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Texas Textbooks Battle Is Actually an American War
ideonexus writes "I've been lackadaisical when it comes to following stories about Texas schoolboard attempts to slip creationism into biology textbooks, dismissing the stories as just 'dumbass Texans,' but what I didn't realize is that Texas schoolbooks set the standard for the rest of the country. And it's not just Creationism that this Christian coalition is attempting to bring into schoolbooks, but a full frontal assault on history, politics, and the humanities that exploits the fact that final decisions are being made by a school board completely academically unqualified to make informed evaluations of the changes these lobbyists propose. This evangelical lobby has successfully had references to the American Constitution as a 'living document,' as textbooks have defined it since the 1950s, removed in favor of an 'enduring Constitution' not subject to change, as well as attempting to over-emphasize the role Christianity played in the founding of America. The leaders of these efforts outright admit they are attempting to redefine the way our children understand the political landscape so that, when they grow up, they will have preconceived notions of the American political system that favor their evangelical Christian goals."
One is science the other is religion. Guess which one does not belong in a schoolbook?
I asked a lawyer who believed in this, pre-market crash, if they believed in a "living mortgage." Why is the Constitution the only legal document we do that to?
Anyone who wants to teach that is going for a particular point of view. Why is the opposite view nefarious but this one all sweetness and light?
This whole summary is ignorant. Everyone is pushing a point of view. It has to be somebody's.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
It's worth revisiting the lesson of the sixties that the Hippies got right, such as not to trust the government and that the purpose of public education is to lie to you.
Students should regard any political lesson taught in school as propaganda, should never trust their teachers, an in general fucking hate the government. Bible Thumpers have always sought to rule by infiltration and dominionism.
Know this, fight back, agitate others to fight back, and above all disregard anything any religionist says to defend their superstition. We don't respect Scientology for obvious reasons, and there is no reason any other superstition should get a pass, especially on a geek site. We are modern people, and modern people don't need gods.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Here is the problem. The bible, and jesus, pretty much considered the worst thing one can do it be a hypocrite. A hypocrite is one who does things in a crowd to make others believe he or she has faith. Here is a famous verse of prayer.
Mathew 6:5-6"When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."
We also know the verses on giving money to be seen. The idea is that one does these things because they are in our heart, not to gain profit. And we are putting our children in jeopardy when we ask them to do these things we know are wrong, such as acting like hypocrites.
The problem with these nut cases in Texas is they have no faith. No amount of science will sway me from what i feel to be true. No amount of world religions will change my mind what I know to be right. This does not mean I am inflexible, but that flexibility comes with experience, not cult brain washing. And because these people have not faith, how can they build faith in their children. They can't. So they limit their exposure to the world knowing the false faith could never withstand the truths in the world.
In some ways I agree with this. If one is not able to build faith in a child, then ones options are limited. What I disagree with is making all the rest of us suffer. Sure, a parent may have a right to screw up their own child, but that does not mean they have the right to screw up everyone else's. The parent can home school, turn off the TV, but there is no reason that those of us who are responsible should have to suffer because a few are irresponsible. It would be like saying I can't buy a beer because some children weren't taught discipline, or because genetically they can't have beer, and haven't been trained to stay away from it.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Creationism means that people descend from a dude missing a rib who was sculpted from mud. It's not only incompatible with evolution, it's incompatible with rational thought.
Nothing lasts forever but the certainty of change.
And why is that precisely? And if the Universe requires a prime mover, then why doesn't the prime mover? And if you're going to assert that the prime mover is exempt from the very logic you claim makes the prime move necessary, then why can't I apply Occam's Razor and declare the universe can have that property you claim for the prime mover, and thus declare the prime mover unnecessary?
Or, more to the point, why would this posited singularity be bound by causality?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You know, I have to chuckle every time I see one of these stories. When I was back in school, it was pretty standard classical stuff - the Greeks, Shakespeare, Newton, the Scientific Method, etc. Now, it happened to be that dead white guys came up with most of that stuff, but that was just how it was. But sometime after I left, the Deconstructionists, the Postmodernists, the Moral Relativists, and the Frankfurt School got their hands on the reigns. No ones 'truth' was any better than another. The scientific method was no more valid than animism. Everyone got their own truth.
