BIG FOOT, GHOST, Q-ANON AND RELIGION

 

 

WHY DO PEOPLE BELIEVE THE THINGS THEY BELIEVE?

 

Just because you believe something doesn’t make it true, and confirmation bias on the social media is worthless as proof.

 

Why do people willingly buy into outrageous claims without a modicum of research or thought experiments to question the validity.

 

I have a friend, an intelligent man, who believes in Big Foot.  I actually think he would like to believe in Big Foot, and so doesn’t question the claims.   It is hard to prove a negative so the best argument against questionable the circumstantial evidence is a thought experiment. 

 

I first heard of Big Foot when I was about twelve years old.   We are talking seventy years ago.   All animals die, and especially large animals leave remains.  Even humans that were murdered, or were lost and died in the woods, there remains are almost always found.  In seventy years, no Big Foot has ever wandered into the road and been hit by a car; died as a result of an accident in the woods; been shot by an ammosexual, and the remains found.  No Big Foot big crap – no DNA evidence has ever been collected.    In my seventy years, there has never been any physical proof of the existence a large hominoid wandering around the shrinking wilderness regions of this country or any other.   And just because some idiot with night vision goggles posts a video of himself in the woods at night and excitedly declaring “That’s godda be a squash we are hearing!” doesn’t make it real.

 

 

A number of people I have known believe in ghost.   Again, you can’t prove a negative.  But a thought experiment might go something like this:  

We are born naked.  Clothes were the invention of humankind to protect his body from the elements, and later to hide the proof of the smallness of his dick and to cover his mate to make her less sexually attractive to more dominant men; and finally, by the religions that are paranoid about sex.   Let’s say for the sake of argument that the vestige of a human could return after death.  Why would they be clothed?  Is there a gossamer wardrove that the dead get to pick from for their return?   Why are ghost wearing clothes?  They should be naked; and that would be really scary.  No proof.  The belief in ghost has a religious origin. 

 

Q Anon: you have got to be a fucking nut case to buy into this.  A cabal of Satan worshiping, cannibal, pedophiles – make up of high-ranking Democrat politicians, led by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and liberal Hollywood actors are running a world-wide child-sex-trafficking network, and have plotted against Donald Trump to make sure he is not re-elected President.  Satan – again a religious connection.

 

And then there is religion.   Christianity, Judaism and Islam based on the writings of a two-thousand-year-old book, written at a time when a wheelbarrow was considered cutting edge technology; with miracles confirmed by witnessed – this time without night vision goggles.

 

It is not necessarily a matter of intelligence, education, or affluence or lack thereof; I think gullibility is imbedded in our DNA along with our ability to fantasize.  Why else would so many people buy into religion and other fantastic?

 

Just asking

the Ol’Buzzard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I HAVE FINALLY FOUND THE ONE AND ONLY TRUE RELIGION

Voodoo is the white side of the one true religion that originated with the original people in Africa, the birth place of human beings.  Juju is the dark side of that practice.   

So, every body has been worshiping the wrong gods.  The Great Juju, lives at the bottom of the ocean; and she is  not happy.  

You think the world is experiencing global warming? Wrong. 

The great Juju at the bottom of the sea is having PMS, so you better get your act straight and sacrifice a chicken as penance for worshiping false gods. 











If you don't repent, the zombie apocalypse could be next.

Juju loves me, this I know
For Marie LaVeau told me so
But if I don't respect her spells
She will send me down to hell

But, don't eat the chicken
the OL'Buzzard

I DON'T NEED A NAME TO IDENTIFY WHAT I DON'T BELIEVE IN

A PRIEST AND AN ALTER BOY WALK INTO THE VESTRY

There is no joke here.


What would you expect to happen? 

Celibacy is an unnatural state for the human male.  

Another stupid aspect of religion.
the Ol'Buzzard

HOMO SAPIENS WHO?

Susan blog Phantsythat contains some of the most wonderful water color fantasy painting I have ever seen.  She usually accompanies her paintings with a short story, though the paintings often tell a story in themselves.   If I were talented enough to write a children’s book there is no doubt who I would wish to illustrate it.  

Please check out her blog: Phantsythat

A couple of days ago Susan posted about homo sapiens ability to adjust to change.  If Darwinian Evolution posed anything: it’s not the strongest or the largest that survives, but those most adaptable to change. 

Homo sapiens have proven their ability to adapt to change; but in doing so they have brought the rest of the animal world to the edge of extinction and the earth itself on the brink of catastrophic climate change.   It now holds the power to annihilate its entire species with a push of a button.  

