Reasons you left the LDS church.

[babe]

The disparity between how much respect the average religious person demands and gives is startling (in my experience).

My experience is that yes, indeed, it is commonplace for self-styled, or group-defined, "religious" folks to demand much more respect than they give. It is also commonplace for "non-religious" folks. But anyone who wants to be an "exemplar" of Christian virtures who does that is missing perhaps one of most important teachings of Jesus, in my opinion. And yes, I am/have been "commonplace" because it takes more effort not to be. A lot of Mormons, and believers in other religions do try to hold up their particular standards as an example to those who don't follow their ways. I even see "liberals" take that stand.

It's just a much better to try to expect more of yourself than you do of others. For one thing, you really can't do much about others, and you definitely can do something about yourself.

Jesus is definitely on record for teaching that we should focus on improving ourselves, and be willing to do good to others so far as we know or can. Patience, compassion, forgiveness. . . . a lot of the vaunted virtues seem to be directed outward towards others. . . .

I think the problem can be aggravated by demands from outside a faith that it should be compromised somehow. . . . . that's when the "us/them, good/bad, selflove/othershate" stuff comes into play to shore up weak believers' confidence in the way they are. But a lot of us shallow philosophers are just there because we haven't thought through our own beliefs.

 

[GVC]

I think the problem can be aggravated by demands from outside a faith that it should be compromised somehow. . . . . that's when the "us/them, good/bad, selflove/othershate" stuff comes into play to shore up weak believers' confidence in the way they are. But a lot of us shallow philosphers are just there because we haven't thought through our own beliefs.

Of course. My hope is that people get past the initial aggravation, and realize that, yes, sometimes people disagree, and sometimes those disagreements lead to conflict, but it's important to not just dismiss the disagreement and count on being in the majority in settling the dispute. Sometimes it's beneficial to have a rational discussion because different people have different beliefs.

 

[babe]

Of course. My hope is that people get past the initial aggravation, and realize that, yes, sometimes people disagree, and sometimes those disagreements lead to conflict, but it's important to not just dismiss the disagreement and count on being in the majority in settling the dispute. Sometimes it's beneficial to have a rational discussion because different people have different beliefs.

And that's how we all move on in life, hopefully. And usually it is for the better.

 

[One Brow]

But seriously, if someone actually told you that Captain Kirk existed, and that they talked to him, would you really look at them and say (or in this case, type) the things that you say here? Again, who gives a rats butt hole if he thinks he talked to James T.?

In real life, I've never had anyone tell me that I lacked a sense of morals or a reason to have morals because I am an atheist. In real life, no one leaves me notes telling me I'm relious when I say it is human nature to be moral. In the past five years, perhaps two real-life people (outside of missionaries) have asked me about my religious beliefs at all.

If someone was trying to direct science funding to create the warp drive (acording to our current understanding, it really is impossible), should I not give a rats butt hole about the diversion from more worthy projects? If tyhey try to teach warp drive theory in high school physics classes, should I not care about chioldren learning distorted science?

 

[babe]

In real life, I've never had anyone tell me that I lacked a sense of morals or a reason to have morals because I am an atheist. In real life, no one leaves me notes telling me I'm relious when I say it is human nature to be moral. In the past five years, perhaps two real-life people (outside of missionaries) have asked me about my religious beliefs at all.

If someone was trying to direct science funding to create the warp drive (acording to our current understanding, it really is impossible), should I not give a rats butt hole about the diversion from more worthy projects? If tyhey try to teach warp drive theory in high school physics classes, should I not care about chioldren learning distorted science?

One of the things most of us learn in High School is that High School is NOT real life.

(I deleted a chunk here. . . . too mean.)

There might be a lot of kids who grew up thinking warp drives are as real as gravity, but more cool.

From among the minority who have become seriously disappointed to learn there aren't actually real warp drives on OEM shelves, there's gotta be more than a dozen basement inventors with prototypes they can explain. . . . to any interested high school teacher.

It would be a beautiful way to teach independent research to first teach the kids that warp drives are standard science, and challenge them to invent something better. . . . an exercise like would approximate the realities of science and prepare the student to do due diligence in believing anything. . . .

 

[TroutBum]

In real life, I've never had anyone tell me that I lacked a sense of morals or a reason to have morals because I am an atheist. In real life, no one leaves me notes telling me I'm relious when I say it is human nature to be moral. In the past five years, perhaps two real-life people (outside of missionaries) have asked me about my religious beliefs at all.

