Quo Vadis GOP?

[Grey Fox]

Oklahoma having a normal one:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/oklahoma-orders-schools-teach-bible-every-classroom-2024-06-27/

Oklahoma orders schools to teach the Bible in every classroom

June 27 (Reuters) - Oklahoma's Department of Education ordered every teacher in the state to have a Bible in their classroom and to teach from it, in an announcement on Thursday that challenges U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have found state sponsorship of religion to be unconstitutional.

Ryan Walters, Oklahoma's superintendent of public instruction, announced the order with immediate effect at Thursday's Department of Education board meeting, in which he said special attention will be afforded to the Ten Commandments.

"Every teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom, and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom to ensure that this historical understanding is there for every student in the state of Oklahoma," he said.

He called the Bible, the holy scriptures of Judaism and Christianity, one of the "foundational documents of ... Western civilization." He said important historical figures, including civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., referred to the text.

Both the Hebrew and Christian Bible include the Jewish prophet Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, while only the Christian Bible includes the New Testament. Walters, who is Christian, did not stipulate which version teachers must use to comply with his order, and his spokesperson declined to answer questions.

The Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment has been interpreted to prohibit the state from sponsoring or establishing any particular religion. The Oklahoma Constitution, opens new tab goes further, stipulating that any public school and spending of public funds must be nonsectarian, and not benefit "any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion."

That part of the state constitution was cited two days before Walters' announcement, when the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down an effort in which Walters was involved to create the first taxpayer-funded religious charter school in the U.S.

The main teachers' labor union in Oklahoma said Walters' Bible order was unconstitutional and that state law said school districts have the right to decide which books are available in their classrooms.

"Teaching about the historical context of religion (and the Bible) is permissible; however, teaching religious doctrine is not permissible," the Oklahoma Education Association said in a statement. "Public schools cannot indoctrinate students with a particular religious belief or religious curriculum."

Pushing past the gut reaction of the Bible being the book forced upon teachers. The DoE doesn't seem to have push any instructions on the how of this new instructions being implemented. I'm guessing a lot of teachers are only going to display it on a shelf or something.

Apparently dumb orders from Department/Ministry heads is not just a Canada thing.

[Sheilbh]

Haven't read it yet - but it's on the shelf - Darren Dochuk's Anointed With Oil feels like it'd be interesting/relevant to this conversation.

[Razgovory]

Candace Owens is a popular right-wing commentator.  Among other things, she is apparently bone-stupid.


Candace Owens Describes Science as 'Pagan Faith'

Candace Owens has described science as a "pagan faith," after saying she had been reading literature supporting the theory that Earth is flat, rather than spherical.

Owens made the statement on Monday's episode of Candace, the podcast she launched last month following her exit from the Daily Wire in March. In the episode, titled "Why I Left This Religion," the conservative commentator said that when her husband, George Farmer, asked her what she was reading, she replied, "Oh, I'm reading a flat-Earth theory."

"And it dawned into an entire conversation," she continued. "He's like, 'Why are you reading a flat-Earth theory?' And I'm like, 'Because somebody messaged me on Minnect about it, and they included some links, and I'm just reading them."
"I'm just an interested person no matter what," Owens told her listeners. "If there's a bunch of people that believe something, I now want to know what it is that they believe. And, of course, he pushed me on this, and he was talking about the Earth curvature and science."

She continued: "And I said to him: 'Listen. I'm not a flat-earther. I'm not a round-earther.' Actually, what I am is, I am somebody who has left the cult of science. I have left the megachurch of science because what I have now realized is that science—what it is actually, if you think about it—is a pagan faith."

Explaining her stance, Owens, who recently announced that she had converted to Catholicism, took aim at, among other things, COVID-19 vaccines and safety measures that were implemented at the height of the pandemic.

"I have suffered from this condition of not trusting authorities when they say something to me that is so obviously stupid my entire life, and I contribute that, maybe, to coming from the school of hard knocks," she said, adding, "I am grateful for having gone through the school of hard knocks because you are required to have an element of common sense in order to survive."


"And when I look at people, and they hold on to 'But the doctor said this; but the experts said this,' and I see how extreme the things that they will do—they were masking 2-year-olds because doctors said, 'No, this person if they breathe, it's going to be a bad thing.' Well, I realized that that's a faith. That is a faith, and it is not a science," Owens continued.

Owens proceeded to play a clip of controversial influencer Andrew Tate, in which he expressed his own distrust of scientific data during the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said of Tate's sentiment: "Honestly, that is so relatable to me. I can't even explain it. 'I just know things because I've been around.' There are so many scenarios I find myself in where I'm unable to articulate the point. I'm unable to articulate the natural reaction that I have when somebody tries to sell me garbage. I can't articulate it when somebody explains to me, 'Well, the moon landings definitely happened.'"

Owens continued: "I'm just like, no, I don't know. Instinctually, it just doesn't register to me. Just feels like that is a lie. And I've realized that I've been thinking deeply about this, this pagan cult that we exist in. It is backed by a false science deity. That is what it is. It is the science. This is the new god."

"It is incredible to see the ways in which people worship this deity, right?" Owens said. "Climate change, unbelievable. People skipping school. People cry and convince these students that the world's going to be over in 10 years. Despite all of the evidence that this lobby has lied to them repeatedly over decades, they still believe it."

"Vaccines. I was legitimately raised to believe that my children would die unless I offered to the god of science their bodies so they could just get jabs on jabs—like 74 jabs now that children have to get from the time they're born until they graduate high school. And then I decided I wasn't going to do any of that, and I have the healthiest kids in the entire world, three of them. So yeah, I did not sacrifice my children to that deity. I still get called names for it, and I don't care," she added.

Owens said that she was open to reading literature on flat-Earth theory not because she believed in a flat Earth, but because she disbelieved "the notion that science is ever settled."

The media personality also said that "the longer people stay in school, it seems the dumber they become, and the more committed they also become to this church of humanism because that's ultimately what it is. They place their faith in humans, while at the same time bizarrely mocking Christians."

"It just keeps turning out that if you follow the Bible and believe in biblical scripture, your life gets better and better and better," added Owens, who recently said a "Christian holocaust" was taking place around the world. "But no, they place their faith in something else that they can't, they can't quite explain, but they trust implicitly."

Concluding the segment, Owens urged her listeners to "think about whether or not you were pledged into a faith unwittingly because I think we all were, just a little bit."

EDIT:  Forgot the link.  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/candace-owens-describes-science-as-pagan-faith/ar-BB1pm5uF?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=79874c3ab1784169e22a0ae19cb797b6&ei=10&sc=shoreline

[crazy canuck]

"It is incredible to see the ways in which people worship this deity, right?"

Right, although we may be thinking about different Gods.

[grumbler]

"she disbelieved "the notion that science is ever settled.""

Well, duh!  The very essence of scientific inquiry is that science is never settled.

So she abandons the concept that science is never settled because she somehow believed that science claimed to be settled, and went with Catholicism because... wait - it's Catholicism that has the belief that everything is settled.

I think that she is just one of those people unable to coexist with ambiguity.  She wants to be told the answers, and when she realized that all science had was interim answers, she abandoned it for something more certain of itself.

[viper37]

Candace Owens is a popular right-wing commentator.  Among other things, she is apparently bone-stupid.


Candace Owens Describes Science as 'Pagan Faith'

It's going to be a fun 50 years.  Enjoy!