According to Jerry Bergman, at Answers in Genesis, we should be teaching Creationism in public schools.
Here’s his reasoning:
Fifty studies were reviewed that surveyed opinions on teaching origins in public schools. The vast majority found about 90 % of the public desired that both creation and evolution or creation only be taught in the public schools. About 90 % of Americans consider themselves creationists of some form, and about half believe that God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years. In America, about 15 % of high school teachers teach both evolution and creation, and close to 20 % of high school science teachers and about 10,000 scientists (including more than 4,000 life scientists) reject both macroevolution and theistic evolution. Although the vast majority of Americans desire both creation and evolution taught in school, the evolutionary naturalism worldview dominates, revealing a major disparity between the population and the ruling élite.1
I agree!
I think we should be teaching alternate theories of existence in public schools. And here is how I propose we set up the curriculum:
Monday
1st Period: The Earth was nothing but water and darkness, ruled over by Mbombo, the white giant. One day, he felt a terrible pain in his stomach, and vomited the sun, the moon, and the stars. The sun shone fiercely and water steamed up in clouds. Gradually, the dry hills appeared. Mbombo vomited again, this time the trees came out of his stomach, and animals, and people, and many other things: the first woman, the leopard, the eagle, the anvil, monkey Fumu, the first man, the firmament, medicine, and lighting. Nchienge, the woman of the waters, lived in the East. She had a son, Woto, and a daughter, Labama. Woto was the first king of the Bakuba.2
2nd Period: The Creator split a tree into three pieces. He gave a piece to each tribe, one being a spear, the other a hoe, and the third a bow, and these recipients became the three tribes of people, the beginning of humanity.
3rd Period: Mangala was an entity made up of four divisions, and two sets of dual gendered twins. Being tired of keeping it all inside, Mangala compiled all the matter into a seed, which was the world. And the seed exploded, disappointing Mangala, who destroyed it. Then Mangala tried again with two sets of twin seeds, which, after having been planted in an egg-like womb, along with other sets of seeds, emerged as fish, representing fertility. One of the male twins tried to escape from the egg. This trickster, Pemba, stole a piece of the womb’s placenta and threw it down, creating the earth. He then tried to refertilize the remainder of the womb. Mangala castrated and killed Farro, Pemba’s brother, to save creation, and then Mangala raised Farro from the dead. Mangala then took the remainder of the placenta and transformed it into the sun, leaving Pemba for the darkness and night. Mangala transformed Ferro into a human, and was taught the language of creation. Farro’s newly created twins came and joined him on the earth, and they all propagated humanity.
4th Period: Lunch
5th Period: Damballah created all the waters of the earth. In the form of a serpent, the movement of his 7,000 coils formed hills and valleys on earth and brought forth stars and planets in the cosmos. He forged metals from heat and sent forth lightning bolts to form the sacred rocks and stones. When he shed his skin in the sun, releasing all the waters over the land, the sun shone in the water and created the rainbow. Damballah loved the rainbow’s beauty and made her his wife, Aida-Wedo. The revelations of the loa (deity) descended upon the first faithful in Ifé, a legendary city located in Nigeria. Therefore, everything in life and all spiritual strength comes from Ifé. In death, the higher soul will return to Ginen (the world of the dead, said to be under the water below the earth) to reside with the loa and the ancestral spirits.
6th Period: In the beginning, there was only water and chaos. The supreme being sent Obatala or Orishanla down from the sky to create some land out of the chaos. He descended on a long chain (umbilical cord) and brought with him a rooster, some iron, and a palm kernel. First, he put the metal on the earth and the rooster on top of that. The rooster scratched the metal and spread it out to create land. Then he planted the palm seed and from it grew the earth’s vegetation. Olurun named earth “Ife” and the first city “Ile-Ife.” Orshilana created humans out of the earth and got Olurun to blow life into them.
Tuesday
1st Period: Physical reality (space, matter and/or energy) is eternal, and therefore does not have an absolute origin. The Creator is an architect and organizer of pre-mortal matter and energy, who constructed the present universe out of the raw material (demiurge). There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; we cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.
2nd Period: Xenu was the dictator of the “Galactic Confederacy” who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of his people to Earth in spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs. Their essences remained, and that they form around people in modern times, causing them spiritual harm.
3rd Period: Auditing practice.
4th Period: Lunch
5th Period: Everything begins in a state of chaos where nothing exists but two gods named Tiamat and Apsu, who give birth to the first generation of gods, which one is Ea. Apsu cannot sleep because of these god children so he plans to kill them. Ea finds out and kills Apsu and Tiamat plans to avenge her husband. Ea has a son named Marduk. Tiamat assembles a huge army to avenge her husband and names Qingu the commander. Marduk is named as commander of the younger gods as long as he kills Tiamat; which he does through an arrow to the throat. Marduk splits her body in half and uses the back half to make the sky (which holds back the cosmic ocean) and the front half to make the earth (which holds the subterranean ocean). Marduk takes out Tiamat’s eyes and allows some of the subterranean ocean to flow out into two streams that become the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Finally, Marduk and Ea (and other gods) decide to create human beings to bear the burden of the gods, so that they can rest and not have to do all the hard work. Marduk creates people by killing Qingu and mixing Qingu’s blood with clay.
6th Period: The Ground of Being is the First Cause.
Wednesday
et cetera.
I think this would be an excellent way to introduce much needed mythological and spiritual awakenings in students, letting them know that plenty of other people around the world actually believe this stuff, AND, since they do believe this stuff, that makes this stuff VALID as alternate theories to evolution, and that no “theory” is better than any other belief in creation. I mean, it only makes sense that we give everyone a fair shot, right? I’m all for that. I’ll have to get my kid an afterschool tutor so he can learn to do some basic math, but it’s worth it for all the myriad wonders of creationism he will learn! Now that’s tolerance!
So, now that that point has been conceded and taken care of, I propose we move to the next item on the agenda, regarding tolerance, fairness, and whatnot: required programs for every religious institution.
All religious institutions shall, with their own funding, thoroughly and objectively instruct their staff, members, and guests, with government oversight, in the following areas:
-Heredity
-Variation
-Mutation
-Sex and recombination
-Population genetics
-Mechanisms
-Natural selection
-Genetic drift
-Gene flow
-Outcomes
-Adaptation
-Co-evolution
-Co-operation
-Speciation
-Extinction
-Evolutionary history of life
-Abiogenesis
-Common descent
-Evolution of life
-The scientific method
-Basic and intermediate mathematics
-Logic
-Philosophy
-Classic literature
-Civil rights
-Constitutional law
-World history
-Domestic history
Religious institutions will be required to hire experts in these fields who are unaffiliated with any religion (lest there be an unfair bias in favor of one “theory” or religion over another), and will be subject to strict scrutiny with regard to the curriculum and teaching standards. Standardized exams will be given, and religious institutions will have adjustments in funding and tax exemption based on the scores.
It would be my honor to assist in implementing this fair and balanced program. I hope it gets kicked off right away!
What a great day for tolerance!
- Teaching creation and evolution in schools, Jerry Bergman, Answers in Genesis. http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v13/i2/teaching.asp. [<]
- This, and the following excerpts, quoted and paraphrased from Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_myth [<]
