by Bruce Shortt, J.D., Ph.D.

WELCOME TO THE CONTINUING COLLAPSE!

 

"Doing the Education Research that Illegal Aliens Won't Do

 Since 1997"

 

 

Post Election Edition 2008

 

 

FIRST, A LITTLE GOOD NEWS

(Half of Minnesota's school bond levies failed)

 

 

      Many readers of The Continuing Collapse were anxiously waiting to find out  what the presidential election would deliver. Now we know that the American electorate was carrying "Rosemary's baby".  But, rather than contribute to feelings of post-partum depression, The Continuing Collapse wants to point a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy electoral landscape.

 

    As devoted readers know, The Continuing Collapse has predicted that American taxpayers are going to begin to revolt against government school bond levies. Here is a "the-cup-is-half-full" report from Minnesota.

 

About half of the levies and bond issues that were on ballots in school districts across Minnesota have been approved. The other half have failed....

 http://wcco.com/local/school.levy.bond.2.856913.html

 

    The Continuing Collapse suspects that Minnesota is not an anomaly and that many bond levies around the country went down to defeat. Undoubtedly the education establishment is trying to suppress a sense of panic.

 

    By the way, should you learn learn of a bond levy where you live, get in touch with Paul-The-Bond-Slayer (Paul Dorr).

 

 

SPEAKING OF ROSEMARY'S BABY...  

 

Below is a video that was created to illustrate what a Zogby survey found out about the people who voted for Dear Leader.

 

As you watch this video, ask yourself (1) what worldview do these people have and where did they get it, (2) why are their "databases" virtually empty, (3) why are their faculties of critical analysis undeveloped, and (4) why are they so susceptible to having their opinions formed by the media?

 

Watch This!  http://www.howobamagotelected.com/

 

Please bear in mind that the video was designed to reflect the results of a statistically valid survey. We now have the electorate that those who control the government schools want us to have.

 

If you have cable or broadcast television in your home, The Continuing Collapse suggests that now would be a good time to save some money and disconnect your home from the the MSM. One of the few tools we have at our disposal is defunding the leftwing media.

 

 

MORE EVIDENCE OF THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP

 

    One of the lies often told by evangelical and other Christian leaders is that educating your children in government schools isn't a moral issue. The Continuing Collapse, however, has pointed out that rendering your children unto Caesar isn't merely sin, it is gross sin. Moreover, The Continuing Collapse is constantly providing evidence of the fruit of American Christianity's addiction to that middle class welfare entitlement known as "public education."

 

   Now comes Barna Research with yet more data showing where our faithlessness in the education of our children is leading American public. In a study of 16-29 year-olds, the most recent generation of "youth" spewed forth from the government schools we find that rejection of Christianity and hostility toward Christianity are rising.

 

HERE'S A GRAPH WORTH TEN THOUSAND WORDS

 

The Proportion of those "Outside"

Christianity is Growing with Each Generation

Source: The Barna Group, Ltd. 2007

 

    What is plain from the graph is that self identification with Christianity is rapidly decreasing. Why is there such a disparity in identification with Christianity between older and younger generations? Is it because in 1963, when the 61 year-olds who were surveyed were 16 years-old, churches had more money, programs, and youth groups than are available to today's 16 year-olds? Were there more "youth pastors"?

 

    Or, could have to do with the fact that in 1963 the secular left was still some years from gaining complete control of the government school system and so had not gotten complete control of forming the worldview of that generation?

 

    Some may try to claim that this decline is just something transient and that the problem will resolve itself as this cohort of young people grow older. Barna disagrees:

 

As pointed out in the Barna Update related to atheists and agnostics, this is not a passing fad wherein young people will become "more Christian" as they grow up. While Christianity remains the typical experience and most common faith in America, a fundamental recalibration is occurring within the spiritual allegiance of America’s upcoming generations...One reason that Christianity’s image is changing is due to the shifting faith allegiances of Americans. Simply put, each new generation has a larger share of people who are not Christians (that is, atheists, agnostics, people associated with another faith, or those who have essentially no faith orientation).

 

    Unfortunately, the data showing a generational collapse of identification with Christianity is not the worst of what the data show. Paralleling a rise in those "outside" Christianity is a dramatic rise in hostility toward Christianity. Here's Barna:

 

...The study shows that 16- to 29-year-olds exhibit a greater degree of criticism toward Christianity than did previous generations when they were at the same stage of life. In fact, in just a decade, many of the Barna measures of the Christian image have shifted substantially downward, fueled in part by a growing sense of disengagement and disillusionment among young people.

 

For instance, a decade ago the vast majority of Americans outside the Christian faith, including young people, felt favorably toward Christianity’s role in society. Currently, however, just 16% of non-Christians in their late teens and twenties said they have a "good impression" of Christianity.

 

    Ah, but it gets worse. If you are an evangelical your "approval rating" by 16-29 year-olds outside Christianity has fallen below the approval ratings for Congress and used car salesmen.

