kicking puppies is bad

Don’t get me wrong, I am still freaked out by intelligent design**. But the shock factor is mostly gone. I’m no longer surprised when I read another article about American children being taught religion thinly veiled as science. I’m sad, but I’m no longer shocked. However, when I read a news story about schools teaching religion within the mathematics curriculum, I was shocked (and sad). I know that the following curriculum descriptions aren’t from public schools. But private schools in the United States are still subject to minimum standards and many receive government aid***. And I’m a little freaked out.

Consider first a Baptist school in Texas whose description of a geometry course begins:Students will examine the nature of God as they progress in their understanding of mathematics. Students will understand the absolute consistency of mathematical principles and know that God was the inventor of that consistency. They will see God’s nature revealed in the order and precision they review foundational concepts while being able to demonstrate geometric thinking and spatial reasoning. The study of the basics of geometry through making and testing conjectures regarding mathematical and real-world patterns will allow the students to understand the absolute consistency of God as seen in the geometric principles he created.

I wonder if the school teaches that non-Euclidean geometry is the work of the devil or at least of non-Christians.

People wonder why American companies complain they can’t find technically skilled labor within the United States…

** Intelligent design is *clearly* thinly veiled creationism. And creationism is ridiculous. The Creation Museum contains, among other things, dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are *not* ridiculous. However, at the Creation Museum one of them wears an English saddle. This must have been one of the dinosaurs used for dressage competitions and stakes races. Working dinosaurs accustomed to the rigors of ranch work and herding other dinosaurs would almost certainly wear a sturdy western saddle. Apparently this is supposed to demonstrate that dinosaurs co-existed with man. That explains the English saddle. In fact, that explains a lot. *** I don’t know if this is one of the private schools that receives public funding or not. I couldn’t find information on that. But honestly, I didn’t look very hard. I am fundamentally lazy.