Phew.
After yesterday's ludicrous comment-deluge, hopefully we'll get back to some semblance of normality today; especially as I'm working from home and the donkey who trudges round and round to power my village's alleged broadband connection has not been well of late.
Reading New Scientist on the train last night and this: New Scientist article on the insane future of America scared the shit out of me.
I'd heard of this place before (Patrick Henry College), but the article brought home to me just how close we are to having the world's biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons controlled by the lunatic Christian Fundamentalist 'Taliban'.
In a supposedly free country, to raise children with closed minds and train them up to attack reason and reality with drooling fucking hogwash is a far greater danger than any possible terrorist threat.
Read the article.
Shit yourself with fear.
I'm suddenly glad to be as old as I am, as I'll be dead in a few years and won't have to see it happen.
20 comments:
I haven't read the article, and in the near future I don't have time to, but here's my perspective as an American Christian who believes that God is ultimately in charge, but that he probably used evolution to get us all here, and it probably took a gazillion years. anyway...the groups that want to have creationism taught in public schools are relatively small compared to those who don't. The issue pops up on ballots in small communities now and then but never really gets anywhere.
I'm not frightened because I don't see even a remote possibility that these people who scare you so much have any hope of taking charge. I'll read the article when I can, but I think it's OK for you to relax, and don't look for any kind of extreme misguided Christian taliban anytime soon.
I've already read the New Yorker article about Patrick Henry College. If I read another one, I'll throw up.
Creationism is just not science. Those who say otherwise should have to turn their high school diplomas back in.
I'm with Robyn, now, though. I think that with the election results going they way they did, the mood of the country has shifted a bit. That means we might not wind up with right wing religious nutjobs running the place.
I'm scared by the fact that the college is specifically training up political lobbyists and debaters and already have a monstrously disproportionate percentage of their graduates working in the White House.
Please don't get me wrong, Robyn;
the fact that they profess to be Christian doesn't upset me (although I see nothing of Christ's teachings in their asgenda), but their political stance on abortion, stem cell research and freedom of choice/speech/faith I find personally repulsive.
They are organised, powerful, and increasingly influential and I can just see the wishy-washy liberal left standing complacently by and letting them stomp all over people's freedoms.
Sorry, girls; that sounded a bit harsh.
Robyn: It's not the minor threat from Creationists (people should be able to believe what they believe - I have no beef with them specifically); it's the highly organised and politically motivated Patrick Henry College which scares me.
Sassy, if the left have any similar, counterbalancing institution I'd love to hear about it. If not, please start one. Now.
And my broadband connection keeps cutting out. If I disappear, you'll know I'm raging impotently at my monitor.
Dive, I know your post isn't about Christianity as much as it is about the possiblity of the wrong people having power, so no troubles here.
But with this election, the country seems to be trying to move to the center--not too left and not too right. There are thousands of lobbyists for all kinds of crazy causes. I think we should just right this out over the next couple of years, and things will balance out. They always do over time.
Now, do we want to talk about home schoolers? :/
This is so much more fun than the sexiest man comments.
Robyn, I know several non-creationist home schoolers, and they're doing a fantastic job. Until I know more than I've gleaned from that article about the creationist ones, I'll follow my own advice and shut my trap.
You've hit on one of my soap-box favourites, by the way: the need for balance, rather than compromise.
Over here, during the last twenty years, all the political parties have moved right in to the centre, suppressing their right and left wing spokespeople, especially around election time.
I believe strongly in the necessity of extremism (for want of a better word). The most radical and interesting ideas come from the edges, in politics, religion, even in music.
When everything is compromised into a beige goo in the centre, as it is over here, things stagnate and start to stink.
A balance of ideas from across the spectrum is far more dynamic.
I get on far better with hard left and hard right political activists than any centrist wet.
And I'd love to get together and talk religion with a true Christian like yourself, in the same way that I get serious with my Christian and Muslim friends over here, rather than just talk to the "yeah, I believe in something but I don't go to church" wasters.
When things reach the centre, they fall down the plughole. Strong beliefs of any colour are far more stimulating. And feel free to tell me what you really think when my rants get up your nose (you can always email if you don't want to shout at me in front of people).
You've given me a great perspective on the difference between balance and the mushy center! That distinction gets lost here because A)people running for office are afraid of losing B)The general populace has forgotten how to debate.
Here's my thing with home-schoolers: the ones I know keep their kids at home because they're afraid to expose them to the "filth" of the unchurched world and what people in my own church call the evil's of the public school system (and they aren't talking about low test scores). My pastor actually said that "every day that you send your children to the public school, you're sending them closer to hell." I wanted to cry. If my husband hadn't been there, I would have stood up and walked out and never returned (my husband doesn't agree with the guy, but he doesn't like spectacles).
I had a great conversation with a brilliant theologian last spring. I said that home schoolers don't want their kids to get dirty. And his response was that if they let their kids get dirty now, their immune systems will be that much stronger as adults.
So, there are home schoolers and there are home schoolers. I'm surrounded by those who build their own cloisters.
This is why, when I retire, I want to sell up and move close enough to you so we can get together over coffee and put the world to rights.
Your theologian's response is absolutely spot on. Brilliant indeed.
Children should be given information from all sides and allowed to make up their own minds. It is criminal to teach a child that "creationism" is wrong, or that "evolution" is wrong. Teach them openly about both and let them use their own brains.
Let them make up their own minds? Are you nuts? They can't use their minds!
Neither side will bend, and since creationism is rooted in religion, it can't be allowed in public school because we are all in a 200plus-year-old battle to separate church from state. I'm not sure creationism should be taught in school--if anything, it should be taught in church and/or home, and since no body is arguing that point...
