The footnotes (graphs) offer a bit of context, though, don't they? Sort of makes it a bit less alarmist...

One Muslim country trying to lead the way.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41278610

My belief is that Islam, like Christianity itself already has, will slowly fade away in Western Europe and in other places that encourage education, freedom of expression and democracy.

There are simply too many unexplainable differences between the modern world and the contents of books from previous millenia.

It's amazing, Western liberals are calling people in the EU "racists" if they want to have sensible immigration, but Muslims by law can only marry other Muslims? Meh...

....oh wait, look, one country changed that law, look how "progressive" they are

Sorry marton but that's quite naive. Check out the dominant role of christianity in the US, also Texas and Louisiana and their laws on schooling on creationism, probably other states as well. Guess that qualifies for "other places".

I wrote "other places that encourage education"; I do not regard creationism as evidence of encouraging education. Nor Turkey which has dropped evolution.
Surprising the parallels between these two religions

Edit - why can I not delete the link on parallel? The aliens are amongst us

It may be, hopefully, in the long run, but as for now we assist to a trend that is obviously going to the opposite direction.
And I am not saying that, I just observe and read what other people from the inside of this religion say. But who wants to listen to them.

Christianity might get rather intrusive in some places, but on the whole, it hasn't a big power anymore. It's funny to see that other people think this is like the biggest problem.
You can't even compare the rights that religious minorities have in "Christian"countries with the rights that religious minorities have in the Muslim ones. Don't know why people even argue about these things..

The Local introduced automated Google ads some time ago. Various key words automatically get linked to web pages from whichever advertisers think that it's a good idea to spend money to annoy people with advertising that is often completely unrelated to the discussion underway. Try typing the word Samsung anywhere in this forum.

The only way I know of to stop this is to submit your post, then click "Edit", then submit again (without making any changes). It doesn't always work, though (as it hasn't on the Samsung link here).

Or just write lots of bad stuff about Sam Sung, and they may not want to adverise here any more.

For example. Sam Sung is a fat Ausländer who eats kittens and flushes his loo after 10pm.

Wait a day or two and then google that precise sentence as often as you can.

That's just one subject in Texas' and Louisianna's curriculums (curricula?). Does presenting creationism as a valid theory make the two states "not encouraging education"?

Teaching something that is clearly wrong opposes the whole concept of education which is about acquiring knowledge not about acquiring nonsense.

There is not even any Biblical support for creationism, the Bible says "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" and on the fifth and sixth days created fish, birds, creatures and man!

And the answer to the question is?

"I believe God created me in one day."
"Looks like he rushed it"

Arguably, education should be about teaching you to think rather than stuffing your brain with facts.

I agree so teaching something that is clearly wrong and that is belief based not fact based is teaching one to blindly believe, to encourage students to suspend thinking and consequently is not encouraging education.

42.


As ever.

I could devise a lesson about creationsim that is intended to make pupils think. I could also devise one about evolution that says believe this and shut up.

So speaking the truth is not at all the same as encouraging critical and independent thought.

Agreed?

If I teach both systems (which is actually what is happening in many of the states that do teach creationism) I would say that is a good way of also encouraging pupils to compare, think, and form their own conclusions.

In a system where only one of the two is taught, it takes a good teacher to encourage critical thinking nevertheless.

Probably you could devise a lesson about creationism that is intended to make pupils think but what has that to do with what is ocurring in the real world

"If I teach both systems (which is actually what is happening in many of the states....." Do you have a source for this?

Apparently Texas retracted on teaching both side by side. Others however do, see this map from 2014 for example.

Are those two approaches mutually exclusive?