dk

• gravitybow: Having a nuclear family is not a religious practice. You can't possibly be serious when you say that traditional Jews don't have nuclear families. As a religious practice? Are you saying Christians do have families as a religious practice?
  dk: The nuclear family is defined in Christian Dogma, marriage being a lifelong commitment blessed by God as the “Domestic Church”. The nuclear family is based upon a lifelong commitment between a man and women, declared in the vows of a sacramental marriage ceremony, consummated by the marital act then blessed by children according to God’s plan for the couple, see Mark Chapter 10.
• gravitybow: Being "traditional" implies being within the norm. So, when you say "not all," then the not-alls are outside the norm. In addition, who cares if "not all" don't follow it? "Not all" Christians have or desire nuclear families, do they? So once again, you're making a distinction where none exists.
  dk: Tradition, religion and normalcy offer three overlapping but distinct perspectives. Traditional activities center on some custom, ritual or acclamation passed down from generation to generation. For example many families still carry on the tradition of cutting down and decorating a Christmas tree, but I have an uncles that modified the tradition by decorating a live tree, then planting it in a lot. His children have carried on the tradition documenting a tree for each grandchild and marriage. They may sell the lot one day but some of his kids may hand the tradition down. Obviously this tradition has nothing to do with religion or normalcy. Religion connects people upon a metaphysical reality with tradition, laws, beliefs and rituals that transcend the material world within a larger theme of an eternal existence. Normalcy references the normal or Bell curve that describes the distribution of some random event. . Obviously the three (religion, tradition and normalcy) intersect within certain populations but each draws meaning from a distinct basis.
• gravitybow: Traditional Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus advocate family values but not nuclear families? What does that mean? Isn't having a nuclear family a traditional family value?
  dk: It means polygamy, harems, concubines etc... The nuclear family centers defines the family unit as a husband and wife, and their biological children. Divorces, dead parents, and lost children breakup the nuclear family composed of a mother and father with their biological children. Serial monogamy, polygamy, absentee fathers/mothers, death, and unfaithful parents fractionalize the nuclear family.
• gravitybow: Since you haven't defined your terms, here's one for you: Christians typically use "family values" as a euphemism for "Biblical God values." Not being Abrahamic religions, Buddhism and Hinduism don't intersect with the Biblical God on any level. Since Buddhists and Hindus don't have God, where do their family values come from? Since Buddhists and Hindus aren't advocates of nuclear families as Christians are, what do they apply family values to?
  dk: I don’t disagree, a Hindu may be polygamous or monogamous by tradition, but it’s a matter of tradition not religion.
• gravitybow: What's the qualitative difference between advocating "nuclear family" for 40 years and advocating "it's the family, stupid" for 40 years?
  dk: I don’t understand the question. Statistics form the basis for all qualitative differences. Christians view the nuclear family as the “Domestic Church” a union blessed by God defined by the Sacrament of Marriage consummated by the marital act.
• gravitybow: BTW, it's not necessary to answer any of these questions if you don't want to (we've really strayed off of the thread topic, eh?). I'm not really asking you to justify the hole you've dug, I'm just pointing out how deep the hole is becoming.
  dk: Having forthright answered your question, I’m sure you begin to see a coherent, verifiable and reliable perspective.

Dominus Paradoxum

I thank you kindly for ignoring both my posts.

dk

Dominus Paradoxum: If religion and the "nuclear family" are so important to education, then why are european schools doing so well without them?
dk: Why do you think European schools were doing so well? One would expect Europe steeped in a long sustained peace, rich traditions and proud institutions would have become a cultural panacea. With the exception of Britain, Western Europe for the last 50 years has become depended upon the US military to defend its borders, and has become so culturally anemic it can’t raise enough children to operate its own infrastructure, much less field an army. It may be Europe has become a secular panacea of cultural delights, but that’s not what I read or hear. Near as I can tell Europe has been on a slow steady decline since the 1970s, propped up by imported technology, a second rate pseudo intelligentsia, and imported Hollywood sitcoms.

