Is America An Essentially "Uneducated" Country?

Started by Shiranu, August 27, 2018, 04:44:57 AM

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Munch

Quote from: Baruch on December 02, 2018, 08:06:40 PM
Munch - Black Friday involving actual Black people?  What do they think they are, White trailer trash? ;-)

Unbeliever - of course education is bad.  Thomas Jefferson supported education.  So did Karl Marx.  Thomas Jefferson owned Black slaves.  Karl Marx wanted to enslave the proletariat.  Both dead White men, therefore education must be bad ;-)

some of them could be. what would trailer park trash count as in south Africa?
'Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners' - George Carlin

Baruch

Quote from: Munch on December 02, 2018, 09:01:21 PM
some of them could be. what would trailer park trash count as in south Africa?

Depends on if you get burned alive in an ANC flaming tire ceremony.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Basic education is never a negative.  The kind of education might be, though.  A creationist university is not an education (quite frankly it is dis-education).  Any state university is.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Minimalist

Part of the problem with the US is that jesus gets in the way of learning.  Jesus gets in the way of everything.
The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can cure after medicine fails.

-- H. L. Mencken

Unbeliever

Yeah, Jesus is like a debilitating drug that most of America (and much of the rest of the world) is addicted to.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

#80
Quote from: Unbeliever on December 08, 2018, 08:23:20 PM
Yeah, Jesus is like a debilitating drug that most of America (and much of the rest of the world) is addicted to.

Misquoting Marx?  Such a surprise you are, paper mâché Marx!

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." - Karl Marx

Opium at that time, was a legal medication, usually laudanum, used to quiet babies.  Like saying ... Cough medicine is the drug of the deplorables!

It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people - Simone Weil.

Go to France, storm the Bastille!  But leave the US alone.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

#81
Quote from: Cavebear on December 05, 2018, 05:18:34 AM
Basic education is never a negative.  The kind of education might be, though.  A creationist university is not an education (quite frankly it is dis-education).  Any state university is.

"Any state university is" ... aka a tool for political indoctrination.  Since when is political indoctrination an education?  People being taught what to think, not how to think?  Well that is how undergraduates are taught.  You have to have a PhD to know to think (says Platonists).

This conversation is political, not theological.  But in the US, dominated by prior English history, can't escape this origin.  The war over the Bible starts with the first paraphrases of the Vulgate into Anglo-Saxon, particularly the Psalter.  It continues into Middle English with the civil war over lay preachers (Lollards) and their Middle English bible by Wycliffe.  Then onward thru the Protestant Reformation, to the King James bible of 1611 and the Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in what is now the US, in 1640.  Without the continued radicalizing of the New England Church, you wouldn't have had the cessation of witch burning (Catholic's in Germany were big on this) or the potential for religious toleration (but not for atheists of course).  That became Unitarian, which is the most liberal church of early US, which led to the Abolition movement.  it wasn't American atheists who pushed for civil war, but very religious Americans.  Your "Cult of Reason" was a temporary aberration, and only around Paris during the French Revolution.

What atheists seem to really demand, is freedom from history and freedom from a society that is part of the historical continuum.  Hence the demand for scifi utopias which only turn into scifi dystopias.

The Enlightenment was before the French Revolution, it wasn't a rejection of the past, but a reinvention of it.  Otherwise John Locke would have written in the original Klingon.  Anyway, it is only natural for me to be partial to the proper English enlightenment, not the naughty French version.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on December 08, 2018, 09:37:27 PM
"Any state university is" ... aka a tool for political indoctrination.  Since when is political indoctrination an education?  People being taught what to think, not how to think?  Well that is how undergraduates are taught.  You have to have a PhD to know to think (says Platonists).

This conversation is political, not theological.  But in the US, dominated by prior English history, can't escape this origin.  The war over the Bible starts with the first paraphrases of the Vulgate into Anglo-Saxon, particularly the Psalter.  It continues into Middle English with the civil war over lay preachers (Lollards) and their Middle English bible by Wycliffe.  Then onward thru the Protestant Reformation, to the King James bible of 1611 and the Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in what is now the US, in 1640.  Without the continued radicalizing of the New England Church, you wouldn't have had the cessation of witch burning (Catholic's in Germany were big on this) or the potential for religious toleration (but not for atheists of course).  That became Unitarian, which is the most liberal church of early US, which led to the Abolition movement.  it wasn't American atheists who pushed for civil war, but very religious Americans.  Your "Cult of Reason" was a temporary aberration, and only around Paris during the French Revolution.

What atheists seem to really demand, is freedom from history and freedom from a society that is part of the historical continuum.  Hence the demand for scifi utopias which only turn into scifi dystopias.

The Enlightenment was before the French Revolution, it wasn't a rejection of the past, but a reinvention of it.  Otherwise John Locke would have written in the original Klingon.  Anyway, it is only natural for me to be partial to the proper English enlightenment, not the naughty French version.

I mentioned State Universities supporting a secular education as opposed to private ones (some of which also do, but many don't).  But I assume you understand that education IS for a purpose to society as a whole.  The goal is an educated population, and hopefully one that is fact-based (as opposed to religion-based). 

