Band Teacher Criticizes History (and Evolution)

[Deleted member 5174]

Hello LoR,

I haven't been here in a while but I think I will get into the forum like I once used to.
But that's besides the point - I am taking a summer class on Fine Arts due to my preference of learning the paintings than actually drawing.
I thought I would enjoy the class when the teacher, a band teacher at my school, described our course and said that we would be learning the various different philosophies behind the art, such as existentialism and pluralism and the like.
It got particulary disastrous when he started the "teaching" with this statement (not exact, this is from yesterday and today): "I don't believe in evolution and everyone who knows me knows that. I'm not gonna tell you what I do believe, but I just can't believe in evolution."

So far I have been in that class for a total of 8 hours. Here are the arguments/techniques he uses that I have gathered and summed up, as well as why I could tell he was a fundie Christian, not a true skeptic:

1. Our textbook, "The Creative Impulse", starts off the paragraph by stating humans have been hunter-gatherers for some millions of years. He stopped us there and told us he would teach us a quick "critical thinking" method: he told us that the book has a 'pro-evolution' bias and that people will try to brainwash you into thinking what they think.
2. He then drew a line on the chalkboard and divided Philosophies with God on the left and Philosophies without God on the right.
3. He told us his main reason, out of one of "many reasons", why he does not believe (I would say accept) evolution: the textbook continued on to say that men discovered fire, clothing, and et cetera. He then said, "we've been walking around for millions of years and one day we just discover clothing?!"
4. He used the same reasoning when we came to the page about the ancient Egyptians: "if evolution is true, they are saying that we came up with the Harp after one day.."
5. He constantly advocates skepticism [which frankly is a good thing when used and applied properly] - "I don't know but we do know these people are wrong" yet, he does not apply the same degree of skepticism to the Bible - he does admit it could be wrong on several accounts but says it's a "historical document" and it is "accurate" because it mentions cities like Ur, nations like Egypt and Babylon.
6. He's glad that he can talk about religion in this class since it stays within the rules. He also believes he is equipping us with tools to challenge University professors who usually will 'beat down' on kids who do not know anything, as he says..
7. We are watching the documentary "Egypt's Golden Empire". He periodically stops and inserts his own comments in. He accuses Zahi Hawass with the claim that he is being paid by the Egyptian government and is "painting the history of Egypt in the way the Egyptians want it"..
8. He mentions the possibility that the Hyksos who invaded Egypt (the documentary never mentions how they took over, so the teacher assumes it was power transfer) could be the Hebrews because the Hyksos were sheperd-kings and Hebrews were sheperds.. Well, he not only mentions the possibility but acts according to.. then stops at the end and says "it's all for debate guys, no one knows".
9. And he also says that Moses could have been the pharaoh who wiped Hatshepsut's name off the records.
10. He claims that when you calculate the "accurate" and "consistent" Jewish lunar calendar (???) it will make the date of the Exodus 1440 BC.
11. He believes that an actual Exodus happened, but also says the number is "debatable"..
12. He doesn't believe that the Egyptian pharaohs built the Great Pyramid - "they just didn't have the technology". He postulated the idea that a global flood could have wiped out the technology since the lesser two pyramids are more crude and less exact in measurement..
13. He mentions "factoids" about the Great Pyramid, such as how it lines up with the stars and how the blocks were too heavy. The Egyptians couldn't have done it, in his mind.
14. He paused the video when one of the experts in the documentary said that Akhenaten was the first recorded monotheist and then proceeded to apologized to us because "that statement could be offensive to any of you that is religious". He went back to a timeline he drew earlier (in which he tried to demonstrate Moses and the walls of Jericho and other things) and said that the evolutionist's worldview is people walking around for few m.y. and suddenly discovering civilization and polytheistic religions arising and Akhenaten coming up with monotheism. Then he contrasted with how if you believe in God, you believe some people went wayward from God and then Akhenaten stole monotheism from the Hebrews.
15. I am backtracking because there is so much to remember. He made us "research" (i.e. Google) up similiarities between the flood stories of Noah's Ark and the Epic of Gilgamesh.
16. He also made some of us look up "is Gilgamesh Nimrod?" (Nimrod is mentioned in the Bible)
17. He tried to make the case that the Sumerians could have stolen the story from the Old Testament, not the other way around (and in the process assumed that all scholars firmly believe and have established that the Bible stole from Gilgamesh Epic).
18. He said that the "modern scientific worldview" says there is no god.
19. He mixes "science" and "evolution" frequently in the context of: "If you believe in evoltuion, ...." and "If you believe in science, ..."
20. Back to the Egypt thing: he CONSTANTLY mocks the Ancient Aliens hypothesis [I will call it hypothesis since the teacher uses the word Theory like political theories] and once said, "If you believe in evolution, you might as well as believe in aliens.."
21. He mentioned "the teacher from Ferris Bueller" and how he made a documentary about "challenging the universities" and that "Universities are the worst places you can go, actually".
22. Claims mainstream scholars/historians are anti-semitic, just like how he claims they are evolutionists, embrace science, don't believe in God, etc.

