Slashdot Mirror
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."
It's time to mess with Texas.
It's just a shame that the processes of evolution will take way too long for this rubbish to devolve or become extinct.
Get over it already
I 'm guessing "Depends who's paying for the books"
http://www.intellipool.se/ - Intellipool Network Monitor
Lemme guess. You just read Chomsky or Zinn and want to impress the boy in the cool plastic frames at the campus bookstore.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
But where are you learning about the wrongs of these narrow-minded zealots? Other narrow-minded zealots on the opposite extreme? I can agree that there are a lot of crazy christian narrow-minded zealots, but I think there are just as many anti-religion narrow-minded zealots. Why can't we just have education books just present multiple popular theories along with the pros and cons of each?
Evolutionism effectively ends discussion where as Creationism promotes discussion. Evolutionists' response to every issue is effectively it evolved that way. Creationism can be refined as a theory evolutionism simply makes the argument that evolution did it.
See? I can do that too.
Lazy creationists’ response to every issue is that God did it. Inquisitive ones who aren’t afraid of “science” know that if God created science, then science will never contradict their faith. They believe that, since God is all-powerful and all-knowing, there must have been a good reason for why God did it that way, and they want to know what that reason is and how God made it work.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
that "We the People..." should take up arms against those who would destroy us from the inside. It is not only my right; my responsibility; it's my obligation to my fellow countrymen, and future generations of US Americans.
I happen to believe in God. However, I respect, and understand the reasons for keeping God out of education (one exception I would make is for private schools, which are opt-in).
History is history because it took place in the past. The past is unchangeable, and thus, re-writing history is the same as lying. In this case I would call the people re-writing the history of our once great country's politics one thing: tyrannical. Their motivations are clearly oppressive.
Everyone in the US should know that it's completely legal to kill tyrants. Everyone should know that it's their responsibility. The more we let the tyrants do this to us, the less we deserve the rights to freedom and liberty that they are stealing from us.
You can have my guns, my freedom, my rights, and my liberty AFTER you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
That's fine, let's take everything that can't be scientifically verified out. Whoops, there goes macroevolution*. Whoops, there goes the big bang. Whoops, there goes the primordial soup.
Look, the science for all of this stuff hasn't been figured out yet. Let's take the religion out, because we don't know if it's correct or not. So let's also take out the science that keeps getting revised until it's nice and definite. And what if it isn't definite and never will be? Too freakin' bad - you put down what is known and leave the rest empty!
Oh? What's that? You want to put in some theories anyway? Hey, how about this! You put in a few alternate theories, and you label them as theories.
*note that I'm not talking about the adaptation of bacteria or the expressing/repressing of genes.
Evolution is a religion. It is the naturalistic explanation to origins when you don't want to believe in a God who creates.
Evolution doesn't explain the beginning of time, doesn't explain order or complexity, nothing cannot come nothing, chaos does not create order, etc.
Evolution doesn't claim to, either. Your ignorance is showing again. You should really keep it zipped up better.
Evolution simply describes the change of organisms from one to another, from one species to another, and gives mechanisms for the "order and complexity" you mention. The sun is a very powerful force. But Evolution says nothing about the beginning of time or life. That's a question for another theory, such as the Big Bang and so on.
A brief Google of your chaos bullshit would disprove it. But you don't want to be educated. Please do us a favor and keep your willful ignorance to yourself, so it doesn't contaminate someone who wants to learn.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
As soon as you find some evidence against Evolution, we can reconsider it.
try the flagellum and the eye/retina. their hasn't been enough time for the 'evolution/mutation' the darwin ascribes for these to have eber developed. also check the fossil records for humans alone, no dead end mutations/evolutions have been fond where one thing wasn;t right and was capped off or died out. as hard as you tr, yu cannot take God/reator out of the picture....
this alone disproves Darwin's rants.
Because this is Slashdot and there are fundamentalist atheists here that rival fundamentalist Christian in the ability to relentlessly attack ideas that are not the same as their own.
Pot, meet Kettle.
First, great sentence construction! Second, religion is not philosophy, but rather an entire system of life than encapsulates everything from philosophy to cosmology to biology to sociology to nutrition and hygiene. Last, Christianity purports to be true. If it is true, we should be able to verify it, at least the testable aspects of it. Some of Christianity's claims are untestable by scientific means, but verification of the claims that could be tested would certainly lend credibility to the untestable claims, which is why religion does intersect with science in a major way. You're drastically oversimplifying the issue.
The new atheist zealotry is a lot scarier for me than christian zealotry. I don’t know what exactly makes 20 y/o atheists so angry (must be something in the drink water). But there ideas are extremely frightening.
(They also have the ability to destroy any social site with their verbal diarrhoea I really don’t need to hear how smart atheists are. )
It seems that my Christian friends STFU 99.99% of the time about their religion. But atheists talk 90% of the time about their religion. They repeat everything and every conversation is a repeat of the previous - It sounds like a long play record that got stuck. They also interrogate you to ensure that you are an atheist (and not an agnostic by mistake).
\rant
I found the old idea to be sufficient. Lotsa folks died in the world just recently. Horribly. Sorry you feel like an idiot, though.
Allow me to shed some light on this. Here are 2 very familiar verses taken from the standard king james bible.
Genesis 1:1 & 2
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Now here's the punch line: in verse 2, the first word "was" in the ancient Hebrew texts is actually "BECAME" and not "was". This makes all the difference in the world. Now the question is: HOW did it become that way? If you read in Isaiah 14 & Ezekiel 28, you will clearly see that it was lucifer who is to blame for the destruction of the first heaven and earth. That is how it became without form and void.
The Hebrew words for "without form and void" is "tohu va bahu". It purposely rhymes (which is a figure of speech) to draw our attention to it.
Isaiah 45:18
For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
The words "in vain" are the exact same Hebrew word "tahu" in Genesis 1:2. He did NOTcreate it without form; it BECAME that way.
Therefore, all the chaos, destruction, & confusion of Genesis 1:2 did not come from God.
1 Corinthians 14:33
For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
This is the second verse in the bible showing that the one, true God did not cause the chaos & destruction in Genesis 1:2
Then who did? Satan, who is also the thief.
John 10:10
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
This again fits perfectly with what Satan did in Genesis 1:2. No contradictions at all.
Take a look at these verses for even more verification.
2 Peter 3:5-7
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
In verse 6, it tells us about the world that then was (past tense), which refers to the first world, which was in Genesis 1:1. We are dealing with the passage of time here. Now look at verse 7 - it says "But the heavens and the earth, which are now" (present tense). It's the heavens & earth we live in today.
II Peter 3:13
Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
So there you have it: for all time, there are 3 heavens & earths: the first one in Genesis 1:1 that God made; the second one that we live in today (that was destroyed by the adversary, & God rebuilt), and the third heavens & earth, which is still future.
Very simple: past, present, future. It all fits perfectly together with no contradictions.
Now another question is: how much time was there between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2? No one knows, but there could be eons of time there. That is the time period where all the dinosaurs lived.
There is evolution only within species; never between genus(kinds of plant & animal life).
God made the universe for the earth.
God made the earth for man.
God made man to praise God and love him out of his own, freewill choice.
So it is evolution that does not belong in the textbooks.
www.theway.org
Amen.
Yeah, but he's still the crappiest president of my lifetime.
wow, for a 9 year old, you sure do have a really low slashdot ID.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Ah, but gravity is MUCH easier to test than a past that we can no longer see, which makes gravity the more straightforward theory.
So, for creation/big bang we can either go with observation, but that would favor creationists as God was the only one there. (But when you get to the worldwide flood, you gain over 200 separate cultures in every part of the earth that believe that a deity destroyed the entire earth saving only one family.) Back then, 200 cultures was nearly everyone on earth, BTW.
You can look at the fossil record with all the evidences of gradual change everywhere....Oops, wait. There really isn't any evidence of that at all. Over 99% of fossils look exactly like the creature does today. And many look like they were buried rapidly. And many have blood vessels that are "surprisingly well-preserved", too well-preserved to be as old as they say they are. But nobody believes they are actually "young" like they look.
You can look at genetics. Oh wait, that proves there was an "Eve". And worse, if you count the mutation rate backward, it only goes back 6,000 years before there are no more mutations in the human genome (but nobody actually believes such a ridiculous number). http://www.dnai.org/teacherguide/pdf/reference_romanovs.pdf
Also, no gain of genetic material has ever been observed. Only losses that occasionally result in positive benefits, but usually result in childhood diseases. You can also see how close our genes are to monkeys. Except that they are actually closer to dogs, pigs and rats, but nobody is saying we mutated from these.
We could look at the planets. No, that doesn't work. The creationists correctly predicted the magnetic fields of every planet. The non-creationists had to have a major asteroid collision on EVERY SINGLE PLANET to even come close on their theory. And certainly the Oort Cloud is a fairy tale if ever there was one. There's no evidence for that at all, except that comets would prove the solar system to be less than 100,000-150,000 years old otherwise.
We could look at the simple cell. No, wait, it's more complex than a PC and looks about as designed. And even Darwin himself said that if cells turned out to be complex, everyone should discard his theories.
