Wayne Besen - Author, Activist, Columnist, Public Speaker

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Time to wake up, folks. An insidious group called the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, based in Greensboro, N.C., has been working for 12 years to get its extremist Bible curriculum in schools. According to the New York Times, they are having some success. Critics are pointing out how this indoctrination of students is not only unconstitutional, but scientifically bankrupt.

Some of the claims made in the national council's curriculum are laughable, said Mark A. Chancey, professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who spent seven weeks studying the syllabus for the freedom network. Mr. Chancey said he found it "riddled with errors" of facts, dates, definitions and incorrect spellings. It cites supposed NASA findings to suggest that the earth stopped twice in its orbit, in support of the literal truth of the biblical text that the sun stood still in Joshua and II Kings.

This would be laughable, if it were not for the fact that taxpayer dollars are going to teach kids how to be ignorant. Why not pay for them to watch episodes of Mighty Mouse and tell them that animated vermin is real?

One step people can take to counter this is stealing a page from the Creationists who insist that the Adam and Eve story be brought up in biology class. If they can bring religion into a science course, where it doesn't belong, than science has a right to be in religion courses. Parents ought to demand that these classes offer the alternative scientific point of view. Unless, we want our children to believe that NASA discovered that the sun twice took a lunch break. Do these people ever give up in their quest to make our kids the stupidest in the world?

4 Comments:

These people are just total freaks. They are so stupid that they don't have any clue how damn dumb they sound.

Joel
NYC
posted by Anonymous, at 8/02/2005 2:27 AM

How can thinking people live with these drones? They don't want to be thought of as backwards, but they keep doing Ice Age things. I'm sorry, they are as ignorant as they appear.

Bart, San Diego
posted by Anonymous, at 8/02/2005 2:29 AM

You mean they actually admit that the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around?!?!
I'd like to hear how they would explain Jonah being swallowed by a whale, considering whales throats are too narrow to swallow anything but small sea life. Maybe the whale was just able to control his gag reflex like the rest of us do and deep throated ol' Jonah anyway!
Gary (NJ)
posted by Anonymous, at 8/02/2005 9:23 AM

Have anyone read "Inherit the Wind" which portrays, the famous and dramatic courtroom "Monkey Trial" battle (in the summer of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee) between two famous lawyers (Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan) who volunteered to heatedly argue both sides of the case (over 12 days, including two weekends).?

Its story centers around the issue of evolution vs. creationism, in the prosecution of 24 year-old Dayton High School mathematics teacher and sports coach - and substitute science teacher - John T. Scopes for violating state law (the 1925 Butler Act) by teaching the Darwin's theory of evolution in a state-funded school. The play's title was taken from the Biblical book of Proverbs 11:29: "He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind."

I mention this because I use to watch it, glad that the kind of metality presented there was far away... how wrong I have been! Only when people decide to take responsibility for their beliefs and faith, they will stop being fundamentalist, which is a very comfortable way to be Christian... People wake up, God gave us brains to use them no to repeat like parrots!
posted by Anonymous, at 8/02/2005 9:33 AM