When homeschool children are taught by their fundamentalist parents about Darwin, they don’t usually get lectures about how his theory of natural selection is the foundation of modern biology. No, they are taught something much different.
Doug Phillips is the President of Vision Forum Ministries, a popular fundamentalist Christian organization that advocates patriarchy, creationism, and homeschooling. He has eight children and encourages couples to have as many as God gives them — he thinks birth control is a sin (see “quiverfull“).
I’m sad to say that at one time in my life, I was on their mailing list.
In a recent newsletter, Phillips tells his readers what he teaches his children about Darwin:
- Darwin was bitter.
- Darwin worshipped a false god (materialism).
- Darwin was sloppy and he was not a scientist.
- Darwin trained his children to hate the God of the Bible.
- Darwin trained others to be hateful toward their fellow man.
- Darwin’s legacy could be the legacy of anyone who worships the creature more than the Creator.
Aside from the absurdity of most of these claims, what disturbs me most is that these children are being brainwashed. When you are raised in a family like this and are surrounded by people who think similarly, it is very difficult to break free from this kind of thinking.
But it is my hope that some will be able to think freely someday.
(Thanks for the link, Aron!)
Update: To clarify, I’m not against homeschooling. I’m against religious brainwashing, especially when it interferes with scientific education. This can also happen at private schools and occasionally at public schools. Also I don’t think this should be illegal — parents have a right to teach their kids what they want. But I will speak against it.
I’m glad that in the Netherlands we have laws against homescholing.
It makes sure that kids at least have a chance of getting some more objective scholing.
Sure we have christian schools, highschools and colleges in the Netherlands, but they still teach science, not some non-sence.
It’s the sheer, strawman-burning character assasination that gets me. In rebuttal:
Doug Phillips is scared of trees
Doug Phillips fellates ostriches
Doug Phillips eats cat meat
Doug Phillips likes rubbing himself with peanut butter and singing “Oklahoma”
All equally well-founded claims, and therefore, by Phillip’s reasoning, all equally valid.
It must be very difficult to ever develop a worldview based on evidence and inquiry after being brainwashed by your parents. If your parents tell you that you cannot trust anything you see, and that you must put your trust in a bunch of things that you cannot see, I’d imagine that it would be very painful to wake up if you ever do.
Just out of curiosity, isn’t this against the law? I mean, I’m quite sure that even you Americans have a law that says that all kids need to learn about biology as well as American history and English, right? So does this kind of “teaching” meet the criteria of what the student needs to learn to get a passing grade? How do you make sure that home-schooled children learn what they need?
Stuff like this gets me really, really outraged. Really shows christian posturing on truth and honesty for what it really is.
And don’t give me any bullshit about the fact that it’s a minority who are giving the rest of Christianity a bad rep. Anywhere throughout the hordes of moderate, liberal christian churches, exactly this sort of lies and deceit – sometimes more or less hidden behind flowery words – are delivered from the stage, and congregations obliviously lap it up, while wondering at how blind the rest of the world is to their warped, unrecognisable “truth”.
I’m not sure why it makes me so blazingly furious – probably because I once nodded and smiled and passively accepted the string of earnestly delivered untruths.
I’m going to have to disagree on one point: it isn’t homeschooled kids, it’s brainwashed Christian kids. Some kids going to public schools are still taught this at home, and a lot of homeschooled kids aren’t homeschooled for religious reasons, and actually do get a fairly good education (sometimes better than what they would get at their local high school, sometimes not). My point being, the “homeschool” part doesn’t matter, because indoctrination can often overcome education.
I’ll third the idea that it’s not homeschooling per se that is the problem, but indoctrination.
And Mirshafie, for the record, no, it’s not illegal to homeschool your children in the US. There are certain requirements for it, but meeting state science standards is not one of them. And homeschooled kids are exempt from graduation tests (which, incidentally, can also be a factor in the decision to homeschool; some parents choose to homeschool their children because they don’t want them being tested every year), so there is no onus on the parents to even provide the information necessary to pass the test.
My son goes to public school and his history teacher told him the acronym BCE stood for “before Christ existed.” She swore to me she was just teaching from the book though she never found the book to show me.
Not that this is particularly germaine to the topic, but I was surprised to find out that public education’s primary goal is not education at all. It is socialization. I wonder if the goal of education in Europe and Japan is indeed education. The newsheads this morning said again how far US K-12 students are falling behind the rest of the industrialized world and that will hold our economy back for a long time.
I was a public school teacher for three years, and I can tell you as an insider, it is a mess!!! It is because POLITICIANS come along and tell us how and what to teach. They give us a piddly budget and expect us to work miracles. They pay us less than blue collar pay even though we are white collar workers. They expect us to work late hours and be the parent to our students that their parents won’t be. They expect that “no child shall be left behind” even though there are kids out there with low IQs (not mentally retarded by definition, but in the range of 70-100) for which there are no enrichment programs. The have removed trade programs like automotive shop because minorities used to flock to these programs and they deemed them “institutionally racist.” They said that if we tell all children from kindergarten that they would go to college, well, then, they magically would!
Even with all of these problems, though, I think that religious homeschooling is awful! These poor kids will never have a chance to go to college- even the bright ones- unless they at least get a GED (and even then, actually getting into a 4 year university will be an up hill battle). It is a shame that people want to intellectually cripple their children because of an ignorant choice to follow a religion that they believe blindly.
Thanks for the thoughtful article. I was raised in a fairly fundamental homeschool family. I went to several Vision Forum conferences, and have met Doug Phillips personally. I am also now an atheist, so my journey has been varied and long. The problem is *not* home-schooling, and any law against home education is tyrannical and immoral. Most home-schooled children will grow up and go to universities, or trade schools, and will be exposed to new ideas and have to reconcile those to what they have been taught. Many adjust their beliefs accordingly. I meet very few Christian home-school graduates who are unwilling to discuss issues like Evolution. They may defend their biased beliefs, but they do listen, and often I am able to convince them to at least re-examine what they have been taught. To think that only home-schooled students hold uninformed beliefs, or that only fundamentalist parents teach unreasonable ideas to their children is just silly.
Anyway, I’m adding your blog to my RSS reader and look forward to future posts!
