And Brodski never said there was.
UK political pledge needs more support
- Thread starter Asolepius
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And Brodski never said there was.
brodski
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I’m pleased for you. Now, do you have a comment on my post?
geni
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If parents do not hold that position there can be no way for the actions you describe to be internaly consistant.
brodski
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They may wish for a good local comprehensive, but where there are a number of quality selective schools, these will distort the “market” in school places, not because of selection criteria, more because of exclusion criteria. The local comps are forced to take whichever pupils the selective faith schools turf out, which will obviously have a detrimental effect on the non-selective schools, who will end up with far more than their fair share of the “problem” kids. Which concentrates problems in a few schools, and creates further problems of its own.
Under these circumstances it is perfectly rational for a parent to send their child to a faith school, whilst opposing in general the privilege given to faith schools, and realising that more selection is not the answer.
There is a very clear demand from parents that all schools be given more power to exclude disruptive and dangerous pupils, unfortunately this leaves LEA’s with the tricky problem of how to provide the education which every child is entitled to.
No satisfactory solution has been found to this problem, and so we are left with our two tier education system.
Your question, in case you don't remember ,was whether the 36% percent of people would express themselves in the same way as the God Delusion does.
I expressed how those 36% percent of people had answered and in what way this overlapped with the content of the book.
I conceded that there may be additional material covered in the book, that I have no data on how well supported . I conceded that of these people many may choose to express themselves in a different manner. Clearly we are all individuals.
I believe I answered your question.
You didn't ask about Watchmen or the Humanist manifesto.
I assume the reason for that was that "The God Delusion" was the book that this campaign chose to use to highlight a growing sentiment. Whether other options would have been a better choice is rather irrelevant given that it's now a done deal. Wouldn't you agree?
However if Mr Keys response had been along the lines of "I find it important to be tolerant and keep abreast of other people's beliefs but to that end have chosen to read Sam Harris's End of Faith instead" then that would have been far more conciliatory than his dismissal claiming that he's got "real" work to do. As if attending to correspondence from his constituents wasn't a vital part of the job of work we're all paying him to do.
I for one found the tone of his latest response insulting and patronising.
I'm not insisting he be forced to read the book I'm simply saying that to me, the reasons he gives for not reading the book are exemplary of all that is wrong with blind faith in religious belief.
I would expect no such thing unless 50% of schools were faith schools. I don't find faith schools being full to be in anyway inconsistent with a majority of people opposing them. Neither did any of the statistics I quoted say outright oppose.
64% Objected to public funding for faith schools. Can you not imagine a person of faith keen to get their child into a faith school who still recognises that the funding should come from their faith rather then the secular government.
80% Believed that faith schools should be open to those of all religious beliefs. Can you not imagine a parent keen to get their child into a selective faith school because of good results who would also prefer that they accepted more students from outside the faith?
80% Opposed expansion of faith schools. can you not imagine a parent who succeeded in getting their children into a faith school who think that there are already enough faith schools.
Whilst faith schools being full does indeed suggest that there are a very great number of people who believe that state schools are of great benefit to the country this does not preclude there being an even greater number of people who have serious reservations about the state school system. This is the other side of the argument which I presented with empirical evidence from surveys you can look up for yourself if you have any doubts.
Here's one where 64% of respondents faced with the question
"Q.9 The government is expanding the number of state funded faith schools, including muslim schools. Which one of
the following statements do you most agree with?"
Identified most closely with the statement "Schools should be for everyone regardless of religion and the government should not be funding faith schools of any kind"
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Politics/documents/2005/08/23/Guardian-aug05.pdf page 24
Now tell me what is strange about this result and faith schools being full? I really can't see it.
geni
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No those were just trivial examples of why your line of reasoning was flawed.
That would be the sunk cost logical fallacy.
Given the likely number of MPs who haven't read the bible cover to cover (dito the koran_ failing to read texts that may be relivant to some undefined group's elgious belifes is hardly a sacking offence
You failed to take into account the large number of people who are not parents.
