I am the product of both private and public education. In Pennsylvania I attended two Catholic grade schools and a public high school. In these institutions I had some outstanding teachers, received a good education and made lifelong friends. I am in touch with teachers from both my secular and religious schools. A couple of my high school teachers even attended my celebration when I was ordained in Pittsburgh as the Bishop of Juneau. Public and private education served me and my parents well. I have encountered some great teachers in both secular and religious institutions as well as some “not so great” educators in these schools.
This past week I had the opportunity to testify before the Alaska State House Finance Committee in their hearing on House Joint Resolution 16. This piece of legislation is proposing amendments to the Constitution of the State of Alaska relating to state aid for education. In doing so, it will assist students throughout Alaska and their parents in making a choice in education. During my testimony, one member of the house committee responded that he had attended Catholic school and that his parents provided that education for him and his siblings, however, his mind was set and he would not vote in favor of this legislation. I replied that he was blessed to have parents who were able to make that choice and that he should not preclude other Alaskan parents from making the same type of choices for their children. I also said that while his parents were able to provide private education for him and his siblings, many families are not affluent enough to provide this choice for their children. I thought too of all those who struggle in his district who would be prevented from choosing their child’s schooling. I question why anyone would want to prevent a parent from choosing the education they deem best for their children.
I support the legislation that is currently before the legislature that would allow all Alaska parents to choose public or private education for their children by providing them the state funding to do so. Supporting this legislation is by no means a judgment upon a school district or type of education one receives, but rather supports parental involvement in making the best decisions for their children regardless of their economic status.
Parents are the first teachers of their children. Parents not only lay the foundation for their children’s academic achievement, but pass onto them who they are, where they come from, their cultural traditions, their purpose in life and their moral, ethical and spiritual beliefs, so that their children might grow up to be virtuous women and men. This is not only a parental right but a parental responsibility and they should have the broadest possible range of choices in choosing schooling that reflects, in their judgment, what will be best for their child.
Providing parents (especially low income parents) with a diversity of educational choices and the economic means to send their children state-supported traditional or alternative charter schools or to religious or secular private schools or to home school them, works for the common good of children, their families and the community. From my perspective, I believe that a diverse mix of public and private, for profit and non-profit institutions benefits every community.
Private schools of all kinds maintain the rich diversity of educational institutions in our country and our state. State support for private schools, especially religious ones is controversial. I am mindful of two decisions from the United States Supreme Court that offer these insights:
The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public school teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations. (1925 Pierce decision, U.S. Supreme Court)
And in reference to recent events in the state of Ohio that supported public funding that allows families a choice, the Court majority said:
In sum, the Ohio program is entirely neutral with respect to religion. It provides benefits directly to a wide spectrum of individuals, defined only by financial need and residence in a particular school district. It permits such individuals to exercise genuine choice among options public and private, secular and religious. The program is therefore a program of true private choice. (2002 Zelman decision, U.S. Supreme Court)
From my experience growing up in Pennsylvania, I witnessed the public and private or the secular and religious education institutions working together to provide the best for children. For example, public school districts assisted with the transportation of students through the region and state laws provided for released time for religious education. It was clear that the community worked together to provide for parents and students what was best. Allowing parents a choice in their child’s education is good for students and a benefit to the community.
• Burns is the Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Juneau and Southeast Alaska.
Comments (136)
Add commentI assure you, they aren't.
I assure you, they aren't. Read a scientific paper. Often the media will misrepresent science (actually, almost always, especially when it involves medical science), but not the scientists or scientific journals themselves. And when errors do occur, they are rectified.
No, I was meaning mainstream
No, I was meaning mainstream religion is intentionally withholding information or using it to fit their agenda
Caveats and interest
Actually, PP, I would submit that specifically in the field of medical research, and more specifically in drug research, that there is plenty of fraud that occurs, with companies manufacturing online journals, reviews, and studies in order to get their drugs FDA approved and sold to the tune of millions/billions of dollars. You are correct that ultimately much of this is exposed, due to the open-source nature of scientific research, but from what I've seen it's still there.
Regarding mainstream religion...almost ANY seminary you attend, and certainly any graduate program in biblical history, exegesis, and text criticism, will discuss and make very plain the status of our current manuscripts, their foibles, gaps in the record, and implications for how we view these manuscripts (this excludes Bob Jones U, and similar, I would imagine...). But oddly enough, when modern preachers and pastors get into their pulpits, they utterly discard this entire field of research and usually toe the denomination line regarding scripture and inerrancy and so on.
We like the idea in this country (generally speaking) that everyone's ideas and thoughts count, and that we all have a voice in things. On the one hand, this is (or should be) true. But on the other, when a given individual or group chooses to deliberately ignore scientific inquiry and research, how are we to respond to a group that insists that the world is yellow when in fact, they simply have jaundice?
