Secular folks should worry.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

…“secularists”, whatever that means.

- Doc

absence of religious belief per Res Ipsa.

Regards,
MG

’Secularists’ simply means people who believe in the separation of church and state. So evil.

- Doc

[MG 2.0]

4. You portray these “secularists” as an existential threat to civil society.

Everything we’ve been discussing has to do with ‘absence of belief in God’. Thus, shrink wrapping it all into a tidy little package that no one will argue about.

GenZ, if the Deseret News study has any merit, shows that this has been taking place over the last 50 years or so.

Remember John Lennon and Imagine?

The current generation is showing a continued shift in secularistic belief, that is…so that we’re being clear enough for some folks…absence of belief God. Some will say this makes no real difference. Things will continue to evolve and do so in a positive way rather than in a negative way.

That’s where the concern is for those that actually manifest any concern. No one here!

Now, like the word ‘civility’, I will hazard a guess that there will be those that now want to define what ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ mean. Or redefine them from traditional usage.

Oh, by the way, thanks Doc for making some us a bit uncomfortable by posting some of the same material that has been presented to many school boards and been available to innocent children in many schools. It made them uncomfortable too. And they knew this crap was already in the schools.

Does absence of belief in God…secularism…lead to bad judgment and bad decision making like what we’ve been observing? Or are these folks allowing pornography the in schools simply religious zealots.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

absence of religious belief per Res Ipsa.

Regards,
MG

’Secularists’ simply means people who believe in the separation of church and state. So evil.

- Doc

Res Ipsa?

Reminder, earlier you said:

You create a group called “secularists,” even though they have nothing in common other than the absence of religious belief.

Regards,
MG

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

What do you mean when you use the word ‘secularists’?

- Doc

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Oh, by the way, thanks Doc for making some us a bit uncomfortable by posting some of the same material that has been presented to many school boards and been available to innocent children in many schools. It made them uncomfortable too. And they knew this crap was already in the schools.

What specific schools were these books pulled out of? I’m a little cagey these days with regard to conservative claims because they’ve been caught lying so often. I’m not saying those books weren’t in schools, but I’d like some proof so we can be sure we’re not being manipulated.

- Doc

[MG 2.0]

You made up something you call secularism.

You’re really trying to get me to avoid using that word, aren’t you? I’m happy to default to your meaning. Absence of a belief in God. This fits.

Then without asking me a single question about what I actually believe…

You are a secularist, right? You have an absence of belief in God.

…you labeled me a secularist and told me what I believe.

To be clear then do you believe in the absence of ANY god?

Including that I favor putting pornography in school libraries.

You really don’t listen to what I’m saying do you?

And that’s just the latest example of you telling me what I believe based on your labeling of me as a secularist.

I think you’re confused and word thrashing again.

A lot of words with less than clear understanding of the facts.

But I am enjoying seeing how the mind of a secularist works. And a lawyer to boot.

Correct me if you are not a secularist. It may well be that I’ve been misunderstanding you all along.

Regards,
MG

[Res Ipsa]

malkie has come closest to admitting that there may be a problem.

I’m the one, however, that is pointing to the rising tide of non and/or anti theistic worldviews that have gradually crept in to societies with GenZ being the canary in the goldmine that we, including secular folks, need to take a look at what might or might not constitute a civil society looking into the future.

Reading Res Ipsa’s recent post causes me to think there is a gross misunderstanding on his part as to where I’m even coming from.

The divide seems to be wide, at least on the part of one secular anti theist.

Regards,
MG

LOL! After I went to painstaking lengths to describe disagreements over the appropriateness of textbooks as a “problem,” that’s a pretty stunning statement. I think I explained, in painstaking detail, why I think it’s certainly possible that librarians have included inappropriate books in a library. If or when it happens, it’s a problem that should be addressed.

What it isn’t is an existential crisis on which hangs the future of civil society.

No disrespect intended, but I’m intentionally choosing terms that parallel your terms “secularism” and “secularist.” You, MG are are a self-identified adherent of Mormonism. You are a Mormonist. I don’t view Mormonism as an existential threat to civil society. I don’t use Mormonism as a scapegoat for all the ills of the world. Mormonism is, to me, just another of hundreds of -isms that people subscribe to, in whole or in part.

Jersey Girl (are your ears burning?) is a self identified adherent of Christianism. She is a Christist. I don’t view Christism as an existential threat to civil society. I don’t use Christists as a scapegoat for all the ills of the world. Christianity, to me, is just another of hundreds of -isms that people subscribe to in whole or in part.

Repeat the exercise with theism.

