Ok, folks, over here in Oz we are fighting to have religious instruction removed from public education. Maybe we can get it replaced by actual education about comparative religion.

The christian lobby are frothing at the mouth and their Victorian head, Rob Ward, published a useless piece of drivel into Online Opinion entitled "SRI opponents denying kids their cultural heritage".

Now the creationists have started filling the comments section, which is 31 pages long so far. I'm swatting at them as best I can.

Discuss the state of play with creationism and religious intrusion in to Oz schools here. Carpet bomb the creationists over there.

Damn, just ran into the "4 posts in 24 hours" restriction. I was right in the middle of a series of posts refuting Shockadelic's list of all the usual cannards.

Totally read that as "Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SRI) denying kids their cultural heritage"

The bastards!

DanDare wrote:Ok, folks, over here in Oz we are fighting to have religious instruction removed from public education. Maybe we can get it replaced by actual education about comparative religion.

The christian lobby are frothing at the mouth and their Victorian head, Rob Ward, published a useless piece of drivel into Online Opinion entitled "SRI opponents denying kids their cultural heritage".

Now the creationists have started filling the comments section, which is 31 pages long so far. I'm swatting at them as best I can.

Discuss the state of play with creationism and religious intrusion in to Oz schools here. Carpet bomb the creationists over there.

Grrr....
Will post some. As soon as I have time. I dearly want Oz land not to follow in the US footsteps of religio-fundamentalism. But in reality, Australians are just more subtle with it all. But it's till fecking there.

What do the native Aborigine children have to say about their religious cultural heritage?

Best bit..."Despite some notable blemishes, Christianity has been an overwhelming force for good."... that got an 'oh rly' from me.

All the good bits of the Bible are universally good moral practises to ensure social cohesion. All this is either common sense, taught by parents as they raise their children and in 'citizenship' style classes.

All the morally questionable bits of the Bible are often toned down/interpreted to mean something less harsh/written off as out of modern context in order to fit into the 21st century. Unfortunately some 'biblical morals' stick around and are definitely not a force for good especially those that promote homophobia, punishment of 'hellfire' to scare people into submission, the idea of unquestionable 'faith', anti-choice (too many mouths to feed leading to extreme poverty) and general misogyny.

I have no problem with teaching children about world religions. No child should be subjected to be told one religion is 'The Truth'TM and all the others are wrong, bad or silly.

Not all people have religious backgrounds. Christianity doesn't feature in my life and hasn't featured for several generations before me. I happened to have been born in a country where Christianity is the main religion.... so what? Not my heritage, it's just history.

I'll see if I can find some time to post there.