Who would have thought that learning to read and write could be such a dangerous proposition?
Afghan schools try to make new start: A group of girls returning home from school in Afghanistan’s Logar province recently did not for a moment expect what lay ahead.
As they walked down a dirt track, insurgents sprang out of the parched farms and began firing on them.
Some of them fled into the farm, but two girls, one aged 13, the other 10, were killed in the ambush. Three of their friends were wounded.
This kind of attack on schoolchildren, the first incident of its kind in Afghanistan, highlights how the insurgents are trying to disrupt education in the war-ravaged nation.
One wonders what is going through the mind of such people that they shoot at children going to school. The Taliban feels threatened by children that are learning to read and write? Cripes!
#29, Lauren:
Dawkins is an unimaginably intelligent guy. I just started reading The Blind Watchmaker yesterday. So far, I like it. I’m hoping to read The God Delusion, too.
You got that right; personally, I suspect that Dawkins is – along with Hawking, obviously, and E.O. Wilson – one of the most intelligent people alive, a spiritual heir to Aldous Huxley and Russell.
29. If you’ve studied some philosophy of science you know that, ultimately, nothing can be proved. So science becomes a form of religion and, in my view, something akin to the Churchill quote about democracy:
It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”
From The Skeptical Inquirer:
“In Feyerabend’s view, science is a religion, for it rests on certain dogmas that cannot be rationally justified. Thus, accepting it requires a leap of faith. But just as government has no business teaching religion in the public schools, it has no business teaching science either. In a truly democratic society, people would be as free to choose their epistemology as their political party.”
“Science is much closer to myth than a scientific philosophy is prepared to admit. It is one of the many forms of thought that have been developed by man, and not necessarily the best. It is conspicuous, noisy, and impudent, but it is inherently superior only for those who have already decided in favour of a certain ideology, or who have accepted it without ever having examined its advantages and its limits. And as the accepting and rejecting of ideologies should be left to the individual it follows that the separation of state and church must be complemented by the separation of state and science, that most recent, most aggressive, and most dogmatic religious institution. Such a separation may be our only chance to achieve a humanity we are capable of, but have never fully realized.” (Feyerabend 1975)
http://www.csicop.org/si/9703/end.html
RBG
Aside from this debate, for philosophy junkies, check out that linked article. It’s quite fascinating.
http://www.csicop.org/si/9703/end.html
And follow up with Wikipedia’s “Philosophy of Science.”
RBG
#34, 45: So, do you have anything better to propose?
Trebuckets at 1,000 paces.
Or perhaps, in fairness, alternating philosophies every month.
RBG
This arguement that you can’t prove that something doesn’t exist is a fallacy; you can’t prove a universal negative because to do so would require that one be everywhere at once (or between the earth and the sun for the aforementioned teapot). The issue is not “prove that X doesn’t exist”, but what leads us to believe that it does? For the Flying Spaghetti monster or teapot, there is nothing to lead us to believe that they do exist. However, the earth and universe points us to a creator, as something has never been observed to spring from nothing. It all comes down to what you think put us here in the first place.
I’ll keep praying for ya though, Lauren!
#34, RBG,
29. If you’ve studied some philosophy of science you know that, ultimately, nothing can be proved.
Not true. Only if You refuse to accept My answer could that statement hold true.
If, on the other hand, you accept that your two coconuts added to my two more coconuts makes for a total of four coconuts then we have proved something. You’re short a couple of coconuts.
If we agree that a cube of pure Di-hydrogen Monoxide one centimeter by one centimeter by one centimeter has a mass of exactly one gram then we can prove a cube of Di-hydrogen Monoxide two centimeters by two centimeters by two centimeters will have a mass of exactly four grams.
We can prove either example graphically using mathematics, or physically, using coconuts or water. It would only be your refusal to accept the demonstrated answer could your claim work. But then that would only prove that fools abound.
#28,
…the middle ages were a bitch to live in … I don’t remember hearing about wild bunches of christians attacking young girls because they went to school.
That was because very few people did go to school. Only priests needed an education in Europe. Modern public education is really less then 200 yrs old.
True, most of the early colleges were founded by the church. Most of these colleges did not accept female students until the 20th centuries and were reserved for teaching theocracy, philosophy, and law. Private people usually were educated by tutors. There were few exceptions.
It wasn’t until the Land Grant colleges were formed in the 1860s did secular post secondary public education take off.
Very Liberal of you. Instead of being what you claim to dislike, why can’t you just ignore the ones who don’t spend their lives trying to convert the unconvertable, and opposing with reason and good sense those who do try to push their views on you?
In case you missed the thread, a group of intolerant religious nuts, in support of their intolerable religion, is intolerably prohibiting girls from being educated. Of course, you might tolerate religious behavior that condones that. It would tie in with all the other intolerance exhibited by the Jewish/Christian/Muslim beliefs.
The Catholic Church and many smaller groups believe only men can communicate between mortal man and God. Woman can’t be Priests. Know many female Rabbis?
Homosexuality is a banned practice in most sects. Even though God created them, the churches don’t allow them.
Sex, the most basic human drive after self preservation, is strictly regulated as a path to hell if not done according to God’s wishes. It can even get one kicked out of their church.
Slavery is condoned by the holy texts used by these religions.
Racism is condoned by the holy texts used by these religions.
Stupidity is condoned by the holy texts used by these religions.
When these “beliefs” are carried from the parochial world to the secular world it is a problem. It isn’t hypocrisy to point out the Emperor has no clothes even if dresses in rags yourself.
