Fall of the Catholic Church

😁

Minimum Unit Pricing, relates to alcohol pricing in Ireland, it’s not a great example tho -

https://drinkaware.ie/minimum-unit-pricing-explainer/

It's a perfect example of an unpopular law being brought in by a democratic government without public consultation.

Descisions "made by representatives elected by the people" don't - and shouldn't - always cater for the whims of the majority.

LBGT - like religion and politics - should be part of education, if only to explain what the different types are without bias or promotion. Isn't there a sex/realtionship/health/political/social syllabus that secondary students have to cover anyway?

Jesus the amount of twisting you had to do to try and wring the above conclusions out of anything I’ve said… is your back ok after all that twisting? Either that or you’re one flexible fcuker and I envy your abilities 😂

If it were the case that Irish Law prohibits parents from choosing the type of education they wish for their children to receive, and forced parents to enrol their children in one of the 95% of schools owned and run by the Catholic Church, THEN you might have a point that parents have no choice. Irish law explicitly prohibits the State from doing so though. I shouldn’t have to do this because I know you’re aware of it, but if you’re going to pretend you’re not aware of it, then here it is in black and white -

EDUCATION

ARTICLE 42

1 The State acknowledges that the primary and natural educator of the child is the Family and guarantees to respect the inalienable right and duty of parents to provide, according to their means, for the religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social education of their children.

2 Parents shall be free to provide this education in their homes or in private schools or in schools recognised or established by the State.

3     1° The State shall not oblige parents in violation of their conscience and lawful preference to send their children to schools established by the State, or to any particular type of school designated by the State.

2° The State shall, however, as guardian of the common good, require in view of actual conditions that the children receive a certain minimum education, moral, intellectual and social.

4 The State shall provide for free primary education and shall endeavour to supplement and give reasonable aid to private and corporate educational initiative, and, when the public good requires it, provide other educational facilities or institutions with due regard, however, for the rights of parents, especially in the matter of religious and moral formation.

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html#article42

While your skewed perception of Catholicism is understandable, victim blaming isn’t a uniquely traditional Catholic value, but that point aside, there was no victim blaming in asking you what you have achieved in terms of your aims for the Irish education system in the last 40 years? I think that’s a reasonable question seeing as it appears to me that in spite of your claims of popular support, all evidence suggests that people who share your ideals really haven’t achieved a whole lot. That’s not to piss on anything you have achieved, it’s simply questioning why it’s taken you even this long to achieve what you have achieved! It doesn’t have to be any grand gestures at national level, I was looking for anything, local community level, along those lines, because that’s where the real changes are made, in my experience at least. One of the real downsides of representative democracy is that politicians don’t have to keep their promises once they’re elected.

And just to be as clear - my own personal views were not in question earlier. What was referred to were examples of views which you questioned were normal. I gave you an objective assessment with examples to demonstrate that the views you were referring to are normal, with an added bonus of a demonstration that they are not views uniquely associated with religion. You haven’t been at all as forthcoming in this discussion, where you haven’t answered a single question that I have asked of you yet. That’s just rude, frankly. It’s no way to carry on a discussion.

I understand WHY you use the term ‘should’, because you have your own ideas about whether Ireland qualifies as a secular country based upon the fact according to your assessment at least - the State are supporting religion by pushing a dogma and allowing one to be pushed on its educational facilities.

None of that is true though, is it? Certainly not in Ireland’s case anyway where the facilities in question are not the property of the State, nor is the State pushing any dogma by funding all patrons according to the number of schools and pupils in those schools under their patronage and the type of schools they are such as DEIS or private schools.

We’ve probably established by now that it’s not a popular decision according to most people anyways. In my experience at least, people have their own ideas about what they consider should be a priority for Government in terms of education, based primarily upon their own personal circumstances.

https://www.thejournal.ie/poll-minimum-alcohol-pricing-ireland-5106046-May2020/

It is -2/3rds against here. And the thread here was even higher. Surprised your questioning it though - Irish people don't like being taxed and don't like prices of their favourite products going up - not exactly surprising.