Hm, those are the ones I can think of for now. I am sure I have more and will either come back and post some more absurdities or edit and expand this post.

For 4 hours the last two days I have been wishing for someone like Dawkins to come walk in to the classroom. I'd like to hear any comments, feedback, etc.

 

[kenandkids]

Re: Band Teacher Critiquing History and Evolution

You need to file a complaint about this teacher. " ...a summer class on Fine Arts..." is fine for a creationist to teach, but repeatedly trying to impose his ridiculous conspiracy theories and religion on you is outside the bounds of the class.

 

[televator]

Re: Band Teacher Critiquing History and Evolution

1. Our textbook, "The Creative Impulse", starts off the paragraph by stating humans have been hunter-gatherers for some millions of years. He stopped us there and told us he would teach us a quick "critical thinking" method: he told us that the book has a 'pro-evolution' bias a
and that people will try to brainwash you into thinking what they think.

No kidding? :lol: How a zealot can say such things with a straight face just boggles my mind...

I also recommend complaining. If no one hears you out, threaten with the ACLU...err....what country is this in?

 

[australopithecus]

Re: Band Teacher Critiquing History and Evolution

Yeah, an art class isn't the place to be preaching creationism. Tell him to shut up and do his job, which I imagine would be teaching you art not bullshit.

 

[Rumraket]

Re: Band Teacher Critiquing History and Evolution

Yeah, an art class isn't the place to be preaching creationism. Tell him to shut up and do his job, which I imagine would be teaching you art not bullshit.

Some forms of bullshit are really an artform in themselves

 

[Duvelthehobbit666]

Re: Band Teacher Critiquing History and Evolution

Yeah, an art class isn't the place to be preaching creationism. Tell him to shut up and do his job, which I imagine would be teaching you art not bullshit.

Some forms of bullshit are really an artform in themselves

Only you can't get it on canvas.

 

[Rumraket]

Re: Band Teacher Critiquing History and Evolution

Some forms of bullshit are really an artform in themselves

Only you can't get it on canvas.

:lol:

 

[Deleted member 619]

Re: Band Teacher Critiquing History and Evolution

1. Our textbook, "The Creative Impulse", starts off the paragraph by stating humans have been hunter-gatherers for some millions of years. He stopped us there and told us he would teach us a quick "critical thinking" method: he told us that the book has a 'pro-evolution' bias and that people will try to brainwash you into thinking what they think.

Ah, so the book is biased toward what is demonstrably true, then?

I just love the hypocrisy in the last statement there, as well.

2. He then drew a line on the chalkboard and divided Philosophies with God on the left and Philosophies without God on the right.

So, he drew a line on the board and failed to use the correct labels, namely theology on the left and philosophy on the right.

There is no such thing as a philosophy with god. Philosophy is concerned with truth, while theology is concerned only with supporting pre-conceived conclusions or, as I like to call them, fuckwitted wibble.

3. He told us his main reason, out of one of "many reasons", why he does not believe (I would say accept) evolution: the textbook continued on to say that men discovered fire, clothing, and et cetera. He then said, "we've been walking around for millions of years and one day we just discover clothing?!"