Further - a study coming out of Cornell University (David Dunning) concludes that the free and informed, educated, and interested electorate necessary for democracy does not exist, and that the more ignorant a person is, the less likely they are to recognize their ignorance, and the more likely they are to be utterly convinced of the correctness of their views.
fromdustreturned, the Dunning Kruger effect. Yes.
And thanks for your effort with JuneauWilliam too, I forgot.
Mike
@dust: point taken. I
@dust: point taken. I normally think of university researchers or corporations which really are concerned with advancing science (like IBM) when I think of scientific research. I would imagine that whenever a pharmaceutical company publishes its results without its methods, there's probably something fishy going on.
@kpawsuh
I think you might be putting too much weight into this. I don't think the school was giving a test about God's powers. I think they were giving a test about the world, as it is on an everyday basis. The kid was right to say there can't be talking frogs. I think when Jesus was a student in school, if his teacher asked him about talking frogs, he would have said that is nonsense - even though he could certainly have produced talking frogs if he wanted to. I think it's a matter of sense.
I think its interesting that
I think its interesting that the word "faith" is tossed around so much through this thread but it is used as a synonym for a named belief system or a sect of a religion and not the fundamental difference between a believer and an unbeliever. The definition of faith I prefer is "belief that is not based on proof."
Christians cannot prove that Jesus washed their sins away when he died and rose. Atheists can't prove there is no god or no God. Science is based on assumptions and consistent results of repeated experiments but that is not proof either. We all believe what we do because of faith.......
Who taught you that blackdog?
I don't have to have faith to not believe in fire breathing dragons, elephant gods, or Yahweh.
Mike
"Consistent results of repeated experiments"??
That doesn't constitute proof?? I suppose you will say that there is always the chance that the same experiment will suddenly produce different results, in which case I would submit that "practical proof" is indeed consistent results, otherwise you yourself would never plan anything, from your car starting to knowing what foods to eat and to thinking that the sun will rise tomorrow morning (barring, of course, Armageddon...which comes from the Hebrew "har megiddo", meaning the Mountain of Megiddo...which is a fortified hill in Israel where it was thought that the literal last battle would occur...)
Really? You can prove all
Really? You can prove all those things to be non-existent? If you can't prove it you are believing in something without proof.
I've had alcoholic atheists in recovery make compelling
arguments that people of faith display and utilize many of the same tricks addicts use.
It's as if they just can't feel normal unless they categorize everyone else as having a semblance of their own addiction.
This is why we hear people of faith calling atheism a religion, or people of no faith "believing".
It's all very interesting.
I am a religious agnostic because of science, an atheist because of probability, and an anti-theist because of religion.
Mike, not a person of faith.
Interesting diversion Mike
Interesting diversion Mike but a belief (deity does not exist) based on no proof is faith.
dusty, ever heard of quantum mechanics? If not you should look it up. Changed classical physics' assumptions a bit.......
blackdog, that's a misunderstanding of my position
you would be persuasive if I had a belief. I lack belief.
Consider this blackdog, there are all sorts of things you've probably never thought of existing right? Does that mean you believe in those things? How could you? You don't even know what you are supposed to consider!
Now think about the following: what if in five years (year 2017) you come across a holy book in California that describes a lovely goddess who always dresses herself in unripe oranges.
From years 2012 to 2016 did you have a belief in this goddess of oranges? No. You lacked belief. What about now, do you have a belief in GOO (Goddess Of Oranges)?
That's my position when people try to tell me about all the different gods they say exist. Given there are no clear definitions (let alone evidence) for all of these gods, I lack belief in them.
Finally, if you are going to insist that my lack of belief is a belief, or that I have faith in unbelief, then you are going to force me into concluding that you are a person who finds good company with these folks: people who consider the off button a TV channel, people who say not collecting stamps is a hobby, people who claim bald is a hair color, and others who say abstinence a sex-position.
Mike
Yes, quantum mechanics did indeed change things
And change is a mark of scientific process, not faith.
What exactly is your point?
The effort to equate scientific understanding with religious faith is absurd.
When someone experiences a string of misfortunes, they might say "Oh, my faith is really being tested", meaning that they assert a belief in a benevolent Divinity who loves them and cares for them, but maintenance of such a stance in the face of everything going wrong and in the face of pain requires faith - an assertion of a stance contraindicated by current evidence. If they cease to maintain that religious stance because of evidence, they are said to have "left the faith". Those people why deny the past existence of dinosaurs and insist that fossil bones were put there to test their faith by Satan are another example - faith is the expression of a world view that is contradicted by the available evidence.