Well, guess what, folks? Now the Christian Fundamentalists (and the Islamic Fundamentalists) are pressing for their own 'truth'. Remember, yin and yang - everything contains within itself the seed of its opposite. That's one piece of non-white guy wisdom that holds up pretty well.
I figure that there should be mandatory classes, at the mid to upper high school level,
in basic epistemology and metaphysics (i.e. meta-level topics such as):
-How to think carefully, logically.
-How to search.
-How to formulate good questions.
-How to recognize bias; people who are "speaking for effect"; trying to
influence you, and some of the common motivations why people do
that.
How to form beliefs using epistemic responsibility.
Then set them free to explore the information from a billion sources
that we have available to us at a mouse click today.
The scariest kind of graduate is one who has been taught only to
parrot, and to conform to orthodoxy, and who does not know how to question.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
That's what religion is all about.
The one that has never been proven.
This is the biggest fallacy that ID/Creationists propogate about science. It does not matter if evolution/the big bang haven't been "proven". The question is which of these is a scientific model that can be used to make statements about how the world works and make predictions to some degree of accuracy.
The Ptolemaic model of the universe was shown to be wrong, but it was science, because it claimed to predict the world worked a certain (measurable) way and it was shown to be inaccurate. But for thousands of years it was accurate enough to be useful. Newton developed a model that was more accurate and Einstein a model that was yet more accurate.
Someone will come along some day and develop a model of the universe that is even more accurate than Einstein's, but that will not mean that Einstein's model wasn't science or that the new model is "truth".
On the other hand, you cannot use the Bible to make accurate predictions about when to plant your crops, how the planets move around the sun, or what makes characteristics propogate from parents to children. This is why intelligent design is not an alternative form of science. It's not even a matter of whether intelligent design is true and evolution is wrong. Intelligent design cannot be used to do useful science. Evolution, even if ultimately wrong, can be used to make the most accurate models of the way things work.
If you don't want to treat intelligent design as religion, that's fine. Teach it in philosophy. But it is not science.
you refer to people as "dumbass Texans".. if you're so smart, why not reason with them
Because he's smart enough to know that no amount of intelligent, thoughtfull discussion can sway these people from their emotional beliefs. We're talking about people who go "if evolution was true, why would there still be monkeys?" as if they'd pulled some irrefutable argument instead of profoundly ignorant tripe. You can't reason with them: they're immune to it.
You can't take the sky from me...
Obama does this every day from the highest bullypullpit in the land. You know why you can't do it? Because they're not "for" anything, they're only against Democrats. Every time he concedes a point. Every time he gives Republicans what they want. Suddenly it's not what they want anymore. You wanht lower taxes? You want balanced budgets? Well, sure, but not if a Democrat's doing it. If a Democrat's doing it, it's going to destroy the very fabric of our nation.
The reason that you can't reason with the textbook manufacturers is that they honestly believe that if they somehow "fix" the textbooks there won't be any more Democrats in the United States and it will be one homogenous white Christian nation. The failure of reality to match up with that expectation means they have not gone far enough and must keep going. It's not a matter of reality. It's a matter of frustration at not being able to fix the world using the ideals they have faith in.
Most Christians in Texas who are aware of the situation think these people are ridiculously extreme, but it's nearly impossible to get rid of them.
Why do ignorant people that one statement by Jefferson and try to make it stand on it's own completely out of context to prove all our founders hated religion.
On the contrary, that statement proves how much Jefferson loved religion. He loved it so much he wanted to protect every kind of religion and every diversity of religion out there by not allowing the government to indoctrinate people into one mandated religion. I'm not changing anything, the Bill of Rights was frame to protect all religions, not hate them by promoting only one of them.
My work here is dung.