American Fundies Disprove Evolution With Loch Ness Monster

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IT sounds like a plot dreamed up by the creators of Southpark, but it's all true: schoolchildren in Louisiana are to be taught that the Loch Ness monster is real in a bid by religious educators to disprove Darwin's theory of evolution.

Hmm...disproving a solid scientific theory with a creature that has no hard evidence of existence. Yep, that sounds like American Christian fundies. I'm just surprised this doesn't come out of Florida.

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Thousands of children in the southern state will receive publicly-funded vouchers for the next school year to attend private schools where Scotland's most famous mythological beast will be taught as a real living creature.

Your tax dollars at work, folks.

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One tenet has it that if it can be proved that dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as man then Darwinism is fatally flawed.

I keep hearing that, but I don't see how dinosaur/human coexistence would disprove evolution. Also, there are quite a number of real "fossil species" in existence, like coelecanths and ginkgo trees.

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Critics have damned the content of the course books, calling them "bizarre" and accusing them of promoting radical religious and political ideologies.

Ya think?

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One ACE textbook – Biology 1099, Accelerated Christian Education Inc – reads: "Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence. Have you heard of the 'Loch Ness Monster' in Scotland? 'Nessie' for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur."

In addition to being batshit insane, someone Did Not Do The Research. Plesiosaurs weren't dinosaurs.

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Another claim taught is that a Japanese whaling boat once caught a dinosaur. It's unclear if the movie Godzilla was the inspiration for this lesson.

It probably was. This person who came up with this is probably related to those bozos who think 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' is a documentary.

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Jonny Scaramanga, 27, who went through the ACE programme as a child, but now campaigns against Christian fundamentalism, said the Nessie claim was presented as "evidence that evolution couldn't have happened. The reason for that is they're saying if Noah's flood only happened 4000 years ago, which they believe literally happened, then possibly a sea monster survived.

There's flood stories from all over the world, but they probably date to more than 4,000 years ago--they most likely originated in the end of the last major glaciation, circa 8,000-10,000 years ago, when sea levels rose, the weather got wonky from climate change, and glaciers dumped massive amounts of meltwater on land and sea. And no, there were no dinosaurs then, either (or plesiosaurs).

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Private religious schools, including the Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake, Louisiana, which follows the ACE curriculum, have already been cleared to receive the state voucher money transferred from public school funding, thanks to a bill pushed through by state Governor Bobby Jindal.

And all the while, the public schools struggle, while their funding gets siphoned off to teach bullshit.

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Boston-based researcher and writer Bruce Wilson, who specialises in the American political religious right, compares the curriculum to Islamic fundamentalist teaching.

But...but that's not possible! Islamic fundamentalist teaching tells children that all other religions are wrong and evil, and that secular governments are evil, and that any thought outside the narrow of fundamentalism is evil...fundamentalist Christians don't say that!

Oh, wait...

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"One of these texts from Bob Jones University Press claims that dinosaurs were fire-breathing dragons. It has little to do with science as we currently understand. It's more like medieval scholasticism."

Erm...that would take some fantastic tricks of physics. At least the medieval thinkers had no reason to know better.

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Daniel Govender, managing director of Christian Education Europe, which is part of ACE, said the organisation would not comment to the press on what is contained in the texts.

You infidels just don't understand Real Christians (TM)!

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Textbooks of some state-funded Christian schools praise the Ku Klux Klan.

But they still take the tax dollars from blacks, Hispanics, Jews, immigrants, etc. That proves we're in a post-racial society!

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One excerpt from Bob Jones University Press American history textbook has been reported as saying: "the [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross ... In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."

Ah, the good old days...when open hatred was acceptable and those Negroes knew their place!

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Other views taught include claims that being gay is a learned behaviour.

Then how come so many gays are raised by straight parents?

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It isn't just America where the bizarre Christian Nessie myth is being taught as a reality. The UK has similar religious schools but they do not receive cash from the state. Nevertheless, the Evangelical Christian curriculum they follow has been approved by UK Government agency, the National Recognition Information Centre (Naric) which guides universities and employers on the validity of different qualifications.

Ah, we're not alone. Batshit insanity also affects the UK.

Hey, Louisiana, Mississippi called. It wants its crazy back.

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Thousands of children in the southern state will receive publicly-funded vouchers for the next school year to attend private schools where Scotland's most famous mythological beast will be taught as a real living creature.

And they'll still end up smarter than the tards from the public schools.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

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Thousands of children in the southern state will receive publicly-funded vouchers for the next school year to attend private schools where Scotland's most famous mythological beast will be taught as a real living creature.

And they'll still end up smarter than the tards from the public schools.

It takes one to know one.

Lady Anne wrote:

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Another claim taught is that a Japanese whaling boat once caught a dinosaur. It's unclear if the movie Godzilla was the inspiration for this lesson.

