Yesterday I attended a conference at a university in another state for the purposes of looking over a test that this university gives all future teacher candidates, and it was indeed an upsetting experience for me once again because of my conservative beliefs. The conference had about a dozen teachers and professors at it, all drawn from the social studies profession, and we spent the day looking over all of the items on a test that is given each year to graduating teacher candidates, making sure that the test items were valid questions to ask future teachers. The teachers on the committee ranged from communists to fascists to socialists to liberals, with one or two moderates thrown in for balance, and me. The day was a constant battle for me, but there was one question in particular that I believe was very revealing.
Our committee looked over a question that (roughly) said "Which of the following is the correct reason why there is global climate change?" The supposed correct answer was "the build-up of carbon dioxide gasses caused by man-caused deforestation."
Of course I questioned the validity of the item, and in doing so, I set off an amazing firestorm of criticism and personal attacks that shocked me in its savagery and offensiveness by simply questioning of whether a test question should be asked to all students who want to be teachers in the future should establish as a fact that there is in fact global climate change occurring and that the reason for it occurring is because of the build up of carbon dioxide gasses and that the reason why there is more CO2 is because of deforestation and that this deforestation is caused by man.
You see, by questioning this test item, I questioned the entire Faith of the liberals and leftists on the committee, and questioning people's Faith really pisses people off. It is a matter of Faith that is not to be questioned and that evidence is not needed that global warming was happening, that it is caused by humanity, that it is a bad thing, that even if other nations do nothing we can still do something, that it isn’t too late to act, that we can afford to do something, and that the something is more government control over our society. I questioned whether it should be a fact that all students learn the Faith of the left.
The committee reacted with shock that I was allowed to be on the committee and was allowed to be a teacher. I was called stupid, dumb, uneducated, and an unbeliever. They wanted to know how many years I had been teaching, how many students I may have possibly talked to about my unbelief, and above all, how I had ever been allowed to become a teacher with such ideas as questioning the Faith of the left.
In spite of the vicious and personal nature of the attacks me, I maintained my cool and simply kept repeating that some question aspects of the question and that it would be unfair and invalid to have that sort of question on a test that all students must take. I maintained that my personal views were irrelevant and that I was simply doing my job. But this wasn't good enough- the mere whiff that there was a heretic in the room had got the committee's blood boiling, and instead of discussing whether the item was valid or not, they jumped to the attack of me, demanding to know my personal views on every aspect of global climate change. I kept my cool until one of the more moderate committee members made a comment that sent me over the edge by questioning my Faith.
"Teach brings up a good point," he said, "There are people out there who may doubt what we all know are accepted facts, and we should be careful with our language. When we ask questions about other discredited ideas and theories, like creationism, we are careful to not purposefully offend those who believe in those things, so we should really try to rework this question."
The committee though disagreed- one after another they said "This test is to test whether graduating students have the knowledge to be teachers, and I don't want anyone becoming a teacher who has illogical and wrong views, whether it is believing in a flat earth or creationism or or magic or doubting that man-made global warming is happening now due to deforestation."
Now I was boiling. This committee thought that I was illogical and wrong because I believed in science and God! They compared creationism (a variation of which that focuses on the evolution of early man that I have become increasingly fascinated with) and the science of global warming with flat earth and magic and saw nothing wrong with that comparison! My Faith and beliefs were now under attack.
Sadly though, I recognized that the committee was correct- I was a Christian man in a sea of heretics, and my options were at that point to continue my objections to the test question and continue to be attacked by the group, or to just shut up and continue to chip away at the edges of the the liberal agenda of the test. Since this was only a volunteer effort on my part, I stopped talking, eventually their personal attacks and questioning of my education and beliefs were stopped since they no longer were hurting me, and the committee moved on to other questions of various degrees of invalidity.
This is not the first time that I have run into this sort of reaction, and it will not be the last. In Stonehenge and the Descent into Barbarianism I wrote:
Pagan religion is becoming increasingly popular and accepted in our society. I see it most in the numbers of people who openly and proudly proclaim that they are not Christian, and also are the most fervent and devout believers in man-made-caused-one-way-global-warming-solved-by-government-power. They now worship the Green God. Other people, in an effort to be fair and politically correct to everyone, have decided to worship every god, embracing a polytheistic view of the world, whereby they pray to whatever god they think will help them the most. Animal rights activists worship animals and many people worship men (like Obama)- paganism is on the rise, not decline, in our society.In My Personal Experience Fighting the Worship of Earth Hour I wrote:
...It all started last week with an innocent email that was sent out by an administrator, telling our entire staff all about Earth Hour and encouraging people to "support the fight against global warming by turning off your lights for one hour tomorrow night- together , we can create change in our world and bring peace to all."...As you can see, the Green God has a lot of followers in the education world, and expressing faith in him and his beliefs and rituals is more accepted in our society and in our schools that expressing faith in God and the Bible and the rituals of Christianity. My experience serving on this committee once more reinforced this belief and provided even more evidence to me of that Liberalism is now a Religion.
...In a fit of frustration, I replied to this email- pecking out a reply between hours- and sent it to the whole staff. I felt that if it was okay to get emails about Earth Hour, it was okay to respond to these emails- and I did. I sent the following message "As you can see from the attached graphs, there is no correlation between keeping your lights on and the Earth warming. But, because you asked, I'll turn off some lights to lower my energy bill."...
....But question the religion of global warming, question the beliefs of liberals, and be prepared for a firestorm- now I know. My inbox was instantly filled with emails blasting me, stunning me with their viciousness and vileness.
Other teachers and administrators sent me emails that said that my arguments were "sad defeatist" arguments, that I was giving up on the world and was unwilling to fight to make the world a better place. I was called "unintelligent," "uneducated," "immature," "backward," and "crazy." Like most liberals do, rather than debate my ideas and thoughts and data, they went straight for name-calling.
Even worse, many began to question my teaching ability. For the record, my students have the highest scores in the district on our common assessments and high-stakes tests, and I have frequently been recognized by students, other teachers, and administrators for being an outstanding teacher. But question the global warming religion once, and I get emails saying such things as "I am concerned that you could be convincing our students of the same fallacies" and "I seriously question what you are teaching our students."...
...Logic, reasoning, and calm calculations, supported by data and clear thinking, had run up against religion. Global Warming (or climate change) is a religion, not a policy position. It's too bad that this religion is allowed to flourish in schools, that education can have study classes on the tenets of global warming, that we erect alters to worship global warming (a 'green garden' was built at our school last year), and that there are places to sacrifice to the green gods all over schools (the recycling symbol is omnipresent, as our recycling boxes and bins). It's too bad that schools are against religions such as Christianity and Judaism, as public schools continue their war on "he who can not be named in schools" (God).
Perhaps what was most upsetting to me about this incident was the reaction I got from my wife when I told her all this stuff. Excited about fighting the good battle, energized from my attempts to reason, I told my wife what I had done. Her face got pale, and she became fearful and scared- she was frightened that in this world, this new country of change, that I would be fired for believing the wrong things, for having the wrong views on global warming. My wife was scared that schools have become so much like a 3rd world dictatorship that saying the wrong view could mean the loss of my job. And the scary thing, she is right.
By taking this stand, by sending out one little email questioning global warming, by defending myself from insults and questions as to my ability, I have put myself personally in danger of being fired. I may now be let go from my job for questioning global warming. That is scary. Things are changing in this world, hope is dimming, and life is not fair anymore- and my small attempt to fight back at this, to push the darkness back by lighting the light of logic and reasoning on Earth Hour, may very well be the end of me as a teacher.
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