If I assert the existence of some species of plesiosaur in Loch Ness, despite the numerous searches that have found nothing and trophic studies that have shown such a creature to be impossible, I either have to submit a scientific reason why I maintain such, or else I must confess "faith" in Nessie's existence.
We call it "faith" when we assert some politician's integrity and worthiness to serve in public office when evidence of their dirty laundry comes to light.
Mike doesn't need to "believe" in the non-existence of fire-breathing dragons because there is no evidence whatsoever that they exist. Based on that, his stance on their existence is perfectly a legitimate example of scientific process. If someone were to present evidence of their existence, then Mike would be free to accept it or reject it based on it's scientific validity. If, however, someone were to find one, capture it, take samples, and present the samples for DNA analysis along with the animal, then Mike would have to accept the evidence and the existence of the dragon.
And besides...
I know Mike would accept the existence of the dragon because...you know...I have faith in Mike.
:-p
Faith should have no place in schools
for children unless it is taught, perhaps, as the failed proto-science that it is in history class. Why? Because faith systems are wholly unreliable methods at ascertaining truth.
Regarding Einstein and Newton, I'd just like to expand on what fromdust clarified. People of faith sometimes claim, "ah ha! look at how Newton was trumped by Einstein! Science was wrong!"
Er, no.
Kids still learn about Newton in highschool (or elementary school in Asia and Europe) because his laws still work, wonderfully. Landing a probe on an asteroid moving 37 thousand miles per hour and getting it there to-the-second depends on understanding Newton.
The discovery of quantum theory only added to the scientific understanding of reality. That's what science does, it builds step by step on what came before. Religion on the other hand depends on tradition, private revelation and faith.
Gross.
Mike
@Mike and FDR
Can't thank you guys enough for providing succinct and thoughtful responses on this issue. I learn new information to support my position every time I read your posts. Really - you guys are the best thing about the JE comment section and one of the main (only?) reasons I ever post anymore. Please continue.
Why, TY Spiff.
I really like reading Mike's reasoning as well. Swimmergirl and PP too.
@MikeDzuiba
"Mike, not a person of faith". You have hinted at that many times, so thanks for clarifying....
Wear it on your sleeve much?
agreed, fdr
swimmer and pp as well. i continue to be impressed at their willingness to confront the ignorance and bigotry on these pages despite all evidence to the contrary that it will make much difference to those they are engaging.
perhaps they do have a little "faith" after all ...
@fromdustreturned
Faith is when you believe something without proof. For example, if you personally believe that an Oxygen atom has eight neutrons, this is an example of you having faith since you are basing this only on what other people have told you. Another example of faith is your belief that the continent of Antarctica exists. Again, since you have never personally been there, you have to base your belief in the existence of Antarctica on what other people have told you.
@MikeDziuba
You may be interested in knowing that Theology also builds on what came before it, in terms of understanding.
Whereas the knowledge at the center of Theology will never grow (the Church was given the entire deposit of faith right at the start by Christ), her understanding continues to expand year after year. Which, interestingly enough, does have parallels to science insofar as all the laws of the universe are there from the start, but year after year they are deeper and deeper understood.
Oh, for Pete's sake!
You are using a grammatical similarity (application of the word 'faith') to equate to fundamentally different types of approaches to evaluate world structure. Under your framework, my "faith" that an oxygen molecule has eight neutrons is on the same level as your "faith" that Jesus rose from the dead. Now, from other statement you have made above, while you believe your religious framework to be the Truth, you acknowledge value in other religious traditions and histories, and allow that they contain wisdom (your word). To extend that analogy, we can then say that someone's "faith" that oxygen molecules have eleven neutrons is just as valid as the "idea" that they have eight, just as valid as the idea that they do not exist at all, and that each of these ideas carries weight and wisdom.
Bull[filtered word].
The end result of this sort of confusion (deliberate or ignorant) regarding the (mis)use of the word "faith" is that the "idea" that oxygen molecules have eight neutrons is suddenly considered to have equal merit as the "idea" that the moon is made of green cheese, meaning that idiots in the political arena gather a following by insisting they need no science, no education, no training, no basic level of intelligence, because all ideas are "equal", and they can therefore criticize or comment upon ALL scientific inquiry by simply claiming "faith" on the part of scientists and that such "faith" is no different than their "faith" that the moon is made of green cheese or that the Bible is the word of God.
You would not be willing to admit that Jesus never rose from the grave regardless of any evidence I might present regarding the development of that idea from earlier religions and the points at which it was inserted into the gospel documents. The only way you might accept such an idea would be due to internal experience that contradicts it, and that makes it a faith statement. Conversely, I can go to Antarctica and prove for myself it exists or does not exist, and if I flew over the south pole and saw absolutely nothing there, then I would say "Wow...Antarctica doesn't exist", meaning that my framework changes relative to evidence.
