I’ve been learning a lot in the comment threads to my various complaints about the New York Times. I’ve admired people like Daryl, Chris O’Donnell, JJ Ross, and Nance Confer, and I assumed that the fact that I admired them meant I understood them. This discussion of media bias has been a real eye-opener.<\/p>\n
The biggest surprise was the degree to which these members of the “reality-based community” believe that the media should not even bother reporting the religiously-based point of view on various issues. I had assumed that there was general agreement that good journalists should cite opposing views on every subject. I’ve learned I was wrong about this.<\/p>\n
I take religious viewpoints seriously, even when I think they are in error. I’ve been honored to be invited to speak at Muslim homeschool conferences, Mormon homeschool conferences, a United Methodist church, etc. I’ve had the privilege of defending New Age families in court and before school boards. I’ve learned a lot about the things that bring homeschoolers together–and the things that separate them. <\/p>\n
In my opinion, based on my experience, we do well to listen to what religious people are saying, even if we devoutly believe that their theology is complete nonsense. If they are sincere believers, they will tend to express their ultimate concerns in religious terms. Thus, my Catholic friends may talk about family issues in terms of what would honor the Virgin, while my Muslim friends explain the same things in terms of total submission to the will of Allah. As I listen hard, I begin to see that these very different people both have a sense of something sacred in their role as parents–something too big for the government to regulate.<\/p>\n
I spent last weekend at the Catholic Family Expo, where I got a chance to meet black nuns, celibate priests, parochial school teachers, pro-life activists, and the like. I didn’t let my disagreements with Roman Catholic doctrine keep me from seeking out our shared concerns–and there were plenty.<\/p>\n
I don’t think there are enough homeschoolers for us to indulge in division. I’m not asking the hardcore Darwinists here to start teaching Creationism–but I would like to encourage reality-based homeschoolers to keep listening to the faith-based folks.<\/p>\n
And vice versa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve been learning a lot in the comment threads to my various complaints about the New York Times. I’ve admired people like Daryl, Chris O’Donnell, JJ Ross, and Nance Confer, and I assumed that the fact that I admired them meant I understood them. This discussion of media bias has been a real eye-opener. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6690"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}