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A question for Matthew's classmates


Guest Tom

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I have read all the replies in response to "Tom's" question to the CHILDREN in Matt's class. Yes, they are going to college, hopefully. But they are CHILDREN. Can I ask "Tom" how old he is? Do you have any children in their teens? Do you understand or forget what it was like to be in high school, 17-18 years old? I was not in that classroom that day, nor do I even try to put myself in those kids position. But can you please give them a damn break!! Please stop dragging them into a position you have no idea how it felt to be in. You were not there at that time. Have YOU questioned those CHILDREN? My god, man, to drag those kids into this AGAIN is reprehensible. They are not grown people with experiences to make that kind of choice, whether it be right or wrong. Have you ever been in a position where you didn't do the right thing, then 5 or 10 years down the road felt you could have done something? If not, you are not honest with yourself. It's called experiencing life, not everyone is Matt, in fact, at that age, the majority of people are still trying to figure out what the hell is going on in life. Maybe Matt's problems are just not on the top of their agenda. Please give these kids the room to figure life out for themselves and please do me a favor and stop dragging their character into this. You do not know these CHILDREN. And kids, please stop responding to him, you do not have to answer to anything this man has to say.

I agree that 17 and 18 year olds are still young enough get some latitude, but they're not children any more, and some of them have have been absolutely rotten to Matthew. One person posting as guest made it clear that he or she was in that class. I have no sympathy for that person, who is bringing this comment on him/herself. It may not be nice, but it's fair comment, and as to any of the "children" who've jumped on the let's-make-Matt-the-villain bandwagon, it's fair game. If he's old enough to stand up and do the right, thing, then so are they.

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I have read all the replies in response to "Tom's" question to the CHILDREN in Matt's class. Yes, they are going to college, hopefully. But they are CHILDREN. Can I ask "Tom" how old he is? Do you have any children in their teens? Do you understand or forget what it was like to be in high school, 17-18 years old? I was not in that classroom that day, nor do I even try to put myself in those kids position. But can you please give them a damn break!! Please stop dragging them into a position you have no idea how it felt to be in. You were not there at that time. Have YOU questioned those CHILDREN? My god, man, to drag those kids into this AGAIN is reprehensible. They are not grown people with experiences to make that kind of choice, whether it be right or wrong. Have you ever been in a position where you didn't do the right thing, then 5 or 10 years down the road felt you could have done something? If not, you are not honest with yourself. It's called experiencing life, not everyone is Matt, in fact, at that age, the majority of people are still trying to figure out what the hell is going on in life. Maybe Matt's problems are just not on the top of their agenda. Please give these kids the room to figure life out for themselves and please do me a favor and stop dragging their character into this. You do not know these CHILDREN. And kids, please stop responding to him, you do not have to answer to anything this man has to say.

You are right. I was the first one who wrote to him with what I would say. I will not respond to his posts anymore. My college is too important to me. Again, thank you.

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I have read all the replies in response to "Tom's" question to the CHILDREN in Matt's class. Yes, they are going to college, hopefully. But they are CHILDREN. Can I ask "Tom" how old he is? Do you have any children in their teens? Do you understand or forget what it was like to be in high school, 17-18 years old? I was not in that classroom that day, nor do I even try to put myself in those kids position. But can you please give them a damn break!! Please stop dragging them into a position you have no idea how it felt to be in. You were not there at that time. Have YOU questioned those CHILDREN? My god, man, to drag those kids into this AGAIN is reprehensible. They are not grown people with experiences to make that kind of choice, whether it be right or wrong.

You're saying these teenagers are (on top of being ignorant of the fundamental laws of this country, which is obviously something they should have been educated in by now) incapable of discerning that it's wrong for a teacher (or anyone) to lie, especially when it's (more like "they're," actually) a lie that directly harms someone else (or, at least, would if Matthew didn't have solid evidence of the truth to clear him)? Because not one of those classmates supported Matthew even when he exposed Paszkiewicz's dishonesty-fest in that meeting.

Any kid raised right knows that lying is wrong way before high school. Stop making excuses--these aren't preschoolers, they're high schoolers. They have no excuse for defending a liar whose lies were directly exposed.

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I can hear a famous chorus in the background,"They're coming to take me away ha ha. They're coming to take me away hee hee!"  So sad....

