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Globe and Mail — Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2002-05-30
Critics say it's creationism in the classroom by another name. Supporters say it's now the law.
Conservative Republicans in the U.S. Congress are pressing the Ohio Board of Education, which is in the midst of devising a new curriculum, to introduce religious alternatives to evolution in the classroom, saying such theories are mandated by a recently passed federal education act.
This would surprise many of the senators and representatives who voted for the act, which does not contain a word about the book of Genesis. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that teaching "creation science" violated the constitutional separation of church and state.
But the new act, which was passed with broad support from both Republicans and Democrats, contains an addendum known as a conference report, stipulating that "where topics are taught that may generate controversy -- such as biological evolution -- the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist."
To supporters of a divinely inspired humanity, this mandates that schools teach such concepts as "intelligent design theory."
...
To the scientific and educational community, the Ohio campaign represents the latest attempt by zealots to infiltrate the classroom with fundamentalist Christianity.
Intelligent-design theory "is a purely religious document that has absolutely no place in the science classroom," said Wayne Carley, executive director of the National Association of Biology Teachers. "The fundamental purpose is to embed a fundamentalist religious doctrine into public education."
Webmaster's comment:
American fundamentalist Christians up to their dirty tricks once again.
So-called "intelligent design theory" is indeed just creationism in scientific drag.
Like creationism, it is a recipe for ignorance, because it proposes an ultra-simplistic and useless answer --
"God did it" -- to complex and difficult questions about the origins of life.
Modern science has already found some of the answers, and will continue to extend its understanding.
It will do so by ignoring the prattling of religious fundamentalists who will only be satisfied when
scientists stop asking questions and stop proposing real answers.
Le Droit, 2002-05-24
The Raelian Movement, a well known UFO cult, takes advantage of the current epidemic of sex scandals in
the Catholic Church to launch an apostasy campaign, encouraging Catholics to renounce their religion.
Webmaster's comment:
Taking the necessary measures to have oneself de-baptised or excommunicated is an excellent decision for
the great number of persons who were baptized in the Catholic Church at a very young age but are no
longer (or never have been) believers. But what point is there in renouncing one religion only to
adopt another one? The Raelian Movement calls itself "atheist" and is doubtlessly less
backward than the Church of Rome when it comes to questions of sexuality and reproduction. Nevertheless,
both Christianity and "Raelism" are irrational and should be avoided. In these modern times,
the traditional statues of the Virgin crying tears of blood have been replaced by the more fashionable --
but equally ridiculous -- cult of UFO's and extra-terrestrial visitors.
For information about de-baptisation, but without Rael's opportunism, see the
"Baptism Removal and Excommunication" section of the
Links page of this site.
The Globe and Mail — Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2002-05-21
Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, who unlocked the mysteries of evolution for millions of readers with essays on
the panda's extra thumb and helped bring natural-history museums to popular audiences, died yesterday at his home
in New York after a long battle with cancer. He was 60.
Prof. Gould of Harvard University was best known for modifying Charles Darwin's theories. Some of his best-known
works are Ever Since Darwin; The Panda's Thumb, which won an American Book Award in 1981; and The Mismeasure of Man,
which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for 1982....
Prof. Gould was known for his engaging, witty style, evident in his Natural History magazine columns.
"Science is not a heartless pursuit of objective information," Prof. Gould wrote in his 1977 book,
Ever Since Darwin. "It is a creative human activity, its geniuses acting more as artists than as information
processors."
Webmaster's comment:
Gould was a major figure in the fight against fundamentalist Christians who promoted the teaching of creationism
in American schools. Unfortunately, Gould also weakened his own arguments by proposing his so-called
NOMA theory (NOMA = Non-Overlapping MAgisteria) which relegated religion and science to separate distinct domains,
and arbitrarily conceded to religion authority in matters of ethics and "spiritual meaning",
thus affording religious dogmas a considerable degree of impunity and protection from direct criticism.
History will remember Gould as one of the greatest science popularizers of the twentieth century.
The Globe and Mail — Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2002-05-11
The first UN children's summit ended with 180 nations pledging to improve the lot of the world's 2 billion youngsters, but the outcome didn't seem to satisfy anyone, including American delegates.
The United States -- together with the Vatican and Islamic countries including Sudan, Syria and Iraq -- had disagreed with Europe, Canada and many Latin American countries on the issues of sex education, contraception and abortion.
...
Canadian envoy Gilbert Laurin said the deal "falls significantly short" of reaffirming the right to high-quality family planning as well as counseling and information for adolescents.
Spain's UN Ambassador Inocencio Arias, representing the European Union, regretted that it didn't reflect past agreements that strongly supported sexual and reproductive health services.
Adrienne Germain, president of the International Women's Health Coalition, claimed "it was shoved down the throats of the rest of the world by the United States."
...
The U.S. delegation had pushed the Bush administration's agenda against abortion and in favour of sexual abstinence before marriage and of the traditional family.
On the other side of the debate were the European Union and many Latin American and Western countries who support the successive agreements on reproductive and sexual health issues at five UN conferences in the last eight years. They say the programs those conferences have generated are crucial for young people.
In a victory for the Bush administration, the document excludes the United States from a requirement barring the death penalty or life imprisonment for those under the age of 18.
Webmaster's comment:
Here we see the insidious hand of the American Christian right at work, and their affinity with the Vatican and with islam.
Their priorities: maintain the death penalty, even for children, and prevent women from taking control of reproduction.
While millions of children live in poverty, fundamentalists are more worried that the word "family" might be applied to a same-sex couple.
CBC News —
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 2002-05-06
A report on how curriculum materials used in Afghan schools, and published in the United States, are filled with military
images and examples left over from the islamic fundamentalists' war against the Soviets.
