Spiritual defender: 'Intelligent Design' Not Enough For Creationists, Now The Push For 'Divine Mathematics' | Addicting Info

Friday, August 10, 2012

'Intelligent Design' Not Enough For Creationists, Now The Push For 'Divine Mathematics' | Addicting Info - Grae's column on Newsvine

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RAYLOKEAugust 10, 2012 at 6:55 AM
By Nathaniel Downes

For years now we have seen people seeking to push the bible into the science classroom. However, the move in recent years to push the religiously based ‘charter school’ system has opened up a new front in the war to erode critical thinking skills. No longer satisfied with pushing the rubbish ofCreationism or abstinence only health education, now a new model is out, attacking the foundation of mathematics itself.

The A Beka Book company provides a great many of the literature for these religious schools. We come to expect dominionists to push for their lies about science and history, but the A Beka Book company produces a whole series of dominionist school textbooks, including a revisionist form of mathematics not based on logic nor reason but instead “mathematics are a creation of God and thus absolute.”

Here is an example, taken from the A Beka Book piece titled “The Christian Approach to Elementary Math” originally published in 1980 and still used in their latest titles:

We are unabashed advocates of traditional math, not only because the students learn something that can be built upon, but also because it accords with our Christian viewpoints on education. Only from a Christian perspective can the basic rationale — the intrinsic reasonableness of traditional elementary math — be seen and appreciated. Traditional math will not succeed unless it is taught with the conviction that something more than arbitrary process derived from arbitrary principles is at work. The elementary student does not need to “understand” 2 + 2 = 4 in order to learn it and use it; he will learn the abstract principles later. But the elementary student does need to see his multiplication tables as part of the truth and order that God has built into reality. From the Christian perspective, 2 + 2 = 4 takes on cosmic significance, as does every fact of mathematics, however particular.
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