Christian School Lays Smack Down on Science: Tax Dollars at Work?

If you wonder why the vast majority of Americans believe public schools and religion should not be mixed, a story you likely missed last April may help clarify matters.

The story first broke when a fourth grade teacher at Blue Ridge Christian Academy in South Carolina gave a quiz in science class. You may wonder, if the pictures (below) were part of some left-wing, atheist hoax. That question is easily answered with a check of the website of “Answers in Genesis,” a staunch Christian organization, which holds that the earth is only 6,000 years old.

In a moment, we will turn it over to Ken Ham of “Answers in Genesis” to tell the tale. First, the quiz in question:

There’s no problem, of course, if a group of parents wants to send their children to a school that teaches dinosaurs roamed the earth alongside Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. If that’s what they want their children to believe, so be it.

The real issue is the increasing willingness of states to funnel tax dollars to private schools—with no way for lawmakers to close Pandora’s Bible or Koran once they open it.

Here in Ohio, Governor John Kasich and his friends in the General Assembly are pushing for more money for private schools—including private religious schools. I, for one, am anxiously awaiting the moment when Mr. Kasich or Ohio House Speaker William G. Batchelder has to get up in front of an angry conservative crowd and explain that, yes, freedom of religion does indeed extend to Muslims—and any schools they might like to open, as well.

Conservatives are sure to love that idea.

This summer South Carolina joined a growing list of states which offer at least some tax relief to parents who want to send children to private schools. It came too late to help Blue Ridge Christian Academy, but there are other schools out there ready to pick up the cross and bear it. We know, for example, that in Louisiana a number of Christian schools used taxpayer monies to push a similar type of science.

In fact, in Governor Bobby Jindal’s back yard, the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum favored by several schools went to great pains to explain that the Loch Ness monster was probably real—noting that “Nessie” was likely a plesiosaur. In other words: dinosaurs are not extinct. Darwin is a scumbag. Evolution never happened.

When the story about Blue Ridge first broke “Answers in Genesis” admitted they supplied the science curriculum. They stood by every syllable. Ken Ham of AiG complained about all the attacks on freedom of religion.

Here’s how Mr. Ham saw it:

A Christian K–12 school in South Carolina, with dedicated and highly qualified Christian teachers, has come under vicious attack by atheists. Why? Because one of its instructors, a fourth-grade teacher, tested her children about biblical creation, science, and dinosaurs (using AiG resources), and she has become (in)famous on many atheist websites and blogs.

Only $14.99 if you are interested.

It would be bad enough, Ham warned, if this was an isolated incident; but the demise of Blue Ridge was just one battle in an ongoing war, a small school coming under attack from powerful atheist interests. Like David vs. Goliath. Only this time, Goliath triumphed.

Ham continued: “The atheist buzz about the dinosaur-and-Bible quiz, however, is not really all that surprising. Over the past few years, we have seen atheists becoming more aggressive and intolerant towards Christians…They are attempting to impose their belief system (yes, their religion) on the culture.”

In fact, the “atheists” have been emboldened since the last presidential election. Probably something to do with President Obama and his commie plan to impose good health care on sick Americans. (Really: you wonder. Would Jesus have bothered to raise Lazarus from the dead if he knew he was covered by Obamacare?)

I’m sorry. This isn’t funny.

Ham explained:

In South Carolina [the teacher] showed students a DVD of a children’s program, in which AiG song-writer and dinosaur sculptor Buddy Davis and I are featured. In this DVD, we teach children the history of the universe from the Bible, with a special emphasis on teaching dinosaurs from a biblical perspective (as we do inside our Creation Museum. The teacher handed out a question sheet to the children to test what they learned from the DVD.

The quiz ended up posted on the internet; the school lost enrollment and Blue Ridge folded. You might say the Academy went extinct, if you had a sense of humor.

Ham wasn’t laughing:

Though we praise God for the minority of Christian ‘missionaries’ who work as teachers in the public school system (and who need our prayers), government schools have increasingly become, in essence, churches of atheism. We are aware that the overwhelming majority of children raised in the church attend public schools, and thus it should not be surprising that with all the secularist indoctrination in schools, about two-thirds of our young people brought up in church are walking away from it by the time they reach college age.

