tretorn wrote: » The religious schools are better than the community schools but if you want a non denominational education more than you want the best education for your child well thats a valid choice for you. The vast majority of engineers are male, thats a fact. The vast majority of teachers and nurses are female, its up to everyone to make a career choice that will satisfy them. Women should not be coerced into making STEM choices for PC reasons or because the business sector has lots of vacncies that they cant fill. If you want more women to take up STEM positions then make the job family friendly, offer extended maternity leave, career breaks, flexitime and part time working, this way women might seriously consider it.
tretorn wrote: » The vast majority of engineers are male, thats a fact. The vast majority of teachers and nurses are female, its up to everyone to make a career choice that will satisfy them. Women should not be coerced into making STEM choices for PC reasons or because the business sector has lots of vacncies that they cant fill.
King Mob wrote: » Is it based on research of some kind?
smacl wrote: » I don't agree. Labels, such as the term Catholic when used by someone to describe their nominal religious affiliation, are ambiguous insofar as they mean different things to different people. For example, if you take the line with someone that they're not a Catholic because they've voted to legalise abortion or same sex marriage, and in doing so taken a position contrary to Rome, you just fallen foul of the 'No true Scotsman' fallacy. While these labels can be a useful shorthand in some circumstances, they do not define us and nor should they. It is a mistake in my opinion to treat people as a homogeneous group based on such labels, just as it is a mistake to blame everyone who shares such a label with the actions of anyone who also carries that label. Again, just my opinion, but this is as true of religion as it is of race, gender or sexual orientation.
Mark Hamill wrote: » Might this be because so many schools are segregated by religion (and therefore race)? Because I am white Irish and I am engaged to a Filipino and I weekly meet up with other Asians, Europeans of all types, Americans North and South, and any other ethnic group I've forgotten to play board games in Dublin city centre. Firstly, all kids have poor English, it's why they have to do it in school. Secondly, and again, do you not think these issues you have with foreigners might be aggravated by segregation? How will their English and customs improve if they don't get to integrate with our "better" English and customs? Why do you think that I don't have a problem with their English and customs?
Mark Hamill wrote: » Any chance I could answers to these questions tretorn?
tretorn wrote: » As I said male and female brains are very different, its two different species
tretorn wrote: » I got a very good education provide by religious people
Mark Hamill wrote: » Is it a "No True Scotsman" to say that a carton labelled "milk" should contain some sort of milk, and if it contains something that isn't in any way milk then the label is wrong? Is there any other situation where we let people abuse labels like this? Imagine going shopping if food labels were allowed to be as ambiguous as we allow religious labels to be? Religious labels are ambiguous, but that's not because they are supposed to be. It suits religions to have people mislabel themselves so they can claim to have more supporters than they actually do.
smacl wrote: » I would expect a carton of milk to contain some sort of milk. Full fat cow's milk by default but the label might well be qualified with terms such as skimmed, goat's, butter or even almond or soya. They're all arguably types of milk. Similarly, you could qualify the word Catholic with terms like strict, a la carte, bouncy castle or even Irish. Your assumption is that without qualifying the word, all Catholics are strict Catholics. I'd assume any Catholic that fills our an Irish census form is an Irish Catholic, who we know for a fact do not strictly adhere to the dictates and dogma of the Roman Catholic church and don't bother with mass that much any more. And yes, suggesting they are not really Catholic because they are not strict Catholics is a clear case of the 'No true Scotsman' fallacy.
Mark Hamill wrote: » I'm not suggesting they are strict Catholic, I'm suggesting they follow the RCC on their big ticket issues, to differentiate them from people who don't. Never mind the abortion and SSM referendums, or pre-marital sex or condom use or never going to mass, in a survey commission by Irish Bishops a few years ago of Irish Catholics, 1 in 10 said they don't even believe in god.
smacl wrote: » Thing is, neither you nor I are not the arbiters of this, the Catholic church and community is. If Joe Blogs becomes a Catholic and does something that royally pisses off the Catholic church, it is for the Catholic church to tell Joe he is no longer a Catholic. Similarly, and more commonly perhaps, if the Catholic church does something to piss off Joe, he might state that he is no longer a Catholic. As atheists with a secular agenda, it might suit our arguments that Catholics who don't behave in accordance with the fundamental teachings of their church cease calling themselves Catholics, but that is a matter for them and their church. The problem isn't that the people call themselves Catholics, nor how they act, it is that as a society we fail to distinguish between religious affiliation and secular preference on the national census. From a secular perspective we shouldn't let a person's religion influence the running of the state, so it shouldn't matter what that religion is. You would also appear to by trying to teach a pig to sing here.
