Secular Indonesian groups warn govt to save democracy

He said that I should not talk about Trump on this thread, as he thinks I lack the knowledge about the guy. He was trying to prove his superior handle on Trump by pointing out that Donald is the most peaceful U.S. president in a while. I’m simply returning the favor.

I said we could speak on Trump on Trump's thread-"The Trump Effect", that exists on the forum, not this one, as we would go out of the subject that is "Secular Indonesian groups warn govt to save democracy" and end up on Hunter Biden's laptops. If you can comment Indonesia from the US we also can comment from Indonesia in the opposite way. But again, this thread has no connection with the incumbent US president.
 
I looked for the thread Trump Effect but couldnt find it. Is it in the cage? Personally im shocked by the mud slinging from both sides in this election and I see America as the clear loser in all of this, but it is defintely worse from Trumps camp. I just read a summary of the latest debate and it said clearly:

"In closing statements, Trump attacks Biden while Biden offers a vision for the country."

Whether Trumps policies are right or wrong doesnt matter anymore. His leadership style is polarizing and is creating divides that could take decades to repair.
 
It is in The Cage and I believe Nimbus is the one who started it some time after the 2016 election.

Mudslinging is nothing new with US politics. It is an attempt to get people to overlook one's own faults and pass the blame. With a two party system, I understand there are going to be disagreements, but always trying to blame each other for the problems is not the answer. Especially when some of them have been in Congress for 25+ years. Maybe they should look in the mirror.
 
I said we could speak on Trump on Trump's thread-"The Trump Effect", that exists on the forum, not this one, as we would go out of the subject that is "Secular Indonesian groups warn govt to save democracy" and end up on Hunter Biden's laptops. If you can comment Indonesia from the US we also can comment from Indonesia in the opposite way. But again, this thread has no connection with the incumbent US president.

I suggest you leave the topic moderating to the moderators.
 
I suggest you both get back to your corners and follow my commands at all times[/MMA ref].
 
And now its time!…….5 rounds of title fight,
introducing fighting out of the blue corner, wearing a sarung and sendal jepit and undefeated
the challenger ……….
and fighting out of the red corner, reigning and defending,
the champion from the kornfield kounty……..


(Bruce Buffer ring announcer)
 
I also tend to question the usefulness of media with the bias baked right in. You tend to get situations like we have in current politics, where the only consistent thing is the pursuit of the speakers' self interests. "Why should we include a story about a study that shows an inverse correlation between the poverty level and availability of birth control?"

I'm not saying that biased sources never present reasonable arguments... But if one has a fixed stance on a given issue (pretty much the whole kit and caboodle of a religion), a fair presentation of arguments against one's own stance may not be welcome. You'd need a second media source to check the spin, if you wanted to see the whole picture. Perhaps I am a bit lazy, intellectually, but that seems like a lot of unnecessary work.

Problem is, I reckon most of my fellow humans are equally lazy, so we end up with a bunch of people who choose to consume carefully crafted claptrap and are chronically under/mis-informed.

Now, this does not pertain to the previously posted publication, which I have not perused; but it is ever so tiresome to attend to the tirades of citizens stridently citing made-up statistics, greedily gobbled from the egurgitate of their favorite famous fool-maker. It is downright heartbreaking to listen to an intelligent person spout nonsense because someone misled them and they refuse to question their single (clearly biased) source of information. Being "entitled to one's own FACTS" is the worst thing that is wrong with politics in America.
 
I think data validation and verification should be taught in school.

The real danger today is the effort by extremists to convince people that facts are unknowable and everything is relative. When people believe they’re incapable of discerning fact from fiction, they’ll surrender to the authority figure that gives them the most comfort. In many cases this means clergy or favorite politician, because unlike scientists they always have a firm answer on everything.

I don’t believe any single source 100%, not even NPR, PBS, and the BBC. Everybody has a certain bias, because they are still human after all. If a particular news piece sounds a bit off or too good to be true, I usually take the extra effort of finding another source for the same story. There are few things a news medium like more than proving its competitors wrong.

