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Map of Publicly-Funded Creationism Teaching
Capt.Albatross writes "At Slate, Chris Kirk presents a map of schools in the USA that both receive public funding and teach creationism. It also shows public schools in those states where they are allowed to teach creationism (without necessarily implying that creationism is taught in all public schools of those states). There is a brief outline of the regulations in those states where this occurs, but the amounts involved are not discussed."
Almost... I *almost* cared...
For all the trash that gets talked about Texas in this regard, it barely registers here, and only for some sort of "Responsive Ed charter school" that a Texan might explain better - sounds like it's not the normal school system.
Louisiana and Tennessee OTOH - ouch!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
There needs to be more.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
I weap for thee...
For as big of a deal that is frequently made of this, it's a lot less then I'd expected. Honestly, it looks like it's only a "problem" in two states, and even there only list as much because "these schools *might* be teaching it."
Just can't let the 'I hate Christians' thing go can you?
on presumably a flat earth
Give it a rest already.
"The amounts involved are not discussed" because this is a non-story. I spent (served time?) 12 Years in a Tennessee school in a highly populated area and creationism was not taught at all. This article intends to imply that us backwards rednecks are teachin' the chillrens 'bout Jesus, and that simply isn't happening to the statewide scale this fancy map displays.
Evolution has about as much evidence backing it up as Christian creationism or the idea that fucking aliens terraformed the planet (in 6 of their home-planet days while cooling the systems down on the 7th day) and genetically enhanced apes into niggers.
Now fuck off, ass holes. You all are so easily polarized and accept anything some scientist tells you. Evolution is a theory. It can't be proven as the origin of humanity. In fact, it's a bit of a stretch to think it was the origin of humanity. But so is Christian creationism. I'm leaning more toward the whole alien theory. But then that's called "intelligent design" and you dumb fucks can't distinguish that from Christian creationism.
First read the bills slate.com gives as evidence.
http://ncse.com/files/pub/lega...
http://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bill...
Now, show me where it says, "teach creationism".
I'm not saying they are wrong, and that LA/TN aren't teach creationism; but those laws seem to protect teachers from getting fired for teaching [locally controversial] science the way I read them (as long as they don't explicitly say, "you're religion is wrong").
did someone say "teach the controversy"?
For an article supposedly praising science and demonizing religion, it includes a lot of speculation and distortions.
"Schools in AZ *MAY* be receiving funding under a tuition program" is both speculation and distortion.
-> AZ doesn't do vouchers. They have a tax credit program individuals can participate in.
-> the courts have ruled that donations to these programs are private money that individuals can do with as they choose.
But at the end of the day, why does this idiot care, other than to push an atheist agenda?
The only question that should matter is "Does the school teach X, Y, Z." Classically, that'd be Reading, wRiting, and Arithmetic. If they also teach J, K, L and M, who cares.
Hm... the submission system is screwing up the formatting.
Just another idiot using the establishment clause as an excuse to trample on the Free Exercise Clause.
And before you say "But they're using public money"- check that, and be sure it's actually public money- as if there is such a thing instead of private money the government has (mis)appropriated. In at least the AZ case, it's not public money.
It's not hate to want factually incorrect, archaic, dropped-from-the-mainstream facets of Christianity removed from public education in Tennessee and Louisiana.
Only the literalist interpretation of the Bible demands such teachings, but such followers are caught between their own sense of reason and their own faith. Those followers feel if they bend on this, and say the Bible is not perfect, it is the same as denying their entire faith. Most versions of Christianity no longer hold such literal interpretations, so based on the map, it may be a Baptist thing?
for dropping the H-Bomb!
Great. You spent 12 years in Tennessee schools back in the 1950s and 1960s. How the fuck is that relevant now, a good 60+ years later?
Interesting to see stories like this on Slashdot.
Nothing of value to most people, just trying to polarize and be extremist.
Who gives a shit if we were created, evolved, spurt out of the Spaghetti Monster's anus.
Since no one was there, we will never know for sure.
Why is this on Slashdot - it's like going to the Vatican web site and reading about Ubuntu.
