"God?"
Friends, last night, on an excellent television forum called Insight (SBS), the topic was about religious schools and their relevance. The audience was mainly made up from headmasters and clergy from religious schools and their students. These schools, which, with generous Government financial support, proliferate in my country like weeds in Spring, dot the Australian landscape but predominate in cities.
Excerpts were shown of actual teaching in a few schools (Christian, Judaic, Muslim, etc). One about science caught my eye. It was later echoed by various headmasters. It seems that, in the year 2,008, children are being taught that, not only is there a Divine Creator who made everything in six days but also that we humans were made six thousand years ago. Well, rot my socks!
It was just as well that I was sitting down because, quite a few decades ago, this was the nonsense that I was taught in Sunday School. Foolishly, I imagined that theology had moved on, had embraced some scientific facts, had more or less acknowledged that some things in the holy books were open to interpretation, should not be taken literally. Forget it! Nothing has changed, only the earnest, deluded faces.
On the forum, via videolink, they had a man from Britain who was a scientist. He could barely suppress his laughter at the theo-babble that was echoing around the studio. He tried over and over to say that children should not be indoctrinated with the concept of a single Divinity or a particular religious dogma but that they should study all the different religions, should discuss the philosophy behind each one, and, wait for it, be made aware of the fact that there were people who thought the whole ritualistic notion of religion was complete bunkum. He thought that children, having studied all the options, should, in their later teenage years, be encouraged to make up their own minds rather than be influenced by parents or schools! Shock. Horror!
The religious luminaries were having none of it. Under threat by this British Philistine, they called each other ‘Brother’ repeatedly, aware that there was an elephant in the room, one whose image kept appearing and reappearing. Religion was being challenged, the morality of indoctrinating innocent children was being treated with suspicion, secularism was raising its ugly head, funding for religious schools might be under threat, the sky might fall, people could be turned into pillars of salt or swallowed by whales!
After the show was over, I felt very angry. What right do parents have to force their beliefs upon their unsuspecting children? What right do religious schools have to present themselves as educators when part of their agenda is to indoctrinate their students with a particular belief system? What right does the secular government have to give taxpayers’ funds to these schools thereby assisting them to promote anachronistic, divisive beliefs? How will the world ever operate on a rational basis when so many people in the world still have their minds lobotomized by religion? Beats me!
Perhaps we should bring back concepts of witches and hobgoblins and vampires again?
Here in the states, with the public education system going into the toilet, we’re going to be seeing a lot more of this nonsense. In another 20 years we may be back in a situation where all schools are private schools.
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It is sad that the people that believe this horse shit run the world,and unfortunately in a country that can turn the planet into a car park,their leader talks to a GOD.
And his so called enemy’s, who also talk to a GOD, keep their women clothed from head to toe in left over full length curtains, and treat them like servile pieces of meat.
In others they still commit infanticide,
on female baby’s.I could give a million examples of unadulterated nuttiness,that will do.
For mine,I think this nutty obsession with religious doctrine, must be a type of disease, sane people surely can’t believe this bullshit.
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I love how when faced with actual scientific facts – documented, indisputable data that shows human remains carbon-dated many hundreds of thousands of years ago – the religious nutjobs call it a “theory.” And I’m not even talking about Cromagnon or Neanderthal, here, I’m talking about remains dated more recently, 10-50,000 year ago in ancient Mesopatamia or Asia, that are indisputably “homo sapeins” remains. Since those findings clearly contradict the religious nutjobs’ views, they simply shove their fingers in their ears and go “blah blah blah I cannot hear you”
and then go on to deny even the presenting of these facts to their young students, so they can make up their own minds which to believe.
Hypocritical, narrow-minded assholes. We are actually going backwards in time, in terms of progress in this world. What is next: digging up eugenics and teaching it as a valid science??
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Hey, Kvatch, Phill and Demon, thanks for calling by.
Upon reflection, the thing about that show that made me so angry was the complete acceptance by the youngsters that their God did exist, that he made the world in six days, etc. One girl was puzzled as how she was supposed to put god into maths but she was told to do so and was certainly giving it a go.
These kids deserve better. Filling their minds with such superstitious rubbish is criminal! Baaah!
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Still beating this drum, do not let the absurdity of religion turn you away from a spiritual path or an experience of God. Seek gnosis , we have a rich tradition going back tens of thousands of years to draw on.
The irony is that religous types have subsumed all they could know to reason , the trap of logic, there is much more to life.
Namaste.
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Ah, Jonah, it’s great that you called by. Your view of things, unlike formal religion, harms nothing or no one.
Namaste!
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Hey …. watch your comments about Hobgoblins….
Horrifying is it not?
The funny thing….. the Jews begin recording their religion 3500 years ago …ISH …… and if Christianity is based on the old and the new testament….ISH …then where the hell are they getting their information?
wierd…… I think that little by little people are realising that there are some holes in their religious beliefs ……
The practice of delusion itself can be a religion.
Peace and Blessings.
LS
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A friend introduced me to a movie called ‘What the bleep do we know” , always argued that there was little difference between science and religion , very succinct explanation of quantum physics interaction with human biology that allows us to perceive this thing we call a world. Recommended watching , just a lot of critics expected a fundamental answer from the film
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Little by little is correct, Lil. Question is, will the little be too little, too late?
Peace and regards.
Jonah, your friend and I would probably end up in a fairly heated argument over the issue he raises. Science and religion are mutually exclusive, I reckon! Cheers.
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Religion is a very integral part of society, and will not likely be disappearing in the near future. The problem is that there are far too many people that are either insecure in themselves, requiring religion to get by, or don’t want to think for themselves so they rely on religion to provide answers for basic questions like “Why are we here?” Criticizing religion is too easy.
Personally, I feel that the problem isn’t necessarily religion itself, but fundamentalism. There are a large number of Christian societies that have accepted basic scientific facts and have altered their faith to fit reality better. Altering religion to fit reality is another problem altogether, but I will not go there.
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Indeed I saw something like the show in this article on a segment on Nightline in the USA, and I too found it to be one of my saddest moments, just to contemplate the fallacies into which these young vulnerable minds are being indoctrinated, with absurd criticism of scientific facts. Does not bode well for the future of the human race.
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