 

One of the groups hit hardest by the criticism is evangelicals.... negative views [about evangelicals] are crystallizing and intensifying among young non-Christians. The new study shows that only 3% of 16 - to 29-year-old non-Christians express favorable views of evangelicals. This means that today’s young non-Christians are eight times less likely to experience positive associations toward evangelicals than were non-Christians of the Boomer generation (25%).

 

While Christianity has typically generated an uneven reputation, the research shows that many of the most common critiques are becoming more concentrated. The study explored twenty specific images related to Christianity, including ten favorable and ten unfavorable perceptions. Among young non-Christians, nine out of the top 12 perceptions were negative. Common negative perceptions include that present-day Christianity is judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), and too involved in politics (75%) - representing large proportions of young outsiders who attach these negative labels to Christians.

 

    Now, why would today's young non-Christians be 8 times less likely to express a positive view of Christianity than Baby Boomers? And why would would their criticisms be intensifying and crystalizing around such claims as Christians are "judgmental", "too political," "hypocritical", and "old-fashioned"?

 

    Could it be that these young people are being discipled in government schools in a worldview that tells them, for example, that moral values are relative and that any belief system that fails to conform to the values of the popular culture is behind the times and "old-fashioned"?

 

"Well," Pastor Billy Bob might say, "after all, these young people are not Christians so this isn't surprising." 

 

Unfortunately, even Pastor Billy Bob probably won't be pleased to discover what Barna found among young churchgoers:

 

Even among young Christians, many of the negative images generated significant traction. Half of young churchgoers said they perceive Christianity to be judgmental, hypocritical, and too political. One-third said it was old-fashioned and out of touch with reality.

 

    "Judgmental", "old-fashioned and out of touch with reality", etc. Sounds as if a very large percentage of young churchgoers are using the very same worldview to criticize Christianity as the non-Christians. The Continuing Collapse wonders how this could possibly be....unless it has something to do with the young non-Christians and the young churchgoers being discipled by the same institution - the government schools.

 

     But, as they say in the late night Ginzu Knife infomercials, "There's more!"

 

Interestingly, the study discovered a new image that has steadily grown in prominence over the last decade. Today, the most common perception is that present-day Christianity is "anti-homosexual." Overall, 91% of young non-Christians and 80% of young churchgoers say this phrase describes Christianity. As the research probed this perception, non-Christians and Christians explained that beyond their recognition that Christians oppose homosexuality, they believe that Christians show excessive contempt and unloving attitudes towards gays and lesbians. One of the most frequent criticisms of young Christians was that they believe the church has made homosexuality a "bigger sin" than anything else. Moreover, they claim that the church has not helped them apply the biblical teaching on homosexuality to their friendships with gays and lesbians.

 

    Splendid. 80% of young churchgoers believe that Christians are guilty of the significant sin of thinking that practicing and promoting homosexual sodomy is a significant sin. [Note to self: Send  memo to God about how he screwed up that Sodom and Gomorrah thing, as well as Romans 1 and those other "anti-homosexual" portions of the Bible.]

 

    But we aren't done. No, an age group whose grasp of history somehow doesn't include being able to identify Winston Churchill or who we fought in WWII is convinced that Christianity isn't what it used to be. [ Ironically, perhaps we can all agree about that]. 

 

When young people were asked to identify their impressions of Christianity, one of the common themes was "Christianity is changed from what it used to be" and "Christianity in today’s society no longer looks like Jesus." These comments were the most frequent unprompted images that young people called to mind, mentioned by one-quarter of both young non-Christians (23%) and born again Christians (22%)...."That’s where the term 'unChristian' came from.

 

    Recall that previously Barna found that evangelical teens (who because of the passage of time now fall within the age-cohort of this study) had little grasp of the fundamentals of Christianity. Now these young churchgoers believe that in some past "golden age" Christianity attained closer to the noble ideals they have absorbed through being institutionalized in government schools.

 

     In short, it is quite plain that for a large percentage of the young churchgoers the worldview of the government schools and media is normative, not the Christian worldview. So, in the minds of young churchgoers and those within the church who are their enablers, the churches need to change in order to fix what's wrong.

 

Young people are very candid. In our interviews, we kept encountering young people - both those inside the church and outside of it - who said that something was broken in the present-day expression of Christianity. Their perceptions about Christianity were not always accurate, but what surprised me was not only the severity of their frustration with Christians, but also how frequently young born again Christians expressed some of the very same comments as young non-Christians."

 

Not surprisingly, Barna reaches an obvious conclusion. 

 

This represents a significant migration away from the dominant role that Christianity has had in America.

 

But perhaps a more insightful conclusion would be that visionless, cowardly, weak leadership can accomplish things like this every time.

 

   A word of caution: Please don't assume that Barna shares The Continuing Collapse's interpretation of his data. As far as The Continuing Collapse can determine, Barna has a book to sell and would probably like some consulting gigs with churches to help them repair their "brands"....churches need better marketing and communication and all that.

