Kansas Creationists Are Claiming That Science Is a Religion

The Kansas State Board of Education discussing science standards

You’ve really got to hand it to creationists. Say what you will about their unyielding ignorance, blind devotion, and shitty museums, but like an eager virgin on prom night, they never ever seem to give up. It’s almost embarrassing to atheists, including the assholes on the atheism subreddit, how hard these people campaign and twist to get their point across, while we sit here endlessly masturbating with our evolved thumbs.

This week in Kansas, nonprofit group Citizens for Objective Public Education, representing a handful of parents and their undoubtedly reluctant children, filed suit against the Kansas State Board of Education for including a science handbook as part of a nationwide refurbishment of the science curriculum, primarily because it includes sections on the dreaded scourge evolution. By itself, this is decidedly annoying; students have a hard enough time trying to grasp the core fundamentals of science without having an anti-intellectualist special interest group fucking with their bare bones public school education. But what is so deeply exasperating about this lawsuit in particular is their line of reasoning, namely that accepting evolution “will have the effect of causing Kansas public schools to establish and endorse a nontheistic religious worldview in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution.”

I’ll let that sink in. Defining atheism as a religion in order to remove science and humanities, justified as separation of church and state in order to promote their own actual religion. I promise you that somebody fucked their wife in the missionary position to celebrate being so clever. If there’s anything that says "God’s Will," it’s semantic loopholes and egomaniacal reappropriation.

In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in Edwards v. Aguillard that creationism was not a viable alternative or companion to be taught alongside evolution, as it was intentionally designed to advance a particular religion. In the last fifteen years, we’ve seen at least 25 attempts to include intelligent design or discredit evolution in various states' curricula, mostly funded and supported by the Discovery Institute (the think tank that brought you “Teach the Controversy”), whose stated goal is to "reverse the stifling materialist world view and replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." So far no dice. Although Kansas has historically been more lenient about allowing pro-creationist leanings in their school system, they also proudly pass stricter abortion laws and have language regarding the illegality of gay marriage in their state constitution. Since attempts to give creationism validity in schools have been systematically voted down, the plan of attack seems to be a haughty reversal of the very reasoning that took down their argument in the first place.

There is no way to read the text of the lawsuit without a sense of hopelessness for those who wrote it. A section titled “Indoctrinating Impressionable Young Minds” reads, “First, the [science handbooks] begin the indoctrination of the materialistic/atheistic Worldview at the age of five or six with young impressionable minds that lack the cognitive or mental development and scientific, mathematical, philosophical and theological sophistication necessary to enable them to critically analyze and question any of the information presented and to reach their own informed decision about what to believe about ultimate questions fundamental to all religions.” The very fact that they are even aware of this concept suggests something deeply disturbing about their own brand of brainwashing. To describe the exact methods used by religious institutions to indoctrinate their members, without even a sliver of reflection, is worrying at best.

The suit goes on to say, “The effect of the [handbooks] in teaching the materialistic/atheistic Worldview to young children before they attain the age and sophistication necessary to make an informed decision about it, is likely to cause them to embrace it, because studies show (a) that children between the age of five and eleven simply assimilate and take, unthinkingly, what authorities have taught to the child and (b) that they generally form their religious worldview by the time they attain the age of 13.” From an attack standpoint this is actually a great idea. You accuse your opponent of doing the exact thing you’re doing, and leave them defenseless. There’s some Sun Tzu shit going on here, or Eminem in his final freestyle of 8 Mile against Papa Doc.

The suit even refers to nontheist educators as the "Orthodoxy," and I wish I were making that up. I half expected there to be a section about not trusting any authority figures in case they use their power to molest your kids, or something about how killing in the name of science is abhorrent. But they are absolutely right on one account: a nontheist education can prevent young children from opening up to a creationist worldview. Sort of the same way that being taught “stranger danger” prevents children from being abducted, which must really be a thorn in the side of dangerous strangers. Maybe those guys should sue?

In fact, the very first charge that is levied against the KBE is that the handbook is “leading [children] to ask ultimate religious questions like what is the cause and nature of life and the universe—‘where do we come from?’” Because we all know that there is nothing more dangerous to the stability of a religious organization than its young members asking questions about the world they live in. How could an answer more complex than "God did it" possibly have a positive effect on education and development?

Heading up the lawsuit is “origin studies” lawyer John H. Calvert, who is also Managing Director of the Intelligent Design Network Inc. which shares a phone number with Calvert Law Offices. As one of the leading figures in the Kansas evolution hearings, he was recently quoted as saying, “The state’s job is simply to say to students, 'How life arises continues to be a scientific mystery and there are competing ideas about it.'” That’s all well and good, Mr. Calvert, but there are also competing ideas about the shape of the earth and the reptilian nature of our political leaders. Should we make sure to include those controversies in our curriculum as well?

Luckily, not everyone in the religious community is Marguerite Perrin-crazy. The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, an organization supporting both religious freedom and the separation of church and state, blogged, “Every time the public school science curriculum properly refuses to teach creationism, it is guilty of teaching a religious world view? That makes no sense… Teaching [evolution] in science class is not teaching a religious view in violation of church-state separation. It sounds like proponents would prefer teaching no science at all!”

Like all the other lawsuits trying to paint and stifle science education as religious propaganda like 2005's Caldwell v. Caldwell, this case too will be dismissed or dropped, but does that make this whole situation any less annoying? Why does creationism always come with some proselytizing angle where if they can’t have it their way, nobody can? Teach your own dumb kids whatever nonsense you want; they’re already being raised by lunatics. But for the love of God, fuck off.

@jules_su

For more on creationists:

The Science of the Creation Museum

Pee-Wee Herman's Dinosaurs are Actually a Creationist Museum

Go to Homeschool