CDZ Religion in Schools

[oldsoul]

Dress codes are a good thing, though.

If your talking kids must wear pants, shirts and shoes yes. If your talking uniforms, no. Uniforms are nothing but an assault upon individualism based upon a perceived threat the government refuses to address and actually help create.

Another way of looking at it is that "uniforms" are generally required in most work one would endevor to do for pay. Now, I use the term "uniform" fairly loosely here. While a truck driver, like myself, is often expected to wear pants/shorts, shirt, and footwear (often times provided my employer) that is exactly (or materially) the same as everyone else in the company (in the same position); an accountant, for example, may only have general guidelines (i.e. button-up shirt and tie, slacks and dress shoes for men; and similar business dress for women). Of course there are jobs that have much lower standards (if any at all), such as factory workers; they may only be required to wear long pants, sturdy (steel-toed possibly) shoes, and refrain from wearing loose clothing.
Most of the positions I have held have had some sort of "uniform" or clearly defined "dress code" so everyone is a) safe, and b)presents an image the employer desires. So, having a strict "dress code" or even "uniforms" for high school is not just about avoiding problems (real or imagined), it is about prepairing students for the "real world" where they don't generally get to wear whatever suits their mood that day.

The business world dress codes are not even close to military uniform codes you suggest.

You obviously either have a reading comprehension problem, or didn't read my entire post. Try again.

I read it, and very few private businesses require uniforms. So my original post stands, dress codes are OK, school uniforms are not.

Top 10 Jobs with Uniforms
Imagine a world without nurses.
You will see that only 3 of the top 10 are Government jobs.

 

[OldLady]

I don't think studying the tenets of world religions in depth will actually promote better understanding or less xenophobia. Those biases are learned at home and in the community and a unit in Social Studies is not going to change that.

Using that logic, we should eliminate "Black History Month", because it serves no puropse.

The purpose here is to better understand the people of the world, all of them, not just the ones that live in a society similar to yours. It is not the only way to do this, nor is it the complete way. However, it is important to have a basic understanding of the various major cultures in the world. To do so, one MUST understand the basics of the major religions.

I don't run into you often, so let me explain I'm not a racist or a xenophobe. I just don't think high schoolers MUST be educated in the world's major religions and their basic tenets to have a functioning grasp of the world at large. A matter of fact presentation of very basic facts can be included in a Social Studies curriculum. Anything beyond that should be left to college.
You seem to think it will increase tolerance. I'm not sure it will. Do you REMEMBER what happened to the school district in Virginia whose students copied an Arab phrase? Protest went viral and the school district and the teacher were receiving such serious threats they had to shut down all schools in town for safety reasons.
It would be wise, I think, to leave religious studies out of public schools.

 

[GaryDog]

Indeed, the way living things behave is evidence. It is not, however, evidence of a creator. The reason for this is because all of the natural, evolutionary explanations for how animals have evolved, continents have formed, oceans have filled with life, etc., have been tested, retested, observed, and yet to be proven false. EVEN DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE ENTIRE GOAL OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY IS TO TRY AND DISPROVE VARIOUS HYPOTHESES BY TESTING THEM.

Except they're not interested in disproving any of them, because they get paid to research them. As I explained, if you disprove a theory, you no longer research it, and no longer get paid. You also have yet to explain how, if there's no creator, this planet and everything on it even came into existence. Besides that, God's existence isn't even the main reason I explained for religion being taught in schools. It's an important part of history. Though, I get your resistance to it, Atheists won't be happy unless no form of belief is being taught in schools, and religious people won't be happy unless it is.

You cannot test the "god" hypothesis. There's no evidence whatsoever that it exists. Frankly, your posts seems to smack of a wholesale denial of scientific evidence in general. Which is rather odd, considering it is the very scientific method you doubt that has allowed you to type words on to a computer screen, and send those electronic messages over a network to be read by people 10,000 miles from you, almost instantaneously.

Unlike a good 80% of the things they tell us we should believe, I can see and experience computers. Massive difference between being able to experience something and taking their word for it. A big problem I have with people like you is that what you do is exactly that, take their word for it because they're "experts". Clearly anything and everything an expert says is instantly true, regardless of whether you can verify it or not.

