Ms Gillard said it was important for people to understand their Bible stories "not because I'm an advocate of religion - clearly I'm not - but once again, what comes from the Bible has formed such an important part of our culture".
"It's impossible to understand Western literature without having that key of understanding the Bible stories and how Western literature builds on them and reflects them and deconstructs them and brings them back together," she said.I liked this because it is consistent with my claim A secular education is an oxymoron. But then today I read in The Australian "Atheist Julia challenges mad monk Tony to a bible knowledge contest" which reports:
opposition MP Peter Slipper asked Ms Gillard why the proposed new national curriculum for schools made no mention of the Bible.
She strongly backed the draft curriculum, saying it promoted free thought and she wanted Australian children to develop skills in critical analysis so they made up their own minds about issues. "We live in a democracy which values free conscience and free thinking," Ms Gillard said.
"That's the kind of education I want for Australian children, and that's the kind of education the national curriculum is aimed at."
While the draft national curriculum does not mention the Bible, it does set out the teaching of culture as a "complex system of concepts, values, norms, beliefs and practices" and includes the "impact of beliefs and values" on society in human history.
This sounds like political double speak to me. Taking the two statements together it sounds like the Prime Minister supports a curriculum with which, by her own assessment, it will be impossible for Australian students to understand Western literature!
What a load of pretentious rubbish!
ReplyDeleteAs though his gray eminence Kelly knows anything about Real God! There is not even a trace of a religiously informed intelligence in any of his scribblings. As though you would or could find anything to do with Real God or the Radiant Transcendental Being Who IS alive as all beings, in the Murdoch press.
And as though reading the Bible would or could make any real difference to anything in the overall scheme of things.
Biblical language is just a part of the 24/7 torrent of babble/babel that now saturates the public sphere, and cyberspace too. We are all quite literally groaning under the weight of all of this babble/babel. Especially that of the "religious" psychosis promoted by the Murdoch media.
Remember that Rupert is a "knight" of the "catholic" church.
Some/many of the worst vectors of the now universal insanity are right-wing christians who link into Fox "news", and think that psycho-paths like Glenn Beck and Russ Limbaugh at Fox "news" speak the "truth", or provide some kind of "real" alternative to the presumed dominance and political correctness of the liberal media, especially in the USA.
Real politics for Real people in 2011 begins by thoroughly understanding these references.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dabase.org/politics.htm
http://www.coteda.com
http://www.dabase.org/not2.htm
http://www.beezone.com/news.html
http://www.beezone.com/up/criticismcuresheart.html
http://www.dabase.org/2armp1.htm#ch2
Everything else is just an extension of the now universal psychosis.