As several other posters pointed out not all homeschoolers are Fundamentalist Christians. Many homeschoolers believe in the Theory of Evolution and make sure our children get a decent Science education. It’s really annoying when people lump all homeschoolers together. We are a diverse group who just happen to have homeschooling in common.
Attending public school doesn’t guarantee you will learn the truth about Darwin or Evolution. Many states are trying to make laws marginalizing the teaching of Evolution. Louisiana has passed an anti evolution law
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/06/louisiana-passes-first-antievolution-academic-freedom-law.ars
I want to add that the posters who said homeschoolers can’t go to college ARE WRONG. Both my homeschooled children were accepted by colleges based on their ACT scores and transcripts I PROVIDED AS THE HOMESCHOOL PARENT. My eldest started college at 16 based on his ACT scores. My youngest is attending a college class for dual credit his senior year of high school. He takes one class at the local community college and the rest of his classes are taught by ME.
How strange. Sweetie and I home schooled our son, from 7th through high school. “Origin Of The Species” was required reading for him, as was Asimov’s “History of the Bible”. Oh, he was also required to read everything by Thomas Paine, as well as many of the works of Luther.
Strange how now, he is Psych major at university in his third year and he gives the quad preachers a hard way to go, by using that little thing called, critical thinking.
I guess we weren’t the model home schooling family.
Yeah, that quiverfull thing…makes me nervous, too. Anyway, hey, I’m curious, you said Phillips claims about Darwin are absurd. How do you know? I’d love it if you expanded.
Demian Farnworth
I’m all for the “quiverfull” thing (although the “quiver-full” terminology makes me imagine pictures foreign to many religions).
Logically it seems as though more people who become ex-christians (or ex-anythingists) would be a good thing.
During my elementary school days, I attended private school that used A Beka curriculum, and we didn’t talk about Darwin much. When we did, it was mostly about Creationist apologetics and how Darwin was wrong.
My brothers were homeschooled, and I remember seeing some odd commentary in one of their A Beka books after I went off to college and spent some time away from that environment (sort of, anyways). It is quite possible that I am forgetting something, as I did not realize how indoctrinating that curriculum is.
Yes, there are plenty of homeschooled kids who do attend four-year universities. My understanding of what happens in my state (Arkansas) is that the kids have to take tests along the way to make sure they are staying up with the standards of learning the state dept. of education hand down specifically for home-schooled students, those marks are kept on file, and the ACT scores play a big part in admission, as well as the personal essays and such.
That said – I don’t know as much about the kids who are given a much more religiously-based (or biased) schooling, and I don’t know how they learn what they need to in terms of the state requirements… my experience is with friends who school their kids at home, and none of them are fundamental Christians. Some of you may be shocked to learn that my friends’ kids achieve WAY beyond the “typical” student spending 12 years in public schools. Several of them have received full-ride scholarships. I really wish we could afford for me to stay home with our son. I think it would be a tremendous benefit for him.
I did some research through my university’s online access to scholarly journals concerning homeschooling.
In general the articles praised homeschooling, saying that kids had a little better success rate of college admisions, but these were articles coming from smaller colleges (some of which I’d never even heard of). So the education departments of top universities aren’t doing research on homeschooling’s effects?
First of all, these studies didn’t break down what kind of schools these kids were getting into.
Also, I could find NO statistics on science education and homeschooling… indeed NO articles in peer reviewed education literature.
I also could not find a break down of college admissions as compared to religious beliefs. Those who reject science were lumped in with all homeschooling kids.
There is very little scholarly work done so far on this, so it looks like we have to rely on anecdotes from homeschooled people here. But I will say that the articles stated that only 66% of colleges accept homeschooled kids.
The articles also stressed how standards of homeschooling greatly vary from state to state.
I don’t know if homeschooling is a bad thing, but purposely denying access to a proper scientific education because of religious beliefs is. It puts students at a disadvantage in many ways.
No, not many states, only a few states.
There was a lawsuit in Pennsylvania (and recently in Kansas as well) over this and the fundies lost. Any state that passes anti-evolution laws risks an inevitable lawsuit that will be lost as Pennsyvania (and Kansas) has set the precedent (not to mention the Scopes monkey trials):
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/
I don’t know of ANY university that wouldn’t accept a homeschooled student. In fact many universities are actively recruiting homeschoolers these days.
http://www.ontariohomeschool.org/university.html#us
You may find this link of interest. There is more information about homeschoolers and college admissions at HSLDA’s website, but due to their fundamentalist world view I refuse to go there.
MANY public schools also fail to provide a proper scientific education to their students. Your time would be better spent trying to ensure that the public schools provided a proper education to their students and spent less time criticizing homeschoolers
Alasandra-
BRAVO! I applaud you!!!! I wish I had had that power as a teacher.
We don’t receive any money. Not sure how that got interpreted that way. People who attend the brick and mortar school do not receive money. I’ve never heard of such a thing. I’m a taxpayer (not tax receiver.)
Again, an assumption was made. That we ONLY use the curriculum provided by the school and do nothing to teach our children outside of that.
Guess again.
To clear up a few things…
My husband and I homeschool our kids, and one of the reasons is that, in our local public schools her in rural Ohio, evolution is such a hot-button issue that it is only taught for a few days in high school biology. My kids get evolution included from preschool on. They also get away from subtle (and not-so-subtle) prosyletization from teachers.
The kids also get to explore their own interests, and to escape the ‘cookie-cutter’ educational approach. We can also make provision for giftedness, which our local schools are not really set up to do.
Yes, they do socialize. Sports teams, Brownies, homeschool groups, etc. are all available, and our house is the social center for the neighborhood kids and teens. When school’s out, our house is full!
As for the college questions, yes, they get in quite easily if their test scores are good. This includes state and private universities. They even get scholarships. Search ‘colleges that admit homeschoolers’ for lists. In my experience, the college admissions departments have been very helpful and eager to admit homeschoolers.
Dan I am glad you are not one of those people who thinks Homeschooling = Fundamentalist Christian. You would be surprised how many people do.