You rely on science when you fly in a plane. You don't "doubt" the very real evidence of thrust and lift, and how it makes flight possible, because you have evidence, i.e. you have likely flown on several successful flights. Moreover, when planes lose thrust, lose lift, or suffer other mechanical failures, they crash. Gravity is real. We see it every day. So it goes with evolution. And so it does NOT go with the idea of a creator. You can have faith, sure. But you have no scientific basis to back up your "faith".

Uh. No, no it doesn't. We can see and experience gravity. We cannot see and experience "evolution", we've only heard these "experts" telling us that it's totally a thing that happened. I'd also like to point out that I never said that Christianity or any form of belief in a God was my faith. I'm just calling this from both perspectives rather than just assuming one belief or lack there of is instantly fact because it's what more closely aligns with what I think. As of right now, all you've really said is that "It shouldn't be taught because I think it's not real". Well, guys, I guess we shouldn't have religion taught in schools because Gary doesn't believe in it. Let's just ignore EVERYONE ELSE who also has an opinion on that.

And scientific "facts" are the closest thing we have to certainty. Does that mean that every scientific theory is impossible to disprove? Of course not. But you interpret that as a weakness. In fact, this is science's strength; it is open to new interpretations if new evidence comes to light. That's why it's reliable. It's constantly subject to scrutiny by learned scientists. Anything that is vetted that carefully is bound to be more reliable.

Actually, experiencing something ourselves is the closest thing we have to certainty. Besides that, something being "Close enough" doesn't mean we should instantly believe anything that reaches that point. Furthermore, I didn't say it was a strength or weakness for something to be proven or disproven. What I did say was that nobody is willing to disprove a theory, because so long as they can research it, they continue making money.

God is a wild guess. The bible is dogma that refuses to change. All of the bible was written thousands of years before anything resembling modern science ever came to fruition. Microbes, viruses, bacteria, the stars, the sun, etc., were all mysteries to the people who wrote the bible. They used that to explain what they didn't understand.

Not exactly a wild guess, it's a belief that the world is intelligently designed, which does look like a possibility, apparently to a lot of people..

We used to believe that god spontaneously regenerated maggots in trash. We later learned that maggots are the larvae stage for flies, which laid eggs in the trash. We used to believe that the world was flat. However, observations by sailors over centuries, including horizon views, circumnavigation of the globe, and eventually photos from space, disproved that hypothesis. Does that means we could one day prove the world is NOT a sphere? Um, I guess.....but how much money would you put on that?

Yet today we still pass obvious fallacy off as fact, and assume everyone is too stupid to figure it out. Are they wrong? In a lot of cases, no, I've met more people that believe the Food Pyramid is always correct, that Global Climate Change is a fact, and that ADHD isn't a myth. Everyone should always doubt.

Scientists would be out of a job if they disproved a theory? Uh, no. Any scientist who disproves Darwinian evolution will be the most famous scientist in the world overnight and would be a shoo-in for the Nobel Prize. I'm sorry, but you simply don't know what you're talking about.

No, they'd put lots of other people out of a job, and they would be rejected by everyone else in the scientific community for disproving a source of money for them.

It's pastors and priests and televangelists who stand to lose their job if they can't continue to get enough people to believe in mythos so they can fill their coffers. You have it backward.

Because Pastors make a ton of money, right?

Yes, pastors make a ton of money, tax free. Ever heard of Joel Osteen?

Why do you keep saying that if scientists "disprove" a theory they're out of a job? Where do you get this garbage? What are you reading?

Global Climate Change is real. Evolution is real, and yes, we experience it. Hell, it was your VERY FIRST experience. You started as a uni-cellular organism. A zygote. Then you evolved into a human from there, going through a continuum of changes that didn't resemble a human. There was a study at Michigan State that revolved around bacteria evolving as conditions changed. We very much can, and do, experience and witness evolution in our lifetimes. Regardless, if you think it's not possible to prove something without personally experiencing it, then prove to me that World War II happened. You're being ridiculous.

The world is "intelligently designed" according to a "lot of people"? Great. A lot of people also think Muhammed flew out of Mecca, that cows are sacred beasts, and that women should not be allowed to leave their house without a male relative. That's called the appeal to popularity fallacy.

