The more I read about the Religious Right in this country, the more I think that Karl Marx had it wrong about religion being the opiate of the people. I don’t think it calms them, and I don’t think it puts them to sleep. At least on the Right, I think it mainly makes them angry. Here’s what Marx said in context:
“Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.”- Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
I think at its best, religion is a protest against suffering. I know that is what I took away from my religious education. But all I see and hear from the Right is excuse-making for suffering. The suffering always seem to have earned their plight. And if they haven’t, the Right is angry about that, too. I don’t want to abolish religion. I just want people to live and let live.
“Live and let live, that’s what I think, live and let live. Anyone who can’t get along with that just take them outside and shoot the %#)$(!@#*$)!”
George Carlin
Wouldn’t your live and let live policy apply to the RR teaching children the wrong things about science in their home schooling? After all, it is the parent’s decision.
I grew up in a house that denied evolution, and still denies it. I have tried to educate my family on these matters, but it hasn’t changed their minds. My sister who is not homeschooled has been infected with this anti-intellectualism disease, and doesn’t believe in evolution either. My hope is that when she reaches an older age that I can “corrupt” her, but right now I just have to rely on the public schools to do their job.
yes, it would apply to home-schoolers. What are we going to do? Send a paddy wagon around to round up all the kids whose parents don’t want to send their kids to public school?
I guess I was wondering why you’d talk about a live and let live policy when linking to that ThinkProgress link is all. Unless of course, in the live and let live world, you don’t have a problem with these books being published and used by people who have actively taken their children out of school to teach them superstitious nonsense?
I mean, ultimately no we cannot send around a paddy wagon to “make sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to.” However, can’t we agree that in order to home school there has to be some sort of basis for it? I guess one could argue that the free-market will solve it, but I think that’s punishing a child because of a parent’s own stupidity and ignorance. It is in some ways comparable to parents who deny their children medical attention because it’s against their religion.
When it comes down to a debate between personal liberty and state action, I am always biased in favor of personal liberty. A child represents a complicated case because they can’t make autonomous decisions about their health or education. But, almost nowhere is the case for personal liberty stronger than in a parent’s right to raise his or her kids the way they want to. So, there’s a tension there. In Pennsylvania, there are rather strict requirements for homeschooling your child. But the law doesn’t specify what textbooks will be used. It leaves it up to a supervisor to determine if ‘appropriate education’ is taking place. And, I think, that means that someone checks to make sure the child is actually doing schoolwork in the appropriate subjects and makes sure they pass standardized tests every few years.
It’s a shame when parents purposively miseducate their children, but that takes place in about 99% of homes anyway.
oh, and I actually meant to link to this, but both articles influenced my point.
Ah, ok. Well, in this case I would agree with you. I don’t think the government should force people to wait a certain period before they can divorce, nor force them into counseling of sorts. If they’re so concerned with the high divorce rate, I’m sure there are other measures that will tackle it, without involving the state into people’s private lives; you know, like improving education.
Although I sort of agree on the textbook case as well. The link to PA’s standards is broken, but that’s all I ask for: standards. We can’t verify that those standards will always be followed, but they’re something, and I’m also partial to individual liberty.
link
YES! That is or was the law in Du Page County Illinois. I know because they threatened to arrest me because my daughter was truant.
Home school is just a dodge bt religious fanatics who don’t want their kids to hear another other than the Bible.
I believe I read somewhere that homeschooling is generally detrimental to kids because they miss out on all the socializing experiences that come with public (or even formalized private) schooling. The fact that they learn wrongheaded crap at home makes it that much worse. The whole thing seems pretty weird, and almost entirely an offshoot of anti-statist paranoia. Although one can imagine instances in which homeschooling is worthwhile – say the local public schools are really violent, or something.
Seabe, how old is your sister? Is your family considering homeschooling your sister because of their objection to evolution? That would seem unfortunate, if so.
And yes, standards are something, although as you say they’re often pretty hard to enforce in this context.
She’s 13 at the moment. When I was 15 or so, I told my parents I didn’t believe in evolution so I wouldn’t create waves; I also told them I believed their religion, even though I never did. The only reason I said so was because we share nothing in common, whether it be scientifically, socially, or politically. I wanted so much to be “a part of the family,” so I lied about who I was for acceptance. After a while of going to the church, I couldn’t lie to them anymore, and told them that I was an atheist. I felt bad, but it wasn’t fair to myself, or even them as I was lying. I also couldn’t deal with the bigotry that their church subscribes to; I consider their form of Christianity to be even cult-like ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvary_Chapel ).
A lot of people in their church home school their children, and it shows. Most of them are not socially adept. When I went to the church, I found most of the kids my age boring, and they just couldn’t relate to me. Everything was about God, Jesus, and stuff like that. Then again I am among the outliers…I’m a 40 year old man in a 21 year old’s body, so to speak, and I have always related more to adults.
Anyway, enough about me, back to my sister. She’s 13, but no, they do not believe in home schooling her. They think the education around here is very good, and I would agree; my high school was rated in the top 1,000 in the US among private/public. They just teach her that “evolution, the big bang, etc” are all just theories. Typical creationist nonsense.
In the sense that they mean “theory”, i.e. just a hypothesis, the existence of God is just a theory.
Yeah, basically. I tried telling them that there are different definitions for the same words depending on the context, and it’s like talking to a brick wall.