I have had to many people tell me I must believe (blank) because I homeschool and all homeschoolers are Fundamentalist Christians. I have even arranged field trips to SCIENCE Museums only to have the guide give my group “The Christian” tour instead of the tour they give the public school students. When I have called them on it they said “Well since you homeschool we didn’t think you would want to hear about evolution”. Well why on earth would I have been at a Science Museum then?
Daniel you should also know that when Jewel quoted from your post she left out the Fundamentalist Christian part.
When homeschool children are taught by their parents about Darwin, they don’t usually get lectures about how his theory of natural selection is the foundation of modern biology. No, they are taught something much different.
Will my fellow nonbelievers let the fuck up on homeschooling a bit, and see the real danger in the anti-science brainwashing of children?
“Get them while they’re young, Evita; get them while they’re young.”
-”Evita”
While I was not homeschooled, I did attend a Southern Baptist school from preschool through 12th grade. I do consider what I went through brainwashing. In our science classes, we never addressed creation or evolution; we just kind of skipped that part and went straight to “this is the way things are now.” The closest they came to addressing evolution is to say evolution is based on circular reasoning (!!!). Also we didn’t study history further back than about 1600′s. However, our Bible classes on the other hand, taught us about creation and “history” (dinosaurs and man walked side by side, the earth is 6000 years old, etc.)
Even though I believed it all (creation, Bible, etc.) at the time, I was always able to see the glaring holes in it all. I just assumed, as a child, that there was more to it than I was able to understand. By the time I graduated high school, I was able to admit to myself that I didn’t believe in creation. However it has still taken the last 10 years to completely rid myself of all the brainwashing and actually call myself an athiest.
Regarding state tests to graduate high school: private schools have different rules. I attended an accredited private school in Texas, and we did have to take a standardized test to graduate; however it was a test of our school’s choosing. The test only consisted of reading comprehension/vocabulary and math. No history, no science. There were many home schoolers that “aligned” themselves with our school (teaching the same basic curriculum) and many times they would come take the standardized test at our school. So just because a home schooler has to pass the standardized test to graduate, doesn’t mean its the same test that public school kids take.
I was homeschooled and although I wasn’t taught those particular Darwin statements, I was taught that evolution was wrong and that the Earth was made in 6 days. I am now a 4th year science student and it’s been a long journey. The hardest part is going home every day knowing the truth about Evolution and Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection and seeing my family who still believe that the world was made in 7 days.
hello? envangelicals ARE the talking snake/noah’s ark fundamentalists.
Well, not all evangelicals are fundamentalists. Fred Clark of Slacktivist is an excellent counterexample.
Man… Christian fundamentalists like that are going to make the rest of my adult life hell. Considering I want to have a whole litter of kids and homeschool them all.
No one’s going to believe me when I say I’m atheist!
Just to clarify. Not all homeschooling families are Christian. We homeschool our middle school daughter through a public system that is actually overseen by state certified teacher and is paid for by our tax dollars. We are atheists. We chose this because, frankly, the middle school in this town sucks and my daughter was basically not being taught math. We also want her to be a free thinker and not dumbed down by our lacking public school system.
So, I’m sure there are others out there similar to us and I just want to make sure that there is not a generalization made about homeshcooling.
the reason America is behind the rest of the world in science is because the only science taught here is actually just a metaphysical philosophy being mislabeled science (i.e. evolution). In America the only science we know is that a stochastic process turned monkeys into us. In Asia the only science they know is how to make a TV with a paperclip and a piece of gum and sell it cheap and destroy our electronics industry. Think about it.
I consider myself a freethinker/atheist and my experience with home schooled kids is that they are usually pretty well educated. Of course my connection with them is through summer camps and robotics competitions that I assist with. So the kids I come across are are motivated and their parents are involved.
Nonetheless, I feel sorry for those that are brainwashed in some areas, like the ones who are instructed that the earth is only 6000 years old. My hope is that most of the instruction by well meaning but dogmatic christian parents will be broad enough to get the kids minds working and they will be able to make some conscious decisions as they mature.
My philosophy is that in the end a good number of them will be thinking own to our advantage, even though my initial gut reaction is that “there should be a law against teaching by bigoted parents”. I have witnessed the backlash more than once as the kids mature.
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Good science is practical science. You’re science doesn’t take a how-to approach, so its just a smelly load of manure. Whether we came from monkeys, storks, space aliens, one god, two gods, three gods, fifty gods, the devil’s butt crack…..what difference can it possibly make in how to design the next super-cool jet? Zero. Your science is all focused on converting people to a particular philosophy of how they came to be, its metaphysics not science, and its useless. We need practical science.
lol “you’re science” that’s such an awful typo.
Ironic that I found this by googling “darwin for kids”. As a homeschooling mom, I thought it would be fun to do a unit on Darwin. Darwin in a secular, humanist kind of way. Maybe you’d do better to rename your post “How SOME homeschoolers teach about Darwin.” Just a thought.
J.
I was a homeschooled kid, as was my sister and brother. My parents are christians. They taught us their values so that when we grew up we could make or own choices which we have each done. I was not brainwashed and nothing was shoved down my throat. Every parent has the right to teach their children values. If they don`t teach them good values what could they teach them? It is the parents choice whether they homeschool their children or not. It is the choices we make as adults that we are responsible for. You can`t teach something you don`t believe in. I would not expect anyone of any or no faith to do that. I made some bad choices as an adult but my faith kept me from going too far. I raised 4 children who a doing great with their families. My sister who graduated from a university at age 19, joined the military, got married and now she is a mother of 3 and works from home. My brother made some really bad choices and sits in a prison cell and will never hold his own son, he made his choice after age 30, my parents are not responsible, he is and will be the first to admit it if he wasn`t brain damaged from a bullet. We can all only hope for the best when we teach our children. And we should all have Freedom to practice our faith, remember that`s what America was founded on was freedom to practice our faith whether in God, Budda, Money, Self, Darwinism or nothing. It is called FREEDOM.
“Doug Phillips likes rubbing himself with peanut butter and singing ‘Oklahoma’”
that made me chuckle =)
I tend to agree. At school, people are exposed to different biases (if you don’t think that public school curricula have biases, in social studies, literature, and history, you have another thing coming!) This personal parental bias is quite onerous, to be sure, but it is no reason to shie away from the notion that people should be free to raise their children with their own values and beliefs, absent actual physical abuse.