If someone was trying to direct science funding to create the warp drive (acording to our current understanding, it really is impossible), should I not give a rats butt hole about the diversion from more worthy projects? If tyhey try to teach warp drive theory in high school physics classes, should I not care about chioldren learning distorted science?

Ah, how cute.

As a person of science, haven't you learned that it's folly to say anything is impossible? Way to avoid the question and move the topic elsewhere, by the way.

 

[One Brow]

It would be a beautiful way to teach independent research to first teach the kids that warp drives are standard science, and challenge them to invent something better. . . . an exercise like would approximate the realities of science and prepare the student to do due diligence in believing anything. . . .

1) High-school kids are not prepared for the mathematics involved.
2) It is never a good a idea to teach someone somethying that is false, deliberately.
3) An exercise like that would teach them that teachers are deliberately misleading them.

 

[One Brow]

As a person of science, haven't you learned that it's folly to say anything is impossible? Way to avoid the question and move the topic elsewhere, by the way.

I did qualify my statemen with "according to our current understanding". There may indeed be revolutionary paradigm ahead.

I did not intend to avoid the question, alothough I'm not sure which questin you meant. My point was that, when someone's belief in Captain Kirk afects me, because of their influence in education or science funding, then I feel I do have a legitimate interest.

 

[babe]

1) High-school kids are not prepared for the mathematics involved.
2) It is never a good a idea to teach someone somethying that is false, deliberately.
3) An exercise like that would teach them that teachers are deliberately misleading them.

mathematics is an abtract formalism that TRIES to comprehend real stuff. . . . . like gravity. . . . but often fails, until we contruct an equation that has all the right mathematical features that are needed. Probably you didn't think of this necessary exercise of learning to contruct a formula, and computing theoretical results, and then comparing the results to some objective sort of experiment. Probably you consider "education" to consist of passing out "truth" like candy to kids, that's why it just looks cruel to make them learn to think. I'd say the objective of education should be the development of students' inate abilities to creatively conceive concepts, and to check them out constructively for their usefulness. If you set kids out on a quest that requires some mathematical skills, you will possibly motivate them and teach them how math can be useful.

second. . . . while we have no real need to deliberately teach anything we know is just rubbish, trying to make the students dissatisfied with us and angry enough to try to prove how wrong we are. . . . . it is the fact that everything we teach needs to be questioned, and will one day yield to some future concept that explains things more satisfactorily. . . . so in effect there is the likelihood that what we do teach could be called "false" and produce the same result, no matter how diligent and concerned we are to teach what's right. I'd even say that it is the important truth we should thoroughly teach, that the quest for understanding is a systematic progression through ideas towards a goal we might not have satisfactoriy comprehended yet. And yes, there are ideas we can teach that are for practical purposes useful enough. . . . but there is no "State Interest" in closing the discussion.

There is no "State Interest" in limiting the human mind, or establishing norms or acceptable beliefs in "Science" or "Religion", or even in "Game Theory". I disagree with John Dewey in the claim that there is any "State Interest" in training workers to meet the requirements of corporate "clients" with hiring needs. . . . training plumbers, carpenters, electricians, architects, engineers, doctors, nurses, schoolteachers, computer programmers, chemists or physicists, or in licensing professionals in any way.

Teaching kids that these are legitimate concerns of the State is exactly what you wish to avoid, teaching them that teachers are deliberately misleading them.


The "State" is us. Every time we set some 'standard' for a profession, we do so at a cost, to "us", of limiting the range of acceptable creativity. While we might gain something in establishing standards for, say building codes or zoning ordinances, there is a creativity cost as well as an administrative cost. The belief fostered by public education that "The State" has any authority/interest in managing "us" is THE LIE. The reason we are not a pure democracy is that we once had people in the formation of our government who feared the dictatorship of a simple majority as much as they feared the tyrrany of financial/commercial interests. They tried to construct a system of balanced, limited powers, but realized it could only work so long as the people were willing to claim their inate rights. Among those inate rights is the right to question authority. . . . and in the environment of cartel/corporate/commercial interests with motive to cultivate connections to government, to lawmakers, administrators, it becomes a civic duty for people to closely regulate their "State" and it's claimed "interests'.

The failure of a state-operated "Public Education System" to resist the claim of "State interest" is diagnostic of education gone amok. The failure of any professional line of service to resist the claim of "needed regulations" backed by the police power of the State, is diagnostic of a profession that has itself yielded to a fascist mechanism of enforcing restrictions against competition. It always has a practical cost in terms of products made available to the people, as well as a cost in terms of human liberty.

The result will surely be people becoming convinced "that teachers are deliberately misleading them."

