Article about homeschooling(SODRT) and fundies

[znthahmed378]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/artic ... -past.html

I was on the Daily Beast and the title cought my eye. I clicked on it to read and it is about homeschooling of the fundie kind. The writer even mentions Gothard and his ATI and gives a shout out to the Quiverful movement. This the first time I've seen these issues written about in mainstream media (Does the DB count as mainstream? I'm not sure, but I think it does.)

Anyway, there's the link. Not broken because it's the Daily Beast. Enjoy!

[Gertie]

The article links to a lot of interesting stuff. I think I'll be reading homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/ for the next couple of hours...

[mrs]

I have been reading homeschoolersanonymouse.wordpress.com for a few weeks. They have posted some of the articles on Reddit which has led to some interesting debates in the comments sections. I would encourage you to check that out too.

[ILoveJellybeans]

Ive been reading Homeschoolers Anonymous.

Mary's story made me cry, how could a parent withold food and sleep from their young children for days at a time and hit them with a belt 50 times for one thing.

[KBepote]

My mother did that once, at the advice of church leadership. She was told to spank my brother until he "yielded" (cried). He didn't, she did. She never spanked again. I guess we can be thankful for that, but it remains a horrible memory for me and her. My brother is th silent type (doubt he would have ever cried), so no one knows if he remembers.

[ZTwist]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/04/11/homeschooled-kids-now-grown-blog-against-the-past.html

(Does the DB count as mainstream? I'm not sure, but I think it does.)

Hah! Yes, as far as I'm concerned it does :dance:

ETA: thanks, great article

[spinsterwv]

There's an argumentative homeschooler with a blogs!

http://www.josephclarkson.com/

http://thinkersincorporated.com/

Oh, how I love it when they argue back!

[Salamander]

From the Daily Beast article:

Now the first wave of kids raised in these homes has reached adulthood. Many were trained to be activists, to argue, to question the verities of the dominant culture. Debating skill is hugely important in many homeschool circles, because it’s seen as a crucial tool of Christian apologetics...The movement’s leaders never intended, though, for students to turn their prowess against the culture they were raised in. “Michael Farris, his whole idea was creating this cultural army. The finishing point of everything was supposed to be debate,†says Stollar, 28. “That was the ultimate weapon for his soldiers in the culture war. Ironically, debate has given us the tools to think through all that indoctrination.†Of the 30 or so formerly homeschooled kids behind Homeshoolers Anonymous, Stollar says, all but two were debaters.

Are any of the big fundy families followed by FJ debaters, and do they debate with people who actually disagree with them? I'm only familiar with the circlejerk abortion=babykilling "argumentation" of the Duggars.

[lilith]

From the Daily Beast article:

Are any of the big fundy families followed by FJ debaters, and do they debate with people who actually disagree with them? I'm only familiar with the circlejerk abortion=babykilling "argumentation" of the Duggars.

The Jeubs are very into debating, Chris Jeub claims "debate coach" as his occupation.

[Salamander]

Do they ever debate more liberal Christians or people of different or no faith?

[alba]

I was intrigued by the debating thing, too, because IME fundies really suck at arguing. I can't think of a single one who is capable of forming coherent, factual arguments.

[Arete]

From the Daily Beast article:

The delusions these people have about their abilities never ceases to amaze. They can't argue their way out of a paper bag. The limited experience I have with debating fundies is that they turn tail and run the minute you demand actual facts and data from them. Their debating skills are on par with their skills in the arts, literature, and sciences. Their art doesn't move the emotions, their "literature" doesn't explore any compelling truths, and they don't have any science. "Debate" for them is just another word for preaching to the choir.

[formergothardite]

I was intrigued by the debating thing, too, because IME fundies really suck at arguing. I can't think of a single one who is capable of forming coherent, factual arguments.

ITA. Fundies don't teach their children to debate using facts and reality. They give them false information and teach them to debate things that don't actually exist. Look at God's Country Boy who came here so sure that his debate skills would be a match for people here. He really, really thought that the answers he gave were logical, well thought out and based on reality, but they weren't. Same with the blogger who was teaching creationists how to debate the subject of evolution. He thought that he was knowledgeable enough about the subject that he could actually teach others, but everything he had been taught was wrong, so if he debated someone who was well informed he would fail.

So fundies are good at debating peope who don't actually know anything about the subject that is being debated, but anyone else, no they suck at it.

[formergothardite]

There's an argumentative homeschooler with a blogs!

http://www.josephclarkson.com/

http://thinkersincorporated.com/

Oh, how I love it when they argue back!

The thinkers incorporated blog post about floating rocks is a perfect example of a person who thinks that they know all the facts and are providing really great arguments for their beliefs, but in reality they don't have a clue.

He starts off by saying that the original definition of marriage was between a man and a woman and that anything else created chaos. Well, that isn't true, not even if you read the Bible. Men had multiple wives, people didn't get married for love, men decided who their daughters would marry usually based on how it would benefit them financially and politically. He makes the claim that anything but a man and a woman getting married will harm society, but does not explain how same sex marriage will do this. He wants people to just accept this with no actual facts just as he has accepted it.

He goes on to say that abortion is murder because it is killing an unborn child. Yet again he just wants people to accept that without thinking through the ramifications of saying that. If it is murder to have an abortion, then the only logical thought after that is that all miscarriages need to be treated as murder since that is a child that just died. And then there is the real debate that he doesn't touch which is, is a fetus equal to the life of a woman? Does a woman's life not matter since she will be forced against her will into something that can kill her, cause life long health problems and will most likely have a negative impact on her life? Those are the real issues that need to be debated with abortion, not just saying abortion=murder.

He then goes into this very confusing argument where he appears to be saying that people who are gay are like rocks and speed limits. :? It makes absolutely no sense but he seems to think it is very smart. Well, rocks are not people and people who are gay are not going against their natural order. If they pretended they weren't gay that would be going against their natural order. And if you are going to say that allowing gay marriage will kill people like allowing dangerous speed limits, then you need to provide facts to back that up. Toaster marriage doesn't count.

And this is the problem with fundie, homeschool debating. They are not using facts, reality or any sort of deep thinking and yet they think they are. And when they finally debate someone who shows them that they don't really know anything and are horrible at debating, they usually just run instead of trying to learn. Their parents did a horrible job of equiping them to deal with the real world.

[Joan of Snarc]

Fundies: Proving the Dunning-Kruger Effect every day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2 ... ger_effect

[Sobeknofret]

Look at God's Country Boy who came here so sure that his debate skills would be a match for people here. He really, really thought that the answers he gave were logical, well thought out and based on reality, but they weren't.

Whoa! He came here? I must have missed that one! What thread was it, do you remember?

[formergothardite]

Whoa! He came here? I must have missed that one! What thread was it, do you remember?

It is in SOTDRT. He has his own thread. He makes it very clear that he is totally NOT the blogger God's Country Boy.He is just friends with that blogger, BUT IT ISN'T HIM!. :lol: He totally didn't think that when he picked his username that people would think that he was that blogger, even though that blogger is his friend and they talk. But it isn't him. At all.

[Salamander]

Okay, part of that same quote:

Many were trained to be activists, to argue, to question the verities of the dominant culture.

The dominant religious culture of the U.S.? Is already Christian. This just strikes me as more of the "since the entire country doesn't practice Christianity in the exact same bigoted fashion I do, I'm totally oppressed!!1!" nonsense that fundies like to go on about.

[salex]

ITA. Fundies don't teach their children to debate using facts and reality. They give them false information and teach them to debate things that don't actually exist. Look at God's Country Boy who came here so sure that his debate skills would be a match for people here. He really, really thought that the answers he gave were logical, well thought out and based on reality, but they weren't. Same with the blogger who was teaching creationists how to debate the subject of evolution. He thought that he was knowledgeable enough about the subject that he could actually teach others, but everything he had been taught was wrong, so if he debated someone who was well informed he would fail.

So fundies are good at debating peope who don't actually know anything about the subject that is being debated, but anyone else, no they suck at it.

Until Fundies can get past the near constant error of Fallacies of Ambiguity when debating Evolution, they will never get anywhere. The fact is, Scientific Theories are NOT the same as theories a bunch of people come up with at Starbucks over coffee and pastry. Assuming they are, which seems to be the common argument, means that no one who even vaguely understands the difference can take them seriously.

[slickcat79]

The Jeubs are very into debating, Chris Jeub claims "debate coach" as his occupation.

And yet he's one of the worst debaters out there. If anyone happens to point out any of his raging hypocrises, he breaks out the banhammer.

Do they ever debate more liberal Christians or people of different or no faith?

If you mean the Jeubs, then no, not really. They participate in debate competitions through an organization called STOA, which is for christian homeschoolers only. They require a "modest" dress code and a biblical statement of faith. I know it's part of debating to sometimes argue a position that you don't really agree with, so I'm sure that comes up once in awhile, but Chris' students are unlikely to face anyone with fundamentally different beliefs.

[salsa]

I think some believe they're good debaters because they come up with such broad statements that it's hard to really address them, so you're left racking your brain trying to figure out how to redact their "challenge" into a form that can actually be discussed. Of course, your silence looks to them like their victory.

[Salamander]

I think some believe they're good debaters because they come up with such broad statements that it's hard to really address them, so you're left racking your brain trying to figure out how to redact their "challenge" into a form that can actually be discussed. Of course, your silence looks to them like their victory.

The ever-popular Chewbacca Defense! :chewie: :think:

[salsa]

The ever-popular Chewbacca Defense! :chewie: :think:

Yeah. That's it, but I've never heard of the Chewbacca Defense until just now. I only watched the first Star Wars movie, back in 77.

Person A: Harry Potter is Witchcraft

Person B: Harry Potter is about a boy coming of age and navigating the increasingly difficult task of distinguishing good from evil and all the in-between areas.

Person A: Harry Potter is Witchcraft. The Bible is against it.

Person B: Witchcraft, especially as it's presented in the book, is not real. (this is the person who isn't going to understand Wicca, so you're nowhere near going to bring that up)

Person A: Harry Potter is Witchcraft. The church is against it.

Person B: Actually, most churches don't have a problem with it. It's fiction! People understand that fiction is not reality.

Person A: Harry Potter is Witchcraft.

Person B: Have you read it?

Person A: I don't read witchcraft. There's witchcraft in it, isn't there?

Person B: Well, yeah...

Person A: *triumphant smirk* Humph!

Winner: Person A, who then can go back to his/her Sunday school class and gloat over how s/he defeated a liberal.

edited because my finger slipped and hit submit too early.

[znthahmed378]

Do they ever debate more liberal Christians or people of different or no faith?

They probably do debate people of different persuasions. The article mentioned that the debate team at Patrick Henry once defeated Oxford’s Balliol College. I googled to check if this is the prestigious Oxford U. in England and it is. Here's the section in the fifth paragraph:

Now the first wave of kids raised in these homes has reached adulthood. Many were trained to be activists, to argue, to question the verities of the dominant culture. Debating skill is hugely important in many homeschool circles, because it’s seen as a crucial tool of Christian apologetics. (Patrick Henry, the Virginia college for homeschoolers that Farris founded, has a moot-court team that has twice defeated Oxford’s Balliol College.) The movement’s leaders never intended, though, for students to turn their prowess against the culture they were raised in.

[GenerationCedarchip]

Do they ever debate more liberal Christians or people of different or no faith?

Depends on which fundies we're talking about. I don't know about the College Minus crowd, but schools like Patrick Henry, Regent, etc.. pride themselves on taking on the secular schools. Someone already posted about the Balliol debates, and I know at the law school level, my husband and I both have judged moot court and the team from Regent generally does very well. Liberty also has a solid moot court team. The schools have other academic problems but they do pour a lot of resources into debate and moot court types of activities because they see that as the way for Christians to prove themselves in the public arena. I got seated with a Regent prof at a banquet once and we had an interesting discussion about it.