving it, an obvious fallacy given that the disagreement we have is on the nature of morality.


Government has a lot to do with a relatively select group of people, however, whether or not people are involved has nothing to do with whether it has moral worth.

I would tend to doubt the effectiveness of that, the basic tools for analyzing reality actually will reveal how limited how limited our knowledge is. It would create dissension if it created a lot of atheists, however, if children were taught logic and philosophy then I am not sure we would have a lot more atheists necessarily, one thing that can be noted from the study of logic is the limits of knowledge and once those are known more clearly, a lot of room for the mystic and the man of faith can open up.

I was just basing my thoughts on earlier posts.

But anyways, to address the topic at hand; you have to make a clear distinction conveying viewpoints, and indoctrination, because both mean different things. While I don't have a problem with conveying viewpoints, I tend to see indoctrination as abuse and from my observation most of these parents often use violent or "terror" tactics to enforce a particular belief. Or they completely cut them off from the outside world, which also may constitute abuse.

So the question is, do the parents reserve the right to commit acts of child abuse?

The second thing to keep in mind is that they are also denying their right to a proper education by not letting them learn other things that may or may not contradict their beliefs. One of the basic foundations of freedom of thought is to let people learn everything and anything there is, and come to their own conclusions. By not letting their children get a proper education and enforcing a particular mindset, they are in effect denying their rights.

think about it.



Yes I actually have. The viewpoint you are pointing out is that of anarchism libertarianism. Your fallacy lies in the claim that you are presenting the views of one subset onto the entire group itself. Not only that, but you are making an appeal to popularity by claiming that just because you are "x", you then must think "y". Thats the Bandwagon Fallacy



Uh, no, I was just stating my viewpoint here. Morality, first of all, is a set of values associated with a particular ideology, ethics, or culture. So right here you have demostrated your lack of understanding of the term. Second, I guess I did sort of misuse the term because I did mean justice and ethics. It's just that "morality" is the term that most people equate these things with. And to back my point up, what gives any religion the right to claim themselves superior, such that they reserve the right to set up systems that deliberately oppress other people or dehumanize them? Justice and ethics is about what people deserve and what should be considered good, and the very fact that people are different means that tolerance, acceptence, etc is a must if we are to be considered "moral" and "just".

Last edited by RadiantAspie on 05 Oct 2007, 9:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

Technically, even if we went this route this is not even what is being discussed. We merely were speaking on the right to teach their beliefs. Actually, I have a few friends that were homeschooled and thus sort of cut-off from the outside world, they are actually fine so I am not sure if that is really at the abuse level unless we speak of something more harmful.
We would really have to define what child abuse is effectively, and frankly there is some iffiness in that.

Technically, public schools already do that on some level, there are things pulled from textbooks simply because it contradicts a pre-established outlook on the world. Not only that but a proper education has nothing to do with learning all things or anything of that nature. In order to educate, one has to take some thoughts, put them higher than other thoughts and effectively make a value judgment on what is important and in some way make moral judgment. Really though, the right to education is derived from nothing, millions have lived before this right was even conceived and millions currently live where there is not a right of this nature.

That but it isn't the bandwagon fallacy. Actually, the bandwagon fallacy has nothing to do with being X and therefore thinking Y, it has everything to do with saying that many are X and therefore Y is correct. Even your own link denies that this was the bandwagon fallacy. Not only that but my statement there could be accepted by many libertarians on some level, even non-anarchists, really, though you make an issue out of a non-issue.


Morality actually relates more to a statement of absolute good and evil, if we are to take the subjective route for morality then ultimately I would argue that we should really take the noncognitivist route because then morality has no truth value to it, nothing can truly be described as good or evil. I do understand the term reasonably well. What denies it the right? You appeal to the unknown and unknowable by asking that. Deserving cannot exist without a moral framework, and as I stated, you assume that moral framework again without creating a good proof of it. You can prove that you believe certain moral things but if they are subjective then they are hardly worth talking about or mentioning because of that inner subjectivity, because of that justice and things of that nature are hardly a force to appeal to or claim in your defense, you might as well just say "I like X" rather than giving it moral force.

You misunderstood me. Read the post again. It was on topic.



So does homeschooling constitute isolation? What I meant was that the children who are in such homes in which they are indoctrinated are usually prevented from learning anything other then what the parents want them to believe....

And how they feel about it is irrelevant. Appearances can be deceiving you know.



