Is Sweden an evil nation?

You realize that Sweden is the only country to use the "Blonde Bombshell" as a weapon. Ever since they first detonated their first Thermonuclear Blonde, the explosive effects spread globaly. Millions of women worldwide had the color blown out of their hair and became blondes. To this day you can see the aftereffects everywhere!!!

The only reason that they never achieved their plan for the domination of the planet was the Swedish Navy had a severe shortage of long boats to carry the Blonde's to invade distant shores!

Wake up world, The Blonde's are coming!!!!!!!


73 de Pat KK6PD

 

The subject of Sweden's efforts is clearly Islamist schools that teach children how to hate everyone who does not believe in Islam. That includes liberal Christians, fundamentalist Christians, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Shintoists, animists, and last, and probably most, atheists. And of course if you're Shiite, the Sunnis, and if you're Sunni the Shiite. "Death to the infidels" as a rallying cry is not something a free society can tolerate in my opinion. The religious must tolerate and accept the rights of believers in other traditions and religions, as well as the non-believers. And the non-believer must tolerate and accept the rights of believers.

If the anti-religious can take away the rights of the religious, then the religious can take away the rights of the anti-religious.

 

The Swedish action reminds me of my father's religion. His parents emigrated from Sweden somewhere around 1890, and I remember hints that they were Lutheran. My father's attitude toward religion was basically "don't bother me with that stuff". He would not use the term "atheist", as that is a term used by the religious to classify the non-believers.

As for the teaching of religion, I think it is at least as important as the teaching of war. History is generally a list of which group won which war in which year. Ignoring religion is a major oversight of the human condition. Religions have been used forever to explain what science addresses now. But science, in its attempt at purity, ignores ethics. Children who are not taught an ethical framework are vulnerable to the first religious evangelist who talks ethics.

My preference is that schools teach a variety of religions, just like they teach history or English literature. To be truly educational these classes should cover multiple religions. I have no objection to religious figures making presentations to the classes, so long as there are similar presentations by people with contrasting views.

The teaching of science is hardly a purely fact based exercise. The classic contest is Darwin versus Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design seems to think that it is all that is left after problems with Darwin are identified. Darwin's theories are now 170 years old, and we might hope that they've been refined somewhat.

Back in the 5th grade, I remember noticing that South America looked like it fit into Africa. My teacher told me in no uncertain terms that science said that that was ridiculous. Continents don't move. I thought she was stupid to not see the relationship, and now I know it. The proper answer should have been that yes, they do seem to fit, but we don't know how it happened. It's amazing how much that we don't know is presented as scientific fact.

Medical science is devoted to the idea that a double blind crossover test is the ultimate in scientific proof. Anything less is just anecdotal observation, and wrong if it conflicts with a double blind crossover test. By this standard, physics and chemistry are pseudoscience. The atomic bomb was never subjected to a double blind test. So it's obviously just an unproven theory. Or maybe medical proofs are just political bureaucracy...

Nailing down "facts" has a long way to go.

 

Actually, the schools that Sweden is addressing (about 80 of them) are private, religiously-financed schools (and specifically Islamist radical fundamentalist school). It has nothing to do with taxpayer dollars or kroner.

I do wonder how Swedish teachers are going to teach about Sweden's involvement in the Thirty Years War without mentioning religion though.

My point, however, was a question of civil rights. Anyone trying to take away the rights of others has to understand they are going to lose some rights too. That goes for those who hate religion as well as those who hate atheists.

I think Sweden's proposed law (and I understand their system well enough to know that it will become law) goes too far, as far as what private schools do. Making it obvious where the money comes from is fine. Giving the government the right to ensure that children in those religious, private schools aren't being taught how to become terrorists is one thing. Crossing into what they have to teach about the origin of life is another thing.

 

Religion is part of history and should be taught as such. This is different from religious nonsense.