Look: Ham and his supporters (good people, probably—albeit not up on the latest science) can stand on their heads if they want to.

It’s a free country, and that freedom should cover all religions and atheists, too.

The problem, when you start mixing public monies and religion, is that you have no idea where to draw the line. If you introduce a class in “The Bible as Literature,” as Texas did recently, you open a door for an atheist teacher to say to students, “I think this is absurd mythology.” You can imagine a situation developing where a Mormon teacher in one school bats some Jewish kid upside the head with the Book of Mormon, or a Catholic educator whips out a Latin Vulgate Bible and starts reading to innocent Presbyterian children. Buddhists berate Baptists. Hindus hector Lutherans. Mennonites menace Methodists.

Public schools end up in the middle of a theological donnybrook.

Better to keep all religion out for the good of all the students.

 Let them think for themselves and with the help of parents and spiritual advisers, let them develop their own belief systems.

Far-Right Conservatives Invent New Language: Part 2

God said, "Let there be
conservatives."
And, lo, there was Sean Hannity.

IT'S NO SURPRISE, FAR-RIGHT TYPES are hiding under the covers as the 2012 election approaches. After all, they're terribly afraid. They're afraid that gay people want to join them under those covers. They've been listening to Fox News (fair-and-balanced!) and know in their hearts that President Obama is a Muslim. They think liberals want to take away their guns and ammunition and make them carry daisies for personal protection. And they know Nazis intend to foist health care upon unsuspecting, uninsured Americans.

In fact, our foes on the right bend terms so thoroughly these days, if you're a liberal, it can be downright confusing, because it seems the Far-Right is making stuff up, like they can't tell the difference between a liberal, a socialist and a podiatrist.

It's time, then, for a second installment of Far-Right lexicon, where I explain conservative terms and definitions:

Creationism:  on the first day God created the heavens and the earth. On the second day He made the Founding Fathers, on the third day Rush Limbaugh, on the fourth automatic weapons and the right to bear arms. On the fifth day He created gay people, which you could say was His mistake, and maybe He ought to own up to it, but did at least give His conservative creatures someone they might fear and hate and persecute when life got boring. On the sixth day he created real Americans (see below; see also Far-Right Conservatives Invent New Language, Part 1) and traditional marriage.

Then He took the next day off.

Garden of Eden: where Adam and Eve lived, after God finished His labors, and Nature was pure and clean, but not so clean that the the first woman couldn't exclaim, "Drill, baby, drill."

Defense of Marriage Act: where God defined marriage as between one man and one woman, which was kind of confusing, since Adam and Eve had only sons. Not to be confused with Deuteronomy 21:15, where God gives advice on how a man with two wives should handle family dissension. Nor to be confused with Judges 8:30, where Gideon has seventy-one sons, many wives, and enjoys the favors of a concubine for good measure. No Steve and Steve, see. Just Adam and Eve, and Eve and Eve and Eve....

Sermon on the Mount: when Jesus blasted food stamps as a "government giveaway" and insisted Paul Ryan was his homeboy, because Congressman Ryan had a deficit reduction plan that both protected the rights of downtrodden millionaires and denied health care coverage to cripples and lepers.

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God: Biblical admonition against closing tax loopholes for camel herders and Big Oil companies.

IT'S NOT JUST RELIGIOUS TERMS that now confuse. This was made clear when Richard Mourdock, an Indiana Tea Party stalwart, who took out Dick Lugar in the Republican Senate primary in that state, spoke with reporters at Fox News. Murdock was asked to comment on his idea of bipartisanship. Mourdock replied, like a politician who had jut ingested hallucinogenic drugs:   "I have the mind-set that says bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view."

