School orders families to sign "biblical morality pledge".

[Threlizdun]

The examples you gave are based off of the assumption that it is "wrong" to act the factors mentioned.

You are arguing that ethics are based on wellbeing, but isn't wellbeing itself an ethical concept? Wellbeing implies that it is "right" to benefit others, a "right" that cannot be explained without using ethics and the assumption that helping others is good.

There is literally no other logical basis for ethics. To reject the importance of sentient wellbeing is absolute lunacy.

[The High Tatras]

I am offended that some people in this thread (and many other threads) have used the term "Christian" as a synonym for "fundamentalist". That would be like using "German" as a synonym for "Nazi".

With that being said, private schools (including but not limited to those run by religious institutions) should stop receiving government funding of any kind and be subject to the same rules and regulations as public schools.

[Zottistan]

The examples you gave are based off of the assumption that it is "wrong" to act the factors mentioned.

You are arguing that ethics are based on wellbeing, but isn't wellbeing itself an ethical concept? Wellbeing implies that it is "right" to benefit others, a "right" that cannot be explained without using ethics and the assumption that helping others is good.

There is literally no other logical basis for ethics. To reject the importance of sentient wellbeing is absolute lunacy.

The only reason not rejecting its importance isn't seen as lunacy is because we are, for the most part, hard-wired to care about eachother. It's no more logical than any other ethical system, just more acceptable.

[Threlizdun]

There is literally no other logical basis for ethics. To reject the importance of sentient wellbeing is absolute lunacy.

The only reason not rejecting its importance isn't seen as lunacy is because we are, for the most part, hard-wired to care about eachother. It's no more logical than any other ethical system, just more acceptable.

There is no logical basis for ethics or than that.

[Gauthier]

False. Some are bad due to poor funding, others are quite good.

Yes theres another problem with public schools. They are entirely dependent upon the government for money. FUCK THAT SHIT.

So you'd be happy with Ebil Gubmint doing away with the vouchers that parents use to send their kids to private religious schools amirite?

[Tekania]

False. Some are bad due to poor funding, others are quite good.

Yes theres another problem with public schools. They are entirely dependent upon the government for money. FUCK THAT SHIT.

Public schools in the US are mostly funded by county/city taxes, lesser funds do come from state and federal sources.

[Shaggai]

The only reason not rejecting its importance isn't seen as lunacy is because we are, for the most part, hard-wired to care about eachother. It's no more logical than any other ethical system, just more acceptable.

There is no logical basis for ethics or than that.

Isn't ethics defined as what promotes wellbeing, and morality is the one that varies?

[Corsahnim]

It's a private school. They can do whatever they want. But that doesn't mean it doesn't piss me off.

They can't do whatever they want with government funding. And they shouldn't be able to do whatever they want without it.

Thanks for pointing that out.

[Abatael]

Get over it, Zottistan.

[Corsahnim]

There is no logical basis for ethics or than that.

Isn't ethics defined as what promotes wellbeing, and morality is the one that varies?

Ethics - 1) moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior. 2) the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles.
Morality - 2) principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

The two words are different, but the same. I have quite a different morality than other people, as well as ethics and the way I teach them.
I am FOR gay marriage, though I'm as straight as a line. I teach my little brother to accept gay people for who they are.
Besides, what has a gay person ever done to YOU? They haven't done anything to me, or society. It's what radical anti-gay people have done to them that bothers me. That is all I'm going to say...

EDIT: Grammar Error

[Shaggai]

Isn't ethics defined as what promotes wellbeing, and morality is the one that varies?

Ethics - 1) moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior. 2) the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles.
Morality - 2) principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

The two words are different, but the same. I have quite a different morality than other people, as well as ethics and the way I teach them.
I am FOR gay marriage, though I'm as straight as a line. I teach my little brother to accept gay people for who they are.
Besides, what has a gay person ever done to YOU? They haven't done anything to me, or society. It's what radical anti-gay people have done to them that bothers me. That is all I'm going to say...

EDIT: Grammar Error

Wait, what? I'm for gay rights.

[Geilinor]

Get over it, Zottistan.

Read the last sentence of the article. The school receives government funding. Why should the government be fueling anti-LGBT rhetoric?

[Corsahnim]

Ethics - 1) moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior. 2) the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles.
Morality - 2) principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

The two words are different, but the same. I have quite a different morality than other people, as well as ethics and the way I teach them.
I am FOR gay marriage, though I'm as straight as a line. I teach my little brother to accept gay people for who they are.
Besides, what has a gay person ever done to YOU? They haven't done anything to me, or society. It's what radical anti-gay people have done to them that bothers me. That is all I'm going to say...

EDIT: Grammar Error

Wait, what? I'm for gay rights.

Sorry, I wasn't really directing that at you, but the two definition, yes.

[Olthar]

I'd draw a penis on the signature line and send the pledge back like that. Actually, no. I'd draw two penises hugging each other and then send it back. *nods*

[Corsahnim]

I'd draw a penis on the signature line and send the pledge back like that. Actually, no. I'd draw two penises hugging each other and then send it back. *nods*

I like how you lighten the mood

[Olthar]

I'd draw a penis on the signature line and send the pledge back like that. Actually, no. I'd draw two penises hugging each other and then send it back. *nods*

I like how you lighten the mood

You're welcome.

[Renewed Dissonance]

I'm not sure why people are so upset about this. The "biblical morality policy" is the action of an immoral minority being backed into a corner by an increasingly free society. It is an act of desperation conjured up by the increasingly irrelevant practitioners of an increasingly irrelevant religion. It is the sort of nonsense that people resort to when they know they are losing.*

Sit back, relax, and continue to celebrate as states continue to legalize the inclusion of the LGBT community into civil society.