We've not made it this far with antibiotics and technology and food production without people challenging the status quo. Sure, there are instances where technological changes will put some people out of a job, but it also creates new jobs. It's a push and a pull. You seem to think science is one big monolith of people in an ivory tower. You simply don't know anything about science, evolution, or even evidence. Is home-schooling the problem?

 

[320 Years of History]

If your talking kids must wear pants, shirts and shoes yes. If your talking uniforms, no. Uniforms are nothing but an assault upon individualism based upon a perceived threat the government refuses to address and actually help create.

Another way of looking at it is that "uniforms" are generally required in most work one would endeavor to do for pay. Now, I use the term "uniform" fairly loosely here. While a truck driver, like myself, is often expected to wear pants/shorts, shirt, and footwear (often times provided my employer) that is exactly (or materially) the same as everyone else in the company (in the same position); an accountant, for example, may only have general guidelines (i.e. button-up shirt and tie, slacks and dress shoes for men; and similar business dress for women).

Of course there are jobs that have much lower standards (if any at all), such as factory workers; they may only be required to wear long pants, sturdy (steel-toed possibly) shoes, and refrain from wearing loose clothing.

Most of the positions I have held have had some sort of "uniform" or clearly defined "dress code" so everyone is a) safe, and b)presents an image the employer desires. So, having a strict "dress code" or even "uniforms" for high school is not just about avoiding problems (real or imagined), it is about preparing students for the "real world" where they don't generally get to wear whatever suits their mood that day.

The business world dress codes are not even close to military uniform codes you suggest.

You obviously either have a reading comprehension problem, or didn't read my entire post. Try again.

I read it, and very few private businesses require uniforms. So my original post stands, dress codes are OK, school uniforms are not.

Top 10 Jobs with Uniforms
Imagine a world without nurses.
You will see that only 3 of the top 10 are Government jobs.

Lord, have mercy.....I have no idea how this thread has morphed, at least briefly, into a discussion about uniforms and their implications....I also don't care to find out.

As a point of fact, however, I think there's a strong case for there being four job categories in the list that count as ones largely offered by public employers. Yes, police forces and DoD workers are nearly 100% on the government payroll. Firefighters often are, but not always. I suspect that about as many lifeguards are employed by municipalities and states as are employed by privately owned pools.

In consideration of Weatherman's assertion that "very few private businesses require uniforms," I am inclined to agree with him on that point of fact.

That said, I understand the "loosely constructed" interpretation of "uniform" you've applied in your narrative. For years, the dark suit with a white or light blue shirt and suitable necktie that IBM's sales and management personnel wear have been collectively referred to as a uniform. Even so, I don't think that's what anyone means or envisions when they think or write of uniforms.

From a sociological standpoint, uniforms communicate clear messages about the people who wear them, usually something having to do with the wearers' roles, responsibilities and/or rank. (Which of those messages are received, garbled, misconstrued, over-extended, over-simplified, ignored, etc. is a different matter.) Consider the following:

• You observe 100 feet distant a person wearing what appears to be a policeman's uniform. Now whether or not that individual is actually a police officer, you will perceive them as in some way being an agent of upholding law, order and security. It is only upon closer inspection that you'll determine the extent to which they can or are obliged to do so, as befits whether their uniform confirms they are, say, a police officer or a security guard, or merely someone masquerading as something akin to either.
• You observe 100 feet distant a person wearing a suit. Though you don't know what they do, you do know they are unlikely to be the person to whom you should reach out for the sort of aid a police officer might provide. If you approach them and observe a discreet earpiece attached to a cord in their ear, you may infer they are some sort of security officer and may at least ask them for input, if not express and direct aid, re: your safety/security concern. If you don't see any indicators that the person may be a security professional of some sort, you'll likely keep looking for someone in a cops' uniform.

The above is just one example. There are many, but all that differs is the nature of the message and its clarity. Uniforms like cop uniforms send very clear messages. "Uniforms" like IBM-er attire send far more vague messages. That they do is why they are not considered truly to be uniforms.

 

[pwjohn]

So, I've been thinking (I know, a dangerous thing to do), and I am wondering what people would think of an idea I have had for some time. So, here goes:

What if we, as a society, taught our children about all of the major religions of the world?

