Sunday, May 05, 2013

Creationist Ken Ham claims that Christianity is under attack because people are upset that some parents are teaching their children to be idiots.

This is from Ham's website, ironically name, Answers in Genesis:

Christian education is under attack in America as never before. (Yep got to remind the sheep that they are constantly being persecuted, despite the fact that they own everything, control politics, and live in a country that they constantly brag is a "Christian nation.")

 Today, we bring your attention to another attack on Christian education. A Christian K–12 school in South Carolina, with dedicated and highly qualified Christian teachers,1 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.

The to demonstrate how unfair the criticism is he provides a picture of the actual test. Here it is.

As you can see we Atheists are completely overreacting to a test which tells the child that dinosaurs were only about he size of sheep, the earth is NOT billions of years old, and that the Bible is the "History book of the Universe." How unreasonable of us.

Hamm goes on: 

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. (See the sidebar for just a few of the many examples we could cite.) They are attempting to impose their belief system (yes, their religion) on the culture. 

It seems that since the last presidential election, atheists have grown more confident about having something of a license to go after Christians. 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. There is something else on their agenda: they are increasingly going after Christians and Christian institutions that teach God’s Word beginning in Genesis.

"Teaching their atheistic religion of evolution?" Seriously?

Clearly this moron has NO idea where the difference lies between science and faith, and seems to be laboring under the assumption that they share similar traits.

NO! They do NOT!

Science is open to challenge by ANYBODY, and every student who enters into a university classroom is encouraged to exam the evidence, test the hypothesis, and see if they come to a similar or different conclusion.  That is science.

Now religion?  Yeah, not so much.

And yet this idiot, who cannot tell the difference between the two, writes "science" textbooks for children.

As an Atheist let me just say that I am not interested in attacking religion simply for being a religion, if it is taught as a relgion.

But when you try to pass it off as science? Yeah then we have a problem!

31 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:24 AM

    Hey Mr. Hamm, I am a Christian who thinks your test is absurd and wrong. If the dinosaurs were around when Adam and Eve were, Adam and Eve would have been the end of the human race. These schools are creating uneducated people who will have no chance in society. None. I can see them taking the SAT science test and failing. Then what? Oh, right, they can attend a 'Christian college' and end up the next Michele Bachmann. Great. More idiot legislators who haven't read the Constitution, let alone the New Testament.

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    1. I agree with everything you said. What they’re doing to the kids is a damn shame. They might as well force them to wear shackles for the rest of their lives.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous5:13 AM

      Hear hear, 4:24 AM! I'm a Christian as well and the Job question alone was enough. It is only speculation, nothing more! NO ONE KNOWS. Just like "the day or the hour," yet Harold Camping got everyone in a tizzy twice, the Mayans were wrong, Karesch and Jim Jones and misled people to their deaths, and then there's always the good ol' WBC.

      "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools."

      Delete
    3. Anonymous6:13 AM

      I wonder if they will try to infiltrate or influence tests such as the ACT, SAT, the GMAT, et cetera to lower or change the standards. After all, they see themselves under attack and therefore as warriors whose goals have to be to change everything to match their limmited world view and IQs.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous6:52 AM

      They are lowering the BAR of stupid and we see it on the blogs...the trolls write "There" instead of "Their" etc. They are dumb as boxes of rocks, and let them get started on BC (especially the guys) they don't know ANYTHING about women's reproduction!
      Teh stupid it burns.
      These "schools" curriculum should be outlawed, b/c they are not teaching truth or even educational, they are advancing a propaganda state of Bullshit!

      Delete
    5. Leland3:27 PM

      Um, Anon 5:13? A question, please.

      WHAT is "only speculation"? "No one knows" WHAT?

      And how did you jump from dinosaurs and piss poor educational processes to the question concerning "the end of the world"? (Is that is what you are talking about since you mention the Mayans?

      Oops. Sorry. That's 3 questions.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous5:16 PM

      Well, I'm not anon 5:13 nor am I a Christian, but I think I can answer your questions. "Only speculation" means that the Bible never gave a description as to what the behemoth looked like, so it is anyone's guess what kind of animal it resembled. Hamm and other fundie Christians decided it looked like a dinosaur.