I'm frankly astounded by what kids can do with their minds (I work with over thirty-thousand schoolgirls), as well as apalled, amused and occasionally frightened.
However, they should not be just fed one side of an argument or they will never learn to use their minds.
I forgot about the church/state thing over there.
I don't know how it is in the States, but over here every child is taught creationism as part of religious studies, as well as studying Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hiduism; all the major world religions.
It is not taught as a science subject, not because of any faith issues, but because it is not something that can be empirically proven in physics, chemistry or biology, and so is not technically a science (and "Intelligent Design" is simply laughed out of court).
We have no such thing as religious studies in public schools. Christians would be outraged at having their children learn about other religious outside of the context of learning how to convert them. And Muslims would be as outraged at having their children learn about the divinity of Jesus. And then you'd have to include the Wiccans and the Druids and the Scientologists...it would never end.
Have you ever heard Tony Campolo? He's a somewhat obnoxious Christian speaker. I heard a lecture once when he was chiding Christians for being so tight-assed, and he said to let them read from the Koran in your schools. Are you afraid the Bible won't hold up? Very good point.
But as I mentioned, we have lost the ability to debate, and we are all so afraid of losing something that we hold on as tightly as possible.
I'm afriad I agree with Mr. Obnoxious. If the Bible didn't stand up to comparative religious scrutiny, we'd have no Christians over here.
I'm horrified to learn you have no religious studies, though it does go a long way to explaining Republican Islamophobia. People are scared of things they don't understand.
I loved R.E.(Religious Education, as it was called then) at school. Learning about other faiths was cool. Nobody tried to convert us (indeed it made my faith stronger, which is how I ended up in the Church choir).
As for minor religions, kids here can learn about them, too, including Paganism, but the major ones come first.
We only had one boy at school run off to another religion (David S. left for India to study Buddhism).
I'm still reeling a bit here, Robyn.
I honestly never knew comparitive religious studies aren't taught in US public schools. I find it horrifyingly naïve in that it leaves emotionally vulnerable people wide open to the influence of Evangelists or Scientologists or whatever, having no sound knowledge base to guide them.
Whew, that's scary!
Yes, well, there's a general understanding that religious studies are the responsibilities of parents, and since most parents only know one thing or nothing, then we're all pretty ignorant about anything we didn't learn at home.
Wowee!
Today has been a real eye-opener.
After my recent downer, this has been a lovely pick-me-up.
Thanks, Robyn.
Unfortunately I have to log off now; I've got a couple of sweet potatoes in the oven, and after lunch I'm off to Japanese classes.
Taz says he has found a really good English language Qu'ran and will let me know where to get a copy (my Penguin translation is, as I've said, turgidly literal). I'll let you have the ISBN number so you can scare your pastor (I'd put a smiley emoticon here, but you know my views on that subject).
Patrick Henry College is scary. Really scary (I did read the article). And homeschooling is even more frightening. Those poor kids have no way of coping with other ideas.
We should have religious education in public schools, but the thing is that Americans just don't seem to know how to do this without proselytizing. If we could somehow overcome this impulse, our educations would be more complete.
Still, I think that the point that Americans spoke up about far-rightwing activity in this country (particularly religious rightwing activity) in this past election means that Patrick Henry students might have a harder time working for the next president.
Or that's the ill-expressed hope in any event.
wow this post has created some stir. Good thing for me I ALWAYS beleive everything I read so I have no comment .
Sassy:
1) Absolutely; 2)Absolutely and 3)Hmm, keep an eye on the buggers.
Rich.
I love a good stir.
I've really enjoyed batting things back and forth across the pond with Robyn today. She's great at keeping what little faith I have in humans alive.
Dive, if I can help you hang on to a shred of faith in humanity, then I've something good today. Nice.
I had a conversation with a friend this evening, a friend I haven't spoken to in weeks. She found an e-mail I sent to her last year that she has held on to and decided that it has meant the world to her.
I say this only to point out that you never know how affective a few simple words can be. Here's to future batting across the pond.
You seem to have that kind of influence on everyone, Robyn.
Even old K.
If this goes on, there may yet be hope for restoring my Faith (though 'cynical me' just dug 'nice me' sharply in the ribs for typing that, so maybe not just yet) …
Why can Creationists &/or Intelligent Design (ID) advocates solve Sudoku Number Puzzles so quickly?
THEY JUST PUT A “G” IN ALL THE EMPTY SQUARES.
It’s just a matter of faith! It’s the same method creationists and now ID specialists resort to in trying to prove their unsustainable “intelligent design theory”. Creationists can just stop searching for reality by just assuming all gaps in current understanding and/or knowledge of evolution must be filled with a (G=god) solution. As Prof Richard Dawkins explains in chapter four of The GOD Delusion; “If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default must fill it.” Saves them having to think and question I suppose.
Much like the progress one makes by eliminating the possible numbers in each square as a Sudoku puzzle is solved, “gaps shrink as science advances and God is threatened with eventually having nothing to do and nowhere to hide.” This of course “worries thoughtful theologians” however the greater worry for scientists (and the rest of us) is that groups through politics or fear will walk away from the “essential part of the scientific enterprise [that is] to admit ignorance.”
Nothing is more dangerous than a, ‘I have all the answers’ arrogant preacher followed by a bunch of non-thinking ‘god-botherers’ driven by blind faith who absolve themselves from their societal responsibilities with the comfort of unquestioning feeble-minds!
Although some see Dawkins as a bit of a raver and less scientific in his arguments than he could (should) be, if you read Pascal Boyer's "Gods, Spirits and the Mental Instincts that Create Them", Dawkins’ 'emotional' approach to battling the “ID” lobby is also needed.
caliibre
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