We live in the age of widespread video. If somebody says ‘blue’ on video, no amount of spin by a newspaper can make it ‘red’, because anybody not deaf and blind can verify it for himself.
 
@Nimbus
I do not remember when the last time Evangelical rednecks burned/demolished sacral buildings of other faiths on a systemic scale, throwing faeces on people congregating, demolishing synagogues and suppressing religious liberties. It is a false equivalency and relativisation. The last witch burned by the Church was in 1722. The last witch in the world was executed in 2020, but luckily not in Indonesia.

I'm a Muslim in the United States. I have witnessed first hand a number of tools deployed to halt the construction of new masajid, special restrictions placed on Muslim congregants but not congregants of other faiths, and acts of vandalism design to intimidate the local Muslim population. Most of this kind of suppression is done through legal channels of traffic studies, zoning laws, and frivolous lawsuits. That it largely takes on the form of supposed legitimacy does not remove the stink of suppression.

Left to their own devices without the guidance of a secular tradition, Christians and Jews in the United States and elsewhere in the "Western" world would be up to their old tricks. We, as a civilization, got better in spite of our dominant religious traditions, not because of them.

I do not need a Catholic magazine to point me on a fact that I can see every day in Indonesian MSM, even anecdotally in my neighbourhood. I suppose you are not for a long time in Indonesia, but the country is exposed to 20-year Salafist indoctrination paid by Saudi Arabia and that is taking a toll. It will need decades and generations to back the country in normal, if ever. I interpret the latest Government suppression of civil liberties as the last weapon to keep the country under control, while citizens will pay the price.

This is my favorite conspiracy theory, the Protocols of the Elders of Saudi Arabia. The notion that a majority of masajid in countries like Indonesia or the United States are funded by the zealous, endless largesse of Saudi Arabia doesn't come from any reliable source. Trying to find the source of where this lie comes from typically brings to figures like Bat Ye'or, David Gaubatz, Robert Spencer et al. If you'd like to believe them unquestioningly, that's your prerogative. It's a world where the occult influence of the Muslim Brotherhood permeates all aspects of Muslim life and where a secret collusion between Western powers and shadowy Muslim forces exists to "Arabize" Europe.

The reality is that Muslims across the world have been undergoing a wave of religious revival and fundamentalism. These events are cyclical in nature, and somewhere in a few decades we'll see a reversal of course. The problem with the annoyingly pious is that they don't like to eat their own dog food. Saudi Arabia, while a deeply conservative country and blessed with tremendous resources, does not at all have the resources to single handedly fund global dawah and every waqf on the planet or even most or even half or even 25% of them.

What is most influential to the Islamic psyche is the notion that our collective civilization has been in decline and, for many millions of Muslim, Islam is the answer. A large number of them lived either under the thumb or sphere of influence of the USSR or under despots. For those people, a more fundamentalist approach to Islam is a kind of revolt against a previous regime.

To be clear on the nature of religion in Indonesia, we're dealing with a country that is NOT secular. Not even close. Indonesia has multiple state-sanctioned religious confessions, but that is not the same thing as secularism. Worrying about "Islamization" is a distraction from Indonesia's real problem which is that it attempts to marry its religions and government in an effort to police morality.
 
I think data validation and verification should be taught in school.

So should critical thinking. If you met my students, you would probably think they are fairly smart, but if you ask them something simple like why do you like The Avengers, they can't give a much of a detailed response other than they like it and it is good.

If more people used critical thinking, I think most people would be able to see each other's point of view. There would still be bias, but maybe(this might just be me dreaming), there would be less screaming, shouting, and pointing fingers.
 
The desire for critical thinking is admirable but trying to bring it about is like pushing a barrel uphill. There are few things more satisfying than having one's prejudices confirmed. It is comforting to just rely on information sources that provide such pleasure. Ask Rupert Murdoch. Confirming right wing views has made him very rich.
 