By the way Paulie, those Dominionists, are they hiding in area 57 or Roswell New Mexico? No, really, I'm curious.... :o

They're all over the country. I suggest you check out some of the links from one of the posts below. This is a very dangerous movement, which threatens to destroy more than 200 years of religious freedom under a written and secular Constitution. Your decision to respond in this juvenile fashion only speaks of you. Your post is completely without content.

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First of all the word “eliminate” was your word, not mine. It wasn't distorted since I left the original post in for people to read for themselves. You continue to attack all religions for the sake of whatever your quest is? You claim it was to defend the quality of education in Kearny. That is a crock because you have done nothing to improve it.

What you did was just to make a point. What you did was to promote your religion. What you did was hold school board ransom. It's just that you keep your blinders on and to believe and hear what you wish to believe and hear.

You can get down off your pulpit now because most of the world does not believe you. Again that’s just what you choose to believe because most of the world doesn't even know about this story.  Why should I even try to judge your religion when you repeatedly attack all others? You say that I do not understand. Maybe it’s that I understand too well and that bothers you.

I used the word, but you distorted what I meant by it. The mere fact that you had the decency to post it as I wrote it doesn't change the fact that you then interpreted it in a way that obviously was not intended.

The claim that I attack all religions is patently false. Being a Humanist, I certainly do not attack that religion, as I attempt to live by it. I have a great fondness for Buddhism and Confucianism, which are essentially religions of ethics. Hinduism also has much to offer, as does Bahai. I am critical of the three Western monotheisms because they make up a god and tell all kinds of horrid stories in his name, but even in those traditions many people interpret the traditional thoughts and writings symbolically, looking for meaning, harmony and things like that, which truly bind us all together. When Christianity is interpreted and practiced that way, I'm for it. So you're wrong. You want to paint me into a corner, but you do so based on what you want to think of me, not based on what I actually believe. It's called lying, or to use a term from your theology, "bearing false witness." Frankly, maybe you fundies should hope there isn't the kind of god you believe in, because if there is, you just might find yourself on the wrong side of what you call "justice."

We have done more than our part to improve the quality of education in Kearny. Teachers and students will be educated this fall in science and the law, areas in which their knowledge was obviously lacking. So yet again you make a claim, fail to support it with any facts, and when the facts are revealed, you're dead wrong - again. What we did was for those purposes.

As for what the world thinks, you're wrong again. I invite you to search the internet and tell us how many people supported Paszkiewicz or the BoE in this. Go ahead. You post us to all the results you can find. But you won't because you can count them on the fingers of one hand, and they're coming mainly if not exclusively from right wing fundies just like you.

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You're saying these teenagers are (on top of being ignorant of the fundamental laws of this country, which is obviously something they should have been educated in by then) incapable of discerning that it's wrong for a teacher (or anyone) to lie, especially when it's (more like "they're," actually) a lie that directly harms someone else (or, at least, would if Matthew didn't have solid evidence of the truth to clear him)? Because not a one of those classmates supported Matthew even when he exposed Paszkiewicz's dishonesty-fest in that meeting.

Any kid raised right knows that lying is wrong way before high school. Stop making excuses--these aren't preschoolers, they're high schoolers. They have no excuse for defending a liar whose lies were directly exposed.

And isn't it interesting that these same people, who are now arguing that we're dealing with children, were making the argument that juniors in high school aren't children any more, and therefore are immune to religious proselytizing. The exact opposite argument. Not that a contradiction ever bothered a religious zealot.

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And isn't it interesting that these same people, who are now arguing that we're dealing with children, were making the argument that juniors in high school aren't children any more, and therefore are immune to religious proselytizing.

You're right, I had forgotten about that. How one can tolerate having doublethink like that going on in one's own mind, I'll never understand. I'd never tolerate it, that's for sure.

The exact opposite argument. Not that a contradiction ever bothered a religious zealot.

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Guest 2smart4u
And isn't it interesting that these same people, who are now arguing that we're dealing with children, were making the argument that juniors in high school aren't children any more, and therefore are immune to religious proselytizing. The exact opposite argument. Not that a contradiction ever bothered a religious zealot.

Curious how every time "Strife" posts, "Paul" posts immediately afterwards and they're always in total agreement. We have one Loony Lefty posting as two.

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And isn't it interesting that these same people, who are now arguing that we're dealing with children, were making the argument that juniors in high school aren't children any more, and therefore are immune to religious proselytizing. The exact opposite argument. Not that a contradiction ever bothered a religious zealot.

