Reply #177: I'm not angry. I just think that there is a big, bright line between teaching kids even goofy things

[Warren DeMontague]

and physically abusing them. The state doesn't prosecute parents who teach their kids that Jesus (or crystals, or Orgone collectors) will heal sick people; the state prosecutes parents when they don't take their very sick children to the doctor. Big difference.

I'm not looking the other way, either. But either people have the right to teach their kids goofy stuff, or they don't. And if the state DOES get into telling people what they can teach their kids, it's a slippery slope. Because, no, I don't trust whoever happens to be in charge at any given moment to be able to accurately define what constitutes "goofy shit", and what doesn't.

(I make my kids listen to the Grateful Dead in the car a lot when I'm driving... and I know a few certain pseudo-punk would be hipster friends of mine who would CERTAINLY classify that as "abuse" :rofl: :hippie:)

I don't know who has a "high tolerance" for young Earth creationism, but it's not me. At the same time, though, I also don't have a high tolerance for folks trying to run other peoples lives; and it's not- nor should it be- against the law to be stupid, or even wrong.

I draw the line at letting that gibberish through the door of the public school science class.. In that forum, it should be roundly kicked on its sorry ass, and if anyone insists on dragging it back in, it deserves all the ridicule it gets. But people do have the right to teach their kids dumb, goofy shit. That doesn't mean they have the right to physically harm them. Again, big difference.

Besides, trying to run other peoples' lives... AND being unable to distinguish what people think from what they DO... are both classic hallmarks of fundamentalist religious thought, in and of themselves, not free thought and open inquiry IMHO.