Friday, November 10, 2006
Truly Terrifying - Patrick Henry College
I’ve just finished reading a truly terrifying article in this week’s New Scientist. Not the one about Ebola sweeping across Africa. Not the one about why the world’s poor will be the greatest victims of global warming. No. The really scary one is about home schooling. It’s scary because teaching your kids at home is an increasingly popular option in the USA, and it is strongly linked to the aggressive Christian organisations who are successfully lobbying nationwide against evolution and in favour of creationism.
Now I have no wish to upset anyone who might read this, but I absolutely draw the line at creationism, and so-called ‘intelligent design’. There are clearly a lot of very smart people (way smarter than me) who believe in it, but it simply makes my jaw drop that anyone can believe in the literal truth of the Bible. And the idea that the natural world somehow required an intelligent designer leaves me baffled. I regard it as intellectual laziness.
But enough of that - the ins and outs of the scientific debate are not scary. What I find truly scary, though, is the idea of places like Patrick Henry College, in Purcellville. It’s a college which requires its students to have a literalist belief in the Bible (even Leviticus? How?), and grooms them to be the next leaders of the country. And it does very well; in 2004, despite only being open for four years, it filled 7 out of the 100 internships in the White House, and provided six interns working for Congress and eight for federal agencies (including two for the FBI). Now this might be a flash in the pan, thanks to the religious fervour of the current incumbent at the White House, but I’m kind of doubting that.
On the other hand, the school clearly provides an excellent liberal arts education (with a strong emphasis on debating and rhetoric). These children are explicitly being groomed to lead the country. What’s wrong with having well-educated, focussed people running the country? Well, apart from the fact that it’s almost always people who are extremely well-educated but extremely narrow-minded that produce the biggest disasters in human history (Nazi Germany being the first example that springs to mind – extremely smart, extremely dogmatic, skilled in rhetoric and propaganda, democratically elected…), apart from that… apart from that, um… actually, do you really need an ‘apart from that’? Isn’t that enough? We’re talking about a group who are taught that global warming isn’t something to worry about because (a) God would never let something like that happen to his creation, or (b) it isn’t happening, or (c) it’s all part of the road to the Rapture, and should be welcomed (and maybe even hurried along a bit). And these are the people we want to lead the world’s only superpower? What makes me truly sick is the certainty that even if they did manage to wreck the world in search of the Apocalypse, and by some miracle we managed to get some precious few rockets off the planet to carry on eking out an existence somewhere else, they’d still find a reason to talk their way on board…
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A well educated child will be able to determine for him/herself what bunkum they've been taught. It might take some longer than others, but they will, guaranteed, figure it out in the end.
Just remember, a few hundred years ago, EVERYONE IN THE WORLD was taught to believe that the Bible (or Koran or Torah) was the literal truth. Didn't stop from having a collective Age of Reason.
That place was also featured in the Channel 4 documentary ""God's Next Army" (see also the less than creationistically inclined view of this programme from MeFi). The thing that was scariest to me wasn't that people were being taught something that I believe is cobblers, but that they were being filled with this bunk while simultaneously being levered into backroom positions of political influence. One of the students, on an internship to Washington DC, commented that he had never been (a) on a train or (b) underground before. I understand that it is not possible nor ethical to require that our representatives (elected or otherwise) have a given set of life experience but this example had me struggling.
Also, almost all of the students at PHC are home-schooled, which means that they have an even smaller set of opportunities to experience an alternative viewpoint. This is indoctrination and not really any less creepy or worrying than the indoctrination of suicide bombers etc, even if the means of expressing the fruits of the indoctrination are not murderous.
I wish I had your faith, Peter. But when I read about Creationist textbooks being written by a guy with a PhD in nuclear physics, I worry. These children will end up working as lawyers and judges, areas where their lack of scientiifc knowledge will not hinder themand their rhetorical skills will stand them in good stead. With luck, they'll go through entire careers without having to think seriously about these issues. Then, when they're old enough to have lost all ability for flexible thinking, they'll become politicians.