Well, I don't believe in evolution either. I know that evolution is a fact. Belief doesn't come into it. More importantly, though, no, we didn't just one day discover clothing. This is precisely the sort of digital thinking that is characteristic of cretinist 'thought'. The beginning of use of clothing was almost certainly a very gradual thing, much like the agricultural revolution, for example. We didn't just one day begin keeping cattle, we began by guarding our territories against competition, then moved to feeding and then enclosing. It's a gradient, and there is no point at which we 'one day just' do anything.

4. He used the same reasoning when we came to the page about the ancient Egyptians: "if evolution is true, they are saying that we came up with the Harp after one day.."

Actually, no. In precisely the same way that the modern trumpet evolved from earlier iterations of similar instruments, back to the sackbut and beyond, the harp evolved by incremental improvements from earlier instruments. Again, it's a gradient.

5. He constantly advocates skepticism [which frankly is a good thing when used and applied properly] - "I don't know but we do know these people are wrong" yet, he does not apply the same degree of skepticism to the Bible - he does admit it could be wrong on several accounts but says it's a "historical document" and it is "accurate" because it mentions cities like Ur, nations like Egypt and Babylon.

Yes, and The Harry Potter books mention, among other places, France, Hungary, King's Cross train station, etc. Does this mean that Hogwarts is real?

6. He's glad that he can talk about religion in this class since it stays within the rules. He also believes he is equipping us with tools to challenge University professors who usually will 'beat down' on kids who do not know anything, as he says..

Invite him here, and we can beat him down for not knowing anything.

7. We are watching the documentary "Egypt's Golden Empire". He periodically stops and inserts his own comments in. He accuses Zahi Hawass with the claim that he is being paid by the Egyptian government and is "painting the history of Egypt in the way the Egyptians want it"..

What's the old saying...? History is written by the victors?

Interestingly, though, perhaps your fuckwit could answer a question for us: Why were the Egyptians digging canals when they were under 9 km of water?

8. He mentions the possibility that the Hyksos who invaded Egypt (the documentary never mentions how they took over, so the teacher assumes it was power transfer) could be the Hebrews because the Hyksos were sheperd-kings and Hebrews were sheperds.. Well, he not only mentions the possibility but acts according to.. then stops at the end and says "it's all for debate guys, no one knows".

Well, there are some interesting hypotheses out there, not least the one that says that the Hebrews were actually the exiled followers of Akhenaten. Laurence Gardner wrote a pretty interesting book about this. Some of his conclusions are a bit woolly, but he is a historian, and not a scientist.

9. And he also says that Moses could have been the pharaoh who wiped Hatshepsut's name off the records.

Errr, no. It could be that he was Tutankhamen's brother Tuthmoses, both being the sons of Akhenaten.

10. He claims that when you calculate the "accurate" and "consistent" Jewish lunar calendar (???) it will make the date of the Exodus 1440 BC.

Except, of course, that there is zero archaeological evidence in support of the postulate that any exodus took place. This is problematic, because any movement of people on such a scale would be bound to leave plenty of evidence. The region has been scoured for the best part of 200 years, with not a scrap of evidence turning up.

11. He believes that an actual Exodus happened, but also says the number is "debatable"..

Well, what he believes is of no consequence, as any self-professed skeptic should know. What is of consequence is what he can demonstrate. Can't wait for his evidence, especially since it has foxed archaeologists for quite some time.

12. He doesn't believe that the Egyptian pharaohs built the Great Pyramid - "they just didn't have the technology". He postulated the idea that a global flood could have wiped out the technology since the lesser two pyramids are more crude and less exact in measurement..

Or it could be that much was learned during the construction of the lesser pyramids that was applied to the great pyramid. It should be noted that there is no amazing technology required to conduct a construction on the scale of the pyramids. There are some technical challenges involved, but most of those are to do with the layout of the interior and keeping it all straight during construction. There is a simple equation that demonstrates the fallacy he is committing here:

Manpower + will = pyramid. That is all.

13. He mentions "factoids" about the Great Pyramid, such as how it lines up with the stars and how the blocks were too heavy. The Egyptians couldn't have done it, in his mind.

What? Utter bollocks.

