Comments on: Skeptics with appeal

By: The Other Elwood

The Other Elwood — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:42:12 +0000

I saw an article stating that Texas is facing a growing shortage of secnodary science teachers that . I cannot imagine why.

By: Hobbes

Hobbes — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:24:03 +0000

Oops! Thanks Doug. I’ve recently been posting about the Texas School Board. Same sort of idiocy. A senior moment, I suppose.

By: Doug Watts

Doug Watts — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:04:34 +0000

And this is a EDUCATION board?

ahem …

By: Hobbes

Hobbes — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:09:52 +0000

Seems the TEA is still walking on their mental knuckles.

How about astrology? That’s popular too, and has folks claiming a science grounding. Here is an idea the TEA should love: Let’s put all popular beliefs in science class, fire all science teachers, hire shaman, and kids need not bring anything to class but beads and rattles, and they can have pop inquisitions every week.

Science by popular opinion, indeed! Haven’t the folks on at the TEA realized yet that most of this nation is laughing at them and shaking their heads at such primitive thinking.

And this is a EDUCATION board? What an embarrassment for Texas!

By: kuhnigget

kuhnigget — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:57:42 +0000

@ I’d Rather be fishin’, et al:

I think I’d Rather…was close enough the first time. Whether they intended to found a nation or not is moot; the Mayflower colonists were adamant that theirs would be a society based on religion.

Thankfully, the constitution of the USA is not in any way based upon the Mayflower Compact, nor any of their subsequent laws. The people in this country have always tended to be religious, but the country itself is grounded in a secular constitution.

Or so it was for the first 212 or so years.

By: Doug Watts

Doug Watts — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:04:43 +0000

Here’s a law written by the Pilgrims in Massachusetts in about 1650:

“Capital Lawes

If any man after legal conviction shall HAVE OR WORSHIP any other God, but the LORD GOD, he shall be put to death. Exod. 22:20, Deut. 13:6 & 10, Deut. 17:2, 6.”

Source: Maine Legislative Law Library, Augusta, Maine.

By: I'd rather be fishin'

I'd rather be fishin' — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:03:42 +0000

“State religion” was a bad choice of words on my part. The Pilgrims were loyal subjects of the Crown, the Mayflower Compact showed this. But they did object to the practices of the Church of England that were similar to the Catholics. That’s what I meant to say.

I did say I was most likely sleeping in class, right?