A Secular State for a Pluralist People

Michael Nugent

From the Primary school teacher training and atheism thread:

Peregrinus wrote: »

Yes, this deserves a separate thread. No, I’m not going to start it.

Okay, I'll start it.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Spot the tension? Jon doesn’t want state resources to go to “any religion or non-religious philosophy”. but he also wants state resources to be spent “on a secular . . . basis”. Yet secularism is plainly a non-religious philosophy.

It's not really tension. It's more of a problem with the nuances of language.

The phrase "Religious and nonreligious philosophies" is one of the current shorthands for something like "beliefs about the truth or falsity or merits of assertions that god(s) and/or other supernatural and/or spiritual being(s) created the universe and/or intervene divinely in the universe and/or determine and reveal to us what is right and wrong and/or that we should organize our lives around worshipping them."

It is that concept that secularists believe that the state should be neutral about.

Nobody believes the State should be neutral about all philosophies. For example, most people in Ireland, whether religious or nonreligious, do not believe that the state should be neutral about democracy. Then you get into into philosophies such as majoritarian democracy versus rights-based democracy. And that is roughly the area in which the debate about secularism comes into play.

Peregrinus wrote: »

I’m not having a go at Jon (really, Jon!) but his post does highlight a tension which is difficult to reconcile. I suspect we probably need to think fairly hard about the distinction between (a) secularism, (b) pluralism and (c) neutrality, and also about the distinction between (a) the state, and (b) society. For example, is a pluralist society best served by a secular state or by a pluralist one? Should a secular state be (a) secular, or (b) neutral in its social expenditures? And so forth.

To oversimplify to get the thread started, one of the phrases we use in Atheist Ireland is that we want a Secular State for a Pluralist People. Everybody has the right to believe whatever they want about religious or nonreligious philosophies (using this phrase as shorthand for the concept I described earlier) and the only way for the State to protect equally everybody's right to do this is for the State to stay neutral.

In theory, there are two ways of staying neutral between different religious and nonreligious philosophies. One is to provide equal State resources for every such philosophy, and the other is to provide no State resources to any such philosophy. Because the first option is in practice impossible, and also because it is not the purpose of a democratic State to promote such philosophies, the second option is both more practical and also preferable.

Zamboni

A Secular State for a Pluralist People

Damn your misleading thread title.
I thought you had identified such a place.
I had my bags packed and everything

Michael Nugent

Zamboni wrote: »

Damn your misleading thread title.
I thought you had identified such a place.
I had my bags packed and everything

We could easily set one up.

All we need is to buy a few buildings beside each other somewhere in Dublin, start to issue our own stamps, and then get advice from the Vatican about getting actual States to pretend we are a real State and to swap ambassadors with us.

Dades

Michael Nugent wrote: »

All we need is to buy a few buildings beside each other somewhere in Dublin, start to issue our own stamps, and then get advice from the Vatican about getting actual States to pretend we are a real State and to swap ambassadors with us.

And a Death Star.

Oh wait, Pluralism...

MrPudding

Michael Nugent wrote: »

We could easily set one up.

All we need is to buy a few buildings beside each other somewhere in Dublin, start to issue our own stamps, and then get advice from the Vatican about getting actual States to pretend we are a real State and to swap ambassadors with us.

The world is full of quite objectionable dictators; I am sure it would be possible to enter into some kind of support / votes for land agreement.

MrP

nkay1985

So Ireland currently is clearly not currently 'a secular state for a pluralist people'. Michael and the others who campaign in this field, what practical steps do you think our government could easily make to address this situation.

I'll admit to concern but inaction as described in the schools thread so I'd like to know what is being done, what could be done and what you'd like to be done so that I may be more informed on the subject .

Ellis Dee

It would be great if we had a secular state, and even better if it was genuinely pluralist as well, but that won't come to pass until the cop on deficit is greatly reduced. Still, it's a lot better now than when I was at school in the 1950s and that horrid little unelected dictator McQuaid and his lackeys called most of the shots and almost all of our politicians kow-towed to them and did their every bidding without question.:):)

On the other hand, it is really worrying when a junior minister from the main governing party is actively pushing the agenda of a right-wing, homophobic and dinosaurian body like the Iona Institute and we risk becoming a laughing stock by putting a ridiculous blaspheme law on our statute books.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

If we are not vigilant to keep the religious zealots at bay, we'll again find ourselves facing prison for laughing out loud the next time a moving statues epidemic breaks out.:eek:

muppeteer

Peregrinus wrote: »

Spot the tension? Jon doesn’t want state resources to go to “any religion or non-religious philosophy”. but he also wants state resources to be spent “on a secular . . . basis”. Yet secularism is plainly a non-religious philosophy.

I’m not having a go at Jon (really, Jon!) but his post does highlight a tension which is difficult to reconcile. I suspect we probably need to think fairly hard about the distinction between (a) secularism, (b) pluralism and (c) neutrality, and also about the distinction between (a) the state, and (b) society. For example, is a pluralist society best served by a secular state or by a pluralist one? Should a secular state be (a) secular, or (b) neutral in its social expenditures? And so forth.

I can spot it yes. I've seen it when the thought of a secular school system is raised with those who currently control our schools. They sometimes see and rail against secularism as replacing their god based philosophy with an atheistic based one and as such see it as unfair. They don't see secularism as "we don't do gods or no god" but as "there is no God"

I would suggest that a state cannot remain functionally neutral to all philosophies without being paralysed by inaction whenever a religious or philosophical element of an issue was raised.
This leaves pluralism and secularism.
Pluralism becomes costly when the state tries to be fair and accommodate everyone equally, such as building schools for every denomination and none.
Secularism leaves us allowing the state to act in policy where there is a religious or god based philosophical element without stepping on too many toes.

If we include in secularism just the elements of public policy or philosophy that involve belief or non-belief in gods, then we can preserve secularism from the charge of being a philosophy of belief in itself. That it is only a neutral position of meta-belief as such.

Galvasean

Ellis Dee wrote: »

On the other hand, it is really worrying when a junior minister from the main governing party is actively pushing the agenda of a right-wing, homophobic and dinosaurian body like the Iona Institute

I resent that.

Ellis Dee

Galvasean wrote: »

I resent that.

On mature reflection, I had no right to insult dinosaurs by comparing them to religious zealots. Apologies.:):)

im invisible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTNgmgvfaxw

Hotblack Desiato

Title and summary of the video please? Ideally some comment as well?

expectationlost

Peregrinus pretends not to know what secularism means, im not a big fan of pluralism either, as in Ireland it will mean catholic dominated pluralism

im invisible

ninja900 wrote: »

Title and summary of the video please? Ideally some comment as well?

i'll go one better

family guy clip:

Stewie: So be it! I'll do to you what B.C. does to comedy on a daily basis.
[Cutaway to a B.C. comic strip]
Caveman #1: Hey, why is Juan so happy?
Caveman #2: I think he finally figured himself out.
Caveman #1: Huh, I guess it takes Juan to know Juan.
[Stewie appears in front of the strip and laughs sarcastically]

Comment?
you atheists and your not-funny cartoons, you crack me up

Peregrinus

OK. Having more-or-less bullied Michael into starting this thread, I feel I should contribute something to it.

Michael Nugent wrote: »

The phrase "Religious and nonreligious philosophies" is one of the current shorthands for something like "beliefs about the truth or falsity or merits of assertions that god(s) and/or other supernatural and/or spiritual being(s) created the universe and/or intervene divinely in the universe and/or determine and reveal to us what is right and wrong and/or that we should organize our lives around worshipping them."

I like this phrase. A concept like this is necessary and useful. I could wish it was a little shorter, but I can’t easily think of an elegant and apt one-word substitute. But, if only because I’m a lazy typist, I’m going to shorten it to “RNP”.

But I’m going to quibble with some of the detail. Michael’s definition focuses a bit too much on beliefs about divinity which means, I think, that it embraces non-religious philosophies only to the extent that they are negative about divinity. The second part of the definition goes on to talk about how we decide what is right and wrong, and how we organize our lives, and there are non-religious philosophies which have a great deal to say about this which consists of a good deal more than “there is no God”. I’d like to broaden the concept of RNP so that it includes philosophies about the human condition, the nature of reality, how we should live and how we should form our relationships whether those philosophies are religious (e.g. Christianity) or non-religious (e.g. secular humanism).

Not to do this, I think, is to demand a privileged position, or at least a potentially privileged position, for non-religious philosophies over religious philosophies. If the only requirement is that the state should be neutral between competing religious philosophies, then the state can favour one non-religious philosophy over others (and, it follows, favour that philosophy over all religious philosophies). While you can argue for that privileged position, the argument has to be made, and scrutinized; the privilege cannot simply be asserted or assumed.

There is, of course, an instant objection to this, and Michael has already voiced it:

Michael Nugent wrote: »

Nobody believes the State should be neutral about all philosophies. For example, most people in Ireland, whether religious or nonreligious, do not believe that the state should be neutral about democracy. Then you get into into philosophies such as majoritarian democracy versus rights-based democracy. And that is roughly the area in which the debate about secularism comes into play.

Sure. Nobody believes that the state should be neutral about all philosophies. We do not accord Naziism, for example, the same rights or the same esteem that we accord Stoicism. We believe the state should favour and support democracy. And so forth.

But it doesn’t follow from this that the line between [philosophies the state may favour] and [philosophies the state may not favour] is the line beteen religious and non-religious philosophies. In much of Europe the major political divide is between

(a) Christian democracy, a political philosophy explicitly grounded in religious thinking and emerging from a characteristically Catholic theological tradition; and

(b) Social democracy, a basically non-religious philosophy (though it does, of course, embrace Christian Socialists).

I don’t think we can argue that the state should or could potentially favour social democracy over Christian democracy, because of its non-religious character. On the contrary, most democrats will have no difficulty asserting strongly that the state must accord both equal esteem and equal rights, and let them compete democratically. An individual, of course, may choose to reject Christian democracy because he doesn’t share its foundational beliefs, but he cannot argue - or, at any rate, he won’t be taken seriously if he does argue - that the State must also reject it.

In short, the state doesn’t have to stay neutral as between all philosophies. But the mark of a philosophy which the state can exclude or disfavour is not in practice, and I think cannot be in principle, that it is religious. There are religious philosophies which are certainly entitled, as respects the state, to parity of esteem with any other philosophy. And there are non-religious philosophies which are not. More work might be required to identify the dividing line, but it isn’t religion.

