rupertg

Comment Threads

• El commented on Spook Century
  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 -...
• guthrie commented on Spook Century
  Education is only part of the answer. The fact is that education is gameable, see for instance school textbooks. Or the parallel universe of bible colleges and the like, which teach all the wrong things. Graduates end up knowing enough to function in their world of extremists, and since there are plenty of them, they can get by, but never mind all the other things. Education is not a solution by itself. IT needs robust systems in place to defend it, it needs to be embedded into a society which recalls the horrors of the 30 years war and so...
• El commented on Spook Century
  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...
• guthrie commented on Spook Century
  I forgot to use the 'reply to' button with regards to his absolute statement... 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....
• Greg. Tingey commented on Spook Century
  El @ 281 Sorry, but you've got it exactly backwards. I'm an atheist, right? I regard all religions & sects as loopy & some as downright dangerous & all are (at some point in their life-cycles) murderous. WHERE did I retreat on women's rights? A peculiarity of almost all religions is that they crap on women - there seems to be one that doesn't, but I'd rather not discuss that special oddity here .... 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...