The Charles Darwin Bible is a copy of the New Testament, with annotations referring to Christian and creationist beliefs. It’s the latest attempt by creationists to wiggle their religious non-science into the public schools.

There is also a creationist edition of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species available. Since the original text of 150 years ago is not copyrighted, evangelist Ray Comfort slapped a 50-page “special introduction” onto the work and is selling it for a mere 99 cents. Comfort’s plan is for fellow believers to hand the bastardized copies of Origin of Species to their teacher and professor friends.

The Charles Darwin Bible is another brainchild of Comfort’s. It’s being distributed by Holman Bible Outreach, which is selling the curiously named book for $3.99 (or $1.75 by the case). Someone ponied up the money to hand a thousand of them out to NEA members.

The NEA is one of two professional organizations that represent public school teachers. Its annual convention began June 26 and runs through Friday.

Here’s a description of the CDB:

Released in response to “Darwin Day” on Feb. 12th – observed worldwide by a growing number of people – this publication by best-selling author Ray Comfort is designed to help “pull the plug on the rising tide of atheism.” With both the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth in February and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species in October, 2009 promises to be a battleground year for evolution – and Christians need to be equipped to refute it.

Countless people have been deceived into dismissing God, believing that evolution is a proven scientific fact and that the Book of Genesis has been shown to be a fable. Even many churches have neglected the truths of Scripture for the claims of fallible man. This book will give Christians an effective tool to share with evolutionists in our schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, and churches–explaining the vital facts about our origins and the truth of our great Creator.

Covers why there is suffering, who made God, the Big Bang, the origin of life, DNA, irreducible complexity, mutations, transitional forms, the Cambrian Explosion, peppered moths, vestigial organs, “mistakes” in the Bible, and more.

Includes:

* Presentation Page
* In-text study notes written for atheists
* Plan of Salvation
* Concise Topical Concordance

Back cover copy:
“Merely having an open mind is nothing; the object of opening a mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” ~ G. K. Chesterton

Darwinian evolution and the biblical account of creation are incompatible. Either God made man in His own image as morally accountable beings, male and female, reproducing after their own kind, or He didn’t. If the theory of evolution is a scientific fact, then the Bible should be discarded as mere mythology. But if the Bible is right, Charles Darwin single-handedly propagated a fantasy that has hoodwinked millions.

Determining which is true could impact your eternity. Take time to examine the evidence to make sure your beliefs – and your future – are based on something solid. This brief publication will help you to consider:

* Charles Darwin’s history and beliefs about God
* Why evolution versus creation is so important
* Evidence for evolution from top scientists
* “Contradictions” in the Book of Genesis
* Evolution’s difficult questions
* How to know God exists
* Commentary by best-selling author Ray Comfort

Reading this compact New Testament with an open heart will help you know for certain whether evolution is true and whether God is real.

Creationists have a particularly narrow interpretation of Scripture. Believers have to take every single word literally, and take the entire Bible in toto that way. They cannot consider Genesis, for example, as allegorical while also accepting 1 Kings as historical. So, in the creationist mind, it’s an either-or thing: either the Bible is all literally true, or none of it is.

[Needless to say, many Christian sects outgrew literalism centuries ago, partly out of necessity. Taking the Song of Songs literally, for example, turns it into an erotic poem. Making the woman a metaphor for belief in God or for the Church makes the poem more religious, however.]

We have these two telltale sentences in the above blurb.

If the theory of evolution is a scientific fact, then the Bible should be discarded as mere mythology. But if the Bible is right, Charles Darwin single-handedly propagated a fantasy that has hoodwinked millions.

False dichotomy. False science.

There are plenty of people, including scientists and the Roman Catholic Church, who can simultaneously accept evolution as valid and still believe in God and read the Bible. Many believers can simultaneously be Christians and accept Genesis as an ancient creation myth or allegory.

Additionally, the blurb reveals a notable lack of understanding (no surprise there!) about how science works.

First of all, evolution is a theory, and technically not a fact. (Actually, it would be more accurate to call it a collection of facts, but that would still miss the boat.) A scientific theory attempts to provide some order on and understanding of a multitude of observations. Scientists constantly test the theory with the observations, including new ones. If it stands the test of time, a theory is considered valid.

Valid does not necessarily mean accurate, or factual, though. All of science is an approximation of “reality.” Theories are constantly being refined as new evidence accumulates; sometimes they are completely discarded in favor of new, more accurate theories. You cannot refine facts. A fact is a fact. It is hard to refine the fact the sun rises in the east. It does or it doesn’t. You can, however, refine the explanation for why the sun rises in the east.

It’s the constant testing of scientific theories that makes the second sentence I highlighted complete nonsense. Darwin could not have possibly “hoodwinked” millions with a “fantasy.” [That prize should go to the creationists, I suggest.] If there was sufficient evidence against his theory, science would have thrown Darwin’s theory of evolution on the dustheap with the phlogiston theory and geocentrism ages ago. But there is no evidence that contradicts evolution. In fact, discoveries since Origin of Species was first published in 1859 have only corroborated Darwin’s theory.