Michael Nugent wrote: »

To oversimplify to get the thread started, one of the phrases we use in Atheist Ireland is that we want a Secular State for a Pluralist People. Everybody has the right to believe whatever they want about religious or nonreligious philosophies (using this phrase as shorthand for the concept I described earlier) and the only way for the State to protect equally everybody's right to do this is for the State to stay neutral.

Yes. But that must be neutral as between religious and nonreligious philosophies. If the state doesn’t observe that neutrality, then we are not truly free to choose between religious and nonreligious philosophies; we are constrained by the different ways in which the state will treat us according to the choice we make.

I think we need to reflect here on exactly what we understand by “secular”.

I suggest that a useful understanding is this: “secularism” is the position that, in making decisions, we (if it is we who are to be secular) or the state (if it is the state that is to be secular) should disregard considerations drawn from beliefs about God, about supernatural realities, or about an afterlife, or the like. This has a lot of appeal because it doesn’t require the state to take the view that there are no such realities (i.e. to be atheist); precisely because it is required to have no regard to claims of that kind it does not need to take a position - indeed, cannot take a position - on the truth or falsity of those claims.

But how does this play out in practice? I suggest that a secular state, in considering, e.g., an application for funding from a charity, should disregard entirely the question of whether the charity has a religious foundation or motivation or not; that is simply not a proper consideration. If the grant is for, say, the running of a hospital, the only question should be, is the charity running a hospital? You don’t exclude religious charities from consideration, and you don’t frame your hospital-running regulations with an eye to excluding the religious-run hospitals.

This last requires some careful judgments, and also I think a degree of integrity and good will. Suppose you are the Department of Health. You might want to ensure that, e.g., the full range of family planning services is available to women. Let’s say that one way to achieve that is to require that every hospital should operate a full-service family planning clinic. Obviously certain religious bodies will be unhappy about that requirement and, if you include it, their hospitals will not get funding and will probably close. In principle, you should be indifferent to this; it should not be your objective to bring this about, or alternatively to avoid it. You should simply be asking yourself whether requiring every hospital to operate such a clinic is, in fact, going to be the best way to provide the relevant services. The fact that adopting this course will cause major disruption if it means that a number of hospitals will have to be closed, reorganized or replaced is obviously something that should bear on your decision. But the fact that these will be Catholic hospitals, I think, is not.

The same goes if you are the Department of Education, considering an application for school funding. In a secular state, you should pay no attention at all to the question of whether the school is religious or non-religious; secularity requires you to disregard this consideration.

Michael Nugent wrote: »

In theory, there are two ways of staying neutral between different religious and nonreligious philosophies. One is to provide equal State resources for every such philosophy, and the other is to provide no State resources to any such philosophy. Because the first option is in practice impossible, and also because it is not the purpose of a democratic State to promote such philosophies, the second option is both more practical and also preferable.

I think what you say here is both an oversimplification and a false dichotomy.

In the first place, it’s not true to say that “equality” can only mean equal resources to every philosophy or no resources to any. Equality is a much more nuanced notion than that. We insist on equality between black and white, say, but it doesn’t mean that we devote equal state resources to black people and to white people. There are far more white people than black people in our society. They get far more in any distribution or application of state resources. Does that mean that black people and white people are not treated equally?

An alternative, and I think much more arguable, view is that the distribution of resources by reference to relevant criteria and without regard to race is the essence of racial equality. Even that view is challenged, and challenges to it result in things like affirmative action and reverse discrimination. In the context of competing philosophies of life, you could make the argument that minority views deserve some extra accommodation, in the interests of diversity or to combat the intangible but real disadvantage that tends to flow from minority status. But already you’re a long way from the suggestion that, if resources are allocated, equality between groups can only be achieved by the equal allocation of resources.

Secondly, the view that denying resources to all religious and nonreligious philosophies “is both more practical and more also preferable” I think is not correct. In the field of education, for example, supporting only schools which are neither religious nor nonreligious looks to me to be impossible. I don’t think there is any category between religious and nonreligious. If all state-supported schools are secular, we clearly do not have equality as between parents who seek a secular education, and those who seek, e.g., a Catholic education. You can defend this on a variety of grounds, but you certainly can’t defend it on the grounds of equality between religious and nonreligious philosophies.

Zombrex

Peregrinus wrote: »

In the first place, it’s not true to say that “equality” can only mean equal resources to every philosophy or no resources to any. Equality is a much more nuanced notion than that. We insist on equality between black and white, say, but it doesn’t mean that we devote equal state resources to black people and to white people. There are far more white people than black people in our society. They get far more in any distribution or application of state resources. Does that mean that black people and white people are not treated equally?

They don't get resources specific to being white though. And that is the problem that Michael highlights.

A black person and a white person have equally access to, say, medical services. Yes we spend a lot more on white people than black people in health care because there are a lot more white people. But when you turn up at a hospital it is irrelevant what skin colour you are. Your skin colour has not effected what hospital you went to, nor does it effect the experience of how you are treated when in the hospital.

So if we were to support all religions what would that mean. It would mean that when you turn up at the governments door you are treated the same as everyone else.

So a Catholic turns up and he gets a state run school just for Catholics. Great most of the population is Catholics so that covers more of the population.

Now though what happens when a Baha'i person turns up at the government door. Well they get a state run Baha'i school as well. Except they don't because there are only a hand ful of them and it would impractical to give them a whole school.

So straight aware you are treating the individual (not the group, the group is irrelevant) differently. One person gets to go to a state run religious school, the other has to to go to a state run religious school of a different religion.

Saying that there is more Catholics than Baha'i people so it is ok that they get this treatment is irrelevant because that is not how a modern social democracy works, it doesn't work on groups of people, it works on the individual. Remember an individual turns up to a general hospital, black people don't turn up to their black only hospital and white people to their white only hospital.

The fairest way is that since we cannot provide a school for each individual person's preferences we provide general schooling, like we do with everything else, that takes individuals independently to their religious preferences. Everyone gets the same school and thus all people are treated the same when they turn up at the door. Again the focus is on the individual, everyone is treated with the same experience independent to their religious preferences.

Your religion has not effected what school you went to, nor does it effect the experience of how you are treated when in the school.

Peregrinus

I understand all that, Zombrex. But the net effect of what you suggest is that people who want a secular education get it, and people who any other kind of education also get a secular education. And this seems to me to be objectionable on two grounds.

First, it privilege secularism over other RNPs. That offends the principle I have argued for of equality among RNPs.

Secondly, in purely utilitarian terms, it produces a worse outcome than the present system, since a much larger number of people will be unable to access the school of their choice. I accept that there are practical difficulties in the way of giving everyone the school they want, but I don’t think we improve the situation by given fewer and fewer people the school they want, and by denying those who haven’t got the school they want of the prospect that they might ever get it.

(There is a third problem, which is perhaps of a lesser order; what you suggest will tend to repress diversity. The provision of different school types is, if anything, more important to social, cultural, ethnic, etc minority communities than it is to the majority, because schools are important community institutions. It’s doubtful if, e.g., Ireland’s Jewish schools would survive if they could not access state funding. Would Ireland really be a happier country if its Jewish schools were closed? If one of the ways that we judge a healthy and pluralist society is by the health and security of its minority communities, then what you suggest might be a very regressive step.)

Duggys Housemate

The term pluralist has been fairly abused recently. It isn't pluralist to abolish the Angelus, for instance, it would be pluralist to allow the Angelus and give other religions ( and humanists) a time at 6pm to ring their own bells, metaphorically. It isn't pluralist to not allow religious schools, it is pluralist to allow both religious and secular schools.

All schools should be held to a certain criteria, teaching evolution, not "hating" on other religions, beyond that pluralism would allow religious schools.

Of course people don't have to believe in pluralism, or "multiculturalism" ( my feeling is that the reaction against all religions, since 2001, is related to 9/11), but the term has meaning. Its isn't multi-cultural or pluralist to have secular education only, it is multicultural or pluralistic to allow religious and secular education to co-exist.

Mark Hamill

Peregrinus wrote: »

I understand all that, Zombrex. But the net effect of what you suggest is that people who want a secular education get it, and people who any other kind of education also get a secular education. And this seems to me to be objectionable on two grounds.

First, it privilege secularism over other RNPs. That offends the principle I have argued for of equality among RNPs.

The only functional way to be fair to all the different types of theists and non theists is to not favour any. Secularist schools are the only type of schools that don't favour any.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Secondly, in purely utilitarian terms, it produces a worse outcome than the present system, since a much larger number of people will be unable to access the school of their choice. I accept that there are practical difficulties in the way of giving everyone the school they want, but I don’t think we improve the situation by given fewer and fewer people the school they want, and by denying those who haven’t got the school they want of the prospect that they might ever get it.

Since most people apparently want schools based on a religion they dont even understand, I fail to see how thats worse. Its never worse to deny ignorant people a system that unfairly satisfies them.

Peregrinus wrote: »

(There is a third problem, which is perhaps of a lesser order; what you suggest will tend to repress diversity. The provision of different school types is, if anything, more important to social, cultural, ethnic, etc minority communities than it is to the majority, because schools are important community institutions. It’s doubtful if, e.g., Ireland’s Jewish schools would survive if they could not access state funding. Would Ireland really be a happier country if its Jewish schools were closed? If one of the ways that we judge a healthy and pluralist society is by the health and security of its minority communities, then what you suggest might be a very regressive step.)

And by segregating minority communities in separate schools you sow the seeds of ignorance by raising and educating kids in isolation from anyone with a differing world view (both in the minority and majority groups). If these minority communities only survive because they have their own schools, then we must question what exactly they are teaching their kids that results in them never straying from the community. At the very least, it must be meaningless, useless and socially and educationally retarding if it cannot survive being taught equally alongside other viewpoints.


(This next part is in general, its not directed at you Peregrinus)
I always find it laughable that people are against secular public services, especially school systems. They are clearly the only way to be fair to everyone, and those that argue against them are either in the majority or gain something from having their minority group segregated from everyone else.
Its especially laughable of someone wanting their kid taught a specific religion in school. If you believe that your child needs to be taught a specific religion, in order to ensure they follow it and avoid false religions or immoral philosophies etc., then teach them yourself. Surely if you believe that your child's eternal soul and chance at heaven would be in danger without a specific religious belief, wouldn't you want to make sure they have that belief as you understand it? If you say "well I dont understand or now the religion well enough to teach it" then how can you say that you believe in it, how can you say what you believe in and what makes you think there is anything they can learn in school that will have any effect on whether the kid's soul gets into heaven or not. Why isn't this the most important thing to religious parents? Why isn't this so important that they make sure to do it themselves, even if its just to make sure they get the benefit themselves and that they get into heaven too?