The understanding of the cycles of the heavens were understood in ancient times far better than most people understand them now. A quick scan of Neolithic Europe should be sufficient todisabuse him of the notion that there is anything special (impressive though it is) about the understanding of ancient astronomers. As for the weight of the blocks, maybe he's heard of a discipline known as 'engineering', which has been with us for many thousands of years, if not always as sophisticated as it is today. Again, Neolithic Europe provides ample evidence that he's talking out his arse. Point him to some pictures of Stonehenge, which is roughly contemporary with the pyramids, and without anything like the manpower available to the Egyptians.

14. He paused the video when one of the experts in the documentary said that Akhenaten was the first recorded monotheist and then proceeded to apologized to us because "that statement could be offensive to any of you that is religious". He went back to a timeline he drew earlier (in which he tried to demonstrate Moses and the walls of Jericho and other things) and said that the evolutionist's worldview is people walking around for few m.y. and suddenly discovering civilization and polytheistic religions arising and Akhenaten coming up with monotheism. Then he contrasted with how if you believe in God, you believe some people went wayward from God and then Akhenaten stole monotheism from the Hebrews.

Why would it be offensive to somebody religious that somebody several thousand years ago had some similar beliefs? In any event, I've dealt with most of this above.

15. I am backtracking because there is so much to remember. He made us "research" (i.e. Google) up similiarities between the flood stories of Noah's Ark and the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Stories, eh? I have a story, namely one in which there is no evidence whatsoever to support the idea of a global flood in the last 10,000 years, and huge bloody swathes of evidence that no such event occurred, not least in the many, many species of freshwater fish that could not exist today if such an event had occurred. Show him some stuff about the cichlid populations of Lakes Victoria and Malawi, none of which, nor their ancestors, could be alive if such an inundation ha occurred, the effect of which would be to essentially make all those freshwater lakes salty, spelling certain death for those fish.

16. He also made some of us look up "is Gilgamesh Nimrod?" (Nimrod is mentioned in the Bible)
17. He tried to make the case that the Sumerians could have stolen the story from the Old Testament, not the other way around (and in the process assumed that all scholars firmly believe and have established that the Bible stole from Gilgamesh Epic).

Not even interesting, frankly.

18. He said that the "modern scientific worldview" says there is no god.

Bzzzzzzzzz. Thank you for playing. And this is supposed to be a skeptic? The modern scientific world-view has no comment whatsoever on the existence of supernatural entities. It does not include them, because there is no reason to do so. When a reason arises that demands magic men for explanation, it will be considered. For now, though, there is no justification to include them.

19. He mixes "science" and "evolution" frequently in the context of: "If you believe in evoltuion, ...." and "If you believe in science, ..."

Quelle surprise. I bet he thinks that the big bang is a feature of evolutionary theory as well. This is the kind of ignorant horseshit we've come to expect from the terminally credulous.

20. Back to the Egypt thing: he CONSTANTLY mocks the Ancient Aliens hypothesis [I will call it hypothesis since the teacher uses the word Theory like political theories] and once said, "If you believe in evolution, you might as well as believe in aliens.."

I believe in neither. I do think it extremely improbable that there is not other life out there in the cosmos, not least when we are drawing in on robust mechanisms for the emergence of life. Not actually a belief, though. I'll wait until the evidence is in before drawing any conclusions, at which point belief will be superfluous.

21. He mentioned "the teacher from Ferris Bueller" and how he made a documentary about "challenging the universities" and that "Universities are the worst places you can go, actually".

That would be 'Expelled' (subtitled 'No Intelligence Allowed' when it really should have been 'No Intelligence Here'), which has been comprehensively eviscerated all over the place.

22. Claims mainstream scholars/historians are anti-semitic, just like how he claims they are evolutionists, embrace science, don't believe in God, etc.

Oh really? Let's see what THIS LIST has to say about that, since it is a list only of Jewish historians. Or how about THIS LIST of Jewish Nobel Laureates. Certainly looks anti-Semitic to me. Let's not forget that, of all the names vaunted among scientists of the last century, the most vaunted name has been that of Albert Einstein, a Jew. Tell this fuckwit to stick his racism where the sun don't don't shine. Pulling the race card in this manner is the worst of racism, IMO.

I think that just about covers it.