• First question I had was: How do we determine the "major" religions of the world? For the sake of this debate, we'll say the threshold is 10% of the world population. The following link provides a chart showing just that. Major Religions Ranked by Size
• Second question was: Do we teach just the basics, or include details such as the various sects, if any, within a given religion? I think we should include the primary sects. I don't wish to get into how to determine this(as I don't have a good answer), but I think it is important to understand the differences between the primary sects, in order to get a good picture of the religion as a whole.
• The third, and final question I had was: Why/ why not? Here is where I hope we can focus our discussion.

I, for one am in favor of teaching the major religions of the world, including the "non-religious" as defined in the above link. I mean why not? There are two main reasons for this:

1. Most importantly, for me at least, is to gain an understanding of our "global neighbours". Let's face it, we are a global society and will be for the forseeable future, so we really should understand how different people think, and live. One way to do this is to study religions.
2. There are a lot of valuable lessons to be learned from religious teachings such as:

• The golden rule
• Many of the "Ten Comandments", those governing behaviour within a society.
• Ways of looking at the world
• Ect.

By no means do I envision getting into an indepth theological comparison between the various religions, nor do I envision even discussing who is "right" and so forth. I see these as very personal topics and would be of little value in the scope of learning the basics.

So, what do you think? Why, or why not (please explain yourself)? Should we go about his a different way?

A complete waste of time. Let the church teach religion.

 

[320 Years of History]

So, I've been thinking (I know, a dangerous thing to do), and I am wondering what people would think of an idea I have had for some time. So, here goes:

What if we, as a society, taught our children about all of the major religions of the world?

• First question I had was: How do we determine the "major" religions of the world? For the sake of this debate, we'll say the threshold is 10% of the world population. The following link provides a chart showing just that. Major Religions Ranked by Size
• Second question was: Do we teach just the basics, or include details such as the various sects, if any, within a given religion? I think we should include the primary sects. I don't wish to get into how to determine this(as I don't have a good answer), but I think it is important to understand the differences between the primary sects, in order to get a good picture of the religion as a whole.
• The third, and final question I had was: Why/ why not? Here is where I hope we can focus our discussion.

I, for one am in favor of teaching the major religions of the world, including the "non-religious" as defined in the above link. I mean why not? There are two main reasons for this:

1. Most importantly, for me at least, is to gain an understanding of our "global neighbours". Let's face it, we are a global society and will be for the forseeable future, so we really should understand how different people think, and live. One way to do this is to study religions.
2. There are a lot of valuable lessons to be learned from religious teachings such as:

• The golden rule
• Many of the "Ten Comandments", those governing behaviour within a society.
• Ways of looking at the world
• Ect.

By no means do I envision getting into an indepth theological comparison between the various religions, nor do I envision even discussing who is "right" and so forth. I see these as very personal topics and would be of little value in the scope of learning the basics.

So, what do you think? Why, or why not (please explain yourself)? Should we go about his a different way?

A complete waste of time. Let the church teach religion.

Red:
Well, we've been doing that for literally hundreds of years. I think most folks on both sides of this issue will agree that created just one mess after another right up to today.

"Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results."​

 

[Pumpkin Row]

Yes, pastors make a ton of money, tax free. Ever heard of Joel Osteen?

Because every Pastor is Joel Osteen?

Why do you keep saying that if scientists "disprove" a theory they're out of a job? Where do you get this garbage? What are you reading?

Because if a theory is disproved, the people researching that theory are out of a job. They won't be researching it anymore, because it would have been disproven.

Global Climate Change is real. Evolution is real,

Oh, you ARE one of those people that takes everything scientists tell us as fact. I suppose I'm talking to a brick wall, aren't I?

and yes, we experience it. Hell, it was your VERY FIRST experience. You started as a uni-cellular organism. A zygote. Then you evolved into a human from there, going through a continuum of changes that didn't resemble a human.

That's not evolving, that's like telling me that a Tad Pole evolves into a Frog.

Regardless, if you think it's not possible to prove something without personally experiencing it, then prove to me that World War II happened. You're being ridiculous.

