The young journalists at The Southerner, the student newspaper at Grady High School in Atlanta, Georgia, recently broke the news that creationism and other Christian religious views are incorporated into the Biology curriculum used by the City of Atlanta Public Schools.
A PowerPoint shown to a freshman biology class featured a cartoon depicting dueling castles, one labeled "Creation (Christ)" and the other labeled "Evolution (Satan)." Balloons attached to the evolution castle were labeled euthanasia, homosexuality, pornography, divorce, racism and abortion
The PowerPoint, which has more than 50 slides largely consisting of material about evolution, was downloaded from SharePoint, an APS file-sharing database for teachers. It was uploaded by Mary E. King, a project manager at APS who has also uploaded more than 2,000 other documents. Phone calls and emails to King have not been returned. Tommy Molden, science coordinator for APS, also did not respond to requests for comment.
Students were offended by the cartoon:
"[I] have gay parents, and [the cartoon] said that evolution caused homosexuality and it implied that to be negative, so I was pretty offended by it," [freshman Seraphina Cooley] said.
Cooley said that another student emailed the administration complaining about the PowerPoint.
Freshman Griffin Ricker, who is also in Jones' class, said [Biology class teacher Anquinette Jones] got angry with the class when she found out students had notified the administration.
"She had a 10-minute rant," Ricker said. "She yelled and said, 'This is on the APS website, and it was certified.'"
In case of soylentnewsing, the student reporting is also posted on a local Atlanta newspaper blog.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @07:30AM
It doesn't say whose timescale, though.
As humans didn't exist at the time, they were unlikely to have come up with the human concept of "days", and so we can safely assume that we are talking about the timescale of God. And who knows how many billion human years a God day is.
As for the thing with the rib, suppose that's one of the parts that's not supposed to be taken literally... I mean, imagine if anyone was to take the whole of the Bible literally - they would quickly come to the conclusion that God is worse than Pol Pot and Osama Bin Laden, and that anyone who worships him should be sent to Guantanamo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday July 04 2014, @07:54AM
"they would quickly come to the conclusion that God is worse than Pol Pot and Osama Bin Laden, and that anyone who worships him should be sent to Guantanamo."
Came to that conclusion at age 12 When I got kicked out of VBS for my continual questioning of dogma that didn't make sense to me.
The final straw was asking how the animals from the Americas managed to get to the middle east and informing the teacher that I couldn't "take it on faith" when it was obvious that the story was just stupid and that statement was just an excuse for not having a reasonable answer.
I was never forced to go to church again.....(:
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday July 04 2014, @08:00AM
Of course I was referencing the Noah story if it wasn't clear.
On a side note to this story, I went to church ONCE with my wife as an adult. The pastor told his congregation that their was a computer program that had analyzed the Bible and proven it was all written by one author. I stood up and chastised him for lying and walked out.
To my rather pleased surprise, about 10 others left with me.
My wife left that church shortly after, and has never asked me to go with her to the one she now attends....I wonder why?
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 1) by gargoyle on Friday July 04 2014, @08:37AM
Because you humiliated her in front of her friends and peers, forcing her to change church and keep you at arms length to avoid a repeat?
Don't get me wrong, the pastor was spouting rubbish and shouldn't be allowed to get away with it but your attitude to the effects on you wife certainly lives up to your username.
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Friday July 04 2014, @10:21AM
Nobody should be ashamed for publicly exposing a liar.
(Score: 1) by gargoyle on Friday July 04 2014, @10:28AM
And I clearly never said they should be.
(Score: 2) by unitron on Saturday July 05 2014, @05:21PM
If that preacher actually believed what he was saying to be true, then he wasn't, technically, lying.
And I'm sure that he wouldn't have had a problem finding an article somewhere that said a computer program proved the single authorship, which he was foolish enough to believe.
There are articles all over the place saying almost anything and everything.
This was even true before the internet came along.
There may not actually be any intentional lying going on at all, just a program that doesn't really do what its author thinks it does but instead gives the results which were desired all along.
something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @09:21AM
A day is not a human construct... it is the time it takes the earth to spin once on its axis. Months, hours, minutes, seconds.... those are human concepts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @02:08PM
No no no. You don't understand.
A day is a day, because the bible says so in some part, except when it isn't a day but an indeterminate lapse of time, when required by some other part.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @04:03PM
> As for the thing with the rib, suppose that's one of the parts that's not supposed to be taken literally...
You seem to be having trouble with the concept of biblical literalists.
(Score: 2) by unitron on Saturday July 05 2014, @05:24PM
"
> As for the thing with the rib, suppose that's one of the parts that's not supposed to be taken literally...
You seem to be having trouble with the concept of biblical literalists. "
So you're saying biblical literalists are literally to be taken literally?
something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 06 2014, @07:46PM
How is that rib thing even metaphorically true?