And the Age of Reason was an Age of the few, with a superstitious peasantry. Nowadays, when it only takes a few extremists to assemble the ingredients for death on a massive scale, each mind is a far more precious battleground.
Relax .... relax. Kids need space to dimensionalize themselves, and their natural curiosity as teens will take them to places limited only by their imaginations. There's nothing to worry us but doubt that surrounds educational standards as now implemented in both public and private school curricula. If we suppress educational possibilities now and if we limit students to public standardized education, it may be that we'll lose our ability to pass traditional values to our children while the high ideals of several generations ago reside in us and while we are still able to express those ideals with some esteem because we, the educators, are familiar with them.
Amen.
I saw the programme too. Scariest thing I'd seen in a long time
//traditional values// //high ideals of several generations ago//
Now you're scaring me. The "high ideals of several generations ago" included slavery, racism, male-only government and workforce, intolerance toward anyone from gays to anyone-but-christians, and... well, I could go on (and on). I'm proud of how far we've come in such a short time. I think we still have a way to go, but I'm afraid we'll take steps backward before this has a chance to happen.
What values are you talking about? Not shooting other students and don't take drugs or steal kinds of values? Because they are still around, whether or not they're always observed.
So Matt, you're truly worried about Patrick Henry College?
I'm trully worried that 95% of history teachers in US colleges espouse near Marxist views.
I'm as atheist as they come. And I don't like this kind of stuff. But all skull&bones talk aside, I worry more about the fact despite an unbelievable amount of federal investment in education, largely driven by liberal idealogy and experimentation (i.e. ESL, etc), we are not educating the masses. This is silly stuff.
Where's you get that statistic? I didn't attend college too long ago, and my history teachers were far from communist. Besides, are we really still afraid of the communists? Other than China and a few other holdouts, all of which are arguably far from the Marxist ideal, didn't capitalism more or less win?
//liberal idealogy and experimentation// You're more afraid of this than insular ideallists that are being set up to run the country? I consider myself a product of a liberal education - I went to public schools near San Francisco, and graduated from SF State. There isn't a class I've taken that I haven't enjoyed or found useful (except FORTRAN programming). So it's me you're afraid of?
Seriously - please expand on the pieces of liberal education that you find so threatening.
Buzz, "several" or a few generations ago is about 60 years, tops. You're making me feel old, Matt. If I can just stick my opinions into the fabric of school administrative philosophy and pedagogical theory, that's as far as I'd like to take that. A few here want to face the prospect of their lives being run by some kind of demonic uber-kind, and I respect their wishes and their choice of topics for idle musing. I find it laughable, and don't mind saying so.
The type of values I'm talking about are social forces that encourage conformity and provide any who esteem a specific value a subjective reward for adherence to a life that nurtures and lends affinity to the value holders. Use guns as an example. Guns have a cultural significance and were an indispensable part of frontier life, in essence "they won the wars" in which people found themselves. Gun ownership is a tradition, a holdover from our past, not in any sense necessary for survival in our country. At best, gun ownership offers some personal comfort and inner peace, perhaps a rare opportunity to save ones child from a wild dog attack (maybe I should have chosen dog ownership instead of gun ownership, eh?), and yes you can actually still hunt wild animals legally in addition to capping off some rounds at the local range, all eminently relaxing and also giving some inner peace. That gun in your locker, though, it ain't protecting no body and it ain't deterring no criminal -- sorry.
Someone who values community, family, security, personal relationships, and intelligence above all will realize the contradiction of owning a gun and living within range of neighbors. Of course, everything you hope to gain by owning a gun you gain by sharing your efforts with your community. The tautology here extends beyond our suburban culture even to places like the Mideast, which are disintegrating because the anathema of oil -- their traditional values offer them no refuge from the conflict over oil within which they find themselves mired.
If better education returns us to examine our roots, if it separates us from the undercurrents of profiteerism and elitism that have guided national policy for most of the last 35 years, and if it somehow introduces a new generation of aspirants to leadership with some sort of world view, then I don't care where the revolution begins, I know it's right.
[world] we probably differ on our perspective of "left of center". But my point was I DONT find them threatening. It was a sarcastic comment, not literal truth. And btw, I graduated from the Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, and the only C I received was in a history class (despite a History Minor) with a professor who argued the inevitable (in 1980) march of MarxismLeninnism with me. So there's some history there :)
I was just trying to point out -- no, surely to remind -- you guys -- how conservatives feel about the media the colleges, the liberal elite, Hollywood, etc, etc, etc.
I just found it funny that Matt feels threatened by one entity on the other side, whereas the "traditional conservative" feels like they are under constant assault from all nearly all sides.
You're worried about the nations's leaders. They worry that they can't call their holidays by name and that they can't hide smut from their kids. Who do you think is more impacted by the other? Who do you think feels more threatened that their culture is being taken away? My post was calling for some perspective.
I would suggest that, at least in this case, that ain't necessarily so.
Sure, Ian. You understand why I'm pro-school? I have to comment, though, on how neat and well-written were those accounts. For folk stating they live in "bad towns", they seem to have been edjumacated elsewhere and banished there.
In general, I agree with you, if only because Christians tend not to be as totally batshit barmy as Marxists or Muslims, but any incursion of 'opinion as fact' into education should be challenged. (I realise that this school is attended by choice, rather than being a state school.)
I guess that is entirely dependent upon your definition of "totally batshit barmy", isn't it?
We tend to deride the beliefs of anyone when they don't accord directly with our own.
Personally, I think there's a worrying trend in US politics, that the publicly espoused separation of church and state is being destroyed in leaps and bounds. Perhaps the recent election results will result in something of an unwinding of the current situation.
A similar "christianisation" of politics in this country is occuring, though to a much lesser extent. Home schooling is on the rise here, but nowhere near as quickly as the rise of private school enrollments. That's increasingly becoming a middle class article of faith, that private schools wil somehow protect our children from the drugs, violence, body piercings, shaven heads and tattoos of the disenfranchised poor children.
The desire to control our familys' destinies by influence upon seats of power is a natural outgrowth of those fears. That fundamentalist fruitcakes have wormed their way into the process is inevitable, if undesirable.
I thought you were sending your own children to private school? We sent William to a private school a) because we believe a good education is worth paying for; and b) so he wouldn't have to go through metal detectors just to get to school.
As far as I'm concerned, the people who think that we are somehow further depriving the disenfranchised poor by sending our child to private school can go f*** themselves. Our fund-raising efforts certainly helped a bunch of poor kids get a first-rate, private education (and, in one case, new glasses). And the only person around here who is disenfranchised is me, taxed without representation. Oh yeah, and I'm also shaven-headed, though not tattooed.
I have come to believe that if the government has any place at all in education, it's in funding it. Give parents the choice over where to send their children, and they'll take care of the quality and style of the education. As long as education is controlled by ministers, it will be unresponsive to our actual wants and needs.
//As long as education is controlled by ministers, it will be unresponsive to our actual wants and needs.//
Taking a step back to the fundamental level, voucher systems remove almost the entire point of publicly funded education - it not only removes some money from the communal system and puts it back in the pockets of the haves, but more importantly it removes any incentive for haves and have-nots to share a school system. The end can only be a 2-tier educational system. It's true that we basically have such a system now, but at least there's incentive for mixing.
Why is economic mixing important in school systems? For two reasons - the first is the entire point of sociallized education: a functional democracy requires the masses to be educated. The second is to provide a leveling effect - if all schools are equal, then success is based on ability, not the pocketbook of your parents.
That being said, you didn't directly advocate for a voucher system. Your requirement was //Give parents the choice over where to send their children, and they'll take care of the quality and style of the education.// My favorite model for school systems (for all reasons but environmental) is a bussing model. Allow parents to send their children to any nearby school, and you soon create a self-leveling system. The best schools become difficult to get into, and can begin to screen for ability/intellegence/desire (grades, test scores, etc.). The worst schools get community focus and (if funded and administered intellegently) rapidly change.
That's a naive view of things, Matt. I don't need my children to be inculcated with the attitudes that give us long-term unemployed.
The future of education is The Illustrated Primer. Definitely in my plans. Already testing some concepts out.
Ah, so you argue to remove public education completely? Roll back to a pure market system, and remove child labor laws? (why not? it'll keep them off the streets)
not sure if you mean me or Hector, Matt :)
I would think that public financing of education is very important, but in a way that has a chance to accomplish its goals. The political battle over vouchers is primarily the debate over the power of the Teachers Union. Sadly, it has nothing to do with actually making education better. Education must change drastically in a way that is meaningful for our children. It's not primarily a money issue, a public school issue or anything like that. It's rethinking of how children learn, from the ground up.
(It was aimed at Hector. Who had the great idea to let people choose their own threading model? Kind of kills the whole point of threading.)
No, I think public education is a great thing. It should be there as a safety net, so those people who have no real interest in their children's future have somewhere to send their kids to school. Someone has to breed the labourers and layabouts, I suppose.
Until the robots can take over. Muaaaaaaah
I'm scared of this because it's not learning--it's just reinforcement of the stuff kids were fed at home school. There's no emphasis on thinking for yourself and testing previously-held convictions. It may be a 'college', but it is anti-intellectual.
Meanwhile, a perverse side of me wants to let these people wallow in their anti-intellectualism, while scientists propel society forward. :-[
Erm, Hector, we already did that thing...you're, um, living there...
One point someone should make is that home-schooled children score far above their peers on academic aptitude tests. You can't fool me into thinking that a vastly superior education can end up brainwashing people.
Is it vastly superior? Some home-school their children for a better education, but some do so to have control over their kids' minds. A recent study showed that public-school kids do better in math & science than Christian-schooled counterparts.
Then again, I know how easy it is to lie with statistics.
I'd wager a person's desire to learn plays a bigger role than how they were taught. Unfortunately I can't quantify that.
Even if it wasn't better (and I imagine both sides skew the data), at the end of the day, I want to say how my children are educated. Government-run factories will never let me do that.
A friend who home schools his kids (he lives in an area where high school access is inadequate for his 5 kids) has found his kids are outstripping the national averages by a country mile.
In UK, even if you pay to educate your children (that is to say, pay again - you're already funding the state education system), the educators must still comply with all of the state 'standards', the National Curriculum, and so on. The same applies to home schooling, whether you do it yourself or employ a tutor. One of the (many) reasons I don't have children is that I can't afford to educate them to the standard that I would demand.
Education and healthcare are similarly treated here. Both are funded from taxation; you can opt to use private provision but you get no refund; and both are totally regulated by the state.
"near-Marxist view?" What the heck is one of them? Thats an awfully accurate statistic for an awfully woolly definition. Can you give me a little more detail? Like, some statement that these people agreed with?
It doesn't surprise me one bit that home-schooled kids generally do better than school educated ones on all sorts of academic tests - I mean, home schooling is so much more intensive. Academically, where you have exams to pass and clear sylabuses(?), then generally, intensive=good. What worries me is that children educated at home are subject to one very strong set of influences, with almost nothing challenging that. Kids at schools get a wide range of influences - parents are still and always the strongest (imho), with the obvious peer influence and then teachers coming in third. Arthur talks of arguing against his history teachers' Marxist-Leninist views. I'd suggest that those arguments were extremely good for him - through having his belief set challenged, he was able to explore it and strengthen it. The teachers at HPC would probably argue that the fact that their kis are excellent debaters must mean that they are adequately challenged in this regard, but I don't buy that. In fact, I think it makes it worse, because it makes it into a game. However silly and illogical it may sound I worry that this approach - having your literalist views challenged only by other literalists - will provide them with an underlying 'we're all Christian underneath' mentality which will prevent them from taking other beliefs seriously - or dismissing them as the work of the devil.
There are worse things they could be than fundamentalist Christian, for goodness' sake!
Anyone who takes Christianity seriously, and that includes your home-schooled fundamentalists, will have absorbed many Biblical lessons on forgiveness, on not judging others, on not casting the first stone, on talking with sinners and taxmen.
(Of course, they would also have gotten a lot of stuff about casting out demons, which may explain the popularity of The Exorcist in the Heartland.)
The American government is based in principle on tolerance of beliefs or lack thereof. So long as American citizens are taught these principles above all others, at whatever institution, we'll be fine. That this set of principles is under constant attack from multiple directions was foreseen by the nation's founders, and the dampening systems they put in effect do in fact work -- we have just seen them work.
matt, such tolerance requires that even belifs much more odious than anything practiced at HPC be tolerated, and that the right to such beliefs is celebrated. There is really no other way forward. Surely on an intellectual basis, as Dawkins and many others write, you can simply challenge religion on a lack of truth in advertising. But that way lies Baghdad.
Does anyone know the purpose behind the campaign this college is apparently running? Is it to bolster the Christian Right? Is it to force Creationism in education? Is it to get the God Squad into position to control all of the nuclear "red buttons"? Is it to place people of good intent and good standing in positions of power?
or e) All of the above
muwhahahahahaha
Yes. So many contradictions, and so little said. It's all about money, or lack thereof, or is it? It's all about curriculum and test scores, or who does better, or did better up to now, or is it? It's all about who's in charge, or should have the skills to take over. It is.
What I find strange about Matt F's characterisation of this school as 'terrifying' is that its students are there voluntarily, and they must already be committed Christians; it's not as though a school were taking impressionable children and moulding them into fundamentalists against their parents' wishes.
To agree with Peter ("There are worse things they could be than fundamentalist Christian, for goodness' sake!") and to belatedly explain myself to Hector ("I guess that is entirely dependent upon your definition of "totally batshit barmy", isn't it?"), Christians tend, these days, not to focus on imposing their opinions by physical violence, whereas Islamists and Marxists do.
Thank you Ian. I tried to say that, but I'm too close to the problem to argue effectively.
Fair point - when I saw the documentary though, I just thought their approach was quite insidious.
Imagine a powerful individual who is naturally isolated from contact with ordinary people.
Imagine GWB.
Now, surround that person with "ordinary" people with "ordinary" opinions and beliefs.
Heck, says George, this is how people out there think.
Just my paranoid take on the whole thing.
That's a problem with GWB, not a problem with ordinary, or even unordinary, people. After all those drugs, if the guy has any brain cells left, they're not the ones that do critical thinking.
Except in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chile, Sudan, Ethiopia, Ireland...
The presumption that violence is likely to be mitigated or reduced by the imposition of Christianity is simply untrue. If Christianity, or its observance, were an effective tool in reducing violence then there would be more civil unrest in Germany, say, than Ireland.
I am always bemused that imposition of "Christian Values" is seen to be the cure for youth violence issues. The do-gooders rush into the melee, imposing bible readings, prayer groups and invoking the Ten Comandments, apparently oblivious to the fact that religious dogma simply polarises and enhances the views of the perpetrators. In fact, it is almost always Christianity that rushes to fill the "moral vacuum" in these cases.
Depending upon your definition of recent, we can look back to Oklahoma City; to Waco, Texas; or Lebanon (Where General Aoun led arguably the most violent of the various sectarian forces); or to violence in the US and Canada against abortion clinics and doctors (more than 70 incidents since the death of Dr David Gunn in the early 90s); or to the Philippines, where Christian militias are slugging it out with government and Islamist militias; or to Northern Ireland, where both parties were Christian in name; or to the Jewish Holocaust, where Germany slaughtered millions while the Roman Catholic Church looked on in mute complicity; or to the Reformation and its pogroms of the Jews; Need I go on?
This pattern of violence is true of practically all religions, whather it's Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism, or any other. The problem lies less in the religion than it does in the sense of identity and identification of cause, and belief systems, that reinforce the violent behaviour in tacit understanding and forgiveness of the violence.
