Evolution Not Scientific? Get Outta Here!

Go read this article from the NY Times and listen to the audio that accompanies it. In an 11th grade, public school class about the constitution of the US, the teacher has been forcing his beliefs upon the students and outright rejecting evolution. Take this excerpt of one of the recordings from class as an example:

If you reject his gift of salvation, then you know where you belong. He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered your pains for you, and he’s saying, "Please, accept me, believe." If you reject that, you belong in hell.

I consider myself a Christian, to a point. I don't like the idea of organized religion as it is more often used as a tool for exclusion and judgment, as well as reinforcing closed mindedness, rather than as a place for community and fostering enlightened thought. What this guy is saying is downright offensive to me. In a public school environment, a teacher should not even imagine forcing his beliefs on his students. But not the case here.

What is more disturbing than the force feeding of dogmatic beliefs upon the students of that class is the amount of backlash the student who recorded the conversations has received. The community and fellow classmates of Matthew LaClair. Instead of acknowledging the wrongdoing of the teacher, David Paszkiewicz, people have been sending Matthew death threats, criticizing his recording of class, and have been defending Paszkiewicz.

I can tell you one thing, I would hate to live in that community. I can almost feel the stubborn, closed minded aura of oppression emanating from the Kearny, New Jersey. It is sickening and very disheartening to know that in our nation, supposedly one of the more progressive in the world, there are still so many ignorant people in it.