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A Christian republic (POLL)


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A Christian republic  

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/opinion/betsy-devos-and-gods-plan-for-schools.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=1

 

Jerry Falwell Sr. outlined the goal in his 1979 book America Can Be Saved! He said he hoped to see the day when there wouldnt be any public schools the churches will have taken them over and Christians will be running them.

 

Vouchers are part of the program. (...) The head of the presidential transition, Vice President-elect Mike Pence, is an avid voucher proponent. As governor of Indiana, he created a voucher program that now funnels $135 million a year to private schools, almost all of them religious. Mr. Trumps nominee for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, favors religious tests for new immigrants and objects to chief justices with secular mind-sets. (...)

 

I believe the world, and particularly the Judeo-Christian West, is in a crisis, he said at a conference in 2014. This was a crisis both of our church, a crisis of our faith, a crisis of the West, a crisis of capitalism.

Stewart is absolutely right in her diagnosis: this is radicalism, not conservatism. A radical reshaping of American education stands to seriously advance these goals and reshape the electorate of the future.

 

Falwell Jr, head of Liberty University, claims to have been Trump's first choice for secretary of education.

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So...now Catholic or other parochial schools ran by churches are now a part of a vast Christian conspiracy to take over the country and the voucher system is now the next step to controlling the world?

A public school cannot be religious. Dismantling the public school system in favor of vouchers that can then be funneled to a large extent to private religious schools seems like a serious run-around to our conception of separation of church and state.

 

We'd have to be blind to not see this effort -- or recognize that however long it has been at the margins, it is now newly empowered to an extent that is at least unusual. Because Trump's presidency is one where all norms are off the table, for better or for worse.

 

The idea that there are people who want to see America as a Christian republic is not crazy to me. This has hardly been invisible, even as an undercurrent. It's just not so far in my lifetime been so influential in a presidential administration.

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I am a proponent of public schools. My entire family has gone to public schools. My kids have excelled in public schools. I still think they are the back bone of our educational system.

 

Public schools are not going away. We will still have public schools. They are not all of a sudden going to be ran by radical Christians that brainwash our kids. However, there are areas of the country where the public schools absolutely suck. My brother who lives in Louisiana, had no choice but send his kids to a Catholic school because the public school system was so bad. They just keep pumping more and more and more money into it and it just keeps sucking.

 

I consider the act of not helping a kid to get out of those public schools to be inconsiderate of the needs of those children.

 

Jerry Falwell is a nut job that is so far off in la la land that he should be totally ignored. Even if he were given the position, no way in hell would public schools all go away in 4 years.

 

He didn't take the job and that's a good thing. Yes, we will need to make sure the one who did take the job does a good job.

 

But, to all of a sudden get alarmed that there will be this massive push to abolish public schools and all the educational money is going to go to indoctrinating little children into the evils of Christianity is....well....along the same lines as some of the conspiracy theories the right has dreamed up over the last decade.

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Who's saying there will be a massive push? Is this not a straightforward summary of the philosophies behind Donald Trump's first and second choice picks for secretary of education -- one of whom will receive the nomination?

 

Does not a nominee's background and philosophy bear an honest inspection? Is not this alignment a legitimate cause for concern?

 

A massive push is what happens without opposition. There's no indication that there won't be a lot of it.

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The opinion piece you linked indicated that there was going to now be this huge movement within the federal educational system to radicalize public schools into indoctrination centers for the evil religion known as Christianity.

 

That may not be how YOU read the article. But, it clearly has that alarmist feeling when I read it.

 

Again...it's important to realize this is an "opinion piece" not a "news" article. Even if that is HER intent, she wouldn't get very far with it.

 

Now, personally, I think private schools, vouchers and other educational ideas such as home schooling can be a healthy supplement to our public school system. Not every family, child, community is the same and not every community is in the same situation with their public schools.

