Creationism in schools...

[leibowde84]

I came across this little piece in the Answers in Genesis web site. Note that it's a bit old, but in as much as AiG's is still publishing it, an indication that it's still relevant, I'm passing it along with comment.

"A Christian K–12 school in South Carolina, with dedicated and highly qualified Christian teachers, [Hmm, I'm always suspicious of people who unnecessarily tout their qualifications or those of others.] 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), [I gotta say, if you're going to play the Deceit Game then expect to be called on it. Simple as that. ]

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. [Ah yes, all those nasty atheists. Never mind that many Christians feel the same way about misrepresenting and distorting science.]

It seems that since the last presidential election, atheists have grown more confident about having something of a license to go after Christians. [The reasoning being: were it not for electing a liberal-minded President, atheists would still be cowering in their corner. MESSAGE: Keep us safe from atheists; never elect a liberal President.] These secularists want to impose their anti-God religion on the culture. They are simply not content using legislatures and courts to protect the dogmatic teaching of their atheistic religion of evolution and millions of years in public schools. [Evolution gets promoted to the status of a religion. Why? because the choir is better able to relate to the character of the enemy this way. Of course it's still a secular enterprise, but what the hey, take your pick.] There is something else on their agenda: they are increasingly going after Christians and Christian institutions that teach God’s Word beginning in Genesis. [Because they have nothing better to do in life than pick on fundies.]

In South Carolina recently, a fourth-grade teacher at Blue Ridge Christian Academy (a nondenominational K–12 Christian school) 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. (See the quiz below.)

Note: this isn't a "Bible Quiz," but a "Science Quiz."
source
​

The second page is rather hard to make out so here's what it says:

11. Whom should we always trust?____"GOD!!!!"___________

12. What is the "History Book of the Universe?__"BIBLE!!!"______________

13. What did God tell Noah to build?_____"an ark"______________

14. True or False? [the selected answer to:] Noah's ark looked like this:

[The cartoonish picture of enormous animals over-filling a tiny ark.]

15. The average size of a dinosaur was a

a. giraffe
b. rhino
c. elephant
d. sheep [the selected answer]
​

16. what caused them to be fossils?

a. lightening
b. a Global Flood [the selected answer]
c. a tornado
d. evolution
​

17. Fossils are ______"Millions of dead things buryed in rock ???? water all over the world"____________________

18. The next time someone says the earth is billions (millions) of years old, what can you say?______"Were you there?"__________________

.​

Anybody who tries to tell their impressionable students that the Bible is the "History Book of the Universe" should be fired for just cause.

 

[dianaiad]

Private schools that "teach" science through tests like those should be banned.

By whom, and by what authority, and who gets to decide?

disclaimer: I am a theist and a firm believer in the scientific method, evolution, and all that. My problem here is that I REALLY don't want anybody else telling me what to teach my kids because they think they know better than I do what my children should be taught.

...............and I'm a retired teacher. Opinions like yours that include 'should be banned" scare me silly.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

By whom, and by what authority, and who gets to decide?

disclaimer: I am a theist and a firm believer in the scientific method, evolution, and all that. My problem here is that I REALLY don't want anybody else telling me what to teach my kids because they think they know better than I do what my children should be taught.

...............and I'm a retired teacher. Opinions like yours that include 'should be banned" scare me silly.

The class this quiz showed up in was a "science" class. If this is science then I am a talented, keyboard-typing lemur.

Would it be "okay", do you think, if a class touted as a "math" class within a private school instead taught rote memorization of all the jokes in Spongebob Season 1? That's not far off from how bad this is.

Since it is a private school, you may be thinking it is the parents' prerogative whether or not they send their kids there... but being a parent myself, and seeing the level of attentiveness that other parents pay to their kids academic lives (and seeing how often parents don't even understand the things their kids are being taught themselves) do you really think it is 100% responsible to just "teach whatever" and leave it up to the parents to react to their kids' school curriculum appropriately? Highly unrealistic.

 

[Faithofchristian]

Well it's evidence that those teachers definitely have no clue or idea what the Bible Support's or confirm's about the dinosaurs or how old the earth actually is

The dinosaurs were not on the earth at the same time as us human beings were on earth.