WTF.
What happened to you U.S.A? You used to be cool.
Arizona: As many as 15 schools that teach creationism may be participating in the state’s tax credit scholarship program for disabled children or children attending underperforming schools. (Arizona has not released a list of private schools that have received students on this scholarship.)
READ: There are 15 schools in Arizona that teach creationism (*sigh*), and they are apparently eligible to receive tax credits for certain disadvantaged students on a scholarship, but there's no data that says any of these schools actually have any of those students.
The Slate doesn't mention this, but there's a WAY bigger loophole.
You can, in Arizona (as well as a lot of other places) donate up to $200 per person (or $400 per household, IIRC) to a school fully tax deductible from your state taxes. As long as you've got $200 worth of state tax liability, and you like the school your kid goes to more than the general education fund, you can just give them $200 in cash in December, and "get" $200 off your Arizona taxes as soon as you file. Every school here sends their kids home with a donation form every year - it's a cash grab.
So, as long as it's a valid school, you can use state money (in a roundabout way) to pay for their creationism.
The green dots are basically defined as ALL PUBLIC SCHOOLS in two states where creationism is allowed to be taught.
Nearly half of all Americans believe that humans were placed on earth in their current form, magically by the hand of God Himself, with no evolutionary changes or modifications every occurring. And the number is rising.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/218...
Do you want to know what brings about the biblical apocalypse? Ignorance of the natural world in which we live. Buckle your seatbelts, because the ignorant are starting to drive this bus we call civilization, and the last stop is not utopia.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
stand as a bulwark island of rationalism and progressivism against an encroaching sea of faith-based ideology.
Usenet posts. who are inter5ted it wiil be among
I weep for thee
Strangely enough, most people from other states widely accept the stereotype of those states being a bunch of sister-fucking hillbillies and welfare-queen rednecks.
No correlation there, nosiree...
I think Christianity and creationism should be the least of your worries, or is it okay for.... Civil liberties to be violated without reason? The Government to be controlled by the greedy and emotionless group think corporations? The Fear of our "enemies" to allow us to violate everything we found dear? A large population has been hand fed that Government should take care of every aspect of our lives? We have lost any true sense of independence and risk that comes with going out on our own? Our universities are becoming breeding grounds of social conformity to a homogeneous culture of the mediocre? Lastly, there is a religion that holds all the fears of a Bronze age belief in certain sects, and those sects have ideals of taking over the planet! They are not Christian, Jew or Buddhist! Keep worrying about Creationism, and watch as the USA burns around you! It's like being in the middle of a restaurant fire, and your worried some dirty cutlery!!
TFA is itself flame bait. Note that the map shows schools that may teach alternative theories (including arguing against human caused global warming), but in the title implies that they do teach creationism using public funds.
bet early & often do not get shut out
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I hope that MIT, Cal Tech, and other top notch science places write an open letter to these school guidance departments, superintendent offices, and the local news paper, that every students who comes from one of these schools will automatically be rejected because of the poor science curriculum that includes creationism.
I urge the slashdot community, who are alumin of these schools, to contact them and urge their alma maters to contact these high schools and reject creationism.
I hope that this would change these school policies.
They are disadvantaged: they don't know evolution.
Table-ized A.I.
85-92% of people think evolutionists are wrong depending on how you measure it since every religion in the world disagrees with it. So to teach one theory beside another theory is just fine with me. There's no solid, indisputable proof that evolution occurred. There is only apparent evidence that the universe is a simulation or hologram. There is perfectly logical evidence that a superior intelligence created everything as well so like I said, all theories are theories and are backed by real evidence.
In case that last one confuses you, let's say Jesus makes water into wine. Scientists study the wine and determine the only way it could have been brought into being is growing grapes and fermenting them. Carbon dating and 100% of all other blatant evidence proves it yet in reality it was created instantly out of nowhere to have the appearance of being older than it was. The same applies to the Earth. So if any religion says a deity created Earth, then fossils and stuff were created on the fly as well.
