Religion Roundup

posted by The Vidiot @ 6:14 PM Permalink

WTF is the matter with Kansas!?

Group weighs in for Kansas

A Seattle-based group [ED: They buried the lede. The Seattle-based group is the Discovery Institute which is dedicated to overturning science and installing their religious beliefs. See 'Galileo' for a harbinger.] launching a public relations campaign to defend science standards adopted in November by the Kansas Board of Education.

Those standards encourage students to look at both the theory of evolution and criticism of it, and changes the definition of science from the search for natural explanations to a search for more adequate explanations.

Critics say the standards include Intelligent Design terminology and many of its arguments against evolution.

Well of course they include Intelligent Design, the Discovery Institute was founded to install ID in our public schools.

West said the campaign is in response to criticism of the standards by Kansas Citizens for Science, including a letter that group sent to Kansas school superintendents in June and a fact sheet posted on its Web site.

And who are the Kansas Citizens for Science? Once again, I'm glad you asked, (or at least reading far enough to where I can ask and answer my own questions;-), they are actual scientists and teachers.

Continuing on:

He denied that the Stand up for Science campaign had anything to do with state board elections this summer and fall.

Giving the timing and their mandate why would he make such an lie? Because they are a tax exempt not for profit and federally tax-exempt organizations are prohibited from influencing elections and legislation! But I guess if you'd lie about science you'd lie about anything.

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Christian Fundamentalists don't teach the fundamentals:

Little separates public, private schools -- report
Study finds worst performance in conservative Christian schools

WASHINGTON - The federal Education Department reported Friday that, in reading and math, children attending public schools generally do as well as or better than comparable children in private schools. The exception was in eighth-grade reading, where the private-school children did better.

The report, which compared fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math scores from nearly 7,000 public schools and more than 530 private schools in 2003, also found that conservative Christian schools lagged significantly behind public schools when it came to eighth-grade math.

The study, carrying the imprimatur of the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the Education Department, was contracted to the Educational Testing Service and delivered to the department last year.
[...]
Its release, on a summer Friday, was made without a news conference or comment from Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.

Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association, the union for millions of teachers, said the findings showed that public schools were "doing an outstanding job" and said that if the results had been favorable to private schools, "there would have been press conferences and glowing statements about private schools."

"The administration has been giving public schools a beating since the beginning" to advance President Bush's political agenda, Weaver said, of promoting charter schools and taxpayer-financed vouchers for private schools as alternatives to failing traditional public schools. A spokesman for the Education Department, Chad Colby, said he did not expect the findings to influence policy. Colby emphasized repeatedly that "an overall comparison of the two types of schools is of modest utility."
[...]
Findings favorable to private schools would likely have given a boost to administration efforts to offer children in ailing public schools the option of attending private schools. An Education Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the climate surrounding the report said researchers were "extra cautious" in reviewing the study and were aware of the "political sensitivity" of the issue. The official said the section warning against drawing unsupported conclusions from data was expanded somewhat as the report went through the review process.
[...]
The report separated private schools by type, and found that among private-school students, those in Lutheran schools did best, while those in conservative Christian schools did worst. For example, in eighth-grade reading, children in conservative Christian schools did no better than comparable children in public schools.

In eighth-grade math, children in Lutheran schools did significantly better than children in public schools, but those in conservative Christian schools fared worse.

Two weeks ago, the American Federation of Teachers, on its Web log, predicted that the report would be released on a Friday, suggesting that the Bush administration saw it as "bad news to be buried at the bottom of the news cycle."

And guess what, it was delivered on a Friday with no announcement. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

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Religious (in)tolerance:

Plans for new mosque ignite cultural turf war in Florida

Muslims find surprising foes, friends in 'nightmare'

Two years ago, the congregation of a small but growing mosque in Pompano Beach raised money to expand because it needed more parking.

Mosque leaders, filled with hope, chose a patch of land in a predominantly black area.

"They picked that spot because they were sympathetic to the black struggle and believed the feelings were mutual, especially since the persecution after 9-11," said Altaf Ali of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
[...]
Several black ministers and civic leaders, led by the Rev. O'Neal Dozier [R- Wackjob], pastor of Worldwide Christian Center near the mosque site, protested in mid-June at the commission meeting.
[...]
Dozier called Muslims "dangerous," said they were "terrorists." Another black minister in the area warned they would "try to convert young black men." A black commissioner said Muslim shopkeepers were "not good business partners."

"We thought, if we talked to them, these black Christians would listen to reason," said Sofian Zakkout, head of AMANA, the American Muslim Association of North America.
[...]
What began as civil debate quickly plunged into an anti-Islamic diatribe with Dozier and his security force shouting at Ali that "Islam is evil" and "the Koran says to cut off heads."

That a 57-year-old black Christian minister, who gets teary-eyed when he talks about how he was "excluded as a young black man," is dead set on excluding Muslims is surprising enough. But even more surprising is who supports him and who doesn't.

Besides the three dozen, mostly black, protesters from his church - which his deacon says has more than 300 parishioners -[ED: Irony ALert!] ] Dozier is backed by two other black ministers from the area and about four local Jewish supporters, led by Joe Kaufman, founder of "Citizens Against Hate" and the "Republican Jewish Coalition of South Florida."

Opposing Dozier: Willie Larson, head of Broward County's NAACP chapter, and Andrew Louis, head of the county's Democratic Black Caucus.
[...]
Larson, the NAACP head, went to the podium to caution against "religious intolerance." He quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

The audience booed.

"Now, I've seen it all," Louis said. "Black people booing King. Just how crazy can this get?"
[...]
Before he left City Hall on Tuesday, he [Rev. Dozier] announced his next step would be a lawsuit against the city if it doesn't rescind approval for the mosque.

Then, Dozier walked to his PT Cruiser, which his church security force had searched for a bomb, and drove off.

BTW, The good (sick) reverend is a political appointee of Jeb Bush to the Judicial Nominating Commission and an advisor to president Bush. They all deserve each other, but what did we do to deserve them?