Christianity has been politicized. I don’t mean it has become involved in politics, I mean it has become for some the only important defining element in politics. It It has been used to create an us-vs-them mentality. The end times has been emphasized to make the final battle NOW, which makes it easier to make everyone else the enemy.

Once you’ve got everyone, or enough people to form a consistently reliable voting bloc, judging people on their religion or associated policies or beliefs, you field candidates who pass that test, but also will promote an unrelated economic agenda.

If you’ve really got some brass balls, you can also try to associate key elements of that economic agenda with the religious elements (see: the Prosperity Gospel). This also has the benefit of creating new criteria by which enemies can be defined.

Why on earth is it not mandatory to simply ask at the first interview, “Are you a creationist?” If the answer is “Yes”, the appropriate response is “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

Hiring a creationist to teach science is about as brilliant a move as hiring someone who is illiterate to teach English grammar, and refusing to hire a creationist is well within the reasonable bounds of vetting.

If an English teacher is telling his classes that spelling is a vast atheist conspiracy and grammar is a matter of opinion, we would fire that teacher without a second thought. Firing a creationist from the science classroom should be a no-brainer, and automatic.

If there is a real scientific controversy, it will be reflected in some respectable journal.

Well, there are ways to work it in, but it is tricky.

Or say OK, and state in on the titans and what happened with Zeus. When they complain state that they are right and no religion will be talked about.

The main and only problem with the teach the controversy is the irate parents and the principle-with-no-balls and the school-board-of-cowards that let the ignorant parents get control.

Sometimes (well, actually ALL of the time) it’s hard for me to fathom just how much worse things seem to be getting … (BTW I assume you saw the Pharyngula masturbation post-CUM-video: I bet you’re irked that PJ scooped you on that one!) … There’s just gotta be some godawful contaminant in the global water supply, never mind its shortage …

Uh, but back to the reason for this comment:
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“Rather than teach students to analyze and evaluate actual scientific controversies, the intent of “teach the controversy” exhortations is to have teachers instruct students that evolution is weak or unsubstantiated science that students should not take seriously. Such instruction in alleged “evidence against evolution,” or “critical analysis of evolution” would seriously mis-educate students, and should be resisted by teachers and administrators.”
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Yes, I do ‘get’ this. But when I (and probably you) learned about evolution in high school, my religious biology teacher did an excellent job of “teaching the controversy.” (Which I believe was the norm: Them was the days!). He taught us the story [leaving his own Christian beliefs out of it, as most good science teachers did back then — whether instinctively or from common sense] of the religion-vs.-evolution clash preceding, during, and in the aftermath of Darwin’s 1859 opus. He employed a straightforward chronological/historicist approach, and it was exciting to be introduced to the major players, i.e., Darwin, Huxley, Wilberforce, Kingsley, Agassiz, et al. We even watched “Inherit the Wind.” Then he segued into the more modern evidence.

This was in a rural (agricultural) Protestant Kansan setting, and no one — none of the parents, most of whom were fundamentalists — and certainly not the cows grazing across the street from my school — ever raised a public stink.
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So WHY (rhetorical question) has the atmosphere changed so much? I know the sociohistorical answers, but I still think it’s gotta be something pernicious in the global water supply … against which SOME of us Boomers were somehow immunized.

— Joe M.