And theology is merely an effort to place a religious doctrine (the resurrection) into a changing culture (which is usually changing due to scientific advances). It has nothing to do with some sort of "deeper understanding" of Divine structure, and does not mirror the scientific process because its fundamental principle requires that it be unchanged.
William is making rhetorical
William is making rhetorical arguments by taking empiricism to a ridiculous extreme and playing semantics.
Even assuming what we know to be reality is actually an illusion, this illusion still follows certain rules that can be consistently applied. That's what science measures. So even if you can say that it's "faith" to believe all of this is real, it takes even more faith to believe in something that is not internally consistent with this illusion.
I think maybe we should also define faith as two different types: negative faith and positive faith. Let's define negative faith as the faith we all have in our own senses, in common knowledge, and in other people. Basically, the faith we all have that we aren't being duped by some massive conspiracy or illusion. Positive faith would then be faith in the existence of something.
William claims the two are equivalent. But they simply can not be. Negative faith requires only that a person exist and be cognizant. It is also required to exist in that it would be very hard to live your life if you couldn't assume that a particular food would still nourish you, or that the sun would still rise the next day, or that the laws of thermodynamics really do still apply to your car. In science and philosophy, this is actually called inductive logic, which is basically when we make an assumption that technically could be wrong, but has such a miniscule chance of being so that it is, for all intents and purposes, a fact.
Positive faith, by contrast, requires an active belief. The believe must actively disregard evidence and logic in order to maintain his/her faith. It is not required to live a full and normal life, as evidenced by atheists and agnostics who do just that.
As we can plainly see, the "faith" required to believe in Antarctica is quite different from the faith required to believe in God.
Well said, PP
"Inductive logic" - an excellent point!
Oh, I am sorry.....
That I was out of town and missed this discussion.
Can I just say, as a birth-control using woman, that I object to my public funds being used for something that is a choice, and in no way necessary, and in a way that is against my morals, and the very things I stand for. (such as evidence, facts, etc. etc.)
It blows me away that the bishop can have both things in his head at the same time and it doesn't explode, the hypocricy is so great.
I Go Pogo!!
Bill'N'Opus 2012!!
:-)
btw...
I echo spiff, and will have to go back and read all of Mike, from dust, and pp's comments.
Love the "you can't proove it's NOT real" argument.......so since he's real, the flying spaghetti monster is going to trap all of you non-believers in his 7th level of tomato sauce for eternity.......unless you repent and sprinkle parmesean on your head every morning, wear the magic fork-adorned under garment, and only have sex after pasta.
You have been warned.
@swimmer: I have a female
@swimmer: I have a female friend who is something of a moderate (being that she's my age, college educated, and female, but was raised by pretty hardcore Republican parents). Her take on this issue is that taxpayers shouldn't be forced to subsidize contraception because few women actually "need" it. Because sex is an optional activity, we shouldn't pay people for what is essentially protection from something they can protect themselves from just fine.
Obviously there are problems with this logic, but I think the real issue is that those who are all for government-provided contraception aren't even arguing the same point. The argument above is based on ego and can be summed up thusly: "why should I pay for your pills?"
My point of view, as well as that of many other bleeding-heart, Islamofascist, militant, atheist, leftists, is that people will have sex regardless of whether they are provided with free contraception or not. Women reap larger consequences from sex than men do (even assuming a perfect social world where men NEVER disappear or commit rape, we still don't have to carry babies to term and STDs tend to be less serious for us). And unwanted children impose a burden on society--all of us.
With these points in mind, it makes perfect sense to subsidize contraception. All too often, the egotistical worldview where people assume they exist separate from an interconnected society prevents real progress from being made.
Bottom line: free contraceptives for women will improve our society, which improves quality of life for everyone, directly or indirectly.
pp - as a woman....
I think partly for me it's about a bunch of old white men telling me what I can and cannot do, or what I "should" do in their view. I may also have some feelings about the idea that my main purpose as a person should be bearing as many children as possible......
But mostly, I object to the whole "religious freedom only applies to catholics" nature of their arguments, and given the bishops letter above, that tenant apparently also only applies when religious organizations benefit. The idea that the government shouldn't 'force' religious people to pay for stuff they don't believe in (even though we all pay for all kinds of stuff we don't personally believe in every day as part of a collective society - the greater good, as in your comments) but it's ok for the government to force non-religious people to subsidise churches through non-taxation, pay for religious schools, or to force people to live by religious beliefs they do not personally hold - is absolutely, mind-crushingly asinine to me.
oh, and as a bleeding-heart liberal islamofascist militant leftist athiest - - - don't worry, the almighty Flying Spaghetti Monster will spare you. :)