That’s a sight to make a fellow toss his cookies


It’s an article titled “I love teaching evolution”…on the Chalcedon foundation page, in column on homeschooling, beneath a quote and a picture of crazy ol’ R.J. Rushdooney.

Evolution is a topic that repeatedly enters into our curriculum the same way that sin is a topic that gets covered in depth. How am I adequately educating my child if I fail to cover in detail the lies and deceptions that are prevalent in our humanistic culture? The Christian homeschooling parent must be prepared to understand, articulate, and refute the preposterous claims that currently serve as explanations for the origins of life and the presence of all creatures great and small. Fortunately, there are many good books and publishers that have taken the time to make this task much easier.

I think this one belongs to Greg Laden. I’m going to stagger off and rest my bedazzled, overloaded brains.

(thanks to Jesse for that horrible vision.)

Comments

  1. viggen says

    These people are crazy. They sound no more sane to me than the islamic terrorists do in their video statements.

    While I have nothing against christian friends, the people who come across sounding like they’ve been inducted into a cult are -literally- dangerous to the people around them.

  2. Angie says

    Just…wow. Not much makes my jaw literally drop, but shit like that does. I feel so bad for these poor captive children; they’d be better off with no education than this deliberate misinformation. I hate these people.

  3. yoshi says

    Is it my imagination or does R.J. Rushdoony look a lot like Sauran the White?

  4. Fred says

    I noticed today over at UCD that Sal Cordova is excited about the new ID text book, “Exploring Evolution”. Distributed by the Discovery Institute in the US, it is undoubtedly deceptive trash. Has anyone here read it or found a good critique on it? My wife teaches 8th Grade science at a Catholic school, and is always on the look-out for crap like this. Has PZ or anyone at Panda’s Thumb reviewed it yet? If so, it’s escaped my notice.

  5. says

    While I support the concept of homeschooling, the practice of it is fraught with disaster. Parents are not necessarily good teachers of their children, any more than most parents make good plumbers or neurosurgeons. At my high school, we have admitted several homeschooled children each year. Their parents have largely chosen homeschooling for philosophical reasons, not religious. The kids have been intelligent and well behaved, for the most part, but usually are deficient in math and science. These parents have wisely decided to place their kids in high school to get them ready for college.

    For Pentecostals and others of their ilk, reason fell out of their heads once they became born again. In my book, Pentecostalism is just a tad short of being a cult. The congregations will believe anything their pastor, or a itinerant preacher, tells them without question, as long as the preacher can convince them in it’s in the Bible. It’s like the Enlightenment never happened. No independent thought here.

    The rightwing Christians (strangely, I have never met a liberal Pentecostal) have their flocks brainwashed into thinking evolution is sinful, and creation is blessed by the Almighty. So it’s no surprise that this writer sees nothing wrong in brainwashing his kids in turn.

    All is not lost, necessarily. I have heard that teenagers and other young people leave Pentecostal churches quite often, once they catch on that they have been misinformed.

  6. says

    And the divide between the learned and not just grew a little larger, didn’t it?

    The thing that really annoys me is that they’re “teaching” these kids nothing, and then they inevitably bang upon the doors of higher education demanding lower standards to allow these uneducated, indoctrinated children in.

    And people wonder why America is getting dumber and dumber.

  7. LeeLeeOne says

    As parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc., we MUST take responsibility for the education of children! Please, please, please… be responsible adults – definition of an adult you ask? It is a person who allows a child to discover, a person who admits “I don’t know” when they truly do not know! Be an adult, who can research the answers and then respond intelligently. Children are indoctrinated and abused… but Why? Why? As an adult, who is rational, why would they allow ANY child anywhere to not to choose for themselves after they have been presented all available information? Adults who can respond, adults who can give the freedom of choice (Bill Moyers understands the First Amendment), those adults who can make a difference often do not. Make a difference in a child’s vulnerable life. SPEAK UP! Blog, volunteer, publish, but first and foremost of all, educate yourselves!

