Legacy
RESPONSE TO JAMES HAUGHT*
By Karl C. Priest February 11, 2020 (revised 2-14-2020)
On January 18, 2020 I sent the following to the Charleston Gazette-Mail.
In response to James Haught’s article, “Two baby dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark,” (Charleston Gazette-Mail, 1-17-20, 5D https://www.wvgazettemail.com/life/religion/baby-dinosaurs-on-noah-s-ark/article_31656b03-b91f-597e-9707-ddf8b3336978.html) I respond: BWAHAHAHA!
The bulk of his diatribe was about creation science, but he mixed in praise for the public school system, so I will mention that first. Mr. Haught is fine with his religion (humanism) being the state enforced religion in public schools.
Charles Potter, founder of the First Humanist Society of New York, said "Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American school is a school of humanism. What can a theistic Sunday school's meeting for an hour once a week and teaching only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of the five-day program of humanistic teaching?" (Humanism: A New Religion. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1930, p. 128) and "Humanism is not the abolition of religion, but the beginning of real religion.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Francis_Potter)
The hypocrisy of the Left is shameful. I urge readers to see how a book was censored from being read aloud at a Board of Education meeting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UueQpSoMBYM).
Mr. Haught uses the far-left, God-hating Huffington Post to attack Christian schools. I use the Nation’s Report Card (http://www.insectman.us/exodus-mandate-wv/report-card-index.htm) and WV School News headlines (http://www.insectman.us/exodus-mandate-wv/index.htm) to document that West Virginia public schools are dumbed down and dangerous.
The bulk of Mr. Haught’s rant was due to his devotion to St. Darwin. I remind Mr. Haught of the time he sat at a restaurant table and heard the National Center for Science Education WV rep debate Dr. Joseph Mastropaolo. Dr. Mastropaolo overwhelmed those at the table with the fact that, "Of the simplest machines, a toothpick has no moving parts. Of the most complex of machines, a protein has the highest of manufacturing requirements. Given every tree on the planet and infinite time, evolution could never make a toothpick. Even incompetent engineers know that. Without totalitarian censorship and persecution, evolution would not last a month." Yet, it is evolution that is crammed into the minds of public school students.
The local Darwin disciples blocked Kanawha County teachers from being able to “t each any and all subjects and theories in their respective subject areas, including, but not limited to, theories for and against the theory of evolution” (http://www.insectman.us/testimony/resolution.htm). The same religious fanatics blocked Kanawha County teachers from using a book supported by the science supervisor and the board of education member who was a chemist that was critical of evolution (http://www.insectman.us/testimony/pandas.htm).
If I had the space, I would talk about how great homeschooling is and describe the math lesson I taught that assigns evolutionism to the realm of being “ more impossible than the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, and the Headless Horseman.” (Dr. Joseph Mastropaolo)
For the last five years of my full-time teaching career, with the full knowledge (and dismay) of state and county school officials as well as the ACLU I demonstrated to my students that mathematics proves beyond the shadow of doubt that evolutionism is nonsense. The students saw that the evidence clearly shows that every item associated with humans, animals and plants are Intelligent Designs and Intelligent Design is science. I always let the students figure it out for themselves and allowed them to believe what they chose, but at least they were exposed to the scientific facts that extremists want to censor from the minds of public school students.
You can see the lesson I taught at http://www.insectman.us/testimony/lesson.htm
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The column was censored, so I submitted the following letter, on February 3, which was also censored.
Dear Editor:
The bulk of a recent James Haught article was about creation science, but he mixed in praise for the public school system, so I will mention that first. Mr. Haught is fine with his religion (humanism) being the state enforced religion in public schools.
Mr. Haught used the far-left, God-hating Huffington Post to attack Christian schools. I use the Nation’s Report Card and WV School News (http://www.insectman.us/exodus-mandate-wv/wv-news.htm) to document that West Virginia public schools are dumbed down and dangerous.
The bulk of Mr. Haught’s rant was due to his devotion to St. Darwin. I remind Mr. Haught of the fact that, "Of the simplest machines, a toothpick has no moving parts. Of the most complex of machines, a protein has the highest of manufacturing requirements. Given every tree on the planet and infinite time, evolution could never make a toothpick. Even incompetent engineers know that. Without totalitarian censorship and persecution, evolution would not last a month." (Dr. Joseph Mastropaolo) Yet, it is evolution that is crammed into the minds of public school students.
One thing I do agree with Mr. Haught about is that tax money should not go to private schools because that would allow the government to control them. However, let’s keep the government out of all education.
Karl Priest
Poca, WV
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I sent the above to Mr. Haught via his email address (haught@wvgazettemail.com) located at https://www.wvgazettemail.com/site/contact.html.
*James A. Haught is editor emeritus of West Virginia’s largest newspaper, The Charleston Gazette-Mail, and is a senior editor of Free Inquiry.
(https://secularhumanism.org/authors/haught-james-a/page/2/) Free Inquiry is a bi-monthly journal of secular humanist opinion and commentary published by the Council for Secular Humanism, which is a program of the Center for Inquiry. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Inquiry) The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a nonprofit advocacy organization. Its primary mission is to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and secular humanist values. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Inquiry)
He is featured on the United Coalition of Reason (United CoR) page (https://unitedcor.org/resources-james-haught-editor-emeritus-charleston-gazette-mail/) with a photo of Haught sitting (in what appears to be a newsroom) sitting at a table. The photo caption is “Younger Haught, with mug expressing his view of supernatural.” The coffee mug has “B---S---” on it. United CoR says, “We call ourselves atheist, agnostic, bright, Ethical Culture, freethought, humanist, rationalist, realist, skeptic, secular, and other terms.” (https://unitedcor.org/about-unitedcor/)
The Freedom from Religion group features him with this quote, "Although billions of people pray to invisible gods, they're just imaginary, as far as a sincere inquirer can tell. So, to me, the only honest viewpoint is the humanist one, which doubts the supernatural and focuses on improving human life." —James Haught (2019) (https://ffrf.org/news/day/dayitems/item/35979-james-a-haught)
The Secular Web features his articles and books. (https://infidels.org/library/modern/james_haught/) “The Secular Web is owned and operated by Internet Infidels…” (https://infidels.org/infidels/)
On his website he says, “Although billions of people pray to invisible gods, there's no actual evidence of deities and devils, heavens and hells, spirits and prophecies, etc. They're just imaginary, as far as a sincere inquirer can tell. So, to me, the only honest viewpoint is the humanist one, which doubts the supernatural and focuses on improving human life.” (http://haught.net/)
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