THE stupidification of American children continues at depressing speed …
According to this report, Christian-based teaching materials dominate an escalating home-school education market encompassing more than 1.5 million students.
And for most home-school parents, a Bible-based version of the Earth’s creation is exactly what they want.
Federal statistics from 2007 show 83 percent of home-schooling parents want to give their children “religious or moral instruction.”
Said Ian Slatter, a spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association:
The majority of home-schoolers self-identify as evangelical Christians. Most home-schoolers will definitely have a sort of creationist component to their home-school program.
Those who don’t, however, often feel isolated and frustrated in their efforts to find a textbook that fits their beliefs.
Two of the best-selling biology textbooks stack the deck against evolution, said some science educators who reviewed sections of the books.
Said Jerry Coyne, an ecology and evolution professor at the University of Chicago:
I feel fairly strongly about this. These books are promulgating lies to kids.
Apologia Educational Ministries Inc, for example, says of its Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology (yours for a paltry $39.00):
Finally! Apologia introduces an elementary level Anatomy book that gives glory to God as children discover what’s going on inside their bodies! …They’ll study nutrition and health, how God designed their immune system to protect them, along with embryology and what makes them a unique creation of God.
Apologia’s motto is:
Learn, Live & Defend the Faith.
The textbook publishers defend their books as well-rounded lessons on evolution and its shortcomings. One of the books doesn’t attempt to mask disdain for Darwin and evolutionary science.
The introduction to Biology: Third Edition from Bob Jones University Press declares:
Those who do not believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God will find many points in this book puzzling. This book was not written for them.
The textbook delivers a religious ultimatum to young readers and parents, warning in its History of Life chapter that:
A Christian worldview … is the only correct view of reality; anyone who rejects it will not only fail to reach heaven but also fail to see the world as it truly is.
When challenged about that passage, university spokesman Brian Scoles said the sentence made it into the book because of an editing error and would be removed from future editions.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
March 6th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
There’s nothing sneaky about this way of exposing children to religious nonsense. Religious homeschooling is a means by which parents raise their children in a vacuum, ensuring their minds will never be exposed to facts that contradict the dogma or people who disagree with their narrow worldview. Some of these children never leave their homes other than to mingle with other (carefully selected) homeschooled children, to go to church and to go to pre-screened “religious” events. It’s child abuse, plain and simple.
March 7th, 2010 at 12:05 am
Coming soon to an “Academy” near you!
March 7th, 2010 at 1:00 am
Buffy may be correct. But the “parents want to give their children religious or moral instruction.” is PURE BS!!! I was raised catholic and went to public school and my parents wanted to give their children religious or moral instruction and did so at bible classes and church. The real reason is public schools teach SCIENCE and if their kids come home with difficult questions like “mom you said the earth is only 6000yrs old but….” they are lost because the parents are ignorant as hell and the buybull is true so how do you explain that??? Easy keep them home as Buffy says.
March 7th, 2010 at 4:53 am
But mommy, why did god create all of those nasty viruses and then give us an imperfect immune system?
March 7th, 2010 at 5:30 am
Works for Hamas.
March 7th, 2010 at 8:33 am
The fact that Bob Jones University is involved in this enterprise is enough to cause the ubiquitous “alarm bells” to go into meltdown! As I have pointed out before, this is where that intellectual giant and renowned theologian Billy Graham began his post-school education, leaving because he found the curriculum too “legalistic” (surprise, surprise!), only to be disowned later because of his links with liberal Christians and Catholics. This caused him much distress at the time.
http://www.time.com/time/magaz.....81,00.html
You can read more about the university, and the views of its charming founder, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jones_III
Some of this would actually be funny if it weren’t so sad!
http://www.everything2.com/tit.....University
Fresh Revelation From Bob & Bonnie Jones February 8, 2010:
“Many who are on the verge of rebellion have been faithful in the church for a long time. Don’t blow it now! We are in the time of change, so hang in there and help all of us bring this new freedom; this revolution of liberty.”
http://bobjones.org/
Oh, dear!
March 7th, 2010 at 10:15 am
Thank you, Dave for adding me to the list of contributers that have officially been deleted. LOL. I don’t blame you. I am very over the top.
But, wait!!! While it’s true that most of home schoolers in the US are fundie parents who can’t afford catholic school, you have to give them this, the inner city schools have metal detectors at the door to keep these kids from killing each other. And if I was a housewife, without a job, I would teach my kid at home as well.
I went to public school, and I barely survived the peer pressure, I don’t know what I would have done with the gun fire.
NeoWolfe
March 7th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Home schooling is on the increase in the UK too; it seems even the so called “faith schools” are not extreme enough for some parents. How does the average parent teach their child Physics or Chemistry? Of course they can’t because it contradicts the BS in their religious texts!