It is clear to an outside observer in any of these conflicts that religion is the root cause, but religion is unfailingly seen as the solution by those intimately involved within the conflict.
Matt has highlighted the terrifying potential for furtherance of Christian violence by these budding apparatchiks of the Righteous Right. They are terrifying, even more so because we have no idea of their unstated agenda.
Hector, also the Serbs are "christian". hah
This topic was about an American Christian school. not the cultures you cite.
I'm still not terrified.
Actually I agree there is potential for violence, now that I think about it. I once heard a respected Christian radio dj say "we are at war with the abortionists" The next day a preacher, I'll look up his name, went out and bombed an abortion clinic and murdered the doctor and his nurse. This kind of rhetoric feuls up those unstable at the least provocation.
sp: cite
The cultures are all the same in the long run, Deb. Whether it's about the "Rise Of Fundamentalist Islam" (Arguably just an attempt to climb the stairs up to the World Stage, whilst being vigorously kicked by the Christian contingent already there) or the shooting of some medical doctor in Podunk, Middle America, because he/she terminates unwanted pregnancies on behalf of horny teenaged girls, the fact these people hide behind pastoral absolution is symptomatic of the same root cause. ***Ah, you posted a concurring view while I was writing***
In any case, the topic was the potential effect of the placement of past students of the school, in the corridors of power. My discussion was specific to Ian Bennet's wild assertion that Christians are less likely to engage in violence than adherents of other religions, to get their own way.
Yeah, but I'still say on American soil this is a rarity.
My comment which I deleted earlier was that with the current congress and senate these students will not have as many jobs. And the next administration will certainly be Democrat. I'm sad that Christians are so narrow minded and inexperienced and want to assume power in that state. Still not terrified.
I think it is a rarity on any soil. We only see reported the incidents that are likely to invoke outrage or reinforce our sense of belonging to a particular demographic. It's why minorities feel so victimised, especially by press coverage.
Take a look at the structures and observances surrounding the governance of your country. It is assumed that Christianity is the natural state and focus of your government. It is the same in Australia, too.
Why wouldn't the Christian Right try to bolster its hold on the seat of power. This is a war with the forces of evil, remember?
You're completely missing a very important point. Islamic culture, at one time, was the very pinnacle of world civilization.
If anything, they are pissed as shit they are no longer there, and very, very jealous of the people who took their place. And, if anything, it was fundamentalism that knocked them off the top (a stern lesson to the rest of us.)
Erm, Eric Rudolph killed a security guard and a nurse was injured and he bombed three other dens of iniquity. He was a member of the "Army of God" a melitia group afiliated with the KKK. But I also heard of a preacher who went nuts. I'll keep looking.
Peter, do you mean Islamic Fundamentalism knocked them off the top?
found it: Paul Hill was an expelled Presbyterian Preacher who wanted to vindicate God. killed the doctor, and wounded a patient and killed her husband.
What I am trying to prove is it does not happen often. When these stories broke, Pro-life communities were alarmed and denounced such violence. It was obvious these two people were nutcases.
Excepting, of course, Chinese culture... and possibly Japanese Culture. Our Eurocentric obsession blinds us to others.
Um, no, I'm not excepting the Chinese here. Muslim science and technology outstripped theirs.
Yes, and no. The Chinese developed paper, gunpowder and extraordinary capabilities with ceramics, metal casting and forging that are still unmatched in the West.
I understand that Moslem science and technology were very advanced, particularly mathematics. Bear in mind, also, that much of the physical technology came out of China during the Middle Ages, and was rapidly subsumed by the Arabs.
The interventions that you list in your previous reply are not, in the main, Christianity imposing its religious philosophy on others; rather they are attempts, coincidentally by largely Christian (or nominally Christian) nations, to mitigate the effects of the totalitarian regimes already in place. It is the political agenda which is being 'imposed', not the religious one (and whether this is right or wrong is another topic). Of course there will always be extremists (the abortion-clinic bombers, Waco) but their views are not mainstream Christian. Further, I thought to exclude the Reformation (and the Inquisition) by my phrase 'these days'.