I never made an argument stating that they are not children anymore. You are including me into a whole other group of people. What bothers me is "Tom" and his questionings. I just wonder if "Tom" always did the right thing. He is not the judge or jury with these children, it is as simple as that. We would all love for people to stand up for us when we believe we are right, but, in reality, it doesn't always happen. Your son got a lesson in it, and, unfortunately, in a public forum. I am sure he was extremely hurt when he realized he was on his own with this one. Sometimes children don't always do the right thing, sometimes adults don't do the right thing. Hopefully, down the road, everyone will learn from it.

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And isn't it interesting that these same people, who are now arguing that we're dealing with children, were making the argument that juniors in high school aren't children any more, and therefore are immune to religious proselytizing. The exact opposite argument. Not that a contradiction ever bothered a religious zealot.

You are such a hypocrite that it smells worse than Theobald's on Harrison used to on a hot summer day. You keep dragging religion and how your son was violated by someone talking about religion and then use that as an excuse why they cannot wear uniforms. You should hear yourself talk. So is your son an adult of not? Let me hear it from the horse's mouth.

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Yes, he did.

It's in the preface to "A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America.". The full text of which is available here:

http://www.constitution.org/jadams/ja1_pre.htm

Yeah. Funny, that.

If I'm wrong, then so is skeptic Richard Carrier.

Richard Carrier:

Indeed, read what the Founding Fathers themselves had to say on this subject, e.g. John Adams, History of the Principal Republics in the World: A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1794), in 3 volumes. In this monumental work, volume 1 is entirely about the example and influence of Greece and Rome, volume 2 is about that of the secular Italian republics of the Renaissance, and volume 3 is about that and the precedent of the British Commonwealth. The Bible is not discussed as the source of any ideas in the Constitution. In the August issue of the 1795 American Monthly Review, a reviewer of Adams' three volumes says:

   

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature, and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history....It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven, any more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture. It will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.

Though the reviewer credits "morality and the Christian religion, without the monkery of priests" as helping to sustain America's success, he never once credits any specific principle from the Bible as a foundation for its constitution or the revolution. Instead, Adams named "particularly among the ancients, Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, Dionysius Halicarnassus, Cicero, and Tacitus," and "among the moderns, Machiavelli, Sydney, Montesquieu, Harrington, Locke, Milton, Swift, Hume, Franklin, Price and Nedham.

http://www.columbia.edu/~rcc20/contrawood.html

Carrier is a historian, btw.

I trust Carrier the historian over Keith's judgment that the preface was (entirely) written by Adams.

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Curious how every time "Strife" posts, "Paul" posts immediately afterwards and they're always in total agreement.  We have one Loony Lefty posting as two.

If posting happened instantaneously, you might have a point. But the delay makes the "immediate" reply scenario literally impossible.

The accusation doesn't have any more validity the eighth time, 2dim.

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You keep dragging religion and how your son was violated by someone talking about religion and then use that as an excuse why they cannot wear uniforms.

Okay, now read this back to yourself, then try again, this time with some coherence, please. <_<

But doing my best to understand that grammatical nightmare, it sounds like you're saying that Paul was somehow using the Paszkiewicz issue as an argument against uniforms. If that's the case, care to give an example? I don't remember him saying anything like that.

You should hear yourself talk.

You should seek professional help if you're hearing written words. :P

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And isn't it interesting that these same people, who are now arguing that we're dealing with children, were making the argument that juniors in high school aren't children any more, and therefore are immune to religious proselytizing. The exact opposite argument. Not that a contradiction ever bothered a religious zealot.

... said the guy who excused his own contradiction with the claim that intuition is part of logic.

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I never made an argument stating that they are not children anymore. You are including me into a whole other group of people. What bothers me is "Tom" and his questionings. I just wonder if "Tom" always did the right thing. He is not the judge or jury with these children, it is as simple as that. We would all love for people to stand up for us when we believe we are right, but, in reality, it doesn't always happen. Your son got a lesson in it, and, unfortunately, in a public forum. I am sure he was extremely hurt when he realized he was on his own with this one.  Sometimes children don't always do the right thing, sometimes adults don't do the right thing. Hopefully, down the road, everyone will learn from it.

We are hoping that people will learn from it. However, if people were learning from this, people who have attacked Matthew, lied about him, lied about me, etc., would call us and apologize. That applies both to adults and to high school students. So far not one person has done that. Draw your own conclusions.