Never mind that evolution is both a theory AND a fact: it’s a fact that organisms have “evolved,” and the theory of evolution shows you the picture of how it happened.
My mom often talks about going back to school for physical therapy, and I encourage her to do it. I’m not sure how she’s going to pass her undergraduate courses in biology, which is what dominates an undergrad degree for physical therapy, if she tells them she doesn’t believe in the building block of all biological knowledge.
Yeah, like Electromagnetic Theory or Quantum Theory. So, I guess, transistors and radios are just our imagination.
is such a handicap in usa culture yet we have so many more opportunities for learning (also lifelong learning) than most other places in the world. It’s a long term theme in usa culture (Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, an interesting example). altering this is a long term project – the tubes are a major opportunity and certainly set up a different paradigm.
Well my census forms were delivered to the house today by a bible toting couple. Had to give me the speel before they would hand me my forms. Isn’t that illegal. Fortunately Satchmo slobbered all over the guy’s crotch. Love that dog.
Has it come to this?
Those were not valid Census Forms! Don’t fill them out!
Valid Census Forms will be delivered by the US Postal Service. If it didn’t come in your mailbox, throw it out. If USPS personnel carried Bibles and gave you a religious spiel, report them to the U.S. Postal Inspectors. The Postal Inspectors are the postal police, have the powers of police, and believe me, they love to arrest postal employees. Find your nearest office here:
http://www.usps.com/ncsc/locators/find-is.html
Come to think about it, call the Inspectors anyway to report impersonating a postal employee, which I believe is also a crime.
I am a postal employee and we have been briefed on procedures. The USPS is determined to make this the cleanest and most accurate census humanly possible.
Don’t give your data to impostors!
I got a letter from Census that I would get the forms in the mail. Yes, anything out of the ordinary has to be reported.
I would also add that USPS employees would be wearing postal uniforms or a postal ID. From 1980, I remember the census taker wearing a federal picture ID.
Wearing a postal uniform when you are not entitled with the purpose to deceive is a federal offense.
BTW, Norm on Cheers was subject to discipline up to and including removal for drinking while in uniform. Every three months or so they remind us that we are not to be in a bar while in uniform, even if not drinking. If you want a beer on the way home, change clothes first.
USPS is a strange mix of civilian employment, civil service, and the military. A LARGE dash of military. If we don’t show up for work, we are AWOL. We even need permission to be sick.
You should read someone brighter.
“But the fact that the ascetic ideal has meant so much for man, expresses that other fundamental fact of human will, its horror vacuii. It needs a goal, – and it will rather will nothingness, than not will at all.”
The Religious Right isn’t “religious”, it is a Republican front movement that has used religious institutions for networking. The coup that took over the Southern Baptist Convention in 1979 was carried out by two Baptist preachers close to the rightwing and the Republican Party, who were also “fegit hell” segregationists. They were joined by segregationist Jerry Falwell and essentially represented only the churches that had created segregation academies and were angry that they could not get tax money for funding them.
Today’s “Religious Right” is different. The main insitutions supporting it are the Association of Roman Catholic Bishops, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), and quasi-religious Republican front groups like Focus on the Family. Their aims are to enhance religious institutions in spite of the establishment clause and to force a very few of the moral positions on the rest of the country through legislation. But mostly to exert their institutional power. In the case of Roman Catholicism, it is exactly the sort of Roman Catholicism that most non-Catholics were afraid of during the 1960 election. Then, the institutional power drive wasn’t as pronounced; now it seems to be the main thing.
It is instructive that Marx’s statements seemed tailored to the sentimental non-social Victorian Christianity that existed in England when he was writing and has reaapeared in our own day as a sentimental fundamentalism of personal salvation.
This and the Religious Right are two different cultural movements. And neither is really representative of the majority of religion in America. Even a substantial number of practicing Roman Catholics think that the Bishops have gone nuts.
Roman Catholicism’s power drive comes after tremendous loss of membership and standing as a consequence of its retrograde response to a constituency asking for progress on the status of women and married priests, to the AIDS epidemic and to the abuser priest scandals. The institution has a track record of not responding in a progressive fashion to loss of influence. Roman Catholicism played a major role in Spanish and Portuguese [verb? pillaging of human and natural resources?] of Latin America coinciding with loss of membership, power and influence in Europe due to the Protestant Reformation. It’s worse because they have a tradition of progressivism on other safety net issues
TarheelDem, I intended to rate as a 4, I don’t know, it went in as a 3 and it seems I can’t change it.
Religion is the crack of the people.
BTW, Darwin was also wrong, Man is still an Ape.
The latter is a quote but I forget the author.
About Darwin: I believe his operative word was “descended”.
As in “going lower”? That seems true, too.
I didn’t catch this topic initially but I wanted to post a few comments.
It’s a mistake to treat religion under a single category of religion as if the motivations are the same for different religions. The problem with many nominal Christian sects is that they’re authoritarianism with a Jesus happy face pasted on the front.
The palliate function of religion is secondary to the political/social control function for cults and RWA sects. Or to put it even better; suffering is part of the belief, although it’s mainly intended a punishment for outgroups, but it’s also accepted as part of the plight for low status groups, who are generally viewed as having ‘merited’ their plight. There’s a considerable element of “Roman Circus” to suffering, it’s enjoyed because it — hopefully — happens to someone else but there’s an element of sadistic pleasure to it.
See Opus Dei, Dominionism, Reconstructionsism