 

[Father Heathen]

This is child abuse. Intentionally teaching children that young things that are known falsities is just about as incompetent as a teach can get.

Not just incompetent, malicious.

 

[Estro Felino]

...............and I'm a retired teacher. Opinions like yours that include 'should be banned" scare me silly.

Indeed...as long as it deals with private schools...these "science teachers" are free to spread their fairy tales..
Besides...I feel great compassion...towards them as a Christian....for they live a state of ancestral purity

 

[sealchan]

I came across this little piece in the Answers in Genesis web site. Note that it's a bit old, but in as much as AiG's is still publishing it, an indication that it's still relevant, I'm passing it along with comment.

"A Christian K–12 school in South Carolina, with dedicated and highly qualified Christian teachers, [Hmm, I'm always suspicious of people who unnecessarily tout their qualifications or those of others.] 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), [I gotta say, if you're going to play the Deceit Game then expect to be called on it. Simple as that. ]

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. [Ah yes, all those nasty atheists. Never mind that many Christians feel the same way about misrepresenting and distorting science.]

It seems that since the last presidential election, atheists have grown more confident about having something of a license to go after Christians. [The reasoning being: were it not for electing a liberal-minded President, atheists would still be cowering in their corner. MESSAGE: Keep us safe from atheists; never elect a liberal President.] These secularists want to impose their anti-God religion on the culture. They are simply not content using legislatures and courts to protect the dogmatic teaching of their atheistic religion of evolution and millions of years in public schools. [Evolution gets promoted to the status of a religion. Why? because the choir is better able to relate to the character of the enemy this way. Of course it's still a secular enterprise, but what the hey, take your pick.] There is something else on their agenda: they are increasingly going after Christians and Christian institutions that teach God’s Word beginning in Genesis. [Because they have nothing better to do in life than pick on fundies.]

In South Carolina recently, a fourth-grade teacher at Blue Ridge Christian Academy (a nondenominational K–12 Christian school) 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. (See the quiz below.)

Note: this isn't a "Bible Quiz," but a "Science Quiz."
source
​

The second page is rather hard to make out so here's what it says:

11. Whom should we always trust?____"GOD!!!!"___________

12. What is the "History Book of the Universe?__"BIBLE!!!"______________

13. What did God tell Noah to build?_____"an ark"______________

14. True or False? [the selected answer to:] Noah's ark looked like this:

[The cartoonish picture of enormous animals over-filling a tiny ark.]

15. The average size of a dinosaur was a

a. giraffe
b. rhino
c. elephant
d. sheep [the selected answer]
​

16. what caused them to be fossils?

a. lightening
b. a Global Flood [the selected answer]
c. a tornado
d. evolution
​

17. Fossils are ______"Millions of dead things buryed in rock ???? water all over the world"____________________

18. The next time someone says the earth is billions (millions) of years old, what can you say?______"Were you there?"__________________

.​

OMG!!! This makes my blood boil...

But at the same time I think that to the extent that Christianity insists on teaching a literal history of the world and when that history conflicts with what science/academics shows us, we have a national cultural question that needs addressing. The founding fathers, unfortunately, don't seem to have settled the point that church and state should be kept separate but evangelical Christianity is a thing that has developed since their time I think and is, perhaps, reflective of what many Americans believe. They don't really appreciate the value of the separation of church and state.

My solution is to add teaching about religions as part of the cirriculum because, after all, they are such an important part of our history. But we will teach about all the major religions not just Christianity. Then questions about the age of the earth can be understood as a question with different answers across all the religions and maybe we could keep them out of the science classroom.

Of course those that want to teach children the the Flood was a literal event won't want to have teachers teaching the other creation myths...

 

[Rational Agnostic]

I came across this little piece in the Answers in Genesis web site. Note that it's a bit old, but in as much as AiG's is still publishing it, an indication that it's still relevant, I'm passing it along with comment.

"A Christian K–12 school in South Carolina, with dedicated and highly qualified Christian teachers, [Hmm, I'm always suspicious of people who unnecessarily tout their qualifications or those of others.] 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), [I gotta say, if you're going to play the Deceit Game then expect to be called on it. Simple as that. ]

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. [Ah yes, all those nasty atheists. Never mind that many Christians feel the same way about misrepresenting and distorting science.]