True, but to my mind child abuse means to actively work to control their children through fear and isolation, and ways that harm the child not only physically but intellectually too.



Well, not everything is perfect. However most people in the public schools do have access to libraries, journals, internet, etc... where they can indeed inform themselves much better, unlike those under the thumb of irrational and overbearing parents. But that is a different issue, one of cultural repession.

But it is, you said:


You are saying that just because you are part of one group, you therefore must have the same line of thought.




No, that is more ethics. Morality on the otherhand doesn't really cover what is necessarily good, just what people will place value in.




Well, tell me, what give it the right to say that one set of beliefs are better than others. What does it base their premise on? This is more of logic and reason then of morality. Why should one person be dehumanized just because he has a different belief then you. If your only criteria is that anything goes, then I would be afraid to live in such a world where people can assume what ever they want without evidence or reason. Tell me, what if they decided to dehumanize liberatarians just because they have different beliefs then the republicans?

Is it worth noting that in the UK, "religious schools", usually catholic in nature, actually have a much higher degree of education, at least as far as your empirical subjects are concerned. They have much better standards of teaching involving subjects like maths and english, especially in the lower school arena. The system only suffers at the higher level, and in the obviously biased subjects like Religious education and Sex education.

That isn't the bandwagon fallacy though, if you believe it is then read your own link again as the bandwagon appeal is designed to persuade other people based upon the popularity of an idea, my idea is unpopular and it was meant to express a stark difference between my thoughts and that of the other person rather than appeal to them. Not only that but there are some groups where that is absolutely true. If you are a Christian then you must believe that Christ is your savior, if you are an idealist then you must have ideals, the examples abound.

No, morality DOES cover what is good, if it didn't then claims such as immoral would be meaningless as would be amoral. The very nature of morality speaks of outside good and outside evil. Ethics perhaps has more to do with outside constructs, but it still cannot work without moral judgment. If we skip past the objective outer moral world as being non-existent or unknowable then we should use the term preference.


Who says we must appeal to rights? I merely stated that if we do not know X at all then we cannot claim what X isn't. This is a matter of morality as this is a moral question. Why shouldn't that person be dehumanized though? Frankly, I am not the actor in this case, but any answer that would satisfy the question of why we play soccer or argue or make sandwiches would likely satisfy the question of why one person should be dehumanized. What empirically makes a human different to kick around than a soccer ball, at least save the physical qualities of a human vs a soccer ball? We live in that world where people assume whatever they want without reason or evidence, like I already stated, the questions are moral and morality is unprovable so therefore all morality is nonsense. If they decided to kill libertarians because they weren't republicans then they decided to do so, I might die.

But that situation is different. Anybody who does believe that Christ is your savior is by definition a Christian. You on the other hand stated that your thinking, or opinions should I say, is based on what group your in. Not everyone who is a libertarian thinks the government is "evil".




Omg, I'm reading these definitions right off of my textbook. Morality covers what people place their values in, or what is considered ideal. While people would define these morals as "desirable" and therefore "good", it is not to be confused with ethics, which deals with what is Good (and I mean absolute goodness). It is the other way around, one cannot argue morals without appealing to ethics!



Now your just avoiding the question, and your moving goalposts. Since we are dealing with people in society in general, rights are very important. First of all, why should anyone be treated less than human, or be considered inferior. Why should anyone not be allowed equal opportunity on the basis of their beliefs, economic conditions, etc. The reasons behind dehumanization of other people are not even logical, never mind ethical. Differences in belief aren't enough to justify dehumanization.



But thats different. This is about treatment of people, not what their tastes are.



And that is the infamous appeal to popularity, or appeal to majority logical fallacy. Just because the majority bases their decisions without reason or evidence does not make it right. And who cares what "everybody" else thinks. People once believed in a flat earth, but that didn't mean that they were correct. The same applies to ethics. What makes them think they can do whatever they want? What right do they have to do so, especially since it is based only on their biases and their shaky assumptions at best?

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All you have done is made a strawman out of my argument. You have yet to come up with a convincing way to address of my points. And if you don't want to be called on logical fallacies, then stop making them! It's irritating and undermines the whole argument.

And please, don't try to pull the subjective argument on me, since you are not using it properly and most theories of that sort have already been thouroughly debunked.

word....seeing the government as an evil is anarchy. libertarianism is more like the older school style of republican conservative. keep out of people's personal lives, use minimal federal government, and use more state government.

