In the Quran it is written what means “They will not accept you until you are like them, and if you did, you will be condemnd”

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Where exactly does Tariq Ramadan fit on the scale between moderate and extremist? While most people have some qualms the ban, this shouldn’t stop legitimate questions being asked about Mr Ramadan – particularly his relationship with Sudanese Islamist theorist and mass murderer Hassan Turabi.

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Of course, I’m against buying indulgences to pay your relatives way into heaven. However, I see some merit in paying to ensure some people go to hell. My suspicion is that far too many of the latter are slipping through the cracks.

Steve

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Steve, I couldn’t help laughing at your description of life in an RC primary school. I went through the same system and it had a similar result. I am now a dedicated atheist.

Do you remember the bits about how the church could grant plenary or partial indulgences in return for a financial contribution to dioscesan funds? What a disgraceful concept! Fancy paying the Bishop to buy your late Grandma out of purgatory. I remember being disgusted at that when I was just nine years old.

However I can’t bring myself to support rote learning. Some kids do see right through it, but there are more who succumb to the brainwashing. If my parents had not been so dedicated to making me think for myself, I might have joined the serried ranks of the religiously ignorant, professionally Irish*, Catholic Women’s League.

*- In the English Catholic Church, you are going nowhere if you can’t lay claim to Irish ancestry. So most of our local congregation are like John Kerry, transiently Irish whenever there is a vacancy on the Church Committee.
Meggie

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Yes, I think this is a fundamental problem, Ash. For example, our uni has a requirement for 3 credit hours in philosophy or ethics in order to graduate with a BFA. For the first 2 graduating classes, we brought over the chair of the PHI department at our home campus in VA. He taught Intro to PHI as a 3 week accelerated course and it was an excellent primer. I cover areas of philosophical inquiry in my art history courses and was really looking to dovetail with that course with my upper level women’s studies classes.

Unfortunately, due to the small size of our uni and the number of students requiring the course, it was decided that it would be “better” (i.e., easier and cheaper) to simply have the credit hours fulfilled by teaching a locally (our branch campus) generated course called “The Business of Design” which tosses a little “business ethics” in with all its other requirements (like, designing business cards, writings cvs, cover letters, how to set up a small business, etc.). Unless we grow dramatically in size, or there is a change of admin, I doubt this will change.

Yes! We are in desperate need of Philosophy! But we are also in desperate need of classes in World History, Non-Islamic Religion, Anthropology (we do have sociology), World Literature, and many other areas of the humanities. With the other unis now in Education City (Cornell, Carniegie Mellon, and Texas A&M), insha’Allah we will see changes.

Salaam,
PM

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I went to a Catholic grade school the first seven years. That’s why I’m not a Catholic. We had daily catechism classes but I didn’t pay attention. The nun teaching us wanted us to hold our books up to show we were paying attention but I propped mine up with big rubber erasers and hid behind it as she droned on. Most of my time in catechism class was spent pulling the elastic thread out of my socks and building cool spiderwebs on the side of my desk. About all I remember from catechism was that there were an awful lot of saints, far more than I could ever remember, and that the Romans were mean to them.

There was also some stuff about venal sins and mortal sins but the nuns were vague about the difference. Venal sins put dark spots on your soul, something like bugs hitting your windshield. Mortal sins, whatever they were, meant you were a goner, straight to hell. They didn’t spell out what hell was like but I imagined it was something like catechism class for eternity with no big erasers nor socks.

You could clean your venal sins away in confession but I had a hard time thinking up sins to confess when I was seven. I usually resorted to confessing that I was mean to my sister but I wasn’t all that sorry about that and had no real intention of stopping. Still, it was good to have my soul washed by confession. You don’t want those stains building up.

I realized the nuns didn’t know what they were talking about in sixth grade when one sister told us you could see the cells in your hand if you looked real close. I was a skeptic after that.

I’d keep the host from Mass in the side of my mouth instead of swallowing it and hold it out on my tongue afterwards to see if it had changed into the body of Christ like the sisters said. Never happenned. It was just bread. Now, if it had been M&Ms or Snickers bars, I would have gone along with the whole sham.

So my solution for curing the kids of religious nonsense is to not give them less of it but give them more of it. Force it down their little throats until they’re sick of it. That will cure them of excessive piety.

Steve

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Mahmood,

I’m a Christian,and have fairly rigid beliefs. I don’t want my kids taught religion in school. I bring them to church,where they can learn from someone a little more motivated. Do all Muslims have exactly the same beliefs,and practice their religion exactly the same? Of course not. Read a chapter of any book to 30 people,and you’ll hear 30 different interpretations. Now,I don’t know how Bahraini schools are,but my children have had teachers who can’t spell at an elementary level. No way would I trust them to teach anything spiritual to an impressionable child.
There are over 2000 Christian denominations in the U.S. Some are really whacky. If children are taught religion in American schools,it is only at the private ones. That way,parents have some idea what the teachers are putting in their kids heads.

