LifeSiteNews | Matthew C. Hoffman | Feb. 4, 2008
A federal appeals court panel has upheld a Massachusetts policy of indoctrinating elementary school students with pro-homosexual attitudes without their parents consent.
The three judge panel ruled that a lower court decision was correct when it denied parents the right to remove their children from such classes, while admitting that the purpose of the literature to which their children were being exposed was to influence children to “tolerate” gay marriage.
“It is a fair inference that the reading of King and King was precisely intended to influence the listening children toward tolerance of gay marriage,” the court admits. “That was the point of why that book was chosen and used.”
However, in the appeals court’s opinion, this doesn’t mean the children were being indoctrinated with anything. “Even assuming there is a continuum along which an intent to influence could become an attempt to indoctrinate, however, this case is firmly on the influence-toward-tolerance end. There is no evidence of systemic indoctrination. There is no allegation that Joey was asked to affirm gay marriage. Requiring a student to read a particular book is generally not coercive of free exercise rights.”
The book referred to by the panel, “King and King”, depicts a “prince” who isn’t interested in a princess, but instead is “in love” with the princess’ brother. Their “love” is portrayed in a sympathetic manner, and the two “marry” each other. They are shown kissing on the lips at the end of the book, which was read to second graders in 2006 in Estabrook Elementary School in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Two families complained to the school district, which responded that the school district was not obligated to advise families about such matters, and would not allow parents to opt-out. David Parker and other parents with children in the school district responded by filing a federal civil rights lawsuit. After the suit was dismissed by Federal District Judge Mark L. Wolf in early 2007, the parents appealed. Now, the Federal appeals court has rejected their appeal.
However, the families are determined to press on all the way to the Supreme Court, which is the next step in the appeals process. “We are fully committed to go forward,” Jeffrey Denner, lead attorney of the Parker legal team, told the pro-family group Mass Resistance. “We will continue to fight on all fronts that we need to.”
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Jacobse,
Thanks for your comment.
It did not take me too long to conclude that you are a bright, honest person. It may be arrogance on my side to give you an advice. I’ll try anyway, because I believe it would benefit you.
You engaged in very long debates with Phil because you like this kind of exercise (it is a ‘sport’ for the brain). Nothing wrong with it! The problem is that it may drive away the people who are trying to figure out something from this whole debate on homosexual indoctrination.
My advise is: you better spend more time on reading something spiritual. For example, read the life of a Saint. Maybe a contemporary one. Did you read the book ‘Blessed John the Wonderworker’?
You might be doing so already. Please, forgive me if I am wrong.
Fr. Hans, along with Marx, Freud and Darwin was Nietzsche. IMO without him the social consequences of the other three would have been far more limited.
You say, “Darwin was a man of his age, swept along in a tremendously exciting period of history where science was unlocking long held secrets of the working of creation, where the industrial revolution was freeing man from the poverty and drudgery that had been his lot of centuries, where new political ideas that promised a better society were bandied about, and so forth.” A better expression of the idea of progress I have seldom seen. It sums up the essential lie that man is solely material and we need not worry about anything else in our ‘advance’. We are the rulers and arbiters of the cosmos, we can figure out anything if given enough resources and time. The more we know, the less we need the myths of God and creation.
Henry Adams in his essay, “The Law of Phase as Applied to History” uses the dynamo as a metaphor for the unleashed energy of the time. He quite prophetically makes the observation that without a govenor, dynamos keeping increasing in speed until the centrifugal force created destroys the dynamo. He also saw that with the rise of the machine and the philosophies around it, the character of man declined. Thus the title of the collection in which The Law of Phase appears, “The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma”.
Jacobse writes:
Your comment leads me to:
You will know them by their fruit. Grapes aren’t gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles, are they? [Matthew 7:16]
Your comment also brings me back to what I started this debate with:
Evolution theory and the others that you mentioned were inspired by the devil.
JamesK says,
“Guided change, perhaps, could still allow for a Creator, and I think this is closer to the view of Christian believers in evolution who feel that essentially a coerced “morphing” of matter occurred in life forms over eons of our measurable time (although for God who is above and outside of time it could have occurred in an instant). Random change certainly does not allow for the notion of a God actively involved in the universe. He couldn’t be unless one believes God noticed something happening in an area He wasn’t attending to and suddenly became interested in what was going on.”