The alternative is simply allowing private education to compete. . . . . if the "State" got entirely out of the way, you might think some people will not be trained to useful tasks, and indeed that might happen. . . . but the reality of liberty and the consequences of liberty is actually compelling. While the state-run education system we have has produced millions of citizens incarcerated for say personal abuse of psycoactive substances, and a very large rate of illiterate survivors of the public school regime, you fear the possibility of some people refusing to learn marketable skills that corporates need. In my view, people would do better on their own self-interest, and the so-called "State Interest" is not nearly as efficient at addressing the "needs" of people. It's been about a hundred years in our country now, and we can see the results. What's the unemployment rate now. . . . . higher than ever. . . . . poverty, unenployment, millions of displaced workers abandoned by corporates who just relocated their plants in labor markets abroad. The whole "train to the task" concept has been breached by the corporates who demanded it in the first place.

 

[One Brow]

mathematics is an abtract formalism that TRIES to comprehend real stuff. . . . . like gravity. . . . but often fails, until we contruct an equation that has all the right mathematical features that are needed. Probably you didn't think of this necessary exercise of learning to contruct a formula, and computing theoretical results, and then comparing the results to some objective sort of experiment.

Don't teach your grandmother to chew cheese. This goes double when you confuse an objection to using multivariate calculus and differential equations in a high-school math class with an objection to the teaching of the process of mathematical modeling.

Probably you consider "education" to consist of passing out "truth" like candy to kids, that's why it just looks cruel to make them learn to think.

I consider you to "probably" be a condescending, ignorant jerk ranting about a topic he doesn't understand and about a person's teaching style that he has never witnessed. What about your background indicates you have any expertise in teaching techniques, knowledge of the necessary foundatons for developing critical thinking skills, or or awareness of the concerns and focus of the typical community college faculty? I ask this because of your displayed ignorance regarding these three things is remarkably juxtaposed to your consistantly inaccurate declarations upon them.

I'd say the objective of education should be the development of students' inate abilities to creatively conceive concepts, and to check them out constructively for their usefulness. If you set kids out on a quest that requires some mathematical skills, you will possibly motivate them and teach them how math can be useful.

Duh.

The "State" is us. Every time we set some 'standard' for a profession, we do so at a cost, to "us", of limiting the range of acceptable creativity. While we might gain something in establishing standards for, say building codes or zoning ordinances, there is a creativity cost as well as an administrative cost.

How typical of you that you ignore the costs of not having standards, the very real costs of worsened infrastructure for lax/missing zoning codes, increased emergency response need for poorly built buildings, people who nedlessly die where quacks have equal legitimacy to doctors. Standards are what set acce3ptable creativity, and prevent unacceptable creativity.

The alternative is simply allowing private education to compete. . .

Every mid-sized city in the USA has private schools. Nothing stops them from competing. By the time you get to t6he secondary level, their sylibi resemble those of the public schools for a reason: it's ultimately the syllibi that will best prepare the student for a variety of tasks, including critical thinking.

 

[babe]

Not probably, nor certainly. . . . nor objectively.

What people think, or teach, is always a human idea. . . . something that occurs inside a human skull. Certainty, or the claim of "objectivity" is also one of those purely human concepts within human skulls. The whole process of thinking involves imagination, and the whole idea of representing the world outside, whether it is "God" or "Science" is an art of perception/cognition, and in humans usually is applied to some purpose. Again, a human purpose. States cannot rise above what is human, cannot create anything more durable or beneficial or reliable, any more than an "organized" man-direction religious organization can.

The hate and frustration I see in your retorts just supports my generalization of the ills of authoritarianism in governance and in education molded to government purpose.

Your teaching style is heavily evident in what you write in here.

folks with less abstract takes on it just call it bull.

 

[babe]

I'm quite familiar with higher mathematics, but not unduly impressed. Engineers resort to empirical fudge factors in the field to solve problems all the time. Mathematical models from all disciplines degenerate in practice for achieving acceptable meaning at minimal bother. In theoretical physics there are elaborate sets of assumptions about the universe which are taken to achieve cost-effective results. You assume that "multivariate caluculus/differential equations" are involved in a purely imaginary concept called a "warp drive", whatever that means. It's pretty certain that we will have to imagine some features of the universe we can't directly observe or measure along the path towards a higher sort of power to draw upon and use some fundamentally different form of propulsion, and maybe even invent an entirely different "calculus" to apply to it.

I had a lot of trouble learning the high school calculus teachers were satisfied to teach me in high school, only to encounter another approach later on in graduate-level mathematics courses in college that was easier to understand. The fact that nature is better described by curves than straight lines might be the reason.