It seems that since the last presidential election, atheists have grown more confident about having something of a license to go after Christians. [The reasoning being: were it not for electing a liberal-minded President, atheists would still be cowering in their corner. MESSAGE: Keep us safe from atheists; never elect a liberal President.] These secularists want to impose their anti-God religion on the culture. They are simply not content using legislatures and courts to protect the dogmatic teaching of their atheistic religion of evolution and millions of years in public schools. [Evolution gets promoted to the status of a religion. Why? because the choir is better able to relate to the character of the enemy this way. Of course it's still a secular enterprise, but what the hey, take your pick.] There is something else on their agenda: they are increasingly going after Christians and Christian institutions that teach God’s Word beginning in Genesis. [Because they have nothing better to do in life than pick on fundies.]

In South Carolina recently, a fourth-grade teacher at Blue Ridge Christian Academy (a nondenominational K–12 Christian school) 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. (See the quiz below.)

Note: this isn't a "Bible Quiz," but a "Science Quiz."
source
​

The second page is rather hard to make out so here's what it says:

11. Whom should we always trust?____"GOD!!!!"___________

12. What is the "History Book of the Universe?__"BIBLE!!!"______________

13. What did God tell Noah to build?_____"an ark"______________

14. True or False? [the selected answer to:] Noah's ark looked like this:

[The cartoonish picture of enormous animals over-filling a tiny ark.]

15. The average size of a dinosaur was a

a. giraffe
b. rhino
c. elephant
d. sheep [the selected answer]
​

16. what caused them to be fossils?

a. lightening
b. a Global Flood [the selected answer]
c. a tornado
d. evolution
​

17. Fossils are ______"Millions of dead things buryed in rock ???? water all over the world"____________________

18. The next time someone says the earth is billions (millions) of years old, what can you say?______"Were you there?"__________________

.​

This makes me sick. They're ruining the minds of young people and discouraging critical thought. And they also breed like rabbits, since they don't believe in contraception.

 

[Apologes]

By whom, and by what authority, and who gets to decide?

disclaimer: I am a theist and a firm believer in the scientific method, evolution, and all that. My problem here is that I REALLY don't want anybody else telling me what to teach my kids because they think they know better than I do what my children should be taught.

...............and I'm a retired teacher. Opinions like yours that include 'should be banned" scare me silly.

Supposedly, you wish to avoid such anarchy in private schools to avoid monopoly over your children's knowledge and views of the world. In the worst case, the plan is to avoid someone imposing falsehoods on your children's minds.

However, Ken Ham's creationism has nothing to do with science so teaching it in science class is giving children terrible misinformation and is not education but brain washing. It is exactly the kind of thing people typically wish to avoid by advocating private schools except it's not just a far-fetched possibility of what might go wrong if the goverment starts controling education, but the real deal.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

Opinions like yours that include 'should be banned" scare me silly.

It should be banned, because we know evolution is a scientific fact. We don't allow teachers to teach conspiracy theories about the moon landing, or teach that the Holocaust never occurred. Why should we allow them to teach this nonsense? People can believe whatever craziness they want, but they shouldn't be allowed to force it upon children as if it were a fact, and threaten the children with hell if they question it. That is child abuse, plain and simple.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Why not send Deepak Chopra while you're at it?

Sadly, even if he was shipped overseas? You can easily access his wisdom on-line.


The enigmatic wisdom of Deepak Chopra

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

It should be banned, because we know evolution is a scientific fact. We don't allow teachers to teach conspiracy theories about the moon landing, or teach that the Holocaust never occurred. Why should we allow them to teach this nonsense? People can believe whatever craziness they want, but they shouldn't be allowed to force it upon children as if it were a fact, and threaten the children with hell if they question it. That is child abuse, plain and simple.

Exactly!

As Dr Neil Tyson once put it: Teach creationism as religion. Teach it as culture. But do not teach it as science, because it isn't.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

Supposedly, you wish to avoid such anarchy in private schools to avoid monopoly over your children's knowledge and views of the world. In the worst case, the plan is to avoid someone imposing falsehoods on your children's minds.

