'Intelligent Design' banned by US Court

[Ciarán2]

Hoogstraten!!! Hoooooogstraten!!!!!!

[Hoogstraten'sSmilingUlcer]

Hi.

[Borboski]

Come onnnn?

[Suttonpubcrawl]

HOOGSTRATEN'S SMILING ULCER!!!!

[Ciarán2]

The messiah has returned. And he is a very naughty boy.

[peet]

[butnut]

No one's going to believe me, but I was chatting to a VW last night and predicted his return today.

[Ambient Sheep]

(picture)

:-D :-D :-D

Good old Trudeau.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

No one's going to believe me, but I was chatting to a VW last night and predicted his return today.

[Garfield And Friends]

Morticia and Frankenstein's Monster?

[Bogey]

Oh, it's bonkers isn't it? We have religious education lessons which pay lip-service to the religions of the world but are in reality heavily biased towards christianity, and the US just says no, no, no, in spite of being a vastly more religious country than this one. And hymns and prayers in assembiles are just simply abhorrent.

Why don't they teach philosophy in schools, incorporating religion? Why don't they do that? Are they twats or something?

That's the way to present to students all sides of the debate, not in science lessons. And it teaches you how to think and argue clearly.

Still, at least they don't call it "divinity" anymore.

[The Plaque Goblin]

Evolution is described in the Bible:

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree.
-- Genesis 1:11

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
-- Genesis 1:24

[Pinball]

Oh, it's bonkers isn't it? We have religious education lessons which pay lip-service to the religions of the world but are in reality heavily biased towards christianity, and the US just says no, no, no, in spite of being a vastly more religious country than this one. And hymns and prayers in assembiles are just simply abhorrent.

Yes it's an amusing paradox, given how much more religious the US is than the UK, as measured by % of people going to church regularly. An observation from a US journalist I heard on R4 was interesting. He remarked on the marked contrast between the huge number of high visibility churches in the UK (i.e. one blimp per parish as per our feudal control-the-peasants history), and the lack of religiosity in the UK. Does religion simply fill the cultural void that exists in the US (once you strip off the superficial pop culture layer), or am I being too harsh? Certainly, the consumerist takeover by the corporations seems to have suppressed much of any "deeper culture" in the US.

"Oh, get that Chomsky. He's, like, so whatevarrrrr".

[mayer]

Yeah, but I'd rather watch Clueless than read Chomsky.

:-)


On a (more) serious note, why do you dismiss popular culture as "superficial". I don't think you can make a statement like that without backing it up.

And I don't think you can dismiss US culture (young though it is), in those terms anyway.

EDIT: Well, obviously you can, I just don't think you should!

[Pinball]

I'm not dismissing it, just trying to understand why the US is so religious. A lot of it has to do with the South and it's own specific history, of course, but is religion in the US (and indeed celebrity worship) partly a default culture in absence of thousands of years of history? Just a thought, which I find quite interesting.

[LadyDay]

I'm not dismissing it, just trying to understand why the US is so religious. A lot of it has to do with the South and it's own specific history, of course, but is religion in the US (and indeed celebrity worship) partly a default culture in absence of thousands of years of history? Just a thought, which I find quite interesting.

I'd imagine it's down to America originally being a haven for religious dissenters.

[Blumf]

I'm not dismissing it, just trying to understand why the US is so religious. A lot of it has to do with the South and it's own specific history, of course, but is religion in the US (and indeed celebrity worship) partly a default culture in absence of thousands of years of history? Just a thought, which I find quite interesting.

Isn't it just from the fact that most of our religious nuts went off to the new world? All those puritans who'd given up on the CoE and decided to make fresh start and screw over a load of non-whites in the process.

Gawd bless America, the religious dumping ground of Europe.

[terminallyrelaxed]

Well didnt the first lot bugger off there to practice their religion in peace? If the first colonies were established with religious intent its hardly surprising that the culture has survived today, its only a couple of hundred years innit.

