6/26: Homeschooling and animal skinning (thanks Slithy_Tove)

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by Tony Shepps
Well, I just figure that faith in the truth of others is different from faith in something you can't possibly prove.

That's true...but remember, there's no real proof in science...strong support, but no proof.

*college classes in biology and psychology coming back to him* Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!

A speaker I saw once pulled this on a crowd. "OK, stand up if you believe that E equals M C squared." Almost everyone stood up. "Now sit down if you can explain it." Most sat down. Moral: you believe things you don't understand all the time.

Especially given that E=MC2 has been generally refuted these days. Lord knows there are a lot of things out there that we perceive to be true, but may not be the case. And as you mentioned, sometimes, we just take some people's words for it.

*recalling the job interview I had yesterday, in which the job worked along this premise* Dear God...

As for the finals question, I would have assumed the question was just an abbreviation of "Can we prove that existence exists?" and would have taken an hour to rehash everything I knew about that. That probably would have gotten a B as well. The A answer might be "I think, therefore I am."

This story was from the same guy whose class was fun, but exams were mind-numbing experiences. I got a 9 out of 100 on my final--it was good for a D.

[Griff]

Originally posted by sycamore


I'm curious Griff...does your friend not believe in GOD (as most of us would consider it) or A god?

The reason I ask is that I suspect that many people (and not referring to your friend here) who call themselves atheists are not truly atheists. I suspect that most people believe in some sort of higher power...being spirits, a pagan god, whatever.

I've seen that confusion in some folks as well but not this guy. As far as religion filling in the blanks, I believe that would have been Aquinas' position. If I'm remembering properly, He felt that religion and science couldn't be in conflict so in the face of scientific evidence religion must change.

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by Griff
I've seen that confusion in some folks as well but not this guy. As far as religion filling in the blanks, I believe that would have been Aquinas' position. If I'm remembering properly, He felt that religion and science couldn't be in conflict so in the face of scientific evidence religion must change.

*enlightened*

Religion can certainly be an important part of one's life, but I fear for those that would be deemed "overzealous." Or better yet, those in the clergy. As an example (although perhaps a tad extreme), look at Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert. Now perhaps all they cared about is the bottom line, but realistically...I'm sure at one point, they truly cared about serving God. But then Bakker fell to Jessica Hahn (and why not? She was a hottie...). Swaggert went down his path...now Jesse Jackson. I can only imagine the fine line those folks have had to walk.

[jaguar]

Well i think sycamore and Tony have pointed out what i meant by faith in science, which is that very few understnad have the science they 'beleive' so in a sense, its still a faith. (sure generated alot of response too) . In relaition to creationisim vs evolution i have a very good quote

Creationism doesn't sound so crazy if you bend it and twist it until it matches the best that science can currently muster.

'nuff said?

Which seem to me so true, all these theiries about the length of days and other crap seem to me like desperate people clutching at straws after the boat has sunk. The same i think applies to 'metaphorical' interpretations of the bible, if you can't make it work, come up with a different interpretation! I mean come on, if this is meant ot be the book christians live thier lives by, imainge if we could take metaphorical interpretations of the law....
clutching at straws, and most churches seem to have kinda of shoved the totally indefensible old testament out of sight, pity its not out of mind. (and yes i realise that paragraph will be shot to hell, and i will correct it accordingly)

Blind faith in anything i don't beleive is good

Or are you going to use the "God works in mysterious ways" statement which basically says "I'm too stupid to realise that blind faith without reason is nothing by itself and that if the evidence does not match the theory it is a bad theory?

This applies to all faiths.

Originally posted by Tony Shepps So, those people who pit science against religion are, IMO, missing the point. One can be scientific and logical and still be religious. Faith could "fill in the gaps" of what is not proven or evident or logical.

I think sycamore covered this but the fact is religion doesn't agree with science(Galileo?), they overlap far too much, you can try and go half-half but it dosen't really work. For hundreds of years the Church persecuted science, then science eventully won so tried to adapt, and it does not really work (see above). Alot of scientists are in fact religious and there was a statement signed by a large number of major scientists a few years back i seem to remember stating that they didn't know all the answers and religion could be one. I personally beleive in Karma but i think in the end thats more to keep myself on the straightish and narrower than anything else =)

Originally posted by Tony Shepps If there was evidence that a fossil record was 1000 years old instead of 100,000 years old, science would accept, record, and teach that evidence, theories would change, etc.