With respect to divorce, harem warfare, and slavery they are all wrong, but exist by human will, not God' will, In fact between slavery and divorce I would argue divorce has had a more degenerative effect upon the post modern world than slavery. For example in the 19th Century New Orleans Irish immigrants were employed almost exclusively to drain the swamps because the mortality rate exceeded 50%. Slaves representing a sizeable capital investment were far to valuable to risk on such dangerous work. The same can be said of coal mines, early factories and sweat shops . The point being that forced labor constitutes a greater evil than slavery. If you want to go toe to toe on this issue lets move to another format. As for Satan, tradition holds he’s a fallen angel but was created good, and ditto for the Original Sin of Adam and Eve. So in a sense worshiping false gods is Satan worship. On the other hand a Moslem or pagan might know God by another name, and God being eternal remains immutable.
dk: Education in a free democracy rests on the concept that people with good values naturally become good citizens.
Dominus Paradoxum: Good values, eh? Would those values include the dogmas of a certain book which teaches that all religions except one really worship satan, which condones slavery and the slaughter of Caananite men, women, and childeren by the Israelites; and which proclaims (according to Paul) that the soul of each and every human being is born wicked and depraved, because the Lord your God creates them that way, when he could very well (being omnipotent) choose to create them free of sin? And would this be the same book which recomends (Deuteronomy 21:18-21) that disobediant children should be brought to the city gate and stoned to death? Yes, what a pity that our country's children are being deprived of such an upright moral education.
dk: Yeh, the world owes secular Europe for the machinery of total warfare, communism, two world wars, scientific racism, and imperialism. Its not a record many people would hold up with pride. So tell me Dominus, what world problems has Europe’s elite secular scholars solved in the last 50 years.

HEY what's all this about...

Europe
French schoolteachers hold nationwide day of action

On January 28, French schoolteachers held a nationwide strike as part of a campaign to oppose plans to shed thousands of jobs in education. Called by the five main education unions, teachers are protesting at plans revealed in the 2003 budget that will lead to the redundancy of 5,600 school aides. A further 20,000 special contracts for youths who help in schools will not be renewed either.

London university lecturers to strike in ongoing cost of living dispute

Lecturers at London universities are to take strike action next week in pursuit of extra cost-of-living expenses. The employees, members of the Natfhe, AUT, Unison and Amicus trade unions will participate in a one-day strike on February 4. The unions are demanding a £4,000 weighting allowance for all members based in the capital.

News: Student strike in Germany
Posted on Tuesday, May 21 @ 09:58:43 GMT by Schuijlenburg


"Student strike in Bielefeld (Germany)

On May 16 the minister of education of the state Nordrhein Westfalen in Germany informed the directors of the universities in Nordrhein Westfalen about the plans to introduce a new tax for students and the introduction of studyfees for people who are studying to long and for students who are doing their second study. The tax will be 50 Euro and is needed to fill a budget gap in the general state budget. The fees will be Euro 500 and Euro 650.

The directors of the universities are furious about the taxes since they will not be used to make improvements at the universities, the money will be swallowed by the gap in the states general budget. At May 16 the general assemblee of the university of Bielefeld decided to start a warning strike from may 21 until May 24. More than 2000 students attended at the geeral assamblee. At Wednesday May 22 there will be a demonstartion of the students in the city of Bielefeld.

-------------
Sure doesn't sound like a cultural panacea of enlightened education.

lpetrich

dk's bovine excrement is almost too much, but I think it necessary to set the record strat

dk:
(the public schools) are forbidden to teach the ten commandments, greatest two Commandments, golden Rule, beatitudes, and theological & corporal virtues.

Grow up. Much of what you point to is purely theological, and there is a good reason for avoiding dragging theology into public schools -- it helps avoid Wars of Religion

O dk, would you like it if someone explained in a public school how Catholics violate some of the Ten Commandments? The reason being that they are saint-worshipping idolators.