 

[Deleted member 5174]

Re: Band Teacher Critiquing History and Evolution

Thanks for the reply. I posted this to vent mainly, not to get him fired. I'm sure someone in the future will report him, I don't think that's for me to do. It's been four weeks since I'm into the six-week class, and I've been laying low. This is because I don't want to stir up anything (he seems to get mad easily) and because I seemed to have completely dissected his "worldview".

1. He is a teacher who frequently appeals to "debating", saying that we could challenge him or tell him our opinions. Yet, he is too opinionated to the point of futility. So, he employs a false sense of skepticism.
2. He often makes up strawman arguments and knocks them down. He likes to belittle authority by saying stuff like "Did a scientist tell you that?" or "Your college professors will tell you this ... ... but they're wrong." The biggest irony in this is that he made a passing mention about a logical fallacy called the Strawman.
3. He is politcally motivated - he seems to be a staunch republican who has heard arguments before but feels his arguments are flawless. He seems to dislike Obama, defended Bush, and said other things.

The prize of it all: He showed us a documentary from the 70's made by a theologian named Francis A. Schaeffer.
His excuse of showing it was to show us the "different opinions" and frequently stops the film and says, "Interesting.. what do you guys think?"

http://www.rationalpi.com/theshelter/live.html
He has shown us a couple of documentaries from Schaeffer's "How Then Shall We Live?" which is an attempt to cast a better light on Protestant Christianity and a bad light on Classicism, Humanism, and the Enlightenment.

The teacher has often used the exact words of Francis A. Schaeffer. He seems to have copied many of the concepts he introduced in the beginning, namely phrases, words, and ideas like:

"Everything has a worldview" (Presuppositional apologetics)
"Real people in a real world"
"Aquinas introduced Humanism and lead to the Enlightenment"
"Reformation is the reason for the birth of all of Western music (Bach) and science"
"French Revolution violence is product of Man thinking on his own, or Humanism/Enlightenment"
"Universal principles versus particulars,
changing into Grace versus Nature,
then to Reason versus Nature,
finally Freedom versus Nature" (Dichotomy of categorizing everything into a general and specific principle)

Edit: Specific replies to hackenslash:

Ah, so the book is biased toward what is demonstrably true, then?

I just love the hypocrisy in the last statement there, as well.

1. He seems to be the biggest intellectual hypocrite I have ever met. That expression "I have ever met" is often exaggerated but I honestly don't think anyone will beat him.

Well, I don't believe in evolution either. I know that evolution is a fact. Belief doesn't come into it. More importantly, though, no, we didn't just one day discover clothing. This is precisely the sort of digital thinking that is characteristic of cretinist 'thought'. The beginning of use of clothing was almost certainly a very gradual thing, much like the agricultural revolution, for example. We didn't just one day begin keeping cattle, we began by guarding our territories against competition, then moved to feeding and then enclosing. It's a gradient, and there is no point at which we 'one day just' do anything.

3. This is an example of his strawmen. He will take texts from the book and extract some meaning from it. He criticizes the textbook but at the same time praises it: He praised the book for the fact that it talked about Descartes' religious background but criticized it for "falsifying" by leaving out the backgrounds of Galileo Newton, Bacon. In the previous case mentioned in the OP, he took "discovered fire" and expanded that to "suddenly ex nihilo discovered fire after walking around doing nothing for millions of years".

Invite him here, and we can beat him down for not knowing anything.

6. I wish I had the gumption to. I have to admit I don't want to stir things up or have it affect my grade. It was suppoesd to be an easy class over the summer to get my art credit.

Well, there are some interesting hypotheses out there, not least the one that says that the Hebrews were actually the exiled followers of Akhenaten. Laurence Gardner wrote a pretty interesting book about this. Some of his conclusions are a bit woolly, but he is a historian, and not a scientist.

8. He doesn't trust historians because to him, most/all university professors are biased, lazy left-wing liberal atheists (he talks about how he's taking a class and his teacher is a Marxist) and like I said above, replied "Did a scientist tell you that?" when one of the kids in the class said a comment about deductive reasoning.

Except, of course, that there is zero archaeological evidence in support of the postulate that any exodus took place. This is problematic, because any movement of people on such a scale would be bound to leave plenty of evidence. The region has been scoured for the best part of 200 years, with not a scrap of evidence turning up.