Mark Hamill

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

The term pluralist has been fairly abused recently. It isn't pluralist to abolish the Angelus, for instance, it would be pluralist to allow the Angelus and give other religions ( and humanists) a time at 6pm to ring their own bells, metaphorically.

Its pluralist to keep the Angelus and to metaphorically allow other religions ring their bells at the same time? Are you for real?

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

It isn't pluralist to not allow religious schools, it is pluralist to allow both religious and secular schools.

No, its pluralist to have secular schools only. Secular doesn't mean atheist, it doesn't even mean non-religious (not in teh way you are implying anyway) You can have a school that spends all day, every day teaching about religion and it can still be secular, as long as its enrollment and hiring policies don't discriminate and it doesn't give any religion unfair bias during teaching hours.
The second you bring in a school that can discriminate, you loose pluralism, just like you lose it if you bring in a hospital that can discriminate based on race or ethnicity.

Duggys Housemate

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Its especially laughable of someone wanting their kid taught a specific religion in school. If you believe that your child needs to be taught a specific religion, in order to ensure they follow it and avoid false religions or immoral philosophies etc., then teach them yourself. Surely if you believe that your child's eternal soul and chance at heaven would be in danger without a specific religious belief, wouldn't you want to make sure they have that belief as you understand it? If you say "well I dont understand or now the religion well enough to teach it" then how can you say that you believe in it, how can you say what you believe in and what makes you think there is anything they can learn in school that will have any effect on whether the kid's soul gets into heaven or not. Why isn't this the most important thing to religious parents? Why isn't this so important that they make sure to do it themselves, even if its just to make sure they get the benefit themselves and that they get into heaven too?

Thats a fairly dubious argument, presumably people want to send their kids to a Madrassa because the teachers there are more learned on religious texts, and have more time. In fact this is why we have teachers - they are more skilled than the average population, in theory.

ShooterSF

The idea that groups of people should get what they want from the state without question is absurd. What if our population becomes increasingly creationists? Should they get schools that teach children creation over evolution?
The education system should stick to what we know and what given current evidence is our best ideas. After that all other information can be offered in a "some people think" category. A parent should not be able to block a child from learning the facts of the world nor should they be allowed with the help of the state to twist those facts.
It scares me how much influence parents are offered unquestionably over their children's lives.

While I'm against state funded faith schools on the same basis as I'd be against state funded white preferred hospitals because a majority of the country wanted them, deep down I'm against them and private faith schools for another reason too; Indoctrination of another human being backed by some twisted right that because you play a part in creating that human you should get to choose a filter for all their education.

Duggys Housemate

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Its pluralist to keep the Angelus and to metaphorically allow other religions ring their bells at the same time? Are you for real?

Not at the same time, it is pluralist to keep that slot for different religions, and even none. At different times.

No, its pluralist to have secular schools only.

No, it isn't. Thats a redefinition of the word.

Secular doesn't mean atheist, it doesn't even mean non-religious (not in teh way you are implying anyway) You can have a school that spends all day, every day teaching about religion and it can still be secular, as long as its enrollment and hiring policies don't discriminate and it doesn't give any religion unfair bias during teaching hours.
The second you bring in a school that can discriminate, you loose pluralism, just like you lose it if you bring in a hospital that can discriminate based on race or ethnicity.

The race argument is, once again, spurious. It is important to tell the difference between

1) a self segregation ( of minorities who wish to have separate facilities for cultural reasons) and a forced one.
2) race and religion
3) education and health. Health should be secular, and the law would be to allow all religious visitors, and none, to visit patients. Secular schools, as I understand it would teach no religion at all, allow no proselytising or instruction, by teachers or externals ( this is the American way) Nor would they have morning prayers etc. Some people want those.

In the late 19th century the Know Nothings rampaged against Catholicism in the US,as did a resurgent Klu Klux Klan whose main theme was opposition to Catholic schools which were seen as un-American. They won some congressional seats, too.

Say what you like about the KKK, what they weren't was pluralistic.

Mark Hamill

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

Thats a fairly dubious argument, presumably people want to send their kids to a Madrassa because the teachers there are more learned on religious texts, and have more time. In fact this is why we have teachers - they are more skilled than the average population, in theory.

Did you not read what I wrote? Like 2/3rds of my post deals with this:
"Surely if you believe that your child's eternal soul and chance at heaven would be in danger without a specific religious belief, wouldn't you want to make sure they have that belief as you understand it? If you say "well I dont understand or now the religion well enough to teach it" then how can you say that you believe in it, how can you say what you believe in and what makes you think there is anything they can learn in school that will have any effect on whether the kid's soul gets into heaven or not. Why isn't this the most important thing to religious parents? Why isn't this so important that they make sure to do it themselves, even if its just to make sure they get the benefit themselves and that they get into heaven too?"

If you dont understand it enough to teach your own kids, then how do you know your kids are being taught the right stuff to get into heaven? What makes you think you, yourself are getting into heaven if you don't understand it? If the schools really did teach it well to kids, then the parents should now it enough to pass it on. But why isn't that the case? Why isn't this more important to parents who believe in it?

Duggys Housemate

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Did you not read what I wrote? Like 2/3rds of my post deals with this:

yes, I did.

If you dont understand it enough to teach your own kids, then how do you know your kids are being taught the right stuff to get into heaven?

Forgetting about heaven, would you make that argument for someone who wanted to ensure their kids were scientists? Shouldn't they do it themselves?

In the Islamic worlds it is accepted that some people, teachers, know the Koran better than others. So they teach it.

Mark Hamill

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

Not at the same time, it is pluralist to keep that slot for different religions, and even none. At different times.

But all religions must pay for the prime time slot at 6pm for the christian religion?

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

No, it isn't. Thats a redefinition of the word.

No its not. A pluralist state allow for all ethnicities and religions without giving bias to one or many. Secular schools are the only single type of schools that do that. You can't call yourself a pluralist society if the number of public services that bias in favour of one ethnicity or religion happens to equal the number that bias in favour of others. Otherwise racially segregated America before the 1950s was perfectly pluralist, as it had (separate) services for blacks and whites.

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

The race argument is, once again, spurious. It is important to tell the difference between

1) a self segregation ( of minorities who wish to have separate facilities for cultural reasons) and a forced one.
2) race and religion
3) education and health. Health should be secular, and the law would be to allow all religious visitors, and none, to visit patients. Secular schools, as I understand it would teach no religion at all, allow no proselytising or instruction, by teachers or externals ( this is the American way) Nor would they have morning prayers etc. Some people want those.

1) The whites self segregated from the blacks and the blacks were forced to segregate from the whites in pre 1950's America. You generally don't have one without the other. Ethnic and religious groups should not be allowed to segregate from the rest of society, why should they? It only breeds ignorance.
2) In this context there is no difference. They are analogous.
3) And some people want black people banned from their hospitals, should we allow for that? As I said, secular schools are not atheist, its not a case of completely removing all religion, it's a case of not favouring any religion over any other. I don't see how American schools can be called secular when a number teach the biblical account of genesis as fact.

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

In the late 19th century the Know Nothings rampaged against Catholicism in the US,as did a resurgent Klu Klux Klan whose main theme was opposition to Catholic schools which were seen as un-American. They won some congressional seats, too.

Say what you like about the KKK, what they weren't was pluralistic.

Yeah, because they were against racial mixing . You just showed that despite a group opposing religious schools, they were not pluralistic because they wanted racial segregation. You want to rethink the difference between 2), above?

Mark Hamill

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

Forgetting about heaven,

Why would you ever do this, if you actually believed in heaven and hell, as religions teach them?

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

would you make that argument for someone who wanted to ensure their kids were scientists? Shouldn't they do it themselves?

No, but then again I don't think my child will burn forever in hell if they don't become a scientist.

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

In the Islamic worlds it is accepted that some people, teachers, know the Koran better than others. So they teach it.

Not very well, if those they teach can't pass it on to their own kids. Do you think that the teachers in Irish schools know the bible very well?

Hotblack Desiato

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

In the Islamic worlds it is accepted that some people, teachers, know the Koran better than others. So they teach it.

So, get the priest/rabbi/imam in to teach religious instruction outside of school time and not funded by the state. This is what ET schools do, but it need not take place in the school at all.

NB : ET schools do teach religion (as all state-funded schools are obliged to do) , they just don't indoctrinate in any religion or say that any religion is superior to any other (or none.)

Zombrex

Peregrinus wrote: »

I understand all that, Zombrex. But the net effect of what you suggest is that people who want a secular education get it, and people who any other kind of education also get a secular education.

Correct. In the same way that people who want a hospital that serves both black and white people get it and those who want a white only hospital don't. There is little that can be done about that because the government is not going to make a white only hospital. They will make a hospital that can accept anyone, and the only way to do that is a hospital that, well, accepts anyone. We fell into skin colour but that statement is not a comment on racism, replace black white with male hospital and female hospital or red head hospital and blonde hospital etc. The point is that it is not practical to have hospitals springing up for groupings that are irrelevant to medical care. You will get a hospital for cancer. You won't get a hospital just for short people.

The same is true of secular schools. A secular school will accept anyone. Some people might not want to go to it, but will still accept them.

The alternative is that the government make schools for any and all religious groups who ask. That is impractical for any number of reasons.

Peregrinus wrote: »

First, it privilege secularism over other RNPs. That offends the principle I have argued for of equality among RNPs.

Privilege is probably the wrong word, but I agree entirely that secularism is the only type of school such a system would produce (with public funds). But again that is like saying our current hospital system privileges height-irrelevant-ism. That is the only practical way of doing it.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Secondly, in purely utilitarian terms, it produces a worse outcome than the present system, since a much larger number of people will be unable to access the school of their choice.

That is up to them. If you don't want to go to hospital but it is full of tall people that is up to you too. The hospital though will take you. It won't laugh at you for being small either.

The alternative is that we make a hospital for short people so that people who want just a hospital for short people can do to the hospital they want. And we make a hospital for red haired people so people who just want a hospital for red haired people can do to that hospital. And we make a hospital just for people with attractive bodies so people don't have to look at unattractive people.

Of course we don't because all of that is impossible. We make one hospital and it takes everyone.

The same principle applies to schools and religion. We could make a school for ever religious or spiritual or philosophical view point but we would end up with thousand of individual schools. This is utterly impractical.