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Mahmood
In the United States, there is considerable controversy regarding an Islam scholar named Tariq Ramadan. He is the Swiss born grandson of Hasan al-Banna, a founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Notre Dame (a private Catholic university) contracted with him to teach Islamic studies. The University is attempting to improve interfaith dialogue and to help their students better understand Islam. Right before this scholar was to arrive, the US state department abruptly pulled his VISA. State department has refused to explain their actions but the rumors floated in the press are that he has links to terrorism and that the Islam that he teaching is not as tolerate as he publicly professes. Mr. Ramadan stridently disagrees and is fighting reverse the government decision in order to fulfill his teaching contract.

Since many Americans don’t know Arabic and are not familiar with Islamic teachings, we have difficultly distinguishing the tolerant moderate clerics/scholars from the intolerant extremist ones. Compounding that problem, within our society, we try and promote an open public space, which is inclusive of a variety of viewpoints. We try to limit and discourage “hate speech�, speech that encourages violence or promotes bigotry. But with most religious teaching occuring privately, much of it falls outside of public scrutiny. This situation has enabled extremists to operate “under the radar� and exploit our system. Clearly interfaith dialogue is desperately needed but how can evaluate those doing the teaching, if we lack the background, context and knowledge to make an accurate judgment?

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Incidentally, I was just discussing this issue with a group of friends a few days ago. What sparked of the discussion was the actually topics being taught through the religious curriculum, religious intolerance included.

My younger sister is still in highschool at a senior level, a private school with an American system nontheless, but still has to suffer through an hour of Islamic Studies weekly. I was looking through her Islamic Studies book and I must say I was horrified and disgusted to say the least. There is a section in the curriculum which deals with current issues in the Arab or Islamic world. What disgusted me was that the issue of birth control was still up for discussion. The authors of the book that the students are being taught kept reiterating how birth control is against Islamic teachings. He claimed that birth control is a Western attempt to limit the birth of non-Chrisitan children, and is purely a Malthusian Imperialistic ideal. The only methods of contraception that are acceptable by Islam, or so he claimed were withdrawal and rythym.

The scary thought is this: Unwanted teenage pregnancies in the Arab world are on the rise, the rate of sexually transmitted diseases is exponential. The authorities that oversee the making of that curriculum are either in denial or just plain damn ignorant. The fact of the matter is this, although it may seem very Freudian, adolescents and their children are aware of their sexuality, and someone better recognize that fact, and deal with it.

It’s not just religious intolerance that the curriculum is teaching, it’s just plain ignorance.

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Only to add some nuance and controversy (but hey, that’s why I am here…)

My observation has been that rote learning doesn’t necessarily teach intolerance as much as it teaches ignorance. What it trains you to do is to be dependant on an authority. When you refuse (or are refused) the opportunity to think for yourself, you eventually end up letting others do your thinking for you.

When your textbooks are vague and the information is incomplete, all it takes is for a mullah to fill in the blanks with whatever nonsense and voila, you feel this incredible sense of gratitude to the establishment that has brought you enlightenment AND with sanction from God Almighty. Oh, how most exquisitely fortunate!

I won’t speak for Mahmood, but since he and I attended the same primary school (albeit during different eras), I suspect that his experience wasn’t too far from mine.

(sidenote: Mahmood, I was most pleasantly surprised to learn that you and I share a bond through Sacred Heart School. I am proud to see that one of our own has accomplished much in life and is near on the verge of being, if not already, an international celebrity! Good on you, Mate!)

At Sacred Heart, and I expect St. Christopher’s, students were RARELY expected to learn anything by rote. I remember doing reading comprehensions all the way through Grade 6. Of course this was because our exit exams were administered by the University of London, which meant we were getting a European education. I am sure it prepared us to analyze the world around us and assign value judgments by personal rather than by external standards.

We had “Religion” classes, but I don’t think they helped anyone really find God. Yet, for the most part everyone I know of, has turned out to be productive members of society. Many of them are scattered across the globe. I even know of one who is a cleric. (We were just as surprised as you are now. I don’t know any more details, but I sure hope he didn’t go through Mahmood’s 13 step program to get there)

In any case, it’s a unanimous decision. Teach people to think. God forbid, you lose your power over the people and have to get a real job!

(ps- Mahmood, I couldn’t find your 13-step programme, would you be so kind as to link it to my post? Thank You)

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