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You bring up a core point and that is exactly why I am so against indoctrination. If a child is brainwashed into a religion, and then they grow up and send thei

You bring up a core point and that is exactly why I am so against indoctrination. If a child is brainwashed into a religion, and then they grow up and send their kid to get brainwashed the same way, did they really choose to have their kid brainwashed? The whole point of brainwashing is to force people to act a certain way. Did the law force them? No. Did their religious leaders and upbringing force them? In many cases, yes. Keep in mind that I am not against religious people. But, I believe everybody should have their right to choose their own religion. Indoctrination fights free choice of religion and that is why I am against it. And, public dollars should never go to religious organizations or anti-religious organizations. Otherwise, people are effectively forced to support financially religions that they oppose on moral grounds. Again, I am not against religion but I am against someone imposing their religion on others--even their own children.

grandalf 18y ago
If a parent can home school a kid and spend 2/3 of the day reading the bible, how can you even think that a voucher that may optionally be spent at an established parochial school even registers on the radar screen? If a parent can have a child's genitals mutilated just after birth (for religious or secular reasons), how can you say that allocating voucher money to a parochial school (a school which the parent is free to send the kid to w/o the voucher) even remotely registers on the radar screen for children's rights? I don't disagree with your points, but I think you are picking the wrong battle. The best antidote for religion is critical thinking, and an educational system with more choice will only help to engender such mental functioning on the part of students. Vouchers will also result in an influx of less faithful people to parochial schools and will create a wave of secularization, turning private schools less into religious orgs and making them more like regular businesses. Think about it this way, at present only the most faithful are willing to scrimp and save to send their kid to the parochial school, while with vouchers there would be a lot more secularists attending simply to get a better education.
- briansmith 18y ago
  I am completely against home schooling for exactly that reason. And, I am against circumcision when it isn't done for medical reasons. I agree with having choice in schools. I support vouchers and I support private schools. But, I don't support religious schools and I particular am against giving vouchers and other public money to religious schools. By the way, many (most) parochial schools already have their own financial aid systems. For example, my sister went to a Catholic high school for a year where she only paid $1,500 or so, whereas the wealthy students were paying many times that much in order to subsidize the less wealthy. Sometimes church funds go towards those scholarships too. That is why I am against public funding of religious schools; they effectively increase the church's general fund. Everybody should be free to contribute to their own church but nobody should be forced to pay even a penny to a church they oppose.
  - grandalf 18y ago
    On the subject of "public money", would you also vehemently oppose allowing a welfare recipient to spend money out of his/her welfare check at a church bake sale? Such behavior only increases the church's "general fund" and would seem to be equally distasteful to you. What about spending money from one's tax rebate on a church raffle? Also, how is anyone being forced to contribute money to a church they oppose? Are you saying that if my tax dollars went partially to the $0.50 someone used to purchase that donut at a Presbyterian bake sale, that my tax dollars are now being used to support a church I oppose?
    - briansmith 18y ago
      The cost (financially and ethically) of policing those things is not worth the cost of accepting them. I am not advocating a police state where every transaction is monitored. Instead, I am promoting individual freedom--the freedom for people to spend their money on only their own religion (if any). You keep using the word "distasteful" as though this is an issue of style instead of substance. It isn't; freedom of religion and the separation of church and state fundamental to our democracy.
      - 18y ago
tokenadult 18y ago
