Sunday, November 17, 2013

Creationist spends years of his life studying science so that he can refute it effectively. Perhaps the most chilling article about the attempts to undermine science textbooks that I have ever read.

Courtesy of the Dallas Observer:  

Bohlin looks like a college biology professor, pale, square-jawed, peering out through glasses beneath an Indiana Jones fedora emblazoned with the words "Grand Canyon." It's actually the subject of one of his trademark lectures. He takes his audience on a virtual tour of our national testament to unfathomable geologic time and offers explanations for how the biblical flood may have created it far later than mainstream science would have them believe. 

He grew up a Catholic boy on Chicago's south side, destined for the priesthood. He ended up a zoology undergrad at the University of Illinois, where he daydreamed about becoming a park ranger and living a life of solitude. That all changed when he befriended a group of evangelical Christians. Bohlin was fascinated by this passionate strain of belief. He adopted its vibrant spirituality as his own, though he wondered how he should reconcile God with the theory at the root of every life science course he enrolled in. The Catholic Church had long since come to the conclusion that evolution need not contradict faith. Many evangelicals, however, still look upon it as a repudiation of a Bible meant to be taken literally. 

In the school library one day, he struck upon the answer to the questions that deviled him. He picked up a book written by Henry Morris, a Rice University civil engineering professor credited for being the "father of modern creation science." Morris opened Bohlin's eyes to what he says was the only scientific rationale he'd ever seen for the six-day creation of earth. 

"That raised questions in my head," he says. "I got fascinated by it." 

In 1975, he connected with Probe Ministries, a group of campus evangelists who hoped to challenge secularism on its home turf. Bohlin desperately wanted to join them, to spread the gospel of evolution's fallacies. But to take his place in that fight, he needed to understand what he hoped to disprove. "They said, 'You just have a bachelor's degree.' When I got to Probe, my education began immediately. If I'm going to be a critic of evolution, I have to make sure I understand in detail how it's supposed to work." 

Bohlin invested years of his life in the graduate program at North Texas and the molecular biology doctoral program at the University of Texas at Dallas, absorbing everything he must refute. While his fellow students accepted a theory that had stood unchallenged by science for more than a century, Bohlin believed he alone was capable of assessing evolution with a critical eye. He admits, though, that his conclusions may already have been deeply entrenched. To alter his view of creation, he says, "would have required a major shift in personal and professional connections with people." 

Outside the halls of academia, meanwhile, secularism was spreading before his eyes. "The Catholic and Protestant churches in Europe are museums," he says. "They gave in to that culture war for whatever reason. We can see the seeds of that same process here. These seeds are already germinating in some parts of the country." 

To beat back creeping secularism, Bohlin now ministers to Christian high school students, putting on seminars to "arm" them for the godless worldview that will pervade their college education. He teaches them about "current problems with evolution" like the "sudden appearance" of species and the "gaps" in the fossil record, all better explained, he says, by the supernatural, by a "design motif." Biologists have long attested that such "gaps," where they exist, are better explained by organisms that do not readily fossilize than by the divine materialization of whole species. Paleontologists have unearthed incredible troves of transitional fossils bridging the divide. 

But there were other ways for Bohlin to reach these college-bound believers — ways to affect the discussion on a scale his ministry never could. His great investment in a field he entered to debunk had led him to the Texas State Board of Education, where he was appointed to be an expert reviewer of high-school biology textbooks. 

This, he believes, is where the war against secularism will be won or lost. 

"If we were to interview 100 individuals who were raised in the church, believed everything and have since fallen away, I bet a majority would say at least that the things they learned in science class were a part of that pulling away," he says. 

"I think there is a definite need and, in Texas, a definite opportunity to have an influence that goes beyond the people I can speak to in a lifetime."

I don't know about you but this makes me sick to my stomach. 

To enter the field of molecular biology while predisposed to refute everything you are learning, reminds me of those Soviet sleeper cells that were installed in America and lived as average Americans until they were called into action to infiltrate government agencies, or spy on certain influential Americans, all while inoculated from the seductive call of freedom by their deeply ingrained ideologies.

"To beat back creeping secularism," in other words progress, this man is attempting to damage this countries ability to properly educate our children, solely to protect HIS version of Evangelical Christianity.

Ultimately it will all be for naught, as the article goes on to explain that these "culture warriors" are having less and less influence, and that their input toward textbook creation is being rejected in Texas.

However the article also says that their are more like Bohlin coming out of the wood work everyday and that the battle to protect education in this country is by no means over.

After all they are fighting as hard as they can to keep this country as it once was in our nation's past, while WE are fighting to bring it into the future. The odds may be in our favor, but that does not mean that the war will not continue to wage on for decades to come.

28 comments:

  1. If this blog is dedicated to finding the truth, and exposing the lies, then you should expose the lies of biological evolution, instead of perpetuating it and ridiculing those who do.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous7:18 AM

      LOL! Let me guess, you worship Palin too?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous7:22 AM

      Hey Skippy, without sourcing any of the many versions of the bible, prove to me one guy billions of years ago created the universe and planet Earth?

      Delete
    3. "The Catholic and Protestant churches in Europe are museums," he says.
      That’s what an uncle discovered; it wasn’t the church of Grandma’s memory. Europe may have to lead us again.

      Delete
    4. What a stunted, tiny god you have, that you must make him over in your puny human image.

      I am a scientist and although more or less an agnostic, I have no problem whatsoever seeing the glories of an unfolding universe, billions of years old, as more representative of an omnipotent Creator than your stunted tiny view of a creation that was constrained by six twenty-four hour days and then its creator had to sit and rest and crack a cold one on the seventh because he was pooped from all that hard creating.

      Why do limit your god to only a human comprehension? Why do you limit his power and ability to being capable of only things that you can understand? You claim to worship and revere him, yet you limit him.

      2 Peter 3:8
      But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

      Your god is a weak and feeble god if you do not dare use the intelligence and talents that he gave you (see the parable of the talents).

      So go on and keep hunting for the those pillars holding up the sky. The rest of us, believers or not, will spend our time appreciating the wonders constantly being discovered and explained by science.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous8:15 AM

      According to A J MacDonald Jr 6:54 AM's linked Google+ page, he "attended" St. Gregory's University. There's no mention of having graduated from there…or from anywhere else.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous8:33 AM

      AJ, you can keep the faith, I'll keep the fact.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous8:53 AM

      AJ. Everything is lies, lies, lies if it doesn't fit with your narrow world view. I say, sad, sad, sad that you choose to live in a world of short sighted ignorance when humans have such a capacity to embrace knowledge. Who gave them that capacity? I can't answer that but wouldn't it be more wholesome to fill your life with true verifiable knowledge and accept that you are blessed with the intelligence to understand it rather than live a life of stunted growth worshipping a god that would prefer you to be ignorant??

      Delete
    8. hedgewytch9:02 AM

      Nefer -Standing Ovation! Whistles and foot stomping! Exactly -What a tiny little God they have!!! (among other things) Smiles!

      Delete
    9. Anonymous9:54 AM

      AJ is a 911 truther and Alex Jones follower.. So he is really cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

      Delete
  2. Oh A J, fame and fortune await anyone who can come up with something that tends to discredit the Theory of Evolution - bring it on!

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  3. As a counter to that insanity we have this:
    http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/standing-shoulders-giants-how-louisiana-student-teaming-top-scientists-reform

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  4. I think some people are genetically predisposed to crave religion. This guy was certainly willing to abandon Catholicism and embrace a bunch of Evangelicals.

    It isn’t even about power since most are content to be followers. Assurance of a comfortable afterlife is a factor, of course, but the real siren call is the energy of fanatics, and fanatics do have energy, much as madmen have energy.

    You can point out numerous instances of ministers and priests getting caught with their pants around their ankles, and it makes no difference, that’s just the weakness of the flesh.

    Keep at it, Gryphen, you may not believe in life after life, and I do, but we’ve both been fighting zealotry (socially accepted insanity) since we were young.

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  5. What an utter waste of time money, and education! I hope he didn't get a grant or some other 'free' money to pay for his degree.

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  6. Sharon7:46 AM

    I actually lived in Dallas & Galveston in the 70's....damn it was never like this. Electing a black man president has brought the lowest of the low crawling out from every rock, esp in Texas.
    If there is a god, lol...Wendy Davis will win and Texas can slowly join the 21st century.

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    Replies
    1. I hope you are right. I'd like to move closer to my son and grandchildren who live in Galveston.

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  7. Anonymous7:46 AM

    lol at the moron @6:54

    besides how can the maroons prove that the earth was created 6,000 years ago, when the proof exists already that the earth is billions of years old.

    Bibble babble was written by men roughly 1800 years ago and revised by men according to their whims to control the masses.

    If it were a true story, they would not have cut out more than 2/3's of the book as untruths.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous8:02 AM

      Exactly.. Control and shame. Makes sense why Palin likes to bully people.

      Delete
  8. Anonymous8:44 AM

    Great post! Thank you. The war will continue for decades--the 'bible-believing' evangelicals have 'five, ten, and twenty-year plans' to ultimately undermine the 1st Amendment and establish a Christian nation.

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    1. Anonymous2:15 PM

      Wow! Way to show your ignorance! Wishing that they would not be allowed to have any say is exactly what you are accusing them of. Talk about undermining the 1st amendment.

      I love that, regardless of your religion, you have called right to believe it, and discuss it, as anyone else does. Just because someone went to school to learn, and may (or nay not) see things differently than you... They still have the right to give an opinion, and be heard. Those that are comfortable with their beliefs chalk it up to just another nut. Those that are unsure, or just want power, want to silence dessent. Dumbass!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous6:09 PM

      2:15 - Please feel free to believe in something different from what I believe in and share it with anyone who CHOOSES to listen to you. However, when you attempt to take over local school boards, local and state governments, the United States Congress and the Supreme Court, and force those beliefs on me and everyone else, you are infringing on MY rights.

      You want to believe that the world is 372 years old and that dinosaurs discovered America when they arrived at our shores on the Starship Enterprise? Fine, go ahead and establish your own school, but stay away from the public school system and textbook publishers that provide instructional materials to my students.

      Somehow the First Amendment only seems to apply to theocrats who want everyone in this country to follow their particular rules. Sorry, but it just doesn't work that way.

      As Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said, "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."

      Delete
    3. Anonymous6:39 PM

      There is a great percentage of intelligent and learned individuals that believe, in varying degrees, in God. The fact that they are reviewing schools-whether school boards, or government, or whatever doesn't bother me. Nor does an atheist, in the same position. I LIKE having different views. Same way that I like to have diversity in the schools.
      Having someone there to say, "if we word things this way, it singles out a group", or whatever. They can bring a new viewpoint. I have no problem with this individual on this board. There are lots of individuals, and his voice is very unlikely to be effective.

      Delete
  9. Anonymous9:40 AM

    Here ya go....
    https://scontent-a-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/74931_597641106949732_1105887307_n.jpg

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  10. I'm glad I don't live in the fantasy world MacDonald inhabits.

    What's horrible is that he's malevolent enough to try force others to share his delusions. Having someone like him review textbooks should be against the law.

    I don't believe in Satan, but if if did, MacDonald is definitely one of his minions. He's trying to make his personal hell into a living hell for the rest of us.

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  11. Ailsa1:23 PM

    Summing up by the Onion - a highly evolved organism.

    http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/onion10-5.jpg

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  12. Anonymous2:34 PM

    these creationists are so darwinian.

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  13. Randall5:23 PM

    "If we were to interview 100 individuals who were raised in the church, believed everything and have since fallen away, I bet a majority would say at least that the things they learned in science class were a part of that pulling away,"

    Well... YEAH.
    And also pull away from the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, Ahura Mazda, Thor, Sarah Palin, the Boogey Man, ghosts, witches, unicorns, Fox News, Osiris, Zeus, Poseidon,
    and snake oil salesman (Oh, wait - I already said Fox News and Sarah Palin).


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous6:11 PM

      Oh nooooo, NOT the Easter Bunny!!!!!!!!!

      Delete

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