  8. Dahan says

    I’ve know a few home schooled folk over the years. They often are very successful in some ways, but usually woefully ignorant in many others. For instance. I have a home schooled friend who sells magnetic jewelry, etc claiming it heals all manner of ailments. He’s an excellent business man and salesman. He makes a lot of money. But has huge gaps in his understanding of many things we all take for granted. For instance, when I told him my wife and I were going to go see the Degas exhibit opening at a local museum, he had never heard the name. Now I don’t expect everyone to know where Degas was from, when he worked, or what his favorite subjects were, but to have never heard the name? This is just one of many examples of “common” knowledge lost to home schooled students. I wish I had his knack for business and his money…but wouldn’t trade it for my knowledge of science, art, and history, etc.

  9. Ichthyic says

    I see Rushdoony as a short-haired Saruman the White(Christopher Lee.) Sauron was just an eye.

    I think that’s who he meant; it was just a typo.

    funny thing is, regardless of the physical similarity in appearance (or not), the methods used are eerily similar, if not magically based for Rushloony.

  10. Kagehi says

    ANY child anywhere to not to choose for themselves after they have been presented all available information?

    Even reasonably well formed adults do not have “all available information”. Children rarely have 1/10th of a percent of that when its *critical* that someone make the choice of what to accept as real, instead of what people *want* them to think is real. This is why teaching *formal logic* is more important than teaching facts. Just look at people like Rosy O’Donnel… I am sure she has more “facts” in her head than nearly anyone on the fracking planet, but she is fundamentally incapable of looking at “any” of it through filter of logic, instead of one of gullibility and credulity. Kids don’t know *how* to choose. The point of science is, at least on some level, a means to teach how to evaluate facts, so that someone *can* choose, and it fails miserably in some cases, like where someone learns to thing that the magic sky fairy makes gravity work on one hand, but that such silly ideas have no place in molecular biology. They so drastically compartmentalize things that formal logic is only applied in “one” area of specialized knowledge. In every other area, woo rules their universe.

    This is what happens when you get someone that finds that they “must” learn and apply logic to physics, chemistry, or some other field, but have never been taught or told that it *must* be applied to everything else as well, including the things that barely interest them. The difference between those people and the real woo-woo types that insist “everything” is run by the magic sky fairy is that *those* later people don’t learn formal logic *at all*. What they do learn of logic is severely limited to a tiny fraction of their world, and then, “intuition” rules when ever that tiny corner of their world throws something into their path that their weak grasp of logic can’t handle.

    This is why, despite the cry for “doing something” and “making sure children have all the facts, so can choose”, those won’t work. Logic, real logic, runs counter to a lot of the stuff hardwired into our heads. Its formal structure built over top of what is a system for making estimations. Its rules governing when to rely on those estimates as sufficient, and when to question if they are even vaguely approximate to the real world. Without those rules, what you get is people, “trusting their feelings”, like millions of Luke Skywalkers, only, their “force” is dumber than a stump and couldn’t guide rain water down hill.

    All the knowledge in the world is useless, if you don’t have a clue how its applied, when it applies, or why it won’t work when misapplied. Schools barely teach this outside things like science, and the new trend in ideologically directed schools/home schooling, doesn’t even get that much of its right.

  11. says

    Incredible irony:

    This kind of teaching and learning further prepares our students to be salt and light as they make disciples of all nations. Unless they understand what their contemporaries are being taught, they will be hampered when they engage in discussions with those steeped in lies.

    Of course, what this woman teaches bears no serious resemblance at all to Darwin’s theories, nor to modern biology. So her children won’t “understand what their contemporaries are being taught” until they escape from the Gulag this woman runs for the children.

    In other discussions in other forums in other years, I’ve noted that Rushdooney also advocated capital punishment for unruly children — stoning them to death. Rushdooney found some odd verse of the Bible — Old Testament, no doubt, before the Revised Jesus Edition that makes Reconstructionists twitch with apoplexy — and decided “magistrates” would be empowered to kill children in his theocracy. When others protest that this is unjust, or unfair, or cruel or unusual, the Reconstructionists retreat to a position that it’s okay because everyone will agree to live under this “dominion.”