Home schools have the same sectarianism as religious schools; they do nothing to improve social cohesion or integration.
March 7th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
I met a USA Home Schooler a couple of years ago. Very proud. She says, “I am teaching my children myself.” Her further comments had the boasting tones that would have been out of place from a Science PH.D. Forget chemistry and physics, Angela, as some of these clowns, and certainly this one, had read nothing worthwhile. Nothing that you might consider literature; loads of junk. I remember one book she said the kids were studying called, “The Cross and the Switchblade.” I can’t enlighten you on that but she said it was a wonderful example of the christian faith.
The pastor called regularly, of course.
March 7th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
I recall seeing the film version of The Cross and the Switchblade in RE class when I was at a Catholic high school. Basically it tells the story of a preacher who is so amazing he manages to save a few souls from life in a violent, drug-fuelled street gang through his peaceful message of the gospel. It was held up as an example of how god saves with his message, but we couldn’t help but point out that more than half the people he encountered found the message pretty easy to ignore so it can’t have been that great. This, apparently, was MISSING THE POINT.
March 7th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
@Broga: That’s why education needs to be provided by the state, so that (i)all children get an equal start in life [utopian ideal, I know!], and (ii)children are protected, as far as is possible, from religious or political indoctrination. Your reference to The Cross & The Switchblade nearly caused me to have an apoplectic fit, however, here at Barriejohn Towers! This book was extremely popular during my student days, and is a typically emotive and sensationalist account of a Christian’s “ministry” amongst gangs in New York. Christians love this sort of thing, because they think it demonstrates just how “real” Jesus is, and how “relevant” the Gospel is, and is also a far cry from their own dull and miserable lives and almost complete lack of success in evangelism; but it has always left me cold, as you have to ask whether, even if it is all true, and even if much good is achieved, non-Christians with the same sort of commitment might have achieved the same results or better. However, to put this sort of lightweight material forward as “literature” really does take the wafer!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.....witchblade
March 7th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
@JohnMWhite. Thanks John. The woman in question, I met her her at someone’s “housewarming”, was brassy as hell, weighed around 20 stone, kept shouting across the room things like, “Hi Aloyishes (husband) isn’t this FENTESTIC. I jes kent believe whet ah’m hearing here. He comes from England.” Why coming from England was fantastic or other minutiau, I don’t know.
March 7th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
I think it should be made a part of children’s right to be confronted with other ideas than their own or their parents.
Because it’s important that kids don’t take the views of their upbringing for granted, and that they learn to get along with people who hold different opinions. This is why I consider homeschooling just wicked.
March 7th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
In the interests of fairness, one should point out that some home-schoolers seem to have got the balance just about right:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNEovTrHLNQ
March 7th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
@barriejohn I had no idea that The Cross and the Switchblade was some kind of seminal christian work. Reading your link (for which I thank you) I noticed that the pastor was played by Pat Boone. Now I am of an age when as soon as I heard Elvis Presley and then heard that he was being condemned to hell by the USA Clergy I was on board i.e. with Elvis. Soon afterwards along comes Pat Boone and he was a kind of USA Cliff Richard and very Christian and holy. And he stayed that way. Yuk!
Didn’t know, however, that he played the pastor in that film.
Sticking around here on this site is an education in itself.
I came to atheism early, I suppose. Big doubts around age 15 at Grammar School (still had them then) when visiting vicar to the school (divinity every Thursday for an hour) told us Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell was a terrible book but said he had not read it as the title was a disgrace. Not too long before we all read it. A few years later a colleague started passing me The Freethinker, with terrific front page articles by David Tribe (hero of mine), and that was it. Couldn’t get enough of atheist writers.
March 7th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
The involvement of Bob Jones “University” is truly reprehensible. However, it should be noted that all home schooling is harmful and abusive to children.
March 7th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
The Christian Institute posted their hilarious take on YouTube last year in an attempt to make out that ensuring home schoolers teach the National Curriculum is a form of anti-religion totalitarianism that will upset mummies, daddies and kids alike.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wbz7zzqVjq8
Maud Flanders, take your cue -
“Ohhhh!! Won’t somebody PLEASE, think of the CHIL-dren!!”
March 7th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
As Broga says, visiting this site is a real education. I didn’t have any idea that the Cretinous Institute had made any films! Some of the comments are priceless – how remiss if them not to have “instituted” moderation!!
“amsterdammed71 (4 months ago): Well one interesting idea is for the Vatican and most churches to give all their riches away. We’d solve world poverty before you can say ‘Sermon on the Mount’.
”
Pat Boone was indeed the US St Cliff Richard, Broga – and HE couldn’t sing either! A lot of my Christian friends idolized him. I wish I had been as astute as yourself when I was young!
