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.
Bron,
It may be time to face the fact that the true traditional conservatives need to form a new party sans the toxins that have ruined and continue to ruin the GOP. The GOP is in disarray and eating itself alive with the perpetual game of CYA trying to please their corporate masters, the religious right (their true bases, they don’t care a whit about actual conservatism or anyone not currently lining their pockets) and the stay one step ahead of prosecution themselves or meeting a torch bearing mob. If it’s any consolation, the DNC is failing liberals just as much. There is the foot dragging on bringing the Neocons to justice and ending torture. They are just as busy coddling the Wall St. criminals as the GOP was instrumental in the deregulation that allowed them to fracture the economy so they could steal everything not bolted down. If they weren’t, all the officers of AIG would be in shackles right now and their assets seized.
I say both parties need to go. It’s time for a new era.
Have you given any more thought to the analogy between the body politic and Objectivism as cancer? And did you see the Rand Illusion funny link I posted in the Roman Jokes thread?
“are republicans that bad?”
Bron,
Probably not, but as we see with the situation with Mr.Steele
the crazy wing of the party controls it, because more moderate and intelligent Republican either refuse to speak out or become independents.
MikeA:
are republicans that bad? I really do think it is the evangelical wing of the party. The moral majority, Focus on the Family, those types and not the party as a whole. Although I am not a card carrying member anymore because of the commpassionate conservatism of GW. No party for true conservatives and really no party for true(read old fashioned) democrats.
Seems to me the only thing the 2 parties now disagree on is the size of the compassion.
The truth is that the literalist approach to the Bible has nothing to do with mainstream Christian thought or biblical scholarship. It is purely reactionary and its growth in this country is a giant leap backward. Even the phrase “Christian fundamentalism” is of modern origin, dating back no earlier than the beginning of the last century. The movement is nothing more than a fear-based reaction to Darwin and its growing prevalence reflects the dumbing down of both Christianity and education in this country. Recently, of course, fear of science and fear of change have combined to merge fundamentalism and conservative politics. Voila! We have the new Republican Party, where religious faith and patriotism are one and the same and intellectual integrity is the idol of the godless.
mak: Why do you hate America so much ?
mak:
“YOU phucking Christian haters make us all sick.
You and Turley and the handfulf bunch of you: get the H out of our country.”
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Well I can tell you are a Christian by your love for all here. And peace be with you too, brother.
LOL all the above!
MIke:
“Gosh, when I lived in Texas years ago, facilities dedicated to creation research were just called whorehouses.”
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They still are but some upgraded to ivory towers. The “johns” just come with Bibles tucked under their arms now.
Gosh, when I lived in Texas years ago, facilities dedicated to creation research were just called whorehouses.
doglover:
Come on now, we all know God put the oil there and in Saudi Arabia ’cause the respective inhabitants are so similar in their religions and love of misogyny!
Can’t figure out how these anti-science-theofascist-Texans explain the formation of oil/ petroleum, their life blood.
Wait ’til these goobers find out that them-thar atheistical “scientists” (with their highfalutin “advanced degrees” and fancy-schmancy “terms” and “words”) is a-sayin’ that th’ earth revolves around th’ sun.
On one side there are hypocritical politicians playing/plying their fundamentalist base with nonsense like this. Then you have the base who are too gullible, or too lacking in critical judgment to realize that their pastors are con men doling out a literal interpretation of Genesis, along with an inclusion of the demented book of Revelations wrongly into the Christian Canon (to gin up the fear factor). Rather, than as those truly seeking God (as they purport to desire), through making their own judgments and shaping their religious belief based on interpreting their scripture for themselves, filtered through the lens of their own learning and experience.
We have instead a bunch of sheep, fearful of living without outside direction, being shorn financially and politically by greedy cynics who pretend belief. Can there be other answers to humans being on Earth other than evolution (i.e. Sitchin’s “Twelfth Planet”), perhaps so. However, those answers are not to be found by a starting hypothesis that this world, the universe and its’ creatures are 6,000 years old. That isn’t science it’s gross stupidity.
