Seriously, Doesn't the Texas State Senate Have Anything Better to Do?

Chaltab wrote:

theweirdkind wrote:

Quote :

The Board removed Thomas Jefferson from the Texas curriculum, “replacing him with religious right icon John Calvin.”

Well, I guess the third President of the United States and the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence isn't as important as somebody who has to do with religion. You know, that thing that's supposed to be separated from State.

John Calvin? John Frakking Calvin!?
The guy who founded Calvinism? The guy who believed that God predestines some people to eternal damnation and others to eternal life with no actual regard for the choices they've made? The John Calvin that lived and died more than two-hundred years before the United States of America was founded? What the hell, Texas?

John Calvin was the second most prominent Reformer, behind only Luther. What he did had no small affect on politics and whatnot of the time. He even ran Geneva for a long period of time. He has a place in history books.

Granted, European history was more affected by him than American history. And even so, just because Calvin belongs in history books, does not mean you have to remove Thomas Jefferson. Remove something more useless, like Beatniks, or Peanut Carver (I forget his first name and I don't care).

aww maaaaaan for a second i thought melissa was back

Obviously John Calvin would be important to European history, but to have him and not Thomas Jefferson in an American history curriculum is just stupid.

the asylum wrote:

You gotta take a pic of it

Delivered.

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Mafiosa wrote:

Dude did you just rip on Melissa.

did you just

did

what

If you're pointing out that the quote is old, I've realized this by now. I didn't expect someone to necro so far back, so I thought maybe Melissa had returned somehow. I left the comment up because I didn't see the point in deleting it, because it is true. Not only that, but if Melissa is still lurking or something what's the harm in letting her know how stupid I think she is one last time?

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Penguin wrote:

Mr.Doobie wrote:

I can actually understand John Calvin to a degree, didn't he have ideas of political theory that were influential to the American Constitution?

Soon: More "America was founded as a Christian nation" bull.

I was mistaken, I was thinking of John Locke. I didn't think he was particularly religious.

Still, even with my history fail aside, I wasn't saying "America is a Christian nation" in the first place.

Yeah, I mean, I'm actually descended from Calvin and come from a family that has some hundreds of year old books of his (relatively early printings) and I'm pretty sure yoinking Jefferson in favor of him doesn't really make much sense.

@Mikey: I'd call George Washington "Peanuts" Carver important not so much because he was black as because he was a milestone in American entrepreneurship. The guy created an entire industry for lulz.

Jesus Fucking Christ, Texas...your government makes California's government look smart.

Lady Anne wrote:

Jesus Fucking Christ, Texas...your government makes California's government look smart.

Isn't California desperately in a legendary financial clusterfuck while Texas is relatively financially sound?

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Lady Anne wrote:

Jesus Fucking Christ, Texas...your government makes California's government look smart.

Isn't California desperately in a legendary financial clusterfuck while Texas is relatively financially sound?

Texas is looking at an $11-20 billion dollar shortfall come January 2011. The only reason they aren't facing financial armageddon right now is they used a ton of stimulus money to paper over the budget hole in 2009 (money that isn't going to be there to save their bacon this time around).

OH GOD WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE BACON

I swear, it's becoming impossible to parody Christian Fundies anymore, isn't it? About the only thing left is to rewrite the science books to remove "Pro-Heliocentric Bias"

Trioculus wrote:

I swear, it's becoming to parody Christian Fundies anymore, isn't it?

There's a reason Poe's Law exists.

Trioculus wrote:

I swear, it's becoming to parody Christian Fundies anymore, isn't it? About the only thing left is to rewrite the science books to remove "Pro-Heliocentric Bias"

I know, right? Filthy liberals filling our kid's heads with "round earth" nonsense!

the asylum wrote:

Trioculus wrote:

I swear, it's becoming to parody Christian Fundies anymore, isn't it? About the only thing left is to rewrite the science books to remove "Pro-Heliocentric Bias"

I know, right? Filthy liberals filling our kid's heads with "round earth" nonsense!

One of the students at the school I work for who was formerly homeschooled got into an argument with the Earth Science teacher about that. Not only is the student convinced that the sun revolves around the earth, but he also believes that the earth is flat, and complained that the teacher was just a liberal trying to turn Christians into athiests by saying the world is round, and back when his parents were growing up, everyone knew the earth was flat.