BTW St Cliff also starred in a Billy Graham film, and showed that, like Pat Boone, he could act as badly as he could sing, so they had a LOT in common!!
Cliff Richard’s first serious acting role took place in the 1967 film Two a Penny, released by Billy Graham’s World Wide Pictures, in which he played a young man who gets involved in drug dealing while questioning his life after his girlfriend changes her attitude. He released the live album “Cliff in Japan”, which featured Olivia Newton-John as backing singer and John Farrar on guitar (Farrar would later be Newton-John’s producer). (From Cliff’s Wikipedia entry.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_a_Penny
March 8th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Being in the private school circuit for my formative years, I actually had the chance to meet many of these home-schooled children. They were actually pretty darn good at basketball. However, speaking to them for five minutes before or after the game, I noticed two large points:
1) Their woeful ignorance, and unashamedness at their ignorance, of science and social skills (I’m no social butterfly by any means, but these guys make me look like a skilled diplomat).
2) Their complete resentment at having to talk to people not in their group. They breed a dangerous ideal of isolation.
Frankly, though I know there are gun problems in schools here, as well as knives and just general bullying, how will they be prepared for the outside world? Do their parents only come out during the daytime, with a police escort? Do they just lock the world out at night? I wondered if they could even go to a movie with friends on the weekends. Of course, one of the funniest things I remembered was talking to a home-school kid who had a fairly proficient drug use (marijuana at the least). It seems that no matter how hard the parents tried to keep the “corrupting influences” (not that I really consider pot to be one, though most people over here do) of society at bay, all they did was under-expose their kids to the ups and downs of this world, and make everything ten times worse in the process.
If these kids don’t learn that problems exist, how can they learn to deal with them?
March 8th, 2010 at 7:25 pm
This will either have you rolling on the floor laughing or spitting nails, depending on your background!
http://www.homeschool.co.uk/re.....ughts.html
Genesis 1.1 – the starting point – what hope is there for an education if it begins with error and sin on this point ?
“No worse thief than a bad book”
5. Parents want ‘the best’ for their children.
6. ‘The best’ is a life of glorifying God and enjoying him forever. Their true human personhood will be found in the knowledge of God in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the life of worship and service which flows from this.
16. Education: ‘the systematic instruction, schooling or training given to the young in preparation for the work of life.’ (Shorter OED). We know what the work of life is – to fulfil the end of our creation – the purpose for which God made us. And the purpose for which God made us was that we should glorify him and enjoy him forever. Thus the education which our children receive is to be judged according to its effectiveness in instructing, schooling and training children to live to the glory of God.
23. Jesus is Lord. The world is mad to deny this. Do you want your children taught in a madhouse by madmen and madwomen?
36. Do children belong to the state or to parents? Neither – they belong to GOD!
More such nonsense on the website!!
March 8th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
There are many more articles listed on the home page, BTW, including some bunkum about “Homoeopathy and ADD”, you will not be surprised to learn!
http://www.homeschool.co.uk/
March 8th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Believe it or not, the Bible even tells you how to hold your pen correctly1 (Well, perhaps not exactly, but I see that good old Bob Jones gets a mention here – what a surprise!!)
“We have used Bob Jones writing program and the books show models of how to hold the pencil and how to set your paper.”
http://www.homeschool.co.uk/re.....ectly.html
March 12th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
For the record, I am a Christian, I lead worship in my church, lead prayer groups, etc.
I also believe that in most cases home education is at best inappropriate, at worst abusive. I have only met ONE famiy ever whose home schooled children were stable, happy, with lots of interests and hobbies which werent home based and a mix of both Christian and non-Christian friends.
All the rest really alarm me. Especially the ones who teach their children mostly “music, art and nature”. Nature being “isnt this pretty” rather than science.
Liz
March 23rd, 2010 at 3:54 pm
The question of whether homeschooling works is no longer relevant. The homeschooling children of the ’80s and ’90s have grown up and are living successful lives. I know. I homeschooled my children for 20 years. They turned out fine, and are the most social young adults you will ever meet. I can’t imagine sitting around bashing atheists. What are you so angry about? Get a life. By the way, at the age of 48 I finished college and am now teaching teens from the projects in an inner city public school.
September 8th, 2010 at 3:44 am
I can not believe the comments. The people on here think that homeschoolers are crazy, just go back and read all the posts and it is clear who is ignorant and crazy. MY children are homeschooled…they are MY children and I have that choice. The government did not give birth to my children and they are not responsible to decide what type of schooling my children receive. Look back in history at the early presidents(yes, we even study the presidents in our home school)many were “home schooled” as were many other great men and women in our history.