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BOSTON — At the rightmost edge of the Christian conservative movement, there are those who dream of turning the United States into a Christian republic subject to “biblical laws.” In the unlikely figure of Donald J. Trump, they hope to have found their greatest champion yet. He wasn’t “our preferred candidate,” the Christian nationalist David Barton said in June, but he could be “God’s candidate.”
Consider the president-elect’s first move on public education. Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, the largest Christian university in the nation, says that he was Mr. Trump’s first pick for secretary of education. Liberty University teaches creationism alongside evolution.

 

 

Ha ha! I like how the NY Times author throws in the sentence at the end about—dramatic pause—teaching C R E A T I O N I S M ! Like that's some sort of bad thing. Is it more open minded to teach creationism alongside evolution, or to only teach evolution?
Some of us just don't think it's that implausible for a higher power to have had a hand in creating our vast world that is teeming with life systems and organisms so incredibly complex that we are barely scratching the surface of understanding them. Is it more likely that (1) the universe was created and nurtured by a higher power of some sort?—or that (2) the universe sprang from a point of singularity which expanded greatly with conditions just right so that life sparked into existence and somehow became able to reproduce and eventually evolved into mankind and all life on earth?
What about those of us who think (1) is just as likely as (2)? Are there words in our Constitution that make (2) the official government position, and forbid us from studying (1)? Would such study be "respecting the establishment of religion"? Maybe we should have school vouchers so people are free to study these things without subsidizing those who prefer not to study them. At least that way those studying creationism wouldn't bother the ones who prefer not to ponder such things. :lol:
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Young Earth creationism (YEC) is the religious belief[1] that the Universe, Earth and all life on Earth were created by direct acts of God less than 10,000 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism

Liberty University's Center for Creation Studies is a dynamic, teaching-based academic center. Our purpose is to research, promote, and communicate a robust young-Earth creationist view of Earth history. http://www.liberty.edu/academics/arts-sciences/creation/

Yes, this is a bad thing. To be clear I'm well aware that religion can exist outside and alongside of science. For pseudoscience to be elevated to the same empirical regard as science is a threat to scientific inquiry, and has been used for exactly those aims. Liberty, at least, is one private college. Its chancellor does not direct education reform for the country.

 

BRB, correct me if I have misinterpreted your response. I read your response as dismissing this piece as alarmist fears of a 'crazy Christian conspiracy' that does not exist.

 

This pieces argues a few things. First, if you are still clinging to notions that "normal" conservatism is fundamentally prevalent in the Republican party and the coming Trump administration, then you should disabuse yourself of such a notion. The election itself as well as the primary should have made quite plain the strength of what you yourself have called the "fringe". Given current developments, "former" needs to be added as a qualifier.

 

Second, consider the general trend of Trump empowering people who have always wanted to dismantle the institutions they are about to lead and see how that applies to education. If you believe there is no basis or relevance for the argument that Devos is aligned with the idea of using education reform to explicitly "advance God's kingdom" and that school choice leads to "greater Kingdom gain" -- her words -- then I'm open to specific arguments severing these ties. You certainly don't appear to think Trump is anything other than what was obvious about him from the start. What are the reasons to suspect otherwise here?

 

Unless I'm mistaken, at no point does this piece argue that Christianity is evil. I can't fathom how we have so much trouble seeing a middle ground between America as a proactively Christian state and the wholesale demonization of the religion. If there are any alarmist hysterics, it is I think here. Christianity if I'm not wrong is still by far a majority religion, and there has always been a far greater threat of people (who do not represent all Christians by any measure) trying to co-opt government in its name than there has been of a hostile government persecuting Christianity.

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Young Earth creationism (YEC) is the religious belief[1] that the Universe, Earth and all life on Earth were created by direct acts of God less than 10,000 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism

Liberty University's Center for Creation Studies is a dynamic, teaching-based academic center. Our purpose is to research, promote, and communicate a robust young-Earth creationist view of Earth history. http://www.liberty.edu/academics/arts-sciences/creation/

Yes, this is a bad thing. To be clear I'm well aware that religion can exist outside and alongside of science. For pseudoscience to be elevated to the same empirical regard as science is a threat to scientific inquiry, and has been used for exactly those aims. Liberty, at least, is one private college. Its chancellor does not direct education reform for the country.

 

BRB, correct me if I have misinterpreted your response. I read your response as dismissing this piece as alarmist fears of a 'crazy Christian conspiracy' that does not exist.

 

This pieces argues a few things. First, if you are still clinging to notions that "normal" conservatism is fundamentally prevalent in the Republican party and the coming Trump administration, then you should disabuse yourself of such a notion. The election itself as well as the primary should have made quite plain the strength of what you yourself have called the "fringe". Given current developments, "former" needs to be added as a qualifier.

 

Second, consider the general trend of Trump empowering people who have always wanted to dismantle the institutions they are about to lead and see how that applies to education. If you believe there is no basis or relevance for the argument that Devos is aligned with the idea of using education reform to explicitly "advance God's kingdom" and that school choice leads to "greater Kingdom gain" -- her words -- then I'm open to specific arguments severing these ties. You certainly don't appear to think Trump is anything other than what was obvious about him from the start. What are the reasons to suspect otherwise here?

 

Unless I'm mistaken, at no point does this piece argue that Christianity is evil. I can't fathom how we have so much trouble seeing a middle ground between America as a proactively Christian state and the wholesale demonization of the religion. If there are any alarmist hysterics, it is I think here. Christianity if I'm not wrong is still by far a majority religion, and there has always been a far greater threat of people (who do not represent all Christians by any measure) trying to co-opt government in its name than there has been of a hostile government persecuting Christianity.

 

So it is an alarmist piece. After all, that's basically what this post is.

 

This election is a sh#t show from both sides and ironically (since they won) definitely from the right.

 

Trump won without giving any details in any of his beliefs. So, when he nominates someone with some radical belief, I have a hard time believing that the vast majority of Republican voters believe the exact same thing. Are there radicals in the party on these issues? Sure, just like there are radicals on the left in the Democratic party.

 

I bet you if you polled all Republicans and asked them if they believe all public schools should be turned over to Christian churches and ran as parochial schools teaching nothing but Christian beliefs, the VAST majority would say they do not agree with that.

 

This piece that you linked is an alarmist piece even if you don't see it or if you agree with it. It was written for the purpose of getting your panties in a wad.

 

It's interesting that you act like I am wrong by dismissing this piece as an alarmist fear mongering article about the evil Christians and then you go on and talk about how horrible they are with what they believe.

 

PS....if you don't like what Liberty University teaches, then don't send your kid there. I, for one, don't have a problem with a Christian school teaching creationism ALONG SIDE evolution.

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BOSTON — At the rightmost edge of the Christian conservative movement, there are those who dream of turning the United States into a Christian republic subject to “biblical laws.” In the unlikely figure of Donald J. Trump, they hope to have found their greatest champion yet. He wasn’t “our preferred candidate,” the Christian nationalist David Barton said in June, but he could be “God’s candidate.”
Consider the president-elect’s first move on public education. Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, the largest Christian university in the nation, says that he was Mr. Trump’s first pick for secretary of education. Liberty University teaches creationism alongside evolution.

 

 

Ha ha! I like how the NY Times author throws in the sentence at the end about—dramatic pause—teaching C R E A T I O N I S M ! Like that's some sort of bad thing. Is it more open minded to teach creationism alongside evolution, or to only teach evolution?
Some of us just don't think it's that implausible for a higher power to have had a hand in creating our vast world that is teeming with life systems and organisms so incredibly complex that we are barely scratching the surface of understanding them. Is it more likely that (1) the universe was created and nurtured by a higher power of some sort?—or that (2) the universe sprang from a point of singularity which expanded greatly with conditions just right so that life sparked into existence and somehow became able to reproduce and eventually evolved into mankind and all life on earth?
What about those of us who think (1) is just as likely as (2)? Are there words in our Constitution that make (2) the official government position, and forbid us from studying (1)? Would such study be "respecting the establishment of religion"? Maybe we should have school vouchers so people are free to study these things without subsidizing those who prefer not to study them. At least that way those studying creationism wouldn't bother the ones who prefer not to ponder such things. :lol:

 

 

 

 

What you are describing is not what creationism is.