Why? Well, in Christianity, the main religion in the US, the explanation is that God isn't allowed to show up in the sky and scream that he's real. It has to be taken on faith or it'd be unfair as an "open competition" according to the original terms and conditions with Satan after the Adam and Eve apple incident. So if we had indisputable evidence that the Earth was only 7000 years old because life came out of nowhere, that would break the rules. So he created fake fossils. It's a lot simpler with Buddhists. Everything doesn't actually exist in the first place, lol. It's hard to prove or disprove that but some science supports it.
So like I said, all 3 of those theories (evolution, Christian, computer simulation) are all equally unproven but with actual evidence behind them. So why teach just one? If you're truly open minded and examine all the actual evidence, a true scientist would suggest teaching every valid theory. Anyone who picks up a fossil and calls it the end-all evidence just because they're touching it clearly hasn't expanding their thinking enough to examine the true nature of physics and matter and space and reality. Similarly, "I don't religion" isn't a valid reason for teaching evolution.
I cannot count the number of times I've read some book, article, or comment where the equivalent of a "then magic happens" explanation appears under the rubric of "evolution". Admittedly, not being a scientist, I am limited to popularized accounts, but I don't think it's too much to expect that if there is a clearly known mechanism that is easily reproducible, then authors should be able to describe it to an intelligent layman in a way that makes sense and is understandable.
Speaking off the top of my head, I would say that easily 80% of popular proofs for evolution are no proofs at all, but simply bald assertions: "See this lifeform here, it has this little knob on the end of its whatits. It evolved that way so it could feed better."
I don't know whether it's laziness or what, but if you want to prove something, you have to be able to show it -- ALL the steps, from here to there -- and reproduce it -- ALL of it, under controlled conditions. You can't just say, "because evolution".
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
There is a very large amount of evidence that children's minds are set to learn and that social facilitation of other children is a very powerful influence in their doing so.
'Hole in the wall experiment', O'Neill's "SummerHill". 'Unschooling' movement. 'Adult literacy' programs. All show that teachers and schools are not needed.
Further, a longitudinal study comparing Montessori and public schools shows that a large amount of our social pathologies can be traced back to pedagogical methods used by public schools.
Way past time to abolish public education.
...the states where, if you're from there, you'll be required to take a remedial science course in college because they can't guarantee that you know even the most basic science.
So Christians say evolution shouldn't be taught as fact because it has holes in it large enough to drive a school bus through while the Christian story is airtight from a logical perspective, though unprovable. Evolutionists want to teach evolution because they don't like religion. People who think the universe is a giant simulation or doesn't actually exist and we're just energy get shut down because people think it's weird and unpopular despite science strongly supporting their idea as well. Which of the 3 has more basis in logic and science? Evolution clearly takes third place, that much is certain. That's why multiple theories need to be taught.
Sorry but why is creationism something that shouldn't be taught? Has it been disproven? (some will say evolution disproves it, however, evolution doesn't as you still need something to exist for it to evolve, if you say that the big bang created all matter, then what created the big bang?). Creationism hasn't been disproven. As such it's still valid to teach it as a possibility. Once you start banning ideas and theories from being taught you go down the path of censorship and book banning.
The New Testament actually has a very pro-slavery attitude, with famous examples like Paul telling runaway slaves to return to their masters. Jesus never spoke out against it or criticized it in any way. In fact, nothing in the Bible criticizes slavery. The modern, popular notion that a proper interpretation of the New Testament demands the rejection of slavery is based largely on the notion of "progressive moral revelation," a phrase which was very important to the abolitionists in America but which has since been largely forgotten by the very people who believe its logical conclusions.
This forgetting of history is very typical of evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity. Evangelicals tend to take a very literal reading of the Bible, and also a very dim opinion of philosophical reasoning that would challenge the rightness of this. They are very selective about which passages they consider primary, though are quick to accuse anyone who calls them on this of "picking and choosing." They only approve of any philosophizing that re-affirms their forgone conclusions. They prefer to believe that all the details have already been worked out, and the distilled truth of the Bible has been handed directly to them by their forbears (I say this both from personal experience with evangelicals and based on reading up on the history of evangelicalism (wikipedia is awesome)).
