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Category Archives: Education
Student Faces Town’s Wrath in Protest Against a Prayer
CRANSTON, R.I. — She is 16, the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, a self-proclaimed nerd who loves Harry Potter and Facebook. But Jessica Ahlquist is also an outspoken atheist who has incensed this heavily Roman Catholic city with a successful lawsuit to get a prayer removed from the wall of her high school auditorium, where it has hung for 49 years. . .
For Jessica, who was baptized in the Catholic Church but said she stopped believing in God at age 10, the prayer was an affront. “It seemed like it was saying, every time I saw it, ‘You don’t belong here,’ ” she said the other night during an interview at a Starbucks here. . .
New England is not the sort of place where battles over the division of church and state tend to crop up. It is the least religious region of the country, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. But Rhode Island is an exception: it is the nation’s most Catholic state, and dust-ups over religion are not infrequent. . .
Does she empathize in any way with members of her community who want the prayer to stay?
“I’ve never been asked this before,” she said. A pause, and then: “It’s almost like making a child get a shot even though they don’t want to. It’s for their own good. I feel like they might see it as a very negative thing right now, but I’m defending their Constitution, too.”
Richard Dawkins: Education Is The Only Antidote To Religion
Richard Dawkins believes that education is the only ‘antidote’ to religion. “We need to protect children from being indoctrinated. It goes on to the next generation and then they see that their children get indoctrinated.”
“If children are taught, however moderately, that faith is a virtue, they are taught that they don’t need evidence to believe something; that they can believe something just because it’s their faith. . .
He believes that atheism will soon become a more popular framework for people. “There seems to be a correlation with education. It’s certainly true within the US — the more educated people are more likely to give up religion.”
Quote: Charles Darwin / On Ignorance
Cult of Dusty: Fuck Chuck Norris
Richard Dawkins Celebrates a Victory Over Creationists
Leading scientists and naturalists, including Professor Richard Dawkinsand Sir David Attenborough, are claiming a victory over the creationist movement after the government ratified measures that will bar anti-evolution groups from teaching creationism in science classes.
The Department for Education has revised its model funding agreement, allowing the education secretary to withdraw cash from schools that fail to meet strict criteria relating to what they teach. Under the new agreement, funding will be withdrawn for any free school that teaches what it claims are “evidence-based views or theories” that run “contrary to established scientific and/or historical evidence and explanations.”
. . . “It is clear that some faith schools are ignoring the regulations and are continuing to teach myth as though it were science,” Dawkins said. “Evolution is fact, supported by evidence from a host of scientific disciplines, and we do a great disservice to our young people if we fail to teach it properly. “
“It Does Not Follow,” A Typical Non sequitur
Aphorism: On Classic Literature
By Madison S. Hughes (01.14.2012)
What makes classic literature the greatest of literary masterpiece is its ability to transcend time, and place of composition. What makes one able to appreciate it is one’s ability to transcend one’s contemporary time, and place of comprehension.
Bill Moyers: Why I am Returning to the Air (VIDEO)
The lack of civility and common sense that has paralyzed our democracy, the vast economic and social inequality that sends both left and right raging into the streets, the corrosive influence of money in politics – we’re in a tailspin with little hope for a course correction from our elected leadership or corporate-dominated media. The need for voices of reason, simple and eloquent, has rarely been stronger.
Who’s left? The top 20 US progressives
We’ve profile 20 leading American progressives (see list [below]), from a range of backgrounds, who have been at the forefront of efforts to defend not just liberal, but left-wing, social-democratic ideals. Some of them are well-known names; most of them have little to do directly with the Democratic Party; all of them are defiantly and unashamedly partisan.
As Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos blog, once said: “I am a progressive. I make no apologies.”
The list
Always Question Authority 