I couldn't disagree more with your second point. Ethics do not come from religion. You can teach ethics without having to invoke a supernatural being. In practice ethics in religion was co-opted from regular ethics and just backed it up with the pretense of a supernatural being.

And as long as is not taught as history and not valid descriptions of reality.

This last anti-science relativistic point makes me cringe. I know you mean well but you are misinformed. Evolution has been proven, refined and expanded greatly since Darwin with the advent of molecular biology.

Your teacher was wrong because by that time continental drift was a fact. Even if it wasn't note how you can evolve your thought and arrive at the truth. This doesn't happen in religion. You would have had no recourse after your teacher told you that because it was God who told him so.

In your point about medical science you would have to understand the difference between an empirical observation and an statistical one. Physics and chemistry are empirical sciences based in observations. Testing new drugs is a statistical exercise because of biological variation.

 

It's sad that you, like so many others, insist on misrepresenting what science is, what science does, and what science says. You do a great disservice in this, and you serve the religious nut-jobs who want us to believe that science really knows nothing at all and that science is really just a collection of "theories," which are likely to be turned upside down at any moment, and are therefore less reliable than religion.

First, let me point out that the Swedish law does not prohibit teaching comparative religions. Teaching kids about the beliefs of different cultures, and how those beliefs differ or are similar does not violate the new Swedish law. Only teaching belief as if it was fact is prohibited.

Further, ethics can be taught without reference to religion. I belong to a church which does not have a religion. (Unitarian Universalism.) In my church, people can believe whatever they like, or nothing at all. Adults and children are taught that they must think for themselves and make up their own mind if they wish to believe untestable propositions or supernatural underpinnings of the world. But there is a very strong emphasis on ethics, and the predecessors of UUism (Unitarians and Universalists) were fighting against slavery, and later on fighting for civil rights, when most religions in this country were denying the basic humanity and the equality of people of color. Not only is religion unnecessary in the teaching of ethics, but most religions actively oppose an ethical world view. Today, when most religions are demanding that gays be denied basic civil rights, my church is in the forefront of the ethical demand that all people be treated with dignity and granted equal rights.

Now let's get back to science:

Evolution, which is a demonstrable fact, is not Darwin's theory. Natural selection of inherited traits is Darwin's theory, including gradualism. Our understanding of natural selection has indeed progressed since Darwin's time. For one thing, punctuated equilibrium is replacing gradualism. For another thing, we have come to understand genes and chromosomes, which are the carriers of inheritance. Darwin did not know of the work of Mendel, and Mendel didn't know about genes (he referred to hypothetical "particles of inheritance.") Our understanding continues to grow.

Continental drift was postulated long ago, but was not accepted in the scientific community until a plausible mechanism for it was developed. Your teacher, sadly, didn't understand what science is. Scientists work with evidence: They seek out evidence and they interpret it. They are always on the alert for contrary evidence, and unlike religion, they adapt their views to new evidence. Religious nut-jobs like to misrepresent science as continually tossing out "theories" in favor of completely contradictory ones, and while some new ideas are revolutionary, overall scientific understanding brings us gradually and always closer to an understanding of how our world functions. I remind you that the computer you are reading this on would not function if science had not correctly understood how electrons behave in semiconductors.

Double-blind studies are a useful tool to eliminate observer bias. They are not the definition of "fact," as you suggest. Your examples in this matter are not only misguided, but they make you look silly and strip your arguments of any credibility they might otherwise have had.

Scientists do not understand everything, and they know this, which is why they continue studying. But religions understand nothing, and refuse to accept the evidence that is all around them. And for all their talk about "ethics," religions place their whole weight behind hatred and intolerance of differing religions, and give their blessing to war. Science is supposed to teach us how the world works, and it in fact brings us closer and closer to such an understanding. Religion is supposed to teach us how to live in peace with each other (that's what ethics is, after all) and it has been a disastrous failure for all the millenia of its existance.

 

Pretty much like saying, "Jesus says in the Son 'O God comic book ...". The *fact* that a thing appears in a book does not make the thing itself a fact.