This group would assert that Genesis is a literal, inerrant, account of the creation of the world.
Mainliners, on the other hand, will readily admit that the Bible is a human work, that most of it is metaphorical (including and especially Genesis), and even that many of the parts that were not intended as metaphors can still contain human error. Catholics will sometimes agree with this as well, depending on their level of education. Both Mainliners and Catholics recognize intellect as God-given, believe that denial of fact is arrogant (and stupid), and that "divinely-inspired" does not mean "divinely-dictated"(nor "inerrant"). Despite the claims that many evangelicals would make, history shows that the mainline interpretation of the Bible is very consistent with its historical use in the church (fundamentalism being a recent creation).
So, reading "the entirety of Christ's teachings" is actually just the beginning. Understanding Christianity requires a whole lot more study than just reading the new testament and calling it done.
Creationism basically equates God to a Las Vegas Magician. They can't seem to believe that God is capable of making a complex system such as Evolution and instead need to provide a simplified dumb-downed theory. God, if he exists, should be insulted.
[The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it. ...
In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!” “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” ]
And this is why Christians hate figs. And throw themselves from mountains.
The generations of Americans that [a] fought and won WWII [b] defeated polio [c] broke the sound barrier, [d] put a man on the moon, [e] developed nuclear power, [f] developed the space shuttle, [g] developed the semiconductor and the modern computer were all educated in American public schools that taught a Christian world view, read Bibles in class, sang Christian music in holiday programs, sometimes had public prayers, and displayed the ten commandments (and in many schools even The Lord's Prayer) on the wall. Many of those same schools permitted kids to have knives with them, and often even guns (some schools actually hosted shooting clubs) and many rural kids went hunting on the way to/from school. Back then, we did not have school shootings, knifings, etc. We also let the general public board airplanes without ANY from of screening, not even X-rays (you could walk-up to the counter, buy a one-way plane ticket for cash, even without luggage, without ANY problems or superstitions (I know, I DID this back then)). Government must now spend BILLIONS of dollars per year just keeping us from killing eachother.
In the sixties, the modern secular effort to strip away all of this "primitive superstition" began with the removal of Bibles from the schools (might as well have had book-burning parties... I guess people fear what they are ignorant of....) and year-by-year our schools have become more secular - and now the modern historical re-write underway has people convinced that any effort to preserve or re-introduce ANYTHING that touches on the religious is both [a] unconstitutional and [b] a new and unprecedented thing. I could point out the rise in things like out-of-wedlock births, drug use, mass-shootings at schools (even though they're now "gun-free" zones) and all the other things that right-wingers point out (correctly and which left-wingers ridicule rather than honestly facing) as moral/cultural harranging but that's not the point of my post.
My point is only that for all the hyperbolic rantings about "creationism in the schools" and an implied "war on science" which the lefties keep pushing, the simple fact is that there's no historical evidence (which is always more valid than extrapolations and hand-wringing by political activists grinding axes) that these beliefs were in ANY WAY harmful to any scientific or engineering efforts in the U.S. in the past, AND there's plenty of evidence that the new, "better" citizens we're churning out from the wonderfull secularized schools of the past 40 years are half as competent as their predecessors; they're just numb-brained morons addicted to iPads and iPhones, unable to see what's "morally wrong" with "end justify the means" policies, unable to appreciate the massive debts being piled onto them, too self-absorbed to appreciate world affairs, and too easily conned into voting for any politician who will promise them "free stuff" no matter the ultimate consequence....simply too foolish even recognize the liberty slipping from their fingers and too inept to preserve it. Progress? Sure, if the goal was to get rid of God, but I'm not so sure if you measure "progress" by any other yardstick. When it comes to matters of public policy, I'm an evidence guy... and I'm not persuaded that this anti-Christian jihad by the left has produced "good" results (philosophical arguments aside) in the culture or for science or engineering (where cheating is now at epic levels)
Creationists have their tax money taken (whether they have kids in school or not) and used to fund schools that teach evolution.