Ethics can mean anything from advocating genocide to peace. It only exists as a perception, not a truth.

First, the fact that practitioners of genocide resort to the sort of reasoning exhibited in the first sentence quoted above should probably clue us into the value of said reasoning.

Second, I might be able to demonstrate that you don't really believe this. If you did actually believe it, there would be no need to display your political compass results in your signature, for instance; since your perception of correct political/social action is no more meaningful than anyone else's, there is no reason why I should know or even care about it. Why be "proud" of something irrelevant?

Yet, apparently, you think I should know it because...?

---
* The reliance placed upon a covenant of men (signing a pledge/oath) in order to give actual substance and enforcement to a supposed covenant with God should be especially telling -- I just finished reading Hitchen's God is not Great and can see him citing this as an example demonstrating religion's wholly man-made nature. At any rate, it seems strange that almighty God cannot do his own enforcing, but must rely on a private schoolmarm to do it for "him." Of course, one might wonder why "he" created nasty homos in the first place, if homosexuality is inherently bad, etc. Again, it is all the desperate quivering of religious illogic being forced to look itself in a mirror...

[Renewed Dissonance]

Did not the South claim that slavery benefited the wellbeing of African Americans?

Didn't the Nazis initiate the Final Solution in order to serve the wellbeing of a pure Aryan Race?

Was not the Trail of Tears suiting the wellbeing of the Natives, by "protecting" them in Reservations?

Wellbeing and ethics depend on perspective.

Since it can be objectively demonstrated that none of the above produced any well being of any kind for the peoples involved, we can probably safely conclude that slavery, the Holocaust, and the treatment of the indigenous peoples of the Americas were and are all objectively unethical and immoral. For all the sentient, in all places, for all time.

The claims of slave owners, Nazis, and conquistadors be damned.

[Nazis in Space]

The schools are private. They don't have to abide by any government stuff.[...]

Nonsense. The government can and does force private anythings to abide by certain standards - see, for example, the Civil Rights Act prohibiting private establishments from discriminating based on race.

Pretty much the only thing private schools should be (And in many countries, are) free to do as they wish is paying their staff as they want, hire the staff they want, and if they feel like it, apply higher standards than public schools when it comes to lesson plans et al..

Discrimination based on skin colour, sexuality, religion etc.? Shouldn't fly, and in many countries, doesn't fly. If they want to be a school, they better conform to minimum standards set by the government as far as the curriculum and admission standards are concerned. Else, byebye, licence. And if the laws are presently allowing them loopholes in these regards - well, that's easily solved. Close the loopholes.

[Bug Out]

Geeze! If you don't want your kid "educated" with these principles, send them somewhere else! It's a private school that you have to pay money, other than taxes, to attend. If it was a public school, I'm right there screaming with you, but it's PRIVATE! If there's not enough people to pay, the school will collapse on it's own. If that's what people want, let them buy it.

Say I believe in Martians, and want to only be around others that believe and teach that Martians are real. That's my choice and you wouldn't even give it a thought.

Even private schools are subject to public standards of education.

No, sorry. You can't educate your child that "Martians are real" ... at least, you can't do it without also educating them in the full scientific syllabus which would make such a belief ridiculous.

Paying for your child's education does not give you a license to miseducate them. Sorry, but no. There are some things money can't buy, and among those things are the rights of a child.

Actually, you can, and it's happening daily all over the US (not the Martian thing, but educating them to your beliefs) Ridiculous beliefs are relative to the person. I personally believe that having to aim yourself in a certain direction several times a day and pray is, and I'm sure the ones that do these things think my not having to do them is also.

[Pope Joan]

Oh I thought for a moment you meant a real school.

Jephthah killed his daughter because he had made a rash vow to God. For this he gets mentioned in the "roll call of the faithful" in Hebrews 11:32.

So that Biblical morality can be kind of iffy.

[Vitaphone Racing]

No religious school should be accredited to educate students.

[Geilinor]

The schools are private. They don't have to abide by any government stuff.[...]

Nonsense. The government can and does force private anythings to abide by certain standards - see, for example, the Civil Rights Act prohibiting private establishments from discriminating based on race.

Pretty much the only thing private schools should be (And in many countries, are) free to do as they wish is paying their staff as they want, hire the staff they want, and if they feel like it, apply higher standards than public schools when it comes to lesson plans et al..

Discrimination based on skin colour, sexuality, religion etc.? Shouldn't fly, and in many countries, doesn't fly. If they want to be a school, they better conform to minimum standards set by the government as far as the curriculum and admission standards are concerned. Else, byebye, licence. And if the laws are presently allowing them loopholes in these regards - well, that's easily solved. Close the loopholes.

I fully agree. The "government can't regulate private schools at all" argument is ridiculous. If we're going to be regulating a private business, it should be the education of children, most of all. If you want to teach, you abide by certain standards. Every industry must be held to the same standards. If you want to be a doctor or open a business, you already have to abide by certain standards or your job is gone.

[Blakk Metal]

i see one problem with it. even if it did not violate seperation of church and state, it would be itself an immoral act.

however, what country did you say this was in? perhaps it is one which does not claim to make such a distinction. some sort of religious oligarchy perhaps?

I get the feeling this is a joke I'm missing, but it's in the US. It's in North Carolina.

North Carolina is in the South. Of course it's 'some sort of religious oligarchy'!

[Zottistan]

The only reason not rejecting its importance isn't seen as lunacy is because we are, for the most part, hard-wired to care about eachother. It's no more logical than any other ethical system, just more acceptable.

There is no logical basis for ethics or than that.

That, in itself, isn't a logical basis for ethics.