The Questioning Librarian

For years now, I've seen posts and received emails calling for God to be allowed back in schools. This is a sentiment often expressed publicly by religious leaders in times of crisis, that whatever crisis is occurring at the moment is because we've turned our collective back on God, including kicking him out of schools. Famously the daughter of Billy Graham made statements to that effect after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, which have since passed into a form of internet legend. Yet, for all the publicity these statements get, for all the reblogging, sharing and forwarding that these statements get, calls to "let God back into schools," as one woman put it in a letter to the editor , are not just wrong factually but downright disingenuous.  Let's take the claim at face value for analysis. While the exact wording varies from person to person, the claim seems like it might best be stated as follows: a) God has been prohibited from (public) school...

This morning, I was engaged in the self-flagellation of reading some of the articles on the Answers in Genesis website, and one in particular caught my eye. This article, calling for the " rescuing " of children from a good science education, was a take on the recent revelations that a Christian school gave a "science" test in which answers that no credible scientist would accept (see the image of the test here ) were given a perfect score. The question "Dinosaurs lived with people," was marked as "true" by both student and teacher, for instance, when in fact there is no evidence that humans ever lived with dinosaurs at any place or any time. What was particularly striking about this whole story was not Ham's reaction to it, which is fairly predictable given his usual penchant for identifying anyone accepting evolution as an "atheist," when in fact many Christians and members of other faiths accept the veracity of evolution. No, w...