In so doing they hobbled, and in many instances crippled, public educators with an agenda unsuited to the purpose of education i.e. to transmit civilized values to the next generation.

The purpose of education is to get its students to learn things, not to act as a house of worship.

You can deny the crisis in education has anything to do with demise of the nuclear family, and that’s exactly what most secularists do,

O dk, what do you mean by "the demise of the nuclear family"? Be precise. Don't whine.

It seems to me the success of our nation enjoys today emanated from the values transmitted by nuclear families.

And how is that supposed to be the case?

And why don't those who go to boarding schools all turn out dangerously antisocial?

Maybe the true lesson is that the social dogmas derived from mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, and sociology are necessary to live in a modern technological world but inadequate for the purposes of public education.

What dogmas are derived from these? That's news to me.

(dk on how the divorce rate has risen...)

If divorce is such a crime against humanity, then why weren't Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich purged from the Republican Party?

And why is divorce supposed to be so much worse than a hostile marriage?

Also, Catholic priests and nuns live very antifamily lifestyles -- do they marry and produce children?

And Jesus Christ himself had been rather antifamily -- he was single all his life, he called his circle of followers his real family, he stated that he would come and break up biological/marital families, etc.

It means polygamy, harems, concubines etc... The nuclear family centers defines the family unit as a husband and wife, and their biological children. Divorces, dead parents, and lost children breakup the nuclear family composed of a mother and father with their biological children. Serial monogamy, polygamy, absentee fathers/mothers, death, and unfaithful parents fractionalize the nuclear family.

Congratulations to dk for having performed such a difficult act: describing what he has in mind by something.

Yeh, the world owes secular Europe for the machinery of total warfare, communism, two world wars, scientific racism, and imperialism. Its not a record many people would hold up with pride.

So theological racism is OK? (God's cursing Ham, thus black people are to be the servants of white people) Wars of religion are OK?

Dominus Paradoxum

This is known as the tu quoque fallacy. All those things may be true, but two wrongs don't making a right, and pointing out some bad things that atheists have done won't answer any of the questions I raised. If your God is so "loving", then why is the old testament filled with the most horrendous slaughter? Why did he command that disobediant children to be stoned to death? Why does he create souls in a state of origional sin when he could very well choose to create them in a state of grace, if he wanted them to be saved?

Some examples of the Deity's moral character:

"Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations. Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again. 10 Therefore in your midst fathers will eat their children, and children will eat their fathers. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds - Ezekiel 5:8-10 "

Idol worship may be wrong, but to force them to eat their children?

"31 So Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the LORD commanded Moses.
32 The plunder remaining from the spoils that the soldiers took was 675,000 sheep, 33 72,000 cattle, 34 61,000 donkeys 35 and 32,000 women who had never slept with a man.
36 The half share of those who fought in the battle was:

337,500 sheep, 37 of which the tribute for the LORD was 675;
38 36,000 cattle, of which the tribute for the LORD was 72;
39 30,500 donkeys, of which the tribute for the LORD was 61;
40 16,000 people, of which the tribute for the LORD was 32 - Numbers 31:31-40 "

'Tribute to the Lord' means sacrifice, I assume.

"33 the LORD our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army. 34 At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed them-men, women and children. We left no survivors. - Deuteronomy 2:33-34 "

"This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys. - 1 Samuel 15: 2-3 "


"23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD . Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. - 2 Kings 2"

I assume you don't think that dismemberment is an adequate punishment for name calling?