If, as we assume, the universe created itself many millions of years ago, and everything evolved since then by random actions and reactions until it reached the point we see now, and ultimately everything is headed for extinction and us sooner rather than later, then why does it matter what anyone thinks/believes/teaches? In fact why does anything matter? Once I am dead nothing at all will mean anything to me, it may as well have never been. In the perceived lifespan of the universe, not to mention its perceived physical size, my existence in space and time is as near as I can get to nothing. In fact the existence of the human race from go to woah is pretty much the same too. Life, as we understand it here, has no meaning, no purpose, no significance, no permanency.
So why do we get so uptight about a few people wanting us to believe that an almighty external deity created the universe? At worst it is meaningless, at best it gives us some comfort in our meaningless existence that there is an ultimate purpose to our lives.
It boggles my mind that people can get away with teaching creationism (not just talking about schools) and other religious mumbo-jumbo to children. Teaching outright lies like this about how the universe works to children is just as bad as child molestation.
Pseudoscience too often is being taught as facts in some schools, yet religion is seen as not having a place in schools at all. Yet I would argue that it is more important from a historic, and social structure perspective to understand multiple religions than most of the Pseudosciences. That isn't to say that some Pseudoscience isn't important from a historic standpoint, or as a simplification, but should be taught in the correct context.
When I talk about Pseudoscience I am talking about popular theories that have been thoroughly disproved, but are are being taught at fact. Some of these have been superseded by newer theories that more support the facts, or people are trying to modify the theory to fit the facts. I think of these as Cult of Science Theories. Two of these examples of this are "Darwin's Theory of Evolution" and "The Big Bang Theory." Though I will quickly mention "Newtonian Physics" at the beginning just because of the way I read about it being taught in some schools.
I just read about Newtonian Physics being taught with out any mention of Relativistic Physics. While Newtonian Physics will get you very close to the correct answer on object traveling at much less than the speed of light, the more correct theory of Relativistic Physics should also be taught. (More correct used just because this is our current understanding)
Darwin's Theory has so many holes in it, Swiss cheese doesn't begin to describe it. While it might be a good historic lesson to lead into the Theory of Evolution, Darwin's Theory has been thoroughly disproved. This isn't to say that Darwin's Theory wasn't based off of science, but it should not be taught as the only truth now, or really truth at all.
The Big Bang Theory was never based on real science, it ignored that the observations it was based on did not support the theory. The primary basis of it was red shift. The red shift showed that a bunch of the galaxies appeared to be moving away from a set of central points. Even at the time of the hypothesis, there was no central point that the red shift pointed to as being the start of the big bang. It showed there were at least 3 points of origin. The theory was made on the belief that the equipment being used caused the error in the data not supporting one point of origin.
Since then astrological equipment has improved by leaps and bounds and has continuously shown that the original data was correct. A not widely supported modification of the theory is there was an initial big bang, that threw off large chunks of matter, then a series of smaller big bangs caused the multiple points of origin.
Furthermore the theory is also based on that the red shift shows how far galaxies have moved from this big bang due to speed. That has also been recently disproved as some galaxies are not as far away as they would have to be for The Big Bang Theory to be correct.
Also for this theory to be correct, matter would have gone equally in all directions. Scientific observations show this to not be the case. To try to explain these facts away, Dark Matter and Dark Energy were invented. This new dark stuff is not based on science, but trying to find any way to fit science into the model, instead of trying to model the science.
All that being said, The Big Bang Theory, does work as an incomplete model that gives an approximation of how the known universe is working, and should be taught as such. We use a lot of incomplete models to help drive real science, but scientifically and mathematically The Big Bang Theory as originally proposed and even with lots of modification does not currently match the known facts.
How come creationism is completely put down, yet pseudoscience gets endorsed due to popularity?
Great, a map! Everyone will have something to do during the Obama economy (hunt down and harass their political opponents). Forward!
It's not like there will be any pesky jobs getting in the way! Finally, priorities.
