Keeping kids ignorant in the bible belt

[Lionel Mandrake]

1. Missouri has amended its constitution as follows:

http://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/2012ballot/fulltext_1.pdf

Most of the rights mentioned here are already protected by the US Constitution and other laws. What's new is that "no student shall be compelled to perform or participate in academic assignments or educational presentations that violate his or her religious beliefs". If a kid wants to avoid thinking about a particular topic, say evolution or global warming, new he or she can easily do so. Of course, that was the whole idea of the amendment.

2. Some Kentucky legislators don't want evolution in the state science standards. State senator David Givens said: "I would hope that creationism is presented as a theory in the classroom, in a science classroom, alongside evolution." State Representative Ben Waite said: "The theory of evolution is a theory, and ... is not science -- Darwin made it up." Both of these idiots are Republicans, thank Darwin.

Kentucky is the only State where teachers are officially encouraged to teach creationism as science:

http://www.lrc.ky.gov/KRS/158-00/177.PDF

[Curtland1015]

1. You know what the tragic thing is? They REALLY think they're helping children.

Believing in God is one thing, but wow... I feel bad for those kids.

[YoungDemCA]

2. The ironic thing about Christian fundamentalism....

...is that it is a modern phenomenon.

[Lionel Mandrake]

9. Christian fundamentalism may be modern as opposed to ancient or medieval,

but I suspect the the drive to return to the fundamentals has been around forever.

In 1517, Martin Luther wanted to restore earlier standards in the Roman Catholic Church. Hence the "Reformation".

[HooptieWagon]

10. It was prevelent in the Dark Ages.

Fundies want to return to that golden age... dragging us with them.

[AndyTiedye]

17. They'd Love to do a New Edition of the Spanish Inquisition

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. God help those kids! (pun intended)

These people are barking mad.

This post reminds me of a saying I've heard: As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools.

[gollygee]

4. The sad thing is that these kids are going to have to compete with kids from other states

who are getting real educations for spots at universities and eventually jobs. They are making things harder for their own kids.

[Lionel Mandrake]

12. Kids in California aren't much better off.

When I was in high school, no teacher would dare speak the bad "E" word.

There are still lots of creationists teaching biology, and not just in high schools. I know one who teaches in a community college. He doesn't teach evolution; he attacks it.

A biologist I know at a CSU campus says their beginning course for biology majors has to emphasize evolution, because the kids coming out of high school need remedial education in the subject.

[LiveNudePolitics]

5. Not just the current crop of kids they ruin

The crazy personhood and abortion laws the same gang passes with more and more frequency are also detrimental to our society. Surprising from the same folks who want fiscal conservatism in govt......Won't all the kids born as a result of abortion bans and Planned Parenthood underfunding cause additional debt? Why would we ever allow the procreation police to roll back reproductive rights? http://livenudepolitics.com/?p=2155

[YoungDemCA]

6. They don't want "fiscal conservatism" in government

They want the government to enforce "morality" (aka far-right Christian theocracy) on the population.

When they say "fiscal conservative', that's code for cutting programs that they don't like-namely, social spending on the poor, public education, etc. They are happy to use government in the service of their own warped ideology.

[Volaris]

16. Which raises the following question...

can any "choice" forced down by government REALLY be a morally correct choice? I think not, and it undermines the idea that Free Will is a good (or even existent) thing, which supports causal determinism as a basis for, well, basically EVERYTHING, which shreds any argument for Creationism as a science (or explanation for anything).

Watching these people destroy their own arguments is so much fun I almost think I should be charged a fee.

[Lionel Mandrake]

7. I agree 100%,

although your post is introducing a new topic.

Nice website, by the way.

[LiveNudePolitics]

18. I agree 100%,

I'm not entirely sure, but aren't all those "Teen Mom" cast-members from the Midwest?

[Lionel Mandrake]

19. Being from California, I've always been puzzled by the term "Midwest".

I think it means states that are about twice as far from the Pacific as from the Atlantic Ocean. Maybe it should be called the "Mideast".

According to Wikipedia, the cast member of Teen Mom are Maci Bookout from Tennessee, Farrah Abraham from Iowa, Catelynn Lowell from Michigan, and Amber Portwood from Indiana.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Mom

[1-Old-Man]

8. This I am sure of: The stupider your children are the worse world they will live in.

And so the question becomes, do they want their children to grow up into a worse world than the one we did? To have once known something and then to have purposefully become ignorant of it deprives the world of its most important resource, information.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

11. They probably figure that their kids are going to heaven...

So it doesn't really matter what kind of world they live in before that happens.

[Lionel Mandrake]

13. Right. Since the only purpose of this life is to prepare for the next one,

why should we worry about about mass extinctions, overpopulation, global warming, and other such trivia?

[hifiguy]

14. The Chinese, Japanese and Koreans are laughing

their asses off when they read things like this. You know, those places that believe in SCIENCE. It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.

[Lionel Mandrake]

15. One thing those Asians can agree on

is how dumb the Americans are.