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You are such a hypocrite that it smells worse than Theobald's on Harrison used to on a hot summer day. You keep dragging religion and how your son was violated by someone talking about religion and then use that as an excuse why they cannot wear uniforms.  You should hear yourself talk. So is your son an adult of not?  Let me hear it from the horse's mouth.

You misunderstood what I wrote. Uniforms are not a religious issue in this context, and I do not believe anyone has suggested that they are.

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If I'm wrong, then so is skeptic Richard Carrier.

Since Carrier only indicates that a reviewer did say that, but not that Adams didn't, it is entirely possible for you to be wrong without Carrier also being wrong. Adams and the reviewer might both have said it. Perhaps Carrier was quoting the reviewer quoting Adams.

Carrier is a historian, btw.

I trust Carrier the historian over Keith's judgment that the preface was (entirely) written by Adams.

I don't recall Keith having commented on it. Perhaps you've confused me with him?

No matter. Here's another quote from Carrier:

"Now, to be sure, I don't want your reading impairment to trip you up again, lest you misread what I am saying yet again: Adams was certainly a god-fearing Christian, and offers much praise in various of his writings for Christian religion. That has no bearing on what I am saying here or what I said in my essay to which you respond. Until you understand what I mean by that, I don't think you will ever be able to produce any relevant response to me or what I have actually written."

"But I will close with my own quotation of Adams, from the above mentioned book:"

'The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature, and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history....It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven, any more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture. It will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.'"

See http://www.iidb.org/vbb/archive/index.php/t-64382.html

(search for the word "pretended" to find the relevant post)

This time Carrier indicates that Adams is the author of the quote.

Also note that there is nothing in Adams' book (at least the online transcription cited earlier, which is all I have available at the moment) to indicate any separate authorship for the preface. That rather implies that it was written by Adams. I suspect that if I were discovered to have published a book with a preface written by someone else with no attribution, you and probably a few others on this board would gleefully point the finger and cry "plagiarist!". But I would not knowingly or intentionally do that. And I don't think that John Adams would have done it either.

There is, of course, the possibility that the preface was written by someone else, possibly the reviewer, and added in a later edition. I don't have a way to check, but it seems unlikely. At the end of the preface it says "Grosvenor Square, January 1, 1787.". This date is about 7 years before Adams' books were published (1794), and more than 8 years earlier than the American Monthly Review article (August 1795).

I googled to see what association Grosvenor Square might have with John Adams. It turns out that Grosvenor Square is in London, and Adams lived there from 1785 to 1788. He was the first American Minister to Great Britain before he became the second President of the United states. (see http://london.usembassy.gov/grsvnrsq/adams.html)

Based on the information available to me at present, I believe that the case for the quote (and the remainder of the preface and at least one other oft-cited quote contained therein) being authored by John Adams is much stronger than the case against.

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Since Carrier only indicates that a reviewer did say that, but not that Adams didn't, it is entirely possible for you to be wrong without Carrier also being wrong. Adams and the reviewer might both have said it. Perhaps Carrier was quoting the reviewer quoting Adams.

I don't recall Keith having commented on it. Perhaps you've confused me with him?

You both look alike to me. :lol:

No, really, you're not as silly as Keith, so I apologize for confusing you with him.

No matter. Here's another quote from Carrier:

"Now, to be sure, I don't want your reading impairment to trip you up again, lest you misread what I am saying yet again: Adams was certainly a god-fearing Christian, and offers much praise in various of his writings for Christian religion. That has no bearing on what I am saying here or what I said in my essay to which you respond. Until you understand what I mean by that, I don't think you will ever be able to produce any relevant response to me or what I have actually written."

"But I will close with my own quotation of Adams, from the above mentioned book:"

'The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature, and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history....It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven, any more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture. It will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.'"

See http://www.iidb.org/vbb/archive/index.php/t-64382.html

(search for the word "pretended" to find the relevant post)

This time Carrier indicates that Adams is the author of the quote.

That was 2003. My citation was from 2005.

You think he forgot that Adams was the author in the space of two years?

I agree that the text of the book, on its face, favors the view that Adams made the comments. But that view makes Carrier's 2005 writing inexplicable.

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Curious how every time "Strife" posts, "Paul" posts immediately afterwards and they're always in total agreement.  We have one Loony Lefty posting as two.

If someone writes 3 + 4 = 9 and ten people all write back saying that 3 + 4 = 7, what conclusions do you draw?

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