My problem isn’t the homeschooling, either. Indeed, we’ve considered homeschooling our own children even as atheists. I do like the socialization of public schools — but frankly, the education usually sucks.
But perhaps there should at least be standards that have to be taught. Maybe there are, I’m not familiar enough with it.
Thanks Phil-
Many of us don’t homeschool for religious reasons. And my kids hear way more Christian crap from their schooled mates than from their homeschooled peers.
This is a decent overview of the situation in the US. As I suspected, the requirements and standards vary widely from state to state.
Shockingly, teachers make stuff up when they don’t know the answers, and are fallible, and like most humans have a hard time admitting their mistakes. Especially because teachers are expected to be accurate, it is psychologically easier for them to seek an out with “I swear I read that someplace”, rather than “…oops.”
I find that explanation more likely than that the teacher was intentionally making a dig at Christianity.
BCE = Before Christ Existed? Haha! That’s a new one. Scary that a history teach doesn’t know that even that stands for.
In my experience, history is one of the worst taught subjects in schools. Ex-sports coaches who can no longer do the job they were hired for are more likely to end up teaching history than anything else, probably because (unlike most subjects) it can be treated as a list of dates that students have to memorise without understanding, so it’s easy to get away with teachers who only know what the answer key in the back of the book says.
It’s a shame, because, taught well, history is all about war, betrayal, adultery, secrets, and everything that kids love. Taught well, history should be among the subjects kids look forward to, not the one that they hate most of all…
Ah, those tyrannous and immoral Swedes…
“Most home-schooled children will grow up and go to universities, or trade schools,”
I don’t think this is accurate for fundamentalist, religiously home educated students.
As a “science” textbook, they read things like “of people and pandas”. In the state of Texas, if you can’t pass the state standardized test on science, you don’t get a diploma (or even a GED). You can’t go to college here without a diploma. It might be different in other states, but even given the number of fundamentalist politicians here, I can’t imagine any state that would lower this standard.
Nate, it’s encouraging to hear you were able to get out of that thinking!
AND DO YOU LISTEN WHEN THEY TELL YOU HOW WRONG YOU ARE FOR YOUR BIASED BELIFES?
To be fair, I sort-of agree with you. I believe that, so long as children receive a decent education, it doesn’t matter whether that happens in a school, at home, or in a submarine below the North Pole.
At its best, homeschooling is more effective, as it can be geared for the style of pedagogy that best suits the child. And the teacher-student ratio is certainly far lower. And as LRA says above, public schools have their fair share of problems (too much focus on testable facts, not enough money, for example).
However, many people homeschool because they don’t want their children exposed to true facts about the world, so there needs to be some oversight. Making sure that home-schooled children are properly educated is a lot more labour-intensive than doing the same for institutionally-educated children.
I’d rather everyone got a pretty good education than some got an excellent education while many others learn that dinosaurs died out because they didn’t pray enough.
Ideally, I’d like to see a wholesale rethink of public education techniques to better encourage learning. But even without that, I think that public education is, on average, better than homeschooling, and I’d easily support making it harder for people to homeschool.
You don’t want to home school your children, Daniel, because “When you are raised in a family like this and are surrounded by people who think similarly, it is very difficult to break free from this kind of thinking.” ;-)
wintermute, I very much disagree with you. I grew up with literally hundreds of home-school friends. In St. Louis, where I live, the home-school community is extremely strong. *Most* of those children have gone to college. Maybe our laws in Missouri are not as strict as Texas, but every home-school student I know who has gone to college has excelled without any trouble.
BTW, I wrote a small defense of home-schooling when CA was deliberating the legality of it:
http://blog.nicholascloud.com/?p=156
You can get into college without a diploma. It’s called early admission, my 16 year old homeschooled son started college without graduating from high school due to his ACT scores.
My 16 year old cousin also got early admission into college without a diploma due to her ACT scores (she attended public school).
And most colleges will accept a homeschool diploma these days.
It seems that you are basing your opinion on Jesus Camp and a cross section of your area. Most of the people in our homeschool group would be considered fundamentalist Christians, and 90% of them go to college. I think it there are too many variables to speak in such absolutes.
LRA,
I was wondering what state you were refering to earlier when you mentioned the GED/diploma requirement and was very surprised when you said you taught in Texas. Have the rules changed recently??
I graduated as a Texas homeschooler in 2003 without taking any science exam. I was accepted to college based solely upon my home made transcript and SAT scores. I believe the SAT has added a science component since I graduated, is that what you are talking about?
At any rate, I was raised as a young earth creationist and remain so to this day. While I am open to views that God may have taken longer than 6 days to create the world, I have never been presented with any evidence that would compel me to reject what is presented in Scripture. And I reject the notion that there is no creator. The evidence of a creator is before my very eyes in nature.
I suppose I am accurately labeled a “fundamentalist” because I am persuaded that God created the earth and people/animals/plants in the beginning and that we remain inherently unchanged since that time. And this belief is fundamental to my faith. First, that God is the creator and sustainer of this earth and worthy to be worshiped as such. Second, that He sent His sin to solve our problem, namely: sin, and faith in this act is what brought us back to fellowship with Him.
I am currently a first year law student at U of H on full academic scholarship. And, while I am no scientist, I certainly do not fit your characterization as a homeschooled, uneducated fundamentalist.
Furthermore, many of the homeschoolers I grew up interacting with also went on to be successful college students as well, and many are pursuing successful careers and/or graduate school degrees. So, from personal experience, I find untenable your argument that homeschooled students are uneducated.
- Josh
Of course YOU’RE not posturing, right? You paint with a pretty broad stroke, so I’m assuming you’ve visited “hordes of moderate, liberal Christian churches” and are simply reporting your observation. Right?
That’s the kind of homeschooling I appreciate. :)
why wouldn’t people teach their kids all sorts of things? God didn’t give parents children so that they could be just like their parents. raise kids to be their individuals, that’s what i say.
So your kids go to community colleges or to 4 year universities?
We have a 12, 13 and 14 year old in college as well.