I do not see the problem with "public" money via vouchers going to schools that teach this subject matter. The parents have decided that they want their kids in these types of schools and either agree with or are willing to accept that creationism is also taught there. The problems the liberals have with vouchers is that it takes the decision making process out of government and union hands. The whole God thing is just a red herring.
They are both the same story in essence. A long time ago in a Earth not so far away God/volcanoes mixed the goo over several days/million years to create life. Problem I have is that kooks that are anti-choice, outside of abortion, I despise. While the one that believe God seem to make a livable community with affordable housing for the poor and entry level jobs. I guess it is like whatPrager says that you have to believe in something silly one day a week, otherwise you believe in non-sense 7 days a week.
My problem with Darwinian Evolution is that it is not true and some schools teach it as truth. If you get in the car right now and drive somewhere and someone lets you do something out of the kindness of their hearts, that disproves Darwinian Evolution. Someone, or some animal sacrificing themselves to save someone/something else generally disproves this.
I am not saying that evolution, or at least parts of evolution theory are not correct. I am saying that Darwin's Theory of Evolution is incorrect. Part of this comes from the very rigid restrictions Darwin put on his theory, most of the rigid restrictions have been proven scientifically to be wrong.
Education is controlled at the state level because they are supposed to experiment, with the best rising to the top.
"Experiment" meaning yes, some will fail.
Does anyone say "I hope our schools are as good as Tennessee or Louisiana"? Of course not. In that sense the experiment is proving out.
Just because it's not fast enough for you, doesn't mean it's not working.
Democracy is a bitch.
-Styopa
MAP
LA and TX... Correlation isn't causation, but damn!
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I know that there isn't really any way to expose it on this scale, but teachers where I live usually either skip the origins section of the text book or openly flaunt evolutionary theory. They all seem to operate from a mild martyr complex.
I'm struggling to figure out what teaching it had to do with my understanding of science? Creationism isn't science. I consider myself a Christian but I do not ever conflate matters of historical faith with how fast carbon decays or how electrons move or how likely the next jet I'm on is to fall out of the sky.
Knowledge of the bible has precluded rational scientific theory in exactly none of the self-professed religious people (e.g. Christians, Jews, Catholics, etc.) I've ever known.
It doesn't matter that much if people are confused about the origin of species. It matters a great deal more if they are confused about the origin of wealth, and unfortunately thousands of tax payer funded schools teach the equivalent of economic creationism.
Next step should be history course: God created the universe in 6 day and then rested the 7th day...
(I'm from Louisiana) If you look at the correction at the bottom of the article, Louisiana and Tennessee just look really bad because they appear to have put a bullet point over every public high school in the two states, which probably isn't an accurate representation of the distribution of ignorance. People in the bigger cities, yes, even this far south, tend to be more worldly than out in the boonies (except in Shreveport! They're different up there!). And using the word "education" is a stretch for some of these places. If they teach ID as well as they teach literacy, human civilization has little to fear.
I can't help but see this as a horrible injustice that should be treated as such, and should land those responsible in jail. If someone taught me in school that Santa Claus created the world, and somehow I became smart enough to snap out of it someday, I would be furious that my education involved any sort of nonsense like religion. This is the problem. You stand back and give people their space, instead of telling them how stupid they are and this is what happens eventually. I've had enough. God and religion are truly for the stupid and ignorant.
Anyone notice the two states with the most dots rank 41 and 49 on the list of states ranked by average IQ? Coincidence? I think not.
If a person has the option to reduce their tax burden by instead giving that money to some private party, then the argument of whether it is private money or state money is simply a matter of semantics. No one in this thread has made the claim that private parties shouldn't be allowed to give their money to these organizations, but when that donation triggers a tax benefit, then that donation clearly effects the state's bottom line. I would think that this is glaringly obvious, regardless of whichever "ilk" one may belong to. Or are you deliberately trying to obfuscate the discussion?
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
Almost all the publicly funded schools teach that this is a democratic republic with three independent branches of government that provide checks and balances to protect our constitutional rights. Given how laughably provably untrue that is, the Creationism is a relatively minor problem.
