An interesting weekends worth of information.

I got back to work today from the weekend. Someone asked me a rather
typical question. "Did you have a good weekend?"
I thought about it and answered, "Do you like wallpapering?"
"No," my interlocuter had no reason to even ponder the answer.
"Ah, I didn't have much of a weekend then."
The few minutes I wasn't covered in wallpaper paste were productive in a
sense. I noticed a large number of religion and education related posts
and news articles out there.
The American Family Association (or NAMBLA) noticed that higher levels
of education can de-fundamentalize the kids.
(http://www.afajournal.org/2006/august/0806colleges.html) Not sure what
the conclusion they drew was. Maybe the kids just need Real Science.
Atheist Revolution commented on the recent stories showing that
fundamentalist Christian schools do a much worse job at education the
kids.
(http://atheistrevolution.blogspot.com/2006/08/study-finds-worst-performance-in.html)
And I thought I pointed out the obvious.
Muslim schools devoted to the Koran and nothing else (is that even a
school?) came up in the New York Times.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/nyregion/16koran.html?ex=1313380800&en=37facdab5e7a786d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss)
Atheist Revolution also noticed the general trend in the US of moving
away from thinking at all
(http://atheistrevolution.blogspot.com/2006/08/no-thinking-allowed.html)
though a lot of us from outside the US would say it's a pretty
longstanding trend.
The Institute for Humanist Studies gets a lick in at the US for it's
strength of religion and crime rate, based on the study of a few months
back.
(http://www.humaniststudies.org/enews/index.html?id=219&article=7).
Let's face it, the connection between strong religiosity and social
problems is becoming clearer and clearer. Still, I'm a bit hesitant to
accept the conclusions based on one study. I think it's a fruitful line
of inquiry in any case.
And that's a little link-a-palooza about the intersection of religion
and culture this weekend.

--
Posted by
The Eternal Gaijin (email)
London, UK

Words are incapable of describing what I am about to tell you.