This morning found me not being awoken by people raving about the cuteness of a new puppy outside my window, but even so, I was up a bit after eight.
The whole cute dog thing, though, did remind me of something I saw on CNN over the weekend: the world’s ugliest dog.
Damn, that thing is repulsive. It looks like something out of a horror movie. Like some kind of zombie dog.
Even so, I checked out the owner’s blog (there’s a link to it on the “Ugliest Dog” site), and apparently someone wrote that he hopes that the dog and the owner die a long, painful death? WTF is wrong with people? So just because the dog is ugly that means it should suffer? And the same goes for the owner just because she’s crazy enough to love the ugly thing?
People are fucking retards, particularly when you consider that the dog is purebred, which means that people actually made the damn thing look like that.
I swear, over the centuries people have done some seriously fucked up shit when it comes to dog-breeding. Much of it just seems like sheer cruelty.
Over the weekend at work we were all doing some reading on the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM).
Basically, in response to a Kansas School Board’s decision to teach the theory of “Intelligent Design” as a counterpoint to the theory of Evolution in schools, a young man wrote an open letter demanding that they give equal consideration to the theory that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe (starting off with trees, a mountain, and a midgit[sic]).
The whole point is to draw attention to just how ludicrous the whole “debate” actually is. No matter how you try to gussy it up with a fancy, scientific-sounding name, the belief that some sort of Supreme Being created the universe simply has no place in a science curriculum, and the idea that said Supreme Being is a Flying Spaghetti Monster is no less ludicrous, in that context, than the belief that it was Jehovah, or Allah, or any other deity.
Faith can’t be verified through testing or peer review. That’s what makes it faith, and not science.
There are so many things that irritate me about the way fundamentalist Christians are always trying to get religion into the public school system, not the least of which is that it is unconstitutional and therefore wholly un-American, despite their assertions that this is a “Christian” nation.
The main issue I have, though, is that it’s not as if it’s impossible for children to receive instruction in Christian belief systems. It seems to me that there are these things called churches which pretty much specialize in it. In fact, that’s pretty much all they do. It’s not like they also sell discount men’s watches. Christian belief systems and bingo; that’s basically it.
And they’re not that hard to find, either. Most of them have these big steeples and crosses that make them pretty easy to spot.
It seems to me that the real issue is that there’s yet another child-rearing responsibility that parents want to abdicate to someone else. You know, rather than devoting all of your time to protesting the removal of religion from our schools, why don’t you spend that time reading the bible to your kids or taking them to church? If it’s really that important to you, why do you want to leave it up to someone else? And if you can’t find a way to make the time to do so, maybe you should re-evaluate just how important this whole religion thing actually is to you. You might find that you just like having something to be angry about, and that the actual cause isn’t as important to you as simply having a cause.
But, if you do some soul-searching and you still find that you want someone else to teach your kids about something as complex as your beliefs about the meaning of life, the nature of the soul, and what happens to us after we die, wouldn’t you rather leave it up to the experts rather than the people who have trouble even teaching them the stuff that they supposedly specialize in, like math? I mean, next to the fundamental questions about our place in the universe, math should be a cakewalk, and yet, math scores among American high school students are abysmal. If schools can’t teach them how to add 2+1, how the hell are they going to teach them about something like the Holy Trinity?
Of course, the proponents of ID education are arguing that they simply wish to “teach the controversy,” to make students aware of the fact that there are people who are critical of the Darwinian Theory of Evolution and that some people belief that some form of intelligence created life, the universe, and everything.
They are deliberately vague about who that “intelligence” is, as they are willing to garner support from non-Christian religions which also believe in some kind of guiding intelligence. In that fashion they can make it palatable to bring religion in to public schools, as it’s an inoffensive and “generic” religion. Of course, once they establish a foothold you can bet that no public school will be teaching little Ravi about Brahma, but they might just teach him that he’s a filthy sinner who’s going to Hell for not believing in Jesus and that that whole “reincarnation” thing that his parents told him about has about as much validity as that “evolution” thing.
After all, despite their aversion to the notion as applied to human development, these are people who are willing to move slowly and institute evolutionary changes in policy.
But if we assume that the push to “teach the controversy” is not part of some larger goal, the question then becomes, what is there to teach?
I recall in high school that our science teacher said something along the lines of “some people have specific religious beliefs about how life came about, but this is the theory that we work with in science.”
It seems to me that was a sufficient acknowledgement of the fact that people have religions beliefs.
I mean, is there really anything else that needs to be said? Does ID actually have any sort of methodology that’s comparable to the Cartesian system used in mainstream science? Do they have theorems? Formulas?
Even if schools got into the specifics of a particular ID belief system, how long would that take?
“As an alternative to what we’ve been able to determine through careful observation, experimentation, and a specific process of critical thinking and peer review, there are some people who believe that we should instead focus on a book written thousands of years ago, which tells us that this old man living in the sky made the entire universe in six days.
“As a follow-up, He created a guy named Adam out of some dirt. Despite the fact that currently the region in which Adam lived is inhabited primarily by non-whites, Adam was a Caucasian who looked just like us….well, obviously not like you Sadir. Or you Leon. No, he didn’t look like you either Zhao. What? I don’t know, maybe it was white sand.
