Indoctrination: Science vs. Religion
This graphic communicates several logical fallacies that forces the reader to accept the author’s conclusions. The first logical fallacy is that faith and science are mutually exclusive; that is, people of faith ignore or reject “facts” in order to maintain their faith while people of science make conclusions based on “facts”.
The simple truth is that science is based on faith as much as any other religion. We’ll pass by the logical fallacy that facts can speak. It is not the facts that say anything but the person(s) who uses the facts to support his, or her, conclusions that must take responsibility for the matrix in which the facts are embedded to support one’s conclusion.
The “scientific method” begins with assumptions, those elements which are considered to be true without proving them as true. Since one is accepting something as true without proof, this is faith. Thus, science is as faith-based as every other religion. Attempt to teach something that goes against the accepted assumptions (beliefs) and you will quickly discover an intransigent, intolerant scientific community. The United Nations Climate Change Conference 2015, was an excellent case in point. The Conference attendees wanted to exclude all people who disagreed with their position so they could have unified accords based solely on their facts! Or, try walking into a classroom and teach an alternative to evolution, which takes more faith to believe than a belief in the God of the Bible. People have lost their jobs and were not even Christians or promoting a Christian position!
The example frequently used of religion trying to snuff out the light of science is the case of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) against Galileo’s theory of the solar system (planets revolve around the sun). The real issue was that the RCC warned Galileo not to publish as facts what he could not prove. He could publish his theories as theories but not as facts unless he could prove his position. Galileo ignored the Pope’s warning, who was his friend, and published his theory as fact, not very scientific. The proof that the earth, and all planets, revolve around the sun would not be “proved” until the launching of satellites in the latter 20th century. Thus, there was no attempt by religion to suppress the truth of science. It was “science” that was used to falsify the truth by publishing as fact that which was theory.
The graphic implies that there can only be an either-or position; that is, it excludes a third position. This is not the same as the Law of Excluded Middle (person is either lost or saved, a light is either on or off, etc.). A person can embrace both belief in God and belief in empirical analysis to form conclusions about the world and how to live in the world. Which brings me to the real issue. What is education?
According to “Democracy and Education“, the primary purpose of eduction is to educate is “to prepare and train someone in the necessary skills to have the ability to participate in society as a full citizen”. According to an New York Times article, “Public schools were founded in this country to make sure that future generations of citizens have an appreciation for democratic values, understand what we have in common as Americans, and have the skills to be productive members of society”. Finally, another educational philosopher, G. S. Counts, believes, “the purpose of school was less about preparing individuals to live independently and more about preparing individuals to live as members of a society…the role of schooling was to equip individuals with the skills necessary to participate in the social life of their community and to change the nature of the social order as needed or desired” (as discussed on the web site, “What is the Purpose of school?”.
These people commit a common fallacy because they do not define their terms and the readers do not demand that they define their terms. For example, what is a “full citizen”, “democratic values”, and the “nature of the social order”? Well, we all know what these terms mean, don’t we? No, we do not. But, I do agree with these authors that education is about the teaching of morality. Morality is conforming to the rules of right conduct according to Dictionary.com. But, who defines what the rules are and what is the right conduct? In the modern nation state, the governing authority through a system of rules, laws and directives determines what is right and what is wrong. Thus, education is an arm of the state as it is in America, Department of Education.
The purpose of education in the nation-state is to produce citizens that support the “rightness” of their nation (jingoism), work to support the economy of the nation and, on command, will die so the nation can survive. This is so self-evident that the modern Libertarian movement is against government education for this reason (The Libertarian Case Against Public Schools). The state is antithetical to the Gospel of Christ. All nations are under the dominion of Satan (Matthew 4:7-10), including America.
According to the movie, IndoctriNation, public education was developed in America to train the populace to be Protestant, working Americans who would have the skills needed to work in an industrial economy, for the good of the state, and die to defend the health of the state. The roots of public education are planted in the soil of the French Revolution and Germanic totalitarianism to achieve these goals. In the early 20th century progressive socialism and psychology made tremendous inroads in shaping the public education system to support the needs of the American government for the 20th century, the bloodiest century in world history. Today the government and the country have thrown off the shackles of Protestant morality, which is not Christianity but a form of legalism, and Christians seek to reinstate this morality onto the people; that is, put people into a legalistic bondage which is against the Gospel.
Thus, the problem is clear for Christians. To go back to the “good ole days” when America was a Christian nation (which it was not) is to force people to live a myth. This makes us no different than the Pharisees in Christ’s day. To teach an American history different than that which was taught in schools is to be labeled “revisionist” when it was the public schools that did not teach the truth of history but only the view of history that would support the aims of the government. The Christian needs to be guided by the Bible and understand government and world history as the efforts of sinful men to create a “paradise on earth” apart from God. The crescendo of death and destruction is the result of sinful men creating “paradise”! If Christians begin to teach this biblical truth, rather than worship government, it will only be a matter of time before they will silence our voices of truth, just as they silenced the voices of Isaiah, Zechariah, Christ, Paul, Peter and many others, even today.