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Science and Religion in Local Schools in 2003

by Lewis Loflin

Sullivan County and Tri-Cities were ranked by ING Investments as one of the worst places in America to earn a living in 2001, even before the economic losses after September 11. It was also ranked among the least educated and has among the lowest job growth in America. Since then the situation has grown far worse due to the September 11 terrorist attacks and a sick economy.

With all of this economic chaos, the wagons are drawn around the Ten Commandments religious monument in Blountville. What triggered the most recent rounds of religious silliness was a student in Sullivan County got suspended for harassing a teacher over science class studies. Sullivan County is so much into this nonsense they even put emergency services on "Rapture Alert" for Y2K in December 1999. While students of minority faiths often face harassment in local schools, now it extends to teachers as well. In this case a science teacher was singled out as an atheist because she wouldn't discuss biblical "creation science" in the classroom. This is against school policy, but didn't end the attempts to intimidate the teacher. The students were warned; finally, one got expelled for a day. Anyone believing in evolution is branded an atheist in this community. Here is what it's all about in I letter to the editor I wrote that was published in the Kingsport Times-News October 26, 2003:

Student went too far

Regarding the latest uproar over science in school and the student suspension in Sullivan County, it's not about science. Theory in science means the best explanation for the observed data. Science can't deal in questions of God. It's not about evolution, just the Apostle Paul.

Paul is the true founder of Christianity. He never even met Jesus in the flesh but proclaimed some Gnostic Christ during an epileptic seizure on the road to Damascus. Self-proclaiming his own authority and influenced by Hellenistic Platonism and Stoicism, he elevated the man Jesus to a deity. The Greek convert John (126 CE?) completed the platonic Logos.

Accused of idolatry and polytheism, the church concocted the pagan Trinity in the fourth century to tie together Paul's Gnostic Christ, the Jesus idol, and the Hebrew God. This is a total violation of the Ten Commandments these fundamentalists demand others worship.

Genesis has two conflicting creation stories. The first at 1:26 has God create animals, then man and woman together. The second (2:4) has in order: dust, Adam, garden, animals, and rib, Eve. Without a historical Adam, Paul's Original Sin theology falls apart. Evolution doesn't disprove God at all, just some religious interpretations.

The student persisted in promoting the bigotry she was taught at home, was warned, and got what she deserved. Trying to reason with irrational people is a waste of time. No amount of proof will work. If these cult-like fundamentalists want to play science, then their religion deserves scrutiny as well.

They are welcome to their self-imposed ignorance and censorship, but don't force it on others.

Lewis Loflin
Bristol, VA.

I decided it's time to force these idiots to deal with reality. I hit the newspapers and local radio stations.

Newspaper extract

Also during public comment Monday, a Bristol, VA., resident told the commission "it's about time to remove" a plaque featuring the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the Sullivan County Courthouse. Lewis Loflin said other counties in Tennessee have lost court battles over similar displays. He said he plans to come back to the commission and request to place a plaque in the courthouse "in tribute to Francis David, a victim of violent fundamentalism."

"I will not fill out any forms or submit anything to the Christian censorship committee," Loflin said, in apparent reference to the County Commission's established process for displays such as the Ten Commandments plaque. Such displays require that requests - there is a commission-approved application form for those making the request to fill out - to go before the commission's Building Committee.

September 16, 2003 Kingsport Times-News.

Quoting the Kingsport Times-News (1-18-2003) on comments by Sullivan County Tennessee attorney Dan Street on the Ten Commandments religious plaque placed in the Sullivan County, Tennessee courthouse by the local SBC,

"It seems clearer and clearer and clearer that we are promoting a particular religion, and that's a violation of the Constitution. The Constitution is the one document that protects minorities, and just because most people feel the Christian faith or the Jewish faith is the right faith, that doesn't mean they have a right to impose it on everyone else."

Street added that there are plenty of Christians and Jews who may follow the Ten Commandments but don't believe they should be displayed in public buildings. Most of the time, however, those people don't come forward with their opinion because they are afraid of being chastised, he said. "People think if you want the Ten Commandments down you're an atheist, and that's just not true," he said.

Separation of church and state is interpreted as persecution. This is carried into the schools and is used against students and even teachers as shown above. The fundamentalists already blame our economic problems on a lack of religion in schools and lack of God in government. Not only do students have to deal with under-funding and drugs, but thugs, racists, and religious bigots edged on by adults. Here is a quote from one student at Sullivan North left on my guest book:

I am a junior at North. Since we don't have a SRO anymore there have been about five violent fights and there is nothing that anyone can do about it. The teachers or whomever that is around when it happens usually just stands there and laughs. Teachers are too afraid to use authority and the fights seem to get worse. There have been threats made to teachers from students and nothing gets done about it. I cannot wait until I can leave this hell. It's torture. I don't blame so many teachers for packing up and leaving. I would to.
Jeff <don't want to show it.>
Kingsport, TN USA - Saturday, September 27, 2003 at 07:32:10 (PDT)

This is just why the Sullivan North principal blasted county commissioners over funding shortage. He went just before I made my speech and let them have it over this issue. They removed all security from the schools to save money and now kids are getting beat up and assaulted. He also said he couldn't hire teachers because the pay is so low. Yet they continue to ignore this and run a church out of the county courthouse.

On top of disrupting school over religion, we have a Rev. Poff that wants to ban Halloween as Satanic.

See Evolution Debate

 

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