Dude, it isn't even the center of my argument, it hardly matters. You latched on to it for no reason. The center of my argument was on morality and government. The thought of government being evil is a common libertarian thought, but I simply described myself to hold a position, I did not make any form of appeal there. Especially given that most people are not libertarians on this forum, in fact, I would guess that a good number already think that libertarians are evil and that calling myself a libertarian would worsen my position.

Ok, here is the issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality In this wiki, we see that morality appeals to 3 different things. I use morality to mean the second thing, the ideal code of conduct. If there is not a universal code of conduct in existence in the world, then appealing to a non-existent ideal is useless. Ethics is a study of morality but morality can be used to speak of the study of the moral domain. Ethics is usually used more in an applied sense though(business ethics), and morality is more often used in the sense of absolute goodness (moral behavior). One cannot argue the applied sense without the absolute to appeal to because doing so would be acting without a base.

I am not avoiding the question at all. I merely state that if I deny the existence of a reason for one choice to be weighted higher than another then your appeal makes no sense, rights are an unproven moral position, therefore they are not a valid proof of one choice being weighted over the other. There does not need to be justification at all if there is no morality because it becomes a choice between ham and turkey on a sandwich.

No, it really isn't. Morality is what makes this different, if there is not a moral standard then there is no difference. Without the metaphysical, people are objects just like sandwiches, just like soccer balls. The non-moral position to look at treatment is tastes, there are some schools of thought that say that calling murder evil is in all intents the same as saying "I dislike murder".

No, it is not! It is not an appeal to popularity, you are misusing that logical fallacy horribly, I am not making and argument, it would be a horrible argument for this forum even as the common man is often very disliked here! I merely made a statement on the nature of the world because you made a statement about a world you would dislike. My statement was that the world you would dislike IS our world, not that you should start making bad moral assumptions because everyone else is doing so, that is absolutely stupid. My point is that your assumptions are likely just as shaky as everyone else's and if I am correct, you are ABSOLUTELY as bad as they are. Like I keep on telling people when they start moralizing, PROVE MORALITY. If you can't prove this metaphysical idea or prove what morality is correct, then don't bother to invoke it because I don't want to deal with the religion of non-atheists or of atheists.


No, I really haven't made a strawman of your argument, you have merely incorrectly diagnosed my argument to a great extent. My position is very simple: morality cannot be proven and therefore moral appeals are useless. Your position is some argument that disagrees with that, the details hardly matter because I am expounding the underlying logic of my position as if my premises are true, then any other position is wrong. Also, I haven't been using logical fallacies, you have claimed I made the appeal to majority fallacy twice, even though I am a cynical elitist with controversial views. Seriously, that makes me wonder "WTF???", especially given that I am used to arguing on a forum for some of the biggest loners. Really, if you disbelieve me then lay out my arguments in syllogistic form. If I am making the appeal then you will actually see a conclusion premise that relates to the bad majority premise.

"We live in that world where people assume whatever they want without reason or evidence, like I already stated, the questions are moral and morality is unprovable so therefore all morality is nonsense."
We live in a world where people assume-> X questions are moral-> Y morality is unprovable->Z morality is nonsense -> Q X is separate from Y, Z, and Q unless the construction is that Z therefore Q and Q and Y and unstated premise U (people must answer these questions) therefore X. If it isn't that construction then Y stands alone as it is otherwise unrelated to that. I think I might have been using the latter construction in my head thought.

" If they decided to kill libertarians because they weren't republicans then they decided to do so, I might die. "
Now on to this one. Decide to kill libertarians for not being republicans -> L Unstated premise, I am a libertarian -> P I might die -> D L and P therefore D.

As you can see from those statements, there is nothing really fallacious and at worst there is an unstated premise or so. No appeals to popularity though as none of the syllogisms had "K is popular" therefore "We must do K", the closest I ever often use is the idea "J% of experts think this is correct", "Experts are likely to be correct", therefore if a lot of experts believe an idea then it is relatively likely to be true. This argument is not an appeal to popularity so much as it is to authority, and most of the time I use authorities that would be accepted as true by most people, just as most people appeal to global warming based upon meteorologists, and I do so because of the fact these people are seen as correct, if people disagree with my experts then I might pull off and use another argument.