More Creationism!!! No liberalism and fewer democrats, facists, socialists, communists, humanists, whatever they call themselves!
Absent from your 1-sided post is any sense of the multiple errors and outright lies that glut teaching life-by-incremental changes. If you wanna call it "creationism," you wanna slap a "religion" label on it when the real religion is the state religion of atheistic humanism. How about these guys are merely teaching the facts of how things really work?
Cranky educator.
Good, Evolution has no scientific evidence. Plus taxpayers shouldn't pay for one religion(evolution) to be pushed. Watch Kent Hovinds videos for info on how evolution is scientifically impossible and how the education system has knowingly kept false information in the textbooks to push the false theory of evolution.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
dullards that can live with themselves teaching their kids dumb, dull, dickless, thoughts that hold up their fortress of religious beliefs. It's fucktarded and it makes you not a bad parent, but so bad you would have been better just to abort. You are dumb as fucking rocks, dumber than rocks since rocks don't really decide. Go jump off your closest fucking bridge you fucking taint on everything that is defensible with your fucking existence.
.. Here, I want you to believe in all this fairy tale crap that makes no sense in the real, perceived, logical world, because it allows me to control your life. Your parents believe it, if they didn't they were bad people.
FFS the stupidity of people, and worse what they pass on to their most loved kin... I am thankful that my mother never pushed her horrible fictional beliefs on me, because that is the whole problem. The problem is that idiots pass on their idiot beliefs, and infants do not get a say in what they believe.. The are force-fed propaganda, and really it's just a political advertisement. People, fuck yourselves for being stupid and malleable, but don't pass on your idiocies to your most precious offspring. There's no greater crime.
I'm comfortable with exposing him with these silly fictions.. BUT... only after he gets a sound foundation of learning in history, logic, and critical thinking. Not before, because I LOVE my child.
But those leading the 'Christian faithful' in states where these arguments are happening seem to have no understanding of what they claim to follow, nor how to actually live the examples their scriptures describe. What happens is that wanabee religious leaders learn all the political and power grabbing techniques, almost subliminally, since this is the shorter route to their 'pastor dream', and effectively bypass the hard work involved in actually internalising the spiritual discipline that should lie at the heart of a true spiritual faith. Then, of course, they cannot translate the abstract concepts and principles described into modern language and conceptual frameworks, and are left just spouting the external form of the words in their scriptures with no real understanding. This is tragic, especially in Christianity where there is a clear illustration of this problem, how it unfolds, and the natural egotistical reaction of those in power when faced with someone who actually understands what the scriptures are there to teach... and if you have a Bible to hand you can hardly miss it, since it's repeated four times in four different accounts at the start of the New Testament. How organised religion can make the same mistakes over again is an almost comical picture of precisely what the core of Christianity is meant, in part, to teach against. It's amazing how the faith, so distorted as it is, can still support many in their lives even still.
My understanding and point of view (with a background in maths and logic and a passion for physics, computers and internal martial arts) make the lessons of scripture/spiritual writing, whether Judeo-Christian, Buddhist, Vedic and Taoist, to be important and logical consequences of the maths and science we have discovered, explained insightfully in a way that contemporaries of the authors of these teachings would have a good chance of understanding. I have yet, in my studies (and I am rather thorough and minimalist about what I do and do not assume), to find a single teaching that, given a suitable interpretation, does not make proper sense in light of modern scientific discoveries. I just wish others would see it that way.
John_Chalisque
That's not evolution. Evolution is observed by microbiologists and others every day. You've just set up an unrealistic strawman up and stuck a label on it as if it's the only case. What motivated you to do it and why should we take your word on anything after such an attempt at manipulation?
Oh come on now - you are not thirteen years old are you? There's no excuse for such shit.
Now that's just shifting the goalposts. Even 'flu season proves it for all practical purposes.
Mendel knew the difference between his science and religion and was probably more pious than any reader here. That's the sort of person you are calling a liar.
If he were in North Korea or China he'd be better off as a gay man than he is in the USA.
