quote:

Though she catapulted onto the national stage just under two weeks ago, the Alaskan governor has come under siege, especially by bloggers and cable media outlets, with fiction quickly replacing fact.

In an investigative summary named, "Sliming Palin," FactCheck.org. tackled and dispelled the leading lies Mrs. Palin's opponents are attempting to make stick to her candidacy.

One of the most common attempts to distort Mrs. Palin's record concerns funding special needs education.

A mother of a special needs child herself, mass e-mails have accused Mrs. Palin of slashing Alaska's special education budget by 62 percent. False.

Instead, Mrs. Palin supported legislation raising education funding dramatically.

"It would increase spending on what Alaska calls 'intensive needs' students (students with high-cost special requirements) from $26,900 per student in 2008 to $73,840 per student in 2011," FactCheck.org found.

"That almost triples the per-student spending in three fiscal years," the site said.

The former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska is also accused of trying to ban a list of books and firing the librarian who resisted such totalitarian efforts. This, too, is false.

While FactCheck.org found Mrs. Palin did raise the issue of book banning with Wasilla's librarian, she did so in a hypothetical fashion. Mary Ellen Emmons, the town librarian, corroborates the story. And while Ms. Emmons was fired in a political purge, she was immediately rehired as town librarian.

As for the list of books associated with the rumor, FactCheck.org found the list to be not just skeptical, but sloppy.

"The list includes the first four Harry Potter books, none of which had been published at the time of the Palin-Emmons conversations," the organization wrote.

"In fact, the list is a simple cut-and-paste job, snatched (complete with typos and the occasional incorrect title) from the Florida Institute of Technology library Web page, which presents the list as "Books banned at one time or another in the United States."

Nor was Mrs. Palin ever a member of the Alaskan Independence Party. Rather the party's chairwoman issued an apology after relying on false information to support her allegation.

And even though a 1999 AP story had Mrs. Palin wearing a Pat Buchanan for president button, Mrs. Palin was actually one of Steve Forbes' state co-chairs in 2000. She did wear a Buchanan button, but such a gesture was one of courtesy.

As for creationism in schools, Mrs. Palin's position is that she would support teaching creationism alongside evolution, but has never pushed for the subject matter to be included in Alaska schools' curriculum.

"Teach both," Mrs. Palin said during the 2006 Alaskan gubernatorial debate.

"You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both."

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

"While FactCheck.org found Mrs. Palin did raise the issue of book banning with Wasilla's librarian, she did so in a hypothetical fashion. Mary Ellen Emmons, the town librarian, corroborates the story. And while Ms. Emmons was fired in a political purge, she was immediately rehired as town librarian."

Huh? A librarian fired in a political purge? Was Palin the mayor of Vladivostok?

quote:

ORIGINAL: cyberdude611

And then we wonder why:
1) Good, non-corrupt people rarely go into politics.
2) Why women never go into politics.

The media in this country is a joke.

quote:

ORIGINAL: bipolarber

This one aspect of Sarah Palin is more than enough, all on it's own, to disqualify her from being one heartbeat away from the Presidency of the United States.

quote:

ORIGINAL: bipolarber

"Teach both." she said?
"Don't be afraid of information." she said?
What a load of BS, says I!
"Creationisim," and or "Intelligent Design" is NOT science. It's a religious fairtale trying to crowbar its way into our school's science classrooms. It's religion's "trojan horse" by which they intend to dumb down the curriculum, and push their own belief system into the community. 

Science is NOT religion. Science is, in many ways, the opposite of religion. Science does not take things on faith. Science takes things on the basis of observed evidence. Evolution is only a theory in the same sense that gravitation is a theory. It's how things work in the physical universe that we know, and see.

Creationisim... the creationisim that Palin and Bush want to push on our kids... is based on the faith that God exists, and that God created everything instantly, with no intermediate steps. Yet, they can't find a single shred of evidence to support this "scientific theory of creationisim."

In a world that runs on science, and that is as bloodthirstily competative as ours is, the distraction of the next generation's minds from the truth would be nothing less than a disaster.

This one aspect of Sarah Palin is more than enough, all on it's own, to disqualify her from being one heartbeat away from the Presidency of the United States.

quote:

ORIGINAL: cyberdude611

quote:



Now has having those religious organizations on those college campuses interfered with science and learning? Not at all. In fact going back, the Big Bang theory was first proposed by a Catholic preist in Belgium who had a facination with astronomy. Charles Darwin wrote about his belief in god until the day he died. These people who thought up these theories of evolution and big bang were not atheists.

Albert Einstein had a good quote for this....
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
"All religions, arts and sciences, are branches of the same tree."

Einstein's belief was that the goal of science is not to go to war with religion. The goal of science is to find truth and understanding. But just like religion does not have all the answers....neither does science. It seems the more questions we answer about life and the universe, the more questions that spring up. There is so much we dont know. And it would be arrogant of science to state a fact that god doesnt exist. In reality, science has no clue if god exists or not.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Charles Darwin (1809–1882), who proposed the theory of evolution by means of natural selection.Charles Darwin's views on religion have been the subject of much interest. His work was pivotal in the development of evolution theory.
Charles Darwin had a non-conformist background, but attended a Church of England school. He studied Anglican theology with the aim of becoming a clergyman, before joining the Voyage of the Beagle. On return, he developed his theory of natural selection in full awareness that it conflicted with the teleological argument. Darwin deliberated about the Christian meaning of mortality and came to think that the religious instinct had evolved with society. With the death of his daughter Annie, Darwin lost all faith in a beneficent God and saw Christianity as futile. He continued to give support to the local church and help with parish work, but on Sundays would go for a walk while his family attended church. However, in his autobiography he recalled that at the time of writing On the Origin of Species he was convinced of the existence of God as a First Cause and deserved to be called a theist.[1]
In his later life, Darwin was frequently asked about his religious views. He went as far as saying that "Science has nothing to do with Christ, except insofar as the habit of scientific research makes a man cautious in admitting evidence. For myself, I do not believe that there ever has been any revelation. As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities." He was always insistent that he was agnostic and had "never been an atheist".[2]

________________________________________________________________________________________


"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

The above quote is from a letter Einstein wrote in English, dated 24 March 1954. It is included in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, and published by Princeton University Press.

quote:

Now let's pretend that I have a religion that I practice (uhg!) and teach to my children