This may seem like a bit of an contradiction to some, but Texas legislators are sponsoring a bill to facilitate the creation of a master’s degree in Creation Science. While these degrees are traditionally called Divinity degrees, Texas politicians fighting against evolution theory want to help the Institute for Creation Research.
Behind the move is Republican Leo Berman, a member of the House Higher Education Committee of Texas, who is the sponsor of House Bill 2800. Educators in the state have balked for obvious reasons. Notably, Texas has some of the country’s leading educational institutions, but has always struggled with a misconception of the state being removed from the intellectual heartland. I am sure that this has serious academics in the state groaning as legislators rush to fulfill unfair stereotypes.
The Institute explains its certificate program as follows:
The Creationist Worldview is an innovative program of study designed to equip current and future Christian leaders with practical tools to effectively influence their world with the truths of Scripture. A formal science degree is not required, and those who can benefit from the Creationist Worldview program includes, but is not limited to, Christian men and women who hold various positions of influence within the community, educators, ministers and church leaders, business and industry experts, professionals in medicine and law, government officials, leaders in the fine arts, and high school and college students.
Designed for people on the go, the self-paced Creationist Worldview can fit into busy schedules. Course material is accessed online and through textbooks, so students can study from any computer with an Internet connection. The certificate program has been designed to be completed in under a year.
It would seem that Berman’s effort really falls short here. There are dozens of Divinity Schools that should be properly called “scientific laboratories.” More importantly, attendance at Sunday services should now be legislatively made credit worthy for science degrees.
For the full story, click here.
Nick, I am.
But I can’t get a passport — and the Passport Office refuses to tell me why, and there are a bunch of bureaucrats there who don’t have to answer my questions. They don’t even send me proper kiss-off letters. One time I was told, “Go to court.”
Now, about the master’s in creationist science: Why are we still dealing with that nonsense? I thought it was settled about the turtles.
Now about god putting the oil down in Saudi Arabia: NO HE DIDN’T.
He put it down in the desert long before there was any country of Saudi Arabia. The reason he put it down in the desert was so the waters wouldn’t wash it away. THEN there got to be a bunch of Saudi Arabians there because of the Prophet, but I won’t tell you anything about HIM because I don’t want to get a Fatwah out on me. Now the good Christians tried to straighten out the thing in the desert several times and haven’t yet gotten it done, but the difference now is that over there, if you want the government to do something, you put Baksheesh into a Quran and talk to someone nice nice; over here, you do an end-run somewhere or you go to Texas and talk about god.
And for Chrissake tell that hoodlum not to wear bow ties!
I guess they will only have one text book… hahaha
a primer on evolution for creationists: http://google.com/search?q=Milancovich+Wilson+supercycles
Freedom is wrong for it’s the freedom to be, do, and believe wrong. Freedom is the root of every mistake, lige, and crime. Freedom is the refrain of scum, trash, and scoundrels. The body works wherefore the cells are not free (as a gas would be) but do very narrow tasks, in bondage and servitude. The antibodies and other radicals only do what they know; sometimes the former attack their own body when the host has autoimmune diseases; sometimes the latter forestall more-aggressive pathoghens.
Buddhism debunked: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The_Discipline_Group/message/15201
There are no illusions, only delusions.
American patriots were British criminal fugitives.
Is anyone else tired of living in a parody of a real country?
MikeS:
I agree the Fed is illegal and should never have been created. It is what gave us the great depression. It has also caused the current problem due to artificialy low interest rates.
People do need to rise up and abolish it. And if those are the guys Buddha is talking about I can design a French Razor for him and we can forge the blade from some of the steel from the Twin Towers.
Bron,
Thom Hartmann, David Sirota, Dean Baker, Joseph Stiglitz and to do it quickly those two links below:
http://www.scionofzion.com/federalreserve.htm
http://books.google.com/books?id=Nic5AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Federal+Reserve+history
Buddha,
The hits just keep on coming from that bastion of American Justice, Texas. That was an interesting article about the Animal House jail. Actually, this place looks worse than the Animal House I saw in the movies. It sounds like the prior Sheriff is the John Belushi equivalent and deserves a road trip to a Federal institution.
sigh
Yet more Texas . . .
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29724424/
Mike Spind:
any suggested reading on that issue?
Clint:
“I commend you on your dynamic side-step. If I view God as Creator of everything, then time would be included and He would transcend it. But, if my foundation of all that exists is eons of time, then I run into a problem.
Now, back to my original question. What says you?”
*********
I say simply if you are willing to believe a being predated time, why not accept that time has no beginning or end as Hawking et als contend. In essence you are asking the wrong question (or making the wrong assumption), it is not whether time exists independently of space but rather does everything have a beginning and necessarily an end. If God doesn’t why not the same characteristic for the cosmos, which would of course render God irrelevant. Just for the record if we accept the notion of God as the creator of the universe that would not add one iota of support for the foolishness of most religious tenets and practices; it would merely prove the deists like Jefferson correct when they contend God may have made us but he quickly moved on to bigger and better things.
Bron,
I submit that influence consists of three components. Rules, carrots and sticks. The rules must be fair and just, the carrots must be sufficient incentive to encourage fair and just behavior in compliance with the rules, and the stick must hurt like Hell when used. That’s just pragmatic. What deregulation did is make carrots meaningless because the stick went from being a club to a willow branch. Coercion in the pursuit of criminals is no vice unless it violates the Bill of Rights.
“Objectivism though, and maybe this is where I go wrong in my thinking, is about rational selfishness. And following the golden rule-namely treat others as you would want to be treated”
Bron,
Where you go wrong is in thinking that in believing in the Golden Rule as you and I do, Objectivism also believes in the “Golden Rule.” I’ve read all of Ayn Rand as you know, there is no sense of the “golden rule” in there, actually Objectivism believes in “The Rule of Gold.” The concept of altruism on any level is an anathema to Ayn Rand.
“one of the reasons for the housing problem is that the federal government made a recommendation for financial institutions to make loans to people that could not afford them and they kept rates artificially low (probably for a good economy to run the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. so there is another reason to have free markets and not allowing governments to jigger the interest rates with no thought to market forces.) to expedite this among other reasons.”
Two points to ponder:
1. The housing problem came about because in the absence of regulation, banks which had morphed into “financial institutions” had discarded the need to loan prudently in favor of a pirate mentality. They then took the money they made and put it into speculation that was akin to playing Blackjack in Vegas. When the housing bubble burst they didn’t have the assets to back these bad bets up, as they should have had under regulation and then needed the government to bail them out.
2. When you are talking about low interest rates you are not really talking about the Federal Government, but the Federal Reserve over which neither President nor Congress have control. As you know the low interest rates the Fed was giving were complements of Alan Greenspan, lifelong Objectivist and onetime member of Ayn Rand’s inner circle. Oh
yeah, what Greenspan the Objectivist was good at doing was raising the interest rates every unemployment got lower than 5% in order to suppress wages and maintain unemployment.
Don’t take my word for it. Look it up. With your inquiring mind I think you might be astonished.
Mike
Buudha:
I dont think a government can “influence”, which in my mind is a benign term. they must by their nature coerce because they have the power. For example one of the reasons for the housing problem is that the federal government made a recommendation for financial institutions to make loans to people that could not afford them and they kept rates artificially low (probably for a good economy to run the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. so there is another reason to have free markets and not allowing governments to jigger the interest rates with no thought to market forces.) to expedite this among other reasons. So what do people do when something that should cost $10 costs $2, they buy more of it than they need. This is simplistic of course but it is generally true that people are always looking for a free lunch and a free market dicourages a free lunch.