and a nice book too.
You see on that day The Way of the Master (if you go there you may want to click "skip the intro" because "turn off intro" doesn't turn it off until the next time you go there), and Living Waters, will begin giving away copies of Charles Darwin's, "On the Origin of Species" to help celebrate the 150 years since it's publication.
You may wonder why the ministry of Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort, both creationists, want to help celebrate the the publication of this book that is so antithetical to what they believe.
Find out the real reason below the fold
Believe it or not The Way of the Master sees "The Origin of Species" as a conversion and proselytization tool! They will be taking the book, publishing it, giving it a classy look, and adding 50 pages to it telling the reader why it is bunk, how the theory of evolution is without scientific basis and how their interpretation of God, Jesus and Creation is the only answer.
They will be giving them away at the 50 top colleges and universities around the country. 50,000 (50 thousand copies) FREE
Look at it! Isn't it pretty! Doesn't it look like an organization that revere's his theory and honor's his memory put it out?! meh
And with the cost of textbooks what college student is going to refuse a free book. (Oh did I mention they are trying to expand this give away to other campuses as well).
They can do this because "On the Origin of the Species" is in the public domain. (You can read the original one on-line, here) you can read the blurb for their edition here.
But you needn't take my word for it, (yes I'm channeling Levar Burton) just listen to Kirk Cameron himself:
Granted 50,000 copies spread to 50 college and university campuses is really not a lot (only 1,000 per campus) but it's the rank obnoxiousness and a touch of hypocrisy of the whole thing that irritates me.
While growing up in Denver (1970s), Christians (both to the right and to the left) were annoyed and upset one Easter when the Hare Krishna's dressed up as the Easter Bunny to solicit donations at Stapleton Airport. They claimed that the bunny outfit around Easter would confuse people into thinking they were giving to a church, even though none of them, to my knowledge, claims the Easter Bunny as a religious symbol.
The swarminous of this is that while they are claiming to present both sides of the issue to smart college students they are in fact placing a rebuttal into the book of their objection, with no possibility of answer to their points. They are not handing out or proposing to hand out their ideas in a stand alone fashion detailing their beliefs and their truth.
Why? Could it be that they know college students won't accept it? So they have to go this underhanded route?
We know underhanded isn't new for this lot. Right after 9-11 they registered domain names that were close to those of Muslim/Islamic groups in this country (in some cases it was just a common mistype). Those thinking that they were going to the Muslim/Islamic group found themselves at Christian site proselytizing directly to Muslims. A Muslim friend of mine who had her site deal with a close registry was livid. She said that if someone didn't realize that they mistyped the URL they would think that she was a Christian missionary in Muslim clothing. She deeply resented the potential loss of credibility within her own religious community.
While they trumpet parents rights in the "do not touch my child with any ideology that is not my own," they have no problem disrespecting other parents rights to raise their children in the ideology or lack of ideology that they wish, (it doesn't matter whether they are non-Christian or the unapproved brand of Christian). We were at Disney World resort when one of these Christians gave my 12 year old son tracts when I had stepped out of the launderette.
He looked like a deer in headlights after he asked whether I minded (after the fact) and found out I did. I didn't spare him. We weren't paying to stay at the Swan and Dolphin (our first ever real family vacation) to be disrespected like that. (they're even prepared to disrespect your parental rights at Halloween)
Chris Rodda recently detailed how they are not only disrespecting Muslims, Muslim countries, our troops and our Constitution in Top Ten Ways to Convince the Muslims We're On a Crusade.
Troutfishing has many diaries detailing the extreme Christian right wing, often known as dominionism.
Sleezy, sneaky, disrespectful, it's the way these people roll.
It is and would be a mistake to think that just because we one and election we won this war. We have not. Look at how many Republican hopefuls showed up at the Value Voters Summit. The Value Voters Summit is made for the right wing Christian Evangelical Dominionist we are in a war with eeeeevvvviiiilllll stuff. And that war needs to fought in science classrooms.
I did see one great answer to "Operation: Spread the Ignorance:"
Oh and about her banana reference. . . here you go:
They are still here waiting for the next opportunity to get "Of Pandas and People" into the science classroom of public schools, or even the whole sale toss out of evolution altogether. Even if it means climbing in bed with Darwin to do it.
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edited to add two links I forgot and I'm checking on the tense of two words I used. And correct the title of Darwin's book (oops)