However, Ken Ham's creationism has nothing to do with science so teaching it in science class is giving children terrible misinformation and is not education but brain washing. It is exactly the kind of thing people typically wish to avoid by advocating private schools except it's not just a far-fetched possibility of what might go wrong if the goverment starts controling education, but a real deal.

I can't help but to ask what they think the purpose is in teaching creationism. Religious indoctrination is the only purpose I can see. Teaching creationism certainly doesn't prepare students for a career in the sciences, nor does it help them understand what scientists have discovered and will be discovering in the future.

 

[Apologes]

I can't help but to ask what they think the purpose is in teaching creationism. Religious indoctrination is the only purpose I can see. Teaching creationism certainly doesn't prepare students for a career in the sciences, nor does it help them understand what scientists have discovered and will be discovering in the future.

It's blatant imposing of a backwards agenda and nothing more. It is precisely the opposite of what education should be.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

I can't help but to ask what they think the purpose is in teaching creationism. Religious indoctrination is the only purpose I can see. Teaching creationism certainly doesn't prepare students for a career in the sciences, nor does it help them understand what scientists have discovered and will be discovering in the future.

Exactly!

One wit once observed, "If you teach your child creationism as science? My kid won't be hiring your kid for a job in science. Perhaps your kid can learn to say, 'do you want fries with that order?', for that will pretty much be all he's qualified to do"

 

[Jose Fly]

I can't help but to ask what they think the purpose is in teaching creationism. Religious indoctrination is the only purpose I can see.

In their view, a literal reading of Genesis is an absolute necessity for being a born again Christian. So by teaching creationism, they believe they are saving these kids' souls.

Teaching creationism certainly doesn't prepare students for a career in the sciences, nor does it help them understand what scientists have discovered and will be discovering in the future.

The point of that material has nothing at all to do with science or careers. It's no different than any other religious indoctrination......the intent is to gain converts and/or maintain the flock.

 

[Apologes]

It should be banned, because we know evolution is a scientific fact. We don't allow teachers to teach conspiracy theories about the moon landing, or teach that the Holocaust never occurred. Why should we allow them to teach this nonsense? People can believe whatever craziness they want, but they shouldn't be allowed to force it upon children as if it were a fact, and threaten the children with hell if they question it. That is child abuse, plain and simple.

I wouldn't call it child abuse in any strict sense since the kids seem to love it. (Dinosaurs and all.) It is definitelly harming them indirectly, though, by neglecting to teach them about reality, instead imposing on them a false narrative.

 

[LuisDantas]

By whom, and by what authority, and who gets to decide?

disclaimer: I am a theist and a firm believer in the scientific method, evolution, and all that. My problem here is that I REALLY don't want anybody else telling me what to teach my kids because they think they know better than I do what my children should be taught.

...............and I'm a retired teacher. Opinions like yours that include 'should be banned" scare me silly.

Indeed...as long as it deals with private schools...these "science teachers" are free to spread their fairy tales..
Besides...I feel great compassion...towards them as a Christian....for they live a state of ancestral purity

What about compassion for the children that are being led astray with such nonsense?

 

[Rational Agnostic]

I wouldn't call it child abuse in any strict sense since the kids seem to love it. (Dinosaurs and all.) It is definitelly harming them indirectly, though, by neglecting to teach them about reality, instead imposing on them a false narrative.

What about the kids who don't love it, and question it? They are silenced and told they will go to hell if they believe otherwise. That is why I consider it to be child abuse. I wouldn't put it on the same level as physical abuse, but it is a form of psychological abuse.

 

[Altfish]

By whom, and by what authority, and who gets to decide?

disclaimer: I am a theist and a firm believer in the scientific method, evolution, and all that. My problem here is that I REALLY don't want anybody else telling me what to teach my kids because they think they know better than I do what my children should be taught.

...............and I'm a retired teacher. Opinions like yours that include 'should be banned" scare me silly.

I think the 'banning' of some teaching needs to be considered. OK you may say the teaching of Creationism should not be banned...but where would you draw the line?

What about teaching that the earth is flat?
What about teaching that eugenics is good?
What about teaching that Whites are superior to Blacks?