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I don't deny that Texas is full of right-wing religious fools who do whatever they can, whenever they can, to influence the populace to believe more like they do.
That said, those who believe that this was founded as a secular country are only half right.
Most of the founders didn't even believe in God. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams were all deists. Alexander Hamilton and John Jay were Christians, and Washington maintained what some believe to be an intentional ambiguity.
That said, John Adams said "The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity." He, and the other founders, believed that religion guided people to make moral and reasonable decisions which respected the rights of others. Most of them denounced the vitriolic writing in Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason, and encouraged people to be active believers. James Madison even said that "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind of self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." It is known to most scholars, however, that he was a nonbeliever, and did not take communion nor attend mass.
Thomas Jefferson was the most militantly secular of the founding fathers, and actually original wrote the "endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights..." bit to read "All men are created equal and independent. From that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable." He was the only one who did not actively encourage religious belief.
It should be noted, however, that nowhere in the entire text of the constitution is God, Jesus, or Christianity mentioned. The constitution was written specifically to be a secular document, and public life was supposed to be secular. The founders believed, however, that it was important for American culture to be one of religious observance in order to preserve the spirit of the constitution.
Funny how some of the worst anti-freedom zealots in today's day and age are "Christians."
I don't disagree, but it goes to show you that teaching religion in schools does NOT make students perform better as some here claim.
They don't teach religion here except for the small segment in Social Studies class where they teach all the world religions. My kids are lucky enough to go to a very diverse school where there were actually kids from the different religious backgrounds who volunteered to read passages from their own religious texts. There was a Buddhist, a Jew, a Muslim, and a Christian. I'm not sure if there was a Hindu, though I'm sure there are Indians at her school.
My point has been that these stories are overblown and inaccurate, designed to make Texas education look foolish.
I read the link, and looked at the slide show until it got to Sotamayor, but I don't get the caption. "Did not add any new Latino figures". Add them to what? And there's nothing that states that Sotamayor was "removed". Again, removed from what?
A publisher wanted to add Justice Sotomayor and some other important Latino achievers to its social studies curriculum (presumably to give Texas' hundreds of thousands of Latino school children some contemporary role models). The panel that vets Texas school textbooks would not allow it so the Justice did not go in the book. She wasn't removed from an existing book but rather removed from a proposed updated text prior to its publication. But I suspect you're perfectly smart enough to figure that out and are just being facetious.
Like it or not, what happens in Texas schoolbooks spills over to the rest of the nation. Ever hear of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas? Texas is the largest purchaser of school books in the U.S. California has more students, but the state spends far less on books for them than Texas. Publishers don't want to publish fifty different versions of a book to satisfy the huge variety in standards from state-to-state, so in recent years Texas has ruled the educational publishing market. If the governors of the Texas school curriculum want something in a book, it goes in. If they want something out, it goes out. Like slavery for instance. Texas deems it too icky to talk about. Or global warming. That's not happening, according to Texas. If Texas wants to declare this a Christian nation, that gets taught to most every school child in the land.
There's no such thing as a "globalist progressivist one percenter." The views of Progressives are diametrically opposed to the political positions of most one-percenters. And whether either of those groups likes it or not, we are becoming a global world because of the drastic changes that have occurred in communication and economics in recent decades. As for your labeling of the left-wing as "closed-minded," that's a new one, too. Most conservatives usually label liberals as being overly OPEN-minded.
Nonsense overall. Neo-cons ARE liberals by the way. And if you think there's "no such thing as a globalist progressivist one percenter".... well, God, there's no helping you. The progressive movement is NOTHING BUT an elitist movement run, funded and promulgated by one percenter billionaire do-gooders and their foundations. And go ahead and tell me about the Koch Brothers - I know you can't resist that standard cliche example. For every Koch Brother (centrist to middle Right) there's a 1000 one percenters who vote Left Wing. There are NOTHING BUT Left Wingers in Europe. They all graduate from the same Ivy League schools and their foreign equivalents. Not Left Wing??? Spare me.
... Let's see... We have an article from a far left publication, citing a bunch of other far left media sources, saying that the far right is ruining the world....
Yeah,. except the "article" is listed as an "advertisement". Even the publication wouldn't run it as a news story.
They don't teach religion here except for the small segment in Social Studies class where they teach all the world religions. My kids are lucky enough to go to a very diverse school where there were actually kids from the different religious backgrounds who volunteered to read passages from their own religious texts. There was a Buddhist, a Jew, a Muslim, and a Christian. I'm not sure if there was a Hindu, though I'm sure there are Indians at her school.
My point has been that these stories are overblown and inaccurate, designed to make Texas education look foolish.
I would think Rick Perry and Ted Nugent do that quite well..LOL
I would think Rick Perry and Ted Nugent do that quite well..LOL
Ted Nugent isn't even from Texas, he's from your birthplace. And Rick Perry isn't the most intellectual person in the world but he has more common sense and leadership ability than Obama (and that's saying something since I've never once voted for Perry and don't really like him all that much).
Liberal history textbook: evil white males are responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened. Even when non-white males were the ones who committed the evil act, it was ultimately still whitey's fault because he oppressed everyone else to the point where they had no choice but to do awful things. Also, whites have never really achieved anything on their own. All of their achievements are actually due to the various peoples they have oppressed.
Also, Christianity is the most evil religion that ever existed. They went and started the Crusades against the poor, peace-loving Muslims and tried to take their land (while always forgetting to mention that the Muslims stole that land from the Christians in the first place).
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All that said, I do agree with the liberals about how teaching creationism in public schools is stupid.
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