He's in the USA.
If you can't be arsed to believe in the constitution that claims every person has an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then why the fuck are you in the USA? Go to some commie shithole where such rights do not exist.
As long as Louisiana schools are teaching it using Louisiana tax money why should I care? I'm in Maryland. Let 'em waste their money any way they see fit.
But I can say not all of it was bad. My brother's kids went to a "Christian" school up to 5th grade. They learned the basics a lot earlier than their public school counterparts (lived next door) and did quite well. Unfortunately, 5th grade was when they had to pull them out because what they considered science, was actually a combination of "bible history" and regular history. Earth being 8000 years old. Everything started after Noah's Ark crashed. Pretty much whatever they couldn't explain, they said god did it. Not believing in the same thing and not wanting their kids to have a disadvantage in life when dealing with everyone else around the world (who don't subscribe to the same lunacy), they pulled their kids out of that school. Public schools were different, but they're doing better now.
It's just one school issue... not all of them. For instance, I live in the northeast. No creationism taught here. OTOH, the liberal nirvana of the People's Republic of Connecticut goes too far the other way. Take US History as an example. Non-exceptional students get taught US History in two blocks. The first block, the era of small government in the US is taught in 8th grade. It is taught largely as a fairy tale. I've read the book, cover to cover. It's slanted in too many ways to mention. It has ridiculous sidebars - with extraneous and/or irrelevant topics in US History put there to be "politically correct."
Meanwhile, the era of big government, Reconstruction through Today is taught in 11th grade. The focus of this book is things like the robber barrons, with little to no acknowledgement of the standard of living those "robber barrons" brought to the US. It shimmies right up to the notion that WWII for the US was started because the US cut off exports of oil and steel to Japan, instead of the fact that the Japanese bombed pearl harbor. The book glosses over the battles in the Pacific, and instead concentrates on the internment of Japanese Americans and the "questionable" decision to nuke Japan.
I insisted that both of my daughters take AP US History in high school so that they learn the entire history in one year, one devoid of this kind of historical revisionism that our school system foists on our children. Sadly, most of the students get the slanted version, and think that its reality. I doubt Slate will do an article on that, or the hundreds of other things I saw happen on my 9 years on the local board of education.
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
Most Liberals do not conform to your rather stupid view point. Some of us even own firearms for when you and your other dehumanizing pals think its OK to form mobs and try to kill us. Surprise!
Skipping our outlying states seems stupid.
And it was taught in mine.
Which is why the AGW denialists piss me off so much.
Don't teach evolution or creationism at all. Be totally scientific. Teach only what is known. Let the kids decide. Rather teach reading, writing and arithmetic, calculus, literature, business, science, religion ... stuff that they can use.
Don't know where they got their data from, but I do know of schools in states that are listed as not having any. For example, Bible Bapist School ( now West Shore Christian Academy) in Central Pennsylvania teaches Creationism and receives Federal Funding to purchase their curriculum every few years.
I wonder what the point of this post is, science or politics?
Now we need a map that show liberal arts universities that let you opt out of american history classes.
Why has some idiot, moron, democrat marked this comment as troll?!?!?!?!?!? Because I have a different opinion than them!?!?!?!?!?! Yet again, I say it is time to invite democrats to give up their citizenship, and move to the facist, communist, socialist, country of their choice at their own expense - since they hate our country soo much!
He didn't preach hate. Some people pretend he did and put convenient words in his mouth. I'm NOT doing that. We don't know what he said on the topic, and I'm pissed off about various Go-bothering merchants in the temple telling me that he hates poor people etc.
No, I'm saying that their suggestions of a Christian version of an Islamic state with sharia law are in opposition to Christian teachings. The separation of Church and State is one bit of the book they want to ignore in a quest to take over the state. I'm sure you know the sort of extremists I'm referring to and what political party they have been trying to take over since the 1980s.
Please consider what allocating that view to a strawman built in my name tells us about you. It's hard to tell if you are a real person or a cardboard cutout foaming at the mouth character from a Southpark script.