10. Again, he would appeal to conspiracy theories of politically-motivated, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic people who covered up evidence.. The irony (again) of this would be, he criticizes/ridicules other conspiracy theorists and ancient alien theorists.

Well, what he believes is of no consequence, as any self-professed skeptic should know. What is of consequence is what he can demonstrate. Can't wait for his evidence, especially since it has foxed archaeologists for quite some time.

11. His evidence is mere words and sometimes a documentary. He frequently talks about "research" and advocates us to do so for extra credit. I figured out that what he means by "research" is Googling a couple sites and printing them out. His whole knowledge seems to be built around just reading books and watching documentaries as opposed to actual research and debate with actual experts.

Or it could be that much was learned during the construction of the lesser pyramids that was applied to the great pyramid. It should be noted that there is no amazing technology required to conduct a construction on the scale of the pyramids. There are some technical challenges involved, but most of those are to do with the layout of the interior and keeping it all straight during construction. There is a simple equation that demonstrates the fallacy he is committing here:

Manpower + will = pyramid. That is all.

12. He constantly uses this fallacy of ex nihilo technology. He said he can't believe in evolution since it's impossible J.S. Bach suddenly comes up with amazing music after millions of years.

The understanding of the cycles of the heavens were understood in ancient times far better than most people understand them now. A quick scan of Neolithic Europe should be sufficient todisabuse him of the notion that there is anything special (impressive though it is) about the understanding of ancient astronomers. As for the weight of the blocks, maybe he's heard of a discipline known as 'engineering', which has been with us for many thousands of years, if not always as sophisticated as it is today. Again, Neolithic Europe provides ample evidence that he's talking out his arse. Point him to some pictures of Stonehenge, which is roughly contemporary with the pyramids, and without anything like the manpower available to the Egyptians.

13. He appealed to the "factoid" about Pyramids lining up to astronomical figures or something, pointing NorthWestEastSouth or of that sort.

Stories, eh? I have a story, namely one in which there is no evidence whatsoever to support the idea of a global flood in the last 10,000 years, and huge bloody swathes of evidence that no such event occurred, not least in the many, many species of freshwater fish that could not exist today if such an event had occurred. Show him some stuff about the cichlid populations of Lakes Victoria and Malawi, none of which, nor their ancestors, could be alive if such an inundation ha occurred, the effect of which would be to essentially make all those freshwater lakes salty, spelling certain death for those fish.

15. He's never argued any biological proof for evolution, actually. (He probably knows he'll have to resort to I-Don't-Knows-But-Neither-Do-You's) Everytime he criticizes evolution, it is from a silly historical point or arguments from ridicule. You know the common "turned from a fish to a monkey" one? That one.

Bzzzzzzzzz. Thank you for playing. And this is supposed to be a skeptic? The modern scientific world-view has no comment whatsoever on the existence of supernatural entities. It does not include them, because there is no reason to do so. When a reason arises that demands magic men for explanation, it will be considered. For now, though, there is no justification to include them.

18. You probably have read from what I said. He's no true skeptic - he is a selective skeptic regarding political and religious matters. It is a false advocation of skepticism in an attempt to seem "fair" and "honest", much like the catchphrase of modern Creationism: "Teach the Controversy".

Quelle surprise. I bet he thinks that the big bang is a feature of evolutionary theory as well. This is the kind of ignorant horseshit we've come to expect from the terminally credulous.

19. Yes, he actually does. He hasn't talked about the Big Bang theory of course, but I've looked up a social-networking site of a former band student of his and (apparently the student liked him) says on the quotes:
"I don't believe in the big bang, I don't do shows on things I don't believe in. But you know what I do believe in? Vampires! - Mr. _________"

I doubt he really believes in vampires since he jokes around a bit (laughs things off when one kid in the class asks too many questions) but I don't think he accepts the Big Bang.

That would be 'Expelled' (subtitled 'No Intelligence Allowed' when it really should have been 'No Intelligence Here'), which has been comprehensively eviscerated all over the place.

21. Yes. And he sometimes jokingly says "Bueller... bueller.." when people do not answer his challenges to "debate" or "discussion".. An obvious allusion to Ben Stein. But of course, if he were to see the website, he would say "college professors with no historical background" and dismiss it.

