RIF

Hi, Gary? Yeah, Phil here from Random House. Yeah, yeah, look, I've just been assigned to edit your book, and the folks upstairs have some specific requests to cut the book back by 6 to 8 thousand pages. There's some wiggle room there, but yeah, we're gonna need to come up with a more streamlined version of your amazing book. I know, I know, every page is gold. But you know the market these days!

Some scans from the new Louisiana school "science" book for 5th graders. Teach the controversy!

If I were a parent in a school with a book such as this, I'd get very agitated, and bring lawyers into the situation, and be "that" atheist. Cuz separating religion from education is just as important as keeping it away from government. Religion is a poison that spreads through immersion. Break the immersion and the magic spell is shattered.

It's not just religions that use lies as foundational truths. Countries do the same. I'll admit I was fairly shocked the first time I learned how horrible America had been to the native populations of this continent. Or truly how terrible slavery was. As a young child you are force fed patriotic pablum in place of the truth, and I suppose the goal is for the population to never waver from these myth making ("Manifest Destiny") lies.  But waver we shall, for the truth is out there and can be known.

Click for big. To wit: Read 1984 and Brave New World. Thought provoking representations of totalitarian states.