I would like to point out that we limit them to the western edge of the state a pretend that they are Nebraskans. Just sayin’ 
Unless I’m mistaken, it has to do with Texas having a textbook committee that selects books for the entire state, while California school districts have more autonomy; thus, the books selected for the San Diego Unified School District will not necessarily be the same as the books used in Napa County.
If California school districts all used the same books, they would represent a much larger bloc of customers than the Texas school system.
Ah, that would make sense.
That’s my understanding also. The selection committee might have had to work from an approved set, but I think the set was fairly large, and I didn’t get the sense that they felt constrained.
In our district, if the schools did anything at all that might be seen as devaluing the worth of the high school diploma, there would be a firestorm of protest. Good SAT scores and good school reputation is hundreds of times more important than religion.
The thing I always found strange about the Flintstones is not that it was about humans living among dinosaurs, but that they celebrated CHRISTMAS. They even had a Christmas version of Fruity Pebbles cereal! So what % of people thinks that Jesus walked among the dinosaurs too?
Even Jesus would be careful about walking amongst dinosaur. The dangers of walking directly in front of a dinosaur are obvious, but walking directly behind and beneath…well, lets just draw a discreet veil over that, shall we?
Ah, but that’s the magic of the Flintstones - the show was set not in the past, but in a dimly imagined future. Sort of Fallout meets Jurassic Park.
Judging from the pictures I’ve seen of Jesus and dinosaurs I rather think He sort of mosied among them.
I mean, Texas has world-class universities, and a lot of very wealthy, educated people.
Yet much of the populace embraces medieval theological ideas…witness the popularity of frauds like Robert Tilton!
(Tilton went to jail for fraud, and yet, re-established his “church”-and is now rolling in dough!)
But having a figure of Jesus smushed in dinosaur poop on the walls of many Christians would be awesome!
I trust they wouldn’t change the composition of the Communion wafer.
If you want to make sense of it, I suggest you read Made in Texas, by Michael Lind (a native Texan – who also wrote a book-length epic poem about the Battle of the Alamo). It explores the various historical legacies and subcultures that have gone into making the Lone Star State the paradoxical place that it is, and that could produce both LBJ and GWB, a purely extractive oil industry and a vibrant, creative computer industry, etc.
Similar cognitive dissonance emerged in B.C. when Johnny Hart got born again late in life.
An epic poem about the Battle of the what?
Hey, if Jesus could walk on water, surely he could walk on … not-water.
Nah, gotta disagree with ya here, Cyningablod. It’s not so much a matter of “truths” as “discrete classes of phenomena”. Science is a way of understanding rational phenomena - those things that can, ultimately, be described mathematically. But there are nonrational phenomena, as well.
A thought experiment: Consider the statement “Huckleberry Finn was Mark Twain’s greatest book.” Can this statement be proven or disproven scientifically? No, of course not. Does that mean that the statement is meaningless? Also no - just that that statement is subject to a different set of analytical tools. Does that mean that science and literary criticism are antithetical? That’s also a “no”.
That’s my objection to statements like ninjachick’s in post 48, that science and religion are antithetical.
(Credit where it’s due - I got this idea from Stephen Jay Gould’s essays on what he called “nonoverlapping magisteria.” The thought experiment is my own, though.)
We already established upthread that Jesus didn’t walk among dinosaurs. He rode them – bareback. (Jesus was immune to STDs.)
The sorely missed.
True dat.
Bows head reverently for a moment of silence
Not only that, the Texans are dumbing down history for everybody else.
The Battle of the Alamosaurus. Pay attention, geez :rolleyes: