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Post by Askel McThurkill on Sept 16, 2014 13:55:29 GMT
Can I throw a little perspective on Dr Selim's remarks from the heart of Dublin?
Once upon a time, James'es Hospital was the hospital of choice of the residents of Little Jerusalem, as the area around the South Circular Road and Clanbrassil St was known. Christmas in and Christmas out, the staff erected a crib. No one - Jew or Gentile - had any problem with this.
Then, there was an influx of Dr Selim's denomination in the same area. Suddenly, there were objections to the crib. And some PC-administrator upheld these.
Yes, give Muslims religious rights, but balance them against existing rights. What the likes of Ronan McCrea want to do is use Selim's article to nullify the rights Catholics enjoy to placate Muslims, while not granting any of the Muslim demands. Secularism masquerades as a neutral party, as an honest broker, yet seeks to impose its contentless philosophy, its nihilism, on all. What a collection of well paid useful idiots this age has thrown up.
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 18, 2014 21:57:07 GMT
This article on the Scottish independence referendum by the well-known Catholic philosopher John Haldane (who teaches at St Andrews') has some useful discussion of the current secularist attack on state-funded Catholic schools there. Note how he picks up on the logical implication of the view that denominational education is divisive - that the mere existence of different faith communities is divisive and the government should actively seek to undermine them. Paul Blanshard the American atheist who wrote neo-nativist attacks on Catholicism in the 1940s and 1950s (including THE IRISH AND CATHOLIC POWER, holding up the Ireland of the day as an Awful Warning of what would happen to America if Popery were left unchecked) adopted a very similar view - that the state should actively seek to undermine religious adherence, and for this purpose it was vital that religious schools should be excluded from government support. When you read Blanshard now, it is really alarming to see how many of his more outrageous attitudes and suggestions have become common wisdom in certain circles. (They haven't got round to his bright idea that bishops should be declared foreign agents and stripped of their citizenship, but give them time.) www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/09/reflections-on-scotland-on-the-eve-of-the-referendumEXTRACT the Scottish Human Rights Commission, established by the Scottish Parliament, proposes that “The Draft Guidance should be amended to include an explicit recognition of the child’s right to effective sexual and reproductive health education at the outset. . . . [T]he parental right to ensure education according to their religious and philosophical convictions is subsidiary to the child’s right to education.” This would hand the determination of what counts as “effective sexual and reproductive health education” to a source other than parents and one potentially at odds with their deepest convictions about the human good and the interests of their children... The place of religion in education is certainly an issue apt for dispute given the depth and importance of the matters it deals with. It needs to be allowed, therefore, that this is an area in which agreement is unlikely to be easily reached or long maintained. The main charges against Scottish Catholic schools are that they are socially divisive, encouraging religious intolerance and practicing indoctrination rather than education. In a trivial sense, social division is implied by the truth that no two schools are identical; and, without clear evidence of detrimental effects on social cohesion resulting from the existence of such schools, there is no reason to think that diversity is intrinsically divisive in some substantial sense. Indeed, diversity may enrich society. The reply that religion is still a mark of basic social divisions and that separate schooling sustains these, reveals that the real target is not denominational schools but the very existence of religious communities. Even if uniform secularism could be secured it would be an abuse of the education system to use it to eliminate diversity of fundamental beliefs and practices. To engage in this would be to practice precisely that vice of which advocates of religious schools stand accused, namely, failing to respect the autonomy of those in their charge. Any move to eliminate denominational schools against the interest and expressed desire of the communities they serve would simultaneously breach liberal political principles, violate international conventions, and conflict with existing statutory provisions. Even so, the move in that direction is evident in the rhetoric of a ” Progressive Scotland.” It is this ideological and evangelizing secularism that poses the greatest threat to the future of the Catholic faith in Scotland: first, by attacking its character and credentials, second by restricting its expression, and third by limiting its scope for education. END OF EXTRACT
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Sept 19, 2014 7:54:41 GMT
Scotland has rejected full independence, but this will make very little difference as it is promised "devo max" instead, which the British Government originally insisted would not go on the ballot paper. The developing state appears secular from the outset. But this is how things are developing elsewhere and there is little to choose from between Alex Salmond and David Cameron. The major point is that Scotland are a test case.
But the bit that gets me, the bit that should get anyone who read Dalrymple (who incidentally got it wrong in saying Scotland is subsidised by London; Scotland is a net contributor) is that the secularists in education, in Scotland and elsewhere, are in denial about the long term effects of their policies. Perhaps they are just interested in pandering to Globalist multinationals who want the adult population saturated in post-Christian lifestyle that they don't realise that this is economically unsustainable.