 

Evolution, on the other hand, is verified scientific theory with mountains and mountains and mountains of evidence and successful prediction modeling, so as to be without question.

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Second, consider the general trend of Trump empowering people who have always wanted to dismantle the institutions they are about to lead and see how that applies to education. If you believe there is no basis or relevance for the argument that Devos is aligned with the idea of using education reform to explicitly "advance God's kingdom" and that school choice leads to "greater Kingdom gain" -- her words -- then I'm open to specific arguments severing these ties. You certainly don't appear to think Trump is anything other than what was obvious about him from the start. What are the reasons to suspect otherwise here?

 

I just want to point out a few things. Zoogs hit on something very important here-- Trump does indeed seem to be appointing people who hate the positions/institutions to which they've just been appointed. Rick Perry wanted to do away with the Dept of Energy. Pruitt doesn't believe in climate science? Lead the EPA. His Secretary of Labor wants to replace people with robots. And of courses DeVos, a charter-school advocate who fiercely opposes public education, is now in charge of all education.

 

Setting aside the Christianity bit, since I don't really have a dog in that fight-- I prefer the secular environment of public schools, though I myself am a Christian and wouldn't be opposed to a push for more religious school IF they can be as efficient and effective-- it just seems absurd to me to appoint people who are either annoyed by or actively hostile towards the institutions they're going to lead. Seems to me he likely wants to dismantle as much of the federal government as possible or at the very least minimize its influence. Conservatives must be beside themselves with joy. If you're someone who thinks the federal government does a lot of good, it's not a fun thought.

 

Secondly, BRB, if you are a public school advocate, aside from the Christianity discussion, do you feel DeVos will marginalize the public education system in favor of pushing charter schools? She certainly can't upend it, but she could definitely neglect it. Conservatives at the state level of a long and storied history of under-funding and essentially cratering public education systems.

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BOSTON — At the rightmost edge of the Christian conservative movement, there are those who dream of turning the United States into a Christian republic subject to “biblical laws.” In the unlikely figure of Donald J. Trump, they hope to have found their greatest champion yet. He wasn’t “our preferred candidate,” the Christian nationalist David Barton said in June, but he could be “God’s candidate.”
Consider the president-elect’s first move on public education. Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, the largest Christian university in the nation, says that he was Mr. Trump’s first pick for secretary of education. Liberty University teaches creationism alongside evolution.

 

 

Ha ha! I like how the NY Times author throws in the sentence at the end about—dramatic pause—teaching C R E A T I O N I S M ! Like that's some sort of bad thing. Is it more open minded to teach creationism alongside evolution, or to only teach evolution?
Some of us just don't think it's that implausible for a higher power to have had a hand in creating our vast world that is teeming with life systems and organisms so incredibly complex that we are barely scratching the surface of understanding them. Is it more likely that (1) the universe was created and nurtured by a higher power of some sort?—or that (2) the universe sprang from a point of singularity which expanded greatly with conditions just right so that life sparked into existence and somehow became able to reproduce and eventually evolved into mankind and all life on earth?
What about those of us who think (1) is just as likely as (2)? Are there words in our Constitution that make (2) the official government position, and forbid us from studying (1)? Would such study be "respecting the establishment of religion"? Maybe we should have school vouchers so people are free to study these things without subsidizing those who prefer not to study them. At least that way those studying creationism wouldn't bother the ones who prefer not to ponder such things. :lol:

 

 

 

 

What you are describing is not what creationism is.

 

 

Yes, it is.

 

cre·a·tion·ism krēˈāSHəˌnizəm/ noun the belief that the universe and living organisms originate from specific acts of divine creation, as in the biblical account, rather than by natural processes such as evolution.

 

 

Evolution, on the other hand, is verified scientific theory with mountains and mountains and mountains of evidence and successful prediction modeling, so as to be without question.

 

 

 

Why do people always assume that evolution and creationism are mutually exclusive? Wouldn't an omniscient creator be smart enough to give plants and animals the ability to adapt over time?

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