“Sowing Atheism” On Don McLeroy’s SBOE Recommended Reading List

In preparation for next week’s “final showdown” on the teaching of evolution in Texas public schools (honestly, I thought the final showdown took place in 1925 in Tennessee), Texas State Board of Education chairman and avowed young-Earth creationist, Don McLeroy, has a new book that he’d like the 15 members of the Texas school board to take a look at before they render a final vote on the wording that will set in stone for the next ten years how evolution will be taught in Texas public schools.

At issue is the “strengths and weaknesses” doctrine whereby students are asked to make educated judgments on how well, or how poorly a scientific theory, or even a scientific principle is supported by scientific evidence and observation.

A task that would daunt a university graduate student, let alone an 8^th grader whose agility in text messaging far outpaces his astuteness in the area of evaluation of scientific theory.

“Strengths and weaknesses” was voted out of the curriculum by a bare majority back in January, when the board last met to discuss this issue.

Nevertheless, McLeroy is bent on educating his flock, and help them see the light, by recommending that they read the book, Sowing Atheism: The National Academy Of Sciences’ Sinister Scheme To Teach Our Children They’re Descended From Reptiles as we see here. And they don’t even have to buy the book. They can download the entire book on .PDF, much to the dismay of Amazon.com which is trying to sell it to make money for its stockholders by hawking the book for $12.95.

I’ve read parts of this book. It was written with the chief intent of refuting the 2008 National Academy of Sciences book Science, Evolution, and Creationism. A book, they say, that has been sent “to every public school principal and every science teacher in America” (I’m still waiting for my copy). Sowing Atheism has lots of inflammatory statements in it. Here are but a few:

“These are farmers of darkness, plowing into the minds of our children, planting their poisonous seeds of elitist atheistic evolution. Their deception is so systematized, so interwoven with bits of truth, that it is difficult for unwary readers to see with immediate clarity the false syllogism which animates the entire content of the NAS book.”

“The Greek word translated as stupid is moron, where we get our word for a mentally dull and sluggish person. In my judgment, only morons—more than 11,500 [Christian pastors] morons in this case—could sign a letter maintaining that the “timeless truths of the Bible” are compatible with the billions of unpredictable aberrations of evo-atheism. What do these apostate morons celebrate at their Sunday services, the lies about humanity’s origins told by Moses, Jesus, and Paul?”

“Indeed, the NAS hierarchy pushes its evo-atheistic religion in the classroom with “ferocity,” and with a zeal that’s hardly matched in Christianity. We can’t properly call them evangelical, however, because that word comes from the Greek eu-angellion, meaning literally, well-message, more commonly, good news. Teaching children or adults that they are descended from reptiles is never good news. We should call evo-atheists mal-angelical, because it accurately describes what they’re doing: spreading hopelessly bad religious news.”

Now here is what I hope. I hope that the 15 members of the Texas school board take Don McLeroy’s suggestion to heart, and read this book from cover to cover. I couldn’t this morning because I am working with an empty stomach. But I want them to read the book and get out of it what I have been able to get from it. That this attempt by McLeroy and others of his ilk is nothing more than a naked assault on science by evangelical Christians. An action that completely supports, in the opposite sense, the whole point of Chapter 7 of the book that McLeroy recommends.

This effort to change how science is taught in Texas, specifically how evolution is taught, is nothing more than an assault on the “Establishment clause” of the 1^st Amendment to the US Constitution. An attempt to bring the Christian religion back into the public school system.

And we all have Don McLeroy to thank for pointing this out by recommending this book.