Raiseing the islamic issue makes the survey invalid as a source for backing your claims by any reasonable standards.
Because we know they are not full of hard core religious. Hardly a secret that there are people prepared to go to quite some lengths in terms of fakeing belife in order to get in.
I'm sorry but I don't see how the exisitance of other books that might serve the same purpose demonstrates a flaw in any of the assertions I made
1) Mr Keys Job is to represent the interests of his constituents.
2) If Salisbury follows tha national average then 36% of his constituents have an essentially humanist outlook
3) One of his constituents has invested the time, money and effort to make vailable to Mr Keys, a text which is widely respected amongst the humanist community.
4) Mr Keys stated reasons for not availing himself of the opportunity to familarise himself with a set of viewpoints shared by a significant proportion of his consitiuents do not speak well as to the benefits of blind faith.
Perhaps but not entirely. As stated by to SkepticWiki
The Sunk Cost Fallacy is an informal logical fallacy in which it is argued that the amount of time, effort, or money already invested in a project justifies the investment of yet more time, effort and money in order to complete the project.
This is a fallacy because the actual economic calculation which needs to be made is whether the project would be worth completing at the cost of the investment which still remains to be made.
Asolepius and I both felt that our MPs would benefit from the opportunity to read "the God Delusion." Recognising that MPs were busy people we both made sugegstions as to which parts of the book might be relevent to policy issues about which we have concerns. Our feeling on this matter was sufficient for us to remove the significant hurdle of procuring the book for themselves.
In its purest form the sunk cost logical fallacy as applied to this situation would have been to suggest that if our MPs didn't then read the book then that would be our time and effort wasted.
If you re-read what I posted then you will see that I wasn't explicitly making that point. If that's how you read it then the implication was all yours. I was refering instead to your suggestion that other books could have served an equal purpose. I questioned whether this was in any way releavent since Asolepius and I had both voluntarily chosen "the God Delusion" (or sections of it) in order to express to our MPs the interests of us, their constituents. The mere fact that we could ahve taken an alternitive approach does not make the approach we chose in any way invalid.
If it was your intention to argue ad absurdium that if our MPs shoud read the God Delusion because it represented the ideas of humanist then they should also read ten thousand other books containing simlar themes then please make that explicit.
Well then I shan't ask for Robert Keys to be sacked then. I shall still say that his responses rudely exemplified the closed minded nature of blind faith and if you want to uphold the right of every man to be a rude arrogant and patronising git then you'll find no argument from me. I amy be all of those things but I try real hard not to be a hypocrite.
Personally I'm not paid to repesent the interests of a community but if I were, and a member of that community raised an issue and facilitated my understanding of the issue by way a gift of knowledge, then I should want to have a damn sight better reason than any of those offered by Richard Keys before rejecting such an approach. If 36% of my constituents were muslim and the gift of knowledge in question was the Koran or a particalr Hadith then I should certainly feel it my duty to reference the book as directed if not read the whole thing. I may have more pressing priorities, or choose to achieve the same end result though other means but to imply that it's not my job to consider policy issues raised by the people I'm paid the repsent would be entirely untrue.
Incidentally I have read parts of the Koran that various correspondants have sugegsted might be relevant to discussions. I have read the bible from cover to cover. Many of us athiests have. I've also read Mein Kampf and the Communist manefesto. I've read the Humanist manifesto but I'm sorry to say I haven't read the Watchman comics. I have read Preacher if that's any help but if you want to send me the Watchman comincs I'll happily read them too.
geni
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Prove it.
Is that your only comment? It seems a rather petty point to focus on. ETA: Plus for him/her to prove the first part would require someone publicly identifying themselves to you and why should they do that for a drive which is easily shown to have existed?
ETA1 second point seems almost trivially easy to prove with a quick Google search:
http://www.northantssecularhumanist.org.uk/ - see suggested reading list
http://www.brightsonline.net/newsfeed/index.php/archives/category/countries/uk/ - see richarddawkins.net achieving results
http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/contentViewArticle.asp?article=1735 example quote
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brodski
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Which is a pretty clear indicator that it is not the “faith” element of the school which is attractive to parents, but rather the other advantages which faith schools have over mainstream state schools.