Yes, science is fluid, religion (mainstream/major anyway) is pretty unbendable in reality. As for the whole 'lets create a new religion' fad at the moment, i'm highly scepticial, but hey, if people are happy, and they feel forfilled(and in some cases, thier walets are alot lighter) then i don't think there is a problem.

Pardon any spelling/typos i don't have a spellchecker installed at the moment (formatted a day ago) and my manual checking often misses things.

[warthog]

I apologize for rewinding back to the source of this conversation, but it hits pretty close to home.

Just to set some background... I grew up in the shadow of Philadelphia, right smack between Swarthmore College and Widener. Everyone had their perfect little houses, and perfect little lawns. It was laughable to think anyone would even try keeping livestock on their own property (The Man would surely put a stop to that right quick). I went to a high school that was rated really well (Strath Haven HS). No agricultural classes were taught there, nothing in the way of simple living and old fashioned skills. Heck, they even got rid of the cooking class in my freshman year.

Teachers didn't know what to make of me. My science teachers all called me a genius and wanted me in advanced classes. Math teachers thought me a moron and put me in the "slow classes". Imagine the emotional conflict that ensued trying to sort that one out! I slept through most of my classes. Some out of boredom due to already covering the stuff in my spare time reading. Others because the pace of the class catered to the slower kids and it was a waste of time to move that slowly. I was understanding the math concepts with the help of a tutor that presented things to me differently than the teachers. The math teachers knew this and could not change their teaching style for me when they had ~25 other kids in the class to teach.

After surviving public education there was no way I'd go to college for more of the same (with even BIGGER classes). These days I make more money alone than your average combined family income, enjoy the work that I do, have NO student loans to pay off, and I'm entirely self-taught.

Homeschooling is a concept I have put a lot of thought into over the years. My web site deals with a lot of issues relevant to rural families (who tend to homeschool quite often) and others interested in preserving the basic living skills that have been burned out of our collective minds via public education. I have my first child on the way, due in December, and I'm pretty sure we're going to homeschool.

Let me be blunt. I think public school is a blight on our society. I honestly believe we are stunting the development of our children by pushing them through a cookie cutter education system that cares more about bell curves and numbers than the personal enrichment of individual children. The closest thing to public school that can possibly work is a mentoring program where no more than 3 or 4 kids are coupled with a mentor who is an expert in their respective field of study. As the children grow older and their studies are greater in depth, that ratio should go down to 1 or 2 students per mentor.

Breaking down the real world into subjects is also a big mistake, at least later in life. It is okay to say "okay, Johnny, we're going to do basic addition today" when you are dealing with a 5 year old. But when you're teaching a 15 year old, the only way to teach math concepts is in its proper context. I remember in high school we were learning about non-base 10 numbering systems and how I struggled so much with it. But in my computer studies I had to learn the interrelationships between binary, octal, hex, and base 10. And it all clicked.

I applaud this young lady, and her parents for having the testicular fortitude to try something different. She has a brighter future because of her homeschooling that she may not have had if put through a mentally crippling public school. I do think that if medicine is her calling, her work with small mammals will be an assett to her. She already has years of practice behind her doing surgical incisions and understanding the basic anatomy of a mammal.

If anyone is still reading this far, I'd like to extend an invitation to this young lady to write for yonderway.com. This is a non-profit web site that would love to have some articles online about animal skinning and any other subjects she'd like to cover.

[Griff]

I took a quick look see at your site, looks like some good stuff there. I noticed you've got The Contrary Farmer on your book list. That is pretty much my favorite book of all-time. I almost never read something more than once but I've burned through that about three times. I'm supposed to be building a woodshed right now, while designing protein sequences so I'll keep it short. I'm an owner builder doing the get back to the land thing and you can see what I'm up to at http://home.epix.net/~griffins/

cool site Griff

[warthog]

Thanks for the kind words, Griff. Yeah, Contrary Farmer has been read through twice so far. If it gets much hotter out I'll have to put the tools away and stretch out on the hammock for a third reading. I think it is a must read, that even people who don't have any interest in farming or country living should read just for the personal enrichment.