That's something experienced by most of the world in recent history. We still have veterans living today that have experienced World War II. We could even just visit Japan, I'm sure they're still upset over it~

The world is "intelligently designed" according to a "lot of people"? Great. A lot of people also think Muhammed flew out of Mecca, that cows are sacred beasts, and that women should not be allowed to leave their house without a male relative. That's called the appeal to popularity fallacy.

And teaching a class that people happen to believe those things won't cause any sort of issue, because it's not as though you're wrong. Telling a class about other beliefs is still education.

You seem to think science is one big monolith of people in an ivory tower. You simply don't know anything about science, evolution, or even evidence. Is home-schooling the problem?

That would be a neat-looking building. No, though, but I do know that just like politicians, they're influenced by money, and an agenda.

 

[320 Years of History]

pastors make a ton of money, tax free.

You may want to rethink that....Ministers and Taxes - TurboTax Tax Tips & Videos and Why Pastors Must Pay Federal Income Taxes. Ministers may pay self-employment tax (SET) on their income, rather than payroll taxes, provided they're self employed. The SET is essentially the same thing as the SSI and Medicare payroll taxes, the major difference, largely a semantic one, being that if one is not an employee, one is not on a payroll, and if one is not on a payroll, one cannot be assessed payroll taxes.

 

[Picaro]

Yes, pastors make a ton of money, tax free. Ever heard of Joel Osteen?

Pastors don't make a lot of money tax free; they pay income taxes like everybody else. You don't have a clue as to what you're talking about. He even pays the bills on those halls and stadiums he holds his tour speeches in. He doesn't make any money off of those, either.

Joel Osteen makes a ton of money all right, but not from his church salary; he doesn't have one, and in fact paid off all of his church's debts out of his own pocket, hardly the acts of a 'con artist'.

Why is it most of those riding around in the Xian Hater clown cars can't seem to get even basic facts right? Aren't they supposed to be all about 'evidence' and 'rationalism' n stuff? Why is it it's usually 'atheists' who are the most ignorant liars and crazies?

I used to identify as an atheist, but now I prefer agnostic, in the sense Thomas Huxley invented the term, because nobody with any sense wants to be associated with the Dawkins imbecility and his cult of nutjobs and sociopaths.

 

[Picaro]

pastors make a ton of money, tax free.

You may want to rethink that....Ministers and Taxes - TurboTax Tax Tips & Videos and Why Pastors Must Pay Federal Income Taxes. Ministers may pay self-employment tax (SET) on their income, rather than payroll taxes, provided they're self employed. The SET is essentially the same thing as the SSI and Medicare payroll taxes, the major difference, largely a semantic one, being that if one is not an employee, one is not on a payroll, and if one is not on a payroll, one cannot be assessed payroll taxes.

A few do pay actual salaries, but very few; most of the rest are 'subcontractors', and receive 1099's every year as such. I think the Catholics pay regular salaries like regular employees, but I'm not sure if that is still the case.

In Joel Osteen's case, he has had over 20 best selling books; his last deal with Time/Warner I believe, was some $12 or $14 million up front. He has drawn no salary or reimbursements from his church there in Houston for some 10 years now, and paid off some millions of its debts to boot. It costs about $30-$40 million a year to run the place and all of its programs, maintenance, utilities, etc., etc.

 

[320 Years of History]

It's not cool to not know what you're talking about.
-- Barrack Obama​

Because if a theory is disproved, the people researching that theory are out of a job. They won't be researching it anymore, because it would have been disproven.

??? Wow! You really don't understand much about scientists, scholarly research, falsifiability, peer review, burden of proof, science and the scientific method. That's a whole lot of "stuff" to not understand well, and yet expect to be taken seriously, much less to be taken as having enough intellectual integrity that one's comments should be given any attention at all, to say nothing of making the comments in the first place. It's fine not to know/understand something well and ask questions about it in an effort to understand it; it's totally irresponsible to make statements about that something while one is in that state of ignorance.

The job of a scientist/researcher is to determine whether something is so or is not so. They will retain their job regardless of whether they show a theor to be false, largely false, somewhat false, somewhat true, largely true, or true. They do not risk losing their jobs for doing any one of those things.