I’m not lumping them all together — I’m the post author, as well as one of the commenters, who said homeschooling can be a good thing.
Oh, come on. Where would Phillips turn for evidence of his claims about Darwin? Further, the claims themselves are little more than ad hominem attacks–they do virtually nothing to discount or disprove the theory of evolution; rather, they are employed to give good little godbots “ammunition” to ignore the theory altogether, because it comes from such a horrible, horrible person who probably sacrificed his kids to the god Moloch.
“3) Darwin was sloppy and he was not a scientist.”
Read Origin of the Species. A more meticulous, well researched science book is hard to find. This is not a book written by a sloppy, non-scientist.
For that matter, read his four books on barnacles. A hundred and fifty years later, they’re still the standard textbooks on the subject.
He was one of the most precise and scientific thinkers of his generation.
“4) Darwin trained his children to hate the God of the Bible.”
If that’s so, he failed miserably. Of his ten children, two entered the church, and only one was a self-confessed atheist.
He was very respectful of his family’s religious views,a nd one of the reasons he delayed publication of Origin was to avoid offending his wife’s sensibilities.
Besides, Darwin spent much of his later life under bed rest, and most of the child-rearing was done by his (devoutly Christian) wife.
“5) Darwin trained others to be hateful toward their fellow man.”
Darwin hated the racist colonial superiority of white Europeans because it led to such injustices as slavery. Indeed, he was nearly thrown off the Beagle for arguing with the captain on this subject.
He believed that all men were equal (though he still had the cultural superiority that was common in Europe at the time). Descent of man is one long argument that all people are deserving of love and respect, and that blacks are every bit the equal of whites (even if they haven’t figured out democracy and calculus yet).
—
They seem pretty absurd to me.
Roger: Thanks. That’s the kind of expansion I was looking for. Isn’t Daniel doing the same thing?
That is not an answer to my question. Further, how are you arguing that Daniel is “doing the same thing”?
My eldest son is at a 4 year University. He is in his 4th year of a Computer Science Degree.
My youngest son is a High School Senior who is taking an college course at the local Community College for dual credit, just like many public school students do.
While you may not have intended to lump all homeschoolers together your post especially the title makes it sound like all homeschoolers are Fundamentalist Christians who teach creationism. Maybe you should change the title of your post to Teaching Fundamentalist Christians About Darwin.
If you read past the title, you’d see that the first sentence starts with “When homeschool children are taught by their fundamentalist parents“, making instantly clear exactly which homeschoolers Mr Florian is talking about.
Despite this increase in the number of applicants, Lewis says Harvard usually only accepts between three and eight homeschooled students each year, a number significantly lower than this year’s overall acceptance rate of 9.3 percent.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512786
Since Harvard is one of the most well known and prestigious colleges in the US I thought I would point out that they do accept homeschoolers.
Homeschoolers do not all think the same thing. I belong to an INCLUSIVE homeschool group, made up of families of many differing beliefs.
http://www.peaknetwork.org/
Since MANY people believe all homeschoolers are Fundamentalist Christians
“When homeschool children are taught by their fundamentalist parents about Darwin,”
Doesn’t really clarify that all homeschoolers do not believe or teach the same thing.
Perhaps your ire would be better directed towards those people?
Yeah, I doubt if anyone here believes all homeschoolers are fundamentalists Christians. As we’ve seen here, there are atheist homeschoolers, too.
This was a post on fundie homeschoolers teaching stupid things about Darwin — it wasn’t a post on the diverse types of homeschoolers.
I suppose the title could be misleading to some people. However, that could be said for almost every post title on every blog. The title is a teaser — the post is the main content. You can’t qualify everything in the title, otherwise nobody would read it. The purpose of the title is to invoke a response and get people to read more.
Roger, I didn’t answer your question because I didn’t make the statement. The burden of proof is on Daniel. Not me.
But to answer your second question, Daniel is saying Phillips is brainwashing his children without declaring whether what Phillips said is true or not. He just brushed them aside with “Aside from the absurdity of these claims.”
Accusing someone of brainwashing…those are fighting words. That’s an attack on the character. That’s why I suggested Daniel was doing the same thing.
I’m not trying to defend Phillips. I was just genuinely curious whether what he said was true or not. That’s why I started this thread to begin with.
Wintermute, thank you for the thoughtful reply. I can tell you’ve done your homework. Very helpful. And I assume since you were quiet on the first two, those are true? Just kidding. Thanks again.
Personally visited churches numbering in the high twenties or thirties, been in regular attendance at four different churches across three protestant denominations, all of whom regularily had visiting speakers from other congregations; also been involved in national scale youth work and attended cross-denominational rallies and events with attendees in the thousands. So yeah, I think I’ve had a pretty good sampling of at least liberal protestant christianity in my country.
Okay, perhaps I got carried away. Like I said, this kind of thing gets me pretty outraged. But like I said, I have had a pretty wide and involved experience with Christianity, and the most damning thing I remember is how flawed Christian information sharing is.
Whether it’s a testimony or an anecdote related in a sermon, or a conversation at a prayer meeting or whatever, there is never even a cursory attempt to check the facts, but accept anything that fits with their world view as the truth. In fairness, the church I grew up in did make a genuine effort to encourage the congregation to ask questions and hold their leadership to account, but in practise, only ever in the context of biblical teaching, and then only extremely rarely. It’s in this manner that bits of misinformation and even bald-faced lies – like the Lady Hope story, or Darwin’s opinions on the Eye, which I had recited to me countless times – are passed on without any critical thought.
They are rather more subjective, and it’s less easy to demonstrate that they’re laughable. But read any biography of Darwin, and you do not get the image og a bitter, materialistic dogmatist.
Ideally, natural history museums and science museums should be separate, so that each topic can be given the depth it deserves. In many cases, they’re jammed together because it’s cheaper and easier. So you may well have been there to look at the rockets, or other non-blasphemous exhibits. It’s hardly impossible.
Over 70% of the children home-schooled in the U.S. are evangelical christians.
You can see where the generalization comes from.
Yeah, that’s a spam blog that automatically takes quotes from any posts that contain “homeschool” and throws it up on their site. I made an edit shortly after it went live adding “fundamentalist” because I wasn’t sure if “usually” would qualify it enough.