It probably was. This person who came up with this is probably related to those bozos who think 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' is a documentary.

Oooh! Oooh! I know this one!

It was a decaying Basking Shark.



But, seriously - this sort of thing isn't funny. It's fucking terrifying.

I mean c'mon guys, evolution is totally silly...

The Loch Ness monster, on the other hand, is serious fucking business.

Next thing we know, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is going to be taught in History class as well.

Hell, while we're at the crossroads of utter bullshit, have a good ole book-burning and purge the world of indecency and whatnot. It's only fitting.

Fucking Fundies.

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IT sounds like a plot dreamed up by the creators of Southpark, but it's all true: schoolchildren in Louisiana are to be taught that the Loch Ness monster is real in a bid by religious educators to disprove Darwin's theory of evolution.

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Holy shit. And I thought A Beka Book textbooks were terrible--we were taught a lot of crap, but never anything claiming Nessie was a dinosaur/evidence against evolution (we did get told sea monsters were real because they were talked about in the Bible, though).

The sad thing is that people assume that just because it's a private school, it's automatically better, and while that may be true for some, it really isn't here.

Ick, yeah, vouchers are a terrible idea.

That's ridiculous...everyone knows that evolution can be disproved beyond doubt by the existence of dragons! ;D

how do people get away with child abuse like this

the asylum wrote:

how do people get away with child abuse like this

It's only considered abuse if the minority does it.

Braigwen wrote:

the asylum wrote:

how do people get away with child abuse like this

It's only considered abuse if the minority does it.

But they are the minority. The thing is, most religious people are fairly sane and probably think this is just as stupid as anyone else. I'm willing to bet most people think this is utterly insane.

The thing we need to ask is why is this brand of insanity acceptable?

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Braigwen wrote:

the asylum wrote:

how do people get away with child abuse like this

It's only considered abuse if the minority does it.

But they are the minority. The thing is, most religious people are fairly sane and probably think this is just as stupid as anyone else. I'm willing to bet most people think this is utterly insane.

The thing we need to ask is why is this brand of insanity acceptable?

Because unlike more level-headed groups of Christians, fundamentalists of this particular ilk are exceedingly vocal. Question the wisdom/logic/sanity of what they're doing, and they start screaming like a lizard in a blender about oppression at the hands of the godless majority (despite the fact that the numbers point to them being one of the few Christian groups actively increasing in membership). It's just easier to not have to deal with the screeching on things like this.

Or were you asking in a more rhetorical sense?

I showed my Grandma this article, and she is as devout a christian as they come. She couldn't stop laughing at the idiocy for a good minuets before feeling a bit disturb on why they are even trying something like this.

Kevin M wrote:

She couldn't stop laughing at the idiocy for a good minuet before feeling a bit disturb on why they are even trying something like this.

A good minuet?



So that's about three minutes, you'd say?

Do we have a list of common typos? If not, we should. (I mean unintentional typos, of course, not fanbrat trollery where they deliberately misspell every other word to be funneee!)

I'm getting the impression that Kevin here is ESL. A lot of his wording and spelling remind me of mistakes I used to make when I was less proficient in the English language.

Snake Bandage wrote:

I'm getting the impression that Kevin here is ESL. A lot of his wording and spelling remind me of mistakes I used to make when I was less proficient in the English language.

Sorry about that.

I guess I should have looked at the last post a bit more closely.

Jay/Cris wrote:

Kevin M wrote:

She couldn't stop laughing at the idiocy for a good minuet before feeling a bit disturb on why they are even trying something like this.

A good minuet?

So that's about three minutes, you'd say?

I guess I walked into that one, didn't I?

Snake Bandage wrote:

I'm getting the impression that Kevin here is ESL. A lot of his wording and spelling remind me of mistakes I used to make when I was less proficient in the English language.

Oh, Pfft. I was born here and I still fuck up with homonyms pretty much constantly. Spell-checkers are a blessing and a curse!

WD40 wrote:

Snake Bandage wrote:

I'm getting the impression that Kevin here is ESL. A lot of his wording and spelling remind me of mistakes I used to make when I was less proficient in the English language.

Oh, Pfft. I was born here and I still fuck up with homonyms pretty much constantly. Spell-checkers are a blessing and a curse!

Ain't that the truth.

The English language, in my opinion is far harder to learn than Sign Language, or many other language. Simply due to the fact at how many double (and even) triple meanings one word can have.

Reidmar wrote:

The English language, in my opinion is far harder to learn than Sign Language, or many other language. Simply due to the fact at how many double (and even) triple meanings one word can have.

Have you learned every other language on the planet?

No?

Shut up.

I, for one, can guarantee that German is harder to learn because I speak English, um, decently, and I can't speak German for beans. LOGIC