Scientists are at risk of losing their jobs for all the same qualitative reasons - slovenly or perfunctory performance -- any worker may lose their job. Additionally, scientists put their jobs, lo their whole careers, at risk if it's determined that they have paltered, prevaricated or boldly lied in their presentations of their research findings. Failing to produce original research is another thing that can get a scientist fired because all research scientists (PhDs of any sort, not just science PhDs) are tasked with doing must be original explorations of something; they must produce answers to questions for which no credible direct answer currently exists. That's what is meant by "contributing to the body of knowledge in a field." Obviously, some things they "figure out" are "big deals," and others are not such "big deals."

The peer review process is the check/balance used by scholarly journals, research organizations, and academia use to confirm the veracity and rigor of the information scientists and other researchers publish as the findings of their research. There are several approaches to performing peer review. Three of the most common:

• Critically examining the methodology a researcher uses and determining whether there are minor, medium or gross flaws in that methodology.
• Identifying the predictions that a paper's conclusions imply and testing to determine whether those implications materialize as implied.
• Replicating the approach a study's authors used and checking to see if the same results are obtained.

In addition to the above noted varied approaches to performing a review, there are also three primary types of peer review. A sample peer review process a journal or book publisher may employ is shown below.

The three major types of peer review are:

Single Blind Review
The names of the reviewers are hidden from the author. This is the traditional method of reviewing and is the most common type by far.

• Reviewer anonymity allows for impartial decisions – the reviewers will not be influenced by the authors.
• Authors may be concerned that reviewers in their field could delay publication, giving the reviewers a chance to publish first.
• Reviewers may use their anonymity as justification for being unnecessarily critical or harsh when commenting on the authors’ work.

Double Blind Review
Both the reviewer and the author are anonymous.

• Author anonymity prevents any reviewer bias, for example based on an author's country of origin or previous controversial work.
• Articles written by prestigious or renowned authors are considered on the basis of the content of their papers, rather than their reputation.
• Reviewers can often identify the author through their writing style, subject matter or self-citation.

Open Review
Reviewer and author are known to each other.

• Some believe this is the best way to prevent malicious comments, stop plagiarism, prevent reviewers from following their own agenda, and encourage open, honest reviewing.
• Others see open review as a less honest process, in which politeness or fear of retribution may cause a reviewer to withhold or tone down criticism.

Based on the feedback journal editors receive from reviewers, they may, at their discretion, ask the original author to address or correct for the failings identified in the reviews. They may also summarily reject the article and say nothing other than "We're sorry we cannot publish your paper. We encourage you to try again." Here are some review documents. Read or peruse some of them to get a sense of the nature and extent of critique provided by peer review. (Obviously, the review writers don't say anything (or much of anything) about that which they know isn't questionable or problematic.)

For lay readers, who the peer reviewers are and the documentation of their review activities isn't always made public. What one can rely upon, however, is that if the reviewers find material shortcomings in a researcher's approach, premises, findings, inferences, conclusions, etc., the paper won't get published in a peer reviewed journal.

There is also a class of publication that may or may not appear in a peer reviewed journal, but that carries the same level of intellectual and factual rigor and integrity. That class of documents consists of master's theses and doctoral dissertations. Why is this class of research viewed with equal authority as peer reviewed studies? Because in order to get the degree (Masters or Doctoral), one's research necessarily gets reviewed by a whole panel of folks who do the same things re: one's document/research as peer reviewers do with the content they review for scholarly journals. Of then the sole reason a scholarly and peer reviewed journal won't publish a dissertation is because the person hadn't yet obtained their PhD when they wrote it.

Sidebar:

There are some fields where that strict qualification is not required, for example, the law, wherein controversy rages still over whether a JD, SJD or LLM legitimately constitutes the legal industry's equivalent of a PhD. The legal profession argues that a J.D., a graduate degree, is equal to a PhD and that the SJD and LLM degrees are post-graduate degrees. There isn't, that I know of, and controversy over whether and SJD is a research degree; it is. Similarly, an LLM is generally thought of as a academic/teaching degree. A JD is a professional degree, what one needs to practice law as opposed to research or teach it, even though lots of law school instructors have no legal degree other than a JD. Controversy or not, most peer reviewed law journals accept and publish submissions from folks who have "only" a JD.​

End of sidebar.

