Do you plan to home-school your kids?

Thank you to those of you who were getting what I was trying to say.

While some parents may make the decision to shelther their children from other religions and cultures, I think it is a mark of good parenting to have faith enough in your own ability to instill the difference between right and wrong to allow your child to open thier minds to the world around them.

I myself was Adolf Hitler in my eighth grade book fair. I dressed like him for a week, read books about him, watched all the film of his speeches, with english subtitles. My parents allowed and even encouraged me to do so because it instilled in me a true horror of what he did and what he taught and what he stood for. They knew that learning about the Nazi regime would not turn me into a Nazi. Rather, it educated me about the importance of acceptance and tolerance.

But hey. That's just me.

But whatever a parent chooses, I don't think any person has any right to get on the air and say ignorant things like "all muslims are murderers". Because then parents who may have allowed their children to see those other religions before start believing that OHMYGOD, ALL MUSLIMS ARE MURDERERS, MUST SHELTER CHILDREN... and then the vicious cycle continues, because the kids hear from their parents about the evil muslims who want to destroy us all (even me)...

Dear Arya,
you've treaded into dangerous waters. While the dutch reform church is a small minority the extremists in Islam are not.

Why don't you inform the users of Greekchat what your prime minister said a short while ago that caused anger and pain across the world and was condemned across the spectrum except by most Muslim and Arab countries. Is he a better example than Farrakhan?

Hmmm Wahabism is supported by whom Arya? Saudi Arabia you say. Who is the number one donor to Islamic researchers and schools across the world? Saudi Arabia you say.

Get real. The culture is tainted. The great "liberal" thinkers of Islam have died off and the rest are ostracized.

-Rudey

PRESIDENT MEGAWATI SUKARNOPUTRI? Well, first it's a her, and she's a president. And her party, PDI-P is a nationalist-secular party which garner 30% of the vote. And no, I don't think the MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER is any better. He is a racist. His policies on Chinese-Malaysian is pathetic. And his constant jabbed of Australia isn't helping the integration of the Eastern Asia economic realm. Megawati herself is a secular nationalist. Her father, Sukarno, was also a secular left winger. Her mother, a hindu.

I disagree with you. What about Abdurahman Wahid? Or Amien Rais. They are all great MUslim thinker who refused to accept Sharia in Indonesia. And you know what, their organizaton, NU and Muhammadiyah has over 100 million supporter and both organizatoin has repeated said no to forming an Islamic state in Indonesia. They have said, we don't need to politized Islam. A famous saying by one of the past member of NU, "Islam - Yes, Political Islam - No."

No. But I will be involved enough with their education, as my parents were mine, to know what's going on in the school. The parent should be the primary educator of the child, especially concerning social/moral issues, not the public school. Minimal exposure to objectionable ideologies can be counteracted at home, and, when handled properly, can be a positive experience. However, if a teacher were presenting the Third Reich in a positive manner, as an example, I would take my child out of that class. If a parent does not want a child exposed to Islam, they should have the right to opt the child out of that class. Are you going to give the school an open ended license regarding your child’s education?

Well, I don't want to have kids, so that's not a question I can answer.

I just wonder where the line is drawn between exposing kids to new ideas in public schools and, as you would say, protecting them from objectionable ideas. I think it's an interesting area, but not one that will ever affect me directly.

Yeah you got me on that first one :) I wasn't thinking quickly enough - but yes the Malaysian Prime Minister. My point still stands on him. He has a much larger following than Farrakan correct? Yes. Is he thus a very good symbol of Muslim leadership these days? Gone are the days when Syria and Iraq would massacre the religious by the tens of thousands. Now the leaders have decided to turn religion into their tools. Why didn't most other Muslim and Arab countries apologize for his remarks Arya??

And those leaders are still not in charge Arya. They are not the ones on tv. They are not the ones making the speeches. And if you'd like I can dig into a couple articles (later - not now because the port financing i'm working on is much more important) on Arab scholars being shut out even in the US because they didn't agree with wahabism and rejected Saudi money to buy them off like most other madrasas and "scholars".

-Rudey

I believe that every parent should have the right to define that line for their own children. Especially, when the child is young. Perhaps schools should spend more time on the basics and less time on social issues. It's hard to argue about math... wait, they’ll trash good literature. Oh well, each parent should have the right to draw the line for their own kids.

