Relevant bits (you should still read the whole article though):
This is terrible, I don’t think I’ll find many people here who disagree. This goes completely beyond “teach the controversy”, they’re actually getting evolution REMOVED from textbooks. Now, I’m going to be fair, they haven’t succeeded in excising evolution, just certain examples, and it’s possible this is as far as the publishers and regulatory agencies are willing to go. However, it does seem like if they’re willing to just haphazardly remove things without even consulting any biologists, things could fall out of control pretty damn quickly.
I do note, reading through the linked article, that it seems that the Korean body politic is simply scientifically illiterate. (Not that the U.S. is not.) There are several statements to the effect that it is not a religious antipathy to evolution, but a general ignorance propelling the effort. (Of course, it could turn out that the Korean Creation Research group is heavily funded by the U.S. group, but they are still appealing to general ignorance, not the Bible.)
Stuff like this never gets any press in Korea. One word about Japanese textbooks revising their history and the whole country goes apeshit.
There’s not a lot of religion in Korean politics, but I think Koreans in general lean towards agnostic than atheist. They’re certainly very superstitious.
Seriously, once in a Japanese religion course the professor, on a bit of a tangent, told me (since I had a laptop) to go to Google news and search for “korea japanese history textbook” (or something similar) and tell him how long ago an article was posted. 2 Hours ago. So far I’ve done it every month or so for a chuckle, there’s almost consistently a Korean article lambasting Japanese history textbooks about something or other (usually WWII) within 3 days of searching, often it’s within half a day. Like clockwork. (Not that Japan doesn’t kind of deserve it)
ETA:
In Japan (according to the aforementioned religion course and my personal experiences with a couple people at least), there’s a lot of “I don’t really believe it but it can’t hurt so I’ll do this/avoid doing this just in case”, is Korea kind of the same way?
On the contrary, some people have noted that whatever ideology/philosophy Koreans believe in (be it Confucianism, Communism, or Christianity), they tend to be “true believers”, sort of like how some French loyalists were more loyalist than the King himself.
Yes because Korea is doomed because of this one event despite going from being one of the world’s poorest countries to one of the wealthiest in a half century and surviving military dictatorship, a Stalinist/National Socialist neighbour, and the IMF. :rolleyes:
Sometimes. But they can be pretty adamant about certain things. Most people would say they don’t REALLY believe in superstitions, but wouldn’t let their daughter marry on an unlucky day, for example.
What’s the superstition there? Is it that you can’t trim your nails, or that it’s unlucky to do so after dark? And are there any specific things that are supposed to happen to you?
And does being an American temper the superstitions your parents expect you to believe? For example, would Koreans living back in Korea be able to trim their nails after dark?