Secularist education robbing young of hope
Education is about preparing young people for life, so educators cannot avoid having some vision of what life is for and how it should be lived.
Every education system, be it islamic, secularist or Catholic is shaped by a particular vision of human dignity and a view of life’s purpose. This is true at primary, secondary and college level.
In Ireland the two main education systems are Catholic and secularist. The secularist system prevails at college level, and is being promoted more and more at the earlier stages.
Not all visions of life, however, have and promote a true understanding of human dignity. So not all education systems are of equal value. We need to face that fact.
The key issue in our understanding of life is whether or not death is the end of human existence, or what comes after death. This, ultimately, determines what people value and how they live.
How an education system answers these questions shapes it profoundly. The secularist system refuses to answer them explicitly, claiming to have no position. This is a confidence trick.
It hides a basic assumption, that death ends everything. This is the hopeless vision it subtly transmits to its students at all levels.
This assumption may do little harm in the teaching of maths, spelling or woodwork, utilitarian subjects. But it’s different when the subject is, for example, literature, personal relationships or morality, what it is to be a good person.
In these subjects secularists, if they are not to be exposed as frauds, must smuggle in Christian principles, such as “equality” or “human rights”, without acknowledging it.
Or the school may opt for “inclusivity” and “diversity”. It “celebrates” the beliefs and festivals of students from different religious backgrounds, including secularism. Thus, children learn that “one religion is as good as another”.
This, however, is irrational. Religious beliefs often contradict each other, so all cannot be true. Glossing over this radically undermines respect for the truth.
The ideological message that both staff and pupils imbibe is that truth does not matter. Students, instead of becoming seekers after truth, are supposedly taught to “think for themselves”.
But if they are told that the truth about even fundamental issues does not matter, what is the point of education?
An education system or a college that can’t cope with the issue of truth embodies an assault on reason.
No surprise then, that many Irish students leave college more ignorant and gullible than they were entering it. And society suffers.
Catholic education, on the other hand, is founded on explicit and true teaching about the purpose of life and how we achieve it, both here and hereafter.
It has an integrated vision of life and how we should live, centred on the worship of God and the death and resurrection of Jesus.
It communicates to students a sense of their true dignity, a love for truth, respect for reason, commitment to society, a true vision of life and a well-founded hope and joy.
This is something for Catholics to be proud of, to celebrate. Why would young people reject this ennobling vision in favour of a junk secularist outlook? Why would Catholic parents want to deprive their children of such an education?
Rather, they should fight furiously to protect such a great blessing for their children and society.
TD’s foolish, sexist tweet
In a show of support for Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan, the Gael TD Regina Doherty tweeted, “In my opinion she has grit and determination to manage change needed.” A few hours later O’Sullivan resigned.
But it was the other part of Doherty’s tweet that was curious: “Special place in hell for women who don’t support other women.”
This was probably a bit of silly, cost-free virtue-signalling by Regina. But why single out one sex for female support? Or does sex equality work in just one direction?
If a male TD reserved a special place in hell “for men who don’t support other men,” we would greet his view with derision, think he was off the wall or even view him as a dangerous fanatic.
More importantly, Doherty seems to think that women should approve of and support everything another woman does. Would that include shoplifting, adultery or even a female suicide bombing?
In truth, no behaviour deserves support simply because of the sex, nationality or religion of the person performing it.
A person deserves support if what he or she is doing is good, and should be denied support if it is foolish or morally evil.
Taoiseach trying to be truthfulIn a New York Times interview, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that he did not “accept the view that the unborn child... should have equal rights to an adult woman, to the mother.”
On the other hand, he did not “share the view that the baby in the womb, the foetus, whatever term you want to use, should have no rights at all.”
Nor did he think that human rights only begin after birth “and that a child in the womb with a beating heart, the ability to hear, the ability to feel pain, should have no rights whatsoever.”
This sounds like a man caught between integrity and political expediency, trying hard to be just and truthful but immensely confused about fundamental issues.
He refuses to deny that the child in the womb is a living human being. Indeed, from conception it even looks like a baby, like a baby at that stage of development. And he believes that this baby should have rights.
Unfortunately no one in our media has been willing to ask him certain key questions.
1. What rights, for example, does he think the unborn child has and how should the State protect those rights.
2. Where do they come from - are they inherent in the child because he or she is a human being, or are they just granted by the State?
Is it even possible to recognise and uphold the unborn child’s other rights, for example, a right not to be harmed by drug companies, if the most fundamental one, the right to life protection, is rejected?
3. Finally, what kind of society do we get if we deny the fundamental dignity and the basic natural rights of one class of human beings, if we treat them as subhuman?
Germany tried that in the 1930s-40s. At first it did not seem to matter very much. But the final consequences were horrendous. Mr Varadkar needs to get his thinking sorted out.
Vegas and role of good law
The mass shooting in Las Vegas, which left at least 59 people dead, has resulted in renewed calls for gun laws in the US to be tightened.
It is striking that it is leftwing liberals like Hillary Clinton, top Democrats, media pundits and entertainment figures who lead the demands for more control.
This at least recognises that good law has a key role to play in the protection of human life from killers.
Meanwhile, in Ireland, a campaign is under way by liberals for repeal of a law that protects the most vulnerable members of our community, unborn children.
We are being asked to put “pro-choice” ideology above a law that protects human life. Ironically, some of those campaigning for removal of the law may actually owe their lives to it.
Every education system, be it islamic, secularist or Catholic is shaped by a particular vision of human dignity and a view of life’s purpose. This is true at primary, secondary and college level.
In Ireland the two main education systems are Catholic and secularist. The secularist system prevails at college level, and is being promoted more and more at the earlier stages.
Not all visions of life, however, have and promote a true understanding of human dignity. So not all education systems are of equal value. We need to face that fact.
The key issue in our understanding of life is whether or not death is the end of human existence, or what comes after death. This, ultimately, determines what people value and how they live.
How an education system answers these questions shapes it profoundly. The secularist system refuses to answer them explicitly, claiming to have no position. This is a confidence trick.
It hides a basic assumption, that death ends everything. This is the hopeless vision it subtly transmits to its students at all levels.
This assumption may do little harm in the teaching of maths, spelling or woodwork, utilitarian subjects. But it’s different when the subject is, for example, literature, personal relationships or morality, what it is to be a good person.
In these subjects secularists, if they are not to be exposed as frauds, must smuggle in Christian principles, such as “equality” or “human rights”, without acknowledging it.
Or the school may opt for “inclusivity” and “diversity”. It “celebrates” the beliefs and festivals of students from different religious backgrounds, including secularism. Thus, children learn that “one religion is as good as another”.
This, however, is irrational. Religious beliefs often contradict each other, so all cannot be true. Glossing over this radically undermines respect for the truth.
The ideological message that both staff and pupils imbibe is that truth does not matter. Students, instead of becoming seekers after truth, are supposedly taught to “think for themselves”.
But if they are told that the truth about even fundamental issues does not matter, what is the point of education?
An education system or a college that can’t cope with the issue of truth embodies an assault on reason.
No surprise then, that many Irish students leave college more ignorant and gullible than they were entering it. And society suffers.
Catholic education, on the other hand, is founded on explicit and true teaching about the purpose of life and how we achieve it, both here and hereafter.
It has an integrated vision of life and how we should live, centred on the worship of God and the death and resurrection of Jesus.
It communicates to students a sense of their true dignity, a love for truth, respect for reason, commitment to society, a true vision of life and a well-founded hope and joy.
This is something for Catholics to be proud of, to celebrate. Why would young people reject this ennobling vision in favour of a junk secularist outlook? Why would Catholic parents want to deprive their children of such an education?
Rather, they should fight furiously to protect such a great blessing for their children and society.
TD’s foolish, sexist tweet
In a show of support for Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan, the Gael TD Regina Doherty tweeted, “In my opinion she has grit and determination to manage change needed.” A few hours later O’Sullivan resigned.
But it was the other part of Doherty’s tweet that was curious: “Special place in hell for women who don’t support other women.”
This was probably a bit of silly, cost-free virtue-signalling by Regina. But why single out one sex for female support? Or does sex equality work in just one direction?
If a male TD reserved a special place in hell “for men who don’t support other men,” we would greet his view with derision, think he was off the wall or even view him as a dangerous fanatic.
More importantly, Doherty seems to think that women should approve of and support everything another woman does. Would that include shoplifting, adultery or even a female suicide bombing?
In truth, no behaviour deserves support simply because of the sex, nationality or religion of the person performing it.
A person deserves support if what he or she is doing is good, and should be denied support if it is foolish or morally evil.
Taoiseach trying to be truthfulIn a New York Times interview, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that he did not “accept the view that the unborn child... should have equal rights to an adult woman, to the mother.”
On the other hand, he did not “share the view that the baby in the womb, the foetus, whatever term you want to use, should have no rights at all.”
Nor did he think that human rights only begin after birth “and that a child in the womb with a beating heart, the ability to hear, the ability to feel pain, should have no rights whatsoever.”
This sounds like a man caught between integrity and political expediency, trying hard to be just and truthful but immensely confused about fundamental issues.
He refuses to deny that the child in the womb is a living human being. Indeed, from conception it even looks like a baby, like a baby at that stage of development. And he believes that this baby should have rights.
Unfortunately no one in our media has been willing to ask him certain key questions.
1. What rights, for example, does he think the unborn child has and how should the State protect those rights.
2. Where do they come from - are they inherent in the child because he or she is a human being, or are they just granted by the State?
Is it even possible to recognise and uphold the unborn child’s other rights, for example, a right not to be harmed by drug companies, if the most fundamental one, the right to life protection, is rejected?
3. Finally, what kind of society do we get if we deny the fundamental dignity and the basic natural rights of one class of human beings, if we treat them as subhuman?
Germany tried that in the 1930s-40s. At first it did not seem to matter very much. But the final consequences were horrendous. Mr Varadkar needs to get his thinking sorted out.
Vegas and role of good law
The mass shooting in Las Vegas, which left at least 59 people dead, has resulted in renewed calls for gun laws in the US to be tightened.
It is striking that it is leftwing liberals like Hillary Clinton, top Democrats, media pundits and entertainment figures who lead the demands for more control.
This at least recognises that good law has a key role to play in the protection of human life from killers.
Meanwhile, in Ireland, a campaign is under way by liberals for repeal of a law that protects the most vulnerable members of our community, unborn children.
We are being asked to put “pro-choice” ideology above a law that protects human life. Ironically, some of those campaigning for removal of the law may actually owe their lives to it.
