Jesus Camp

I can see both the pros and cons for homeschooling. My best friend and her brother were both homeschooled. This was due to religious reasons. And while they are both lovely people, their social skills were horribly underdeveloped. They had no friends outside their family circle and were starved of experiences in the 'outside world'. I knew them for a year before a descent conversation was produced. They just didn't have the skills to interact with strangers.

I'm sure this isn't the case with all homeschooled children, but these are the only 2 homeschooled people I know.

 Damn straight he'd be learning about the Trojan War.Homer is a great read...

 What I mean is this....I do not intend to impose my way of thinking on him. His way of thinking should be of his choosing. There will come a time when he has questions of a "spiritual" nature. When that time comes I will not answer them casually. I will make sure he knows many people believe different things...and his old man thinks it's all a load of crap. But just because I feel that way doesn't mean he isn't free to form his opinions.

 Issues such as racism, sexism, nationalism ect are inevitable. I do not intend to shy away from them.

 I understand what you're saying but you misunderstand.I was not talking about giving religious education as part of a formal home schooling program but as a parent who answers their childs questions in a way that shows respect for their intelligence and opinions.

 Home schooling is something I have only been considering because we will may well be living abroad when he is school age and Chinese/Mexican/Japanese/Chilean/Ghannan or whatever schools are not the places where I want my son to by educated.

I, too, tried not to impose my way of thinking on my daughter. I happen not to believe in a particular religion but made sure she was exposed to many different beliefs. A belief in a god is a strong part of many of our cultures...I think children need to have a basic understanding of this.

As for sexism and racism, yep, I didn't hide that from her either. It exists, it's out there...it'll be part of her future.

And hte Greek myths, well she loved 'em when she was a wee one...ploughed her way through the Odyssey when she was only about seven, and 'cos she's a Kiwi kid she had to study them anyway at school.

Jerry Falwell died, huh?  For all the dumb-assed things he said, I could still listen to him until he stated categorically that Jews don't go to heaven- no one does unless they specifically worship Jesus Christ.

I hate this divisiveness.  And don't think Christians are the only ones up to this knavery.  Sadly, I believe the majority of the folks in this world have a clear definition of US and THEM  , and are taking numbers.

I would like to know where you guys are finding these documentaries.  I love controversial documentaries and can't find any around here.  A friend lent me The Last King of Scotland, you need a strong stomach for that one.  It hurt to watch it, but I think we all need to.

I also want to see the Lost Boys of Sudan, has anyone seen it?

It is interesting that you chose to ignore all the other arguments.

And, as a microbiology major, I would like to hear your theory as to how bacteria could transform into enzymes.

From a conflict theory point of view religions are simply another system to keep others down, demand conformity as Lotus stated in "behave this way". But you must admit they are doing an excellent job of it. In essence they are changing the power of the government from wealthy capitlists lacking some moral foundation to a group, who albeit has huge issues in my opinion , with atleast some moral interests not based in money.

Smart little critters.... give them a couple of weeks. I'm sure they'll manage. 

It is odd though they often neglect  to report their failures.

Scientists do report their failures. There is no such thing as a failed experiment, unless it is flawed in some way. If it just doesn't give a result, that is a result. It just doesn't hit the newspapers, because it isn't exciting. They also report mistakes, or lies or cheating by others, which doesn't happen much elsewhere.

I am sorry to have to report that 'natural selection" is a LAW not a theory. Evolution is a theory only by scientific standards. It stands all the tests thrown at it, too. For example. They said 'dinosaurs changed to birds" and lo and behold, they found the fossils.

Stuff like that.

Changing from one species to another is observed both over time in the fossil record, including man, and geographically with ranges of subspecies where the ones on the end cannot interbreed and are technically different species.

Speciation occurs both in the wild and the laboratory, by crossbreeding and polyploidy and evolution. Wheat is one example of in the wild, Red Cabbage is one from the lab. Don't forget that plants are species too, and under the rules, also supposed to be invariant. However, it happens a LOT with plants.

Several insect species including butterflies and fruit flies have also done this. It is harder with mammals for other reasons, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it more often that suspected in fish, for example, due to the method of breeding.

