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http://www.scotsman.com/news/odd/loch-n ... -1-2373903

THOUSANDS of American school pupils are to be taught that the Loch Ness monster is real – in an attempt by religious teachers to disprove Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Pupils attending privately-run Christian schools in the southern state of Louisiana will learn from textbooks next year, which claim Scotland’s most famous mythological beast is a living creature.

Thousands of children are to receive publicly-funded vouchers enabling them to attend the schools – which follow a strict fundamentalist curriculum.

The Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme teaches controversial religious beliefs, aimed at disproving evolution and proving creationism.

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With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

I took my last 3 years of high school via ACE home/church school system (the idea is to utilize empty churches as schools during the week). The system is well designed but of course has very biased content. This is a strange angle that fundamentalists are taking in their fight against evolutionist theories. Basically, if dinosaurs still existed in recent history, then evolutionists are wrong in their time-lines for extinctions. Of course that really proves nothing because evolution does not require extinctions, only new species. The rocks with dinosaurs carved in them (with human figures too) found in South America seem to be the main push of this attempt. Pampas grass is the only remaining grass similar to the tree-sized grass found in the age of the dinosaurs and sure enough, it is only found in South America close to where these rocks were originally found. Even if these rocks are authentic, a pocket of dinosaurs living on Pampas grass until recently can fit quite nicely in current evolutionist theory.

They don't call them coon asses for nothin'.

What would you do? "Indoctrinate" them with science that they don't want to hear? You know, I like education. I encourage it. However, there seems to be angst among the educated in accepting the right of others to remain stupid.

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TANG SOO!

http://www.louisianausa.com/teamcoonass/coonass.htm

I had to look it up but now that I know a bit about "coonass", I am hooked. I am going to have to include some "coonass" character in one of my stories.

The problem is they are not stupid. If they were they would probably kill themselves off in new versions of the Darwin Awards. They are ignorant, willfully so. They wish to remain ignorant and spread that ignorance out to the rest of us. That is where the problem comes in. Those ignorant people do have an effect on the society and as a result the society suffers for it.

_________________
With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

Okay, willfully ignorant then. And yes, they do have a talent of "selling" themselves. Problem is, they don't see it as a problem, like you do. In fact, they see what you and I like to do as a problem. They have no more a thirst for knowledge than you or I do for fundamentalist bunk, and they have just as much a right to their prerogative (and to vote) as you or I.

You know my opinions on that subject, but your belief that all men are created equally trumps your ability to effectively do anything to address the problem. They thump the Bible. You thump the US Constitution. Both were written by men.

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TANG SOO!

Yes, but sometimes the fundies get thumped themselves and it is wonderful to watch.

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With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

And that's the sad part.
Otherwise intelligent people purporting to believe things that science does not support.


Samuel Clemens

Yes, and oddly I know of several scientists who are also religous but do not try to take a literal interpretation of any text.

One told me once that if someone not versed at all in science or technology was to attend a lecture on the history of science, that person would write something very similar to the Bible because the references would be non-scientific and non-technical. They would be based in fact, but would not give a factual representation of the information. That is the basis by which they view the inspired works of religion.

Clarke's third Law:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.



Here I always thought it was Mark Twain.

_________________
With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

Clarke as in Arthur C?






Knew a sharp cookie like you would get that.......:)

As opposed to believing things that their personal experience does support?

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TANG SOO!

There is more than enough difference between the higher spectrum and lower spectrum of IQ to warrant speciation in a perfect world. Actually the ones that can truly understand sustainability and ecology, and live that way, are in the top minority, getting dragged down toward the crash and thermageddon with the rest of the coon asses of the world.
My IQ is 58 points above the average illegal alien, and his is only 40 points above a chimpanzee. To me, most people are like a different species that has similar outward looks, but is as easy to communicate with as a rock. I like racoons better.

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"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”
― Chief Seattle

None other.

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With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

The missing section here is people like me who know science very well and believes most of the stuff science has figured out is correct... but, I have seen too many miracles to discount the supernatural. Supernatural is just that... beyond what is natural. Science obviously does not support supernatural stuff but my knowledge of science confirms that such events are indeed supernatural and not "magic" or science we do not yet understand.

I believe that about half of the 700 miracles reported daily are real and the rest delusions.
I had two happen to my wife and I upon return to my mountain cabin in AZ in 1987 after my Dad's funeral.
The first was crossing a creek with spray that made a rainbow which came right through the cab of my truck with windows closed. The second was standing out on the deck watching a double sunset. One sun with another just to the side and above setting at once from over 10* up to full sunset, about a half hour.
The laws of optics/physics were disrupted for our benefit to know my father was with Our Father in Heaven. I wonder how many times He has interceded in my life, disrupting the very laws He created, just to keep me alive. I came out of being shot at hundreds of times, and going down to a crash after being hit in the transmission, and living when only 10% did under those circumstances. My 16 years of sobriety are a testament to His Power, not mine.
I do not know if He will use His Power to correct human overpopulation and CAGW for an easy letdown. From what I have seen and heard of miracles, He suspends His Laws for groups and individuals, some times. He had the power to create the "Big Bang" and all the Laws of Science and Nature, and still has that power. Humanity in general has not replenished the Earth as He wanted. They have acted with sinful lust and greed, without caring for future children and other living things. He has good reason not to use His Power to change what His Laws will do. In 3 million years, there will be a healthy biosphere again.
We won't know until we achieve Heaven, for at least some of it. Some of us here will be alive in 2050 for the crash, but none alive now will be here for AETM in a thousand years or more.

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"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”
― Chief Seattle