Now, science teachers should be aware of such nuances, or at least I hope they are. (There is evidence to the contrary, I am sorry to say.) Whether teachers of other subjects are similarly aware of how science works is more doubtful. So, handing them copies of a New Testament with creationist folderol inside might sufficiently confuse some NEA members into wondering whether creationism might actually be true, or at least be a decent “competitor” for the theory of evolution. That’s the foot in the door that the creationists want. Introduce doubt in the scientific explanations, then replace doubt with religious certainty.

Mwua-hahahahaha!

Incidentally, the creationists use “evolution” as a catch-all phrase for any science that contradicts Genesis. So, to them, most of geology, paleontology, astronomy and cosmology are bogus, too, since all four also suggest the universe and the Earth are billions of years old, and constantly changing, not a few thousand years old and essentially static (except for occasional divine temper tantrums).

Handing out these “Bibles” is a clever ruse, but ruses are essentially dishonest behavior. I guess I missed those lessons that taught Christians it is OK to trick people into Christianity.

Two Mississippi school districts have banned teachers from texting their students — to avoid any hanky-panky with the kids. Meanwhile, a small school district in Texas has decided to allow its teachers to pack heat while on the job — for protection from wacko students.

Sad, sad commentaries on the American educational system …

According to Associated Press and ABC News reports, the two Mississippi districts (Lamar County, southeast of Jackson, and Lauderdale County, east of Jackson) imposed the new restrictions on teachers following the convictions on sexual misconduct charges of two teachers from elsewhere in that fair state. School district attorneys made the recommendations, apparently.

While maybe well intentioned, it’s a stupid restriction. Texting, like dancing, does not necessarily lead to sex. Cracking down on teachers and students texting each other will not eliminate teacher-student liaisons. After all, that kind of “extra-curricular” activity happened long before Web 2.0 — or for that matter, the Bell telephone system — became a reality. Some teachers — myself included — use instant messaging for far more boring reasons, like communicating with students about homework — hardly ideal foreplay.

A related controversy involves teachers and social-networking sites. A CNN story suggests some legislators (gods forbid!) are also looking at preventing teachers and students from associating with each other on Facebook, MySpace and similar sites, for the same bass-ackwards reasons as the Mississippi texting bans.

Rather than trust teachers’ professional judgments, officials would rather make the wall between teachers and students even taller and more impenetrable. CNN quotes a teacher who said he uses his social-networking page to facilitate communication with his students about assignments, in essence an on-line extension of the classroom.

The ABC News story quotes a somewhat alarming statistic, that between 2001 and 2005 there were 2,570 educators charged with sexual misconduct, but it fails to put that number in context. According to the US Bureau of the Census, there are 6.8 million teachers in the United States. Of those, 2.6 million teach at the elementary and middle school level, and the rest teach pre-school, kindergarten, high school and postsecondary classes. So, let’s assume the 2,570 known sexual misconduct cases were evenly spread across each of the five years. On average then, during that period there were about 500 teachers caught fooling around with students nationwide. That’s 1 in every 13,600 teachers each year, or in others, little Susie and Billy are probably perfectly safe.

I would bet you that most of those cases did not involve texting or social-networking sites. Maybe electronic communication could have facilitated student-teacher liaisons, but pulling the plug would not have prevented them.

One of the hardest aspects of teaching is maintaining a proper social distance from your students. There is a wide range of acceptable teacher-student relationships, from the strict disciplinarian to the more easy-going, collegial kind. Some teachers fall off either end of the scale. Either they act like feudal lords, with complete control of their students’ minds, or they act like pals — overaged teenagers. Then there are the distinct few who either prey on students for sex or who allow themselves to get sucked into inappropriate relationships with their kids.

Those few are going to cross over the line with or without text messaging or the Web.

As for the Harrold, Texas, school board decision to allow teachers to carry concealed weapons … well, it’s Texas. They do things differently there. With the kind of bass-ackwards reasoning fostered by the National Rifle Association, the folks there want to prevent school shootings by arming their teachers.

The small community of Harrold in north Texas is a 30-minute drive from the Wilbarger County Sheriff’s Office, leaving students and teachers without protection, said David Thweatt, superintendent of the Harrold Independent School District. The lone campus of the 110-student district sits near a heavily traveled highway, which could make it a target, he argued.

“When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that’s when all of these shootings started. Why would you put it out there that a group of people can’t defend themselves? That’s like saying ‘sic ‘em’ to a dog,” Thweatt said in a story published Friday on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Web site.

“These shootings” refers to those cases where students entered schools with enough artillery to quell a small-scale border incursion in Afghanistan. Unless Harrold teachers are packing AK-47s or Uzis, I somehow doubt a pistol in a shoulder holster is going to slow down any determined student shooters, in the highly unlikely event one of them visits Harrold, Texas.

[Statistics, folks. How many school shootings in how many years? A few. How many schools with no shootings? Hundreds of thousands. Jeez, can't people count?]

So, here’s the moral of these two little developments in US education. It’s not appropriate to talk to your students on-line, but it’s perfectly OK to shoot them. Remember those bywords, teachers, as you start the new year.