Move Over Intelligent Design, Here Comes Bhartiya Creationism By Ra Ravishankar A Hindu version of creationism is trying to back door its way into the public schools. PR honchos Ruder-Finn hired to do the deed.
This crap never stops, does it?
Even as the intelligent design controversy rages on, California recently witnessed a concerted push by a coalition of three Hindutva (Hindu supremacist) groups — Hindu Education Foundation, Vedic Foundation and the Hindu American Foundation — to doctor sixth grade social science textbooks. Their strong ideological and organizational links with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in India makes them all the more dangerous,
I always knew RSS would take over the world.
this is why you separate church and state at all cost, even though doing so really sucks around christmas and hannukah!
seriously, how hard is that 200 year-old protection against someone pushing their religion onto you to understand??!?!?! sheesh.
and if you don’t like the first amendment, go live in an islamic state where not only is religion mandatory, they hate liberals too, you’ll fit right in.
i’m so sick and tired of anti-american right-wingers bashing american religious freedoms and civil liberties. why do they hate freedom so much?
why do they hate freedom so much?
Because organized religion is all about control and power not faith. I had my fill of organized religion in my youth. I am now a passionate agnostic.
Actually, the 1st amendment only prohibits the establishment, by Congress, of a national religion. At least that’s what is written on the page.
Todd has succinctly stated what I’ve been thinking for a long time. I remember being a Catholic in Indiana public schools before public prayer was banned in those schools. The Catholic and Jewish kids (and the few Mormons) felt like outsiders because inevitably any minister brought in for an invocation was (in my school district anyway) some kind of Protestant, and usually a Baptist or some similar faith that was intolerant of other beliefs (and it usually showed in the prayer in some way).
We can’t blame right-wingers for all of this. The push towards multi-culturalism and preferential treatment for special-interest groups helped pave the way. I’d say this is a result of an unintended joint effort by the far right and the far left. That’s America today.
On the other hand, I strongly support UFO-based creation theories (although I’m not finished writing them yet — gotta grab some lunch first).
We need a few more groups like these Hindus. Proponents of ideas like “Intellignt Design” should be told to go away and come back when they can speak for the Hindus as themselves.
– PrBl
very true and when the congress passes its budget that endorses, sanctions, pays for, and mandates the teaching in the public schools the religious belief in creation by a deity, the congress has in fact — not in theory– established a religion that had not previously existed, complete with scripture. and that is patently illegal.
here’s the exact text:
I remeber when I was 5 or 6, just moved to UK, and begin school. At the start of recess, the kids will have to put their palms together and say their prayers out loud. Being the only the only Muslim in the class, I was at a loss on what to do. I just sat down watched the other kids say their prayers. I can say, that was not a good way to make friends.
I am a Hindu and I did my school education in India and I can say that this is all ‘BS’. RSS is kinda religious-political group that’s made up of conservative hindus but fortunately it has a very limited appeal and influence in India and on Indian hindus. eg Pat robertson and you can very well imagine how many Americans follow him. They are politically motivated and don’t give a shit about religion itself.
I read evolution when I was in 6 or 8th grade (not sure) and it all made sense than and I still believe it’s the truth. We were never taught of any stupid intelligent design. Most of the schools are intentionally kept kind of secular considering there is so much religious diversity in the country. From School uniforms to addressing holidays of all religions most things are setup so as to avoid any religious bias although there are minority of schools which are run by conservatives from different religions. And honestly I was shocked to see in country like US which is such a developed and advanced country with a very high literacy rate this thing should not even be a issue but unfortunately it is and again its just politics as most of us know.
Todd, a local school board is not the Congress of the United States. And the Congress giving money from the public treasury to a religious organization (like it does to other private groups for various reasons) is not the same and establishing a national religion. Creating something equivalent to the Church of England would be an establishment of religion, giving federal money for an after-school program is not.
But, I must say, I don’t think that education is an issue for the federal government to be meddling with in the first place. And while it has been, we certainly haven’t gotten any better results for it.
And this claim by some that the founders (Jefferson specifically) intended there to be some universal separation at all levels of government is also completely bogus. Until the passage of the 14th amendment, except where the states were specifically mentioned, the Bill of Rights only applied to the new federal government established in the Constitution.
Just because I mostly agree with the ends, does not mean I am willing to twist the words of our Constitution to mean something it was not intended to.
we should just teach a world religions class as cirriculum in public schools, along with sociology and psychology, along with all the stuff we have now- art, science, geography, etc. this way, kids can get an idea of what ALL religions and what ALL theories of creations are not just one or two. makes sense to me… and we’d all be better off too. not as ignorant maybe.
mike,
i’m glad we can have this conversation in a respectful manner.
if intelligent design were an “after school” thing, i would agree with you, but intelligent design requires students as part of their curriculum to accept the concept of a deity and that is the very definition of a religion.
todd
Um… we need to teach Flying Spaghetti Monsterism while we’re at it.
The problem I have here is that it should be ok for a local community to decide to use their tax dollars to teach this if they want to. This may be “tyranny of the majority” but I am already forced to pay taxes to fund thousands of programs I don’t agree with. If the states don’t want this sort of thing taught as though it were science, they are perfectly free to prohibit it at their level. There should be no need to involve the federal government or federal Constitution where it’s not needed.
I am a very strong believer in the superiority of the system of federalism the founders established, because government works best when it is as close to the people as possible… not ruling down from up high in the Disctrict of Columbia.
would be a lot simpler if the goverment on the federal level had stuck to what the constitution said it was responseable for and left the rest to the states as the constitution says.
Education is supposed to be a state/local issue. The feds highjacked it back in the 50’s with the power of the purse….amazing what those pieces of silver will buy.
This may be “tyranny of the majority” but I am already forced to pay taxes to fund thousands of programs I don’t agree with.
If the programs you disagree with are illegal then you have a right to ask a court to stop them.
If they are within the mandate and purpose of the government then I agree. There are too many government programs I don’t agree with either. So I vote accordingly. But I don’t use that “wrong” to justify another wrong.
“Hey we need more of these initiatives. The more we have, the quicker people realise that there is something wrong with these theories…”
I would have thought that the Flying spaghetti monster would have been enough…