So, we have:

bipartisanship: when labor unions are dead forever, and Big Coal companies, for example, are no longer bothered by government regulations, including stupid rules to protect drinking water, which commies and liberals want to fluoridate in any case. Safety rules will also be repealed, so that workers killed by buildup of explosive gasses or cave-ins are dead, like unions, and coal barons earn massive tax credits for creating jobs; as in, when workers are killed by gas or cave-ins (see: right to work law, below).

Dream Act: the dream that every Mormon multimillionaire with really good hair, running for president, can have his own illegal-immigrant gardener, while simultaneously assuring Fox News viewers (also called real Americans, below) that he intends to "secure America's borders" if elected. Securing the border will apparently keep out waves of gardeners armed with rakes and hedge trimmers.

stand your ground law: a well regulated militia being necessary to protect Sarah Palin from the lamestream media, the individual's right to carry a gun into a Victoria's Secret fashion show shall in no way be infringed, since the Founding Fathers meant for everyone to have the right to gun down home invaders, including Jehovah's Witnesses who ring doorbells on Saturday mornings.

right to work law: passed with the support of campaign donations from huge corporations, who are actually people--as Mitt Romney tells us, when he's not talking about trees in Michigan being just the right height. When billionaires party, sometimes jokingly referred to as:  the "right to work for less law." This legislation protects the right of non-union workers to earn $729 per week on average vs. $938 for unionized workers.

War on Christmas: when the average non-union worker begins to get restless because his paycheck doesn't allow him to buy as many presents as he was hoping, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity fill his head with scary, end-times warnings that secular humanists want to deny his children the right to say, "Merry Christmas" to teachers and deny him, the happy non-union worker, the right to put up festive holiday decorations.

tree hugger:  when a conservative hugs a tree which is exactly the right height, as Mr. Romney puts it. That is:  when the tree is a stump.

tax increase: what conservatives protect the average worker from, because nothing says, "We love the average worker," like low-paying jobs with no health insurance. This means the average worker, who is safe from being forced to join a union, and makes on average $10,972 less per year, is protected from paying $7 extra in weekly payroll taxes and $500 in annual union dues. In return the average worker votes to support the interests of millionaires and billionaires, who are, really, almost personal friends, like drinking buddies, people who still say, "Merry Christmas," too, only way, way richer.

socialism: the idea that raising taxes 3% on top wage earners (say, the hedge fund manager who earned a $1.2 million bonus in 2012) will reduce the deficit, when in fact conservatives are way too smart to fall for that trick and know any attempt to raise taxes will end with the liberties of real Americans (see below) squashed like cockroaches. So, when you really think about it, the top 1% are altruistic heroes.

deficit reduction: the idea that you cannot raise taxes on Albert Pujols or said hedge fund manager, or Joe Ricketts, billionaire owner of the Chicago Cubs, who wants to spend $10 million dollars of his own money to warn you that President Obama is intent on raising your taxes and squashing your freedoms. (See: socialism, above); but cutting three teacher's jobs, because each makes $36,000 per year, will cut the deficit, which is killing this nation, the greatest in the world, and now those unemployed teachers can go to work at Wal-Mart and you can save the economy and create more jobs in the long run and thank god billionaires are looking out for what is really in the workers' best interests.

real American: anyone who watches Fox News religiously (and we do mean, religiously), who mistakes Bill O'Reilly for an honest-to-god Biblical prophet; also, anyone who believes there really is a War on Christmas (see above), and thinks liberals want to kill and eat the Easter Bunny.

auto bailout:  the attempt, by President Obama, to introduce socialism, communism and botulism in America; not be be confused with capitalism, which is perfect and good and what God intended, and what Jesus was preaching about, and what Joe Ricketts wants to protect when he pours $10 million of his own money into a slimy advertising campaign to defeat President Obama, who wants to raise taxes, while simultaneously asking city and state government to raise taxes to pay for tens of millions of dollars in improvements to his very own Wrigley Field.

At any rate, as far as I can tell, that's what Far-Right conservatives are really saying. And if I can be of service, and bring liberals and conservatives closer together, so that we all use Webster's Dictionary again, I am happy to have done my civic duty as a good American.