      "No one knows" is a biblical reference to the second coming - sorry I don't know the passage - that no one knows the hour of the second coming of Christ so all the furor over "end times" is pointless.

      There was no "jump" from dinosaurs to end times. The commenter was just making the point that nothing definitive has been given about either instance. Really, it wasn't a confusing comment. I knew exactly what 5:13 was talking about and like I said, I'm not even a Christian.

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    7. The only problem being all these kids failing the science SAT will not be identified as coming from Christian or Charter schools.

      Instead their failures will be held up as a reason our public school system is a failure and credentialed, qualified public school teachers are incompetent and a waste of tax payer money.

      Delete
  2. Anonymous5:11 AM

    Gryphen - have you ever pondered why Palin always wears the red/white/blue sparkly HUGE wonder woman bracelet on her right wrist?

    I have.

    Is it possible she wears that bracelet because she's hiding something that makeup just can't cover up?

    For example, track marks? razor scars? bad burn? Ugly tatoo?

    Just a thought....

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    1. Leland3:29 PM

      NAH!

      She wears it to enable herself to stop bullets just like Wonder Woman.

      Hhhmmm. I wonder if she knows WW is a comic book heroine.

      Maybe I shouldn't use that word heroine. She may confuse it with heroin and send her goons after me! OH NO!!!!!!!

      Delete
  3. Anonymous5:15 AM

    Now I know why they are unconcerned about elite ivy league educated professionals out there.

    There is no use for clean air and water because the Christians are sitting pretty for End Times. Because man holds dominion over animals, lands and waters, we can exploit them carelessly and be unconcerned for renewability or safety.

    Make that over women and children too. So we are free to let them die barefoot in the kitchen when their uterus hemorrhages due to lack of pre-natal care. And if they are lucky enough to survive the umbilical cord wrapped around their necks and in breach during child-birth with prayerful midwives, babies (excuse me, our joys) can go on to die in Kindergarten (what am I saying, there's no need for public schools in a Christian nation) by bad guys not policed by enough good NRA folks.

    There is no need for concern when your Ophthalmologists can't get board certified by a recognizable body - so he can create his own certification board. Maybe you aren't praying hard enough if your retina detaches and there is no way to fix it.

    We don't need no stinkin engineers and regulatin building standards and codes for Lake Lucille structures that look eerily familiar to a major sports arena, it can be built by a First Dude and coupla buddies whose skills were revealed to us by the first gust of wind to knock down an 8 foot fence when a world renowned author moved in for a summer and was accused as being a pervy Peeping Tom.

    We don't need doctors when the power of prayer will have us covered.

    We don't need law enforcement, when our 9 mm's and semi-automatics can be used for street justice over dog poop in our yards. And with that lawyers won't be needed to solve solved problems taken are of among our brethren.

    We don't need education, philosophy, critical thinking skills, art, music and good nutrition. All that are for godless, kuymbaya singin liberals who are going to hell.

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    1. Anonymous6:28 AM

      5:15, your description of those folks says just about all that needs to be said about them.

      Delete
    2. You hit on something close to my heart. My daughter had a retina detach spontaneously this past year. Thank God for the properly educated doctors in Minneapolis who fixed her right up.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous5:15 AM

    These guys are just itching for a war. They can't wait for blood to be shed on American ground in the name of Jesus.

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    1. Anonymous6:19 AM

      Not Jesus. They are strictly Old Testament.

      Delete
  5. Oh, to live in a mirrored bubble where all that is, is a reflection of one's self. I'll keep to my pineapple under the sea, thank you very much.

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    1. Anonymous7:48 AM

      So profound! I feel a sense of enlightenment like I have never felt in my life, genius absolute genius Bravo! Bravo!

      Delete
    2. Oh good, then you're ready for this: Revelation 13:3 = 30 March 1981

      Delete
  6. Anonymous7:13 AM

    Funny comment from twitter from a Buddhist: #CNN headline: "When Christians Became a 'Hated Minority'" #FileThisUnderOhPlease

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  7. Anonymous7:29 AM

    The idiots are trying to turn this into a Christian vs. atheist argument, but it is really a made-up bullshit vs. scientific evidence argument. It would take me about 5 minutes to find a dozen or so religious Christian people who would laugh and laugh at how ridiculous this test is. I think their real problem is that the misguided, well-meaning parents who sent their special snowflakes to what they thought was a superior private school to receive indoctrination and education are now being openly mocked and aren't feeling so superior to the godless heathens in the public school system anymore. So, they are taking their kids out of the school.

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    1. Anonymous8:27 AM

      Actually it is a dominionist christian vs. everyone else not a dominionist christian argument.

      Delete
  8. "Christian education is under attack in America as never before," argues Mr. Ham, whose knowledge of pre-history is as dodgy as his knowledge of American history.

    Salina, Kansas was incorporated as a city in 1870. It's part of the "Bible Belt" and has been since incorporation. Wealth from cattle and wheat helped build many churches and schools and I'd be surprised to discover if more than a few residents of the area a century ago didn't consider their town a paragon of Christian education.

    You might remember an 8th grade graduation exam running around the internet a few years back (link below). It came from Salina, KS and suggests high educational standards.

    I'd love for Mr. Ham to read through this exam, produced by a Christian community and ask himself: Are Creationists under attack for their Christianity or rather because they are under and mis-educating their charges even compared to past Christian communities in America?

    it ain't the Christianity, it's the stupidity that's the problem

    http://www.newrepublic.com/blog/the-spine/79470/1895-8th-grade-final-exam-i-couldnt-pass-it-could-you#

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  9. hedgewytch8:48 AM

    I like to believe I was a factor in a Mormon (quiver full) family's decision to leave the area and go back to Utah. I volunteer teach sci/natural history in our local school. I am a biologist and have been teaching env. ed for 25 years. I was confronted by the mother of this family and told that she would have a problem with a science teacher who refused to teach creationism alongside of science. I told her as someone who teaches science that I would have a BIG problem teaching something that belongs in philosophy or religious studies in the science lab. I asked her what the definition of science was and how she though creationism fit in that definition. All I got was a bunch of sputtering. Now those poor children are back in s. Utah being reprogrammed from my dastardly influence. I can only hope that some of critical thinking skills and logic may have infected them and will somehow resurface as they become adults.

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    1. Anonymous3:46 PM

      Hedgewytch,

      As a Troll new to this blog I 100% agree with you. Religion has no place in a science classroom environment. I think people need to keep these things separate. Its like if im in my Santaria class learing how to bind the tounge of ..... ohhh lets say a Liberal and all of the sudden a wiccan tries to force my Babalochas to teach me how to bind this
      "“Out of sight, out of mind,
      Your wicked talk I now bind.
      Your words go far away from me,
      As I will, so it shall be.”"

      Using the Theban alphabet. Could you just imagine the nerve?

      Delete
  10. Anonymous9:08 AM

    Given that Ham captioned the illustration as "The quiz given to the students" (not just sample pages) one has to ask, why are questions eight, nine, and ten missing? (Not that Ham isn't known for "makin' stuff up".)

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    1. Leland3:36 PM

      Actually, this IS the test that was given. It's been in quite a few news articles for some weeks now.

      AS to where the missing questions are? Don't know. But I DO know that a few missing questions from the test as shown couldn't possibly make it any less despicable.

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    2. Leland5:09 PM

      PS: I live not fifteen miles from where this test was purportedly given.

      UGH!

      Delete
  11. Anonymous9:21 AM

    I have a 4th grader and I am just flabbergasted at this sorry excuse of a test. Even if you set aside the subject matter (which is infantile), the vocabulary and reading comprehension level is at about 2nd grade.

    Does this moron realize what other 4th grade kids are learning?

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  12. Anita Winecooler6:24 PM

    "These secularists want to impose their anti-God religion on the culture. "

    No, Mr. Hamm, "Atheism" isn't "Anti God" nor a "religion".

    Just what we need, another crusade!

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  13. We're not attacking Christianity. We're attacking stupidity.

    We can't help it if sometimes they are one in the same thing.

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  14. Anonymous10:27 AM

    I'm often late in getting to your posts but, as I'm catching up, I'd just like to thank you for this one. I'm really curious if this guy believes all the crap he puts out. Amazing. Is he seriously disillusioned, or a just a really evil and manipulative dude.

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