However, the system you object to actually exists in the real world, in the country of the Netherlands, and several of the worries you have about that system don't seem to appear. In the Netherlands, by that country's constitution for the last century, schools are funded on a per-capita basis, and they can be wholly secular, religiously affiliated (with several different religions well represented by large numbers of schools), or affiliated with specialized approaches to educational philosophy (e.g., Montessori or Waldorf). Grown-up Dutch people seem every bit as able to make up their own minds about what to believe as grown-up American people. In view of this empirical reality, it wouldn't worry me if willing learners obtained funding for education on a basis of all schooling providers being on an equal footing, with parents free to choose for their minor children which educational program was the best fit for the child. See Choice of Schools in Six Nations http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED316478&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED316478 http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordD... for history and current data on schools in the Netherlands in other countries.
- catz 18y ago
  > or affiliated with specialized approaches to educational philosophy (e.g., Montessori or Waldorf). That is true. Private schools can sidestep disastrous education philosophies that the government introduces through the public school system. A good example is my country's experiments in [Outcome Based Education](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome-based_education#OBE_around_the_world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome-based_education#OBE_aro...) (South Africa). It destroyed a fairly good (under the circumstances) education system in less than 5 years. People who now receive matriculation cannot spell, construct sentences or even do basic mathematics. I was involved in engineering education in 2007. The standards were dropped and even then the failure rates were astonishing (60%+ for single subjects). It is incredibly sad that a country's future was gambled on a failed education philosophy (which was chosen because it is politically acceptable).
catz 18y ago
> And, public dollars should never go to religious organizations or anti-religious organizations. You are acting as if these children's parents did not pay tax. They only get their own tax money back to spend it on their children's education as they see fit. What you propose is that we remove money from parents (through taxation) and force them to sent their children to school that you (or whoever) approved. > Again, I am not against religion but I am against someone imposing their religion on others--even their own children. You use the word indoctrination rather funny. It looks like to you, indoctrination is any teaching of anything which is not approved by you. A parent should have the full authority to teach his child whatever values and beliefs it is he wants the child to believe. It is not the responsibility of the state or you or anyone else to determine what a parent should teach his child. You are against a religious person teaching his beliefs onto his children. Yet you are for imposing your beliefs onto the children of other people. If you want to educate children in your beliefs then you can get your own children or adopt some – but do not try to force other parents what to do.
- briansmith 18y ago
  It is not true that they "only get their own tax money back". A tax rebate would have that effect. I am not opposed to refunding people's tax money; I am opposed to giving them somebody else's tax money to support their religion. The voucher program is not a tax rebate because the people that stand to benefit most from the voucher program do not pay enough property taxes to cover the cost of private schools if they those property tax payments were refunded to them. I never suggested that we force people to do anything. My whole argument is that we shouldn't force people to pay for religions they don't subscribe to. I never said that the state should force parents to raise their kids secularly. What I said is that we shouldn't give them money to raise them religiously. I am not trying to impose my beliefs on anybody, and I am not asking anybody for money to help me impose my beliefs. You keep trying to reframe my argument as anti-choise and anti-religion. It isn't the case. My argument is that the law should ensure that people should be able to choose NOT to support religious organizations they aren't members of, and we shouldn't take people's tax money and give it to religious organizations they oppose. (I do believe that parents should give their kids a serious means of choosing their own religion. But, I didn't say the state should force them to do so.)