So should critical thinking. If you met my students, you would probably think they are fairly smart, but if you ask them something simple like why do you like The Avengers, they can't give a much of a detailed response other than they like it and it is good.

If more people used critical thinking, I think most people would be able to see each other's point of view. There would still be bias, but maybe(this might just be me dreaming), there would be less screaming, shouting, and pointing fingers.
I think the IB program has a class called “Theory of Knowledge”, which is basically critical thinking.
 
I'm a Muslim in the United States. I have witnessed first hand a number of tools deployed to halt the construction of new masajid, special restrictions placed on Muslim congregants but not congregants of other faiths, and acts of vandalism design to intimidate the local Muslim population. Most of this kind of suppression is done through legal channels of traffic studies, zoning laws, and frivolous lawsuits. That it largely takes on the form of supposed legitimacy does not remove the stink of suppression.

Left to their own devices without the guidance of a secular tradition, Christians and Jews in the United States and elsewhere in the "Western" world would be up to their old tricks. We, as a civilization, got better in spite of our dominant religious traditions, not because of them.
You have refreshed my memory. About a couple of decades ago the local Muslim community in my Alabama town was outgrowing their little apartment used for Friday prayer. There was a vacant church building sharing the same parking lot with the county courthouse, so the community started the process of acquiring it for a masjid. It went as well as expected for a small town Alabama. The official reason for the building permit refusal was insufficient parking space. In the same block there was another church and its day school, while across the street was a sinagogue. Somehow parking wasn’t an issue for them, even though neither had a dedicated parking lot.


This is my favorite conspiracy theory, the Protocols of the Elders of Saudi Arabia. The notion that a majority of masajid in countries like Indonesia or the United States are funded by the zealous, endless largesse of Saudi Arabia doesn't come from any reliable source. Trying to find the source of where this lie comes from typically brings to figures like Bat Ye'or, David Gaubatz, Robert Spencer et al. If you'd like to believe them unquestioningly, that's your prerogative. It's a world where the occult influence of the Muslim Brotherhood permeates all aspects of Muslim life and where a secret collusion between Western powers and shadowy Muslim forces exists to "Arabize" Europe.

The reality is that Muslims across the world have been undergoing a wave of religious revival and fundamentalism. These events are cyclical in nature, and somewhere in a few decades we'll see a reversal of course. The problem with the annoyingly pious is that they don't like to eat their own dog food. Saudi Arabia, while a deeply conservative country and blessed with tremendous resources, does not at all have the resources to single handedly fund global dawah and every waqf on the planet or even most or even half or even 25% of them.

What is most influential to the Islamic psyche is the notion that our collective civilization has been in decline and, for many millions of Muslim, Islam is the answer. A large number of them lived either under the thumb or sphere of influence of the USSR or under despots. For those people, a more fundamentalist approach to Islam is a kind of revolt against a previous regime.

To be clear on the nature of religion in Indonesia, we're dealing with a country that is NOT secular. Not even close. Indonesia has multiple state-sanctioned religious confessions, but that is not the same thing as secularism. Worrying about "Islamization" is a distraction from Indonesia's real problem which is that it attempts to marry its religions and government in an effort to police morality.
There is some validity to the accusation that the KSA is putting their money behind the spread of Salafi ideology in other Muslim countries, but their influence tends to be exaggerated. Some of the biggest lies in history were believable because they contain a grain of truth.

When I was in high school there was a popular tutoring / college exam prep program called Nurul Fikri. They were popular because they were quite good and cheap. What’s the catch? Islamic code. The most visible rule is hijab for all female students, which was uncommon in Jakarta in the early 90’s. This was during Suharto’s rule where a jilbab was absolutely not part of government uniform, which means wearing one would be considered out-of-uniform, subjecting the wearer to disciplinary action.

How could they offer such program for cheap? Because they were funded by middle easterners. I was in one of their classes when the administrator gave a tour to a couple of gentlemen with Arabic features in white keffiyeh and thawb.
 