If we think about it, Donald Trump personifies the human race.  We are egocentric; egotistic; we make up stories and believe in them; we are impressed with our own imagined intelligence; we are gluttonous consumers; we are tribal; and we are dangerous to ourselves and others.

·       I did a timeline of the earth with six grade students that extended one hundred yards, representing the 4.7 billion years of earth:

·       One inch equaled 1,250,000 years.

·       The last six inches represented the seven-million-year existence of hominids on earth.

·       One sixth (1/6) of one inch represented the existence of homo sapiens.

We are but a brief anomaly on the face of this planet – the product of chaotic evolution - and the planet will be better off when we are no longer here.

the Ol’Buzzard

ATHEISM IS A RELIGIOUS TERM

It is understandable if a person wants to identify themself by their belief in a religion, a church, a political party, an ethnicity…; but it absolutely makes no sense that you would feel the need to identify yourself by what you do not believe.

I do not believe in vampires, werewolves, zombies, big foot, fairies, alien autopsies, ghost or things that go bump in the night.

I do not believe that the world is flat or that the sun rotes around the earth.

I do not believe that dinosaurs and humans existed at the same time

I do not believe that a snake whispered to a woman who ate an apple which brought sin into the world.

I do not believe that a six-hundred-year-old man and his hundred-year-old sons built a boat and sailed on a flood that mixed salt water and fresh water, carrying two of every animal on earth, and that upon landing a kangaroo hopped twelve thousand miles across three continents to go home to Australia.

I do not believe that a child was born to a virgin.

I do not believe that statues bleed. 

I do not believe in devils and demons and angles and gods, or in a physical heaven or hell.

I do not believe a man god walked on water, or that a brutal human sacrifice was performed to ‘take away the sins of the world.’

The name Atheist is a religious term that supposes the legitimizing of religious beliefs and proposes to delegitimize anyone that doesn’t accept the fairy tale. 

If you feel the need to attach a name to me to identify what I don’t believe in, me you might just call me sane – I can live with that.

the Ol’Buzzard

I AM A MICROCOSM OF THE EARTH.

I yam what I yam what I yam what I yam...

You can call it chaos theory, the butterfly effect or just chance; but each of us are who we are as the results of chance. 

Not only that, but our lives are a microcosm of the development of life on the earth.  

Using me as an example:

Had my mother not been ovulating the night I was conceived.

Had my father, whoever he was, used a condom.

Had a different sperm fertilized the egg.

Had my mother chosen an abortion rather than carry me to term.

Had my grandmother not raised me.

Had we not moved to Mississippi when I was eight years old.

Had I not joined the Navy directly out of high school

After my first hitch in 1963 I got out of the military.  I had ninety days to reenlist and retain my rank.   I was laid off from my job at Christmas time and couldn’t find a job – no unemployment back then. 

One week after I reenlisted I was notified I had been accepted for the Maine State Police Academy.

In 1967 I requested an inter-service transfer from the Navy to the Army’s attack helicopter pilot program.  Before the paperwork was approved I crushed my ankle in an automobile accident.

Had the driver been driving three miles per hour faster, or slower…

Had I not been stationed where I met my wife.

Had she not been attracted to me

Had we not gone to college together

Had we not majored in education

Had we not attendee a lecture on teaching in the Indian villages of Alaska.

Had we not gone to Alaska

You can see where this is going.

The hundreds of choices I made, and the tens-of-thousands of happenstances that I had no control over have resulted in me, in my seventies, living in a cabin in northwestern Maine, with a beautiful young wife and two Maine Coon Cats. 

I am who I am who I am who I am – by chance.

There is no reason to believe that if we turned back the clock to the morning before I was conceived that the results would turn out the same.

I am a microcosm of the earth.

If we could turn back the clock to the time when the first microscopic life evolved on this earth, there is no reason to believe that 3.8 billion years later there would be bipedal, upright walking, pseudo-intelligent mammal proclaiming a god in its own image.

We are who we are who we are by the most minuscule chance.

the Ol’Buzzard

AS CLOSE TO RELIGION AS I GET

I am a whiskey drinker.  Being a southern boy with Kentucky roots I was weaned to bourbon.  During my years in the military I drank Old Crow – usually buying it by the half gallon.   When I retired from the military and became gainfully employed I matriculated to Scotch and Irish Whiskey.  I haven’t had a mixed drink in fifty years; with the exception of Bloody Mary.  