[Jemble Fred]

So, considering the fact that Christianity was brought to this country close to two thousand years ago, does that mean we have to wait that long for America to calm down on the God-bothering front?

[LadyDay]

I don't think it works like that, India has been populated a fair while now...

% of adults for whom religion is important

Senegal 97
Indonesia 95
Nigeria 92
India 92
Pakistan 91
Ivory Coast 91
Mali 90
Philippines 88
Bangladesh 88
South Africa 87
Kenya 85
Uganda 85
Ghana 84
Tanzania 83
Angola 80
Guatemala 80
Brazil 77
Honduras 72
Peru 69
Bolivia 66
Turkey 65
Venezuela 61
U.S. 59
Mexico 57
A really big gap appears here!  
Argentina 39
Poland 36
Ukraine 35
Uzbekistan 35
Great Britain 33
Canada 30
Slovakia 29
Italy 27
South Korea 25
Vietnam 24
Germany 21
Russia 14
Bulgaria 13
Japan 12
France 11
Czech Republic 11

[Jemble Fred]

I'm moving to France. Bless 'em. Surprised at Russia's ranking though.

(I was being facetious up there BTW. But that's a given.)

[LadyDay]

"Questions on the personal importance of religion were not permitted in China, and were deemed too sensitive to ask in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon."

[Santa's Boyfriend]

Didn't ask anyone in Israel, I noticed.

[LadyDay]

http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_atheist.html

Israel has more non-believers than Canada apparently

[Evil Knevil]

"Questions on the personal importance of religion were not permitted in China, and were deemed too sensitive to ask in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon."

Yeah, they don't really understand the concept of atheism in those arab places.
Them: "Are you religious?"
Me: "ana zanadiqi/ hadi" (I'm an atheist, pretty much a term of abuse)
Them: "So, you're Israeli/Jewish"
Me :" Erm... no!"
Them: "Why don't you believe in God?"
me: "Erm... I'm afraid I don't know enough Arabic to explain the universe and that human life exists as a monumental series of accidents"

(etc)

[Mister Cairo]

I'm not dismissing it, just trying to understand why the US is so religious. A lot of it has to do with the South and it's own specific history, of course, but is religion in the US (and indeed celebrity worship) partly a default culture in absence of thousands of years of history? Just a thought, which I find quite interesting.

Perhaps religous assemblies in schools cause people to become less interested in religion "Fuck me, I've had sixteen years of singing hymns and praying to someone I was never asked whether I belived in or not, I'm looking forward to a world without that." Perhaps America would be less religous if all schools had a prayer-based assembly, because so many people would associate religion with a short service before school where you are made to sing and pray(therefore removing the private spritulaity element of religion, which in my view is what is should all be about)while half-asleep and dreading getting the shit kicked out of you/ games lessons/maths/exams later in the day. Whenever I think of religion, I think of small blue hymn books, the green sheets we had to use for Choral Prayers (bizarre), insane hymn practice and the hard battered benchers.

Of course you could look at it the other weay round and say that if Amercia were less religously extreme people would feel more comfortable about prayer in schools, although I'm sure most people  in the UK would prefer a secular assembly in schools where people don't have to worry about speaking up if they feel they cannot take part. They just don't get asked for their views, either in the state (controlled by a very pro-Christian party, with the PM and Education Secretary both evangelicals, although it's a bit of an unfair point) or the private sector. I think that secular assemblies should be standered in every school. You can't make people follow religion, it's a personal thing. And get rid of faith and denominational schools. Why not follow the US in a good way, and keep religon out of schools aside from relgious education? How hard is that?

[aaaaaaaaaargh!]

Didn't ask anyone in Israel, I noticed.

The Czechs seem to have stonewalled the question as well

[Pinball]

I don't think it works like that, India has been populated a fair while now...

Fair point, but I meant comparable G8/Western cultures, not the 3rd world.