West Virginia just passed a law that will allow the teaching of religious alternatives to science (meaning creationism) in public schools.
New Law Allowing Religion into Science Classrooms Is Dangerous for Everyone
Everything old is new again. The Scopes Monkey Trial was in 1925.
The Scopes trial, formally The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case from July 10 to July 21, 1925, in which a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it illegal for teachers to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held.
Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he incriminated himself deliberately so the case could have a defendant. Scopes was found guilty and was fined $100 (equivalent to $1,700 in 2023), but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. The trial served its purpose of drawing intense national publicity, as national reporters flocked to Dayton to cover the high-profile lawyers who had agreed to represent each side.
William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate and former secretary of state, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow served as the defense attorney for Scopes. The trial publicized the fundamentalist–modernist controversy, which set modernists, who said evolution could be consistent with religion, against fundamentalists, who said the word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge.
The case was thus seen both as a theological contest and as a trial on whether evolution should be taught in schools.
I used to rock this as a t-shirt in 2006-7
Never thought I'd say this, but we need a new generation of reddit atheists. The old guard got bullied by fedora memes into becoming reactionaries, or keeping quiet.
No we really do not. We need a new generation of materialists. Atheism is as much of an ideology as off is a TV channel. Atheism is just simply a lack of belief in any religion, it is not an ideology in of itself. Atheism is extremely limited when applied outside of that. You can see the limits of "atheism as an ideology" in the Christofer Hitchens vs Micheal Parenti debate, and in the failure of the new atheist movement, with a ton of new atheists becoming reactionaries and even calling themselves cultural Christians.
A new generation of "Reddit atheists" will just have all the same problems as the previous one, and end up with the same result.
I have been scorned, mocked, derrided. But nontheless, i will rally to the call. Let us once again stand together. Let us once again attack and dethrone god.
MURDERTHEGODSANDTOPPLETHEIRTHRONES
America is regressing so bad
I genuinely wonder how long the US can keep going internally, for all of the dooming about the persistence of the empire abroad
So, this sort of thing is just (or at least mostly)
ruining public education, right? Like: "We're legally obliged to provide an education. But if you want that education to be 'factual', or 'based in reality', or 'not actively harmful to understanding the world' you are going to have to pay for the premium package."Considering how many private schools are religious idk how much of a difference it makes. I went to catholic school, because it was pretty much the only option available, but the catholics where I'm from aren't crazy creationists. Not even the evangelicals are like that
Yeah, Catholics (or at least the pope) accept evolution, they just think God is putting a finger on the scales to effect the outcomes.
Nah this is capital eating itself - this is what is meant by fascism being capitalism in decay. The imperialists have consumed their own propaganda and truly believe that they live in a fair and rational system. As such any issue must be a moral one.
It used to be you wanted to give them no education so you could give the good jobs to your failson, but we've kinda moved on from that structure. Now you make them do the good job stuff for menial pay and give your failson a pointless c-suite gig.
Worsening the quality of education is against the interest of capital, as it decreases the supply of properly educated peasants that can be used for stuff fancier than toiling in the fields. This means their productive capability worsens, they are more beholden to the workers with the requisite knowledge and they will have to pay more and agree to bargain for it. This is not in the capitalists interest.
It is, however, of interest to Christian fascists who are given more power as things get worse.
Idk, I might just file this one under “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”. Sometimes the religious nuts in deeply religious areas just get the right people in positions of power and do stuff like this.
Holy shit…
Proper education of our youth is the cornerstone of a functioning society. If you think conservatives are idiots now, just wait till kids taught this in public schools graduate.
Canary in the coal mine.
The US becomes a greater shitshow with every passing day.
Before: Jock punches Nerd in the face after Nerd says "Evolution is not just a theory! Read a book!"
The future: Jock punches Nerd in the face after Jock says: "Evolution is just a theory. Mr. Himmler just told us that in class, dork. And he's a visiting scholar from the MasterRaceInstitute."
Y'all-Qaeda.
NO WOKE
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Ninja edit: Never mind - wrong thread.
Decrepit and superstitious empire hours
American Century of Humiliation speedrun
Man, what a throwback.
The average American is an 11th century peasant with a computer.