Incidentally, you never did reply to my question about the massacers of Columbus and the pioneers.

dk

• lpetrich: dk's bovine excrement is almost too much, but I think it necessary to set the record strat
  dk: I’ll take that as a statement of dogma, and I am happy to hear you think at all.
• dk: (the public schools) are forbidden to teach the ten commandments, greatest two Commandments, golden Rule, beatitudes, and theological & corporal virtues.
  lpetrich: Grow up. Much of what you point to is purely theological, and there is a good reason for avoiding dragging theology into public schools -- it helps avoid Wars of Religion
  O dk, would you like it if someone explained in a public school how Catholics violate some of the Ten Commandments? The reason being that they are saint-worshipping idolators.
  dk: That’s an ingenious argument, “Religious Wars are cause by Religion”. From our general discussions I can only conclude your views on religion border on delusional paranoia. The problem is that WWI, WWII and the Cold War weren’t religious wars, but ideological. As to the War on Terrorism it was nihilists, anarchists and communists schooled at modern secular universities that popularized and justified terrorism as an efficient political tactic, and they took Islam to school.
• lpetrich: In so doing they hobbled, and in many instances crippled, public educators with an agenda unsuited to the purpose of education i.e. to transmit civilized values to the next generation.
  dk Can you share with me the purpose of education. Hey, why have we banned religion instead of military schools? Maybe by banning military schools we can help to eliminate military wars.
  The purpose of education is to get its students to learn things, not to act as a house of worship.
  dk: What tripe, “The purpose of education is to get its students to learn things”.
• lpetrich: O dk, what do you mean by "the demise of the nuclear family"? Be precise. Don't whine.
  dk: The nuclear family describes an exclusive lifelong union between two parents and the children they conceive in a Marital Act. The demise of the nuclear family means its fractionalization through divorce or removal of children.
• dk: It seems to me the success of our nation enjoys today emanated from the values transmitted by nuclear families.
  lpetrich: And how is that supposed to be the case?
  dk: The nuclear family forms the smallest autonomous unit that duplicates itself across generations as the basis of society.
• lpetrich: And why don't those who go to boarding schools all turn out dangerously antisocial?
  dk: Boarding schools aren’t autonomous units so a comparison with the nuclear family is inequitable, apples and oranges. Statistics confirm that breaking down society into units smaller than the nuclear family has a degenerative affect upon education. Boarding schools are just the opposite of the nuclear family, a group of families pool resources to raise children in a more structured formal environment. Obviously boarding schools, unlike the family, aren’t self duplicating minimalist structures. In short the nuclear family suits people and society because of its simplicity, practicality and stability.
• dk: Maybe the true lesson is that the social dogmas derived from mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, and sociology are necessary to live in a modern technological world but inadequate for the purposes of public education.
  lpetrich: What dogmas are derived from these? That's news to me.
  dk: To name a few communism, capitalism and secularism.
• lpetrich: If divorce is such a crime against humanity, then why weren't Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich purged from the Republican Party?
  dk: I didn’t say divorce was a crime against humanity.
• lpetrich: And why is divorce supposed to be so much worse than a hostile marriage?
  dk: For the same reason an amputated is worse than a broken leg. There are many good reasons to amputate a limb, but its better to repair a broken leg than amputate; likewise there are many good reasons for people to divorce, but its better to repair the hostilities of a broken marriage. Divorce disables the family, just like an amputation disables the amputee.
• lpetrich: Also, Catholic priests and nuns live very antifamily lifestyles -- do they marry and produce children?
  dk: Priests and nuns aren’t antifamily.
• lpetrich: And Jesus Christ himself had been rather antifamily -- he was single all his life, he called his circle of followers his real family, he stated that he would come and break up biological/marital families, etc.
  dk: Jesus Christ isn’t antifamily, in fact the Church is the Bridegroom of Jesus.
• dk: Yeh, the world owes secular Europe for the machinery of total warfare, communism, two world wars, scientific racism, and imperialism. Its not a record many people would hold up with pride.
  lpetrich: So theological racism is OK? (God's cursing Ham, thus black people are to be the servants of white people) Wars of religion are OK?
  dk: In the OT the Israel’s covenants didn’t apply to anyone but Israel, so while Israel was closed, it wasn’t theological racism. In the Middle Ages slavery as an institution didn’t exist in Western Europe. England, Spain, Portugal and France participated in the Slave Trade from the 16th Century, about the same time as the Protestant Reformation. The reasons the slave trade flourished into the 19th Century were economic not religions, but offered clear evidence of moral confusion. Slavery was tolerated as a practical necessity in the Koran. Here’s what Aquinas said about slavery with respect to marriage Summa Theologica . If you read the link notice that in the 13th Century the best slaves were kept ignorant of their degraded status.

