At present, it is fashionable in the West to view equality as an absolute moral value, and to view religion as an acceptable add-on so long as it doesn't interfere with equality, but that's certainly not a general rule over the history of Western civilization.
From my point of view it's all bollocks, but westerners make better neighbors.
]]>I do not expect that religious sensibility to fare well, even in the West, over the next few centuries. Due to environmental deterioration and depleting fuel reserves, I expect the next few centuries to be characterized by slow economic decline.
I expect more traditional religions to take up the slack, and would be rather unsurprised if much of the West was theocratic (again, kind of) by 2100.
]]>Was Bill Nye boo'd anywhere else recently?
(Explanation: Bill Nye, an American science entertainment and education personality, pointed out that Genesis 1:16 is technically incorrect; it mentions the sun and moon as the greater and lesser lights, but the moon does not actually emit light and is seen by reflected sunlight. This offended his audience and some even stormed out.)
]]>My mum used to take teaching jobs wherever my father's postings took us - this included Northern Ireland, in the late 1970s, in a "staunch" (as opposed to "devout") primary school.
She described the School Governors' meeting where she was putting the case for investing in one of these new-fangled videotape recorders, so that the more educational output of the BBC, broadcast outside school hours, could be shown to the children.
Unfortunately, she made the error of using the example of a recent and acclaimed BBC programme on dinosaurs. At this point, the School Governors instead started to debate (since dinosaurs weren't mentioned in the Bible) whether this was a Good Thing, or a Morally Dubious Thing. They voted no.
Ref. state surveillance - it once got interesting when Mum took the family car (reregistered with NI number plates, obviously) on a work trip to the Local Education Department's resource centre - she didn't know until given directions by her colleagues in the vehicle, that it was near the Creggan. Dad had to field a few urgent questions at work as to exactly why his car was tooling around the Bogside...
...he stayed well clear of "our" car (for understandable reasons), and generally drove whichever one of the section's unmarked cars was still on the road after his overenthusiastic troops had thrashed them to the point of breakdown or crash; punishment for such was being forced to use the section's Lada Riva. Too much "Dukes of Hazzard" on TV, he thought :)
]]>Reverting, the Taliban, of course, just prevent education altogether, a * slightly * (ahem) more extreme position to the others, so equating the primitive Texans with the Taliban won't wash either.
]]>A lot of people tell me that, but when I compare past predictions to actual outcomes I see, if anything, a slight bias toward optimism in my thinking. This bias is noticeably smaller than most people's bias toward optimism, though.
the Taliban, of course, just prevent education altogether
"Talib" is Arabic for "student". So, basically, epic fail.
]]>http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/21/how-texas-inflicts-bad-textbooks-on-us/
This seems to describe what I heard on a WPR podcast last year...
]]>The Taliban, like some christians of the 4-6th centuries believed that: "everything we need to know is in the works of the bible/koran" (As appropriate) and that, even worse, "other" knowledge should be eradicated. In this specific case, the Taliban are students of the collection of Dark-Ages camelherders' myths usually called "the recital". Which is s subset of Theology - a subject with no content. Oops.
]]>In any case, the Taliban are generally better educated than the ordinary Afghan (Yusuf Zeropack?). At least they can read and write.
I was in school from the mid 1970s to 1999; I'm certainly not against education. Still, there are limits to what it can do. All indications are that in the US we're sending too many people into higher education; there aren't appropriate jobs when they get out and their debts make menial employment even more burdensome.
]]>Reverting, the Taliban, of course, just prevent education altogether, a * slightly * (ahem) more extreme position to the others, so equating the primitive Texans with the Taliban won't wash either.
Questionable. Preventing access to formal education is not equivalent to preventing education altogether. And while I agree it is an abhorrent thing to prevent access on the basis of gender, I find it's a really close toss-up in my personal catalogue of evil to prevent access to education - something that can be fairly easily rectified if those blocking it go away in a decade or two - compared to wilfully teaching everyone things that are demonstrably wrong. (I'm not talking about simplifications for age groups that you then say 'well, it's a bit more complicated' although I have some issues with that too.) Just wrong. It's often easier to teach people who know they're lacking something, and they will go much further, than re-educating people who have been taught things wrongly for an extended period and have a world-view well entrenched in that wrong thought.
Look at the vitriol poured on Darwin - you would hope 100+ years later that would be over - but it appears not.
But women under Taliban rule, however shitty it is - and I'm not saying it's not shitty - will talk to each other, learn from each other, and will know they've been denied access to formal education. If the Taliban thrash around and go in 10 years, or 20, the women will be there and many of them will be happy to learn. Give them 5 years of support and you probably won't realise they weren't taught at school - there will be a generation of lost mathematicians perhaps, they tend to peak young, but most other disciplines you can catch up surprisingly quickly.
]]>FOr instance, look at the Tory education policy - sell off schools to whomever wants one, a continuation of the new labour one of letting whatever private company or religious organisation start one if they ponied up a million or two. We know that a number of private schools are teaching creationist lies, the problem is proving it to a generally disinterested department of education and public who have been propagandised out of a belief in the usefulness of real information and how lying to children is bad.
]]>Education is only part of the answer.
Oh agreed. I'm trying hard not to troll Greg while playing whatever the atheist equivalent to devil's advocate to his position is. It seems to me his stance is fundamentally sectarianism with a mixture of some other nasty -isms too. Education is his chosen battleground for how evil the Taliban are compared to everyone else. He rapidly retreated on women's rights for some reason.
I think there's a lot of space for a fundamental debate about what the education system should be for, and what the school system should be for. I deliberately separate them which might tell you something about my starting point! Unless Charlie decides to visit that topic (or really leaves his sanity behind and asks me to guest write about it) I'm inclined to think that's really, really not a topic for this comments thread sadly. (If you want to go and ahead and hijack it some more anyway, brace yourself for some LONG essays!)
]]>INdeed, this isn't quite the right place for such a discussion, although maybe Charlie will have some views on the topic over the next wee while, what with the Tory destruction of school and higher education gathering pace, with an innumerate education minister who has an ego the size of a planet.
]]>And yes, Gove does have an ego the size of a planet & he's dead wrong on religious education, but he is correct about the abysmal standards in Brit schools _ I used to be a teacher (amongst other things) & it was very dispiriting.
How's that for a brief round-up ??
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