Louisiana Creationists Teach Students Loch Ness Monster is Real

Young earth creationists in the Deep South show increasing desperation in their attempts to cast doubt on evolution.  In some private Christian schools, students are being taught that Scotland's legandary Loch Ness monster is an honest-to-God, genu-whine dinosaur.  (This wolld occur before Purity 101 and after a class on how best to bully LGBT kids.) 

Claire McKin, obviously embarrassed for her less-enlightened neighbors across the ocean, reports for The Scotsman:  Thousands of American school pupils are to be taught that the Loch Ness monster is real – in an attempt by religious teachers to disprove Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.  Pupils attending privately-run Christian schools in the southern state of Louisiana will learn from textbooks next year, which claim Scotland’s most famous mythological beast is a living creature.  Thousands of children are to receive publicly-funded vouchers enabling them to attend the schools – which follow a strict fundamentalist curriculum.  The Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme teaches controversial religious beliefs, aimed at disproving evolution and proving creationism.  Youngsters will be told that if it can be proved that dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as man, then Darwinism is fatally flawed.  Critics have slammed the content of the religious course books, labelling them “bizarre” and accusing them of promoting radical religious and political ideas.  One ACE textbook called Biology 1099, Accelerated Christian Education Inc reads: “Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence...  One former pupil, Jonny Scaramanga, 27, who went through the ACE programme as a child, but now campaigns against Christian fundamentalism, said the Nessie claim was presented as “evidence” that evolution could not have happened.  He added: "The reason for that is they’re saying if Noah’s flood only happened 4,000 years ago, which they believe literally happened, then possibly a sea monster survived."  (And maybe Bigfoot is a descendant of Ham?)

Meanwhile, The Herald has discovered that many of these religious fundamentalists take a sympathetic position on white supremacist hate groups:  Textbooks of some state-funded Christian schools praise the Ku Klux Klan.  The violent, racist organisation, which still exists in the US, advocates white supremacy, white nationalism and anti-immigration.  One excerpt from Bob Jones University Press American history textbook has been reported as saying: "The [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."  (Perhaps this happened when the bigots got tired of lynching, raping, beating, and mutilating black citizens, Latinos, and homosexuals.)  Other views taught include claims that being gay is a learned behaviour.  (This is the standard view of sexual orientation and gender identity, according to born-again fanatics.) The courses are based around the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme, which originated in Texas in the 1970s.  (The Lone Star State isn't known for its academic excellence.) 

(Painting, left, courtesy the gifted Alex Tomlinson. Center image is "St. Columba and the Loch Ness Monster" by Mairead Ramsay.)