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abstract atheist
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 Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 5:26 pm Post subject: crazy high school science |
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This is my first time posting here. I went to a baptist high school that taught some pretty absurd science concepts. Other than the usual "baptist science" absurdities (the earth is 6000 years old, the universe used to be perfect, there was a global flood, etc.) there were 3 deeply disturbing (to me) "facts" that I remember:
1.) The reason the electron does not fall into the nucleus of an atom is because Jesus is holding it up.
2.) Relativity is false because God would not create a world where time flows at different rates in different places.
3.) Rainbows do not have a physical explanation. Each raindrop creates a mini rainbow and God puts all the mini rainbows together to make a big rainbow.
I was wondering if anyone else had similar experiences, with scientific absurdities (other than the usual) taught in religious schools/churches? By the way I am an atheist now, ironically in grad school doing theoretical physics. |
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not_a_theist
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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Public school (until college) education for me. So, fortunately, I cant relate.
Welcome though!
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A liberal is a conservative who has been arrested. A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.
Last edited by not_a_theist on Wed Sep 03, 2008 5:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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joshuas3521
Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition!
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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You forgot "evolution is a lie" 
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"What I'm saying is, if God wanted to send us a message, and ancient writings were the only way he could think of doing it, he could have done a better job." --Carl Sagan
"In the beginning the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move." --Douglas Adams
In memory of George Carlin. May he rest in peace.
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abstract atheist
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 7:29 pm Post subject: |
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| joshuas3521 wrote: | | You forgot "evolution is a lie" |
It was way worse than that. We had Noah's ark and the Tower of Babel in our history books, right along with talking snakes and donkeys and a whole lot of genocide by God's chosen people. But the "Adam and Eve ate a fruit they weren't supposed to, so electrons began spiraling into the nucleus and Jesus is supernaturally holding them up" is over the top, even for creationists. But I've noticed alot of religious people in the southern U.S. have stranger beliefs, including 1 guy that said there is no such thing as gravity (things fall because of the will of God). |
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Raskolnikov
The Axe Murderer
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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Sounds like good times
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"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, underwhich weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, for if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."
-Thomas Jefferson
"The future is not set in stone. The future is what you make it. So make it a good one!"
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chookrooter
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 7:56 pm Post subject: |
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I had an eccentric aunt,who taught me basic science when I was about 4
.EG:
If you swallow your chewing gum it will wrap itself around your heart and kill you.
If you have more than TWO teaspoons of sugar with your tea,your arms and legs will fall off.
NEVER leave a light socket empty and the power turned on; the electricity will drain out like water from burst water pipe.
I was only 4, so that's all I remember.--Oh yeah, tomatoes will make you throw up. This was immediately true and has remained so in the case of raw tomatoes.
Yes,Joyce, I DID realise ,as an adult that my Aunt was teasing me. But at 4? What did I know?
Not quite the same as being taught fairy tales as science at school. THAT is truly appalling,from two angles;The neanderthal teachers and the dropkick parents who tolerate such shit. Just as sincerity is not proof, neither is it an excuse for stunting a child's critical faculties. A child does not understand motives.It understands actions, as a child understands, with a child's logic. |
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PriestofPoppycock
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 8:48 pm Post subject: |
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That is some bizarre shit. I'm so glad I went to public school.
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The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
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abstract atheist
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:01 pm Post subject: |
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| chookrooter wrote: | | Not quite the same as being taught fairy tales as science at school. THAT is truly appalling,from two angles;The neanderthal teachers and the dropkick parents who tolerate such shit. Just as sincerity is not proof, neither is it an excuse for stunting a child's critical faculties. A child does not understand motives.It understands actions, as a child understands, with a child's logic. |
I was lucky, I had educated myself in science so when absurdities came up I recognized them. But apparently everyone else in that school still believes that a mud man and a rib woman and a talking snake doomed the human race 6,000 years ago by eating a magic fruit. I can't imagine believing in any religion as an adult, but apparently over half of Americans still believe in the magic fruit theory. There was even a guy getting a physics degree at a real university in a certain backward state (the state where I went to high school and got my first physics degree) that thought Adam and Eve and Noah's ark actually happedned and that Rome and Greece collapsed because of their acceptance of homosexuality. Luckily now I am at a university, with Nobel Lauretes in my department, where this doesn't happen. |
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monkeybyte
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:07 pm Post subject: Re: crazy high school science |
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| abstract atheist wrote: | This is my first time posting here. I went to a baptist high school that taught some pretty absurd science concepts. Other than the usual "baptist science" absurdities (the earth is 6000 years old, the universe used to be perfect, there was a global flood, etc.) there were 3 deeply disturbing (to me) "facts" that I remember:
1.) The reason the electron does not fall into the nucleus of an atom is because Jesus is holding it up.
