Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
I fear you missed the primary thrust of my joke. Seems to be a pattern.
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Why making your children follow your religion truly is brainwashing
- Thread starter 1137
- Start date
I fear you missed the primary thrust of my joke. Seems to be a pattern.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
It does when we're talking about facts. For instance, in that case, it would go to trial. The trial would be to determine what happened. If as a witness you talked about the "fact" of the murder, it wouldn't suddenly be accepted as fact. Most others would't consider it a fact at that point, and rightly so. A fact is something that is known to be true. That can only happen when there is enough evidence for people to know it to be true.
Me Myself
Back to my username
Ypu keep confusing what is actually a fact and what is accepted by other people as a fact.
The crime would still be a fact, it would just be a fact ignored by everyone except he who committed it and the witness whom no one believed.
That is the gist of it. In the absence of other people, there are no facts.
Me Myself
Back to my username
Will you answer my question?
Where the object is not simply to find the truth. It's also to protect the guilty rather than let the innocent go to jail. Whether or not OJ Simpson murdered his ex is not dependent on his trial. Either he did, or he didn't, regardless of what could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Most people consider facts to be true regardless of what people think. The reason most people consider this to be so is because that's what a fact is. From the OED:
"Something that has really occurred or is actually the case; something certainly known to be of this character; hence, a particular truth known by actual observation or authentic testimony, as opposed to what is merely inferred, or to a conjecture or fiction; a datum of experience, as distinguished from the conclusions that may be based upon it."
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
Except if it's not accepted by others, it's not fact. A fact is something we know to be true, not something you know to be true.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
I did. You're welcome to respond to my response.
Enai de a lukal
Well-Known Member
I was responding more to Willemena's claim, which you had quoted and (jokingly) agreed with. I could have quoted either one of your posts, I happened to quote yours. Seemed you missed the point of my post- and BTW, I'm guessing most people don't care about your inane comments (which only you seem to find amusing).
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
Not that it matters, but that is the goal, to find the truth.
Correct. It doesn't matter what any particular person thinks, the earth is still round. However, a fact must be acknowledged by society at large.
Enai de a lukal
Well-Known Member
Not that this really has anything to do with the topic of the thread, but that doesn't really make sense. So far as we can tell, the absence of people wouldn't make facts cease to exist- if there were no people, there would still be states-of-affairs, and thats all that facts are. There would be no truths, i.e. linguistic representations of facts., because there would be no language-users, but it doesn't follow that there would be no facts, unless one is a solipsist (in which case its hard to imagine what one is doing on a discussion forum- talking to yourself, I guess?)...
You're right.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
This type of guesswork would be common to people who confuse pedantry and verbosity with significance.
Kalidas
Well-Known Member
My friend takes her children to many churches, temples, mosques, synagogues, etc etc etc.
I also know of a few other parents that do it too.
Enai de a lukal
Well-Known Member
Derp!
Kalidas
Well-Known Member
I guess being a person who wants to be a teacher I should try and weigh in on this.
I do not in anyway think that raising your child in accordance with your religion is wrong or brainwashing. First of all children start with a blank slate (aside from the basic knowledge of survival like the rooting reflex or stepping reflex or what they learn in the womb). So there really is nothing there "to wash". Now disallowing your children to make their own decisions because you disagree IS brain washing, and if you think even for a second that only religious people do it your dead wrong.
One of the students I worked with in a school was living in an atheist family, his friends were Christian and invited him to church. Said parents said no told the kid who couldn't play with his friends anymore AND asked me and the teacher to make sure the other students don't talk about religions during class time (wish they have legal right to do). Those parents were just as much indoctrinating their child as a staunch Christian who won't let their kids hang out with other "non Christian kids" or read harry potter, or watch Disney movies etc etc etc.