When 1.5 million children went back in school in Afghanistan this spring, a tough lesson was waiting for them.
While the country welcomes peace for the first time in years, war is still very much a part of its classrooms.
Now Afghanistan's teachers are trying to erase war images from the textbooks...
...
But the Mujahideen had a lot of help to create this warrior culture in the school system from the United States,
which paid for the Mujahideen propaganda in the textbooks. It was all part of American Cold War policy in the 1980s,
helping the Mujahideen defeat the Soviet army on Afghan soil.
The University of Nebraska was front and center in that effort. The university did the publishing and had an Afghan
study center and a director who was ready to help defeat the "Red Menace."
Ottawa Citizen —
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 2002-05-05
In the small Ontario (Canada) city of Pembroke, a cost-cutting measure has led to the closure of one of two hospitals. The one that remains open is Catholic.
Gail Richardson and Izett McBride are part of a group fighting to change the way Pembroke General Hospital is governed. They're upset the publicly funded hospital still adheres to the Catholic principles of its founders.
On a day-to-day basis, in the corridors of the 110-bed institution, religion may count for nothing. But, as a founding principle from the owners, it has caused offence.
(It doesn't help much that the first publication you find in the waiting room is Ecclesia, the newsletter of the Catholic diocese of Pembroke.)
"Here's a comparison I like to make," says Izett McBride, a well-known real-estate broker in town and a high-profile opponent of the current governance.
"What would people say if they shut the public school system and just left the separate one standing?"
Webmaster's comment:
Another serious violation of church/state separation.
Note: In Ontario the "separate" (Catholic) school system receives full public funding, which is an even more serious violation of church/state separation.
The Nation, 2002-05-01
While it might appear to be sweet revenge for the Inquisition, it is best to resist the impulse to burn some Catholic priests--and the cardinals who covered up their criminal activities--at the stake. Be thankful that we live in a secular, pluralistic society in which the heavy hand of the sanctimonious is restrained.
But it would be helpful if the church's leaders, from the pope on down, for once would assume accountability for their lengthy history of covering up scandals rather than shifting the blame to homosexuality or a too-permissive secular society.
The church's recent equation of homosexuality with pedophilia or any other sex crime is a slander against a subset of the national population that shows no greater inclination to sexually criminal behavior than the heterosexual population. Even within the cloistered Catholic priesthood there are plenty of charges that priests are molesting women...
The larger problem is one of arrogance. The church presumes to act as the guardian of our morals by telling the rest of us--including non-Catholics--how to live, as if the attainment of a healthy sexuality is a simple matter of shunning the texts and images the church finds objectionable and has so often managed to have banned.
As one searches for an explanation for why so many priests have been exposed as child molesters recently, there is no indication that pornography or other manifestations of a permissive secular world pushed any of those men of God into their insanity. Indeed, the more plausible explanation is that they led a life too cloistered from the ordinary sources of adult sexual stimulation and satisfaction....
Rather than scapegoat gay men--or sex outside marriage, pornography, masturbation, short skirts, precocious children, Hollywood films and so on--the Roman Catholic Church might be best served by reciting the wisdom of Pogo at every vespers: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Pedophilia is a serious crime, irrevocably damaging young lives. The problem here is not that the church had sick priests but rather that their evil ways were permitted to fester by the indifference of corrupt cardinals and bishops who then and now blame everyone but themselves for the terrible harm that has been done.
New York Press — Volume 15, Issue 18, 2002-05-01
Two Sundays ago the rector at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Monsignor Eugene Clark, gave a homily that inspired the kind of PRIEST BLASTS GAYS headlines that New York's tabloids thrive on. Standing in for the embattled Cardinal Egan, Clark blamed the sex abuse scandal on gays, railed against homosexuality as a "disorder" and said it was a"grave mistake" to allow gays into the priesthood.
It may have been another trial balloon as the Vatican desperately attempts to change the subject and scapegoat gays. Or it may simply have been further ineptitude on increasingly feeble Cardinal Egan's part, putting the wrong person at the pulpit while he scampered away to the Bronx amid the crisis...
Clark's deceptions included equating homosexuality with pedophilia, the ugly lie we've been hearing from the Vatican and the American cardinals, both before and during the sex abuse summit. But 76-year-old Clark also engaged in a larger, less-defined but more powerful deception. In putting forth the idea that homosexuality is a "disorder," and that it is a "grave mistake" to ordain gay priests, he implied that only the lowly priests--the alleged child abusers among them--are afflicted with the so-called "disorder."...
Yet, among the several skeletons in gay-basher Clark's closet is that he in fact dutifully worked as secretary for one of the most notorious, powerful and sexually voracious homosexuals in the American Catholic Church's history: the politically connected Francis Cardinal Spellman, known as "Franny" to assorted Broadway chorus boys and others, who was New York's cardinal from 1939 until his death in 1967.
The archconservative Spellman was the epitome of the self-loathing, closeted, evil queen, working with his good friend, the closeted gay McCarthy henchman Roy Cohn, to undermine liberalism in America during the 1950s' communist and homosexual witch hunts. The church has squelched Spellman's not-so-secret gay life quite successfully, most notably by pressuring The New York Times to don the drag of the censor back in the 1980s. The Times today may be out front exposing every little nasty detail in the Catholic Church's abuse scandal--a testament to both the more open discussion of such issues today and the church's waning power in New York--but not even 20 years ago the Times was covering up Spellman's sexual secrets many years after his death, clearly fearful of the church's revenge if the paper didn't fall in line...
Webmaster's comment:
Yet another example of the abject hypocrisy which is the hallmark of the Catholic Church's attitude towards homosexuality.
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