A day or two ago, when I was chastised for incorrectly representing the views of the author of a weblog one of the comments read:
Reading his [Dawkins] comments about creationism is a delight, especially because in Europe we (thankfully) don’t have the problem of ‘Intelligent’ Design.
Sadly, as mentioned in my previous blog entry, yesterdays The Times newspaper has shown this is no longer the case. Creationism is making its mark felt in the UK, so it is more than probable that the rest of Europe will follow one day. Should Atheists remain divergent, meek and polite solely to maintain the moral highground? (Yes, the irony of this is not lost on me!) Or should more people like Dawkins stand up and resist the tide?
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I hope I didn’t come off as being too moralistic and chastisising (is that a real word?)!
In Spain there is a real problem with the separation of Church and State. Having emerged from 75 years of a fascist dicatorship certainly leaves its mark, but 28 years of democracy really have done a lot to cleanse the old fascist elite.
They’re not gone, though. And there still is a sponsorship mechanism for the state to donate public funds to catholic education institutions. Of late, thankfully, this has modernised, and now the taxpayer is given the choice whether they want a small percentage of their taxes to go to the catholic church or to NPOs of some sort.
I do not have much experience with the curriculum these catholic institutions follow. However, the most pressing issue is one of history. During the fascist regime, Isabel I of Spain, who expelled the Jews in her time (with the result that the economy collapsed like a broken souffle), was taught to be a ‘good mother and a fine spaniard’. During today’s catholic sponsored curricula, the Inquisition is taught as being two: The ‘State’ Inquisition, which was the bad one, and the ‘Church’ Inquisition, which was not so bad. The striking hypocrisy is that until 1978, in Spain, Church and State were one. Also, it’s lost on me how an Inquisition of any kind could be not so bad.
More recently, the Socialist government, in a rare display of good judgement (spanish politics are cursed with a bipartisan system of centre right, who are religious and moralistic, and centre left, who are incapable of doing their job well), tried to make the subject Religion optional for students in schools, as opposed to being and obligatory requirement for passing the Selectividad (the spanish equivalent to the A-Levels). Which was naturally met with considerable opposition from the centre right and the Episcopal Conference (a religious lobby group).
I have never heard of ID in Spain, thankfully. I wonder what is taught in science lessons in church sponsored schools, but truth be told, the biggest issues in Spain in terms of religion have classically been education, separation of Church and State and the intricacies of historical detail. This is, perhaps, the greater of two evils, when compared to ID.
That’s wassup in Spain.
Thanks for getting back on this. It is good to see that (so far) Spain has escaped the insanity that is ID and it is a shame you have your own problems.
I don’t know, but I suspect that Catholic dominance in Spain helps prevent the ID spread (as the RC church currently don’t want anything to do with it). ID is a form of madness concocted by American evangelicals to try and prevent scientific education.