Exactly! Such a god is not the God revealed in the Bible, the lives of the Saints, the worship and Tradition of the Church, nor in the day to day experience of many believers. Such a god is consistent with certain pagan belief systems and with the deus ex-machina of the Deists and others of their ilk. To posit for a second that such a view of god is in anyway coherent with our Incarnational Lord, Jesus Christ, is to understand neither the evolutionists perspectives nor the teaching of Christianity. Many people who hold to such inconsistent beliefs do so simply because they wish to be polite (bowing to peer pressure) or because they have not seriously examined the inconsistencies–the victims of bad theology that has allowed dualism to be endemic in thought processes, almost inescapable.
The same dualism also demands the legalism which is so prevalent in Christian thought and bifurcates man into constant internal warfare (reason vs. emotion). It is no accident that the Heyschast spiritual tradition in the Orthodox Church speaks of placing the mind in the heart in order to know God’s Grace and that western Christianity has had great difficulty understanding what is meant and how to achieve what the phrase describes.
The rational mind, left to its own devices is essentially amoral and limited to what is amenable to analytical evaluation, knowing neither the transcendent grace of God nor the depth of evil, but capable of being filled and energized by either. Unfortunately, such a lack of apprehension leaves us open to the machinations of the evil one simply because we have denied his existence while at the same time made God an anthropomorphised shadow, a mechanistic android conjoured from our own twisted imagination and easily discarded. Or we imagine Him to be some sadistic monster who toys with us out of whim, an all powerful version of the pagan demonic spirits who they called gods.
In such a state, the carnal becomes the soul as the mind seeks a source of energy. The definition of who we are is conflated to the strength of our desires and our will to fulfill those desires–the kernal of the Nietzchean Superman waiting to arise and defy the expectations and limitations of others whose desires and will are weak.
Note 102. Yes, I thought of Nietzsche as I was writing but decided to pass over him because humbleme didn’t want a protracted essay. And yes, he is certainly the prototype of modern nihilism. Only one who once was certain of the existence of God could take the rejection of God to the ends that he did. Dostoevsky warned of the chaos that would result as the memory of God faded from the cultural consciousness; Nietzsche celebrated the darkening and elevated the thuggery and violence that would ensue.
Sometimes I think that we are slipping into a new dark age. At other times I think that we are entering a new Great Awakening. I’m not sure which it is. Given that I believe that man has radical freedom (he can chose life over death), it may be that we have not conclusively chosen which path to follow yet.
I’ve never read the Adams essay but I will look for it. The principle certainly seems accurate — witness the WWI killing fields for example.
Note 101. humbleme writes:
Good advice. In fact, I am reading it now. (I also have an icon of St. John in my car, BTW. Believe on this: he protects me — and I don’t mean from traffic accidents, but he guides me in my life.)
As for Phil, I press him because I want to see where the cracks are. Phil is articulate, but also a bit of a post-modernist in that he believes if he can prove that something is logically true — if he can hold the syllogisms together like a pyramid of bubbles connected by their skins — then what he is defending must be true as well. As a result he devalues the non-empirical dimension of human experience and is thus caught short when ideas from history, literature, religion, etc. (cultural values) are introduced. These generally get relegated to the category of “private belief.”
The thing is, lots of people think like Phil does. I want to understand it. I engage him, and he keeps coming back. We will see where it goes.
Note 99. humbleme writes:
Kind of…
The scriptures don’t need science, just like they don’t need history. The scriptures are true only because they were given to us through the prophet and apostle. Only the prophet and apostle can claim their word came directly from God. No one else can claim this, including the great Fathers of the Church. (We call them Fathers because they raise children in the word of the prophet and apostle.)
The prophetic and apostolic claim is an audacious one. No “logical” proof of their claim exists, for if it did it would posit a superstructure of ideas above the Word that proceeds from the very mouth of God — a superstructure that would prove that the the Word of Truth is indeed true and in so doing relegate that Truth subordinate to it. (Here is where the “creation scientists” get it wrong, BTW.)
Instead, what it shows us is that encounter with the living God is not the static apprehension of perfect forms (Plato), or the distant observation of mechanical processes (Aristotle), but dynamic encounter that engenders virtue that is expressed in active love of the neighbor. The scripture is really a narrative, the touchstone of all meaning which has its source and origin in the living God, from whom a person derives all the constituents that give human life its meaning and purpose. Life with God however, is a dynamic enterprise. It cannot be apprehended apart from doing (it is God who saves us).
