More Christian, anti-science stupidity.

Bloody hell, it's like you can't turn around these days without running into another example of the anti-intellectual moronicity that is fundamentalist Christianity, and this one's a beaut. Personally, I really like this bit of indoctrination:

"Who's the only one who's always been there?" [creationist, evangelist and pompous dumbfuck Ken] Ham asked.

"God!" the boys and girls shouted.

"Who's the only one who knows everything?"

"God!"

"So who should you always trust, God or the scientists?"

The children answered with a thundering: "God!"

Now that's pretty amazing, isn't it? For a guy who undoubtedly accuses the entire scientific community of unthinking, arrogant, closed-minded dogmatism, Ham sure doesn't express any doubt about his position -- a position based on no evidence whatsoever.

That takes some nerve, doesn't it?

AFTERSNARK: I do realize that this piece is several days old so I'm late coming to this particular party and that others have already been there. Like this guy, who writes:

I wonder if Ham needs to prey on five year olds because middle and high schoolers are just too smart for him?

Actually, that's not it. The purpose of indoctrinating kids to do the dirty work is so that the grownups can stay safely in the background and hope no one will try to correct those kids' thinking because they (the critics) would be accused of beating up on children, or something like that.

Many moons ago, I gave a public presentation on the intellectual bankruptcy of creation science and, after the talk was over and several attendees were milling around the front with me, a man approached, gently but firmly pushing his son (about 10 years old or so) in front of him to get to me.

When they finally reached me, the boy said he had a question about radiocarbon dating. OK, said I, go ahead, knowing full well what was coming. The boy, in a stuttering, halting way that made it clear he really had no idea what he was saying but having been coached to say it anyway, said that he'd heard that radiocarbon dating can be unreliable because when a tree is hit by lightning, that can change the age of the carbon in the wood.

I patiently explained to him that that really didn't discredit the entire field of radiocarbon dating, but I gave his father a suitably dirty look to make it clear I knew what the game was and that I thought he was a total dick, since that was obviously the father's opinion but he was too much of a coward to present it himself and therefore primed his son to do it for him. Fucking pussy.

In any event, that's what's happening here. Those kids are simply memorizing catch phrases to repeat at the earliest opportunity, while the grownups hang out in the background and wait for the first chance to accuse the teachers of treating their precious little ones badly by telling them they're full of shit. Not in so many words, of course.

You have to be a special kind of douchebag to get five-year-olds to fight your battles for you.