So we have two alternatives. We either ignore religious spiritual and philosophical view points that we do not think are worthy enough to warrant their own school. But who is the government to decide that, to say that one religion is a serious religion and the other is not.

Or we say we are not going to assess any of these and we are just going to make a school open to all.

Peregrinus wrote: »

I accept that there are practical difficulties in the way of giving everyone the school they want, but I don’t think we improve the situation by given fewer and fewer people the school they want, and by denying those who haven’t got the school they want of the prospect that they might ever get it.

There is no alternative. We make the school that is as welcoming to all. If people still have a problem with that that unfortunately is their issue.

You don't have to go to your local hospital because it is full of old people, but the HSE isn't going to build you a hospital just for young people because of this.

Peregrinus wrote: »

There is a third problem, which is perhaps of a lesser order; what you suggest will tend to repress diversity. The provision of different school types is, if anything, more important to social, cultural, ethnic, etc minority communities than it is to the majority, because schools are important community institutions. It’s doubtful if, e.g., Ireland’s Jewish schools would survive if they could not access state funding. Would Ireland really be a happier country if its Jewish schools were closed? If one of the ways that we judge a healthy and pluralist society is by the health and security of its minority communities, then what you suggest might be a very regressive step.)

That sounds reasonable until you look at what it means in practicality. A non-Jewish person turns up a Jewish school. His parents pay taxes like everyone else, but there is no school that reflects his parents philosophy and the state won't build one because that is impractical. He has to go to a Jewish school (assuming he can get in) where he is actively taught a religion contrary to his parents wishes.

So straight away the State has produced a system that is unwelcoming to this student through nothing he has done himself.

Remember, go back to the hospital example. You don't have to go to the hospital but the hospital will take you with open arms if you do. It won't tell you that you are too tall. It won't tell you that this is a red head hospital and frankly they find your jet black hair disgusting. It won't tell you that you that this is a young persons hospital and that while they are legally obliged to take you you are in fact far too old and quite disgusting looking.

Public schools should be welcoming to all and they should produce an atmosphere where no student is told that their personal religious beliefs are either right nor wrong.

The is what secularism means.

Peregrinus

Mark Hamill wrote: »

The only functional way to be fair to all the different types of theists and non theists is to not favour any. Secularist schools are the only type of schools that don't favour any.

Yes, they do. They favour secularists.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Since most people apparently want schools based on a religion they dont even understand, I fail to see how thats worse. Its never worse to deny ignorant people a system that unfairly satisfies them.

You’re advancing a different argument from Michael here. Michael argues for neutrality with respect to RNPs; you favour the state actively discriminating against certain RNPs, on the grounds that anyone who favours them is, by definition, “ignorant”.

As a liberal and a democrat, I have problems with this. I get to choose my RNP, and to change it if I wish; you likewise. The idea that the state would choose an RNP for both of us offends me.

As a realist, you should also have problems with this. At the moment, to a large extent, as far as school provision in Ireland is concerned the state does choose an RNP for most people, and it doesn’t happen to be the one you favour. That should show you the dangers of the system you advocate.

Finally, you should reflect that there is some inconsistency in objecting to the state favouring an RNP that is not the one you favour, and at the same time calling for the state to favour in an even more extreme way the RNP that you do favour. If the first is unjustified, how can the second be justified?

Mark Hamill wrote: »

And by segregating minority communities in separate schools you sow the seeds of ignorance by raising and educating kids in isolation from anyone with a differing world view (both in the minority and majority groups). If these minority communities only survive because they have their own schools, then we must question what exactly they are teaching their kids that results in them never straying from the community.

Are you saying, then, that you do want to see Ireland’s Jewish schools closed?

Mark Hamill wrote: »

At the very least, it must be meaningless, useless and socially and educationally retarding if it cannot survive being taught equally alongside other viewpoints.

It can survive with equal treatment. It can’t survive if it is treated unequally, by having funding withdrawn when other schools get funding, which is what you are advocating.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

(This next part is in general, its not directed at you Peregrinus)
I always find it laughable that people are against secular public services, especially school systems. They are clearly the only way to be fair to everyone, and those that argue against them are either in the majority or gain something from having their minority group segregated from everyone else.

I think we need to distinguish between the state funding secular schools, and the state funding only secular schools. It’s nonsense to suggest that that latter is “clearly the only way to be fair to everyone”. On the contrary, it clearly advantages those who want secular schools over those who want schools which express any other RNP.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Its especially laughable of someone wanting their kid taught a specific religion in school. If you believe that your child needs to be taught a specific religion, in order to ensure they follow it and avoid false religions or immoral philosophies etc., then teach them yourself. Surely if you believe that your child's eternal soul and chance at heaven would be in danger without a specific religious belief, wouldn't you want to make sure they have that belief as you understand it? If you say "well I dont understand or now the religion well enough to teach it" then how can you say that you believe in it, how can you say what you believe in and what makes you think there is anything they can learn in school that will have any effect on whether the kid's soul gets into heaven or not. Why isn't this the most important thing to religious parents? Why isn't this so important that they make sure to do it themselves, even if its just to make sure they get the benefit themselves and that they get into heaven too?

But maybe you find this laughable because it’s something you’ve constructed for the purpose of laughing at it. Look at the assumptions you make here:

- You’re talking about “someone wanting their kid taught a specific religion in school” and, therefore, not about people who favour a religious school for other, less simplistic reasons.

- You’re talking about people who believe that their child’s eternal soul and chance at heaven would be in danger without a specific religious belief and not, therefore, people whose religious views are less exclusive and childish than this

In other words, you’re reducing somebody’s preference for a religious school to a caricature of your own devising, and then laughing at your caricature. I’ve no problem with that, but it’s not a particularly cogent argument, as can be demonstrated by conducting a similar exercise in relation to people who want (say) a humanist school for their children. (Can they not teach them humanism themselves?)

Peregrinus

Mark Hamill wrote: »

No, its pluralist to have secular schools only. Secular doesn't mean atheist, it doesn't even mean non-religious (not in teh way you are implying anyway) You can have a school that spends all day, every day teaching about religion and it can still be secular, as long as its enrollment and hiring policies don't discriminate and it doesn't give any religion unfair bias during teaching hours.
The second you bring in a school that can discriminate, you loose pluralism, just like you lose it if you bring in a hospital that can discriminate based on race or ethnicity.

No, that’s not pluralist. Pretty much the definition of pluralism is that it accommodates different ways of doing things. If all schools ar required to be secular, then secularism is favoured and other RNPs are excluded. That’s the opposite of pluralism.

muppeteer

Peregrinus wrote: »

Yes, they do. They favour secularists.

Of the available options I'm aware of, state philosophical neutrality, state pluralism/equality and state secularism, then it seems secularism is the least worst option.
It isn't such a bad thing for a state to pick the least worst option -
"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. - W.Churchill"

Peregrinus

Zombrex wrote: »

Correct. In the same way that people who want a hospital that serves both black and white people get it and those who want a white only hospital don't. There is little that can be done about that because the government is not going to make a white only hospital. They will make a hospital that can accept anyone, and the only way to do that is a hospital that, well, accepts anyone. We fell into skin colour but that statement is not a comment on racism, replace black white with male hospital and female hospital or red head hospital and blonde hospital etc. The point is that it is not practical to have hospitals springing up for groupings that are irrelevant to medical care. You will get a hospital for cancer. You won't get a hospital just for short people.

Actually, governments do support things like women’s hospitals and children’s hospitals, don’t they?

But the analogy breaks down. A hospital for blacks or a hospital for women is not analogous to a Catholic hospital or a Jewish hospital, because these are not hospitals for Catholics or for Jews; they are hospitals established and organized by people whose motivation for doing so is religious.

Suppose a bunch of people get together and organise a hospital out of an ethical conviction that caring for and healing the sick is a virtuous act. And now suppose they apply for state funding. Is it a problem that their motivation is an ethical, altruistic one? No, I don’t think it is. Does it make any difference whether their ethical motivation is religious or non-religious in nature? I think not.

Right. Now suppose we have a largish city which can support several hospitals. And we receive funding applications from several hospitals - a Jewish, a Catholic and an Ethical Humanist hospital. We’re happy to fund three hospitals. In most respects, their applications for funding seem to be equally meritorious. They’ll all treat anyone who turns up, without distinction of creed. So far, so good.

But now suppose the Catholic Hospital comes along and says “we won’t perform vasectomies or tubal ligations”, whereas the Jewish and Ethical Humanist hospitals have no such restriction.

This might be a reason to withhold funding from the Catholic hospital. Or it might not - perhaps we need three general hospitals, but it will be enough if two of them offer vasectomies, etc. Or perhaps we can offer vasectomies, etc, through second-tier clinics. But let’s say, for the purposes of our illustration, that the inability to provide these services is legitimately a deal-breaker and the Catholic hospital is denied funding. The important point here is that the fact that the Catholic hospital’s ethical concerns are religiously-founded is irrelevant. If it had been the Ethical Humanist hospital were had taken that stance, they would have been denied funding.

Now, to complicate the matter further, suppose a fourth hospital, run by Jehovah’s Witnesses, also applies for funding (and we are willing to fund a fourth hospital). Again, they’ll treat anyone who walks in the door, but their particular schtick is that they won’t perform blood transfusions, and all their surgery will involve bloodless surgery techniques.

We disregard the fact that the JW hospital’s concerns are religious in nature; we just look at the impact their concerns would have on the provision of medical services.

At first glance, we might say that this is altogether too big a restriction, and we won’t fund this hospital. But suppose the city has a significant population of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who won’t accept medical treatment which involves blood transfusions. If they are to have surgery at all, it must be bloodless surgery, and this is best provided in a facility which has expertise and experience in the techniques concerned. If they don’t have surgery, and competent surgery, forseeably many of them will die.

How do we take, on a secular basis, the various decisions that we face? We can consider a range of possibilities.

1. We deny funding to any hospital with an explicitly religious purpose. Thus only the Ethical Humanist hospital gets funded.

2. We deny funding to any hospital whose religious character impacts upon the delivery of medical services in a way which falls short of an ideal that we have in mind. The Ethical Humanist and Jewish hospitals get funded; the Catholic and JW hospitals get denied.

3. We fund the Ethical Humanist and Jewish hospitals. We also fund the JW hospital on the grounds that it will meet a need which arises from patient demand. To be honest, we'd rather that the patients didn’t demand this but we note that they do demand it and, as secularists, we disregard the religious character of the demand but not the demand itself. We deny funding to the Catholic hospital on the grounds that their refusal to provide vasectomies, etc, impacts adversely on their services and is not something which can be justified by reference to patient demand or need.

