… the states and not the central government could and did indeed establish religion — Christianity, for that is the Almighty God they referred to — in their domains and with the full support of Thomas Jefferson.

Well, no, they didn’t. Ten of the 13 colonies had “state religions.” The exceptions were Pennsylvania/West Jersey, Rhode Island/Providence Plantation, and Delaware. By 1818, however, there were no state religions in the USA. (See this link.)

Furthermore, giving thanks to Almighty God or crediting the Creator for the establishment of a state does not mean a state was intent on creating a “Christian state.” All of the state constitutions, as far as I know, reiterate the protections contained the First Amendment to the US Constitution. For example, here is what the Kentucky constitution says:



Bill of Rights, section 1.

All men are, by nature, free and equal, and have certain inherent and inalienable rights, among which may be reckoned:

Second: The right of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of their consciences.

Bill of Rights, section 5.

No preference shall ever be given by law to any religious sect, society or denomination; nor to any particular creed, mode of worship or system of ecclesiastical polity; nor shall any person be compelled to attend any place of worship, to contribute to the erection or maintenance of any such place, or to the salary or support of any minister of religion; nor shall any man be compelled to send his child to any school to which he may be conscientiously opposed; and the civil rights, privileges or capacities of no person shall be taken away, or in any way diminished or enlarged, on account of his belief or disbelief of any religious tenet, dogma or teaching. No human authority shall, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience.

Now I don’t see how those two clauses can be construed to permit the Commonwealth of Kentucky, which does give thanks to Almighty God in the Preamble to its constitution, to create a state religion. Without doing an exhaustive perusal of the other resources at this website, I can guarantee all the other states have similar provisions, even Utah.

Properly done, any form of education can preserve and bolster a child’s natural inquisitiveness, although I must agree that formal schooling sometimes can kill that natural curiosity pretty quickly. The point is, sometimes is not always. American schools graduate plenty of students each year who still have creativity and curiosity in their being. Compared to the Chinese system, which is almost entirely based on rote learning, memorization and examinations right up through graduate school education, American kids have more flexibility and practical experience than their Chinese peers.

Meanwhile, expecting parents to all do a wonderful job at pedagogy is unrealistic, too. Parents can kill off natural curiosity in a child as easily as a school or school teacher. All it takes is an angry word, or an off-the-cuff remark (“girls can’t do math as well as boys,” for example) to put a child off a particular subject. I have gotten the “physics was my worst subject” or “it’s the only course I flunked in college” so many times from parents that I lost count.

Recently, I learned about a public school critic, John Taylor Gatto, who attacks public education from the left-wing side. Some of what he says I agree with, but like Joey here, Gatto has such an axe to grind that he overlooks the weaknesses in his own arguments. I am trying to wade through Gatto’s online book now. The man seriously needs an editorial staff to cut down his verbiage.

The advantage I see to unschooling, done well, is that it preserves a child’s natural inquisitiveness. That inquisitiveness would, ideally, eventually lead a child to want to know real science and to demand that their parent seek out a qualified person to learn from, if the parent is not.

I taught one semester of remedial algebra to incoming university students, as a graduate student in math, as well as working in the math center and privately tutoring high school students throughout college, so I am very familiar with the difficulties many people have with math. When I am introduced to someone and they learn that my degrees are in math and engineering, it is rare that they do not respond with how horrible they are at math and/or how much they do not like it.

It would take a special type of person, as parent, not to subconsciously (or even consciously) steer away from subjects they are not personally comfortable with, and a very insightful and confident child to realize that what the parent is teaching is not adequate, and to insist on a qualified instructor if one is not proffered.

So, all that is a longwinded way of saying I agree with you eljefe, that homeschooling and unschooling put kids at risk of inadequate instruction in math and science.

Now, I’ve been teaching for 25 years. I know my limitations. No doubt many homeschooler/unschooler parents do, too. Many, but not all. There is a significant number of parents weak in math and science who would do a crappy job teaching those subjects to their children. From the standpoint of educational equity, that presents a real problem. We already have equity problems with our decentralized public school system supported by property taxes. Further decentralizing it with homeschools seems to be a step in the wrong direction, especially if parents, like Joey, reject any kind of government regulation of education.

As I keep reiterating, and Joey keeps ignoring, in an ideal world parents could in fact give their kids an adequate education, but the real world, it would never happen, not for everyone, anyway. Joey, with his faith-inspired libertarianism, does not see that as a valid issue, however. Somehow he expects that all parents magically will be able to teach their kids the same things.

Somehow I also suspect that math and science are not part of his imaginary curriculum, though.

I would submit for your consideration, Joey, the law that the doors of public buildings must swing outwards, to facilitate egress in case of emergency such as fire. I don’t recall that issue being addressed in your scriptures. So I wonder, would you really prefer to live in a society in which every individual building owner must learn for himself, through experiment, that outward swinging doors are safer? Or do you prefer a society in which we collectively learn and benefit from each other’s experiences?

This law does not exist because the people who wrote, voted on, and signed the law were in some way superior to all of us who now follow that law. They enacted the law because it was their job. They were hired to do it by the people who voted for them. When we as a society base our laws on this thing called “reality”, i.e. historical evidence, we improve the living conditions for ourselves and those who come after us. Without this capabilty to act on observations, a lot more people would get burned to death in buildings with inward swinging doors. Among other things.

I wish I knew who to attribute this quote to: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” For example, it is faster and easier for a person to escape a burning building through an outward swinging door than an inward swinging door, whether that person believes in God or not. So I think it is worth your time to consider the possibility that secular law does indeed exist.

I would also submit for your consideration that: “a society functions better when its citizens are well educated” is another one of those pesky facts of “reality”.

And…if all people were regenerate (Note: saying Christian regenerates is redundant), then we’d have heaven on earth. Not gonna HA-pen!!

Historically the stance of the Church on earth is that of contra mundum — against the world — until the return of Christ. This is an on-going struggle. But this is an advancing church — the Church Militant or Ecclesia Militant) — a congregation of believers who struggles forward like, to paint a picture, soldiers do into battle who, upon death, join the ranks of the Church Triumphant or Ecclesia Triumphans — a triumph over sin, i.e. over lawlessness. But in the meantime, we advance. And we do so for the glory of Almighty God — the God of the Bible.

And we take our kids with us in this advance, which is why they ought be out of statist schools, that will then irremediably fall into oblivion as a result of this exodus. But we’re not called to establish heaven on earth — the Christian Utopia that you referred to. You’ve spoken of things you’ve not understood. But I hope you understand now.

So, how about I give you in a manner that you’d understand the following to address the rest of your skepticism about how you could keep your statist system from falling completely apart, i.e. how to keep it from getting abolished. The following is from the Afterword in Charlotte Iserbyt’s “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.” She was Senior Policy Advisor at the Dept. of Education. (My emphasis is added.)

No tuition tax credits? No vouchers? No charter schools? No laundered state tax monies? Citizens 100% in charge of the educational philosophy? And states constitutionally approved to establish religion in accordance to citizen wishes per our Founding Fathers? Man! Frankly, it all sounds like the abolition of the public school as we know it, ElJefe.

So check it out. Let’s get the Christians — the REAL ones, the ones who obey their God — start out on this.

Think of it as a Christian Education Manifesto in action.

Later!

I think you are saying that if all people were regenerate Christians they would all agree on the same understanding of God’s Law. Thus, there would be no strife or disagreement, and everyone would teach their kids essentially the same things.

And you chastise me for imagining a utopia (which I actually never did). You yourself have a utopian vision. Given the history of Christianity (and every other religion), and the nature of human beings, I doubt your utopia would last longer than a generation.