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 2, 2014 22:12:17 GMT
The Scottish blogger Lazarus offers some warnings on how the idea of teaching philosophy in schools (which we hear much discussed in Ireland as well these days) is likely to work out in practice if left to some of the secularists who are advocating it. Much of what he says applies to our old friend "values clarification" as well: EXTRACT ...Now, I don't have immensely strong views on whether there should be a GCSE (or the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence equivalent) in schools. But to the extent I had to give an answer, I'd probably be against it. I'm not against the open discussion of ideas, but (having children of that sort of age myself) I'm aware of the limitations of 'open' discussion at schools. You have the immense difference in power relationship between teacher and student. You have a a social climate which is very open to discussing some 'faiths and dogmas' and very closed to discussing others. You have the difficulty in finding teachers who are sufficiently wise to replace Socrates. You have the ignorance (inevitable) of the young. You have the limited sense of what 'philosophy' involves. (I'd be delighted to think that GCSE philosophy would involve disruptive interventions such as practicals in Iamblichean theurgy or studies of Heidegger's Nazism, but I suspect not...) It's all difficult enough in the context of a full time university degree in philosophy. But squeezed within schools? I suspect what you'd get (in a phrase I've only just come across but which I intend using a lot) 'philosophes de service': philosophy put at the service of a certain complacent and 'modern' worldview rather than a true, Socratic search for wisdom. It all reminds me of that ghastly sense which you sometimes (rather too often) get in the Catholic Church that every theologian you meet is a heretic. I wouldn't mind so much if these were intellectuals who sometimes, at least in the dark of the night, wondered if they might, just possibly be wrong. But too often it's some ghastly blend of magisterial phenomenology (compare its near relation, Oxbridge analyticism), a battering of words from which the student emerges dazed and able to be pointed in whatever direction the psychopomp has decided on. Much better, on the whole, I think, to let reality in and let the dearest freshness deep down things speak for itself: Shakespeare, Homer even science can provide a more reliable escape from Plato's Cave for the young... END OF EXTRACT cumlazaro.blogspot.ie/2014/11/blooming-buzzing-confusion.html
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Post by maolsheachlann on Dec 3, 2014 4:43:58 GMT
I think this is absolutely correct. I don't think it could be put better than that.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Dec 3, 2014 4:45:18 GMT
Proponents of philosophy as a school subject often say that teaching children 'what to think' is oppressive and teaching children 'how to think' is libeating. I think the latter could be significantly more oppressive and intrusive.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 29, 2015 23:19:41 GMT
I have noticed several pieces in the IRISH TIMES in recent weeks which argue implicitly or explicitly that all schools (or at least all receiving state funding) should be secularised. The link below takes us to one by the former University College Cork philosopher Desmond Clarke. www.irishtimes.com/news/education/should-the-state-fund-religious-schools-1.2075990 Here are a few of his dubious assumptions: (a) The state is the primary educator which has a right/duty to educate its citizens, which it delegates, it is implied improperly, to religious bodies. The view that it is the parents who are the primary educators and the state assists them in providing education in the manner of their choice, is not even mentioned. (b) The idea that parents have a duty to send their children to denominational schools is a theological opinion of the Catholic Church, and as such partial and not to be supported/imposed by the state. Actually, members of quite a few other denominations wish to have their own denominational schools, and it is even possible to defend it on secular grounds, e.g. that allowing the state to dictate a single civic ethos a la Republican France is a dangerous monopolistic aggrandisement of state power as suggested by John Stuart Mill (the fact that Mill objected even more strongly to a denominational monopoly does not affect the point, which is about the undesirability of monopoly per se). Note also the assumptions that there is a complete divide between theology and philosophy, the former being treated as by defintion irrational, and that denominational education should be seen as imposed by the Church on its members, so that the latter are not treated as free agents when they seek denominational education. (c) The secular school is treated as value-neutral, rather than being one ethos among others, so that it can legitimately be imposed on everyone whether they want it or not whereas sending (e.g.) Catholic children to Reformed Presbyterian schools, or vice versa, would be unacceptable coercion. It is treated as if it were a purely formal or procedural matter, whereas it rests on substantive assumptions which are to be placed beyond question; if you question them you are corrupting the youth and introducing gods other than the polis. (d) Professor Clarke maintains that no school should be permitted to have a religious ethos which permeates its whole curriculum, on the grounds that this indoctrination violates the right of the individual to freedom of conscience. Note how this rests on omission (a) - the parents are not presumed to be entitled to decide the form of their children's education, the state as universal parent being exclusively entitled to do so - and (c) because Professor Clarke assumes his preferred liberal secularism is not an ethos among others, so being indoctrinated in it does not in his view constitute indoctrination but merely teaching pupils to think critically - with the assumption that his preferred assumptions are so self-evidently true that they are beyond criticism.