You use the undefined terms secularist and secularism. Whatever you mean by those terms, I don’t self-identify with them. You, not me, chose to label me as a secularist. And you portray secularists in an extremely negative light. You describe them as an existential threat to civil society. You scapegoat them for all the ills of the world.

From my side of the divide, it’s not really that wide. The fact that you are LDS, or Christian, or a theist is of little to no importance to me. When I meet someone, whether they are a person of faith or not or which flavor of faith they subscribe to, is of little importance to me.

But from your side of the divide, the separation is enormous. You place extreme importance on the fact that I am not a person of faith. You see the the mere fact that I don’t believe in God as an existential threat. You blame the ills of the world on the simple fact that I exist. And as you scapegoat me and all the other people you label “secularists,” You actively work to make that divide grow wider and wider.

The gap is narrow on my side because I choose to accept my fellow humans who identify as theists. The gap is wide on your side because you chose it to be. You choose to scapegoat and demonize those whom you label as “secularists.”

There are existential threats to civil society in the US. They are the people who react to not getting their way by undermining the very foundations of that society.

[MG 2.0]

Oh, by the way, thanks Doc for making some us a bit uncomfortable by posting some of the same material that has been presented to many school boards and been available to innocent children in many schools. It made them uncomfortable too. And they knew this crap was already in the schools.

What specific schools were these books pulled out of? I’m a little cagey these days with regard to conservative claims because they’ve been caught lying so often. I’m not saying those books weren’t in schools, but I’d like some proof so we can be sure we’re not being manipulated.

- Doc

I’ll give you a ‘self starter’ and then ask that you exercise some initiative and go on from there.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/11/02/ ... t-answers/

From the article:

Not only do parents have no idea what their children happen to pick up and read during a school day, but kids aren’t even allowed to bring books out of the classroom.

And even though the books aren’t part of the curriculum, a board member at the latest October meeting pointed out that nothing prevents a teacher from selecting one of the books to include in their lesson plans, even though it’s not part of district-mandated curriculum.

https://www.toddstarnes.com/education/f ... n-library/

Just a couple of quick hits doing a search. I’ll leave it you to conduct some more research and return and report.

Regards,
MG

[honorentheos]

MG isn't living in reality.

Yes I am. You seem to have a problem with the fact that at one time I was in a similar place as you. Little or no hope/belief in a loving creator God.

I came back to faith. You’ve remained in a state of disbelief.

There’s going to be a natural defensive conflict/position that I would expect you to take.

And the expectation that you would make a comment like the one I quoted above.

Regards,
MG

Of that entire post regarding the topic of what constitutes civil society, you clipped the sentence above and say, "Nu-huh." Then make my argument for me.

Brilliant.

It is his bigotry and divisiveness that I see as a threat to civil society.

This discussion is like every other discussion with MG. Underlying the premise and supposed talking points lie a foundational set of assertions that MG is not going to examine nor even allow to come into question. Yet everything he argues, both for and against, requires the assumptions be accepted in order to engage with him. And therefore, the surficial discussion is pointless.

"Civil society" is a fraught term that hardly has a settled definition. Its origins, meaning, composition, and preservation are debated. MG isn't debating about how Gen Z, and more honestly non-religious views, are affecting society writ large. He's making bland statements about how the conservative patriarchal myth he believes ought to exist isn't being sustained into the future by the rising generation. It's fed by a commercial/political marketing machine selling the myth it DID exist at one time and good people everywhere ought to unite in preserving and restoring that quasi-utopia.

Civil society, in concept, derives from the idea that individuals within political and economic systems form ties and shared community identities that, while not independent of them, are different from the political and economic systems of their culture and society. But what does that mean exactly? How does this public sphere and identity intertwine or maintain independence from the political or economic? That's where the discussion on the topic is more energetic.

But this should be interesting if you go back up a couple of paragraphs in what I wrote where I noted, "(The past golden society myth is) fed by a commercial/political marketing machine selling the myth it DID exist at one time and good people everywhere ought to unite in preserving and restoring that quasi-utopia." Economics and politics united in asserting the nature of the third sphere? Wait a minute...

MG isn't living in reality. He's told us he has a perpetual paid-for subscription to the narrative that asserts his religious community's religiously fundamental, politically and economically conservative views are both threatened AND beyond debate. He's so blinded by this he came to a Mormon-related board to share a dumb essay that Trojan-horsed an Evangelical superiority study into the Deseret News. Away for it's Mormon-Trojan horse article, the general thrust of the information did not show "other religious" people in a favorable manner when it was presented to Evangelical born-again Christians.

MG isn't here in good faith to discuss this. He's asserting it the same way a fundamentalist will assert Kangaroos must have lived outside of Australia because of the Noah's Ark story. Assuming Noah's Ark as fact, it's simply a matter of asserting over and over the conclusion this forces one to accept. Never mind the big, "If" regarding Noah's Ark being fact, of course.

The world is changing. It isn't didactic good v. evil. Democratic societies are constantly in flux. Rights either expand or contract to include more or fewer people depending on the values and beliefs of the society whose turn it is to champion them.

MG's path leads to self-delusion and incuriosity. When he dies as we all will, he won't know that it wasn't worth whatever hatred and disdain it created in his heart. He won't be made aware of the limitations his unwillingness to just look at the world without his assumptions causes. He will, like almost all of us, be forgotten in a couple of generations. And society will be what it has become at that time, too.

Personally I think the topic regarding civil society and its constituents is an interesting one. I do think that behavioral trends among folks threatens it's function in the interconnected place it occupies along with political and economic systems and values. But that's true of every generation and I don't think that is a Mormon discussion. Mormonism as a manifestation of modern American conservatism is a better description for what MG is concerned about. But when he views it as a war and the participants are combatants? Thanks but no thanks.

[honorentheos]

MG,

Do you agree with "Woke Busting" school libraries?

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-f ... -libraries

Why Some Florida Schools Are Removing Books from Their Libraries

“If I weren’t living through it, I wouldn’t believe it’s happening,” one parent, who has worked as a substitute teacher, said.

By Charles Bethea

February 7, 2023
In late January, at Greenland Pines Elementary, kids attended a party for an annual event called Celebrate Literacy Week, Florida! There was an escape room and food trucks. Brian Covey, an entrepreneur in his late thirties, came to pick up his daughter, who’s in second grade, and his son, who’s in fifth. His kids looked confused. “Did you hear what happened at school today?” his daughter asked. “They took all the books out of the classrooms.” Covey asked which books. “All the books,” she said. Covey’s son had been reading “Measuring Up,” a coming-of-age story about an immigrant to the United States from Taiwan. Students who read from a list of pre-selected books, including this one, were rewarded with an ice-cream party. “They even took that book,” Covey said.

Covey went into the school classrooms to see what his children were talking about and found bookshelves papered over to hide the books. (He also went to another local school and later uploaded a video to Twitter showing that its shelves were bare.) “This has never been an issue before,” Covey told me, noting that he’d grown up in the same public-school system, in Duval County, which includes Jacksonville. “But I read books about the consequences of this kind of thing when I was in school.” He was thinking of “Fahrenheit 451” and “1984,” he said. His kids, he added, seemed confused about what would make a book inappropriate for school. “The only way I could get them to understand was to ask what happens if a book in the library or classroom had the F-word in it a bunch of times,” he told me. “My son said, ‘We’d bring it to the teacher or the librarian.’ ” Covey couldn’t think of any books at their library that he would keep from them. (Communications officials for the public schools in Duval County insisted that some approved books remained available to students, including those on the list that Covey’s son was reading from.)



Farther south, in Manatee County, on the Gulf Coast, Nicole Harlow has recently begun to see local social-media posts about teachers having to remove or cover up their classroom libraries. Harlow, a veterinary nurse in her early forties, has three children in county schools. Her two youngest are in charter schools; so far, the libraries there seem to have remained largely untouched. But her oldest, Emma, is a tenth grader at Parrish Community High School, where bookcases have been covered with signs reading, “Books Are NOT for Student Use!!”

Harlow pointed me to the Web site of a local group called Community Patriots Manatee. The site features a call to action under the heading “Woke Buster’s Wanted.” The call reads, in part, “Whether your a Tax Payer, Parent, Grandparent, or Community Member, the society that is trying to be created by this deranged wokeness is nothing more than Mental Abuse for Children which WILL ultimately lead into Physical Abuse!” It informs prospective Woke Busters, “We may be in the process of removing books, reviewing curriculum, and making our case with the administrators and school board but this is only the tip of the iceberg. We have to STAY involved and vigilant!” Harlow believes that members of the group may have pressured the school to remove its books. (The group did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment.)

“They seem to be opposed to books that represent all kids,” Harlow said, referring to conservative government officials and advocacy groups in the state. She noted that two of the books that had been challenged or pulled from high-school libraries in previous purges—according to a 2022 pen America report, Florida has the second-highest number of book bans in the U.S., trailing only Texas—were “The 57 Bus,” a nonfiction Y.A. book about an agender teen-ager whose skirt gets set on fire by another teen, and “The Hate U Give,” the popular fictional story about the aftermath of the shooting of a young Black man by a white police officer. “The books they’ve pulled make their political agenda so clear,” Harlow said. “Excuse me, but it’s total bs.”