Anyway - I've made my point about democracy not always leading to the most popular decision and proven it. Move on.

Everyone has ideas. But are you saying we should stop pretending to be secular? Supporting a religious environment is not the same as funding it. You know that as well as I do.

It feels like you're disareeing with me for the sake of disagreeing with me and trying to nit-pick very minor disparites over the definition of words and I really don;t have the time or energy for this at the moment.

I was surprised it was unpopular tbh, just hadn’t heard anything much about it is all, wasn’t even aware there was a thread on here about it, that’s all, but yeah, moving on from that -

I’m questioning whether we have the same understanding of secularism. I don’t have any frame of reference for what I think is your understanding of secularism, whereas I can think of numerous countries which are secular democracies, mainly in the West, where the State does not discriminate in the provision of funding for education.

I’m also not sure what exactly you mean by ‘supporting a religious environment’ that would distinguish Ireland from other countries where the State supports religion and religious freedom on the basis that it is a democratic society which adheres to international human rights principles. The closest I can think of to what you’re describing is France, where the State places greater limitations on religion than most Western countries, which has the effect of favouring Christianity over other religions.

It’s not disagreeing with you for the sake of disagreeing with you when you’re presenting arguments which you have to be aware are deliberately misleading, couched in obfuscatory language, and I’m correcting your deliberate misrepresentations. It would save us both time and move the discussion forward if you could restrain yourself from engaging in that sort of behaviour, instead of suggesting that it’s my problem you have neither the time nor the energy for a proper discussion.

You're back to the point where you just want to create division for the sake of it. You know what I mean by secular.

I don't understand your point about wrongthink. Gay people do exist, so it's incorrect to teach kids that they don't, and damaging to gay kids. What is dogmatic about that?

Wrongthing progrssive dogma 101.... Jesus wept.

Kids already know the terms "gay", "lesbian" and transgender" by 10 or 11 as I said. Keeping them ignorant is not going to get the genie back in the bottle. And that's not progrssive ideological machine 101 wrongthinking whatever - that's just practicality.

Either they find out from teachers in the classroom, or their mates in the playground. What you're saying here is "let the playground do it".

If you're that worried about dogma in the classroom, I'll assume you're also annoyed by religion in the classroom, or are some dogmas acceptable?

I’m not trying to break your balls here PC but that’s the way the education system is structured already. I can tell you for a fact that there are no State resources either labour or financial that are used by schools for religious instruction.

There’s no need either to take children out of class, because why would they? It’s a religious ethos school, and we’ve already covered the part where religious instruction is part of the school day, and very much within the characteristic spirit of the school, in accordance with the education act.

None of that, precludes parents from taking their children out of any school, at their own expense, nor is it depriving any child of their right to attend a school without attending religious instruction, nor is it any impediment upon the rights of children who are religious to receive an education in accordance with their religion.

There’s a balancing act of rights in a democratic secular society that I think you’re missing in your attempt to deprive people of the freedom to exercise their rights. I can’t think of a single country you could use as a template example of what you’re arguing in favour of, and even if they did exist, they wouldn’t be secular, they’d just be a country where the majority of people are deprived of their human rights. I can understand now why you’d have difficulty convincing anyone of the benefits to society of your ideas - they’re more than just a bit shyte tbh, they’re draconian.

I just had to be certain I wasn’t misunderstanding what you’re saying. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that couldn’t possibly be what you’re suggesting, which is why I had to be certain.

It’s great to have the Constitution and all, but it doesn’t really help the large numbers of parents who are left with no choice but to send their children to church schools. There is no effective choice when 95% of schools are church schools. No twisting there- just the harsh reality for many parents.

Your personal views are in question now. Do you consider masturbation and gay sex to be normal or not?