For the last 40 years I have been watching as certain types of Christians in Australia have been scheming to get religion, or more religion, taught in schools. It shouldn't be there and most parents don't want it for their kids. There is the strong risk of indoctrination.

Philosophy (how to think) would cover logic, ethics, and belief systems in a proper educational way. Religious people will continue to try and get at our kids minds before they can think rationally for themselves and should be resisted strongly.

[Deleted for toilet language.]

runner, Origin of Species is more a historic text now we have moved beyond the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, developed in the 1940s from information put together from Augustinian monk Gregor Mendel's seminal work on genetics, work defining chromosomes, and Darwins ideas.

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_evolutionary_synthesis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_evolutionary_synthesis

Reflection on Mendel's work further facilitated development of a *gene-centric view of evolution* in the 1960s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene-centric_view_of_evolution

The next development flowing out of Eden was determination of "God's utility function"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God's_utility_function

@Jon J, “I'm saying that anyone who wants to burn a book they own should be allowed to do so without running the risk of threats, injury or murder. Or do you disagree?”

As an individual in private, then yes. I agree. As an individual in public, no, for it now becomes a political act of provocation.

“Yes. So is protesting because someone else has burnt a book.”

Well…if it’s a protest only, with no other demonstrative acts, then actually, that’s fine, for it remains nothing more than the expression of a group that agrees upon an issue. It’s a verbal response to someone doing a demonstrative act. Let’s face it, someone burning a book publicly is looking for a public response…otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it publicly.

“So is mutilating the genitalia of baby boys and young women…”

Totally irrelevant to the issue at hand, and is nothing more than citing your own prejudices. It is not the practice of all Muslims, and is more a cultural tradition than a religious one. It’s not something that I agree with, but it’s got nothing to do with the burning of books.

“And if it can remove the protective mystique around religion, then it may even curtail some of these vile and destructive activities. Save your outrage for them.”

I appreciate the political manipulation of religion, but you must also appreciate that if it wasn’t religion that was used to manipulate people, it would be something else….like the economy. It’s only a tool, not the cause. If there was never such a thing as religion, there still would have been the wars and atrocities…they would have just been fought under different causes. The elimination of religion does not mean the elimination of manipulation, disinformation or propaganda.

Leigh,

Your posts exude so much ignorance about Muslims that they are a perfect example of why comparative religion should be included in the school curriculum. You are proving the author's point, that is we need our children to understand and appreciate different religions and cultures and traditions so that they aren't completely ignorant about other groups in their community; so we don't have idiots casting stupidly wild accusations against a whole group of people based on ignorance and fear.

Basically, by eliminating ignorance in coming generations, we won't have completely misinformed people like yourself in society stirring up trouble.

Please, don't talk about Muslims like you know anything about them, because everything in your posts illustrates that clearly you have no idea whatsoever. There is a big difference between terrorists and violent religious extremists (who could have also done with some comparative religion studies, like yourself) when compared to most Muslims

Jon J,

If the government were to start burning Bibles, Korans and Talmuds, we'd have to deal with Christians, Muslims AND Jewish extremists wanting to blow people and buildings up! In fact, the Muslim terrorists would probably be the least of our problems.

It's not the books that are the problem, there is more to be gained from them than most theists AND non-theists appreciate (although we could probably stand to remove a few select chapters).