The short of all that is that one need not be among the individuals invited to perform a peer review; however, if one is going to critique and deny the veracity of a peer reviewed journal article, one should be prepared to perform one of the approaches to doing so and then fully document that approach with data, methodology, and, in the case of non-technical research analysis, very rigorously developed and presented inductive arguments.

The rigor that goes into developing and scrutinizing peer reviewed papers is why I tend to cite them far more often than popular press content and blogs. The thing about scholarly articles/papers is that they don't "leap up and scream 'Hey, over here. Over here.' " One must go looking for them when one has a question about a topic, and sometimes one must read a few of them to get the answer one seeks. That's especially so when one can only come by very narrowly scoped papers....one sometimes is forced to "put two and two together" oneself using the content from multiple papers. (A special type of scholarly document that helps with that is called a "literature review" or "literature summary." It's a document wherein a researcher has gathered all, or substantively so, the existing rigorous thought on a topic and noted what each writer has discovered. Not every researcher publishes their literature review, but you can rest assured that every researcher (or their graduate or post-doc assistants) perform them.)

Lastly, when you encounter various publications, it'll be important to understand what degree of confidence you should reasonably have in the veracity, rigor and credibility of their content. To that end, you will likely find this helpful: Definitions - Article Types: What's the Difference Between Newspapers, Magazines, and Journals? - LibGuides at University of North Florida .

I suppose I'm talking to a brick wall, aren't I?

My answer is that I suspect that to be so...only if you are looking in a mirror while you talk.

 

[Pumpkin Row]

They must not be all that much at risk if they're still passing off the things I mentioned as fact. Thanks for the info-dump, though, I always wanted a semi-in-depth explanation of the process.

 

[320 Years of History]

They must not be all that much at risk if they're still passing off the things I mentioned as fact. Thanks for the info-dump, though, I always wanted a semi-in-depth explanation of the process.

Excuse me? What are you alleging scientists have attempted in peer reviewed papers to pass off as fact something you know, in contravention of those scientists, is not so?

Red:
You're welcome.

 

[Pumpkin Row]

Excuse me? What are you alleging scientists have attempted in peer reviewed papers to pass off as fact something you know, in contravention of those scientists, is not so?

You know, it really depends on how much the establishment pays them off.

 

[Picaro]

Excuse me? What are you alleging scientists have attempted in peer reviewed papers to pass off as fact something you know, in contravention of those scientists, is not so?

You know, it really depends on how much the establishment pays them off.

there is a site that keeps tabs on Doctoral theses and scientific journal submissions and collects data on falsifications of data and the like; I'll try and dig it up a link for you, but the last stats I recall, from 2013 or so, is that around 35% of them were falsified to varying degrees or contained claimed results others were unable to reproduce. Some papers also never get 'peer reviewed' because of political reasons, as they have results the PC types automatically reject without review; this latter is particularly frequent in the psychiatric, psychological, and sociological disciplines. They have little credibility as professions any more as a result, and certainly almost no scientific credibility, well, except to those whose biaises they pander to, of course.

 

[320 Years of History]

Excuse me? What are you alleging scientists have attempted in peer reviewed papers to pass off as fact something you know, in contravention of those scientists, is not so?

You know, it really depends on how much the establishment pays them off.

Bless your heart....

 

[Picaro]

They must not be all that much at risk if they're still passing off the things I mentioned as fact. Thanks for the info-dump, though, I always wanted a semi-in-depth explanation of the process.

Well, don't get dazzled by the 'process', as it is still largely determined by the biases of the individual 'peers' doing the review. Pravda had all kinds of 'peers' reviewing their reports, too, as did Soviet 'science', and if you know anything about academia and its politics, there is far less than meets the eye re 'peer reviews', and that includes hard sciences; the whole 'process' of becoming a 'peer' in the first place is also not all that impressive in its objectivity, either. At most public universities now, for instance, if an applicant notes being a member of a Christian sect in their applications they are automatically rejected for any teaching position, regardless of credentials and ability in most disciplines, and even if they somehow get hired they are never going to get tenure, period.

 

[Picaro]

So, I've been thinking (I know, a dangerous thing to do), and I am wondering what people would think of an idea I have had for some time. So, here goes:

What if we, as a society, taught our children about all of the major religions of the world?

• First question I had was: How do we determine the "major" religions of the world? For the sake of this debate, we'll say the threshold is 10% of the world population. The following link provides a chart showing just that. Major Religions Ranked by Size
• Second question was: Do we teach just the basics, or include details such as the various sects, if any, within a given religion? I think we should include the primary sects. I don't wish to get into how to determine this(as I don't have a good answer), but I think it is important to understand the differences between the primary sects, in order to get a good picture of the religion as a whole.
• The third, and final question I had was: Why/ why not? Here is where I hope we can focus our discussion.

I, for one am in favor of teaching the major religions of the world, including the "non-religious" as defined in the above link. I mean why not? There are two main reasons for this:

1. Most importantly, for me at least, is to gain an understanding of our "global neighbours". Let's face it, we are a global society and will be for the forseeable future, so we really should understand how different people think, and live. One way to do this is to study religions.
2. There are a lot of valuable lessons to be learned from religious teachings such as:

• The golden rule
• Many of the "Ten Comandments", those governing behaviour within a society.
• Ways of looking at the world
• Ect.

By no means do I envision getting into an indepth theological comparison between the various religions, nor do I envision even discussing who is "right" and so forth. I see these as very personal topics and would be of little value in the scope of learning the basics.

So, what do you think? Why, or why not (please explain yourself)? Should we go about his a different way?

They should learn about the actual theologies of the major religions, yes. They should also learn that they are not 'equivalent', or all 'equally bad or good', and some are indeed far better than others as a philosophy and model for societies, using comparative results of their influences on culture and progress. But that would make the PC Nazis go nuts, so it won't happen, as the one that would win hands down in all categories is a target for extermination and genocide at the moment, especially re academia, as it doesn't endorse anal sex between mentally ill males as normal and wonderful, which is the current criteria by which a society is judged these days.

 

[OldLady]

So, I've been thinking (I know, a dangerous thing to do), and I am wondering what people would think of an idea I have had for some time. So, here goes:

What if we, as a society, taught our children about all of the major religions of the world?

• First question I had was: How do we determine the "major" religions of the world? For the sake of this debate, we'll say the threshold is 10% of the world population. The following link provides a chart showing just that. Major Religions Ranked by Size
• Second question was: Do we teach just the basics, or include details such as the various sects, if any, within a given religion? I think we should include the primary sects. I don't wish to get into how to determine this(as I don't have a good answer), but I think it is important to understand the differences between the primary sects, in order to get a good picture of the religion as a whole.
• The third, and final question I had was: Why/ why not? Here is where I hope we can focus our discussion.

I, for one am in favor of teaching the major religions of the world, including the "non-religious" as defined in the above link. I mean why not? There are two main reasons for this:

1. Most importantly, for me at least, is to gain an understanding of our "global neighbours". Let's face it, we are a global society and will be for the forseeable future, so we really should understand how different people think, and live. One way to do this is to study religions.
2. There are a lot of valuable lessons to be learned from religious teachings such as:

• The golden rule
• Many of the "Ten Comandments", those governing behaviour within a society.
• Ways of looking at the world
• Ect.

By no means do I envision getting into an indepth theological comparison between the various religions, nor do I envision even discussing who is "right" and so forth. I see these as very personal topics and would be of little value in the scope of learning the basics.

So, what do you think? Why, or why not (please explain yourself)? Should we go about his a different way?

They should learn about the actual theologies of the major religions, yes. They should also learn that they are not 'equivalent', or all 'equally bad or good', and some are indeed far better than others as a philosophy and model for societies, using comparative results of their influences on culture and progress. But that would make the PC Nazis go nuts, so it won't happen, as the one that would win hands down in all categories is a target for extermination and genocide at the moment, especially re academia, as it doesn't endorse anal sex between mentally ill males as normal and wonderful, which is the current criteria by which a society is judged these days.

Your response is a perfect example of why the study of major religions should not be required in public schools. It is too difficult for us to keep our opinions out of it.

 

[320 Years of History]

Your response is a perfect example of why the study of major religions should not be required in public schools. It is too difficult for us to keep our opinions out of it.

It's not a matter of ease or difficulty. It's a matter of will. We know that because the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.