“Anyway, then God took one of Adam’s ribs and made a woman named Eve out of it. This is why woman are inferior to men. What? No, the basic human form is not female. I don’t care if the male S-E-X organs – and you’re getting detention for mentioning those words – are like external versions of their female counterparts. No, I don’t know why men have nipples. That’s not important!
“What is important is that a snake told Adam and Eve to eat a piece of fruit that God specifically told them not to – what? It doesn’t matter why God put it there if He didn’t want them to eat it. What? No, snakes most certainly did not lose their ability to speak as a result of evolution.
“So they ate the fruit and that’s why it’s bad to be naked. Then God kicked them out of paradise and they had two sons. One killed the other, and God marked him so that other people would know who he was – look, the book doesn’t say where the other people came from, all right? And even if they did engage in inbreeding it wasn’t bad then and it didn’t lead to birth defects and down syndrome because it didn’t, that’s why.
“And that is a perfectly valid and reasonable alternative theory to Evolution. No, it can’t be tested and is not subject to peer review because you’re not supposed to question it. You just read the book – or better yet, let someone smarter than you read it for you and explain it to you – and believe it. Period. Questions? Put your hands down; didn’t I just tell you not to ask questions?”
Notice that Jesus didn’t get brought up in that sample lecture. Along with the flood – which further winnowed down the gene pool amongst humans and animals – J.C. would belong in the advanced class, and the fact that he was a fair-haired, blue-eyed, non-Semitic looking Caucasian who lived among Semitic people would most definitely not be chalked up to mutation…
In any case, my point is that there really wouldn’t be all that much to teach. At most, I should think some kind of handout would take care of it (and personally, I think the copies of the handout should be made using a mimeograph machine, just for the nostalgic value of that unmistakable smell, which kids today just aren’t familiar with, which I think is more of a shame than them not being taught about ID).
Of course, if schools are going to teach ID, I do believe that they should also teach the theory of FSM. Everyone should have the chance to be touched by His Noodly Appendage.
That’s the other point of bringing ID into the schools, though: evangelism. Apparently entire television networks, advertising, books, movies, the best efforts of Mel Gibson and churches alike, and the last two thousand years of history just aren’t managing to spread “The Word.” There are, apparently, hillbillies living in caves throughout America who have managed to go their whole lives without hearing about the whole “Christianity” thing.
Even though they live in caves, these reclusive creatures do still, evidently, attend public schools and would therefore be prime candidates for public school evangelism.
Never mind that in a pluralistic society such as America teaching one form of religion is exclusionary (and, as mentioned earlier, unconstitutional), the biggest problem is that there isn’t even one form of Christianity. Doctrinal differences can be incredibly minor among denominations, but in some cases they are so extreme that two denominations can hardly be said to share the same core beliefs. So which version will it be? Roman Catholic? Southern Baptist? Lutheran, and if so, which kind? ELCA? Missouri Synod?
Of course, I think the one thing that all denominations would agree upon is that it sure as hell wouldn’t be something weird like what the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe.
After all, those freaks go around bothering people and trying to insinuate their belief systems in places they don’t belong, and…umm...well, it’s a good thing that most fundamentalists don’t really understand the concept of irony.
Anyway, let’s say that there’s some kind of trivia contest or something to determine which version of Christianity is taught in schools. In a pluralistic society, that would require that FSM be let in…along with Scientology, Wicca, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism….you know, maybe it would be easier if we just didn’t let religion in at all, huh?
No, no, no! Religion must be taught in schools. After all, it’s just like Jesus said: “Render onto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, render onto God that which is God’s.” Oh, wait, that one doesn’t quite work. Umm…well, odds are that Jesus said something apropos.
Basically, screw pluralism is the battle cry. Who cares what a bunch of heathens believe? They’re lucky we don’t go all Spanish Inquisition on their asses.
After all, nobody expects it…
Back to teaching FSM alongside other forms of ID, though. I do think that it would be a good alternative to not teaching ID at all (which would be the ideal).
However, I think there’s an even better option.
After all, the separation of Church and State doesn’t exist solely for the benefit of us heathens; it protects the Church, too.
So if we’re going to erode the separation and start having religion spilling into public education, why can’t public education start spilling into religion?
If fundamentalist Christians are so eager to “teach the controversy” in schools, why not do the same in churches? Instead of always reading from the Gospels, why not read from the Bhagavad Gita, or from “On The Origin of Species” or some other science text?
After all, it would only be fair. If religion can be used to attack science in school, science should be allowed to attack religion in church.
Just a thought.
For any of you out there who might be offended by this entry, which could be perceived as an attack on Christianity, all I can say is, “deal with it.”
It’s not like I’m throwing you to lions or anything, though honestly, Christians seem to only be happy when they’re being persecuted, so maybe you’d be happier if I were throwing you to the lions.
Regardless, my point in all of this is not that religion (even fundamentalist Christianity) is bad, just that it has no place in the teaching of science, especially since it already has its own place.
God doesn’t require that every aspect of life tied to religion and the church. He does make allowances for the existence of the secular (that whole “render onto Caesar” thing).
If you don’t feel like you’re getting enough church, though, go to church more often; don’t put it into the school.
Anyway, I’ve said more than enough (and more than I intended to) on the subject, and since I have said so much, I won’t subject you to more conventional Threshold fare right now, so, in a move that many conservative Christians could learn from, I’ll save the standard recap of my day for a more appropriate time.
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