[Buddha-l] Hindu Fundamentalism

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Thu, 2005-08-04 at 10:44 +0100, Alex Wilding wrote:

> But (... altogether now: ...) it's not that simple. When you have people
> whose outlook and education is so narrow that they can claim that, for
> instance, the creation story in the Christian bible is literally,
> objectively and "scientifically" true, how can you exclude their poppycock?

There is a right-wing publication in the USA called Time Magazine. A
recent edition had an editorial by a predictably right-wing commentator
named Charles Krauthammer. Although his writing normally makes me gag,
he does sometimes say something I can choke down, and once every twenty
years or so he says something I even applaud. His most recent editorial
makes the good point that the move of the religious right to have
intelligent design dogmas presented as a scientific hypothesis in
science classrooms does irreparable damage to both religion and science.

When I was in eighth grade, my science teacher, a lanky drawling fellow
from Mississippi, spent the entire year telling us how to respond to
religious people who tried to attack the credibility of Darwin's theory
of evolution. He also taught us how to respond to people who used
pseudo-scientific claims of racial superiority/inferiority. He also
taught us how to use the Bible to refute racist claims AND
fundamentalist Biblical claims about creation. It is one of the most
valuable things I learned in my early education. It would be a shame if
students were no longer trained to answer the outrageously purblind
claims made by the religiously intolerant. So I agree that we MUST teach
religion in the public schools. What we must not do is to let education
be replaced by sectarian indoctrination.

-- 
Richard Hayes