Are we done with Texas?
I think we’re done with Texas.
BTW, I’d bet dollars to donuts that the Texas legislature isn’t familiar with Kant’s fourth antimony.
But hey; it’s Texas.
“The Genesis Device was a sophisticated technological innovation designed to alleviate sociological problems such as overpopulation and limited food supplies. Its development was completed by a team of scientists led by Carol Marcus and her son, David Marcus, in 2285 on the Spacelab Regula I in the Mutara sector.
The device initiated a process of rapid terraforming, by which previously uninhabitable planets could be turned into class M worlds ready for colonization. This was accomplished by launching the Genesis Device, a torpedo-shaped projectile, into a lifeless planet. Upon impact, the device caused a massive explosion, reducing the entire area to subatomic particles. A preprogrammed matrix then reassembled these subatomic particles into the desired configuration, creating an atmosphere and environment habitable for humans within a matter of hours, regardless of the test area’s original composition.”
Way to go Texas!
You talking about turning the other cheek is hysterical, Mr. Theocrat. It makes me laugh as much as your poor skills do. Attack me all you like, because you cannot dispute what I’ve said in a cogent fashion. So you want to foam at the mouth some more about how you and you alone understand the nature of God’s will let alone the nature of science? You go right ahead. Free Speech gives you the right to say any kind of nonsense you like. It also gives us the right to debunk and ridicule your positions. I’ll keep on laughing at you. Because you’ve walked into a den of gunfighters armed with logic and fact and you’re only carrying a pointy stick.
No.
We don’t hate Christians.
We love the Constitution.
If we “hate” anything, it’s illogical foundations for governance, unconstitutional crimes, lobbyists and their corrupting influence, theocratic repression or any other form of tyranny, propaganda, weak argument and/or analytical skills and stupidity but especially willful stupidity.
If anyone is expressing hatred, it’s you expressing hatred for those who don’t believe in your fairy tale version of Christianity. Yeah, I said fairy tale. Learn about the history of the book you put so much stake in before you try to use it as a club. Otherwise, it’s like any weapon you don’t understand the function and use of – you’re likely to get it taken from you and used against you. Most here, even the non-Christians, have repeatedly expressed admiration for the teachings of Jesus and disdain for how MEN distort those teachings by using the bible out of context or as literal truth. It’s so easy to abuse teaching by parable as it is an oblique strategy. It’s even easier to tell those who are lost that you have the 411 on salvation because, hey – guess what, it doesn’t require you the sheep to personally think. Just follow blindly. Just do what the nice man in the expensive suit who asks you for money tells what to do and think. Because you are too stupid to decide what God wants from you. Or too lazy. And just like a Shepard leads lambs to slaughter, the fake prophets of fundamentalism seek your money for bad advice at best and seek the destruction of the world at worst. Free will is a gift. If you chose to squander it on some evangelical nonsense interpretation of the Bible as fact, that’s your bad decision. How about reading some history and science books before you start accusing others of the very intolerance you yourself express, carl. Because the uniformed trying to force their beliefs on others usually get eaten alive in here. This is a den of LOGIC, not hatred. We leave hatred and illogic to the fundies of all denominations and the fascist war-mongers. You are all so good at it.
“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….”
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And where they’re going, well, you –and the rest of us they would inevitably drag along in their insane delusion — can get there in a handbasket!
One thing that is clear about these so-called Christians, is that they will NEVER give up, never come to their senses. Even after the legal trouncing in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Case (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District)
By the way Doug, if it turns out that the skin cells really work as well, real scientists will use them. You see, unlike right-wing Christians, a good scientist learns from experience and observation.
This should be used in any court case which alleges cs is science and not religion. “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,…”
There is no ambiquity in this statement. Creationism is equated with christianity and with scripture from the bible. The “no formal science degree” might be a tip off to keen observers as well.
Lots of times people who support creationism pretend otherwise. As the Dover case proved, and this proposed legislation cements, it is about a biblical literalist religious teaching.