David Barton #fundie

David Barton #fundie joemygod.blogspot.com

If you want education you better include the fear of God, if you want to be a good scientist you better include the fear of God, if you want to be a good musician—1962, ’63, the U.S. Supreme Court in three decisions said no more fear of God in education, we want education to be secular. All right, that’s a theological issue. How’s that working out? In 1962, ’63, America was number one in the world in literacy, we are now number sixty-five in the world in literacy. We don’t have the fear of the Lord, because guess what, we don’t have knowledge, it goes down.

67 comments

old comment by Raised by Horses

If you want education you better include the fear of God[citation needed], if you want to be a good scientist you better include the fear of God[citation needed], if you want to be a good musician[citation needed]1962, ’63, the U.S. Supreme Court in three decisions said no more fear of God in education, we want education to be secular. All right, that’s a theological issue[citation needed]. How’s that working out? In 1962, ’63, America was number one in the world in literacy[citation needed], we are now number sixty-five in the world in literacy[citation needed]. We don’t have the fear of the Lord, because guess what, we don’t have knowledge, it goes down[citation needed].

Fixed.

old comment by Horsefeathers

I've always found this concept of "fear" of god--a supposedly omnibenevolent one, at that--to be rather amusing and quite bizarre.

Either your god is all good and loves us all, thus we have nothing to "fear" ever or you guys have been lying for the last two thousand years about the qualities of your god.

Which is it?

"All right, that’s a theological issue. How’s that working out? In 1962, ’63, America was number one in the world in literacy, we are now number sixty-five in the world in literacy. We don’t have the fear of the Lord, because guess what, we don’t have knowledge, it goes down."

I'll bet it even had an effect on the price of tea in China, too.

old comment by Anon-e-moose

"If you want education you better include the fear of God, if you want to be a good scientist you better include the fear of God, if you want to be a good musician1962, ’63, the U.S. Supreme Court in three decisions said no more fear of God in education, we want education to be secular. All right, that’s a theological issue. How’s that working out? In 1962, ’63, America was number one in the world in literacy, we are now number sixty-five in the world in literacy. We don’t have the fear of the Lord, because guess what, we don’t have knowledge, it goes down."

Well, considering the education, and therefore the pool of pure knowledgeable talent coming out of China's at best irreligious school/college/university education system, and therefore that country's burgeoning scientific R&D facilities, of course it'll go down.

Enjoy your 'No. 2' status in the world in the next couple of years, Davey-boy. If you want your country to be inferior to the secular, Atheist Peoples Republic of China, far be it from this British, secular, humanist, left-wing Atheist to stop you! >:D

PROTIP: A few years ago, in conjunction with IBM, one particular educational establishment in the US had developed a .5 THz CPU, for use by the DoD, and the telecommunications industry. Said educational establishment? Texas? No. The University of Georgia. A year or so ago, China's Tianhe 1-A was the most powerful supercomputer on the planet. It's recently been beaten by the 'K'. Is it American? No. Made by Fujitsu in Japan. Word has it that China is working on the first quantum-computing-based hypercomputer.

Several years ago, the laptop division of IBM was bought out. Renamed Lenovo. In China. Trumped, re. R&D. Two years...!

"We don’t have the fear of the Lord, because guess what, we don’t have knowledge"

image

Oh no more, please Mr. Wilde, I am bereft of ribs! 'Knowledge'? Show me in the Bible - chapter & verse - what'll be the next format after Blu-Ray, then? [/smartarse]. Yet China has knowledge; more than you will very soon (especially gene research). Because guess what:

In Soviet China, God fears you.

old comment by Arctic Knight

I just did a little cursory research on secularism and literacy. The U.S. is #45 on the literacy scale, right under the U.K and still with a 99.0% literacy rate.

What I found most interesting is comparing the list of top 25 secular countries with the top 25 countries with the highest literacy rates. Both lists share a lot of the same countries. Some of them are

Country - secular ranking/literacy ranking
Estonia - 9/3
Latvia - 20/4
Slovenia - 17/6
Russia - 11/15
Hungary - 12/16
Australia - 24/22
Austria - 23/23
Belgium - 15/24
Canada - 19/25

With stats like that, I cannot see where Davie here draws a conclusion that more secularism leads to lower literacy rates.

My sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=pzuckerman_26_5

Davie, you are a big pile of fail.

old comment by

Where the hell are you getting sixty-five in literacy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

According to this we're tied for 20th. And we're at 99 percent. We're tied with virtually the entire western world. Unless you think Canada has a terrible literacy rate, I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Also, everyone claiming that the problem is that America doesn't spend enough on public education is just as stupid as Barton.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_spe_per_sec_sch_stu-spending-per-secondary-school-student

We're 3rd per student. In the world. Please, if you make wild claims, don't pull a Barton. Cite your sources or you'll look like a dipshit.

old comment by Anon-e-moose

@#1346950

The rest of the Western, democratic, civilised world - certainly here in the UK - isn't as obesessed about religion as those fundie nutty buggers are over there.

Nor are they allowed any political power whatsoever. Least of all to have any influence on socio-politics, certainly the education system (UK: The National Curriculum makes it compulsory for 'faith schools' to teach Evolution & the Big Bang as fact; and not just for them to continue to receive state funding, neither. It's the reason why we never needed a court case like Kitzmiller vs. Dover, to ensure our kids aren't intellectually hamstrung by any religious interference whatsoever, compared to educational standards of other countries, thus staying socio-economically competitive. And we in the UK have a state religion).