    Now, can you tell me: Isn’t this Rushdooney guy the same one whose works hold enthralled the Rev. D. James Kennedy at Coral Ridge Ministries in Florida, the same guy who keeps lying about Darwin being connected to Hitler’s crimes?

    I hope Greg Laden has a strong stomach, and a very, very sharp quill, P.Z.

  12. Fox1 says

    Dahan: Now I don’t expect everyone to know where Degas was from, when he worked, or what his favorite subjects were, but to have never heard the name?

    Well, shit, I guess I better get my non-homeschooled butt over to Wikipedia before I embarrass myself.

  13. shindrak says

    Home schooling should be illegal beyond the earliest grades. I had realized by the time I hit jr high school that my parents, like most adults I knew outside of school, had virtually no knowledge beyond the absolute basics in the fields of math or science. Not to mention fine arts, literature, history, etc. My parents were great people, and had many important things to teach me in terms of real life knowledge, but I sure wouldn’t want them teaching me any of the traditional subjects when they didn’t have a deep understanding of them.

    I’m sure there are some exceptional parents out there who would be able to teach their children better than the public education system can, and do so on a wide variety of subjects, but I think they must be exceedingly rare and blessed to have that kind of intellect and that kind of free time.

  14. says

    I see Rushdoony as a short-haired Saruman the White(Christopher Lee.)

    I was thinking Count Dooku myself, but yeah, Christopher Lee.

  15. jb says

    “I’m going to stagger off and rest my bedazzled, overloaded brains.”

    Wow. PZ, you have multiple brains? That explains a lot. I am way envious….

    Next you’re going to tell us that each one is attached to a tentacle.

  16. The lamp, it is dirty. says

    Are kids that were homeschooled more likely to homeschool their own kids when they grow up?

  17. raven says

    There are all sorts of horrors common in the old testament and sometimes new. Slavery, genocide, polygamy, child brides, child abuse, and so on. Stoning people to death for one thing or another was not unheard of.

    Anyone who wants to set up a true to the bible theocracy has a recipe for hell on earth. I keep pointing out that the real goal of the creos is to overthrow the US government and head on back to the dark ages. This is no exageration. Just ask them.

    Really, these people IMO are sick and evil. They are cultists from the far lunatic fringe. Also IMO, the rest of us like living in the 21st century and they aren’t going to get very far. I’m sure they do create their own little hells on earth for themselves quite often.

  18. Dahan says

    Fox1

    lol! Sorry to have perhaps offended! It was only one example of many I could have made. The problem isn’t that my friend didn’t know the name of one incredibly important artist, it is his overall lack of knowledge in many areas. Happy Wiki-ing!

    :)

  19. Uber says

    In my book, Pentecostalism is just a tad short of being a cult. The congregations will believe anything their pastor, or a itinerant preacher, tells them without question, as long as the preacher can convince them in it’s in the Bible. It’s like the Enlightenment never happened. No independent thought here

    You could have written that entire paragraph in regards to the RCC as well with a little tinkering. Many Pentecostals will pay less attention to their preacher than many catholics du their Pope even though he is largely irrevelant.

  20. says

    Hitchens makes a very good case in “God is not great” that religion is, in fact, child abuse. Starting with the obvious things – like genital mutilation – and ending with education (“no child’s behind left”) and stuffing their brains with nonsense… It’s the perfect antidote to this kind of B.S.

    Parents who homeschool children with propaganda are child abusers, the same way that woo-woo head parents who don’t let their kids get necessary medical procedures are child abusers.

  21. Sivi Volk says

    It’a bizzare to see “humanistic” used in a perjorative sense. Really. It threw me so much at first I didn’t even realize he was using the term in a critical way. I had to re-read the passage several times to realize it.