Dude, I am using the moral skepticism argument that morality really doesn't exist and I am using it correctly and you have not debunked it nor even properly identified what it is(which goes to show how little you are actually addressing my argument). If they have debunked this argument then we would all know what is truly moral, because finding morality is the proof of the existence of morality. You have not proved morality though.

Not necessarily. You speak of a certain variant of libertarian, however, the libertarian party did have one anarchist founder at minimum and many libertarians do disagree with government at all levels only liking more local government a little better than bigger for being more local. It is not an uncommon idea in libertarian thought that government is an evil though. Some even go so far to say that every encroachment of government is an encroachment against liberty. I am not going to say that it is absolutely correct, but it is not worth jumping on at the least as it was not a central part of my argument and because libertarians are one of the few groups that can say honestly say that.

you completely missed my intent with that statement. i meant that most parents shelter their kids away from other religions and merely dismiss them as crazy or stupid or evil rather than allowing or introducing other religions and other ideas to their kids. i went to a catholic high school, i'm more familiar with the various brothers, reverends, SJ's and whatever else that were involved in science. and even so, how about you take some historic context with it? out of the closet atheism is only a relatively recent occurrence, historically. though you would find a lot of scientists from the period who may have been christians but their own personal beliefs (rather than the label they grab) more relfected deism rather than what christianity looks to push forward as an idea of a god.





you don't see such self-criticism because you choose to ignore it. the muslims, especially in america, have been very careful of their associations and what they say and have been more PC than any christians (some of whom declare the government to be punished by god right now for homosexuals...like westboro).

i'd hardly say that political correctness is killing the church as much as it is the entire worthlessness of the system. i mean there's only so long people will pay for someone to say magic words and make them feel better. music, movies, and tv are taking those spots now...which is why the church has been in a direct habbit of declaring almost all music evil since the 1950s and trying to destroy modern music...not because it's a societal nuisance but because it's a threat to their market.

and molesting little boys certainly isn't helping them keep afloat, either.




you believe islam is a problem because you're ignorant of the history of the middle east and the role that zionism has played in eventually creating an aggressive form of islam in the middle east that we now know today....well..technically it's the united states/american christians and israel/zionists.

christianity deconstructed? man...now i know i'm talking to a fundamentalist. christianity is what most of north america declares for their religious preference. i'd hardly call that a deconstructed religion. maybe your little sect is having troubles but christianity on a whole is doing quite well considering that our current president got elected by his from-the-pulpit stance on issues.

it's not strange at all...christianity dominated the world for how many centuries? let's just say since constantine.......and how many countries and continents? it's nothing to do with atheism being an anti-christian movement...it's to do with that christianity controlled the majority of the world so more likely than not, someone who moves later on in life towards agnosticism or out and out atheism did get brought up christian. it's math more than it is a conspiracy.

and there are atheists in islamic countries. they're a lot quieter about it but they're there. and again, the islamic thing goes back to reactionary against zionism and a revitalization of militant islamic fundamentalism in the face of oppression from zion and the US. the ottoman empire had female leaders and a lot of women in positions of power. so to constantly imply that islam as a religion is oppressive is a fallacy and the current state of islam in the middle east is reactionary, not representative of an unaffected people.




not you, that's for sure.....but seriously, that's why there's the need for a free market of ideas...and it becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly when people aren't being open-minded.





i have no need to prove anything. i'm not the one claiming an invisible entity exists and defines the laws of life. the person who makes the claim of something's existence is the who has the burden of proof on them. it's simple logic. you can't prove something isn't there...but you can more effectively make a case for something to be there. hence: burden of proof lies with the theists, not the atheists. it's pretty simple.





quit with the ad hominem attacks. it adds nothing to the debate.

the op theory is right but what i think is that the majority in a democracy always gets its way, (christianity) is a majority here so naturally its going to carry all the weight, and be exposed to more people and given an unfair atvantage over other theologys

I think the way these parents are seeing it is that they've been spoonfed the same things by their parents, and their parent's parents, and so on. So they think the same and think that other religions are "blasphemous" (particularly where Christianity is involved). I agree that there's nothing wrong with teaching your children what religions exist and allowing them to choose. But society and tradition don't allow this to happen. It is simply too irrational. In theory, I would like that people, particularly when they are young are allowed to choose which religion occurs. But with society and tradition being so irrational at this day and age in reality, it simply doesn't happen. But if there were a solution for that, I'm all for it.