gdp's Comments

End Hereditary Religion : Salvation is not a legitimate argument for indoctrinating children

Tue, 7 Feb 2012 09:59:42 +0000

As a person who has had the great good fortune to read many life histories I can say your comment rings so true and is a perfect expression of what children experience. Unfortunately, they don't dare give free expression to their honest thoughts. Thanks so much for sharing your experience and insights.

Red State Progressive : How Progressives in Red States Can Help

Mon, 9 Jan 2012 23:47:04 +0000

I snip articles that advocate the progressive viewpoint and post them on my Twitwall. Twitwall is a way to promote content to the twitter community and I have about 1600 followers on my twitwall. I use the headline of an article as the Twit that leads my readers to the excerpt, usually the lead paragraphs. It is like baiting a hook. From where they land they can read the entire article. Twitwall has a way to send the same twit at intervals so it catches readers at various times coming to the stream. Here is a link to my twitwall: http://twitwall.com/view/?who=Librehombre

End Hereditary Religion : The Hitting Stops Here! A campaign for teaching kindness and respect in schools everywhere.

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 04:01:47 +0000

Check our Amazon portal just to the right on this page. Beating the Devil out of them is a seminal work by the prominent research scientist Murray A. Straus. If you want to win an argument with your brother-in-law you can find lots of ammunition in this book. The Amazon program that suggests book titles to offer is really improved lately. The Greven book is part of the no-spank canon. If you think you might want to add one these books to you library please consider accessing Amazon through our portal. That way we make a small amount to keep us going.

End Hereditary Religion : Parents strongly resist anti-spanking laws

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 21:33:32 +0000

The law would be difficult to enforce if looked at through your lens. However, laws effect culture and it is culture which has to change. I won't try to tackle the issue of why conservatives homeschool, but that is a concern. When ever parents have sequestered their children history teaches us that it has always turned out badly for the children. Conservatives rebel against secular authority because it is a competing power center and has always represented a threat to their religion. I challenge your assertion that no model exists. One only has to look to the example of the socialist democracies in Europe or even Japan. The ban gets enforced through social mechanisms, new generations learning that gentle parenting is a better model, and pressure through state education programs.

End Hereditary Religion : Recommended reading

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:54:16 +0000

Andy Rooney was an out atheist, but I don't recall him ever making pro atheism comments on his 60 Minutes gig. Anybody know differently?

End Hereditary Religion : Quiverfull -- A real and growing danger

Sun, 6 Nov 2011 04:55:30 +0000

There is a limit to what the planet can support and for this reason alone our attitudes towards unlimited procreation require thoughtful consideration. If devout religious people are procreating simply to insure that their particular religion survives that is unethical because it treats their children as objects and must be condemned.

End Hereditary Religion : 'Christianity stole my childhood' - Katy Perry

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 17:56:50 +0000

Hi Ron, I do remember your blog and have it listed in our links. I guess I need to change the entry.

End Hereditary Religion : Logically, morally, humanely and scientifically, the debate on spanking is dead

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 03:23:19 +0000

I like to recommend http://projectnospank.net (and their fb site as well). In addition there is http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org/ These are two major web sites for ending physical punishment of children.

End Hereditary Religion : Comment on blogs supporting Hoekstra\'s amendment

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:10:04 +0000

Can you please be more specific?

End Hereditary Religion : Sham homeschools are fostering a radical right wing fifth column

Sun, 3 Jan 2010 06:49:33 +0000

Don't blame "right wing Christian theocrats" for influencing the culture (basically what your article covers and how you disagree with it). They're doing what anyone else would do: promoting their beliefs/worldview/religion. I'd encourage you to stop complaining about their actions, because they aren't doing anything wrong. ++++++ Except they are subversive and have a deliberate policy of working out of sight. You obviously did not pay attention to the many articles I referenced for substantiation. If these people believed in honest open debate and negotiation that would be a different matter. But they don't -- in fact they are trained to view compromise and negotiation as weak. Who needs that when you are taking orders directly from god and anyone who disagrees is a tool of the devil. Moral standards are not the exclusive domain of religious people, though they try hard to sell this bit of propaganda. Morality coerced is not genuine morality if private acts are motivated by thoughts of rewards or punishment in a supposed afterlife. I have had many interchanges with homeschool advocates, both secular and religious. Not the zealots -- I simply cannot stomach their delusions and like I say the hard core ones are not interested in an intellectually honest exchange.

End Hereditary Religion : Sham homeschools are fostering a radical right wing fifth column

Sun, 3 Jan 2010 06:16:16 +0000

Please save your breath. The Jesus you think you know is a figment of your imagination. Your post has nothing to do with the topic and if you continue to post off topic you will be blocked. Either address the issues or move to a more appropriate internet site. There is nothing in the constitution that says fanatic christians are to rule the country according to the bible.

End Hereditary Religion : Sham homeschools are fostering a radical right wing fifth column

Sun, 3 Jan 2010 06:03:19 +0000

What is your point?

End Hereditary Religion : Sham homeschools are fostering a radical right wing fifth column

Sun, 3 Jan 2010 06:01:02 +0000

You offer nothing but opinion. How about some facts? You have not addressed a single issue I raised.

