(June 21, 2011 at 9:34 pm)Genghis Wrote:

(June 21, 2011 at 9:27 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: My own grade school (a Missourah Synod Lutheran school which, fortunately just closed down) refused to talk about evolution, even going so far as to redact sections of the texts that talked about it. I had to teach it to myself. Unfortunately, their refusal to mention a vital component of biology was the least of my problems with the school.

That is terrible. To me, biology without evolution is like math without the plus and minus signs.

Yeah, well, when subjected to school-sanctioned bullying for no apparent reason that ends up giving you what appears, by all accounts, to be PTSD (my own cursory diagnosis, but one which some of my psych teachers have deemed plausible), having to teach yourself an important part of biology like Frederick Douglass teaching himself to read is a relatively minor grievance. That said, it's a damn shame that any teachers refuse to allow their students to learn something so vital to understanding a subject like biology.

Part of the problem lies way beyond the teachers, at the board level. Superintendents tend to kiss the ass of school boards. I once had to go to a hearing because I allowed kids to read the "N" word aloud as they read Huck Finn. The kid who complained and got his mom all fired up called all his friends the same word. But of course, that was meant in friendship, and Mark Twain was clearly a racist.

Ignorance prevails in American education all too often.

If silicon brained strumpets could actually pronounce "evolution" correctly, then that would be evidence that there is something seriously wrong with the theory.

---

(June 21, 2011 at 7:31 pm)Aerzia Saerules Arktuos Wrote: Meh... I don't consider many of them all that attractive anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL6EAGMVz...re=related

I have high standards

Me neither, that's why I can kick them in the ass with a clear conscience after fucking them.

(June 21, 2011 at 5:29 pm)Paul the Human Wrote: Pffft. No one here (in the U.S.) pays any attention to these pageants. The media hardly even reports on them anymore. Do I agree with the one from my state? I doubt it, but I can't be bothered to check.

Which part of the US do you live in? Every part I have lived in pays a great deal of attention to them.

And note that the women who thought religion ought to be taught alongside evolution in schools almost universally implied it should be Christian religion (we'll leave the debate of which version should be for later).

Many cast it as an either/or proposition (the argument that creationists have been trying to insert in the debate: teach the controversy). I wonder how many of them would answer the same way if the follow on question were: do you believe that all religious views on creation (Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Shinto, Wiccan, &c) should be taught alongside evolution, and how many of them would be opposed to that?

Perhaps those trying to keep creationism out of the schools should be pointing this out more: that the government, prohibited from playing favourites with religion, would be required to teach all religion. And there are so many religions that it would require a separate religion class, outside of science classes. And to be fair, the different faiths would have to be taught as equally as possible.

I suspect that many parents would be aghast at their kid going to school to learn about Saraswati or Allah or the FSM. The Christian parents would demand just as hard to remove the government from teaching religion as much as they are demanding it do that now.

Perhaps in giving them what they say they want (religion taught in school), it would galvanise them into seeing why there is separation of church and state in the first place.

(June 22, 2011 at 3:47 am)Epimethean Wrote: Part of the problem lies way beyond the teachers, at the board level. Superintendents tend to kiss the ass of school boards. I once had to go to a hearing because I allowed kids to read the "N" word aloud as they read Huck Finn. The kid who complained and got his mom all fired up called all his friends the same word. But of course, that was meant in friendship, and Mark Twain was clearly a racist.

Ignorance prevails in American education all too often.

Especially glaring considering the context; even before the Civil Rights movement, Twain clearly knew how wrong it was that Jim was considered less than human in the South, and he seems to have purposely made it so that Jim is practically the only sympathetic adult in the entire book.

(June 22, 2011 at 4:27 am)Anymouse Wrote: Which part of the US do you live in? Every part I have lived in pays a great deal of attention to them.

I live in Michigan and I don't know a single person that pays any attention to Miss USA or Miss America or Miss Universe... or any of them. The media barely even bothers to report on who wins. The only time you really hear much about these things is when one of the contestants (or winners) gets into trouble for something or says something stupid enough to make the news.

They used to be quite popular, but these days they can't even be called 'relevant'.

(June 22, 2011 at 12:25 pm)Paul the Human Wrote: I live in Michigan and I don't know a single person that pays any attention to Miss USA or Miss America or Miss Universe... or any of them. The media barely even bothers to report on who wins.

Maybe this is because Michigan is full of uglies?

Actually... it's just that we're all so damned good looking that the Miss This-or-That contests simply do not impress us.

(June 22, 2011 at 12:25 pm)Paul the Human Wrote: I live in Michigan and I don't know a single person that pays any attention to Miss USA or Miss America or Miss Universe... or any of them. The media barely even bothers to report on who wins. The only time you really hear much about these things is when one of the contestants (or winners) gets into trouble for something or says something stupid enough to make the news.

If remember from a previous post you said you're in Muskegon right? For some reason I thought that was in the U.P. but after looking at the map I see you're less than three hours away. And I have yet to meet anyone in the state of Michigan that cares anything about these pageants.

---

(June 22, 2011 at 12:51 pm)Napoleon Wrote: Maybe this is because Michigan is full of uglies?

No, just a bunch of stupid people. But I have a feeling that's true for just about any demographic of the human race.

(June 22, 2011 at 1:39 pm)FaithNoMore Wrote: No, just a bunch of stupid people. But I have a feeling that's true for just about any demographic of the human race.

That's not a very nice thing to say about Paul The Human is it?