Customer Reviews

Sowing Atheism: The National Academy of Sciences' Sinister Scheme to Teach Our Children They're Descended from Reptiles

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Read the book.
Welcome to the war on reason. Things are getting out of hand, here. Faith-based science has given us such wonders as the Inquisition and the papal repression of Galileo's contention that the Earth orbits the sun.
Science is a *process* folks: you observe phenomena, formulate a theory, try to disprove the theory. Mistakes get made. Eventually, mistakes get corrected. Faith-based "science" education is about as valid as faith-based diplomacy: A feature of Iran's and Bush's foreign policy. Very difficult to change a decision that God inspired. Mistakes inspired by God can't be mistakes, can they?

Unfortunately, when searching for truth evidence is cold, hard, and tested. Everyone may believe what they want, but when they are trying to refute the scientific method or evidence with their beliefs it is an exercise in deception. Deception to themselves, and deception to everyone who will give them their ear.

This book is, unfortunately, a treatise in deception, I would not recommend it to anyone.

This book is proof that the state of Texas is about to head back into a pre-Darwinian era. Texans might as well start putting mice in their mouths to solve toothaches. Seriously. It truly frightens me that people like "author" Robert Bowie Johnson, Jr. are being taken seriously.

Consider this passage:
"Imagine yourself standing in the administrative offices of your local junior high school. You are there to bring a forgotten lunch to one of your children. Two tall, forbidding men enter wearing black business suits with red-letter NAS (National Academy of Sciences) armbands. They sneer and brush past you. They ignore the receptionist and the other people working there, and head straight for the principal's office. Just as the startled educator looks up at the intruders, both slam their fists on his desk. In unison, they cry, "We represent infallible science. You must teach these children that they are descended from reptiles. It is impossible to disprove our findings, and wrong to challenge them; therefore, no other point of view will be tolerated."

So now scientists dress like identical twin Nazis, too? Really? This book is good for a laugh, then a tear as you realize that the state of Texas is seriously considering removing the teaching of evolution from schools. If successful, I expect Texas will begin unicorn hunts the following year.

This book, like most creationist pieces, attempts to equate science with democracy. The principle premise is that in order for science to flourish, all possibilities must be taught. However, this belief belies a profound and appalling misunderstanding of what science is.

Science is not a democracy. That is, theories and principles in science are not taught based on which are the most popular, or which can get the most "votes". Principles are based on study and experimentation. Hypothesis which cannot be tested cannot be considered science.

However, this book seems to know that it cannot make its case on such rational footing, and instead primarily resorts to fear-mongering to try and paint scientists opposed to creationism as unholy atheist with sinister hidden agendas. It attempts to depict an Orwellian future where the "science police" run schools and where free though is discouraged. I personally find this quite reprehensible, but I suppose an actual debate on the merits would be too close to science.

This book is inspired. No doubt the author, Robert Johnson, went down to the crossroads, fell down to his knees, and was touched by the spirit as he scratched out the thesis for "Sowing Atheism: The National Academy of Sciences' Sinister Scheme to Teach Our Children They're Descended from Reptiles." He gets all of the basics right. Scientists are after our children. They are tempting them away from Christ with their shiny baubles of fact and reason.

But even though I gave it five stars, I cannot say it is a perfect book. There is so much more Johnson could have done to illuminate the Academy's true motivation. It has to be more than simply a desire to promote atheism. There must be some kind of economic motivation as well.

It's a shame Mr. Johnson didn't look into ties between the Academy and the contraceptive industry. It's a natural alliance, evolution and immorality, and one has to wonder if that's why scientists are so bent on establishing a relationship between God's children and that most immoral of apes, the bonobo.

Bonobos engage in all the most sinful acts of sexual immorality, everything from "thingy fencing" to "tongue spelunking." They do it to keep peace inside their group. They do not handle strife in a godly way--it is not settled by punishment or execution--it is resolved by hot, wild, orgasmic, wicked, ape sex, fluid flinging orgies of disgusting primate love.

And that's what the contraceptive industry would like to see in human society. Free love, fornication, adultery are good for their bottom line.

Bonobos, evolution, the contraceptive industry, and the Academy: there has to be a link there somewhere. Perhaps Mr. Johnson could look into it in his next book.

From its opening salvo, which paints a picture of the NAS as a Gestapo-like entity busting into schools to terrorize students and faculty, the ill-informed agenda of this book is apparent. It is a clear illustration of why it is so urgent that we resist attempts by religious agencies to encroach upon our educational system. Like all zealots, Johnson starts with a conclusion and is willing to make the most absurd leaps of "logic" to make the world fit that predetermined conclusion.

This is why it's called "faith." It's not science, nor should it be taught as such.