AnAtheist.Net : Fools For Christ

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:25:23 +0000

But doesn't the bible also say that non-believers are fools? There appears to be a contradiction here. Wonder how that could happen in a book inspired by god. I think I'll go with believers being fools.

End Hereditary Religion : Sham homeschools are fostering a radical right wing fifth column

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:05:39 +0000

THREE KEY POINTS ABOUT HOMESCHOOLING 1. We don’t have any comprehensive data about U.S. homeschoolers nationally: total number of homeschoolers, learning outcomes, or anything else. The broadest set of data we have comes from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), but even that large-scale study likely doesn't provide a full picture, as many homeschoolers are strongly opposed to any sort of governmental oversight of their efforts, and therefore refuse to participate in any data-gathering attempts (the 2003 NCES survey, for instance, had a 58% refusal rate). 2. Claims that the "average homeschooler" outperforms public and private school students are simply not justified. This is not to claim that homeschoolers underperform, either--the simple fact is that no studies exist that draw from a representative, nationwide sample of homeschoolers. Nevertheless, a 1999 study by Lawrence Rudner is frequently cited by homeschooler advocates as definitive evidence that homeschoolers academically outperform public and private school students. But as the study’s author himself acknowledges, the homeschool participants (unlike the public school students’ scores) were an unrepresentative sample, and it was not a controlled experiment. Among a range of inconsistencies, the study drew only from homeschoolers who elected to take these tests through a Bob Jones University standardized testing program (in which parents typically administer the exams to their own children), then compared this narrow slice of homeschoolers to national averages for public and private school students. Even with the caveats Rudner offered in his analysis, the study came under heavy peer critique in the same academic journal in which his findings appeared. In August 2009, the Home School Legal Defense Association publicized a new study comparing the standardized test scores of 11,739 homeschoolers to those of public school students. Despite HSLDA's assertions to the contrary, this study suffers from many of the same methodological weaknesses as the 1999 Rudner study. In particular, the homeschoolers who responded to HSLDA's invitation can hardly be considered representative of the broader homeschool population: the sample only includes the subset of homeschoolers who use standardized tests, and it draws almost entirely (95%) from those who self-identify as Christian. While HSLDA claims that "the overwhelming majority of parents did not know their children's test results before agreeing to participate in the study," it's also reasonable to assume that many parents whose homeschooling is subpar would not be willing to share those scores (whether they know them in advance or not), or would avoid testing altogether. It's also worth pointing out that homeschool parents can administer these tests themselves, making it possible to create very different testing conditions from what public school students experience. Again, my argument is not that homeschoolers as a whole underperform other students--we just don't know, despite HSLDA's claims about the "average homeschooler." 3. There is no such thing as a "typical homeschooler." Even without comprehensive demographic data, it seems clear from more limited studies and abundant anecdotal accounts that describing the typical homeschooler is about as difficult as describing the typical public school student. Homeschoolers come from all walks of life, and families choose this education option for a variety of reasons—NCES data suggest that "concern about environment of other schools" and "to provide religious or moral instruction" are parents' most common motivations. Support and advocacy organizations serve almost every demographic imaginable. A quick check on-line, for instance, lists groups for disabled, Jewish, Latino, Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist, Mormon, single-parent, vegan, Native American, African American, and Muslim homeschoolers (the latter two, among others, claim to be the fastest growing segment of homeschoolers). The growth of online communication seems likely to only increase the available opportunities for networking and support moving forward. http://www.indiana.edu/~homeeduc/three_crucial_po... Is the most authoritative source of information I have found so far about homeschools.

End Hereditary Religion : Judge Rules in Home Schooling Case

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:44:40 +0000

I don't believe you are understanding the issues. First off where do you get the idea that merely being exposed to an idea is some miraculous way to impose belief on someone. Only weak minded people accept blindly what they are told or what they hear. Just sit down in a quiet place and think about this. You are exposed to thousands of ideas and beliefs every week from TV, radio, newspapers and the internet. Do you adopt all these ideas merely because you were exposed to them? No, you don't. Perhaps if you studied human nature and psychology you would lose the idea you have apparently been indoctrinated with that exposure to an idea means adoption of the idea. Learn to think critically and teach your children to learn critical thinking. This is the path to true human liberty. Children have a right to information and parents have a duty to teach them how to evaluate information based on rationality and evidence. Only a despotic parent would attempt to control what a child believes. I don't care whether they are religious or an atheist the same charge would apply. Parents are not a law unto themselves, and they do not own their children.

End Hereditary Religion : Sham homeschools are fostering a radical right wing fifth column

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 02:58:20 +0000

What does this have to do with dominionist theology. Why are you changing the subject?

End Hereditary Religion : Sham homeschools are fostering a radical right wing fifth column

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 02:55:46 +0000

I know god is not talking to me Andy. Don't be so bloody daft.

End Hereditary Religion : Sham homeschools are fostering a radical right wing fifth column

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:38:58 +0000

Did you miss all the URLs cited at the end of the post? Read those and then see what you think.

End Hereditary Religion : Sham homeschools are fostering a radical right wing fifth column

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:25:19 +0000

Could you possibly be more vague?