I was converted to the sect of Bloody Mary in Vietnam.    On Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon on Sunday morning between ten and noon the NCO Club had a special: Bloody Mary for a nickel.    Whenever I was in Saigon I would gather at the club with other lay people who chose to avoid Sunday church services, tithe a dollar, and partake of the bloody Eucharist, often with loud praise and adoration. 

A couple of weeks ago on a Sunday morning my wife and I traveled up to a great little restaurant in a rural section of north-western Maine just a few miles from the Canadian border.   I decided to have the eggs benedict with smoked salmon, and what better to have for a beverage than a Bloody Mary.   It was advertised as their ‘Signature Bloody Mary’ and that alone should have given me pause.   Instead of tomato juice they used canned whole tomatoes in a blender, adding vodka, some other secret ingredients and far too much Tabasco – this was topped off with an al’dente asparagus chute.  When they brought the watery abortion to the table there were chunks of tomato and enough tomato seeds in suspension to clog a straw, and the drink was so hot it burned the lips. 

I have witnessed the desecration of Bloody Mary before, but this was near the top.   The worst was at a hotel bar in Fairbanks, Alaska.  Their Bloody Mary was served with a jalapeno pepper at the bottom of the glass and two pickled string beans protruding – the only adjective I can link to describe their drink is: Nasty. 

Making a Bloody Mary is simple: Ice in the bottom of the glass, salt on the ice, two shots of vodka and tomato juice.  That is a Bloody Mary at its most basic, and I can worship on that.    If you want more tang to complete the transubstantiation add the Trinity: a squeeze of lemon, a dollop of Worcestershire sauce and a spritz of hot sauce (I prefer Louisiana Hot Sauce to Tabasco, as it adds the flavor without the heat.)  If you feel the need for a vegetable to stir, a stalk of celery works.  Anything beyond this is an abomination.

In Leviticus, Buzzard sharia law, chapter 13 verse 2 it states that anyone mixing a Bloody Mary with any liquor other than vodka should be driven through the streets in sackcloth and crucified on a mountain of Smirnoff bottles; and verse 3 states that anyone making a Bloody Mary with commercial Bloody Mary mix should be stripped naked, given a Tabasco enema and made to dance on a bed of shattered ice cubes – the option would be stoning.

From the Church of the Blood of Mary I wish you a happy Sunday.  

the Ol’Buzzard 

SUNDAY MORNING

Sunday morning and people get dressed up and go to church to worship their respective god; they sing and prey and put money in the plate when it is passed around.  They feel self-righteous and  pious as they interact with others of their congregation. 

The rest of the week they swim in their prejudices and bigotry, more concerned about politics, money and station than about the people around them. 

If they were serious they would just look out for other people.  

And realize that we are not special - we are all in it together.

the Ol'Buzzard

THE GULLIBILITY OF PEOPLE FEEDS RELIGION

I was channel checking this morning (Sunday) waiting for Meet the Press and happened to pause to marvel at a megachurch in the frenzy of religious mania.   It looked as though there could have been a thousand people packed into this massive auditorium, three tiers deep.   The preacher was shouting and pointing up in the air, and the congregation was all standing and waving their arms and pointing their fingers toward the ceiling.

What the hell is this pointing toward the sky?   Do they really think that the cosmos doesn’t exist and that somewhere above them is a physical second story housing all of their dead relatives – the home of God?

My grandmother told me that when she was a young bride and living in western Kentucky there had been the unusual occurrence of a northern lights display.   People in that part of Kentucky had never seen the aurora and many were crying in their yards or out in the road praying – they were sure it was the end of the world – the Rapture.   That was in the 1920’s.

After my wife and I left Alaska we moved to Kentucky – the town of my earliest memories – the town of my grandfather’s people.  We ended up leaving because the religious fanaticism was smothering.   We were there during the millennium and the people were actually preparing for and expecting the Rapture and the return of Christ (I was worried about my computer dumping.) 

All the pictures of the Rapture show everyone clothed – often in white robes; but what if you are necked and in the shower; or drawing a piece of ass; or in the middle of a good crap?   Are you snatched up as you are, or does Jesus give you a chance to wipe your ass and pull your pants up?   I am sure the answer must be someplace in the Bible.   If I am ever around one of those megachurch-preachers I think I’ll ask him.

the Ol’Buzzard

EASTER: THE SEED OF CHRISTIANITY - OR HAVE ANOTHER CHOCOLATE RABBIT

Weeks of Christian religious mania has finally culminated with the eating of chocolate bunnies and dyed hard boiled eggs; all because a man died horribly on the cross and then was proclaimed as a god.

 

Getting past the celebration of human sacrifice commemorated by cannibalism (transubstantiation,) or at least token mock cannibalism (communion) if you are protestant, you wonder why sane and rational people would buy into the myth.  

 But sane and rational is on a sliding scale, sliding all the way down to Pentecostals.

You just can’t reason with ignorance.  

the Ol'Buzzard

A BUZZARD EGG OMELET #28

In this cycle of Islamic terrorism all the progressive pundits on radio and TV are declaring that the problem is not the religion, but a few religious extremist who must be blamed. 

   

But, of course, it is the religion.   Not just ‘their’ religion but all religions.

  

The tenant of all religions are ludicrous when separated and viewed outside the context of religion.

Just the idea of an all knowing and infallible super designer that created the perfect earth and universe just to house his special creatures – created in his likeness…    Really?

As an engineer this Guy sucks.    I wouldn't let him build a shed.    His design of the female system is example enough.   The parts all look good but as far as reliability they break down and spend more time in the shop than a Chrysler minivan. 

  

I have heard it said that God is female; but why would She inflect childbirth, periods, PMS, menopause, urinary tract infections, vaginal problems, ovarian cancer, breast cancer and all the other maladies that plague the female system onto her sisterhood? 

 

And why is it men want sex all the time and women would rather paint their toe nails?  

 

Next to sex the greatest pleasure is food.   I love eggs, maybe more than bacon.   Why is it that all the good foods are poisonous to our system and bean curds and broccoli are good for you?   What kind of sick shit is that?  Who designed this?

Then there are all the ruled – each religion has their own list and interpretation.     Also, the quandary of who is going to heaven with you and who is not; who you are supposed to like and who are you supposed to disdain - the religious inspired bigotry and violence that encompasses every nation at the insistence of religions.

  

All this on the promise of some insubstantial glorious life after death in some otherworldly utopia.

  

Without this vague promise of life after death there would be no religions. 

Marx called religion the opiate of the people; but, it would be better described as the curse of the human race.

the Ol’Buzzard

CLOWNS FOR JESUS

There is an organization called Clowns for Jesus.

Now that's scary as shit!

Something that nightmares are made of...

They all float down here...

the Ol'Buzzard

YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID

I just had a bible rant complete with chapter and verse as a comment on one of my blogs.

The biggest lie that permeates our society – the foundation of our American philosophy – is that all men are created equal.  

All men should have equal rights; but the old argument between nature and nurture addresses the fallacy that all men are created (born) as equals.  

Severe retardation is not an inherited trait; but borderline retardation (barely functional IQ’s) is passed through the genes.   All people are not equal in their mental and physical abilities: an indisputable fact.

People with low IQ’s are easily influenced by any movement that will give them recognition and praise: these are the people that are prayed on by religious fundamentalist churches, political propaganda and charismatic snake oil salesmen.  

However, our individual make up is more complicated than just our intellect.  Who we are can be generally defined by our DNA; our social environment; and our education or access to information.

Our color of hair and eyes, general appearance, disposition, and in some degree our intelligence is influenced by our DNA: traits handed down from our parents and their blood line.  

Our belief system, values, dress, actions and civility are primarily determined by the social environment we are raised in and to some extent live in as adults.  We all had little control of our indoctrination during childhood.

Our prospect to live logically and process information at a higher level is determined by our access to information, the depth of our experiences and opportunities. 

This is all generalization; but does offer some food for thought on why people are the way they are.

the Ol’Buzzard 

NOAH

CLAP YOUR HANDS IF YOU BELIEVE IN FAIRIES AND TINKERBELL WON'T DIE

Last year the History Channel’s series ‘The Bible’ set cable TV records.   As should have been expected, this year will be the year of religious fervor at the box office.    Movies to be released include Son of God, Noah, Heaven is for Real, Exodus and Mary, Mother of Christ.   These exaggerated fictional renderings of the old Bible stories are going to result in a dramatic ‘Back to Jesus’ movement among the fundamentalist that will culminate in renewed religious mania against anything liberal. 

In all cases these movies will rewrite biblical history and attempt to make these stories emotionally believable for modern time.

I am constantly seeing the advertisement of Noah on cable TV.   The movie features Russell Crowe as Noah who looks more like Mad Max than a six hundred year old man.   (The movie fails to address the issue that Noah was suppose to be over five hundred years old, and that it took him and his sons one hundred years to build this ark…)

The story is too ridiculous to even comment on.  Talk about biblical fantasies, this story surpasses the ridiculous. 

Years ago I read Mark Twain’s Letters from the Earth that primarily deals with the story of Noah.   It was the first time that I had read anything the questioned the validity of the Bible.

Twain begins with Satan being banished from heaven for a day for being surly with God.  To kill time Satan comes down to earth to view the strange life forms God had created on this speck in the cosmos.  He writes letters back to heaven to describe the ridiculous creation called man.    Twain gets a little carried away with some parts of the story and is mistaken on his cosmology, but when you consider the time and attitudes of his day he was a Renaissance man.  

It is eleven short chapters and worth a read.

the Ol'Buzzard

ADAM AND EVE

It is pretty obvious to anyone reading my blog that, like Karl Marx, I consider religions as the Opium of the Masses.

Religion and intellect have knocked heads since the true founding of the Catholic Church at the Council of Nicea held around 350 AD.   From the earliest time through the Dark Ages The Church did everything in its power to discredit and destroy all forms of enlightenment from science to philosophy to mathematics.  

The massive body of knowledge that germinated in early Greece was considered heresy, and those intrepid enough to pursue enlightenment were put to death by The Church. 

Throughout the Dark Ages all accepted truths had to be based on the Bible as the only true knowledge.   And even today, great numbers of our population choose ignorance over knowledge, and insist on a literal interpretation of the Bible.

The Bible, a loose woven myth disguised as history, begins its story with Adam and Eve. 

Last night, as I lay awake in bed, as I often do, I considered the claim that through DNA we can trace the human race back to one woman somewhere is Africa – and African Eve.

 I don’t dispute that, but the more I considered this claim the more it seemed likely to me that there has to be more than one Eve.  

Now, I know that no one wants to read pages correlating math and history; and even though I spent the morning researching and correlating I won’t bore you with the minutiae. 

But, to give an overview I must start out with an explanation of exponential counting: you have two parents; four grandparents; eight great grandparents; sixteen great-great grandparents – the numbers double from each preceding generation.  

   

If you go back 20 generations (rounding off some numbers for ease of counting) you are directly kin to one million great-great… grandparents.   If you go back thirty generations you would be equally kin to one billion ancestors.

Now the trick is to track the population of the earth and determine the date when you are kin to everyone on earth. 

Using 20 years as the approximate length of a generation I determined that after 29 generations (the first generation is a zero) or 560 years - around the year 1460 -  our ancestors numbered 500 million: the same as the entire population of the earth in at that time.

If we pick any female in 1460 we have to consider her as an EVE for our generation.

Now, selecting that female from 1460 and counting her ancestors back into time we find that around the year 840 she is kin to 250 million ancestors: about the same number as the population of the earth in that year.   Therefore any female from the year of 840 can be considered and the second Eve.   

The population stabilizes to 200 million around the year zero; and the third Eve appears about 220 BC.      After this, approximately every 500 years we have a new Eve. 

Human population slowly decreases, until around 8,000 BC when we have an earth population of 5 million, dropping to 3 million about 10,000 BC.

If we continue backwards, somewhere between three and four million years ago the original Eve of our species walked across the savannas of Africa.  This is our African Eve.  

It is quite possible, if not probable, that someone will shoot holes all through this hypothesis; but that is the way science works.   

My wife gave me five books for Solstice and I probably could have better spent this time reading.

the Ol’Buzzard

A world clock worth checking out - there are many more.

O'B

TROLLS UNDER THE SCHOOL

I was watching the President with Chris Matthews on Hard Ball Thursday night.   Once again, Chris Matthews started to expound on the significance of the Pope and the Catholic Church in society.   I consider Chris Matthews an intelligent man and I marvel at the blind faith and acceptance he seems to attend to the Catholic faith. 

Once you consider the Catholic indoctrination of its parishioners from childhood it is more understandable.   Catholic children are christened at birth.  Families are required to attend church.  Children of Catholics are placed in Catholic schools where religion is constantly reinforced by nuns.  About the age of reason children are instructed for Confirmation and then ceremoniously inducted into the fold.   Young Catholics attend church – take Communion – and participate in Confession.  And then, if they are like Chris Matthews they attend a Catholic College. 

Friends of ours that taught school in an Eskimo Village in Northwestern Alaska related this story:

An elementary school had been built decades before by the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs.)    The school building was built on stilts because of the permafrost (heated buildings on the ground sink into the earth over a period of time.)  The early teachers constantly had problems with children hiding under the school, and one day one of the children was found frozen under the building.  The teachers started telling the kids that there were trolls under the school that would eat them.  As those children became adults they told their children of the trolls under the school.    The story was repeated for generations.  

The teachers told us that the school had burned down and been replaced with a modern facility and that the adults in the village were relived because they no longer had to worry about trolls taking their children. 

Indoctrination is the way that religion protects itself from common sense and logical inquiry.    It starts with children, and the premise is to accept on faith and never question – questioning is a sin against God.  

God religions are plagues on this earth.   The positive things that religions tout are paled by the wars and genocide and hatred and racism and ignorance they spawns.  Christianity can not stand up to scrutiny; so the question is why does it still wield such power in the twenty-first century?

the Ol’Buzzard

DON’T CALL ME AN ATHEIST.

I have blogged before about my resentment of the term ‘atheist.’      

Why do I need a title to denote what I do not believe in?  

I do not believe in vampires; I do not believe in werewolves; I do not believe in the Easter bunny, I do not believe in Santa Clause; I do not believe in Bugs Bunny and rabbits that talk; I do not believe in fairies; I do not believe in angels; I do not believe in devils;  I do not believe in demons;  and I don’t believe in the Christian fairy tale.   So why, from this short list of the many things I do not believe in must I carry a title to denote only one of my many disbeliefs?

I also believe that the word ‘atheist’ somehow legitimizes the Christian religion.   It presupposes that there is a god and that Christ was a living breathing man who pissed and shit and woke up many days with a hard on - and was a god living on earth. 

If you don’t believe in global warming and evolution you are a ‘science denier’ – you are guilty of ignorance of factual data and as such can be titled.   But, the god and Christ fiction has no basis in face – it requires blind faith of its followers.   You don’t need a title not to buy into to someone else’s fantasy.  

Fundamentalist religions, whether they are Muslim or Christian, are dangerous precepts.   They have fanatical followers that are so convinced of their own rightness and righteousness that they are able to justify any atrocity in the name of their god.  Evangelicals are only one step away from the Taliban –only our laws restrict them.

“Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told”

From: Napalm and Sillyputty by George Carlin.

The way I see it, there is only one drawback in denying religions:  there is no one to call to during orgasm.

the Ol’Buzzard

THE WOEFUL STATUS OF AMERICAN EDUCATION - V

MY LAST WORD ON THIS SUBJECT (PERHAPS)

In prior post I have voiced my opinion on the negative results that politicians, school boards and watered down curriculum text have on our education system.   There is one other issue that has a pronounced effect on the outcome of a child’s education, and unfortunately it is a social effect that has no present solution. 

Let me reemphasize that teacher’s training and performance is not the problem.   Teachers presently meet demanding standards, constant evaluation and continuing education requirements that ensure their competency.  

However, having said this, all education content and societal beliefs of our teachers are not equal.   Teachers that matriculate through southern schools and southern colleges are extremely likely to carry religious beliefs into their classroom that conflict with hard factual information. 

Religion is, and always has been the enemy of enlightenment and free thinking.  

After retiring from teaching in Alaska, my wife and I moved to Kentucky, where we substituted in the local school system.   I took long term substitution positions in science, math and literature: generally the results of maternity leaves.  

When teaching science and biology I was told not to cover the family tree of man (Australopithecus to Homo sapiens – the timeline of mankind.)   I was told that that was one of a number competing theories and that it was best not to deal with it as it would cause parents to complain. 

 

Some of the teachers in the school kept Bibles on their desk; one of the teachers had a number of books entitled Chicken Soup for the Soul that she encouraged students to read; and at one high school assembly a Christian church group came in and gave a presentation on abstinence, complete with religious songs and Bible references. 

It was not an unusual thing in Kentucky for students to wear tea-shirts asking What Would Jesus Do.  

I also did a stent as president of Adult Literacy Council for the county.  One of the adult students was a Mexican named Jesus – the local community had refused to call him Jesus and so had nicknamed him Joe.  

I could go on and on listing the instances of religious compromise permeating the education system of that county; but, I must state that the school was a reflection of the norm of the community in general. 

The schools turned out students that were proficient in math, computer science and language arts.   The school also had an excellent shop program.  

The points of failure for most southern and many mid-western school systems is the blatant deficiency in science, civics and social studies, as well as the development of critical thinking skills.   This is the results of religious influences in the community that interject themselves into the school curriculum - often through the teachers. 

the Ol’Buzzard