Gleaner, the mythology the old testament creations stories are based on is easily 6,000 or more years old. The fact that the Hebrews wrote their version down later than that doesn't mean that's when it first appeared.

So, no, Sock is not wrong.

And yes, creationists trying to get religion and mythology taught as science ARE a grave threat to the American education system, and should be fought vigorously. I would fight just as hard against any other form of pseudoscience being forced into classrooms. Fortunately, the crystal healing folks and the homeopaths don't have the lobbying money of the fundies.

Kenneth writes:

"All I want to reserve as issue is the idea that just anyone should or can embark upon the task of being their child's educator. The fact is that being a teacher, teaching well, is one of the most difficult professions.."

Agree 100%. I am an ex-teacher and a home schooler of twins (along with my wife), neither profession is for everyone..

Well gleaner, if you're goal is to feel and to appear to others as if you won a fight of some kind against sock, then I for one would call the match in your favor. I could argue that the stories in Mosaic tradition were delivered 4, 5, who knows how many thousands of years ago at the way-stations where the semitic polytheistic herders gathered in kin-based groups to share barterable goods, food, and the spoken stories that eventually coalesced into the story,
I hate that it seems to be too adversarial here to have had a discussion recognizing those possible implications of that photo on which could all conduct amenable and even productive discourse (I would be willing to bet that the picture was staged or doctored). My opinion, and what's been suggested by several books and articles, is that home-school allows for children to be informed and motivated about academia to a much greater and more consistent extent than public/private school. I have a book called "Teenage Liberation Handbook," which gives lots of great reasons for this, but I'll at my own peril assume that we all know the accurate general trends on the subject.
All I want to reserve as issue is the idea that just anyone should or can embark upon the task of being their child's educator. The fact is that being a teacher, teaching well, is one of the most difficult professions at which to succeed; in my home state anyway, the vast majority of public school educators have on the most skeletal of undergraduate credentials. But credentials don't necessarily mean much at all; any mediocre intellect can buy a PhD (and it's actually pretty cheap). But just as i public schools, you can't increase IQ through training. Your gifted children, friends, are bored and dying intellectually because the same teacher who is supposed to be exposing them to the knowledge they need to take their next scholastic step has to forgo new information to make sure that she reviews remedial skills incessantly to prevent the failure of the lowest common denominator. They have to make sure the below average and the marginally handicapped pass the standardize yest, or else they risk losing their schools'

You know you can edit your posts to add thoughts, instead of triple posting, right?

"...delivered to us 6,000 years ago by bronze age goat herders..."

Honestly, where did you get this from? Did you just make this up or what?

"p.s. - You seem to be pretty upset for no discernible reason. Might want to take a step back and ask yourself "WWJD"."

And you might want to ask yourself "WAISDD" (why am I so damn dumb)? Your errors made me blush and that takes alot...you know, being embarrassed for an atheist, that's a first for me...

[insert tapping fingers on a table sound here] Well, it seems as if ole Sock has now gone over to confer with jis high school buddy about those little bits of mis-information. you knows, Genesis written in 4000BC, the bronze age pushed back a thousand years....

Actually, I don't particularly care about what Ty thinks. I'm not beholden to anyone else here, in that what I say has to meet their rigorous standards. That does include you, too. :) And if you're the kind of person who resorts to reductio ad Hitlerum attacks in your very first response to something I've said, then I'm pretty well done with this.

p.s. - You seem to be pretty upset for no discernible reason. Might want to take a step back and ask yourself "WWJD".

Sock...I think you are conflating Bishop Ussher's date of 4004 BC. for the creation and assuming the bible was written at the same time? My goodness, I think even Ty might be embarrassed over that post of yours....

Sock,

"...delivered to us 6,000 years ago by bronze age goat herders..."

You might want to double check your dates on all that. If I was grading your paper you would get an big F. How long ago do you believe the bible was written? Seriously, you think it dates to *prior* to Ancient Egypt? Man, you are plain crazy...

Wow. Is this a new record for Godwin's Law?

Creationism has no place in the science classroom. It belongs in Sunday school, or home school, or anywhere else that makes it "okay" to teach children something based entirely on fantasy as if it had any actual basis in reality.

You can try to defend it as much as you want, but the simple fact of the matter is that a six day creation story is just that. A story. It's ridiculous and absurd to take something like that as fact, delivered to us 6,000 years ago by bronze age goat herders, who I find to be a far less credible source than a vast majority of modern day scientists, who are qualified in the field that this concerns.

Considering all the other "proof" that God left behind, if he was serious about wanting people to know, without a doubt, that he was real... I'm 100% confident he'd have a more reliable source than a book of legends and myths, which are mostly bastard versions of previous religions.

Just to make my actual position clear on this; I have no real problem with extermination per se, just so long as we are exterminating the right *kind* of people, you know, basically anyone I disagree with or feel threatened by...

Sock writes:

"It's creaotards trying to force their religious doctrine into the education of my non-existent children that I care about."

Ah yes. Those *creotards* again. They are not only ignorant but an ever-present threat to deal with. You would think that, since they are retarded, they couldn't come up with a workbale plan to do *anything*, much less run your school system huh? I think maybe a healthy dose of concentration camps would do the trick. And if that doesn't work, how about extermination? Hitler got rid of 6 million plus religous people, maybe it would work over here too?

Okay Sock. I see.

Home schooling isn't something I have a beef with. It's creaotards trying to force their religious doctrine into the education of my non-existent children that I care about.

Okay, thanks. I once taught in the public school system, so for every home schooler you see that can't spell, I'll show you about a hundred from the public school system just to balance the sheet. By the way, I home school my two children. Are you okay with that?

Homeschoolers is misspelled.

Joe B,

I'm not from Texas, could you explain a little more about this?

Texas Ed.