Oh really? Let's see what THIS LIST has to say about that, since it is a list only of Jewish historians. Or how about THIS LIST of Jewish Nobel Laureates. Certainly looks anti-Semitic to me. Let's not forget that, of all the names vaunted among scientists of the last century, the most vaunted name has been that of Albert Einstein, a Jew. Tell this fuckwit to stick his racism where the sun don't don't shine. Pulling the race card in this manner is the worst of racism, IMO.

22. I don't think he's a Jew. He seems to be some kind of Protestant evangelical Christian with a Christian upbringing. He's said his father and his side is Catholic. But thanks for the links.

Edit: Reply to australopithecus:
He does teach us a bit of art. But he tries to mix in history on the basis that we have to understand the "philosophies" of the artists, thus we have to look at the philosophers before them. He puts more emphasis on the philosophy part than either history or art. Example being, we read the sections on Luther and Calvin (he seems to think people love Calvin but not Luther, and tries to champion Luther and put him in a good light), skipped over the Counter-reformation, skipped over the whole music section, and went to Bach and read about how religious he was.

 

[lordlandraid]

This man needs to be reported and his job terminated immediately... Why? Cause he's not teaching what he's being paid to teach, instead deciding to go off into his own world and then attempts to impose that world onto those around him... Man's an asshat... If he really wants to push crap like this he can go join his creatard buddies on the streets and preach all feckin' day... That's not what the classroom is for...

 

[RedYellow]

Why do people think the pyramids are so amazing that they couldnt have been built by normal human beings? Do people not notice that they are basically just large piles of bricks?

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Why do people think the pyramids are so amazing that they couldnt have been built by normal human beings? Do people not notice that they are basically just large piles of bricks?

But there so perfectly aligned that you can't slide a razor between them!

... Ignoring the fact that in places you can, and that stones under tremendous pressure tend to sort of 'mush' together.

 

[televator]

Some favor the aliens did us by teaching us how to pile huge rocks together... :roll:

Aliens solved the problems of interstellar travel and traversed light years to grace us with cutting edge rock technology. Epic fucking fail! :facepalm:

 

[kenandkids]

I can just see the Egyptian T-shirts of the era:


Front: I was just visited by aliens...



Back: ... and all I got was a lousy pile of bricks!

 

[CosmicJoghurt]

They couldn't just let us struggle forever!

 

[televator]

Funny... If this line of rebuttal were leveled at someone's god, we'd all be accused of speaking as though god were real (thus unknowingly admitting his existence) and we're just making fun of him because we hate god.

 

[Deleted member 5174]

@RedYellow Apparently not to the teacher. He seems to think it has some kind of specialty. He said the same "factoids" that I once got from watching Erik von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods" and "Ancient Aliens" documentaries.

@Anachronous Rex: He actually said something like that. If I recall correctly, he did mention piece of paper instead of razor.. But my memory could be faulty.

@televator: He's quite skeptical of the alien theory. I'm sure he would postulate design by God, but he seems to tiptoe very carefully around that since he knows it is illegal to advocate one religion. That being said, he actually tries to show that evolution is not true (through bogus reasons of course) and tries to say the universe has design (gravtiy..).

Well my course is over, and I didn't really do anything because I am a nice person
But I'm quite glad it was a mental exercise, and challenging my own beliefs and knowledge.
Plus, I got to see another strategy of creationism coming from a different direction than the current ones - through saying:

1. Humanism produces Enlightenment (violent French Revolution), Communism (USSR), Existentialism (rejection of tradition! life is important here! not the afterlife!) and Woodstock (People taking drugs to search for "truth", no morals) since it has no real values
WHILE
2. Reformation Christianity produced Bach (father of all modern music), gospel music (what "saved America from European philosophy which was nuts) and has "universal principles"
3. And to not trust the government ("THIS IS YOUR GOVERNMENT DOING THIS!"), the media, and science ("science was the first one that was racist) [he has apparently not heard of the Curse of Ham]
4. And that people "misconstrue" the Bible when they oppress women (never mentioned slaves)
5. And that rich liberals are stupid, they lie, they are "idiots", the teacher's union's money goes to the democrats (?), amongst other crazy conjectures.