FYI, I deleted the url off your comment because I don’t want to link to spam blogs.
Confused, with approximately 300k Protestant churches in America, do you still believe your “pretty good sampling of at least liberal protestant Christianity” still holds?
Even if we said that 1000 of those represent LPCs, you haven’t visited even .05 percent of them.
And I’m sorry: I’m assuming you are talking about the U. S. So correct me if I’m wrong.
Thank you.
I’ll give you that.
But it’s also insulting for the Museum staff to assume that just because someone homeschools they are a Fundamentalist Christian, at the very least they could have asked.
But since I believe Science is Science I think it is detrimental to their own mission to teach Science to kowtow to the Christian Groups. All groups Public School, Private School and Homeschool should get the same tour.
I can understand that. SPAM BLOGS are the pits. I think I’ll add a note on my blog that Jewel’s blog is a SPAM BLOG.
Agreed and agreed.
I’m not criticizing homeschoolers. I am criticizingn homeschooling fundies who teach their children that the world is 6000 years old and that intelligent design is “science”.
ps if you scroll up, you’ll see that I criticized public schools as well.
Confused, I appreciate the honesty. Thanks for the good dialog.
Confused, no, you didn’t undo it all. I appreciate the additional thoughts. Take care.
Your allowances and reservations about the church you attended reminded me of someone who stated its shortcomings far better than either of us.
Years ago, I loved Emerson for saying this (and other great things), and love him for it now:
“If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous word? Do I not know that, with all this ostentation of examining the grounds of the institution, he will do no such thing? Do I not know that he is pledged to himself to look at but one side, the permitted side, not as a man, but as a parish minister? He is a retained attorney, and these airs of the bench are the emptiest affectation.”
(Pardon the bad taste in my mouth from a memory of Stephen Webb, pretend-to-be-open-minded pastor who comes on this website to bait people, disappears, and gets nasty when challenged.)
As a friend said years ago: “Way to go, Emerson!”
And that is how your former church will always, always, always fall short, and change is not possible.
No one ever says, “Are there any questions?” when church is over. – Anonymous
I know where you are coming from, Confused. It all makes my blood boil more than it should, but below is why it affects us:
If they did their little church thing every week, and prayed, and gave money, and the leaders wore funny costumes, and made speeches, and believed in all this nonsense for no good reason, and they all KEPT TO THEMSELVES, we would probably care less.
But they preach, and judge, and try to pass their so-called morality into law for ALL to obey.
Congratulations! That’s great! :)
UK, but it doesn’t make much difference really.
And yes, even then I still think it’s a pretty good sampling, at least in terms of the range of attitudes I’ve encountered; from speaking-in-tongues casting-out-demons types, to traditionalists who turn their nose up at having a guitar accompanying their hymns, to liberals who believe that homosexuality is approved of in scripture.
I wouldn’t like to extrapolate, for example, what proportion of Christians believe that David and Jonathan had a gay relationship, but I do feel qualified to comment on generalities of how christians at different points on the spectrum critically react to anecdotes that support their worldview.
And I don’t get your maths. If we assume that 1000 of them are liberal, I’ve visited 3% of them. 0.05% would be visiting half a church.
Cheers.
Hope I didn’t just undo it with my last post… :/
Whenever anybody tries to tell me that they believe it took place in seven days I reach for a fossil and go, “fossil.” – Lewis Black
Just as the RIAA battles today, tooth and nail, (futilely, I might add) against the downloading of music that threatens their lucrative profit machine and decades-old practice of ripping off artists, watch the fight religion puts up as it goes kicking and screaming into history as mythological nonsense.
You ain’t seen nothing yet…
Kudos.
With the current state of North American public education, you almost certainly have your children’s best interests in mind.
Question: Were you constantly correcting the stigma of “home-schooling equals fundamental christianity” with friends and family, or was it easy to hide your true motives behind the stigma, given your rural demographic?
I am sorry that your country feels it has the right to take your children away from you to school them. No, I’m not a Christian, and believe that evolution is correct. But having “laws against homeschooling” is fascism, plain and simple.
So sad to think its ok that the Government has more rights in your childs life than you do…so very sad.
I’M GLAD I LIVE IN AMERICA!!! WHERE WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO HOMESCHOOL!
I was homeschooled by religious parents, and I assure you that I do not find college extremely difficult. In fact, as a college freshman I have been taking upper level philosophy courses (such as existentialism, philosophy of science, 20th century philosophy, etc.) and doing extremely well. (I have an almost perfect GPA.)
I am also an agnostic atheist. I have observed that my critical thinking skills are often far superior to my public schooled peers. I do not think homeschooling greatly hampered my intellectual progress (unless I am actually far smarter than I think I am). During high school (while I was still being homeschooled), I read dozens upon dozens of books on atheism, religion, philosophy, and evolution and thoughtfully concluded that the religious views of my parents were not tenable.
I think your assertion that homeschooled kids are hopelessly damaged intellectually is dubious and even inane.
I would also like to add that I not only have three years of experience teaching in public schools, but I also have 5 years of private tutoring experience. I have literally taught hundreds of kids from all walks of life and, in my experience, fundamentalist parents who reject science don’t have the intellectual capacity to teach high school level subjects to their kids.
Just my experience, though.
Every family in our homeschool group has at least one child who have attended and succeeded in 4-year universities. Several have gone to “prestigious” institutions and received scholarship money. Homeschool does not limit those opportunities in any way.
I have no doubt as to your intelligence, but my complaint is about fundie idiot parents who refuse to teach their kids science because it goes against the bible (supposedly). You clearly aren’t in that group.
BTW if you want to see what I’m talking about, then check out “Jesus Camp” on you tube.
Many States are passing anti-evolution laws and the Theory of Evolution isn’t being properly taught in the public schools.
One of the reasons we choose to homeschool was so our children would receive a decent science education instead of the “religiously accepted” Science doctrine taught in the Bible Belt.