...oh, and if you think you're correct in what you claim, get a load of these:

image image

And these people are alowed to breed, never mind vote?! Oh, I'm suuuuuure the above are merely the exceptions to the rule, I'm sure you'll agree [/hyper-sarcasm]; notice I used the word 'exception' in the plural.

99% literacy rate in the US, you say...:

image

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&v=Wdqbi66oNuI

No representation, without education!

The film "Idiocracy" is looking more and more a documentary with subsequent viewings...!

PROTIP: India is the most religious country on the planet. Yet, in terms of it's educational, to say nothing of political systems, it's even more secular than the UK.

old comment by jesusaur

As I only speak for myself, In God We Trust is suicidal because God is more than glad to destroy you for absolutely no reason(Deuteronomy 28:63). That's one thing American Christians and Muslim suicide bombers have in common, a passionate desire to die. As for me, if there is an all-powerful asshole who is more than glad to destroy me for absolutely no reason; fearing him makes no difference at all.

"Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword!" ~ Jesus

"A curse on him who is lax in doing the LORD's work! A curse on him who keeps his sword from bloodshed!" ~ Jeremiah 48:10

"The LORD will be more than glad to destroy you and wipe you out." ~ Deuteronomy 28:63

You suicidal people out there continue to trust in God, good luck with that.

old comment by

The ones above you are even more secular than you are, and more thoroughly so. Very few politicians in other western countries would dare voice the idea that Creationism is right and that Evolution is wrong, for fear of being laughed out of town.

"The study, a five-year, $14 million study of U.S. adult literacy involving interviews of U.S. adults, the most comprehensive study of literacy ever commissioned by the U.S. government, was released in April 2002. It involved lengthy interviews of over 90,700 adults statistically balanced for age, gender, ethnicity, education level, and location (urban, suburban, or rural) in 12 states across the U.S. and was designed to represent the U.S. population as a whole. This government study showed that 21% to 23% of adult Americans were not "able to locate information in text", could not "make low-level inferences using printed materials", and were unable to "integrate easily identifiable pieces of information." Further, this study showed that 41% to 44% of U.S. adults in the lowest level on the literacy scale are living in poverty."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States

old comment by checkmate

We don’t have the fear of the Lord, because guess what, we don’t have knowledge, it goes down.

I went to a public high school in a New England suburb. The school was very secular despite the presence in the town of 18 different congregations of differing Christian persuasions.

While applying for college, some of us were afraid we'd have trouble with the really good schools if we didn't have enough AP courses. After all, the US is pretty big.

Well, as it turned out, one of the college scouts told us that even the best possible degree from a typical bible belt/midwestern high school was about equivalent to 9th/10th grade in our town. Colleges were aware of that.

So Mr. Barton, in this case as in so many others your argument doesn't fit the facts.

Instead of just doing the fundamentalist preacher thing and making up any old unsubstantiated statistic to underline your personal opinion, perhaps you should do some good ol' research.

You know, research, like you learned at school. Or did you go to a God fearing school where research was considered un-christian, un-American, and dangerous?

old comment by

Leave it to Christians to complain about literacy when the Roman Catholic Church holds the record for number of books burned, burnt the Great Library of Alexandria and it's storehouse of ancient knowledge that is now forever lost and single-handedly set humanity back thousands of years.

image

"The illiteracy level of our children are appalling." ~ George W. Bush

"And when we find children trapped in schools which will not teach and will not change, as a society we must demand something better, because there is no second-rate children in America." ~ George W. Bush

"There is no second-rate children in Arizona. There is no second-rate children in America." ~ George W. Bush

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test." ~ George W. Bush

Nevermind that their choice for president systematically mangled the Queen's English every time he spoke publicly for eight straight years. And nevermind the Teabaggers.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pargon/sets/72157623594187379/

old comment by CohibaMan

I just LOVE it when these people point out that our country has declined versus other nations since we started enforcing the separation of church and state. It makes them appear even more ignorant of the world than usual.

Are they not really this unaware of the fact that the countries which surpass us are far more secular than us and that they thrive in the area of education because of this fact and not despite it?

This gets to the heart of something I've been struggling to understand. Other "civilized" nations have universal health care, strong public education systems, reasonable gun control policies, and armed forces that can allow homosexuals to serve openly without their effectiveness being harmed whatsoever. These, among with many other policies, work far better in those countries than their counterpart policies here in the US. Anytime, however, that someone suggests we try those things here, the very same people who tell us that Americans have the most ingenuity and the best "can-do spirit" in the world will tell us that such policies would never work in the US and that if we want socialism we should go to North Korea.

Speaking as an American, that's the United States for you. If you want to try to make things like Sweden, people will tell you that you belong in North Korea. I love my country and I love my fellow citizens but I wish that some of those citizens weren't so fucking nuts.

@1347170

Let's be fair here. First, what is the basis of the "Y" axis there? That graph is purely polemic, not based in concrete scientific facts. The Dark Ages were the result of the collapse of the Roman Empire due to a variety of factors and it was the Catholic Church that actually preserved learning in Europe throughout that period. In addition, there were multiple advancements of knowledge during that time -- the importance of crop rotation being one of many. Despite what might be nice to believe, religion, while used as an excuse for many of them, is not the source of ALL of the world's problems.

The biggest error, of course, is in equating "the scientific knowledge of humanity" with the knowledge available in the West. The Fall of the Roman Empire and the destruction of the Library at Alexandria did NOT set back most of the world. All of those magnificent books written in China, India, and Persia survived that destruction just fine.

I'm not saying that the Roman Catholic Church is blameless, only that it's important to make the RIGHT accusations. Leave the misinformed accusations to the fundies. :-)

David Barton #fundie joemygod.blogspot.com

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