I guess name calling is great entertainment, and possibly fiction, but I wouldn't look to this book for any actual information on science or the National Academy of Sciences. Please check out this NAS page on the compatibility of Science and Religion: http://nationalacademies.org/evolution/Compatibility.html

By presenting Atheism as the only alternative to accepting the mythological story of the creation that's presented in Genesis Johnson has drawn a false dichotomy and has committed an abundance of errors in the process.

He attributes to science the same level of dogmatism that he represents. I've taken a brief passage from his work and substituted 'religion' for 'science' and 'Adam and Eve' for 'lizards' so you can see what I mean:

"We represent infallible religion. You must teach these children
that they are descended from Adam and Eve It's impossible to disprove our findings, and wrong to challenge them; therefore, no other point of view will be tolerated."

In psychology that's called 'projection'.

He is wrong, of course, for Atheism is not the only alternative to Genesis. Darwin himself was a profoundly religious man and reluctantly came around to an evolutionary view of nature mainly because an evolutionary view-point was compelled by a growing body of evidence.

And that's an important point. Many people lived for thousands of years quite comfortably with the story of Genesis, just as a majority of the people in the East and the Americas lived for thousands of years without it. We can live with anything, any story, as long as we have no reason to doubt it, no evidence that contradicts it or brings it into question.

Rational people will adjust their views to comport with new evidence but the author of this book is demanding conformity to his dogma. In another context, he's proposed shaming people into accepting Genesis as 'truth' by attempting to shame people into conformity by calling them 'slime, worm, snake people'.

While Johnson attempts to buttress his case for Genesis with an attack on evolution, the 'problems' with Genesis began long before the evolutionary theory he's attacking. Genesis teaches a geo-centric view of the universe but observation of planetary motions resulted in the Earth being displaced by the sun as the center of creation. Further observation, now, has cast our sun to the outskirts of our galaxy and has moved our galaxy to the suburbs of the visible universe. This is more that earth shaking but it has yielded a creation that brings much more glory to God than the feeble creation depicted in Genesis.

The notion of God creating everything, even Adam and Eve out of earth, air, fire and water has a charming simplicity that can be grasped by any child and that's the main thing in it's favor. It was compatible with what what known about nature thousands of years ago but modern science has now fathomed the formation of the elements themselves and have developed a picture of creation that has carbon atoms, the main building block of our bodies, being formed by the intense heat and pressure that occurred in exploding stars long before our own solar system ever formed. Again, science presents a much more glorious story of our creation but one that's acquired only with the acquisition of much more knowledge than can be easily assimilated by a child. It's also information that can be, and seemingly is, ignored by many adults who persist with the myth all through adulthood.

For me, the evolution of culture, of language, of writing, of mathematics, the evolution of consciousness all combine to create an incredible story of creation that places Genesis back where it belongs, as a story for the children that's recognized as a cultural myth to be outgrown as we reach toward maturity.

But I can see that's not for everyone. I recently came across a quotation that seems applicable here:

"Ghosts are unscientific. They contain no matter and have
no energy and therefore according to the laws of science,
do not exist except in people' minds. Of course,the laws
of science contain no matter and have no energy either
and therefore do not exist except in people's minds,... It's
best to refuse to believe in either ghosts or the laws of
science.
--Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Quoted on page 136, From Archimedes to Hawkings by Pickover

In a review of "The Jefferson Bible, Rob Hardy wrote "This was the Jefferson who encouraged, "Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear."

These are words to live by but not by everyone. In Johnson we meet someone who lives on the other side of the street.

Science is a liberal conspiracy to make conservatives look stupid. This book, like the fine efforts by such luminaries as Ann Coulter and Ben Stein blows the lid off that conspiracy. It's time we stopped allowing those pointy headed intellectuals to fill our kids minds with atheist garbage like evolution and gravitational theory. We all know what their agenda is. We all know that these kind of scientific dogmas lead to one thing and one thing only. The Holocaust. And Man on Man sex. Ok, it leads to two things. But as sure as Pi equals 3 (despite what atheist mathematicians like to claim - look it up in your Bible)if we let these sinister forces continue to feed our kids a steady diet of "facts" and "reason" America as we know it is doomed.

This is a very humorous book, and it reads like a parody of a madman. The author would have his readers believe that there is a multi-generational world-wide conspiracy among all of the world's scientists to keeping children the atheists they were born as. Never mind that the scientists' conclusions and discoveries are true, and that they reflect the real world and accurately explain how the universe works--- the author believes that telling children the truth will prevent the children from becoming theists. Never mind the fact that the truth has never been observed to prevent children from becoming theists in the past and present. Never mind that lying to and deceiving children so that they stop being the atheists they were born as and start being theists is evil, immoral, unethical, and dangerous to society. The author has an occult agenda to further, and by the gods he did not let little things like sanity, honesty, and decency stand in his way.

Anyone interested in abnormal psychology will probably wish to examine this book. The author sounds like L. Ron Hubbard.