4. We fund all the hospitals.

Which of these represents the “best” model of secularism?

I suggest that the first two of these options represent not so much secularism as bigotry. Secularism requires us to disregard considerations which refer to supernatural realities, an afterlife, etc. Discriminating against them, or actively disfavouring them, is not really consistent with this.

Option 3 strikes me as the best model of secularism.

Option 4 could be supported as a secular option, but it would require special facts to defend it - e.g. that the detrimental effect of funding only three hospitals instead of four would be worse than the beneficial effect of having vasectomies, etc, available in every hospital. And you would need to be satisified, with option 4, that even if vasectomies, etc, were not available in the Catholic hospital they were nevertheless available to everyone who wanted them.

Your thoughts?

muppeteer

Is there a case for an option 0.?
That the state doesn't fund hospitals of any religious or humanist group and funds only its own hospitals to it's own ideal, catering as best it can to all who come through the door?

Peregrinus

muppeteer wrote: »

Is there a case for an option 0.?
That the state doesn't fund hospitals of any religious or humanist group and funds only its own hospitals to it's own ideal, catering as best it can to all who come through the door?

If there is, it’s a case that needs to be made, and scrutinized.

We all need food. Does that mean the state has to produce all the food in the country?

We all need shelter. Does the state have to build all the houses?

We all need sex. Does the state have to . . . ? No, don’t go there.

I think when it comes to the things that are needed for human flourishing, starting with food and working up to education and healthcare and more besides, a civilized society will ensure that all its members, and particularly its vulnerable and weak members, are protected and catered for.

The state is one instrument through which society can do this, but not necessarily the only one, or always the optimal one.

I think the concern of the state is to see that everyone has access to the healthcare, education, etc that they need. The state directly providing this is one way of achieving this, but it seems to me a pragmatic question as to whether it’s the best way in any particular situation.

And, in pragmatic terms, there is a good deal to be said for a diverse system of doing anything. Diverse systems are less prone to catastrophic failures than uniform systems, for example. Diverse systems allow experimentation, they allow alternatives, they allow comparison, they allow one way of doing things to be empirically evaluated against another. These are all strengths.

And, separately, I think there’s a challenge to be raised the notion of “its own ideal”, where “it” is the state. Should hospitals be run according to the ideals of the state, or according to the (necessarily) diverse ideals of the people in a diverse society? As a humanist, I’m much more attracted by the idea that the people’s ideals should inform the activities of the state, than the idea that the state’s ideals should inform the services delivered to the people.

Finally, I’d point out that in a democratic or populist state what you suggest is potentially threatening to whoever happens to be in the (ideological) minority - which, in Ireland, even now, certainly includes secularists. If the state imposed its ideals on all hospitals then, in the past, far from, say, sterlisations being available only in Protestant hospitals, they wouldn’t have been available in any hospitals. Is that a better outcome? Just at the moment, in the current climate, what you propose might favour the group you belong to, but maybe that’s not enough to make it a good idea in principle.

muppeteer

Peregrinus wrote: »

And, separately, I think there’s a challenge to be raised the notion of “it’s own ideal”, where “it” is the state. Should hospitals be run according to the ideals of the state, or according to the (necessarily) diverse ideals of the people in a diverse society? As a humanist, I’m much more attracted by the idea that the people’s ideals should inform the activities of the state, than the idea that the state’s ideals should inform the services delivered to the people.

Finally, I’d point out that in a democratic or populist state what you suggest is potentially threatening to whoever happens to be in the (ideological) minority - which, in Ireland, even now, certainly includes secularists. If the state imposed its ideals on all hospitals then, in the past, far from, say, sterlisations being available only in Protestant hospitals, they wouldn’t have been available in any hospitals. Is that a better outcome? Just at the moment, in the current climate, what you propose might favour the group you belong to, but maybe that’s not enough to make it a good idea in principle.

Well, like you, I have an idea of a state made up of the diverse ideals of the people. But also a state that protects a minority from the ideals or privilege of a majority if needed.
Such a state, I would hope, would deliver the services the people want the state to deliver in as diverse a way as possible, but to do so on republican terms.
This would mean in practice that the first responsibility of the state is to cater to all citizens as equals without consideration to an individuals philosophical leanings. The state would try to cater first to the least common denominator citizen if you will. Once that need has been met then diversity can be added on top of that as resources permit it.

I would see this applied to the hospital example as an outcome of state hospitals, without particular philosophical leanings, that provide the full range of services(healthcare) to all citizens as resources permit. We can accommodate as much as possible/reasonable individuals within a state funded hospital. No compulsory ham for dinner:)

In the schools example I would see the outcome as state schools, without particular philosophical leanings, that provide the full range of services(education) to all citizens as resources permit. Again accommodations can be made with making buildings available after hours as this would not harm the baseline services.

It would be a valid point to make that there should be no problem then with state funded hospitals of a particular religious philosophy being funded as part of the additional diversity I mentioned earlier. This is true, but it would have to be carried out in a way that does not harm the provision of the base hospitals.(which would be difficult to justify given a finite pool of funds)
And it would also be difficult to avoid the tacit privilege of position that state sponsorship would give to the funded religious philosophy. It would be reasonable to only fund them based on proportion of supporting citizens but then we run into privileging the majority. We can't fund every philosophy to avoid this either(limited funds). We also have the case of the state tacitly supporting philosophies that may be self defeating/harmful if we must apply this equally to all philosophies. For example funding St. Racists hospital of Racism and Hate:)

We could try our best to walk the tight rope of these issues and see where we end up, but I think there is a case for avoiding the issues somewhat by sticking to the base secular hospitals as much as possible.

Peregrinus

Ok, fair enough, but play all that out in the hypothetical scenario that I spelt out.

muppeteer wrote: »

Such a state, I would hope, would deliver the services the people want the state to deliver in as diverse a way as possible, but to do so on republican terms.
This would mean in practice that the first responsibility of the state is to cater to all citizens as equals without consideration to an individuals philosophical leanings. The state would try to cater first to the least common denominator citizen if you will. Once that need has been met then diversity can be added on top of that as resources permit it.

I would see this applied to the hospital example as an outcome of state hospitals, without particular philosophical leanings, that provide the full range of services(healthcare) to all citizens as resources permit. We can accommodate as much as possible/reasonable individuals within a state funded hospital. No compulsory ham for dinner

But in my scenario, all four hospitals are committed to meeting the needs of anyone who seeks treatment. None of them cater only to particular groups of citizen. None of them pay any attention at all to the philosophical leanings of the individual patient, beyond not imposing treatment on the patient to which the patient objects (which - I hope - would also be the position of a state-run hospital). Thus it’s not necessary to have only state-established hospitals to achieve this. All you need is a rule that the state won’t fund hospitals unless they cater to all.

(And, in fact, you don’t even need that. As already noted, the state does fund (or indeed operate), e.g. women’s hospitals, children’s hospitals. In order for the hospital service to cater to the needs of every citizen, it doesn’t have to be the case that every hospital will cater to every citizen. It’s enough that every citizen can access a hospital that will cater to his need.)

A separate issue in my scenario is that one of the hospitals will cater to anybody, but not if they want a vasectomy or a tubal ligation. And another hospital will cater to anybody, but not if they want a blood transfusion.

But you don’t have to have only state-run hospitals to get around that . There are a couple of approaches:

First, as long as everybody can have access to a hospital that offers vasectomies, is it a problem that they may also have access to a hospital which doesn’t? There’s no necessary inefficiency here; it’s pretty routine for a wide range of medical procedures to be offered in some hospitals and not in others, and for a variety of reasons. Are you going to have a rule that vasectomies must be offered in every hospital when you have no rule that sterilisations must be? (Current medical practice is that tubal ligation is mostly offered in maternity/gynaecological hospitals; are you going to change that, and why?) Are you going to have a rule that vasectomies must be offered in every hospital when you have no rule that cancer treatment must be? Is there a reason why we need to single out vasectomies for this “universal provision” requirement?

But let’s suppose we do have sound medical/public health reasons for wanting all hospitals to provide vasectomies. This still doesn’t mean that all the hospitals must be state-run, does it? All it means is that a hospital can’t get funding unless it provides vasectomies, and three of the four voluntary hospitals in my hypothetical have no problem with that. So why deny those three funding?

But the third issue is the matter of bloodless surgery. If you only have state hospitals, is every state hospital going to provide bloodless surgery to everyone who wants it? Will it be provided in some hospitals only? In none?

I think we have to rule out the answer “in none” immediately. The foreseeable result of this happening is that people who could live if they got bloodless surgery will instead die because they won’t accept conventional surgery, and accepting avoidable deaths is not an acceptable outcome for any public health policy.

I think we also have to rule out the “in all” answer. It’s a highly specialised technique, and if experience and expertise is to be built up so that the service can be delivered competently, it needs to be concentrated. If we can’t deliver oncological services in every hospital - and we can’t - how can we possibly think of delivering bloodless surgery in every hospital?

So the only acceptable answer is “in some”. But if we accept that some hospitals will provide this service and others will not, what remains of the rationale for arguing that all hospitals must be state-run? If state-run hospitals can be diverse in their practices, why should the state refuse to fund voluntary hospitals which might be diverse in their practices?

muppeteer wrote: »

It would be a valid point to make that there should be no problem then with state funded hospitals of a particular religious philosophy being funded as part of the additional diversity I mentioned earlier. This is true, but it would have to be carried out in a way that does not harm the provision of the base hospitals.(which would be difficult to justify given a finite pool of funds)

Fair enough. That addresses some of the points I have made. But it’s a significant change from your original position, which was that the state would only fund hospitals which it ran itself. And it still leaves two questions.

First, if the state doesn’t have to run the “additional” hospitals, why does it have to run the “base” hospitals? What principle is infringed if, instead of running a full-service base hospital itself, the state funds a voluntary full-service base hospital? (E.g. the Jewish or Secular Humanist hospitals, in my hypothesis.)

Secondly, once you concede that the state is going to fund any voluntary hospitals, then you still have to think about what secularity requires in relation to the funding of voluntary hospitals. Re-run the hypothetical that I outlined earlier, but imagine that all four voluntary hospitals are being funded in addition to a large, general state-run hospital which provides vasectomies but not bloodless surgery. The questions that I raise about how to make funding decisions in relation to the voluntary hospitals are still relevant, and if we’re goint to argue for secularity then we have to be able to answer those questions.

muppeteer

Peregrinus wrote: »

Ok, fair enough, but play all that out in the hypothetical scenario that I spelt out.


