From: dpage@ra.csc.ti.com (Doug Page)
Subject: Re: A few quotes from a few years ago
Organization: Texas Instruments
Distribution: world, usa, na
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 23:07:38 GMT

In article <nate.537@psygate.psych.indiana.edu>, nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu (Nathan Engle) writes:
|> dpage@ra.csc.ti.com (Doug Page) writes:
|> >tip@lead.aichem.arizona.edu (Tom Perigrin) writes:
|> >|> How about not teaching morality, and letting the parents teach it at 
|> >|> home?
|> 
|> >It is impossible to not teach morality in schools.  From the relatively minor
|> >"don't be late to class" to the major "don't kill your classmates", morals are
|> >"forced" on students.  If they don't play by the rules (i.e., morals), then
|> >they don't graduate.
|> 
|>     I'm not sure how valid it is to equate moral instruction with 
|> compelling students to follow a set of rules. If they only refrain 
|> from breaking the rules when they think they'll be caught then I would 
|> hesitate to compare those rules with moral beliefs. 

I suppose that this could also be said of drug dealers, murders, and rapists
as well.  The prisons of this nation are full of convicted criminals who
thought that they would not get caught.  Listen to the interviews with
inner city gang members and you find this to be especially true.  (BTW, all of
these crimes are taught as wrong (i.e., immoral) in most public schools
today.)  Don't mistake the teaching/preaching of morals with the
learning/practice of those morals.  Whether they are learned or not, there is
an attempt to teach them to students.

|> 
|>     For instance, imagine that some maggot-invested, dope-smoking, long-
|> haired FM rock n' roll type manages to conform to the rules long enough 
|> to reach his high school graduation, but the only reason he's doing it 
|> is for the short term material reward. Would you say that the conferment 
|> of that diploma implies any sort of moral reaffirmation?

Personell departments certainly think so.

|> 
|> >I did not say that science is evil.  I simply pointed out that the untruths
|> >that you implied were the result of religion were actually from the
|> >information taught by the leading scientists of the day.  The Puritans were
|> >easily "fundies", and yet it was they who founded the first school of higher
|> >learning in this country in 1638.
|> 
|>     That's great, but this country was not founded exclusively by or for 
|> Puritans. IMHO the thing this debate all boils down to is the question 
|> of what you think this country was founded to accomplish. If you ask the 
|> Puritans they would probably say religious freedom. If you asked the 
|> merchants, the answer would be freedom from the British mercantile 
|> system. If you asked the rogues and radicals it would be freedom from 
|> British rule. There were a lot of reasons people came to America, and 
|> not all of the new arrivals wanted to step into yet another repressive 
|> religious regime.

I did not say that Puritans founded this country.  I said that they founded
our first school of higher learning (Harvard).  I posted quotes from the
founding fathers which quoted them as saying that this nation was founded on
Christian ideals.  I am not propasing a represive religious regime.  I am
simply pointing out that the historical facts.  It is interesting to note the
response to these facts.  Rather than discussing those facts the response has
been to address what my views are presumed to be.  When I point out the
illogic in the arguments against those presumed ideals and point the thread
back to its origin, the facts are sidestepped with more comments of how I want
to create repressive religious regimes.  Do you believe that murder is wrong?
Why?  Do you intend to force your view with regards to murder on me?

|> 
|> >The fact still remains that this nation was founded on Christian ideals.
|> 
|>     At least from some peoples' point of view, I guess. At any rate, 
|> it sure didn't take long for our laws to deviate from those Christian 
|> ideals, eh? We did, after all, adopt the US Constitution and not the 
|> Bible as the highest law of our land.

The key issue here is that this country was founded on Christian ideals from
the point of view of those who founded it.  You may disagree with their view,
but you cannot ignore the historical facts.  What deviation?  I refer you to
the 1892 Supreme Court decision in my original post.  Disagree with what the
justices wrote if you like, but stop pretending that they did not write it and
stop pretending that the precedent that they based it upon did not exist.

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