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Yeah. Unless his parents are really old, the flat earth hypothesis was debunked long before they were born--you know, back when that Italian guy was so convinced that the world was round that he got funding from the Spanish crown to sail west in order to get to India. Granted, he didn't realize there were two continents in the way, but still...and then, a few decades later, Magellan circumnavigated the globe, removing all doubt that the round-earth idea was correct.

And the kid wonders why he's failing most of his classes.

People knew the Earth was round before that moron sailed to North America. He just thought there might be a shorter way to the West Indies.

TheHermit wrote:

Trioculus wrote:

I swear, it's becoming to parody Christian Fundies anymore, isn't it?

There's a reason Poe's Law exists.

Refresh my memory...I used to know what Poe's Law is but right now I'm drawing a blank.

Lady Anne wrote:

Yeah. Unless his parents are really old, the flat earth hypothesis was debunked long before they were born--you know, back when that Italian guy was so convinced that the world was round that he got funding from the Spanish crown to sail west in order to get to India.

Wow, Anne, bad form. Even before Columbus' day educated people knew that the Earth was round.

Even Conservapedia doesn't fall into that classic pit of history fail.

Quote :

It is also a myth that Columbus proved that the world was round.
Europeans had known for centuries that the world was round. Columbus's
disagreement with the experts was that he thought that the Earth was
much smaller, and that he had enough supplies to sail to India.

Lady Anne wrote:

Unless his parents are really old, the flat earth hypothesis was debunked long before they were born--you know, back when that Italian guy was so convinced that the world was round that he got funding from the Spanish crown to sail west in order to get to India. Granted, he didn't realize there were two continents in the way, but still...and then, a few decades later, Magellan circumnavigated the globe, removing all doubt that the round-earth idea was correct.

Devil's advocate: you could circumnavigate a flat Earth as long as terra firma does not extend all the way to the edge. The proof of Earth being round, or cylindrical, or conical, would be if you could circumnavigate it by keeping a constant bearing (eastward or westward).
Having said that, if the kid won't listen to reasoned arguments and his counter-arguments amount to LA LA LA YOU ARE OF THE DEVIL, I say leave him well alone. He can ascribe to religious persecution the fact that his career will never rise above 'cesspit emptier assistant'.

Chris91 wrote:

TheHermit wrote:

Trioculus wrote:

I swear, it's becoming impossible to parody Christian Fundies anymore, isn't it?

There's a reason Poe's Law exists.

Refresh my memory...I used to know what Poe's Law is but right now I'm drawing a blank.

I can't remember where I got this quote, but here goes:

Quote :

Poe's law is that without a blatant indicator of sarcasm or parody it's impossible to make an online parody of fundamentalism that can't be mistaken for the real thing.

Basically, Poe's law states that Cyberwulf needs to use a lot more.

the asylum wrote:

Ah, to be Canadian. As far removed as possible from these Texan hackjobs.

Geography wasn't your top subject, was it?

Cyberwulf wrote:

the asylum wrote:

Ah, to be Canadian. As far removed as possible from these Texan hackjobs.

Geography wasn't your top subject, was it?

He means to be as far away from Texas as possibly but still close enough to America to have some of our Awesome rub off on them.

Unlike Ireland.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

He means to be as far away from Texas as possibly but still close enough to America to have some of our Awesome rub off on them.

Unlike Ireland.

No, Ireland is rubbing against a country that has owned a quarter of the entire world.

Also, what sort of "Awesome" are we talking about? The transparently corrupt government, the fucked up educational system(which you decided to fuck even further, because LIBRUL BIAS), the insultingly unequal income distribution, the arrogance the U.S. has as a whole, the stupidly high crime rates, the fact that your conservatives are fucking insane, your military is overfunded, your debt is astronomical and will be equal to your GDP in another twenty years, your health system favors the wealthy, or the fact that you're the only first world country without UHC, and now 45000 people die yearly because of it, what?

The U.S. is a fucking joke of a first world country, with enough guns and nukes to qualify as a superpower, that has decided that its job is to police the world.

trolled hard

yes