Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence. Have you heard of the ‘Loch Ness Monster’ in Scotland? ‘Nessie’ for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.
Scotland’s The Herald reports that the textbook in question also says that a Japanese whaling boat once caught a dinosaur, and that Jesus once appeared on The Flintstones.
I thought I made that last part up, but no. As you can see from the clip above, Jesus’s birthday was explored on the show, though I don’t think it’s in the offensive textbook.
Regardless, it turns out ACE doesn’t have a stellar reputation for accuracy. That would be troublesome on a good day, but such stupid-on-a-stick is even more appalling because in Louisiana, at least, some
students receiving publicly funded vouchers and attending private schools in 2012-2013 will be taught from educational media promoting young earth creationism, global warming denial, history that is not factual, and bigotry toward Catholicism, Mormonism, other Protestants, and non-Christian religions.
And thanks, Cynical, for the link.
Dating Jesus 
Thank you for writing about this. I’ve got your book at the top of my reading list, so I’m excited to see you talking about it.
I’ve been blogging about this for a while now, and I’ve started to get hits referred from this site, so I came to check it out.
Love your site and intend to be a regular. I believe we are beating the same drum.
I like to think of it this way–those kids will not be competing with me for software engineering jobs in a few years.
But, they might be my home health care aide in a few more years. Oh Gawd, we’re doomed.
Is this what we call thinning the herd? Because it hardly seems fair to saddle unsuspecting children with such pure-D ignorance.
A.C.E. is the outfit that does not conduct “classroom” teaching, per se, but sets the kids up in little cubicles to fill out their workbooks. When they have a question or need help, they signal the teacher not by raising their hand but by putting a little American flag-on-a-stick into a base on top of their cubicle. Lets each kid work at their own pace. Also is quite similar to a feed pen.
Whoa. Here’s more on that: http://everything2.com/title/Accelerated+Christian+Education
The article was sent to me by my e-pen-pal Joe in Glasgow — he’s very worried about his American friends.
Tell him we’ll be fine — most of us.
The people who deny evolution baffle me. It isn’t that I think our concepts of evolution are perfect, because I’m pretty sure we will learn more about it in the future and will discover that some of the current thinking is not quite right. In other words, I’m pretty sure that our understanding of evolution will improve over time.
What baffles me is that those who deny evolution seem to be saying that God must have made everything just as it is now because otherwise how could we have the forms of life that we have now? As if evolution is too complicated.
If asked, I bet the “earth is less than 10,000 years old” crowd all would loudly agree that God is omniscient and omnipotent. Bingo. That is exactly the point.
So what is so difficult about the idea that God could have created some basics (matter, the elements, the basic rules of chemistry, biology, physics, etc.) and set things up so that evolution would take care of the rest? Yes, that sure is complicated, but didn’t we just confirm that those same folks would agree that nothing was beyond God’s abilities?
I’m agnostic, so I’m not saying that is what happened, only saying that it sure makes sense. (To me there is a world of difference between being an atheist and an agnostic, but that is a discussion for another time).
After all, there is plenty of present-day evidence of evolution at work right now in front of our faces. Flu viruses evolve all the time, as do bacteria (development of drug resistance, anybody?).
So to be harsh about it, I could argue that the evolution deniers are not good Christians at all. I could argue lots of things about them, but I’ll simply say that they clearly don’t believe their own professed faith that God is omnipotent and omniscient. They basically take the position that God is too dumb to put evolutionary principles in place. Really???!!???
http://www.topix.com/forum/news/evolution
I don’t know weather to laugh or cry.
I think the absolute worst part is that we won’t exactly have competition from these kids for software jobs in a few years. We won’t have competition for -anything-, and it’s really not fair to them at all – or to those parents down there who do care, who are tearing their hair out at the absurdity of their school systems but don’t have the money to move.
Hey, who wants to place bets on the controversy in a few years when students or teachers attempt to find some way to educate/be educated and the system reacts with shock and horror?
Seriously. And then in three or four years’ time, when they start showing up as students here, or basically anywhere outside of Pensacola, they have to gasp and struggle to keep up with anyone at all… and if their minds have been closed by their youth, it’ll become a defensive, angry place – how dare they try to subvert our religious leanings?
It baffles me how very thoroughly these people are screwing themselves and their children over – the people who vote for these bills so seldom even have heard the arguments against their position. And, as DickG points out, that also kinda doesn’t make them good Christians. “With all thy mind,” I believe the verse says. How you gonna do that if you refuse to use it?