But in my scenario, all four hospitals are committed to meeting the needs of anyone who seeks treatment. None of them cater only to particular groups of citizen. None of them pay any attention at all to the philosophical leanings of the individual patient, beyond not imposing treatment on the patient to which the patient objects (which - I hope - would also be the position of a state-run hospital). Thus it’s not necessary to have only state-established hospitals to achieve this. All you need is a rule that the state won’t fund hospitals unless they cater to all.

If all the hospitals pay no attention to the particular philosophical leanings then they will be offering all the state sanctioned treatments to all. If this is the case then a voluntary hospital is functionally no different to a state one.
The only problem then becomes is the state seen to be promoting one philosophy over another. To prevent this nearly all obvious signs of that particular philosophy would have to be missing. So the voluntary hospital really becomes indistinguishable from a state one.

(And, in fact, you don’t even need that. As already noted, the state does fund (or indeed operate), e.g. women’s hospitals, children’s hospitals. In order for the hospital service to cater to the needs of every citizen, it doesn’t have to be the case that every hospital will cater to every citizen. It’s enough that every citizen can access a hospital that will cater to his need.)

If for operational reasons hospitals specialise or only offer limited treatments due to size etc. then that is fine, there is no need to have a uniform, does everything, hospital. If the reasons to only offer limited treatments are based on philosophical reasons then I would see that as idealism limiting what could be a better/more universal hospital.
I wouldn't be a fan of womens or mens only hospitals if they were only based on gender segregation. If it was for operational reasons I would have no objection.

A separate issue in my scenario is that one of the hospitals will cater to anybody, but not if they want a vasectomy or a tubal ligation. And another hospital will cater to anybody, but not if they want a blood transfusion.

But you don’t have to have only state-run hospitals to get around that . There are a couple of approaches:

First, as long as everybody can have access to a hospital that offers vasectomies, is it a problem that they may also have access to a hospital which doesn’t? There’s no necessary inefficiency here; it’s pretty routine for a wide range of medical procedures to be offered in some hospitals and not in others, and for a variety of reasons. Are you going to have a rule that vasectomies must be offered in every hospital when you have no rule that sterilisations must be? (Current medical practice is that tubal ligation is mostly offered in maternity/gynaecological hospitals; are you going to change that, and why?) Are you going to have a rule that vasectomies must be offered in every hospital when you have no rule that cancer treatment must be? Is there a reason why we need to single out vasectomies for this “universal provision” requirement?

Operational efficiencies rule supreme:) If it could be shown that the Catholic or JW hospitals offering their limited services did not severely impact access to the baseline services(only a large city would really work) then they would be acceptable. If it could be shown, should it be operationally efficient to do so, that adding back the limited services prohibited by the CC/JW hospitals would produce greater utility, then it should be done. I would not see philosophical positions as overruling the principle of gaining the greatest utility for state money.
Of course even if the above CC or JW hospital was acceptable there is still the issue of privileging particular philosophies over others. So an almost invisible voluntary status of the hospital must be maintained if it is to use state funds.

But let’s suppose we do have sound medical/public health reasons for wanting all hospitals to provide vasectomies. This still doesn’t mean that all the hospitals must be state-run, does it? All it means is that a hospital can’t get funding unless it provides vasectomies, and three of the four voluntary hospitals in my hypothetical have no problem with that. So why deny those three funding?

They wouldn't be denied provided the above criteria were met.

But the third issue is the matter of bloodless surgery. If you only have state hospitals, is every state hospital going to provide bloodless surgery to everyone who wants it? Will it be provided in some hospitals only? In none?

I think we have to rule out the answer “in none” immediately. The foreseeable result of this happening is that people who could live if they got bloodless surgery will instead die because they won’t accept conventional surgery, and accepting avoidable deaths is not an acceptable outcome for any public health policy.

I think we also have to rule out the “in all” answer. It’s a highly specialised technique, and if experience and expertise is to be built up so that the service can be delivered competently, it needs to be concentrated. If we can’t deliver oncological services in every hospital - and we can’t - how can we possibly think of delivering bloodless surgery in every hospital?

So the only acceptable answer is “in some”. But if we accept that some hospitals will provide this service and others will not, what remains of the rationale for arguing that all hospitals must be state-run? If state-run hospitals can be diverse in their practices, why should the state refuse to fund voluntary hospitals which might be diverse in their practices?

The bloodless surgery can be provided based on need, in specialised hospitals if needed, within state hospitals or a voluntary hospital which meets the above criteria.

Fair enough. That addresses some of the points I have made. But it’s a significant change from your original position, which was that the state would only fund hospitals which it ran itself. And it still leaves two questions.

First, if the state doesn’t have to run the “additional” hospitals, why does it have to run the “base” hospitals? What principle is infringed if, instead of running a full-service base hospital itself, the state funds a voluntary full-service base hospital? (E.g. the Jewish or Secular Humanist hospitals, in my hypothesis.)

Secondly, once you concede that the state is going to fund any voluntary hospitals, then you still have to think about what secularity requires in relation to the funding of voluntary hospitals. Re-run the hypothetical that I outlined earlier, but imagine that all four voluntary hospitals are being funded in addition to a large, general state-run hospital which provides vasectomies but not bloodless surgery. The questions that I raise about how to make funding decisions in relation to the voluntary hospitals are still relevant, and if we’re goint to argue for secularity then we have to be able to answer those questions.

It's not a huge change of position as such, it is more of a neutering of the voluntary hospitals to almost the point of irrelevancy, or to the point of making them indistinguishable from state hospitals. If services are specialised in one area(bloodless surgery) or curtailed in another(vasectomies or oncology) then this should be done on operational grounds not philosophical ones. If philosophical groups want to volunteer their time and money to help run a hospital with state funding I have no problem with that, provided at the point of contact for the patient that it is an all inclusive and a non exclusionary place that favours no particular philosophy.

Peregrinus

muppeteer wrote: »

If all the hospitals pay no attention to the particular philosophical leanings then they will be offering all the state sanctioned treatments to all. If this is the case then a voluntary hospital is functionally no different to a state one.

No, no, no. I said the voluntary hospitals pay no attention to the philosophical leanings of the patients. They offer the same treatment to all patients, regardless of the patient’s philosophy. (The patient is, of course, free to decline any treatment offered, and may do so on the basis of his philosophy.)

But they pay a good deal of attention to their own philosophical leanings. Hence the JW hospital, for instance, offers blood transfusions to no-one, and bloodless surgery to all.

muppeteer wrote: »

The only problem then becomes is the state seen to be promoting one philosophy over another. To prevent this nearly all obvious signs of that particular philosophy would have to be missing. So the voluntary hospital really becomes indistinguishable from a state one.

Whether or not there are alternative voluntary hospitals available, the state-run hospitals are going to be promoting one philosophy over another, because it will face issues on which a philosophical position must be taken. (Do we offer kidney transplants to people who, we suspect, will not stop drinking? Do we offer gender reassignment surgery? To anyone who asks? Or are their criteria that must be met? Do we offer cosmetic surgery? To anyone, or in certain circumstances only? When and on what conditions do we offer palliative care only? When do we discuss a “do not resuscitate” instruction with a patient? What criteria, if any, do we apply to someone seeking IV fertilization? Do we offer genetic testing to someone who refuses to accept genetic counseling? In what circumstances - if any - do we medicate someone without their consent? How do with deal with human remains resulting from miscarriages?)

My point is, there’s a whole host of important ethical and philosophical issues that arise in medical practice. “It’s legal” is not a complete answer to very many of them and however runs a hospital, state or voluntary agency, is going to have to not only adopt philosophical positions but take significant decisions that affect patients and their families on the basis of those decisions.

It’s not obvious - to put it no higher - that the state is particularly well-qualified to do this, and there’s no reason to think that the state’s decisions on these matters will be “better” in any objective sense, or more sensitive to patient wishes and desires, than the decisions of other agents.

One of the advantages of voluntary hospitals is that they are (often) explicit in the philosophical basis on which they approach the practice of medicine, and this enables the patient, if he wishes to, to seek treatment in a hospital in whose philosophical approach he has confidence. Indeed, the very fact that it is the philosophical basis which distinguishes different voluntary hospitals often means that the ethical/philosophical issues and positions are discussed when otherwise they might not be, and this gives patients better information and better understanding.

It’s a common position among nonbelievers that everyone must accept responsibility for framing his own ethical views and decisions, and that no authority has the right to impose preset ethical positions on society. I completely agree with this. But that sits very oddly with the view that, when it comes to the practice of medicine in hospitals, only the state should run hospitals so that the state-sanctioned ethical position should prevail universally.

muppeteer wrote: »

Operational efficiencies rule supreme . . .

Do I need to spell out the operational inefficiency of closing all the existing voluntary hospitals and replacing them with new state-run hospitals? It involves massive disruption, and I await any argument that the reluctance of, e.g., Catholic hospitals to provide vasectomies imposes a cost that would justify this.

Just to be clear, I accept the principle of your argument. The state’s health resources must be spent efficiently, and if there is an efficiency involved in operating some hospital on, e.g., Catholic lines (and if that inefficiency is not justified by actual patient demand for a hospital run on those lines) then the state should not fund the hospital. But the inefficiency has to be demonstrated. You can’t just assume an inefficiency as a cover for giving vent to a distaste for Catholic involvement in public medicine. From my point of view, diversity has a value. A philosophically diverse hospital system is, in general, preferable to a uniform one, and if you’re going to impose uniformity you need to demonstrate the need to do so.

muppeteer wrote: »

It's not a huge change of position as such, it is more of a neutering of the voluntary hospitals to almost the point of irrelevancy . .

But “neutering the voluntary hospitals to almost the point of irrelevancy” is not a proper object of public policy, is it? Secularity requires that the state should disregard supernatural claims in its decisions, not that it should make its decisions with a view to marginalizing or excluding people or institutions because they particular views about supernatural claims.

muppeteer

Peregrinus wrote: »

No, no, no. I said the voluntary hospitals pay no attention to the philosophical leanings of the patients. They offer the same treatment to all patients, regardless of the patient’s philosophy. (The patient is, of course, free to decline any treatment offered, and may do so on the basis of his philosophy.)

But they pay a good deal of attention to their own philosophical leanings. Hence the JW hospital, for instance, offers blood transfusions to no-one, and bloodless surgery to all.

Ah I see. Well then they would not be providing the same treatment to all patients by way of having limited services on offer. It would have to be operationally justified that the services not offered by the voluntary hospital does not impact too severely on all patients who might need to use that hospital.

Whether or not there are alternative voluntary hospitals available, the state-run hospitals are going to be promoting one philosophy over another, because it will face issues on which a philosophical position must be taken. (Do we offer kidney transplants to people who, we suspect, will not stop drinking? Do we offer gender reassignment surgery? To anyone who asks? Or are their criteria that must be met? Do we offer cosmetic surgery? To anyone, or in certain circumstances only? When and on what conditions do we offer palliative care only? When do we discuss a “do not resuscitate” instruction with a patient? What criteria, if any, do we apply to someone seeking IV fertilization? Do we offer genetic testing to someone who refuses to accept genetic counseling? In what circumstances - if any - do we medicate someone without their consent? How do with deal with human remains resulting from miscarriages?)

The issues you raise are more to do with medical ethics than religious ethics. They do sometimes overlap but in those cases it would be for the patient themselves to decide what they did and did not want without the state interfering too much. Want a new kidney-medical ethics. Palliative care-medical ethics. DNR- medical again. Best practice in medical ethics is fairly standard as it is anyway without huge interference from government. No reason it would change in a secular system.

My point is, there’s a whole host of important ethical and philosophical issues that arise in medical practice. “It’s legal” is not a complete answer to very many of them and however runs a hospital, state or voluntary agency, is going to have to not only adopt philosophical positions but take significant decisions that affect patients and their families on the basis of those decisions.

A hospital having a secular character would be less restrictive than a voluntary as I imagine it at the moment. But I'd be open to examples. A less restrictive service would allow for patients to make their own choices and where they could not the decisions fall to best practice in the profession, which seems outside the individual hospitals power at the moment anyway.

It’s not obvious - to put it no higher - that the state is particularly well-qualified to do this, and there’s no reason to think that the state’s decisions on these matters will be “better” in any objective sense, or more sensitive to patient wishes and desires, than the decisions of other agents.

The state is empowering/allowing other agents to make decisions on it's behalf currently when it chooses to fund a hospital. There is nothing to stop the state from yanking the funding of a hospital it does agree with. So the state already does cater to patient wishes through allowing all of the procedures it allows. A secular state funded system can still allow the freedom of patient choice that is currently available.
Anything above and beyond the allowed state services is private currently and would remain private afterwards.

One of the advantages of voluntary hospitals is that they are (often) explicit in the philosophical basis on which they approach the practice of medicine, and this enables the patient, if he wishes to, to seek treatment in a hospital in whose philosophical approach he has confidence. Indeed, the very fact that it is the philosophical basis which distinguishes different voluntary hospitals often means that the ethical/philosophical issues and positions are discussed when otherwise they might not be, and this gives patients better information and better understanding.

Again a catch all hospital can offer all the services it can to all patients on their own terms, including never using blood transfusions, never performing vasectomies and offering access to all the philosophical information the patient wants and access to all the pastoral care they want to make those decisions.

It’s a common position among nonbelievers that everyone must accept responsibility for framing his own ethical views and decisions, and that no authority has the right to impose preset ethical positions on society. I completely agree with this. But that sits very oddly with the view that, when it comes to the practice of medicine in hospitals, only the state should run hospitals so that the state-sanctioned ethical position should prevail universally.

The state should run hospitals but the ethical position they are treated with is of the patient.
The state running the hospitals in a secular way is taking a position that everyone is equal in the states hospitals. The secular way is removing religious/philosophical positions from the states current method of privileging a majority while disadvantaging the minorities.

Do I need to spell out the operational inefficiency of closing all the existing voluntary hospitals and replacing them with new state-run hospitals? It involves massive disruption, and I await any argument that the reluctance of, e.g., Catholic hospitals to provide vasectomies imposes a cost that would justify this.

No you don't. I'm mostly setting out an ideal without fully setting out how to get there from our current system. We'll see how well the schools handover goes first before we tackle the HSE:)
It might be a little draconian to suggest just going cold turkey on state funding until secular reforms were enacted.:P

Just to be clear, I accept the principle of your argument. The state’s health resources must be spent efficiently, and if there is an efficiency involved in operating some hospital on, e.g., Catholic lines (and if that inefficiency is not justified by actual patient demand for a hospital run on those lines) then the state should not fund the hospital. But the inefficiency has to be demonstrated. You can’t just assume an inefficiency as a cover for giving vent to a distaste for Catholic involvement in public medicine. From my point of view, diversity has a value. A philosophically diverse hospital system is, in general, preferable to a uniform one, and if you’re going to impose uniformity you need to demonstrate the need to do so.

There are cases where the philosophically "diverse" system we have today disadvantages large minorities. Not as seriously we have the implied sanction and support given to religions by receiving state money to promote their own philosophy. State money should not promote one philosophy over another. (Please note secularism may be counted as a philosophy by the state but it has to adopt at least one as it cannot work in a vacuum).

I like diversity in a system too but our current diversity offers little and comes at the expense of services to others.

But “neutering the voluntary hospitals to almost the point of irrelevancy” is not a proper object of public policy, is it? Secularity requires that the state should disregard supernatural claims in its decisions, not that it should make its decisions with a view to marginalizing or excluding people or institutions because they particular views about supernatural claims.

The state cannot disregard supernatural claims if it is funding bodies that promote such claims and use them to justify altering publicly funded health policy. To disregard the supernatural claims it must divest itself of state funded voluntary hospitals which alter their policies on such claims and promote religious claims in its walls.

Mark Hamill

Peregrinus wrote: »

Yes, they do. They favour secularists.

Secularists want schools that favour no-one so by "favouring" secularists, they favour no-one.

Peregrinus wrote: »

As a liberal and a democrat, I have problems with this. I get to choose my RNP, and to change it if I wish; you likewise. The idea that the state would choose an RNP for both of us offends me.

Tough luck. Nobody sheds a tear for the white supremacist who has his RNP trampled by a government that wont let him have whites only schools or whites only hospitals etc. I fail to see why anyone should de facto be able to get a public service just for themselves.

Peregrinus wrote: »

As a realist, you should also have problems with this. At the moment, to a large extent, as far as school provision in Ireland is concerned the state does choose an RNP for most people, and it doesn’t happen to be the one you favour. That should show you the dangers of the system you advocate.

I advocate a system that gives people services that favour no RNP, so I clearly do not agree with the current system.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Finally, you should reflect that there is some inconsistency in objecting to the state favouring an RNP that is not the one you favour, and at the same time calling for the state to favour in an even more extreme way the RNP that you do favour. If the first is unjustified, how can the second be justified?

Because the second is the only system that favours no RNP. If you have someone who want, say, a football match to be played fair, and so you play it fair, you are not just favouring the person who wanted it fair, you are favouring everyone by favouring no-one.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Are you saying, then, that you do want to see Ireland’s Jewish schools closed?

Not exactly. They should be amalgamated into a country wide, government run, system of non discriminatory schools.

Peregrinus wrote: »

It can survive with equal treatment. It can’t survive if it is treated unequally, by having funding withdrawn when other schools get funding, which is what you are advocating.

I clearly am not, don't insult me. I am advocating that all schools teach about all cultures and religions in appropriate class times. No school gets to monopolise time with propoganda of one culture or religion over any other. Jewish schools should become national schools, teach about all religions and cultures with equal time for judiasm as for any other religion/culture.

Peregrinus wrote: »

I think we need to distinguish between the state funding secular schools, and the state funding only secular schools. It’s nonsense to suggest that that latter is “clearly the only way to be fair to everyone”. On the contrary, it clearly advantages those who want secular schools over those who want schools which express any other RNP.

Schools shouldn't express a RNP, thats not what they are for. No school, public or private should be allowed to. We no longer live in a world where segregation is acceptable on an adult level so why the hell should we encourage it in our kids? All it does is retard their social and cultural advancement.

Peregrinus wrote: »

But maybe you find this laughable because it’s something you’ve constructed for the purpose of laughing at it. Look at the assumptions you make here:

- You’re talking about “someone wanting their kid taught a specific religion in school” and, therefore, not about people who favour a religious school for other, less simplistic reasons.

Such as? If someone wants a religious school because of some reason besides religion, then the religion is irrelevant to their wanting it. Find out what they want, and how to get it and then it wont matter to them if the schools are secular.

Peregrinus wrote: »

- You’re talking about people who believe that their child’s eternal soul and chance at heaven would be in danger without a specific religious belief and not, therefore, people whose religious views are less exclusive and childish than this

Its childish for a religious person to want to ensure that that their child gets into heaven?

Peregrinus wrote: »

In other words, you’re reducing somebody’s preference for a religious school to a caricature of your own devising, and then laughing at your caricature.

You need to do much better than that, Peregrinus. You cant just say that there are other reasons for wanting a religious schools besides the religion (but still somehow require the religion ) but never mention a single reason why. A lot of people do think in the way I've described. A lot of people think its only with religious education that children with get a sense of morality (which is retarded). Any other reason not based on the religion of the school is, well, not based on the religion of the school and so should be achievable without the religion in place.

Mark Hamill

Peregrinus wrote: »

No, that’s not pluralist. Pretty much the definition of pluralism is that it accommodates different ways of doing things. If all schools ar required to be secular, then secularism is favoured and other RNPs are excluded. That’s the opposite of pluralism.

Not if every school accommodates different ways of doing things (ie teaching about different cultures and religions). You need to balance pluralism with bias and special treatment. Like I pointed out in this post to Duggys Housemate, pre 50s America accommodated both blacks and whites, with separate drinking fountains and places on teh bus etc. Where they really pluralist?

Duggys Housemate

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Not if every school accommodates different ways of doing things (ie teaching about different cultures and religions). You need to balance pluralism with bias and special treatment. Like I pointed out in this post to Duggys Housemate, pre 50s America accommodated both blacks and whites, with separate drinking fountains and places on teh bus etc. Where they really pluralist?

No, but then as I pointed out to you, enforced separatism is not the same as voluntary association.

There are any number of Godwinish straw men arguments in this thread..

Nobody sheds a tear for the white supremacist who has his RNP trampled by a government that wont let him have whites only schools or whites only hospitals

Back to race.

Sure we wouldn't allow whites only schools, but we would allow Jewish only schools, in fact we do. The difference is that Jewish people want this separation, it is not forced upon them, and therefore totally different from State laws forcing the issue.

The only actual white supremacists I mentioned in this thread - the KKK - would integrate schooling, as would all nationalist groups in Europe.

Mark Hamill

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

No, but then as I pointed out to you, enforced separatism is not the same as voluntary association.