  22. sadoctopusface says

    shindrak (#17) — I’m delurking just to reply to your “homeschooling should be illegal beyond the earliest grades” comment. In the earliest grades, homeschooled kids are usually taught most subjects by their parents (and have to be). By the time they get to junior high age, however, their parents are better off stepping back and letting them teach themselves. I don’t mean to say teenagers don’t need instruction in driving, life skills, and college preparation. But adolescence isn’t a time to sit and partake of your parents’ knowledge (even if your parents are exceptionally brilliant and learned). It’s a time to find new experiences and teachers and to study independently. No matter how expert the teachers at your junior high may have been, I assure you much the same knowledge is available to anyone who has the time and self-discipline (and a little money) to seek it out. (This is more true now than ever, with whole college courses available online.)

    I cringe to think of the families that use homeschooling to isolate their children and keep them ignorant. But unless they’re being brainwashed or have severely limited resources, homeschooled kids are NOT limited by what their parents know. *Especially* not after age twelve or so, when they begin learning more from their peers and their own pursuits.

    Sorry for the somewhat off-topic rant, but I’m tired of the misconception that homeschooling is just like school except it’s done at home. Some families actually do have little desks and chalkboards in their basements, schedule X hours of class every day, and give homework and quizzes. Others don’t.

    Relurking now. Peace.

  23. Skeptic8 says

    Survey the Heart of Darkest Dominionism: Rousas Rushdoony. This is a neo-Calvinist worldview with teeth! The “Elect” are charged with bringing about the Dominion of God right out of a Calvinist interpretation of scriptures. It is remarkably similar to an Islamic Caliphate of Peace where every person is in “submission” to Allah. There is NO chance; all is decided by allah or god. See the comments on “naturalism”. “Sin” brings the retribution of G or A to be poured out on the whole population. The people are spared IF the Elect punish the sinner. Sin and disobedience endangers everyone.
    Just ask D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge.

  24. Cameron says

    In response to Wheatdogs comment that homeschoolers are lacking in Math and Science. That is completely ridiculous. In Fact a Homeschooler actually won the International Science and Engineering Fair this year!

  25. says

    Cameron —

    I will grant you that counter-example, but Philip Streich was taking online classes from Stanford and regular classes at UW, so his parents basically got out of his way. Not all parents are willing to recognize their limitations. See this summary here: http://www.pahomeschoolers.com/messages/21273.html

    Don’t take my remarks to infer I mean all homeschooled children are lacking math and science skills. I have met (and taught) brilliant homeschooled kids. I find it hard to believe, however, that parents can do an adequate job teaching all subjects themselves, particularly if they are blind to their own shortcomings. In the case of the nutjob PZ quotes here, he doesn’t even understand the shortcomings of his outside sources.

    I have mixed feelings about homeschooling. One of the roles of the public education system is to impart (or try to impart) a common system of knowledge to all youngsters, regardless of religion, race, national origin, etc. Allowing parents to pull their kids out of schools to teach them at home opens the door for nutjobs to indoctrinate their kids.

    But I guess that’s the price of freedom, hey?

  26. Buffybot says

    The problem isn’t just homeschooling – it’s also the correlation of (fundamentalist) homeschooling with a general disengagement from the culture as a whole. If secular music, books, art and media are unavailable or demonised, and the family ethos is of anti-intellectualism, there’s going to be a horrible narrowing of horizons, generation after generation.

    I went to ordinary public schools, and remember that what we were formally taught was pretty narrow and superficial. All the cultural general knowledge (like Degas) came from magazines, TV, and most importantly, from rampaging through the library on my own account. These kids are going to miss out on that opportunity, and it’s bloody tragic.

  27. says

    All is not lost, necessarily. I have heard that teenagers and other young people leave Pentecostal churches quite often, once they catch on that they have been misinformed.

    I was forced to go to a Pentecostal church for almost 4 years as a youth. I was definitely the bent cog in that wheel. I used to get kicked out of Sunday school all the time (during the week, I was the science geek at regular school).

    One day, while calling from the pay phone (they wouldn’t let me use the office phone) to get picked up after being tossed out of Sunday school yet again for some horrible sin like suggesting the Earth revolves around the Sun or some such thing, the telephone accidentally gave me my dime back. A church elder saw this and demanded – to the point of becoming physically threatening – that I turn over the dime as the dime was intended by God for the church. And let’s face it, at 14, I was not about to get my ass kicked for a dime (although, as Cartman might say, I think he’d do something to my ass… maybe not kick it, but definitely something).

