Re: Obama XXIV: Forward ... pause ... rewind ... play
Pretty much. Not only was there no difference between history and social studies where I went to school (the FIRST state with standard final exams, mind you), but I see no mention of math anywhere, and the only science that is supposedly ever taught is biological from a standpoint of the history of living organisms.
Years ago, "60 Minutes" did a segment on a textbook flap in Kanawah County, W. Virginia. And Morley admitted right up front of his prejudices going in. Turns out two books were of primary concern: one which offered instruction on how to file for unemployment, but was silent on the subject of looking for work. The other? A middle school reading book with a story about some boys collecting money to send a buddy to a whore house on his birthday. Morely (reluctantly?) had to admit the parents had a point.
The reflexive ease by which self-identified liberals smear millions of Americans.. .their bigotry and prejudice toward people of faith, "they're all morons," is really breath taking. And by now, shouldn't surprise anyone. Are there people out there whose points of view should never be permitted in a class room? Certainly. And not all of them are conservative Christians. Maybe not even most.
In the 80's the Southern Baptist Convention was roiled with doctrinal disagreements. The central concern was "biblical inerrancy," that every word in the Bible was literally true. That's a hard sell these days. Life long professors of theology at Baylor were driven out of the school. The head of the Convention announced publicly that "God does not hear the prayers of Jews." Not being particularly religous myself I wondered, wasn't Jesus a Jew? And didn't God speak to Moses quite a bit? And wasn't he a Jew? I found that whole discussion to be extreme.
However, the flip side view that anyone whose opinion is shaped by religious convictions (except Muslims, of course) is some sort of barking moonbat, is to exchange one bigotry for another. I did a half hour interview once with a life long Baptist professor of biology at the University of Houston. The guy was deeply torn by the battle within his denomination and spoke with sorrow about it. He had no difficulty reconciling his faith with science. And millions of Christians, even in the south, don't either.
I'm what you might call an orthodox Presbyterian, and I'm not attracted to nor generally impressed by, the more conservative denominatons. But I recall vividly that the Assemblies of God kicked Jimmy Swaggart to the curb (it wasn't as if he was doing anything wrong, cruising up and down the Airline Highway, wearing sweat pants with the crotch cut out, picking up whores). He had been donating a million a month to the central AofG organization, and had threatened to cut off the money if they punished him by setting him down for a year (as they had done with Jim Bakker). They did it anyway. Afterwards at a news conference, someone asked the lady spokesman whether they were concerned about Swaggart threatening legal action against the denomination. She replied "this is an ecclesiastical matter." Amen. Swaggart, of course, ended his affiliation with AofG, which left those earnest kids studying to be AofG ministers at Swaggart's "college" in Baton Rouge hanging. What did he care? He needed the old ladies to keep sending the money. His wife
needed that 7 thousand dollar desk.
The point is, even people with whom I'm not generally in tune can do the right thing. They can also think the right thing, too. Their religious beliefs don't automatically disqualify their opinions. Anymore than the opinions of hard left, America-distrusting loons are automatically wrong.
