Teach secular morality in public schools

Silence implies acquiescence.

We live in a culture that is rife with moral controversy, but public education is largely silent with regard to many of these controversies.

In a Free Inquiry article titled “Wanted: Moral Education for Secular Children” (December 2006), Paul Kurtz asks why we aren’t doing a better job of stepping into the moral void to give our children a secular moral education:  “Secularists, humanists, and naturalists face a pivotal and deeply practical challenge: how to develop educational curricula and institutions that can provide moral guidelines for our children.”

Kurtz crowns pop culture as a prime contributor to the problem:

“banal and demeaning values often permeate the mass media: popular television, movies, music, radio, the Internet, and literature read by children. These values can herald violence, greed, vindictiveness, and immorality.”

Teaching children to be moral without reference to religion is easier said than done, of course.  Secular versions of morality conflict with many authoritarian versions of morality:

[The authoritarian tradition] holds that “deference to authority” is essential and stresses moral commandments that children simply need to accept and obey. The primary emphasis is on obedience to ancient creeds and codes. Second is the liberal tradition, which encourages young people to be responsible and to think for themselves. This approach stresses personal autonomy and freedom of thought. It is part of a new morality that has become influential since the Enlightenment: an effort to improve the lives of individuals in the current world.

Unfortunately, it is often difficult to

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The “arrogant claim” of Sam Harris that the universe just happened “by chance”

Published here, you can read the ongoing lively debate between Sam Harris and Dennis Prager, who hosts a nationally syndicated radio talk show. 

Here’s how Harris responded to the common claim that atheists are arrogant believers that everything “just happened”:

Atheism does not assert that “it is all made by chance.” No one knows why the universe came into being. Most scientists readily admit their ignorance on this point. Religious believers do not. One of the extraordinary ironies of religious discourse can be seen in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while condemning scientists and other nonbelievers for their intellectual arrogance. You have done a fine job of this above. And yet, there is no worldview more reprehensible in its arrogance than that of a religious believer: The Creator of the Universe takes an active interest in me, approves of me, loves me, and will reward me after death; my current beliefs, drawn from scripture, will remain the best statement of the truth until the end of the world; everyone who disagrees with me will spend eternity in hell…

An average believer has achieved a level of arrogance that is simply unimaginable in scientific discourse—and there have been some extraordinarily arrogant scientists.

Prager argues here that God’s existence is proved by the alleged lack of moral fiber found in secular societies.

My argument is that unlike Judeo-Christian America, secular societies—generally meaning those of Western Europe—lose their will to survive (by not reproducing), and

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A haphazard list of some of Dangerous Intersection’s more memorable posts

We recently received this comment from Scholar:

Erich or Grumpy,

May I please have some more links to the discussions here at dangerous intersections which you have found to be most interesting, *must read*, or highlights in general.

Thanks,
Scholar

—

I took Scholar’s request seriously and went back to review many of our posts.  I still can’t get over how many topics we’ve addressed in nine months, covering 592 posts! 

Rather than call these posts the “best of,” I would merely call them the more memorable posts to me, keeping in mind the triple asterisk that comes with the assembly of this list:  1) I simply didn’t have the time to review each of the posts again.  Therefore, this list is only representative, not complete.  2) It is difficult to determine any meaningful criteria on which to base such a list, other than (as I’ve already suggested) the idea that this list includes many of the posts I found memorable.  Other people will certainly have different ideas of what posts are worthy 3) Scholar’s request puts me in an awkward spot, given that I write for the blog. 

To the extent that I’ve included my own posts, then, it should be with the understanding that I am not trying to judge the writing so much as considering whether the ideas addressed are memorable to me, whether the ideas expressed therein seemed important or whether they moved me.  Here’s another way of looking at it:  if you want …

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Liberal Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives

Michael Moore recently published this pledge in the Los Angeles Times.  I applaud each of these twelve points: 1) We will always respect you. We will never, ever, call you "unpatriotic" simply because you disagree with us. In fact, we encourage you to dissent and disagree with us. 2) We…

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SEX

I know, a catchy title.  A little unfair maybe, since there’s nothing particularly titillating in what follows.  Or maybe there is, depending on what–what’s the saying?–“pumps yer nads!”   But in view of Erich’s post about our newly appointed head of Family Planning, I thought this might be the time to indulge more than a little in a topic rather close to my heart (depending on where one locates said metaphorical organ).

Did you know that the last week of October is national Protection From Pornography Week?  Yes, indeed, signed into law by our illustrious president, Mr. Bush back in 2003.  I for one had no idea I needed to be protected from it.  How reassuring to know that we are being defended from dangers both real and imagined by the ever watchful gaze of our very own homegrown clerics.

We’ve spent tax dollars on this.  Here is the link to the official White House proclamation.

Seems innocuous enough, even homey.  All that stuff about the destructive effects of porn on children, who can argue?

Has it occurred to anyone throughout the last two decades (beginning, in my opinion, with Ed Meese–anyone remember him?) of the war on pornography that–like alcohol and tobacco–pornography is simply not for children?  It seems a ludicrously simple idea to me–it was never intended for them.  We manage to have reasonable laws about things not intended for children.  We don’t let them drive cars (except at amusement parks, in specially constructed rides), we don’t let …

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