There's not much a difference when its being proposed for schools. Do you think that kids from religious schools generally grow up well informed and tolerant of other cultures and religions because of the single specific religiosity of their school (if they are tolerant and informed at all)?

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

Back to race.

Sure we wouldn't allow whites only schools, but we would allow Jewish only schools, in fact we do. The difference is that Jewish people want this separation, it is not forced upon them, and therefore totally different from State laws forcing the issue.

I dont think that white only schools were forced upon white people back in the day, so not really that different at all.
There is one difference between the religiously divided services now and the race divided services in the past. In the past, the whites wanted the division because they thought they should mix with the blacks because they thought they were superior to the blacks, not vice-versa. Nowadays, each religion thinks it shouldn't mingle with any other, because they all see themselves as superior. I fail to see how thats an improvement.

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

The only actual white supremacists I mentioned in this thread - the KKK - would integrate schooling, as would all nationalist groups in Europe.

Thats because white supremacists want a race divide, not a religious divide. Do you think that white supremacists who want white only schools and black only schools are pluralist?

Mark Hamill

Mark Hamill wrote: »

We no longer live in a world where segregation is acceptable on an adult level so why the hell should we encourage it in our kids? All it does is retard their social and cultural advancement.

What sort of school do/did your kids go to?

Mark Hamill

Deleted User wrote: »

What sort of school do/did your kids go to?

Don't have kids.

Mark Hamill

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Don't have kids.

TBH, I was expecting that answer.

My son went to an Educate Together school. He's from an atheist family. Many, though not a majority, of his primary classmates were also from atheist families. Several were Catholics, and a few belonged to minority Christian religions.

There are no ET post-primary schools, and he attends a school with a stated Christian faith position. A small minority of his school friends are atheists, but most aren't. Outside of school, most of his circle of mates are Catholics. I've seen them, heard them, and talked to them, and no-one could describe their social or cultural advancement as retarded or impaired in any way. They are an open-minded bunch of kids, and they are tolerant of and interested in other faith systems - and that includes the two atheists and two Protestants who attended the Catholic primary school at the end of our street. The RE my son encountered in his ET school seems to have been virtually indistinguishable from the RE his mates got in their Catholic schools, probably because the Government has specified what has to be in the RE curriculum in schools.

Ireland has learned a lot in the last 30 years, especially urban Ireland, and a lot of the dragons one might like to slay already lie dead. But then living in Ireland's heartland of liberalism and tolerance might have coloured my perception a wee bit.

Zombrex

Peregrinus wrote: »

Actually, governments do support things like women’s hospitals and children’s hospitals, don’t they?

They separate out resources based on speciality of care, not on the personal preference the patient. We don't have children's hospitals to appease the preference of children, we have them because children's care is often quite different to adult care.

This is the central point. State resources cannot be allocated based on the individual preference of the person who turns up to use them. That would be impractical since there are 4.4 million personal preferences in Ireland.

Peregrinus wrote: »

But the analogy breaks down. A hospital for blacks or a hospital for women is not analogous to a Catholic hospital or a Jewish hospital, because these are not hospitals for Catholics or for Jews; they are hospitals established and organized by people whose motivation for doing so is religious.

The motivation for setting up the school is not the issue. The religious policy of the school is.

There is absolutely nothing saying that a religious person cannot set up a secular school due to their religious motivation. I went to an Educate Together school and half the teachers were religious.

A secular school does not mean all staff members must be atheist. It means the school's policy on religion (not the views of the individual staff members) must be secular.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Right. Now suppose we have a largish city which can support several hospitals. And we receive funding applications from several hospitals - a Jewish, a Catholic and an Ethical Humanist hospital.

So far in your example we don't have a Jewish hospital, a Catholic hospital nor a Ethical Humanist hospital. If though in your example we have silently shifted from a Jewish person setting up a hospital (stating nothing about what the hospital's policy on religion will be) to a hospital with a Jewish religious policy then you have changed the example.

Peregrinus wrote: »

This might be a reason to withhold funding from the Catholic hospital. Or it might not - perhaps we need three general hospitals, but it will be enough if two of them offer vasectomies, etc.

Enough for what? If the hospital receives public funds then an individual who turns up at the door of the hospital should expect care in line with the general public policy on health. It is not good enough to say you can go to another hospital.

Peregrinus wrote: »

The important point here is that the fact that the Catholic hospital’s ethical concerns are religiously-founded is irrelevant. If it had been the Ethical Humanist hospital were had taken that stance, they would have been denied funding.

Correct. That is in fact the point. In a secular society we do not hold religious view points with any greater significant than any other philosophical view point. Which is why it is not a question of just supporting the 3 biggest religions. You would have to support every single personal view point in Ireland, all 4.4 million of them.

Or to put it another way, there is no more justification for funding a Catholic school than a million kids want to go to than funding the Star Wars Jedi school that 3 kids want to go to.

The state cannot say that Catholicism is valid, a real religion, where as Jedi is just made up nonsense. It cannot say vice versa. That the state having a position on which religion or religions is valid and which aren't, which goes against the principle of secularism and freedom of religion.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Now, to complicate the matter further, suppose a fourth hospital, run by Jehovah’s Witnesses, also applies for funding (and we are willing to fund a fourth hospital). Again, they’ll treat anyone who walks in the door, but their particular schtick is that they won’t perform blood transfusions, and all their surgery will involve bloodless surgery techniques.

Then they won't treat everyone who walks in the door.

Peregrinus wrote: »

At first glance, we might say that this is altogether too big a restriction, and we won’t fund this hospital. But suppose the city has a significant population of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who won’t accept medical treatment which involves blood transfusions. If they are to have surgery at all, it must be bloodless surgery, and this is best provided in a facility which has expertise and experience in the techniques concerned. If they don’t have surgery, and competent surgery, forseeably many of them will die.

How do we take, on a secular basis, the various decisions that we face?

We provide bloodless transfusions in the same hospitals that also provide blood transfusions. The hospital makes no decision on who it will or will not treat based on religious grounds.

Peregrinus wrote: »

1. We deny funding to any hospital with an explicitly religious purpose. Thus only the Ethical Humanist hospital gets funded.

2. We deny funding to any hospital whose religious character impacts upon the delivery of medical services in a way which falls short of an ideal that we have in mind. The Ethical Humanist and Jewish hospitals get funded; the Catholic and JW hospitals get denied.

3. We fund the Ethical Humanist and Jewish hospitals. We also fund the JW hospital on the grounds that it will meet a need which arises from patient demand. To be honest, we'd rather that the patients didn’t demand this but we note that they do demand it and, as secularists, we disregard the religious character of the demand but not the demand itself. We deny funding to the Catholic hospital on the grounds that their refusal to provide vasectomies, etc, impacts adversely on their services and is not something which can be justified by reference to patient demand or need.

4. We fund all the hospitals.

Which of these represents the “best” model of secularism?

None of them. In a secular system an ethical humanist hospital would no more get funding than a Catholic one.

The answer is 5. We fund secular hospitals, hospitals that have no religious policy either way. They aren't humanist hospitals, they aren't Catholic hospitals, they aren't Jewish hospitals.

Again there is nothing about secularism that says all the staff members must be atheist. You are confusing the individual motivations of the staff (which the government doesn't care about) with the public policy of the hospital (which the government very much cares about).

At this point is always worth pointing out that secularism is actually a Christian concept. Christians have pushed and supported secularism for hundreds of years.

Zombrex

Peregrinus wrote: »

No, no, no. I said the voluntary hospitals pay no attention to the philosophical leanings of the patients. They offer the same treatment to all patients, regardless of the patient’s philosophy. (The patient is, of course, free to decline any treatment offered, and may do so on the basis of his philosophy.)

But they pay a good deal of attention to their own philosophical leanings. Hence the JW hospital, for instance, offers blood transfusions to no-one, and bloodless surgery to all.

If we accept such a system how do you justify not funding a hospital (with a building, with staff, which cleaners, with car park etc etc) that only sprinkles fairy dust on patients when they walk in the door and refuses all other treatments on religious grounds?

Extreme example but genuinely question.

Mark Hamill

Deleted User wrote: »

TBH, I was expecting that answer.

I dont have to have kids to know how people are likely to turn out if you segregate their education. Do you think the mass of adult morons we have now, who blindly self label as catholic on the census, or decry secular public services as not irish (because Ireland is a "catholic country" :rolleyes:) because they had open educations that informed equally of various cultures and religions and allowed them to make up their minds?

Deleted User wrote: »

My son went to an Educate Together school. He's from an atheist family. Many, though not a majority, of his primary classmates were also from atheist families. Several were Catholics, and a few belonged to minority Christian religions.

There are no ET post-primary schools, and he attends a school with a stated Christian faith position. A small minority of his school friends are atheists, but most aren't. Outside of school, most of his circle of mates are Catholics. I've seen them, heard them, and talked to them, and no-one could describe their social or cultural advancement as retarded or impaired in any way. They are an open-minded bunch of kids, and they are tolerant of and interested in other faith systems - and that includes the two atheists and two Protestants who attended the Catholic primary school at the end of our street.

And is that because of or despite the specialist religious education they got in the christian schools? I've seen the type of stuff that goes for religious education in schools these days. Retard is the only thing it does, unless the kid doesn't take any of it on board. Its questionable if even teachers of these schools are taught to be open-minded and tolerant of other faiths.

Deleted User wrote: »

The RE my son encountered in his ET school seems to have been virtually indistinguishable from the RE his mates got in their Catholic schools, probably because the Government has specified what has to be in the RE curriculum in schools.

You are saying there is little to no difference in course content between an educate together school and a Christian controlled school in terms of religion? Don't ET schools leave all the indoctrination and specific christian ceremonies (communion) out of the school day? Whats the point if they are same? Why did you bother choosing an ET school if that is the case?

Deleted User wrote: »

Ireland has learned a lot in the last 30 years, especially urban Ireland, and a lot of the dragons one might like to slay already lie dead. But then living in Ireland's heartland of liberalism and tolerance might have coloured my perception a wee bit.

After seeing the abuse that was thrown at the people who who appeared on the late late show last year calling for secular schools it's clear that Ireland's heartland is about as tolerant to state secularism as Saudi Arabia.

recedite

Deleted User wrote: »

The RE my son encountered in his ET school seems to have been virtually indistinguishable from the RE his mates got in their Catholic schools, probably because the Government has specified what has to be in the RE curriculum in schools.

No, I think you'll find the state primary school curriculum has zero content when it comes to RE.