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Post by Young Ireland on Jan 29, 2015 23:30:46 GMT
I wonder if there is any link between this and that piece on RTE News about the non-religious parents who can't send their child to school because the Catholic schools in their area won't take them.I think the solution to this is to make it easier for parents to start up their own schools with other like-minded people, as opposed to allowing the views of a minority override those of the majority of those schools, which though not explicitly mentioned in the report, to be fair, is clearly implied.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 29, 2015 23:45:51 GMT
Another of the articles I was thinking of is by Diarmuid Ferriter complaining that allowing Catholic-ethos schools to exclude children who have not been baptised constitutes discrimination, which is clearly a reference to the incidents you mention. Ferriter's piece clearly assumes that it is both inevitable and desirable that we will eventually have a completely secularised school system. www.irishtimes.com/opinion/state-funded-schools-insisting-on-baptism-certificates-should-be-confronted-by-enda-kenny-1.2077561His reading of Thomas Davis's views on education BTW is secularist, whereas Davis's professed view is interdenominational or theist "what matter that at different shrines we pray unto one God".
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 16, 2015 18:58:42 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 15, 2015 21:54:01 GMT
The usual suspects are mounting another barrage of calls for all schools to be secularised on the grounds that anything else is segregation, complete with interviews with parents who complain that even though the school exempts their children from religion classes, the children are nonetheless curious about religion and thus their aim to prevent the child from being exposed to religion is frustrated. (They do have a legit point, however we might disagree, since as parents they are the primary educators of their children, but methinks if the process was reversed and they were Catholic parents not wishing to have their children exposed to atheism, there would be screams from MOLOCH'S HERALD and Atheist Ireland, with quotes from Richard Dawkins in similar vein. The exact same argument could be used, and rightly so, to have children exempted from certain types of relationship and sexuality education, but we know how MOLOCH'S HERALD would howl over such a request.) Jan O'Sullivan's announcement that she is going to abolish the rule stating that religion is central to education is another straw in the wind, however little attention has been paid to that principle in practice.
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Post by gabrielsyme on Dec 19, 2015 23:16:55 GMT
The usual suspects are mounting another barrage of calls for all schools to be secularised on the grounds that anything else is segregation Interesting Hibernicus - we in Scotland are having a flurry of this kind of thing too. There is a "scottish secular society" and it is never done with attacks on faith schools (usually via newspapers letters pages). They speak very similarly to how presbyterians spoke in the early 20th century - their arguments are no more sophisticated either! I call them "the new orangemen". But they are on a hiding to nothing!
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Post by gabrielsyme on Dec 19, 2015 23:41:42 GMT
I have wanted to start a thread discussing education in general and Catholic education in particular for sometime. I am of the belief that standards are plummeting Alaisdir, My experience of Scotland is that the Catholic state schools are excellent in terms of the learning environment and national curriculum, but dismal in terms of Catholicism. 51% of Catholic state schools in Scotland are rated as very good or excellent by the HMI inspectors, compared to only 30% of the state non-denominational schools. This reality is much to the chagrin of people who are against faith schools. They provide an excellent general education (something I am very grateful for), with high standards, but in so far as the faith is concerned, the Church is not using them to their potential: it could do so much more to teach children about the faith, which would no doubt have a good impact on lapsation and vocation rates. At my Catholic primary in the 1980s, we were taught that communion in the hand was "just the same" as the official way and that "no-one can stop you" receiving that way. This got a heavy and repeated emphasis, as they no doubt knew some parents or grandparents would object. I later found out that, around the same time, Pope John Paul II had made several exhortations criticising this practice and was trying to have it stopped. I went through 13 years of Catholic schools in total (1982 - 1995) and could only describe the RE provision as utterly worthless. As we have just had our first child recently, when it is time for her to go to school I will be very wary of what she might see or hear in a contemporary Catholic school regarding the Catholic faith and its practice. Although school is years away, currently I am of a mind to say "thanks but no thanks" to the RE provision. I think things are a little better now compared to my youth, but still leave a lot to be desired.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 7, 2017 21:55:41 GMT
Rod Dreher discusses how American universities which see themselves as secular actually have their own form of "established religion", with views conflicting with it not seen as mistaken but as unworthy of discussion, and pressure placed on those who refuse to conform. This methinks is spreading through the Irish educational system, and is the state of affairs which many advocates of secular schools wish to make universal: www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/private-colleges-academia-pc-madrassas/
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Post by annie on Jun 12, 2017 13:27:00 GMT
The God who loves us - Fr Leon's exposition last Sunday 11th June is excellent. You will find it here. marytv.tv/?page_id=192
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