Amien Rais is the spokeperson of the MPR (the highest legislative branch). He is considered a very powerful politicians. He was also the unofficial leader of the student movement during the fall of Suharto. The Arab World doesn't represent the total picture of Islam. Unfortunately they seem to be the loudest. Abdurahman Wahid is the former President of Indonesia. When he speaks, people listen. Interestingly, he is blind and crippled, yet he was ellected to be the PResident by the MPR. (I can tell you how the electoral system used to work, but it'll take me way too long) I agree with you that Saudi money is poison. Many madrasas in Indonesia that are inline with Indonesian version of Islam have complained that they can't compete with the money. However, Saudi version of Islam isn't making any ground. Sure you got JI and extremist such as FPI, etc. FPI, as later known, is nothing more then a thug group that beat up bars so they can steal money. As for JI, they are dangerous and they are being track down by the Indonesian inteligence agencies. So you can see, the Muslim world is bigger then the Arabic world. i personally hope the House of Saud get overthrown.

The Muslim world is larger than the Arab world but how many Arab countries are there? Quite a few.

You're right. I'd even be willing to vote for frigging Dean if he'd get rid of the Saudis.

-Rudey

Quite a few Arab countries, but how many Muslim are there in East Asia? I would venture a lot more that the Arab world. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world. Yet, the two biggest party is a secular party, with the two biggest Muslim party as a Party that has rejected the call for Shariah law.

ETA: In honor of Kitso -

323 times I always hope that House of Saud gets overthrown.

slight hijack--

that's not really fair to say. although i have no idea what happened between laura and her mother, you can still be a decent, rational person and have nothing to do with your parent. i know that when my "dad" dies, i will not go to his funeral. i will not cry, i won't be sad. i'll honestly be relieved. if he dies alone, so be it. ---i consider myself to be a nice, well rounded person...my father was abusive...i "estranged" myself from him 2 years ago and will never look back.

so, although i know nothing about her, just know that that statement isn't really fair.

/end hijack

Close-minded DOES equally uneducated. You don't have accept other beliefs as your own, but if you refuse to learn about them entirely then you have no idea what's going on. There's a huge difference between promoting the ideologies of the KKK and just letting your child know that they are out there, that some people believe them, and here's why they think they are justified -- in addition to letting them know that there are plenty of people who think quite a bit differently, and you are one of them.

In fact, exposing your child to different viewpoints can actually help you to strengthen your belief in your own. When my parents were teaching me, they said things like, "We think that women should have equal rights to men, and here's why, etc.. There are other people who think that they shouldn't, and this is why they think that. We disagree with that because blah blah . . . but you can decide what you think on your own." They bought me magazines with a feminist bent and more traditional ones, supported me when I wanted to be a housewife or a teacher or an astronaut. By exposing me to different theories, I wasn't surprised when confronted with the fact that, hey, some people don't like independent women. If my parents hadn't taught me that, I would have been much more surprised by an alternative viewpoint and more likely to accept their theories since I hadn't previously heard my parents debunk them. By the time I was ready to think critically I had enough exposure to the issues that I was ready to decide what I liked and didn't like about feminism and anti-feminism on my own.

You can decide what you want your children to be exposed to for a while, but you can't protect them from the real world forever. So it's best that you expose them to alternate ideas while you're still around to influence. Otherwise someday they'll just get smacked in the face with reality and probably not be able to handle it.

The thing I think that's so funny about this whole thing is that the woman who called Dr. Laura clearly has a lack of faith in the superiority of her own beliefs if she's so scared that one trip to a mosque is going to be enough to derail all the ideas that this girl has grown up with and been taught to embrace. I mean honestly, what are they going to do to her on one half-day trip to a mosque? Corrupt her? Convert her? Murder her? If she thinks that one day at mosque is enough to derail everything that she's grown up with, she obviously needs to be focusing on what's wrong with her own belief system that makes her think it's going to be so easily corrupted.

There are way too many people who are unnecessarily afraid of things that they wouldn't be if they would just open their eyes to them instead of "protecting" themselves from them.

Take some heroine and enjoy that shot of liquid love. Don't want to? Why not? Have you done it yet?

Exposure in the name of tolerance is aiming for empathy which cannot be achieved. I am not homeless so if I sleep on the street for a night that doesn't make me understand what it feels like to have no hope and no way out.

-Rudey
--Something like that.

Dr. Laura is a hypocrite that makes me wanna puke!
 

I agree! Gimme Tom Leykis ANYDAY! (I love his show!)
Dr. Laura needs to take her close minded, bigoted, hypocritical, self righteous views and shove them!

And YES, I have listened to her...oy vey! :rolleyes: