Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
Creationist Ken Ham loves to challenge Bill Nye on every scientific issue under the sun, and the release of Bill Nye Saves the World season two was too great an opportunity to miss.
In a blog post for his website Answers in Genesis, the famous creationist accused the Science Guy's new show of being "inappropriate" for children.
"Bill Nye is not kid friendly at all (this new show is geared toward millennials), and both seasons of this show's content (which pushes a secular view of origins and morality) are certainly not appropriate for children," Ham wrote, proposing that the show should really be called "Bill Nye Needs to be Saved."
"He is definitely not Bill Nye the kid-friendly guy! Beware!"
Apparently, the promotion of basic scientific facts is now considered inappropriate.
Apparently Ham is upset about Nye's descriptive language when discussing STD's and superbugs, and argues that his show is too secular in nature.
Does Ham not realize that science by its very nature is "secular?"
No, I guess he wouldn't.
So in Ken Ham's version of educating children you simply fill their head with superstitious nonsense and then threaten them with eternal torment if they refuse to believe you, and Bill Nye's approach is to present actual fact based information in a fun and entertaining manner.
The percentage of U.S. adults who believe that God created humans in their present form at some time within the last 10,000 years or so -- the strict creationist view -- has reached a new low. Thirty-eight percent of U.S. adults now accept creationism, while 57% believe in some form of evolution -- either God-guided or not -- saying man developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life.
This is the first time since 1982 -- when Gallup began asking this question using this wording -- that belief in God's direct creation of man has not been the outright most-common response. Overall, roughly three-quarters of Americans believe God was involved in man's creation -- whether that be the creationist view based on the Bible or the view that God guided the evolutionary process, outlined by scientist Charles Darwin and others. Since 1982, agreement with the "secular" viewpoint, meaning humans evolved from lower life forms without any divine intervention, has doubled.
It is my habit to celebrate every one of these successes, as Americans slowly, almost imperceptibly, move toward enlightenment.
I just wish they would hurry up.
I am not getting any younger, and my dream of witnessing a world without religion seems to fade further and further from a possible reality every day.
Oh well, everybody needs a dream to cling to, and this is mine.
To Mike Pence, Vice-President of the United States of America:
We the undersigned note that, when you were a member of the U.S House of Representatives, you spoke out on the subject of science education and for presenting students with all available information. Recently, we have seen the passage of academic freedom bills in Louisiana and Tennessee which have allowed for critical evaluation in the classroom and improved educational standards. However, whilst an important development, they were only enacted owing to the need to protect students from indoctrination. We object to the teaching of the very controversial theory of evolution as part of the K-12 science curriculum which we regard to be unnecessary and unhelpful.
It is obvious to us that Evolutionism-Darwinism is an anti-Christian atheistic dogma masquerading as science. According to renown philosopher of science, Professor Michael Ruse, himself an ardent evolutionist, there is no doubt that the theory of evolution represents a philosophical worldview: “Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity.”
Evolutionists, indeed, themselves speak about their “theory” with an unmistakably religious fervour.
The petition then goes on to trip all over itself misrepresenting, and misunderstanding the science in order to claim that Evolution is false and should not be taught to children.
Now this would usually be dismissed as laughable as Mike Pence really does not have the power to simply strip the teaching of Evolution from school books in every classroom, and in every state, in the country.
However the signers of this petition clearly recognized that if Mike Pence could, he would do just that.
It is a new dawn in America my friends.
A dumber, religiously fundamental, scientifically illiterate, new dawn.
Liberty University President, Jerry Falwell Jr. is under consideration for Secretary of Education. Yes, the president of an Evangelical university, who believes that evolution is a lie, who is president of a university that was founded in opposition to school integration, may be dictating the educational agenda of America's public school children. Falwell Jr. confirmed to the Associated Press on Friday that he had met with Trump at Trump Tower.
Falwell told Virginia's Richmond Times-Dispatch last week that he's let the administration know that "one of my passions is reforming higher education and education in general." When pressed by other outlets, including the Associated Press, whether that role would be as Secretary of Education, Falwell would not, "confirm or deny whether he was being vetted as secretary of education, but says he will 'definitely play a role' in the administration.'
Okay I just had to get that off of my chest before I attempted to respond to this news in anything resembling actual English.
This blog is called "The Immoral Minority" directly because of this guy's father, and I have long been predicting that we are seeing the beginning of the end of the Religious Right in this country.
However if Trump actually puts this anti-intellectual, creationism believing buffoon in office as the man in charge of education in this country, there is no telling the amount of damage that he could do.
Liberty University was founded because Jerry Fallwell Sr. could not stomach the idea of the little white Christian snowflakes having to share dorms, cafeterias, or "gasp" locker rooms with African Americans.
“I’ve always thought that if more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in.”
So yes it is also Anti-Muslim. (You can see why Donald Trump probably likes this POS so much.)
I swear that virtually all of Trump's possible cabinet choices read like a "Who's Who of No Fucking Way." But this one, this one might be the worst so far.
Anti-Halloween creationists have some ideas about the holiday that could turn your home into the least popular trick-or-treat stop in the neighborhood.
Instead of handing out candy, Answers in Genesis wants you to give trick-or-treaters fake $1 million bills that warn children of the fiery hell that awaits them.
“Have you ever lied, stolen or used God’s name in vain?” reads part of a fake bill with Noah’s Ark on the front. “The penalty for your crimes against God is death and eternal hell.”
A bill featuring a picture of a dinosaur is just as pleasant.
“Have you ever lied, stolen, hated or dishonored your parents? Have you looked with lust? God says that’s the same as committing adultery in your heart,” a message on the bill reads as it describes the Ten Commandments.
And if you’ve broken any of these rules, you’re doomed: “The penalty of sin is death and eternity in hell.”
Answers in Genesis are that group of assholes trying to trick kids into thinking that Evolution is bullshit and that every animal we see today was rescued from a global flood in a physics defying wooden boat.
Any "Christian" adult who attempts to terrify children with visions of hell should be arrested for domestic terrorism in my book (I know that may seem extreme to some but I think purposefully giving children nightmares, and making them live a life of fear, is just about the worst thing you can possibly do.) and thrown in the same jail cell where they keep the child molesters and kiddie porn watchers.
Actually that is probably the best place for them to run into other members of their church.
By the way for the next knuckle dragging moron who comes over to IM to bitch that I am always going after religious people, shit like this is the reason why.
If religious folks want to stay in their little churches lying to each other about things their pee brains are too tiny to understand I would not think twice about them.
But when you push your religious point of view into the realm of politics, public education, and into our children's lives then you deserve whatever negativity you might receive.
The problem with Donald Trump is that he sucks the air out of the room and distracts from any of the horrible people he surrounds himself with.
However if Trump were to actually win this thing (Hang on, having a slight panic attack here.) it is quite likely he would put Mike Pence in charge of running the country while he went around, in his words, "making America great."
Whatever the hell THAT means.
And knowing that should seriously chill you to the bone.
I thought this video would be a reminder that as bad as Donald Trump is, and he is indeed quite bad, his running mate is not really muhc better.
Pence's ignorance concerning what constitutes a "theory" in science and his argument for why it should be taught alongside Creationism is almost painful to watch.
But we need to constantly remind ourselves that THESE are the people making our laws, influencing our culture, and helping to decide what gets taught to our children.
And this one wants to be the Vice President of the United States.
Nye said in a recent interview that teaching Creationism may be legal, but it’s a form of brainwashing. Referring to Ham, he said, “He can believe whatever he wants. He can run around influencing all the adults he wants; it’s the kids that are gonna be a burden on me. They’re gonna be scientifically illiterate…”
Ham, as usual, took that to mean Nye wants to take away his rights, somehow, and that teaching evolution was just pushing a different religion onto children.
Here is what Ham tweeted in response:
In TV interview Bill Nye wants to stop me teaching kids as he wants to indoctrinate kids in religion of evolution pic.twitter.com/9KLzg4VHpg
Yeah well it kind of goes on from there. And on, and on, and on, and....well you get the point.
Essentially the problem seems to be that there are more and more people thinking for themselves, and not looking for purpose in any of the books sanctioned by any organized religion.
And that REALLY seems to agitate folks like Ken Ham who depend on people NOT thinking for themselves for their livelihood.
Gee, maybe it's time to start making an honest living Kenny.
A federal appeals court has affirmed a lower court’s decision to dismiss a case brought in Kansas by a religiously-minded group of parents and students. The plaintiffs were concerned about their home state’s adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
As Ars reported back in 2013 when the case was first filed, the NGSS standards are a nationwide attempt to improve science education in the US. They have been backed by organizations such as the National Research Council, National Science Teachers Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
This case, COPE v. Kansas Board of Education, is a notable victory for science—and a blow to the creationist crowd and its progeny.
The Citizens for Objective Public Education (COPE) has lead the charge against the NGSS in Kansas, and claims that these new standards are actually a form of religious indoctrination. (The NGSS have been adopted by 18 states, including Kansas.) How could COPE come to that conclusion? Because, it argues, the NGSS do not include any religious explanation for the origins of life and the universe. Therefore, according to the group, the NGSS in Kansas violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, which forbids the government's ability to "establish" a state-sanctioned religion.
So let me see if I have this straight. By removing all reference to any religious mythology about the origins of life and the universe, these textbooks are essentially establishing a state sanctioned religion in its place.
Damn that is a truckload of stupid.
You know trying to understand that just killed so many of my brain cells that it's almost like I was educated in a Kansas public school.
I found this video the other day on Reddit, and thought it was definitely something that we needed to see again.
As sad as it is for the Scalia family to lose ole Grandpa Antonin, to be honest it might be the best thing to happen to this country in quite a few years.
In a YouTube video posted on Monday, the Christian fundamentalist responds to a follower who is troubled by a contradiction in the book of Acts.
“If I was God,” Hovind explains, “I would write the book in such a way that those who don’t want to believe in me anyway would think they found something. ‘Aha, here’s why I don’t believe.'”
“And then they could go on with their own life because they don’t want to believe God anyways,” he continues. “I would put things in there that would appear without digging to be contradictions. I don’t think that’s deceptive, I think that’s wise for the Heavenly Father to weed out those who are really serious.”
Hovind says that he made a choice to “believe the Bible until it’s proven wrong.”
Believing in something until it is proven wrong is of course the exact opposite of the scientific method and a waste of critical thinking skills.
The actual correct answer here is that the Bible is an incredibly poorly written anthology of religious stories that were compiled by a committee, and the book has been repeatedly translated and revised over the years by even more committees of "religious scholars."
Committees make mistakes, of course men make mistakes, and therefore the book is riddled with mistakes, contradictions, and nonsense.
Only a self delusional, intellectually dishonest, cretin would force themselves to believe in something contradicted by such vast amounts of evidence.
An Arizona lawmaker who believes the Earth is 6,000 years old is the new chairwoman of the state Senate committee that oversees education-related legislation.
Here are a few of state senator Sylvia Allen's more controversial viewpoints:
The original comment occurred during a vote on legislation to allow individuals who have permits to carry concealed weapons to bring them into public buildings. Allen said she did not understand the opposition and talked about moral breakdown.
“Probably we should be debating a bill requiring every American to attend a church of their choice on Sunday to see if we can get back to having a moral rebirth,” adding “that would never be allowed.”
Sen. Allen also thinks there is something hinky about those chem trails in the sky:
Ok, I do not want to get into a debate about weather. However, I know what I see weekly up here on the flat where I live outside of Snowflake. The planes usely, three or four, fly a grid across the sky and leave long white trails streaming behind them. I have watched the chem-trails move out until the entire sky is covered with flimsy, thin cloud cover. It is not the regular exhaust coming from the plane it is something they are spraying. It is there in plain sight. What is it they are leaving behind that covers the sky?
Things are happening all around us that we see everyday and just don't get what it is. I think we throw the "conspiracy theory" at people when we don't understand or have the information they have so we try and explain it that way. Plus we just don't want to believe that our government would do anything terrible to us. Well, just a few examples, the IRS attack on the Tea Party, Benghazi, wire taping, Fast and Furious just to name a few and we think that they would not manipulate our weather?
Okay so why is Sarah Palin selling her Arizona home and moving back to Alaska again?
A Boca Raton father and son have filed a lawsuit claiming the Palm Beach County school board isn't teaching the theory of evolution.
Brandon Silver, 11, and his father, attorney Barry Silver, filed an 18-page lawsuit last month but plan to serve the board Wednesday night.
"We've been taught about adaptations to the environment but that's not really a direct concept to evolution," said Brandon Silver.
"It's such a magnificent story and it's being neglected. The students are being deprived of learning from it because certain religious people don't like the story because it contradicts the Bible and we think it is terrible that children shouldn't learn the truth about where they came from," said Barry Silver.
Barry Silver said he filed the lawsuit last month.
Well good for Mr. Silver!
Now this is the kind of parent that we need to see more of.
The kind of parent who defends his child's right to learn facts instead of fantasy.
Few issues have divided the American public as bitterly as Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Since On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, it has driven a wedge between those who accept that humans and this planet’s other inhabitants have evolved over time, and those who believe that our species was created in its current form with no alterations. While the majority of people in Europe and in many other parts of the world accept evolution, the United States lags behind. Today, 4 in 10 adults in America believe that humans have existed in our present form since the beginning of time, and in many religious groups, that number is even higher. This is woeful.
Now, at long last, there seems to be hope: National polls show that creationism is beginning to falter, and Americans are finally starting to move in favor of evolution. After decades of legal battles, resistance to science education, and a deeply rooted cultural divide, evolution may be poised to win out once and for all.
The people responsible for this shift are the young. According to a recent Pew Research Center report, 73 percent of American adults younger than 30 expressed some sort of belief in evolution, a jump from 61 percent in 2009, the first year in which the question was asked. The number who believed in purely secular evolution (that is, not directed by any divine power) jumped from 40 percent to a majority of 51 percent. In other words, if you ask a younger American how humans arose, you’re likely to get an answer that has nothing to do with God.
First off I would like to correct the author of this piece that people do not have a "belief" in Evolution, but rather they come to accept the facts of Evolution.
Belief is only required for things without a factual basis.
However it is great news that our young people are throwing off the fears and superstitions of their parents and grandparents and embracing the reality of the world as it is, rather than as ancient mythologies would represent it.
Just one more reason to be hopeful for our future, and those who will someday assume the mantle of power.
Now that video up above is over 48 minutes long so I don't expect anyone to sit through the entire thing without ripping their hair out.
I certainly couldn't.
However here is a brief synopsis by the blog Danthropology followed by some snippets of Carson's remarks:
Most people know that Carson denies evolution is a fact and instead subscribes to young earth creationism, believing the earth is only 6000 years old and humans were created as is. Whether he is stupid enough to actually believe this or is pandering to the ignorance of the GOP voter base has been up for question among some, but a video discovered from 2011 seems to close the door on that idea.
And here are some of the actual remarks that Carson offered during an event called “Celebrating Creation":
[20:56] “… there is abundant evidence, geological evidence, that there was a worldwide flood. Go up into the Andes Mountains and see all those fossils on the top of those mountains. I mean, these things, when you talk to the evolutionists about them, they always say the same thing … ‘well, we don’t understand everything.’ And I just say, ‘I’m not sure you understand anything.’ You know, they look at all those layers, and then they find some fossils in one of the layers, and they says this fossil is this many years old because it’s in this layer. So, that means this fossil is like a million years old. And then later on they say, ‘well, this layer is a million years old because this fossil which is a million years old is in it.’ You know, that’s like saying, you know, ‘the sky can be red or blue’. And you say, well, the sky is blue. And you say why is it blue? ‘Because it is not red.’ Well why is it not red? ‘Because its blue.’ Yeh, you know that’s known as circular reasoning. That’s how they explain the age of all these things, its very circular reasoning, and really it has no real scientific validity.” [22:22]
How interesting that he recognizes the term "circular reasoning" but does not seem to understand that his entire argument is based on the premise that the Bible is the inerrant word of God and therefore any evidence which disputes that claim must be rejected, and only evidence which supports the Biblical accounts will be accepted.
By the way that is a consistent theme throughout his Q and A. [27:24] “You know, according to the theory [of evolution] it [the eye] had to go pukh! and there was an eyeball, overnight, just like that, because it wouldn’t work in any other way. And when you ask the evolutionists about that they say, ‘well, we don’t understand everything.’ And I say, ‘well, I don’t think you understand anything.” [27:48]
That is of course completely false, and evolutionists indeed have a working understanding of how the various eyes in the animal kingdom developed. (As you can see for yourself in this Ted Ed video.)
The fact that a medical doctor does not understand this is more than a little troubling.
[answering a woman’s question, 45:07] “I personally believe that this theory that Darwin came up with was something that was encouraged by the adversary [Satan], and it has become what is scientifically politically correct. Amazingly, there are a significant number of scientists who do not believe it but they are afraid to say anything.” [45:38]
So to be clear the man who is currently polling at number two for the GOP presidential nomination, believes that things which disagree with his religious perspective are the work of an evil entity whose job it is to undermine Christianity by introducing doubt.
The thing that I noticed while watching the video is how utterly convinced Carson is that he is absolutely correct in his thinking.
So sure is he that he feels comfortable ridiculing those who dare to consider that science may have the answers instead of the Bible.
That kind of absolute certainty is frightening to behold, and reminds me in no small way of George W. Bush in the lead up to the Iraq war. In my opinion Carson is a truly dangerous person who should be kept far away from the levers of power.
People of faith seem to feel confident in their belief, regardless of the evidence, while people of science are always searching for that next bit of evidence which will change their minds completely.
Personally I am much more comfortable with the uncertainty of the thinker, over the certainty of the believer.
Kent Hovind, the creationist who was serving prison time for a 2006 tax fraud conviction was released from prison Wednesday morning and will spend the next month under house arrest and then three years of probation.
Kent’s son Eric met him at the prison gates along with none other than Jim Bob Duggar, father of sexual predator Josh Duggar, whom which Jim Bob went to great lengths to protect from prosecution for molesting four of his sisters and a babysitter.
It looks like these fundamentalists have no problem with tax fraud or child molestation, just so long as you never stop using Christianity to cover for your crimes.
"When I began teaching I did not teach creationism, as I focused instead on my areas of expertise. Over time it became clear that students had questions about creationism, and did not understand the difference between a scientific approach to knowledge and non-scientific approaches. This led me to wonder whether ignoring supernatural views allowed them to remain as viable ‘alternatives’ to scientific hypotheses in the minds of students... I began to explain creationism in my classes, and to model the scientific thought process that leads to a rejection of creationism."
Honey's methods, which she has refined over many years, are simple, yet powerful:
"Creationism is presented as a sociopolitical controversy rather than a scientific controversy. I emphasize that there is no question about the validity of evolution as an explanatory model, and I present creationism as a political or ‘denialist’ movement rather than a competing theory with its own strengths and evidence. I then present several common assertions from creationism (e.g., that there are no transitional fossils), and refute them using scientific evidence. At the same time, I explain several of the common logical fallacies that are evident in creationist arguments. I encourage students to ask questions, and force me to defend my statements. I then ask them to attempt to generate hypotheses and tests of creationism. Their struggles with this task lead them, logically, to the conclusion that many creationist assertions are unfalsifiable and therefore nonscientific."
Brilliant, and yet incredibly obvious if you think about it.
If you introduce Creationism as just another scientific theory and then expose it to scrutiny and watch it fall apart.
Of course unfortunately this might work well in a university setting but perhaps not so well in an elementary or high school science classroom, which of course is where the Creationist insist that this should be taught.
Because let's face it, they know full well that indoctrination works best when the subject is young and full of trust.
Justice Antonin Scalia spoke on Thursday at his granddaughter’s graduation from a Catholic high school in Bethesda, Maryland. During the speech, however, the sitting Supreme Court justice offered a subtle nod to young earth creationism, the belief that that the earth was created by God and is only several thousand years-old.
“Class of 2015, you should not leave Stone Ridge High School thinking that you face challenges that are at all, in any important sense, unprecedented,” Scalia said, adding that “Humanity has been around for at least some 5,000 years or so, and I doubt that the basic challenges as confronted are any worse now, or alas even much different, from what they ever were.”
Humanity began to develop much more than 5,000 years ago. Early human ancestors began to diverge from the chimpanzee lineage about six million years ago. The first members of the species Homo sapiens are believed to have lived in Africa about 100,000 years ago, and cave paintings and other evidence of human culture exist that are believed to have been created 50,000 years ago.
Young earth creationists generally believe that God created the earth within the last 10,000 years. This is a fringe view, however, within Scalia’s Catholic faith. In 1950, Pope Pius XII wrote in a letter to bishops that the Catholic church “does not forbid” research or discussions regarding “the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter.” More recently, in 1996, Pope John Paul II wrote a similar letter to bishops saying that evolution is “more than a hypothesis.”
Remember this idiot is not simply a judge in traffic court, he is a justice on the freaking Supreme Court!
And let me remind everybody that if a Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, or Mike Huckabee wins the presidency in 2016 that he will be joined, or replaced, by others just as ignorant and backward thinking as he is.