The desire for critical thinking is admirable but trying to bring it about is like pushing a barrel uphill. There are few things more satisfying than having one's prejudices confirmed. It is comforting to just rely on information sources that provide such pleasure. Ask Rupert Murdoch. Confirming right wing views has made him very rich.

I agree it is an uphill battle.

I think the IB program has a class called “Theory of Knowledge”, which is basically critical thinking.

Shame they can't add this to every curriculum, not just IB.
 
I agree it is an uphill battle.



Shame they can't add this to every curriculum, not just IB.

Hi Guys,

IBMYP teacher here. Yes, there is a course in the IB Diploma program called Theory of Knowledge and in the middle years program that I teach, from grade seven to grade ten, there is also an increasing trend to teach 'approaches to learning' skills (see: https://atlskills.com/). This is an aim to try and focus on the development of competences that are based outside of subject grades and are more useful for general life skills and skills that allow learners to become autonomous (see a comprehensive list here: https://isa.edu.gr/backend/vendor/ckeditor/plugins/fileman/Uploads/Inner pages documents/MYP/atl_skills_approaches_to_learnin.pdf).

In education generally there is a movement called the 21st century skills movement (see: https://www.aeseducation.com/blog/what-are-21st-century-skills) which is basically the same thing for schools outside of the IB framework. A big problem for me is also that teachers are just basically given these resources and told to use them but not really trained how to really incorporate them into the curriculum. This can result into these skills being stated in paperwork but not necessarily made apparent in the day-to-day teaching and learning that happens in schools. Often, enthusiastic teachers will do this, but to the extent that these skills are being developed from primary to pre-university stages in schools is probably impossible to determine as teachers are generally autonomous in their own classrooms providing that they hit certain assessment criteria at certain milestones throughout the school year.

The GRASPS system of assessment design advocated by Jay McTighe is one system that attempts to give summative school assessments a more vocational/less academic feel so that students see the purpose of their assessments rather than just as a test to perform for the next stage of schooling (see: https://jaymctighe.com/downloads/GRASPS-Design-sheets.pdf). This is favored by the IB for the middle years program that I teach but I'm not sure about its utility across different school systems.

Generally, a large portion of education academics support the ideas that you all discuss here. It's just a shame that policy and practice among different stakeholders don't always result in what is best for kids. Governments don't often want too much critical thinking applied to their own past actions in history courses for example, which is why we never learned about the opium wars in the UK where I was schooled.

Best wishes,

Lee :)
 
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It is easier to teach students how to prepare for the local/state/national tests than teach certain subjects. Based on what I have heard from friends who are/were teachers in Texas, there is a strong emphasis on preparing for the state test as depending on how well the students do, that will determine the money the district receives.
 
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It is easier to teach students how to prepare for the local/state/national tests than teach certain subjects. Based on what I have heard from friends who are/were teachers in Texas, there is a strong emphasis on preparing for the state test as depending on how well the students do, that will determine the money the district receives.

I'm not sure how this works in the national education system here. Our grades are moderated by the IB which costs the school money. Our money comes from school fees. Is it a similar situation for government schools here?
 
I was chatting to a bloke who mentioned he was a TOK teacher. I hadn't heard the acronym before so he explained that it stood for Theory of Knowledge and had to do with critical thinking and how we know what we know. I thought that was a great idea and would be really beneficial for all involved.

He then went on at length about his belief that the world was run by "reptoid aliens" and demanded to have sex with my wife.
 
I was chatting to a bloke who mentioned he was a TOK teacher. I hadn't heard the acronym before so he explained that it stood for Theory of Knowledge and had to do with critical thinking and how we know what we know. I thought that was a great idea and would be really beneficial for all involved.

He then went on at length about his belief that the world was run by "reptoid aliens" and demanded to have sex with my wife.
Good heavens. So it's true. The aliens are here amongst us.
That's one of the tests to see if a person is an alien. They always demands sex with your wife. A dead set give away.
 

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