grandalf 18y ago

If a parent can home school a kid and spend 2/3 of the day reading the bible, how can you even think that a voucher that may optionally be spent at an established parochial school even registers on the radar screen? If a parent can have a child's genitals mutilated just after birth (for religious or secular reasons), how can you say that allocating voucher money to a parochial school (a school which the parent is free to send the kid to w/o the voucher) even remotely registers on the radar screen for children's rights? I don't disagree with your points, but I think you are picking the wrong battle. The best antidote for religion is critical thinking, and an educational system with more choice will only help to engender such mental functioning on the part of students. Vouchers will also result in an influx of less faithful people to parochial schools and will create a wave of secularization, turning private schools less into religious orgs and making them more like regular businesses. Think about it this way, at present only the most faithful are willing to scrimp and save to send their kid to the parochial school, while with vouchers there would be a lot more secularists attending simply to get a better education.

briansmith 18y ago
I am completely against home schooling for exactly that reason. And, I am against circumcision when it isn't done for medical reasons. I agree with having choice in schools. I support vouchers and I support private schools. But, I don't support religious schools and I particular am against giving vouchers and other public money to religious schools. By the way, many (most) parochial schools already have their own financial aid systems. For example, my sister went to a Catholic high school for a year where she only paid $1,500 or so, whereas the wealthy students were paying many times that much in order to subsidize the less wealthy. Sometimes church funds go towards those scholarships too. That is why I am against public funding of religious schools; they effectively increase the church's general fund. Everybody should be free to contribute to their own church but nobody should be forced to pay even a penny to a church they oppose.
- grandalf 18y ago
  On the subject of "public money", would you also vehemently oppose allowing a welfare recipient to spend money out of his/her welfare check at a church bake sale? Such behavior only increases the church's "general fund" and would seem to be equally distasteful to you. What about spending money from one's tax rebate on a church raffle? Also, how is anyone being forced to contribute money to a church they oppose? Are you saying that if my tax dollars went partially to the $0.50 someone used to purchase that donut at a Presbyterian bake sale, that my tax dollars are now being used to support a church I oppose?
  - briansmith 18y ago
    The cost (financially and ethically) of policing those things is not worth the cost of accepting them. I am not advocating a police state where every transaction is monitored. Instead, I am promoting individual freedom--the freedom for people to spend their money on only their own religion (if any). You keep using the word "distasteful" as though this is an issue of style instead of substance. It isn't; freedom of religion and the separation of church and state fundamental to our democracy.
    - 18y ago

tokenadult 18y ago

However, the system you object to actually exists in the real world, in the country of the Netherlands, and several of the worries you have about that system don't seem to appear. In the Netherlands, by that country's constitution for the last century, schools are funded on a per-capita basis, and they can be wholly secular, religiously affiliated (with several different religions well represented by large numbers of schools), or affiliated with specialized approaches to educational philosophy (e.g., Montessori or Waldorf). Grown-up Dutch people seem every bit as able to make up their own minds about what to believe as grown-up American people. In view of this empirical reality, it wouldn't worry me if willing learners obtained funding for education on a basis of all schooling providers being on an equal footing, with parents free to choose for their minor children which educational program was the best fit for the child. See Choice of Schools in Six Nations http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED316478&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED316478 http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordD... for history and current data on schools in the Netherlands in other countries.

catz 18y ago
> or affiliated with specialized approaches to educational philosophy (e.g., Montessori or Waldorf). That is true. Private schools can sidestep disastrous education philosophies that the government introduces through the public school system. A good example is my country's experiments in [Outcome Based Education](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome-based_education#OBE_around_the_world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome-based_education#OBE_aro...) (South Africa). It destroyed a fairly good (under the circumstances) education system in less than 5 years. People who now receive matriculation cannot spell, construct sentences or even do basic mathematics. I was involved in engineering education in 2007. The standards were dropped and even then the failure rates were astonishing (60%+ for single subjects). It is incredibly sad that a country's future was gambled on a failed education philosophy (which was chosen because it is politically acceptable).

catz 18y ago

> And, public dollars should never go to religious organizations or anti-religious organizations. You are acting as if these children's parents did not pay tax. They only get their own tax money back to spend it on their children's education as they see fit. What you propose is that we remove money from parents (through taxation) and force them to sent their children to school that you (or whoever) approved. > Again, I am not against religion but I am against someone imposing their religion on others--even their own children. You use the word indoctrination rather funny. It looks like to you, indoctrination is any teaching of anything which is not approved by you. A parent should have the full authority to teach his child whatever values and beliefs it is he wants the child to believe. It is not the responsibility of the state or you or anyone else to determine what a parent should teach his child. You are against a religious person teaching his beliefs onto his children. Yet you are for imposing your beliefs onto the children of other people. If you want to educate children in your beliefs then you can get your own children or adopt some – but do not try to force other parents what to do.

briansmith 18y ago
It is not true that they "only get their own tax money back". A tax rebate would have that effect. I am not opposed to refunding people's tax money; I am opposed to giving them somebody else's tax money to support their religion. The voucher program is not a tax rebate because the people that stand to benefit most from the voucher program do not pay enough property taxes to cover the cost of private schools if they those property tax payments were refunded to them. I never suggested that we force people to do anything. My whole argument is that we shouldn't force people to pay for religions they don't subscribe to. I never said that the state should force parents to raise their kids secularly. What I said is that we shouldn't give them money to raise them religiously. I am not trying to impose my beliefs on anybody, and I am not asking anybody for money to help me impose my beliefs. You keep trying to reframe my argument as anti-choise and anti-religion. It isn't the case. My argument is that the law should ensure that people should be able to choose NOT to support religious organizations they aren't members of, and we shouldn't take people's tax money and give it to religious organizations they oppose. (I do believe that parents should give their kids a serious means of choosing their own religion. But, I didn't say the state should force them to do so.)