My parents are both products of the public schools and they both are DEVOUT CREATIONIST. Evolution is the tool of the devil, blah, blah……
I on the other hand attended a Private Christian School from K-6th grade. I learned about Evolution from books in my pastors study. Many University educated pastors do believe in Evolution even IF they won’t admit it to their congregation who would probably throw them out, if they did.
There are some atheist homeschool groups. Depending on where you live it may be hard to connect with them other then online.
Living in the Bible Belt it took awhile for me to find an inclusive group, but it’s wonderful now that I have.
We are open about who we are, which causes a bit of confusion and sometimes unpleasantness.
We really don’t make a big deal about it. It does seem, though, that teens who are closet atheists and agnostics end up at our house, usually with a lot of questions.
There are probably people who assume that we’re Christian, but they figure out differently when they talk to the kids. We’ve taught them to be respectful of others, but not to assume that all belief systems are equal. I’ve heard them get into some pretty good debates about evolution, mostly with other kids. Politeness is good, but accepting fairy tales as truth because they’re in an old book is not.
We are more traditional homeschoolers in that we have NO connections with the public schools and I design the curriculum and do the teaching.
But we too choose to homeschool so our children would have more educational opportunities.
There are all sorts of methods of homeschooling and all sorts of reasons for homeschooling.
Most people would consider what faithnomore is doing public schooling at home as what she is doing is paid for with tax $ and overseen by public school teachers.
Real homeschoolers DO NOT RECIVE ANY MONEY FROM THE STATE or FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
Frankly I am baffled by anyone who would choose to use the public school curriculum, when as a real homeschooler you are free to design your own curriculum. We actually READ Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species instead of just reading about it in a Science book. And with the Internet there are so many resources the only problem is finding the time to pursue all the interesting things you find. We also usually used College Textbooks as the typical Middle & High School textbooks have been dumbed down.
Also, anyone who thinks homeschoolers are all sheltered and only see their family has never actually bothered to meet homeschoolers. We interact with a much more divergent cross section of society than my kids could ever have encountered in a public school setting.
Thank you! And it is THAT element that I object to!
I doubt 70% of homeschoolers are Evangelical Christians. I don’t think there are any reliable statics on the religious beliefs of homeschoolers.
1.) Not all homeschoolers are counted.
2.) Many homeschoolers join HSLDA for protection not necessarily because they BELIEVE in HSLDA’s mission. I know one Mom who thinks the FUNDIES are NUTS but she joined HSLDA because she was terrified that the government would harass her for homeschooling IF she didn’t. And HSLDA bills themselves as INSURANCE for Homeschoolers. Every time there is a hue and cry to crack down on homeschoolers, HSLDA’s membership increases. They convince people they are needed to protect our homeschooling freedoms.
THANK GOODNESS FOR THAT NUMBER! WOW I NEVER NEW WE WERE THAT HIGH..70% HUGH…THAT’S GREAT!
PRAISE GOD!
And again I say, Thank you!
Now having said that, I do not object to your reason for homeschooling.
Again, PLEASE look at who I’m criticizing! I’m criticizing fundies who want to avoid scientific reality.
And did you bother to teach them science? (Real science, not ID crap)?
And you’re basing your opinion on what? Scholarly literature in education? Please read my post below.
And again, did you bother to teach them real science?
Ok, so more anecdotal evidence. Not exactly scholarly.
A 12 year old in college, huh?
I have a hard time believing that you are the average.
Also I’d like to know what college.
Its better than any fairy tale that any dreamer could ever…dream up. And since truth is always liberating and the real message & offer of Christ is not a “religious” message but a new nature (His which is love) than its the ultimate freedom from…self.
There is a life, there is more.
Politeness is key, though it can be difficult when debating someone with Ray Comfort-like intellect to not go down the slippery slope of ridicule.
Having said that, if you are looking for some occasional deer-in-headlights fun, try posing this question to christians:
Why would a perfect, all-powerful creator need to take human form and sacrifice himself to himself, to circumvent a law he created, in order to save us from his wrath?
I even make popcorn.
WRONG!
Wow, just read that again, and again I say: WRONG!
What the hell was that?
No, the reason America is behind the rest of the world in science is because a religious group is trying to force schools not to teach good science because it contradicts their overly narrow interpretation of a book that was never intended as a literal history.
American schools teach electronics far more than biology. Japanese schools teach far more biology than American schools do. Think about it.
The above paragraph is what we would call “fractally wrong.”
John C:
But there is no good reason to believe any of it (New Testament included) is true.
And since beliefs inform your actions, aren’t you interested in ridding yourself of beliefs that are not true, or likely to be untrue?
Despite the fact that you may have believed in Santa when you were young, you have discarded that false belief since, and now purchase presents at Christmas because you employ rational thought and conclude that waiting for Santa to bring them is absurd.
How does belief in a Christ or a god differ?
I try not to lump the “talking snake/Noah’s ark” fundamentalists in with the “hedging their bets, I-just-try-to-be-a-good-person” christians whenever possible. Generalizations are never good…
What were we talking about? Oh yeah, I agree; everyone should get the same tour. Seriously.
Maybe I tried to be funny; it’s late. :)
I try not to generalize: Ray Comfort and my mom are “talking snake” and “good person” christians, respectively. I would hardly lump them in together.
Point is, home-schooling does not equal misguided fundie, and it was poor etiquette for the museum to assume anything without asking.
I think you’re inappropriately using the word “fascism, particularly when directed at someone from a country that was invaded and run by a genuine fascist state only a few decades ago.
Robert
I HOMESCHOOL AND I AM ALSO A CHRISTAIN. WE GO ON TONS OF FIELD TRIPS AS “HOMESCHOOLERS” AND THIER ARE ALOT OF NON “BELIEVERS” WE RESPECT EACH OTHER AND HAVE A GREAT TIME! WHAT IS IT ANY OF EACH OTHERS BUSINESS WHO WE BELIVE IN? SO WHAT THAT I BELIVE GOD CREATED THE WORLD AND SO WHAT IF MY HOMESCHOOLING FRIENDS BELIVE DIFFERENT! MAYBE AT THIER HOUSE THEY TEACH DARWIN AND AT MY HOUSE I TEACH ABOUT GOD. WE ALL GET TOGETHER FOR ONE REASON TO SUPPORT EACH OTHER IN OUR HOMESCHOOLING ENDEVOURS. THEY DON’T FREAK OUT BECAUSE I PRAY BEFORE MY MEALS AND I DON’T FREAK OUT BECAUSE THEY DON’T.. WHEN WE MEET AT EACH OTHER HOUSES WE DON’T CHECK AT THE DOOR WHO BELIVES WHAT. I THINK PPL MAKE THIS A BIGGER ISSUE THAN IT HAS TO BE!