Evolution is anything but straightforward. But it's the best that people who refuse to believe in God can do. Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist (and self-proclaimed Marxist), is a renowned champion of neo-Darwinism, and certainly one of the world’s leaders in evolutionary biology. He wrote this very revealing comment:
So science cannot prove God or creation, but only when it refuses to.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Yeah, the same with coal becoming a diamond, or a molecule that can exists in three states, or making a transparent window out of sand. It's magic because I don't understand it.
I'm sorry, my sarcasm detector is seems to be on the fritz today, but did you just admit to being a complete moron in a public forum? The problems with your examples is that there are many, many people who not only do understand how they work, but can reproduce the results at will - over and over and over again.
And yet there was a time when they didn't understand the processes involved, and would have made the same argument. Your inability to understand does not make it less rational. Also, the glass made from sand, is actually made from high amounts of silica in the sand. Just because the Bible didn't include all the details that wouldn't have made sense to man back then, (and possibly even now), it gets disregarded outright?
Have you created a sentient/self-aware being from scratch? Do you know how it's done? If not, who are you say it's wrong? In fact, who are you? You refuse to post under your name.
No no, tax dollars are spent on whores , booze and Cadillacs.
Obama will just suck a little more chinese "rock", invest in some more south American oil for his buddies blowing China and print more money to pay for textbooks.. or votes, whatever.
I guess you could always take comfort in the words of Voltaire " If God did not exist , it would be necessary to invent him"
Just tell yourself, this is honoring necessity. Scientists just don't "get" philosophy I guess....
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Perhaps you should attempt to understand the issue the birthers have instead of showing your ignorance of such things so profoundly in public.
The problem the birthers have is that according to the constitution, to be president, you have to be a natural born citizen as the requirements of the constitution spell out. No one is saying Obama isn't a citizen as in how the citizenship laws dictate but that he is not a natural citizen which makes him constitutionally unqualified to hold the office of the President of the United State of America.
The Idea that someone could claim citizenship in more then one state is completely pointless to the issue posed by the birthers because in either case, they would still be a natural born citizen of the United States.
Now, the entire issue of the birthers would completely disappear if Obama would just open and release his Birth certificate record which to this day he is refusing to do without something added or changed to keep the birther conspiracy alive. He is probably doing it just to win the hearts and minds if idiots just like you but we wouldn't know for sure without seeing the real birth records in it's entirety or an admission from Obama himself.
....The evidence for evolution is vast....
Can you give some examples of that? What I mean by that is actual observed FACTS, not interpretations or conjectures. By its very nature, evolution is historical. No one is making evolution happen today. Besides that, there is no consistent definition of the word "evolution". If that word is applied in the sense of bacteria gaining new capabilities or an organism becoming resistant to some environmental factor, then that can be indeed shown scientifically today. On the other hand if it is applied to one kind of organism changing gradually over time into another kind of organism, then that is not a scientific fact.
Scientists have tried to make revolution happened in the laboratory, by raising thousands or millions of generations of E. coli or fruit flies. So far at least, E. coli are still that and fruit flies still remained fruit flies. Scientists have bred E. coli with new capabilities and grotesque fruit flies with extra heads and other anomalies. In the end however, they were still recognizable as fruit flies.
One of the many things that evolutionists postulate, is that birds evolved from reptiles. That is an assertion that cannot be proven by any modern scientific procedure. To get around that problem, evolutionists resort to immense periods of time. The problem is, that even in tens of millions of years, there is not enough time to turn a heavy earthbound creature into an efficient flying machine.
Of course creation cannot be proven scientifically. In the end, there are many aspects of evolution that have to be believed by faith, because they cannot be demonstrated in the laboratory neither have they been observed as occurring today in nature.
All theory is gray
.... Over a few generations, all bacteria will be resistant. That's evolution.....
I would call that adaptation. That is vastly different from a theory that says birds came from reptiles or people from apes. Just because an organism, such as bacteria, adapt to a toxic environment doesn't make a new organism. It's still the same old bacteria with a new capability.
All theory is gray
The last word should probably be spelled correctly. My point is, your tactic of talking down to me like I'm a child, and my tactic of harping on your ineptitude in the use of the English language are designed to make the other party feel like an idiot, without actually addressing the concerns or ideas relevant to the topic at hand. Anyway, you can have the last word, but please use grammar-check this time.
...What we have is common ancestors...
Which is totally false! The Darwin theory's famous evolutionary tree is pure fiction. All creatures come in distinct groups. These groupings are not necessarily the same as what scientists have termed species. Evolution in the sense of all creatures having a common primeval ancestor is NOT according to observations and experiments. Many, if not all creatures, adapt to some extent to their environment, but at all times they remain distinct in their groupings. Dogs are always dogs, even though there are many breeds of dogs and cats always remain cats even though there are many kinds of cats. Humans always have been humans, will never be anything else. Apes have always been apes and never were human and will they ever be.
All theory is gray