Mark Hamill wrote: » I already explained why the RCC doesn't push back on people mislabelling as Catholic, because they like pretending they have more followers than they actually do. And people continue to mislabel because of school-age indoctrination. But none of that means they are right to do so. It doesn't matter if you are coming at this from a religious, atheist or secularist POV, this is simply a labelling error. Is there any other labelling scenario where this level of ambiguity, that labelling as "X" only tells you that that "X" is the label, would be acceptable or even just plain functional? Your argument turns religious labels into redundant, meaningless terms.
The story of how the Church’s social and political power has all but disintegrated is now well told. Today we tell ourselves we live in a secular society where we are no longer take direction from Rome. Yet despite two decades of horrific revelations of systematic cover-up of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy, the Catholic Church remains a central part of Irish life. The controversy over the divesting of Catholic governance in primary schools in north Dublin reveals how hard fought this battle for hearts and minds still is. Once again, the State – which in the past sent children into Catholic institutions where they were emotionally, sexually and physically abused – abandons its responsibility by sitting on the sidelines waiting for this one to play out. But perhaps it’s time to face the hard facts and answer some difficult questions. If we truly want to live in a Republic, should a system paid for by all the taxpayers of Ireland provide religious instruction and Communion classes within the school day? If we want to live in a real Republic, is it right that an institution that presided over the abuse of children should maintain control over most of our schools?Niamh Sammon is the director of the documentary ‘Rome v Republic’, which will be broadcast this Thursday on RTE One at 10.15pm
Hotblack Desiato wrote: » Should an institution that presided over child abuse control most schools?
One eyed Jack wrote: » Yes, there is, and you’re already familiar with it too - men, and women. Both those labels come with loaded assumptions about a person in much the same way as labels like Catholic or atheist come with loaded assumptions one can make about a person on the basis of how they identify themselves. One can make reasonable assumptions about what those labels indicate to them about a person, but one should never be so closed-minded as to assume that because they believe something, it means the same thing to everyone else. Essentially in practice what that means is that people can identify themselves as Catholic if they wish, and there’s really not a damn thing anyone else can do but say they aren’t. It doesn’t change the fact that they say they are, and not just the Church, but the State recognises this fact. They may not ‘pass’ as Catholic in the same way that a woman may not ‘pass’ as a man, but they are entitled to fill out the census as they wish, and it would be the job of the State to prove that they have put down false information on their census forms. You can come up with all sorts of explanations as to why they still do it which would make sense to you, but that isn’t going to have any bearing on why they actually still won’t identify themselves as you would wish, when they are filling out the census forms for themselves. As for the school patronage issue, that’s entirely the fault of the State, and it is the State is responsible for coming up with a solution to the issue, it’s not the responsibility of the Church to provide education to parents who don’t want their education, it’s entirely the responsibility of the State to provide parents with the type of education they want for their children. Government could do that if they actually wanted, and it wouldn’t require any referendums or even any changes in legislation, but they don’t do it, and they are under no real pressure to do it. Why? Because the demand simply isn’t there. There are far more pressing issues on Government than spending money on education, and given the current Governments obsession with being seen to be popular, I don’t expect education reform is actually all that high on their agenda. It hasn’t been in my lifetime anyway, and that’s been the case for successive Ministers for Education, including the current one who is fumbling from one stakeholder to the next making promises he knows he will never have to deliver on.
smacl wrote: » So you have this club called the RCC with lots of members. Many of the local members flout the rules of the club much to the annoyance of the owners, but the owners of the club don't chuck them out because volume of members is far more important them than the behaviour of those members. Your assertion seems to be that the members that openly flout the rules aren't members the club any more, but that's clearly bogus as it is not your club. Right or wrong doesn't come into it as it a matter for the Catholics and their church hierarchy. What is wrong, and anti-secular, is the state taking any heed of all this in the first place. If we, as a country, wish to know whether we want the Catholic church involved in the running of our schools, we need to ask this precise question, as it is not a reasonable inference from nominal religious affiliation information in the census. As for the unambiguous meaning of the label, if you look up the definition of 'Roman Catholic' in any dictionary it will say 'Member of the Roman Catholic Church'. No more, no less. A bad Catholic is still a Catholic until they or their church decide otherwise.