MANY BLESSINGS!
HOMESCHOOLING MOTHER OF 2
I think you meant to say wrong on so many levels. The only conclusion I can come to is that America is failing because it’s not a godless Communist society. Well I suppose that’s one way to knock out DVD players at £10 a pop but if think that’s got more to do with low wages than science.
Actually, my parents are young earth creationists who believe the Bible is inerrant. When my textbooks constantly portrayed the theory of evolution as a cartoonish fairy tale perpetuated by immoral scientists, I quickly realized something did not add up. I read books on evolution from the library and realized that the theory of evolution is extremely well corroborated by numerous pieces of evidence from different fields in science. I actually think being taught young earth creationism caused me to accept evolutionary theory because it (YEC) is so clearly contradicted by the evidence. If I had been taught ID or other slightly more sophisticated forms of creationism, it is less likely that I would have broken free from the shackles of fundamentalist Christianity.
Because He chose to identify Himself with us, His offspring, His beloved who made a perilous journey out of life, apart from Him into darkness after choosing to live from the tree of self instead of the tree of life (christ) and loved us enough to pursue us even unto our realm. This is where all the fairy tales are derived, where love, loss and wonder come from. So now we “eat of His flesh” , that ancient tree, the root and stem of Jesse.
But we are all grown up and have lost our childlike innocence.
There (really) is more, there is a life.
Sorry, you’ve clearly not heard of genetic algorithms. And whether you like it or not you ARE, in fact, a primate whose closest genetic relative is the chimpanzee.
I want to say I don’t think the problem with the public schools are the teachers. My kids had some wonderful teachers when they were in public school (Kindergarten through 5th grade). But teachers are so bogged down by bureaucrats, paper work and students that don’t want to be there (discipline problems) they have very little opportunity to actually teach the students who do want to be there.
As with any profession there are a few teachers that are problems. We have had a spat of teachers sexually preying on students in my area. But I do believe that, they are a small minority and not representative of the majority of teachers. Most of them were substitutes and no proper background checks had been done.
It was the
” through a public system that is actually overseen by state certified teacher and is paid for by our tax dollars. ”
So your daughters education is paid for by someone other then yourself personally, just like any other public school students.
On the other hand parents that traditionally homeschool pay for everything out of their own pockets, just like parents of private school students do.
WE TRADITIONAL HOMESCHOOLERS DO NOT GET TAX BREAKS AND NOTHING IS PAID FOR WITH OUR (or Your) TAX DOLLARS.
Therefore we should enjoy the same freedom from government oversight private schools do.
“But teachers are so bogged down by bureaucrats, paper work and students that don’t want to be there (discipline problems) they have very little opportunity to actually teach the students who do want to be there.”
This and the totally crappy pay are why I left.
I have a feeling that more then a few will reject their parents fundy beliefs.
My parents are Fundamentalist Christians. I was educated in a Baptist Private School K-6th Grade and then a Public School in the Bible Belt 7th-12 Grade. Their solution to the “Evolution Problem” is to skip the chapters dealing with it. The school board doesn’t want angry Fundy parents yelling at them (heck most of the school boards are made up of fundies) and the teachers don’t want to lose their jobs. Because I love reading and learning I read the whole science book not just the chapters assigned. I learned to think for myself and checked books out of the public library. I am sure many of these children will too. And with the Internet there is no way any parent can control 100% what their children are exposed too.
You never know when something you say will spark their intellectual curiosity.
Fundamentalists are typically very religious, not spiritual. Your rejection of that kind of belief system is wise. Christ didnt come to bring religion anyway, why did He come, any idea’s?
Now if only your god granted you the ability to turn caps lock off.
QUIT SCREAMING!
Who’s Hugh?
ummmm…. and your beliefs aren’t biased?
Well, if you’re denying children a proper scientific education, then you deserve to have ignoramuses. Since all you can do is scream, I assume you’re pretty much an ignoramus as well.
(Sorry Daniel.)
“I HOMESCHOOL AND I AM ALSO A CHRISTAIN”
Oh- so in fact, despite your other posts, you are NOT a certified teacher? Well, that would certainly explain the spelling errors and the atrocious grammar…in addition to the complete lack of scientific knowledge…
Quit double posting.
You can’t qualify everything in the title. I qualify it in the first line:
“When homeschool children are taught by their *fundamentalist* parents about Darwin…”
Good for you for teaching a unit on Darwin without the usual fundie propaganda!
I don’t think the number is that high either. Where did this information come from? The only study I am familiar with was taken from a voluntary poll done by homeschoolers having their children tested at Bob Jones University. This is going to taint the results in several ways:
1. people using Bob Jones university for testing are likely of the Christian bent.
2. it’s only going to take into account homeschoolers who test
3. It’s only going to take into account people who voluntarily answered the poll
Even if the 70% figure comes from a different study, it will still be effected by point #3. I don’t think any homeschooler would argue that fundies tend to be the most vocal section of the homeschooling community and thus most likely to participate in such a poll/study (this also contributes to the assumption by many that we are *alll* homeschooling for religious reasons). I, as a secular homeschooler, would not participate in any poll asking about religion because I consider my religious views nobody’s buisness but my own. Nowhere in the homeschooling forms I am required to fill out by my state is religion even addressed.
FTR I am teaching my kids about Evolution.
I’m perplexed as to why you don’t think MY tax dollars are going to the education system in MY state, just like everybody else.
You’re right, the traditional homeschooler, as well as the private schooler, do not get tax breaks and that is definitely something that should be up for discussion.
We sent our daughter to private school for two years, but still paid taxes that went to the public education system, so I feel your pain.
I thought homeschoolers did have freedom from government oversight. Am I mistaken?
*Sent His Son is what I meant to say :)