Science is always in service of a narrative, a larger body of dynamic meaning. This narrative must have a touchstone in a larger narrative (all smaller narratives must draw from a larger narrative in order to have meaning; all larger narratives draw from a primordial narrative). The clash over Darwinism then, is not really a clash about science and the bible, but a clash between the prophetic narrative and the materialist narrative.
Again, I argue that because the moral bankruptcy of materialism is becoming increasingly evident in the culture (albeit mostly intuitive at this point), the collapse of Darwin is inevitable. It will be the scientists however, who deliver the death blow. (Dawkins understands this I am convinced, as does Hitchens and others. They just operate from the other direction.)
[An aside: This too explains why the Muslim will never assimilate to Western culture, unless he converts to Christianity. The threat to the Muslim is actually the penetrating depth of the Judeo/Christian narrative — the Holy Scriptures — compared to the Koran. The cultural values of the West will have no authority, and thus no importance, to the Muslim if the Koran remains the defining narrative. I’m not arguing that we should bash the Koran here. I am arguing that the Word of Truth — the word of the Apostle: the Gospel — can penetrate even this because when the Gospel is preached, Christ, who is Truth, is revealed.]
Fr. Hans notes: “a religion of science has already been tried. It’s led to eugenics, concentration camps, gulags, etc. — Marx, and his march of inevitable progress.”
Here’s been the nagging question I’ve always had, although it’s perhaps not wise to speculate: do you suppose these tyrants would have acted differently had they embraced the Judeo-Christian tradition and the ethics that are popularly understood to go along with those traditions?
I know some people that have, indeed, become a bit different after embracing anew or again their faith and become “better”, but I’m not sure this is a universal statement. Perhaps Marx would simply have become another Torquemada or something analogous to bin Laden, albeit a Christian one. Perhaps he would have justified military excursions, conquering nations for the Cross. Even if his faith were sincere (at least to him) and not merely a display, it’s conceivable that his sense of rightness would have been solidified by a religious ideology that reinforces his notion of being among the “elect”, as Calvin calls them. He could have used such affirmation as a divine acceptance of himself and that accepts any behavior (even demands it) as it would be done for the name of God (instead of being under the banner of atheism or communism).
This is a very big stumbling block for me, personally. I have certain expectations of what faith should bring to the human spirit in terms of conduct and attitudes, and I don’t know that I see that as a norm, although it certainly happens on occasions.
So, instead of pointing to some quality or aspect of the theory of evolution that makes it inherently materialist, you say that it’s the ground of the hypothesis.
..that doesn’t really clarify it.
Can you quote the “ground” of the Darwinian hypothesis? Can you, perhaps, find a quote in an evolutionary biology textbook that specificallly asserts that nothing can exist besides matter and energy?
If you’re just talking about the general idea behind the theory of evolution–that it assumes for the sake of coherence that random actions can happen–then you haven’t illustrated, at all, how the theory of evolution is somehow more materialist than any other scientific theory.
And that’s the crux of your argument. I mean, no one is seriously going to deny that scientific theories are based on materialism. That’s the way science works. But most of these theories can be demonstrated experimentally. The theory of evolution describes a process that took place over millions of years. Thus, it can’t be easily replicated, except perhaps by computer models.
Thus, the only ground for debate you’ve got is that, somehow, the time difference between evolutionary theory and, say, the theories that describe prescription drugs or gravity or dark matter, make it more materialist than any other scientific theory.
Instead, you say it’s the “ground”–the same ground on which all scientific theories are based–that separates one from the other.
Given the identical functional philosophical background of all scientific theories–and mathematical theories, since none of them provide for the transcendant, either–and the fact that most theists, including Catholics and Orthodox Christians, cannot conceive of anything that is impossible for God to do, whether it seems random or not…and the fact that most proponents of evolution believe it was caused by a God…perhaps, just perhaps, the special, magical quality that makes evolution unavoidably materialist is just your opinion?
Looking further I find that the acutal title of Adams essay is the “Rule of Phase Applied to History” written in 1909.
Jacobse writes:
Wow, what a coincidence… You are reading it now! Actually, this is not a coincidence, I’ll tell you letter on why.
I read the book in about one day and one night. I am going to read it again to make sure that I got everything. St John’s faith was as strong as was the faith of the Holy Apostle, who have seen Christ!
What else did you read about St. John (or written by him) ? I want to read more.
Note 109. Phil writes:
You are still confused about materiality and philosophical materialism. Philosophical materialism is a world view, a philosophical/religious outlook, a way of ordering the world that incorporates morality, purpose, meaning — all the constituents of human experience. Materiality just refers to matter, the material dimension of creation. It makes no claims about the source and grounding of the other constituents.