lpetrich

lpetrich: dk's bovine excrement is almost too much, but I think it necessary to set the record strat
dk: I?ll take that as a statement of dogma, and I am happy to hear you think at all

Would you have preferred that I use a common vulgar synonym for the excrement of the male bovine?

lpetrich: O dk, would you like it if someone explained in a public school how Catholics violate some of the Ten Commandments? The reason being that they are saint-worshipping idolators.
dk: That?s an ingenious argument, ?Religious Wars are cause by Religion?. From our general discussions I can only conclude your views on religion border on delusional paranoia. ...

Poor dk has his head in the sand about the beliefs of many Protestant Fundies, because many of them believe exactly what I describe. Simply read some Jack Chick pamphlets.

lpetrich: O dk, what do you mean by "the demise of the nuclear family"? Be precise. Don't whine.
dk: The nuclear family describes an exclusive lifelong union between two parents and the children they conceive in a Marital Act. The demise of the nuclear family means its fractionalization through divorce or removal of children.

So it's not a Real Nuclear Family if

Either partner has had any previous partners?
They conceive with artificial insemination?
It is a polygamous family?

Also, the phrase "the nuclear family" suggests a single, unified entity. However, there are only individual families, whatever they might have in common.

dk: It seems to me the success of our nation enjoys today emanated from the values transmitted by nuclear families.
lpetrich: And how is that supposed to be the case?
dk: The nuclear family forms the smallest autonomous unit that duplicates itself across generations as the basis of society.

A masterpiece of non-sequitur "reasoning".

lpetrich: And why don't those who go to boarding schools all turn out dangerously antisocial?
dk: ... Boarding schools are just the opposite of the nuclear family, a group of families pool resources to raise children in a more structured formal environment. Obviously boarding schools, unlike the family, aren?t self duplicating minimalist structures.

Very ingenious evasion. Boarding schools are a very non-family lifestyle.

dk: In short the nuclear family suits people and society because of its simplicity, practicality and stability.

Which would presumably make such families indestructible. In which case there is no need to whine about divorce, because nobody would ever want to get divorced.

dk: Maybe the true lesson is that the social dogmas derived from mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, and sociology are necessary to live in a modern technological world but inadequate for the purposes of public education.
lpetrich: What dogmas are derived from these? That's news to me.
dk: To name a few communism, capitalism and secularism.

HOW are they derived? BE EXPLICIT.

lpetrich: If divorce is such a crime against humanity, then why weren't Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich purged from the Republican Party?
dk: I didn?t say divorce was a crime against humanity.

Only something equivalent to that.

lpetrich: And why is divorce supposed to be so much worse than a hostile marriage?
dk: For the same reason an amputated is worse than a broken leg. ...

How is that supposed to be a relevant analogy?

lpetrich: Also, Catholic priests and nuns live very antifamily lifestyles -- do they marry and produce children?
dk: Priests and nuns aren?t antifamily.

They are antifamily, because they live in a fashion contrary to the supposed One True Family Structure. If homosexual people are wicked for doing that, then priests and nuns are also wicked for doing that.

lpetrich: And Jesus Christ himself had been rather antifamily -- he was single all his life, he called his circle of followers his real family, he stated that he would come and break up biological/marital families, etc.
dk: Jesus Christ isn?t antifamily, in fact the Church is the Bridegroom of Jesus.

In some metaphorical sense, perhaps. But he never married and had children, thus refusing to participate in the supposed One True Family Structure. Although there is a common speculation that Mary Magdalene had been his girlfriend, or even his wife.