One eyed Jack wrote: » Yes, there is, and you’re already familiar with it too - men, and women. Both those labels come with loaded assumptions about a person ...
One eyed Jack wrote: » Essentially in practice what that means is that people can identify themselves as Catholic if they wish, and there’s really not a damn thing anyone else can do but say they aren’t.
One eyed Jack wrote: » they are entitled to fill out the census as they wish, and it would be the job of the State to prove that they have put down false information on their census forms.
Hotblack Desiato wrote: » As I see it, the only meaning which we can place on ticking the catholic box on the census is that the box-ticker (or perhaps their parent!) was probably baptised in a catholic church. The question is completely useless for any policy purpose in what is supposed to be a secular state. If we want to know what parents of current and future schoolchildren want our education system to look like, we need a robust process for asking them.
Peregrinus wrote: » The label "Catholic" is clearly not "non-functional". We use the word frequently, and we do so because we find it to be meaningful and useful. What bothers people is that (a) it's not univalent - it can mean more than one thing; (b) it doesn't mean what they want it to mean - you can't say that purely because someone votes to legislate for abortion, say, he's not a Catholic; and/or (c) it has gradations of meaning.
Mark Hamill wrote: » But the label can only be meaningful and useful if it actually means something. If taking the label only means that the label has been taken, then it is not useful or meaningful.
Mark Hamill wrote: » I can accept that there are gradations of meaning and that catholics don't have to believe in every RCC proclamation and rule to be accurately labelled a catholic. But they do need to believe in the ones that differentiate catholics from other christians, other religious groups, or (in the case of the ~10% who don't even believe in god) atheists. Otherwise the label "catholic" is non-functional and useless.
Mark Hamill wrote: » But this is about labelling definitions, not assumptions. "Men" and "women" have definitions that exist above any assumptions. If "Catholic" has no non-redundant definition, then it is meaningless.
Which doesn't make it accurate and doesn't mean they shouldn't be corrected and which, again, leaves us the situation where the label of "catholic" is just non-functional.
This makes no sense, you are not entitled to do something until the State proves that doing it broke the law. You are not entitled to drive on the wrong side of the road up until you are convicted in court of dangerous driving. Legally, you must not put false information on your census.
Peregrinus wrote: » The label "Catholic" is clearly not "non-functional".
label /ˈleɪb(ə)l/ noun 1. a small piece of paper, fabric, plastic, or similar material attached to an object and giving information about it. "the alcohol content is clearly stated on the label" synonyms: tag, ticket, tab, sticker, marker, docket, chit, chitty, flag, stamp; document, documentation "the price is clearly stated on the label" 2. a classifying phrase or name applied to a person or thing, especially one that is inaccurate or restrictive. "the label ‘salsa’ seems especially meaningless when applied to musicians like Tito Puente" synonyms: designation, denomination, description, characterization, identification, tag; name, epithet, nickname, title, sobriquet, pet name, byname; formalappellation, cognomen "I always resented the label of ‘shock jock’ that the media came up with for me"
Peregrinus wrote: » I'd agree completely with the last point. On the first point, no. If somebody ticks the Catholic box we know at least two things; that they were very probably baptised in a Catholic church, and that they now wish to identify as Catholic. The latter is not trivial. As for your middle point, I await evidence. A similar question is asked on the census of lots of countries, and for those who are interested it is not difficult to find out why they ask it and what they find the answer useful for.
Peregrinus wrote: » On the first point, no. If somebody ticks the Catholic box we know at least two things; that they were very probably baptised in a Catholic church, and that they now wish to identify as Catholic.
As for your middle point, I await evidence.
Hotblack Desiato wrote: » Delivering public services in a religiously segregated way or in a way which promotes one religion above another is not secularism.
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