Yes, science deals with matter. It uncovers the processes by which matter is organized. But it is one thing to say that science deals with materiality (it does), and quite another to say that materiality and materialism are one and the same when referring to philosophical materialism.
To make this clearer lets substitute the term naturalism for philosophical materialism (a legitimate substitution). The sentence would read this way: But it is one thing to say that science deals with materiality (it does), and quite another to say that materiality and naturalism are one and the same when referring to philosophical naturalism.
Don’t conflate the two terms (materiality and philosophical materialism). They mean different things.
You won’t find it in a text book. It’s presumed. It has to be presumed in order for the hypothesis to make sense. It’s like your interspersion of Aristotle into Darwinism. Do you ever mention Aristotle? No. Nevertheless, it’s clear to anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of Aristotelian metaphysics what you are doing.
Here’s an interesting interview with Philip Johnson:
Jacobse writes:
I am assuming that you want to understand how these people ( the modernists) think, because you want to bring them to see the truth. You want to bring them to Christ .
I would say: your chances of success are close to zero! More than this, your approach is an awfully time consuming method. But, of course, is your choice.
I was (most of my life) one of those modern ears (as Michael Bauman calls them) who did not believe in sin and demonic. I am still a moder ear, but a faithful one: I believe with all my mind and all my heart, that ‘Christ will come again in glory …’ and I believe every single word that He said.
I was on both sides and I claim that I understand both sides. I can’t figure out a way to bring a modern ear to faith! The only think that comes to me is something I heard in the Church from my priest : “Preach the Gospel, and if necessary use words!”. I forgot who said that (maybe you know).
I would say, the way would be to “live the Gospel, and when necessary use words!”. Then, they will notice you, and they will start reasoning. Also, praying for them should work.
humbleme, go to: St. John the Wonderworker church site. Lots of info. Fr. Jacob Meyers, the priest there, is a good man. You can call or email him if you want (very computer savvy, he writes for computer magazines).
Note 113. humbleme writes:
This is from St. Francis of Assisi, and frankly, I’ve never really bought it. Yes, if you talk the talk you have to walk the walk, but preaching is accomplished through words. One can and should commend oneself to the conscience of another (the Apostle Paul says as much), but the other side of the equation is: how shall they understand without a preacher?
How one preaches the Gospel is of course a very important question. Much of what passes for the Gospel today is not the Gospel at all, IMO. The Messiah Channel: Russell D. Moore on Jeremiah Wright & the Conservatives Who Preach Just Like Him.
Jacobse says as a comment to what I said: “If the science were to be honestly used, it would be proving over and over again that the Bible is true”
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Of course, the scriptures don’t need science. The problem is that, many people believe that there is a conflict between religion and science ( real science, not the evolution theory, which is a narrative stuffed with scientific terms).
Not always! Take, for example classical physics. This is empirical science. You can prove any time that the force is mass times acceleration ( F=m.a).
About the science being dishonestly used:
The accuracy of the 14 carbon-dating tests (used to find how old are “once living organisms” like seeds, wood, wool, cotton leaves, insects fossils, bones, etc) have been disputed by many scientific experts.
The study of the Shroud of Turin ( the face of Christ), using the carbon-dating tests, was not able to give a final, undisputed answer to the question ‘ is the veil authentic, is it 2,000 years old?
As we speak, a new scientific research is being presented to the scientific community in USA ( and very likely also abroad). This study is using archaeological findings, history and the carbon-dating method to make observations on Solomon’s Kingdom (around 950 BC). The study concludes that the Solomon’s great prosperity described in the Bible, is false, therefore, the Bible is false.
These ‘scientists’ ( actually respected scientists in their fields), did not mind the inaccuracy of the 14 carbon-dating method (which failed for a 2,000 years old relics- the veil of Christ).
They went ahead and proved that the relics found by the archaeologists as belonging to Solomon’ Kingdom ( around 3,000 years old) did not proved the Solomon’s Kingdom great prosperity described in the Bible. Therefore, they say, the Bible is false!
I was thinking: how in the world would somebody come up with such an experiment? Well, after a while I figured out how: They wanted to prove that the Bible is false! Then, they sat down and thought : how can we prove that? And they found the way. By going backward: set the conclusion and find the means to prove it. This is an example of misuse of science.
Jacobse, I’ll stop here. I want you to finish up reading that book.
Jacobse writes:
Well, I said “live the Gospel, and when necessary use words!”. So, you can use words, it is not prohibited! If you preach to deaf ears, does not really matter how many words you are using, the result is the same: close to zero!
First, you have to get their attention. And you can do that trough something ‘unusual ‘ (like living the Gospel). That takes also time to be noticed, but the chances of success are a lot bigger than what you are trying to do with the modernists ( to understand them). After you understand them (assuming that you will), you still need to get their attention trough something ‘unusual’. So, better skip the ‘understand them’ part.
I Just remembered: I don’t really understand how St John guides you in your life?
You mean his writings guide you? There can be an other way, but that is a really dangerous one and usually leads to deception.
Note 117. I think that St. John is a protector. When you need protection, St. John is there. He’s guides you in this sense: where fear might be overwhelming, you need not be overwhelmed because he can hold back the assaults so you can muster the courage and resolve to take the reasonable way (the way of reason and sobriety). I think this comes from what he experienced in his life, rescuing orphans, being hauled into court unjustly, etc. He has experience with danger and conflict.
Note 118)
Ok, I got it. I was thinking about something else, when I was referring to the dangerous way. I read in ‘God’s Revelation to the Human Heart. by Fr. Seraphim Rose about St. Nicetas of the Kiev Caves (nearly 1,000 years ago in Russia).
He was deceived by the devil, who showed himself to him as an angel ( paying with him and spreading an extraordinary fragrance). Very likely, I would be deceived by something like this! (well, maybe not, after reading St.Nicetas’ story). The ‘angel’ directed him what to do. Stop praying, and read the books. St. Nicetas believed his words and was further deceived. He was seeing the ‘angel’ praying and rejoiced, supposing that the angel was praying for him. He read the books and became ‘famous’. People came to him to get answers to theirs problems ( like telling were stolen goods were, or told about things that happened in a distant place (he had the informations from the demon who attended him).
The fathers of the Kiev Cave Monastery noticed something strange in his teachings. Nicetas never talked about The New Testament and would not allow his visitor to mention anything from the New Testament. From this strange bias in his teachings they realized that he was deceived by the demon. They drove away the devil from Nicetas by their prayers. He stopped seeing the ‘angel’.
As he was coming back to his senses, the fathers found out that he could not remember anything from what he was teaching before. and even forgot how to
read! Only with great difficulty he learned to read again!!!
Actually, the Holy Fathers warn us that the devil can show himself as an angel of light, as a saint or even as Christ himself, and never trust such things.
I believe that this can happen even in our time. If a person is doing something good, like praying or writing something, or anything else that is pleasing God , he will show himself to divert that person ( if he can’t do it trough people).
Note 108. James asks:
Put it this way. The tyrants (Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, etc.) were probably destined to be thugs. The problem with Marxism, Nazism — all utopian ideologies — is that the thugs rise to the top. The ideologues (Marx, Rousseau, etc.) are not thuggish by nature. They probably would not go out and beat somebody up for example. So the answer to your question is yes. If Marx or Rousseau or whoever were not in hostile intellectual opposition to the received tradition, or if the thugs were internally restrained by the precepts of Judeo-Christian morality, the bloodbath of the last century (or the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution) may not have occurred. Remember, all this blood was spilled within promises of a heaven on earth.
To get a better sense of how this works, read my review of Richard Weikert’s book “From Darwin to Hitler.”
Marx was an intellectual, a man of ideas (although the wrong ones). I suggest though that you don’t delve too far into a psychological definition of ideological brutality. Once you enter the realm of ideology (Marxism, Islam of the Ben Ladin variety, Nazism, etc.) you move beyond psychology into good and evil, truth and lie, the sacred and demonic — the raw existential stuff. These men might be prone to thuggery for psychological reasons, but it’s their ideology that unleashed their evil.
Remember too that evil, like good, is incrementally attained. One must work towards evil just like one must work toward the good. Evil, however, must masquerade as good, at least internally, to be realized (it needs justification). Evil enters the world when a person believes a lie (he believes the lie is the truth), and then puts his hand to making the world conform to the image of the false truth (the lie). When that lie has overtaken culture, evil on a mass scale (and impotence in the face of it) is the result — Gulags, concentration camps, the Cultural Revolution, killing fields of Cambodia, and now N. Korean reeducation camps.
Ask yourself why Hitler killed Jews and Lenin went after Christians. I discuss that idea in my article: The Artist as Vandal: Culture and the desecration of religious symbols.