2.) Relativity is false because God would not create a world where time flows at different rates in different places.
3.) Rainbows do not have a physical explanation. Each raindrop creates a mini rainbow and God puts all the mini rainbows together to make a big rainbow.
I was wondering if anyone else had similar experiences, with scientific absurdities (other than the usual) taught in religious schools/churches? By the way I am an atheist now, ironically in grad school doing theoretical physics. |
If you ever find the time, you gotta take this stuff on the road, pro science educators need this kind of ammo against Cretinist meddlers.
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"Setting people on fire is wrong." -Todd "Squee" Casil. |
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SvZurich
Loki's Little Valkyrie
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| Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:42 am Post subject: |
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Welcome Abstract! 
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Kimberly (HSBUH) aka
Baroness Sylvia von Zurich (the only Goldwater Conservative) endorses the Meadow Party's Bill and Opus for the 2012 Presidential election!
The Atheist Forums have new rules! |
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Andreusz
Royal Citizen
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| Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:48 am Post subject: Re: crazy high school science |
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| abstract atheist wrote: | This is my first time posting here. I went to a baptist high school that taught some pretty absurd science concepts. Other than the usual "baptist science" absurdities (the earth is 6000 years old, the universe used to be perfect, there was a global flood, etc.) there were 3 deeply disturbing (to me) "facts" that I remember:
1.) The reason the electron does not fall into the nucleus of an atom is because Jesus is holding it up.
2.) Relativity is false because God would not create a world where time flows at different rates in different places.
3.) Rainbows do not have a physical explanation. Each raindrop creates a mini rainbow and God puts all the mini rainbows together to make a big rainbow.
I was wondering if anyone else had similar experiences, with scientific absurdities (other than the usual) taught in religious schools/churches? By the way I am an atheist now, ironically in grad school doing theoretical physics. |
When I was at school there was a compulsory subject called Religious Instruction (RI). Our RI teacher was a stauch Baptist. Someone challenged him on the existence of the fossil record, and he pointed out that the Bible says nothing about what happened before God created light. The dinosaurs, etc., existed before the sun and moon were made. I have always been intrigued by the idea of the dinosaurs bumping around in the pitch dark. Perhaps that's why they went extinct. |
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josephpalazzo
Illusion Master
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| Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:14 am Post subject: Re: crazy high school science |
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| Andreusz wrote: | | abstract atheist wrote: | This is my first time posting here. I went to a baptist high school that taught some pretty absurd science concepts. Other than the usual "baptist science" absurdities (the earth is 6000 years old, the universe used to be perfect, there was a global flood, etc.) there were 3 deeply disturbing (to me) "facts" that I remember:
1.) The reason the electron does not fall into the nucleus of an atom is because Jesus is holding it up.
2.) Relativity is false because God would not create a world where time flows at different rates in different places.
3.) Rainbows do not have a physical explanation. Each raindrop creates a mini rainbow and God puts all the mini rainbows together to make a big rainbow.
I was wondering if anyone else had similar experiences, with scientific absurdities (other than the usual) taught in religious schools/churches? By the way I am an atheist now, ironically in grad school doing theoretical physics. |
When I was at school there was a compulsory subject called Religious Instruction (RI). Our RI teacher was a stauch Baptist. Someone challenged him on the existence of the fossil record, and he pointed out that the Bible says nothing about what happened before God created light. The dinosaurs, etc., existed before the sun and moon were made. I have always been intrigued by the idea of the dinosaurs bumping around in the pitch dark. Perhaps that's why they went extinct. |
We all know about the fossils...
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SvZurich
Loki's Little Valkyrie
Joined: 06 Oct 2003
Posts: 22888
Local time: 6:49 PM
Location: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC
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| Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:18 am Post subject: |
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I was actually told that picture is true back in the late 1980s. On a school bus by the Bus Aide who helped keep order.
I took the short bus to an exchange to hop on the one for my school with the GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) Program. The aide went to my Southern Baptist church. She believed what she was telling me.
*shudders*
_________________
Kimberly (HSBUH) aka
Baroness Sylvia von Zurich (the only Goldwater Conservative) endorses the Meadow Party's Bill and Opus for the 2012 Presidential election!
The Atheist Forums have new rules! |
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