A fact-based education enables one to make rational and considered judgements.  A fact-based education enables one to build a bridge which should not collapse, measure medicine effectiveness accurately,  design planes that will fly safely, and engineer sewage systems that work. 

Now consider the education at some sectarian universities.  One can get a degree in geology by "learning" that all animals died in "The Flood" and all layers of strata are due to speed they fell into the mud (simplest first by some inexplicable reasoning). 

When I attended a State University, I was forced to attend lecture halls where some basic facts were presented.  Geology 001 at State U is probably not too different at Religion College. Both basically teach what anyone should have learned in 8th grade.  But they do have to help the  high school crammers to actually catch up to the learners.

But that is where things change.  At State U, the logic of facts starts to become important, gradually leading to  "iffy" questions that must be answered in essay tests, etc.  Religion College doesn't test that way.  Religion College rewards biblical evidence over actual facts.

What?  You think it is all regurgitated info?  Hardly.  I'll give a couple of examples.

In an Econ class, I learned about a bell curve that  showed people reacted to events after the peak (vague memory says it was called "The Phillips Curve").  In a history class about the French Revolution essay final, I applied that to how citizens reacted to an increase in freedoms, revolting only AFTER things were getting better and when they should have calmed down.  My professor called me in and asked "what is this?" (well, it wasn't anything HE had taught).  So I explained it.  My essay was ungraded at that point.  I got an A afterwards.

Another was in Astronomy 001.  Lecture hall stuff, but I loved the subject and sat right up front.  The Professor talked about tidal pulls.  He asked for any volunteers who understood what he meant.  I stood right up.  I took the part of the opposite side of the Earth.  He said to afterwards that I was the first student who ever got that part right.  And, BTW, I was the only student he ever had who scored 100 on all 3 class tests (And I have no doubt that most of you here would have also).

But that's my point.  I have yet to meet anyone who graduated from Religious College who understood either of those ideas.  Because they weren't explained in the Bible.  I've met religious "graduates" who thought pi was 3.0 because its in the Bible (no idea where - something about pyramids?). 

Religious College does not reward knowledge or understanding; it rewards false but faith-based thinking.  State U may not have been the top place to learn, but it sure didn't reward faith-thinking.

I took a course in Fortran in 1968 and the final exam was to write a program to play "21".   We had a week.  I wrote it in the class and asked if I could try to get a chess game to work for 2 moves.  He said he couldn't and that would be a guaranteed A.  You remember punch cards?  One mistype and the card is wrong.  I filled a shoebox with cards.  The computer center guys hated to see me with the shoebox.  But I had permission.

Guess what?  I failed.  I couldn't keep the pieces from moving off the board in spite of surrounding the non-squares with negative values.  But the Professor examined my program and gave me an A anyway (which I had already earned).

Bet ya can't to that at Religious College. 

So, I'll go along with you about religious history, burning innocent women as witches and burning books and so on.  Far from me to say that didn't happen even when Religious College was the best deal around (except for all the other colleges). 

You asked "What atheists seem to really demand". We demand a fact-based life, a fact-based govt, and a fact-based society where the evolutionary-adapted color of your skin is not a determinant in success at life, where questioning politicians does not make you a communist or a nazi, and where saying "I don't believe" is not a hindrance to participating in national leadership as it is today.

Best hour I spent the last couple years...
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Totally wrong.  You were totally brainwashed in your poli-sci classes.  Political indoctrination has always been the purpose.  By the Left aka Plato.  Traditional cultural inheritance (Homer and Hesiod) were gotten outside of school, in the home, in the theater, in the religious festivals.  And except for Socrates, teachers always made you pay.  No free education with the academics.

Like someone who came here about when I did, and left soon ... regulars here are an echo chamber of haters.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Unbeliever

Quote from: Baruch on December 08, 2018, 09:35:04 PM
Misquoting Marx?  Such a surprise you are, paper mâché Marx!

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." - Karl Marx

Opium at that time, was a legal medication, usually laudanum, used to quiet babies.  Like saying ... Cough medicine is the drug of the deplorables!

It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people - Simone Weil.

Go to France, storm the Bastille!  But leave the US alone.
Well, this Jesus drug is more like LSD than opium.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Quote from: Unbeliever on December 09, 2018, 06:02:33 PM
Well, this Jesus drug is more like LSD than opium.

Only for ecstatic mystics ... who probably originated every religion in history.  But psychoactive drugs were sometimes involved.  You can get quite wound up just thru sleep deprivation.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mike Cl

Quote from: Unbeliever on December 09, 2018, 06:02:33 PM
Well, this Jesus drug is more like LSD than opium.
Yeah, but it is more addicting than cigarettes.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Baruch

Quote from: Mike Cl on December 10, 2018, 08:54:50 AM
Yeah, but it is more addicting than cigarettes.

Given some people posting here, it should be popular then.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Unbeliever

Quote from: Mike Cl on December 10, 2018, 08:54:50 AM
Yeah, but it is more addicting than cigarettes.

Yeah, and that's saying a lot, since nicotine is the most addictive substance known to man.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Quote from: Unbeliever on December 10, 2018, 01:14:08 PM
Yeah, and that's saying a lot, since nicotine is the most addictive substance known to man.

Gold says ... you are wrong.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.