I maintain that it is entirely possible to hold 'Christian' values while not being a Christian; principle among those values is tolerance which is wholly lacking both in Islam and in Marxism. Along with the 'conservative with a small c' used to distinguish from the Conservative party in UK, perhaps there should be 'christian with a small c' as well.
Having said which, I agree that Christianity is no less irrational than any other faith (this is implicit in the definition of faith), and in common with other faiths its observance should not be permitted to impact on political decisions to the detriment of non-believers.
Recently, one of the holy people who do 'Thought for the Day' on BBC Radio 4 quoted a Bible passage with Jesus saying something like "those who enter the kingdom of heaven will be those who live like me, not those who cry 'Lord, Lord." The implication drawn from this was that those who do not necessarily think of themselves as Christian but who live by the values Jesus espoused will be let into heaven. Which is cheering.
It's just a shame I'm not a nicer person, really.
What concerns me about this whole HPC thing is, I suppose, something symptomatic of people in power - which is that you have to be fairly convinced of your own rightness to want power and be willing to wield it. In the case, of HPC, though, I don't just think these people are fundamentally wrong (no offence, anyone); I could cope with that. My problem is that I think their beliefs could lead us further down the crusading road that has caused us so much trouble in recent years (and yes, I'm talking about Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea). I worry that their faith will blind them. I also worry that scientists in America, already concerned over the governmental interference they are suffering (although that issue seems to have gone a bit quiet in the last year or so) will find their integrity and ability to work unhindered further undermined by politicians.
These people are fundamentalists, I think we can all agree on that. I think we can also agree that cheerfully handing over the levers of government to fundamentalists is a bad idea. And yet here we have a fundamentalist group who are explicitly trying to get into power. I'm not saying we should close the college, or anything like that. I'm pinning my hope on the strength of democracy, and the common-sense of the majority of people. But to me, these people are a far more credible threat to world peace than some bunch of bearded nutters hiding in a cave in some Third World backwater.
I just have a mental image of some serious, well-dressed, sober individuals coming out of the White House and saying, "I'm afraid we've had to destroy the world in order to save it."
Well, at least we'll be certain that when they start a countdown to The Apocalypse, they'll deliver.
You're misunderstanding my point, Hector (or rather, I'm misexplaining it). I agree that the Muslim in the street is likely to be as tolerant as anyone, but Islam, as a dogma, is not. "Fight and slay the Pagans wherever you find them"; "Those who reject our signs we shall soon cast into the fire"; "These twain (the believers and the disbelievers) are two opponents who contend concerning their Lord. But as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them; boiling fluid will be poured down on their heads"; "As to the deviators, they are the fuel of hell." Those passages are from the Koran, not the Bible. I agree that Christianity's embracing of tolerance had been rather long in coming, but come it largely did. Christianity simply says that those who disbelieve will not see God's mercy (I'm paraphrasing).
There are similar sentiments in the old Testament.
No one ever figured out how to make Damascus steel, either.
But my point here survives those examples: I am talking from a Muslim point of view. And being on a par with others doesn't stop anyone from being at the pinnacle.
//I am, and wouldn't dream of allowing my children unfettered contact with the gutter scum that inhabit the public system. Fucking filth. They and their families should be deported to some third world hovel where their peculiarities are more appreciated.//
//those people who have no real interest in their children's future have somewhere to send their kids to school. Someone has to breed the labourers and layabouts, I suppose.//
Hector those are two of the saddest things I've read in a long time, or am I missing the sarcasm?
//I am, and wouldn't dream of allowing my children unfettered contact with the gutter scum that inhabit the public system. Fucking filth. They and their families should be deported to some third world hovel where their peculiarities are more appreciated.//
//those people who have no real interest in their children's future have somewhere to send their kids to school. Someone has to breed the labourers and layabouts, I suppose.//
Hector those are two of the saddest things I've read in a long time, or am I missing the sarcasm?
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