    That’s my last memory of the Pentecostals… robbing, literally, 10 cents from a kid in the name of God.

    It’s funny too because both my brothers and my sister were sent for about the same amount of time and we all grew up to become atheists. Coincidence? I think not.

    What I never understood is how anyone could buy into that kind of BS. I can sort of see how a mainstream religion might appeal to some people, but I just don’t get how a person can presumably start out rational and then decide “I’m going to become a religious lunatic.” What do they really get out of it? Maybe the reward is the psychological payoff of being a bully?

  28. says

    I should add… my parents sent us to Pentecostal church not because they were religious yahoos, but because the Pentecostal church actually had a fleet of school buses and would pick up your kids and bring them home.

    Consequently, it was convenient to get us out of the house for a few hours on Sunday with no actual church-going effort on their part.

    I often wonder how common that sort of thing is. It’s a pretty big risk that your children aren’t brainwashed into idiocy while you get some brat-free downtime.

  29. says

    How am I adequately educating my child if I fail to cover in detail the lies and deceptions that are prevalent in our theocratic anti-humanistic culture?

    There, fixed that for them.

  30. raven says

    These hard core fundie cultists can be incredibly destructive. At their worst, they are mind control operations for a small group of old, male, control freaks and have as much to do with real christianity as scientology or raelism does.

    1. Where I used to live there was a group of them. They didn’t believe in modern medicine (not christian scientists, faith healers). One of the 7 year old kids came down with a very treatable form of leukemia. Parents vetoed treatment. The docs tried to get a court order. By they time they got it, the kid was too far gone and dead. It was such a hassle, I don’t think they ever bothered to try again. When their kids get sick, sometimes they live and sometimes they die.

    2. Teen agers go through the familiar identity seeking rebellion stage. These days it is body jewelry and tattoos, next generation it will be something else. I’ve met a few atheists who are quite hostile to religion who came from very religious backgrounds. Not a coincidence of course, a bad experience as a kid can do that.

    3. Home schooling can be good or bad depending on the student, parent, and operations. These christian wingnuts who produce ignorant, brainwashed kids are setting them up for failure in the modern world. Disgraceful, but in a democracy there will always be some weirdness.

  31. says

    A few years ago they had an entire issue devoted to creationism (It used to be available online, but no longer is). RJ wrote a foreword to that issue explaining why it was necessary to believe in a literal, 6-(24-hour day) Creation, a theme repeated in the issue.

    Nothing would have made the old man happier than seeing the Constitution replaced by Leviticus.

    Remember, this is the same source that brought you “Stoning Disobedient Children.”

  32. David Marjanović says

    You could have written that entire paragraph in regards to the RCC as well with a little tinkering. Many Pentecostals will pay less attention to their preacher than many catholics du their Pope even though he is largely irrevelant.

    Not even in Poland.

    And no, not Brazil either.

  33. David Marjanović says

    You could have written that entire paragraph in regards to the RCC as well with a little tinkering. Many Pentecostals will pay less attention to their preacher than many catholics du their Pope even though he is largely irrevelant.

    Not even in Poland.

    And no, not Brazil either.

  34. Cynthia says

    RE: #34
    We also had the school bus pick up kids for free on Sundays. Luckily,
    they were Presbyterians, so they were milder. It still had the same result though, we’re all atheists now.

  35. Selma says

    Where did all these blithering idiots come from all of a sudden?

    They are living devolution, that’s why they don’t get evolution.

    All this work, all this thought, all these centuries, all for what? So a bunch of morons who’ve never had an original idea in their lives can be ignorant AND evil at the same time?

    When’s this stupid rapture thing supposed to happen? I can’t wait for all these thick-skulled, lowbrowed, mouth-breathing vegetables to piss off.

    Yes, I am annoyed as a matter of fact.