Dutch Muslim youths rioted and burned cars, apparently in protest over the killing of someone who attacked police officers with a knife, and perceptions that they're seen as violent. As the British foreign service used to say about many cultures, their primary problem was that they lacked a sense of irony.

They're not violent. Violence is when you hurt people. The youths are burning cars, cars pollute the environment, pollution hurts people, thus the youths are doing good things. See, you just have to take time to understand them.

Maybe the Dutch could get a Texas Ranger over there to calm things down.

Rx: Whiff of grapeshot.

Just one more indication of why religion should be entirely removed from the educational process.

Religion is based on faith and has no need of truth or fact.

People who cannot or will not think are often confused by truth and facts. They have no intellectual framework in which to use either.
They are also easily led and can be told what "Truth" and "Fact" are. Faith and religion are irrational, we should not expect rational behaviour from the adherents of religions and we should deal with their violence accordingly.

Yes Andy we all remember the days of roving bands of violent youth in the US back in when American schools started the day with prayer.

You claim to be someone who lives by facts and logic, yet you make the leap it takes to equate violent Muslims to all religions being the same.

You are as much a fanatic in your anti religion stance as those Muslim hoodlums are fanatics of Islam.

To add to what Cecil said, Andy, please examine the history of mankind - thoughout history, most power has been weilded by people that are in Religious / Quasi-religious (masons, skulls, etc.) groups. This is not a coincidence - such groups have extreme advantages, even if everyone involved (such as the masons) do not really share the same beleifs.

Religions (and other associations) are incredibly powerful and helpful to humanity. Like any power, it can be used for good or evil, but in my opinion most of the effects have been good.

If you don't believe in God, why do you think religions exist? Survival of the fittest, right? So religion must give benefit to its members, right?

So either God exists, and you should be religious, or evolution exists, and you should be religious... though I understand this is unpopular with less social engineering types.

Comments for Trotter and Summers.

1. Mr. Trotter, you obviously do NOT understand what you read. I made NO claim in my previous post and said nothing that allows you to infer that I am fanatically anti-religion.

I just don't want education tainted with any kind of bias. Religion in any form is a bias.

Perhaps the "leap" to which you refer is in your own mind, I certainly did not make one..

2. Mr. Summers, you at least make one valid point and you separate your opinion from the rest of your argument. Any large group will be powerful.

As they say in the circles I have inhabited for the last forty years; "one must never underestimate the effect of stupid people in large numbers". This saying may be paraphrased for religions; for "stupid" read "religious", the effect is the same.

As for the net result of religion being good. I am at best sceptical, I have seen too much blood spilt in the name of religion and it does not matter where, whose or why. It has been this way with religions down the ages. Sacrifices and purges are quite common in the history of most large organizations - religious or not.

Whether or not I believe in God is irrelevant to the central tenet of my argument - that religion has no place in schools. If you wish to practice a religion you are free to do so and to so educate your children. I don't necessarily want mine to have the same biases applied to their thought processes. What I want is for every child to be allowed to develop their critical thinking skills in an environment that is as free as possible from irrational bias.

The place for God and religious education is in church or Sunday School. In secular life we can seek to behave ethically and morally or not. Society has a way of judging those who do niether.

To your last point: I am not a social engineer, I am a real engineer.

So gentlemen, lets have some clear, unmuddied thinking. Read what I wrote for what it is not for what you want it to be.