Another point is that if maggot flies interbreed that are different species, that is another point in evolutions favour, not otherwise. They are still different species, as much as any other. maggots evolving to butterflies is a different family, a bit like man giving offspring to a dog. It would take a lot more time and considerable pressure.

Get over it, kiddies, evolution is a fact. The fact is that things change. The fact is that new species come and old ones go. We don't know all the details yet, but we can say that much is true. Any book that says otherwise is probably an old text, written by a bunch of desert nomads with an out of date education.

One more point. If evolution is a faith as some of the posters maintain, then by the rules of the forum, you aren't allowed to criticize it. If it isn't a faith, then you are allowed to criticize it, but then you concede that it isn't a faith, but instead (at least) based in fact, and thus different from a faith, which isn't.

Thank you, thank you very much.


And one more thing. Disproving evolution does not and cannot thereby prove the alternative. Or vice versa. Each needs it's own evidence. It isn't a choice between two things, but between a plethora of things, including those we haven't thought of yet. So, despite the argument from ignorance "I don't know anything that can prove it so then it is not true and my argument must be true" and the argument from false authority "the bible (or Einstein etc) says this is true, so it must be true no matter what you show me" and other false arguments like "you can't prove me wrong so it must be true" or the opposite "you can't make it happen so it is impossible, and therefore my argument is true", and lots of other false arguments which I also listed for people in Raoul the First, IT STILL MUST BE SHOWN.

I was simply pointing out the difficulty in finding published articles that don't seem to prove what scientists intended to find. I never made the arguement one way or the other regarding evolution. Personally one way or the other it does not matter to me. I do agree with everything in your post. I simply wish negative finds would be published so others don't spend their time replicating studies that have no significance (social sciences) sorry I'm a "soft" science guy. Yea Uncle Karl! Which I believe Jesus Camp is all about.

Ideally, scientists shouldn't care one way or the other what their results show (but they/we are obviously human, therefore....). I read papers all the time containing results that surprise the authors who were expecting otherwise. I DO think that scientists publish what they found, but they do it neutrally, so readers think they wanted this all along. A true scientist would enthuse equally no matter what the result. (What, we found NOTHING! Again! That's amazing, what a revolution this will be when it hits the papers!)

I read things from Sociology to Psychology to hard sciences. I am a Biologist, Biochem mostly, so that is pretty soft for a science. Well, Biochem is fairly hard science, I guess, but most of biology is fairly soft. However, soft science can and should still be rigorous, and there is no excuse for failing to publish just because it didn't show what you wanted. This rigour can be applied to anything, really, even non-science to separate it from non-sense.

I suspect that the funding in most cases would require you to publish regardless, and any contract with a private company that said otherwise is unethical (but no doubt occurs). This is a big issue in scientific research, never more so than now. But they should still publish even if the findings are negative (ie not what they wanted. The universe gives not one solitary damn about mere human opinion, no matter what anthropocentricity may or may not be involved in anything from quantum dynamics to evolutionary pathways to celestial mechanics. - my universe needs it's spark plugs changed, anyway), these are still valid, of course.

This sounds like more than just a fundamentalist-Christian organisation.  It sounds more like an Aryan Nation group "doing their thing" to "protect" (white) people from all the "bad influences" that abound in the USA today....blacks, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Liberals.......etc.

I also form part of a (as I think non-fundamentalist) Christian organisation headquartered in America (although I am NOT American). IMHO, those fundamentalist groups that you describe are not "Christian" at all because they teach and preach hatred, division and discrimination of other people diffetent from our own background. They may make a lot of noise but their real intentions are not decent. I have heard of some cases where such organisations from the US got their feer into some Chinese colleges and universities - I think it is really bad for the students - just another indoctrination! The problem with these fundamentalist groups is that they are very fanatic, intolerant and often hold doctrines that are not streamline with "main Christianity. They very often are also not well educated. Years ago in South Korea, I have seen such groups creating tension with the normally very tolerant Buddhist community over there. By the way, whaz have we come to China for? If Christian or not Christian, our job is NOT to evangelise/missionise in China (apart from the fact that it may be illegal).