40. Intolerance thinly veiled by secular righteousness and sophistry. Believe me, one look at #40 and I can tell you a nation run by the Fusion Party would be as frightening as the Taliban who also claim Good is on their side.
RBG
@ #39, #40, good posts Mr. Fusion.
@#38, “However, the earth and universe points us to a creator, as something has never been observed to spring from nothing.”
That is simply not true. There is nothing in the universe that points to a creator except a vivid imagination for magic. The possibility for a god is way less likely than the possibility of natural phenomena producing the same net results. We have observational evidence for natural phenomena, and zero evidence for a god. Your god either has no concept of what it means to suffer, or is one hell of a sadistic bastard. He can’t even get DNA right let alone build a universe from nothing. Hardly god-like. Particles of physics, on the other hand, have no feelings or emotions to guide their effects. The fearful minds of the religious deem that there has to be a supernatural beginning, there has to be a supernatural reason for life, there has to be a supernatural life ever after. Well, no, there doesn’t have to be any supernatural reasons for any of that. Suck it up and grow up. The world will become a better place when you do.
Religious organizations have revealed their ugly sides over and over throughout history and yet they still have followers. How can you defend that? How can you guarantee the your christian religious beliefs won’t stir up another holy frenzy and cause another hundred years of holy massacres. It’s no different than giving the Third Reich another chance, and another, and another.
Fusion has only exposed the ugliness of religious legacy. There is no platform for the Fusion Party that I can see except accountability for religious organizations. I can see how that would worry you.
(I was surprised to find this thread still going)
Yes, a nice little atheist state. What could go worng.
(cough) Stalin Lenin Mao (cough)
RBG
So what you”re saying is because a few non organized, non christians were terrible people, that it justifies millions and now billions of christians with a horrid legacy to carry the torch claiming you only do (cough) good.
Hypocritical thinking considering Stalin, Lenin and Mao followed your (cough) christian example.
44. You’re close. It works both ways. If legacy is what defines a society, than an atheist society is clearly not one bit better than the religious ones being criticized.
Personally, I’d rather take my chances with the numbers of people who truly believe a God will have them burn in hell forever if they kill, than the numbers of people who think they shouldn’t kill because, well, that just isn’t nice.
RBG
There has never been an atheist society, nor has atheism something you can organize because it is the absence of something…. namely a belief in a god, unless you’ve heard of the EEEG society…”Everything Else Except God”
You equate an atheistic dictator as the society which he dictates, which in all the cases you mentioned, just wasn’t so. You equate a non christian (atheist) as an anti-christian which is like concluding that someone want’s to rid the world of cows because they don’t eat beef.
Anti-religion is a reaction to the evils of religion. And contrary to what you imagine, the fear of hell hasn’t stopped many so called christians from the worst of offenses like rape, murder, and abuse of minors, even within the church. In fact I have a feeling that most of the time christians don’t believe the crock of bull the preach unless it suits them… statistics like (50%) of Christian couples get divorced.
#44 – I’m sure that Stalin, Lenin, and Mao would hardly be considered “a few”; and what christian “example” would they happen to be following again? Oh, you mean the one that forbids religion, as opposed to the religious liberty that our CHRISTian forefathers fought for. Yeah, how does 25 in Siberia sound for any kind of behaviour deemed “religious”. Check your facts before you start claiming how the greatest anti-religous leaders of the last 100 years behaved. Comparing their actions to those of christians… Lenin is rolling in his grave. BTW, recommend that you do some reading of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn this weekend.
Um, Stiffler… you aren’t quite on the same line of discussion as RGB and I. You’d have to go back about 10 posts to get it straight. But on your first point, a quantity of 3 is considered a few by everyone I know except you.
46. From Wikipedia http://tinyurl.com/26zlwr
“The People’s Republic of China was established in 1949 and for much of its early history maintained a hostile attitude toward religion which was seen as emblematic of feudalism and foreign colonialism. Houses of worship, including temples, mosques, and churches, were converted into non-religious buildings for secular use.
In the early years of the People’s Republic, religious belief or practice was often discouraged because it was regarded by the government as backwards and superstitious and because some Communist leaders, ranging from Vladimir Lenin to Mao Zedong, had been critical of religious institutions. During the Cultural Revolution, religion was condemned as feudalistic and thousands of religious buildings were looted and destroyed.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Soviet_Union
“Soviet policy toward religion was based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which made atheism the official doctrine of the Soviet Union. As the founder of the Soviet state V. I. Lenin put it:
Religion is the opium of the people: this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about religion. All modern religions and churches, all and of every kind of religious organizations are always considered by Marxism as the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class.[1]
Marxism-Leninism has consistently advocated the control, suppression, and, ultimately, the elimination of religious beliefs. In the 1920s and 1930s, such organizations as the League of the Militant Godless ridiculed all religions and harassed believers. Atheism was propagated through schools, communist organizations (such as the Young Pioneer Organization), and the media.”
I made it clear I was not referring to the “so called Christians.” Only the ones that actually believe a misdeed could jeopardize perpetual life. (Hint: That’s better than all the gold you could care to want.)
RBG
RGB, a society forced to be without religion is not atheistic. Atheism is a choice, just like religion.
Freedom-loving Wahabbis will be happy to hear this.
RBG
An informative article is worth a thumbs up. I believe that you should blog a lot on this topic, i might not be a taboo subject but generally people are not enough to speak on such topic. Till next post. Kudos