y’all I CANNOT
Okay so yes we need to put more money into education in the US but y'all this SPECIFIC line of thinking has much less to do with public education and everything to do with the evangelical war on science. This exact “earth age” rhetoric isn’t the result of dumb people, its being taught in Christian schools and touted in evangelical churches. Evangelical lobbies help pass laws that force states to teach creationism alongside evolution. Millions are spent every year by evangelical institutions to convince partitions that science is lying to them, to force them to belive the only place they can find truth is the church. Creationism is just another facet of that and acting like it just “Americans are dumb” rather than a pointed, purposeful campaign to keep people in a what amounts to a cult, is not oy disingenuous, its dangerous
Thank you, Uni.
Yeah as someone who was taught the earth was 6000 years old and believed it until I was like, 22: its a cultish weird thing you get shoved into your hea from a VERY young age. We had sunday school classes about how evolution was wrong when I was growing up; and about how feminism and even egaltarianism was wrong as well. Brainwashing doesn’t skip over you based on whether or not you are “smart”.
Brainwashing doesn’t skip over you based on whether or not you are “smart.”
Yeah this isn’t a “stupid Americans” thing this is EXPLICITLY a white evangelical creationist thing
My church/cult literally constantly railed against evolution. Coached us as children with all sorts of talking points. Encouraged us to interrupt and sabotage our science classes. We had a display full of different tracts on the wall and one was specifically for “debunking” evolution and carbon dating.
Hell when I had to write a paper abt evolution in my eight grade science class I was encouraged to state that the earth is 6000 years old and that evolution isn’t real
there’s an entire SITE dedicated to this shit that the church talked about constantly too—Answers In Genesis
There’s a CREATIONIST MUSEUM in Kentucky. When it was made it was the talk of the town tbh. Our youth group organized a trip to visit—I didn’t go thank god.
I hear now there’s multiple “museums” for it these days
My aunt gave me a book called “It Couldnt Just Happen”. A children’s book with all sorts of talking points abt how evolution is fake and the world could only have been created by god
So no this isn’t an American ™ thing this is explicitly an evangelical thing and it is indeed brainwashing and fits the “information control” aspect of the BITE model for determining if a group is a cult.
folding ideas recently released a video on a geocentrism documentary discussing things somewhat along these lines. I personally knew somebody around 12 year ago (a filipina canadian) who opted out of a biology course because she didn’t believe in evolution. so this shit is not just deeply ingrained in the us, although I’m sure it is - it has a very strong foothold in canada as well touching people from all walks of life
I had biology classes in my private Christian middle school that taught this - was even given EXTRA CREDIT for finding an evolutionary scientist and having an argument with them online. The idea makes me cringe with embarrassment now - I really wish I could find that poor man and apologize to him, because he was very kind to a twelve year old who had clearly been encouraged by her teachers to do this, even though I was being entirely smug and self-satisfied about it. I didn’t even really shake the knee-jerk reaction until around 20 when I had a class that provided me with pretty unshakable proof that evolution was a very real thing.
When you talk to people about this, please remember that they’ve already been told that the nonbelievers are going to reject them, that people being mean to them is proof that they’re doing a good job. It’s the kind of conditioning it’s very hard to unlearn, and today as a 35-year-old I still have gaps in my knowledge that my friends have to fill in from time to time just because of how sheltered I ended up being.
Be kind, is what I’m saying.