???
Asolepius, claims to have been the Les Rose listed here who agreed to the pledge on pledgebank You can see that Les has listed the same response from Mr Key as Asolepius has listed here. I see no reasonable doubt that he's tellign the truth.
It was the intent of the pledge that subscribers send their copies to their constituency MP. I cannot see that Asolepius has explicitly confirmed that his is one of Mr Key's constituents. It appears that I may have made an assumption too far. Unless Asolepius wishes to enlighten us further please read instead "someone who is likely one of Mr Keys' constituents"
Jaggy Bunnet
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I think the "prove it" relates to the "text which is widely respected amongst the humanist community" part of the quote, rather than whether it was provided by a constituent.
At least that is the way I read it.
geni
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The claim has been made that the book represents the views of 36% of the population. So far we have two highly questionable connections.
geni
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Which would be the selction issue. So logicaly if that was the case we would expect support for allowing more selection.
brodski
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No, as I outlined above, it clearly is not the selection issue, it is the exclusion issue. People realise that selection is only of relative benefit if you have some non- selective schools, and so a universal expansion of selection is not an answer- a sensible way of dealing with disruptive and dangerous pupils- rather than concentrating them in non faith, non selective schools, is.
Asolepius
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Is it just me, or is anyone else finding the present debate just a tad pedantic? Whatever the actual numbers, the sceptical/humanist/atheist position has evidence on its side, and has substantial support. In addition, only a very small percentage of the population practises a religion. The point is (unless I am missing it) is that most people are not convinced by religion, even if they are floating voters on the subject, and a relevant book which has been very highly regarded is worth at least a cursory look rather than outright dismissal. I wonder if Robert Key would be so dismissive if he didn't have such a safe seat. A stuffed gorilla wearing a blue badge would get elected round here. It wouldn't show much less intelligence either.
ETA - I mean the exchange about whether 36% of the population takes a humanist stance. And yes I am Les Rose, but keep that under your hats. And the avatar is me, but you will have a hard time recognising me from that now.
ETA - I mean the exchange about whether 36% of the population takes a humanist stance. And yes I am Les Rose, but keep that under your hats. And the avatar is me, but you will have a hard time recognising me from that now.
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I'm sorry, my mistake. I thought you wanted me to prove that Asolepius was a constituant who had sent his MP a book.
Instead you want me to prove that the book represents the views of 36% of the population?
I'm afraid I can't do that. You did ask me that question before and I gave you a very fair and balanced answer. In no way did I suggest that the book fully represents the views of 36% of the population. Humanists simply aren't that dogmatic.
My original claim was that 36% of people have an essentially humanist outlook. On questioning I detailed exactly what I meant by that and the empirical evidence for that claim.
The only claim I made for the book was that it would help the reader to understand the sentiments and justifications of those 36% specifically -
- feeling that scientific & other evidence provides the best way to understand the universe (rather than feeling that religious beliefs are needed for a ‘complete understanding’)
- believing that that ‘right and wrong’ can be explained by human nature alone, and does not necessarily require religious teachings, and
- basing their judgments of right and wrong on ‘the effects on people and the consequences for society and the world’.
From reading the book I know that the author would answer those three questions in the same way. He offers some (IMHO) very excelent reasons to do so.
The claim preceding your request for proof was that the book was widely respected.
As for demonstrating that you need look no further than the bestseller lists. The pledge itself is evidence that it is well regarded in humanist circles with its sucess being in no small part attributed (by me if you must ask) to promotion by humanist groups and many of the copies being donated by various local humanist associations.
As ahumanist, as a member of the humanist community I have encountered no reason not to believe that the book is highly regarded in humanist circles.
So I must ask what is it that makes you doubt this? Or did you simply ask me to prove it in order to waste my time?
Your responses seem out of sync with the posts you are quoting.
Asolepius
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Styles were slightly different in 1949.