First you deride PZ and his ilk for presenting anecdotal evidence and then you continue with a bunch of anecdotal "evidence" of your own. Now that is pathetic.

Jehu's post didn't strike me as hypocritical as you see to imply. PZ Myers was wishing harsh treatment on others based on a stereotype. Jehu, on the other hand, wasn't wishing harsh treatment on anyone. He was only making the observation that if you're going to judge by anecdote, then there's plenty of anecdotal evidence to condemn atheists. Anyway, that's what I understood his post to be saying.

[Bradford] Hitler outlawed homeschooling because he recognized it as a refuge from the auto-thinking process instilled in public schools.

Yes. Belloc points out some evils of utterly homogenous state education in his book Survivals and New Arrivals. But you can look at today's examples in asian countries. For example, in Korea, and especially Thailand, the state pre-determines everything about a child's education, down to what names of flowers he shall learn. The result of this is a citizen who believes that whatever he was not taught simply does not exist. We can see evidence of this in western countries too. Almost universally in western schools, nothing at all is taught about history from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Reformation. Not only are students utterly ignorant of this period, they grow up to think that nothing could have possibly happened during this time, other than, say, the burning of thousands of scientists like stacks of cordwood or some such stupidity. Mention to him that gothic cathedrals, universities, and hospitals are medieval inventions, and he draws a blank. It's simply impossible for him to understand or even process that statement, due to the nearly perfect homogenization of educational silence on this topic.

So, it is important to teach Darwinism and only Darwinism in schools, and it must be enforced by the state on all children. Because in doing so, the group-reinforcement effect of perfectly homogenous education makes any alternative to the Darwinian world-view unthinkable and incomprehensible.

Do you or do you not agree that some people are too uneducated themselves to give their children a proper education?

I don't think that there should be any dispute to that. However. . .

There is a reason why school teachers need formal qualifications (or is that not necessary in the US?)

Actually, it is not necessarily the case. In many school districts in the US, you have teachers who are conducting classes that they clearly do not have any formal background (heck, my 11th grade english teacher was a sports coach).

Further more, the quality of instructors depend greatly on school district, the community, the amount of funding for the school and the support. Generally speaking, schools in wealthier areas tend to have better instructors than poor areas. However. . .

Your pathetic suggestion that teachers are in it for the paycheck is offensive to earnest teachers and to families with two working parents that cannot afford to homeschool.

I don't think that there is any intended malice to teachers and working families in general by anybody here supporting home-schooling. However, at the same time, there are teachers out there who care more about a paycheck than teaching - and they are almost impossible to get rid of in quite a number of cases, since they are protected by school unions in many parts of the country. And there are parents who really don't care about their children's education - and since children are legally obligated to go school, in many cases, those kids go and make trouble for everybody else in school.

I hope this arrogant attitude doesn't rub off too much on your own children when you homeschool them.

Dude, take a step back and look up some information about the state of public education in the US and you will understand why some people (religious and non-religious) go out of their way to get their kids out of there. It's pretty bad.

Based on the people I know, I would say there is zero correlation between age of conversion and intensity of religious experience and devotion.

You could be right but I get a different anecdotal picture. I think the stats would show that nonreligious tend to stay that way. Of course there are exceptions, and if you are meeting the exceptions at your church, then you don't have a representative sample. If what you say is true, then we might as well not raise our children with religion at all.

Sure, the people in the soviet union are going to church a little more since they can, but the religious life of the country seems broken to me. At any rate, it will be interesting to watch.

Raevmo,

Very few people will homeschool who aren't going to be good at it.

As to the public schools, they bored me to death and punished me for reading. I spent 4 nights a week doing spelling homework for my Friday spelling test in the 5th grade even though I knew every word in the book and the teacher knew it. She wouldn't even let me do more interesting homework.

I rememeber the day I taught my daughter in 2nd grade in under an hour the entirety of all the math that I myself had learned in 2nd grade. Sure, she's bright but the point is that the public schools spent an entire year grilling me on what I taught my daughter in an hour. Of course, some repetition and practice is needed, but c'mon!

And frankly, I was pretty incensed at the sexual-emotional abuse the public schools doled out to the middle schoolers.

So they could be raised in a satanic cult where they teach that x+y=666, regardless of x and y? Or you would have illiterate parents teach their children how to read? If prefer to live in a community of people that takes the the responsibility to see to it that all their chidren get a proper education.

There are already laws on the books that protect against extreme possibilities. But if you are looking for abuse a great place to start is the public schools. It is there you are most likely to encounter real (not imagined) abuses.

If you have all of the responsibilities of raising your child, then you should have all of the accompanying privileges. If the government holds you legally responsible for your child, then it should allow you to raise your child in most any way you see fit.

So they could be raised in a satanic cult where they teach that x+y=666, regardless of x and y? Or you would have illiterate parents teach their children how to read? If prefer to live in a community of people that takes the the responsibility to see to it that all their chidren get a proper education. And medical insurance to boot.

But surely not everybody should be allowed to school their children, because some parents are not fit to do so. Do you agree with that or not? There has to be some oversight in order to protect children.

Do I agree? No. If you are fit to be a parent, then you are fit to educate your child.

Notice I said "fit to be", not "physically capable of becoming". Ability to produce gametes does not equal childrearing capability.

If you have all of the responsibilities of raising your child, then you should have all of the accompanying privileges. If the government holds you legally responsible for your child, then it should allow you to raise your child in most any way you see fit.

The only fair way to eliminate this freedom is to eliminate the corresponding responsibility. Is this not what you're advocating, Raevmo? The much hackneyed and naïve Platonian ideal?

And some insist on telling the public lies about home schoooling. Home schoolers consistently outscore public schoool pupils on SAT and other standard tests. They know more about evolutionary biology as well. Their teachers are not in it for the paycheck.

Do you or do you not agree that some people are too uneducated themselves to give their children a proper education? There is a reason why school teachers need formal qualifications (or is that not necessary in the US?) What is your explanation for the fact that home schoolers outperform (on average) in SAT tests? They are obviously not a random sample of the population, nor are public school children. Could that be an explanation? Your pathetic suggestion that teachers are in it for the paycheck is offensive to earnest teachers and to families with two working parents that cannot afford to homeschool. I hope this arrogant attitude doesn't rub off too much on your own children when you homeschool them.