 

It's going to be a bit frustrating when I say I agree with the essence your point. But the whole reason for Church Schools is based on everything that applies to life can not be a proven fact. Heck, we can not allow political parties if we apply your point outside of theology.

 

RELIGIOUS RETORT: "Ah .... we didn't come from no ape!" That is their argument. And really .... who can argue with that logic?

.. Brad

 

I really don't think there's an argument here: I think you've agreed that values need to be taught as values, and beliefs need to be presented as beliefs. Sweden has not said that only facts can be taught. It has said that beliefs cannot be presented as facts. When beliefs are presented, they must be presented as beliefs, not as facts.

We are all agreed that values need to be taught to kids, and you have agreed that values can be taught without presenting religious beliefs as though they were facts.

Under the Swedish law, you can say, "You should treat others as you would wish to be treated," because this is a value, not a "fact," and you are presenting it as a value, not as a fact. You may furthermore say, "We Christians take this value from Jesus, who we believe to be the son of god," because in so stating it, you are presenting a belief as a belief. The only thing you cannot say is something like, "You must treat others as you would wish to be treated because otherwise you will go to hell," because this is presenting a belief as if it were a fact.

We're saying the same thing, merely with a slightly different emphasis, though you seem to be uneasy about government deciding the rules. But government decides the rules in many aspects of society, so this one is not that much different. Sweden is limiting the freedom of speech of the priests and mullahs in order to protect children from fraudulent brainwashing. I personally think that's a good thing.

 

If all of life and all schools were that clean, then no problem occurs. It does get more difficult when teaching kids starting at 5 years old. There will always be teachers that cross the lines laid down above. Often it is the school staff (including the minister) getting some teachers back to schooling and out of theology. A good real life example will help at a church school I am familiar with. Fifth graders are not taught the details of Darwin's theories (public or church schools). What they are taught about is about dinosaurs and of animals long gone like mastodons. One of the teachers decided that skipping dinosaur chapters of the biology book was her religious choice. She found out that it was not. Her teaching may have been lackluster, but it was the church leadership that enforced the standard of keeping school lessons and personal beliefs seperated and sticking to the lessons. My kids got a very good education at that school, better than the assigned public school. State fact/fraud monitoring would not have helped, it would only have hurt.

The goal is unquestionable the same. It's the Swedish method just seems clumsy and open to abuse. Let me give an alternative that I would have found more reasonable. Let's say Sweden is placing education standards on church schools requiring proficiency in math, biology, Swedish history, reading and writing (in Swedish), etc. These education standards must be met for a church school to be allowed to operate. If the standards are executed correctly, a school operating as a brainwashing center will fail badly. It's really hard, if not impossible to teach students many subjects covering many areas and still be a brainwashing center for Islamic extremist.

 

Thank you. I hear what you are saying, and I think you've heard what I have said. And with that, I am comfortable stepping out of this thread.

 

OMG.

They gave us ABBA. Hanna Andersson (adorable kids' clothes - http://www.hannaandersson.com/), Swedish meatballs, lingonberries, and best of all...

IKEA.

Love Ikea. Love Sweden.

www.ikea.com

IKEA | IKEA Stores | IKEA Furniture | IKEA Information | IKEA Instructions

 

Yes, Sweden is evil. Stockholm syndrome? It is called that for a reason. These guys are smart cruel, vile and evil.

So cruel, in fact, I didn't write smart and somehow it inserted itself in my sentence. **** Sweden.

 

Holy thread bump Batman .


Worldwide evil reactionary fundamentalism is taking over, each nation needs to find its way to root it out and prevent .

instead of embrace and promote as we’ve been doing (and thus far it hasn’t seemed to have worked out well)

 

i thought rancho girl had ended this thread on a good note...

 

Yeah, well it's still 2020 . . . .

 

Never been to Sweeden, or dug up a thread that's older than most Priuses.....so I won't judge.....