Many parents see religious trips (like church on Sundays) as a family bonding experience, and it is. Brainwashing is when you go to extremes not to allow any new knowledge to enter your child's brain thus keeping them firmly planted in your small scope of how you want them to view the world. This does not mean that you as a parent shouldn't be aloud to have them be a part of what is a important part of your life. Just understand that they will make their own decisions one day and you shouldn't do anything to hinder that. Stopping any kind of knowledge growth for a child in my mind is a form of abuse, but teaching children about your religion is a type of knowledge growth. It is the knowledge of your background,culture,life.
As stated in my example above, even atheists can indoctrinate their children.
I do not in anyway think that raising your child in accordance with your religion is wrong or brainwashing. First of all children start with a blank slate (aside from the basic knowledge of survival like the rooting reflex or stepping reflex or what they learn in the womb). So there really is nothing there "to wash". Now disallowing your children to make their own decisions because you disagree IS brain washing, and if you think even for a second that only religious people do it your dead wrong.
One of the students I worked with in a school was living in an atheist family, his friends were Christian and invited him to church. Said parents said no told the kid who couldn't play with his friends anymore AND asked me and the teacher to make sure the other students don't talk about religions during class time (wish they have legal right to do). Those parents were just as much indoctrinating their child as a staunch Christian who won't let their kids hang out with other "non Christian kids" or read harry potter, or watch Disney movies etc etc etc.
Many parents see religious trips (like church on Sundays) as a family bonding experience, and it is. Brainwashing is when you go to extremes not to allow any new knowledge to enter your child's brain thus keeping them firmly planted in your small scope of how you want them to view the world. This does not mean that you as a parent shouldn't be aloud to have them be a part of what is a important part of your life. Just understand that they will make their own decisions one day and you shouldn't do anything to hinder that. Stopping any kind of knowledge growth for a child in my mind is a form of abuse, but teaching children about your religion is a type of knowledge growth. It is the knowledge of your background,culture,life.
As stated in my example above, even atheists can indoctrinate their children.
Enai de a lukal
Well-Known Member
Everyone is getting misled by the term "brainwashing"- this is a red-herring.
I don't think most people are disputing that. As I've said ad naseum, raising your child atheist is on par with raising them to be Christian/Jewish/Muslim/etc, and is problematic for the same reasons. Children are not capable of understanding the relevant issues. They are highly impressionable. And religion is usually an intimate matter of personal identity. There simply is no good reason to not leave the matter until they are old enough to come to a reasonably responsible determination for themselves; and the fact that none of the defenders of religious indoctrination have even tried to enumerate any such reasons is instructive.
Me Myself
Back to my username
You didnt, you mafe a question. I asked you from where did you got your "90%" figure and you made a question.
Then again, maybe it was the main question of the study that you meant to tquote with your figure, for which you missed to put the link.
Thats contrary to both the oxford and the merriam webster definition of fact.
Fact is not something accepted by a big community of people to be true. Fact is anything which actually exists.
In oxford, fact is something known to be true. A single eprson knowing it to be true is enough for it to be a fact, whether others know it is or whether others need more evidence.
Me Myself
Back to my username
The society at large does not think this is true. Almost anyone will tell you a fact is a fact whether others know it is or not and almost anyone will tell you they know things the society at large wont recognise but ey are facts.
Little things of course, like what ey do with their time when no one is watching except themselves. Or a secret shared between friends,
Unless you prove that your definition is shared by the society at large, it wont be a fact by its own rulles.
You seem to be making these distinctions up as you go. I'm all for not going by what a dictionary says, as
1) dictionaries reflect usage, they don't define
&
2) there are free databases where you can have the kind of access to current usage that lexicographers use
but where dictionaries fail tends to be in technical usage or because the dictionaries are being misused (e.g., when they are presented as "proof" of what a word means rather than as a guide to understanding what a word means). You are using fact in a way that you do not defend except by repeatedly claiming that it is correct. It is not consistent with dictionary usage even the most extensive and authoritative in existence. It's is inconsistent with usage (check COCA or the BNC). It is not a technical usage as fact is no longer really a technical term and within scientific literature it is used just like it is in more normal discourse. If you wish to have your own private definition of the word, feel free. But you might want to recognize it as such.