 

    The Continuing Collapse, however, leaves it to you, dear reader, to reach your own conclusions.

 

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdateNarrow&BarnaUpdateID=280

 

 

AND NOW FOR MORE TALES FROM THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOL CRYPT

 

 

    You may remember that The Continuing Collapse reported a few months ago that the former President of the NEA, Reg Weaver,  was meeting with some church leaders about further collaboration between churches and the NEA. In fact, the possibility of making churches affiliate or associate members of the NEA was broached. Think of it as "Vichy Christianity."

 

    Now the new President of the NEA, Dennis Van Roekel, is back on the trail trying to entice Quisling pastors into finding ways to "partner" with the NEA. The price of  this proposed "civil union" between churches and our highly trained education professionals is that pastors not tell the truth about government schools from the pulpit.

 

...Questioned about what he would like to see churches do to help public schools, Van Roekel answered, “I would like them to stop preaching from the pulpit that they are bad.”

 

Then he added, “I would like us to figure out new ways for us to be partners.”

 

From his perspective, communities of faith and schools got caught in the crossfire over issues like prayer and religious holidays. He said the two institutions should not have “an adversarial relationship” and should find common ground, expressing a traditional commitment to the separation of church and state.

 

Van Roekel did say that he did not support the teaching of creationism in public schools: “I believe it’s a religious doctrine and we shouldn’t be teaching that … Evolution is a theory of science...."

 http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=11251

 

OK Pastor Billy Bob. You can "partner" with the NEA as long as you realize that as far as our highly trained education professionals are concerned, your worldview is less welcome in schools than a skunk at a garden party. And they get to make the rules.

 

 

A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA FOR OUR QUISLING PASTORS

 

   Just in case you were still in doubt about what our highly trained education professionals think about God and Christianity, below we have a must watch video concerning a Vermont school that sends children out of class to say Pledge of Allegiance because of the phrase "under God".

 

   So, children who want to say the pledge are now being treated like smokers. In other words, belief in God is just another bad habit that the schools need to help children get over.

 

    Even our Quisling pastors and their Vichy churches ought to be able to see that the civil union that NEA President Van Roekel proposes with churches is likely to end up in a Massachusetts divorce court.

 

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=222643

 

 

 THE TRUE FACE OF TEACHERS' UNIONS:

 

WE DON'T CARE IF YOU ARE TEACHER OF THE YEAR. ALL THAT MATTERS IS WHETHER YOU HAND OVER YOUR MONEY AS "DUES"

 

BISMARCK – North Dakota’s new Teacher of the Year was barred from a reception held to honor top teachers because she declined to join the North Dakota Education Association, education officials said. One denounced the move as “hurtful and vindictive.”

 

Beth Ekre, a sixth-grade teacher at Carl Ben Eielson Middle School in Fargo, showed up for the Oct. 23 “Celebration of Excellence” social at a Fargo hotel, hours after her selection as North Dakota’s Teacher of the Year was announced at an NDEA instructional conference.

 

...“It was a humiliating experience,” Ekre said. “It’s one of the most uncomfortable situations I’ve ever been in.” http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=220652&section=news&freebie_check&CFID=112533685&CFTOKEN=98215328&jsessionid=88307b420af53744753f

 

 

LAWS? WE'RE HIGHLY TRAINED EDUCATION PROFESSIONALS.

 

WE DON'T NEED TO OBEY NO STEENKIN' LAWS. 

 

    If you can get away with flagrant educational fraud and contributing to the delinqency of minors, why worry about committing other kinds of fraud?

 

Years after being advised by a state agency to stop, the Dallas Independent School District continued to provide foreign citizens with fake Social Security numbers to get them on the payroll quickly....

 

Some of the numbers were real Social Security numbers already assigned to people elsewhere. And in some cases, the state's educator certification office unknowingly used the bogus numbers to run criminal background checks on the new hires, most of whom were brought in to teach bilingual classes.

 

The practice was described in an internal report issued in September by the district's investigative office, which looked into the matter after receiving a tip. The report said the Texas Education Agency learned of the fake numbers in 2004 and told DISD then that the practice "was illegal."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/111408dnmetdisdsocials.3d93dbc.html

 

How many highly trained education professionals will go to prison for identity fraud? Anyone want to take the other side of a wager of 0?

 

 

DEAR OLD MR. CHIPS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING. EDDIE HASKELL IS NOW IN CHARGE

(if you don't get the reference, go search YouTube for Mr. Chips and Eddie Haskell)

 

     Nostalgia prevents many Christians from thinking rationally about government schools. Middle-aged pastors and laymen alike tend to perceive government schools through a fog of fond remembrances from the time they were nine years-old. Surely schools can't be so very different today, they say. After all, the government school employees in their congregations seem pleasant enough and respectable (and they are a source of church revenue, after all).

 

EDUCATION IS OUR JOB NUMBER 1!

 

(and if you believe that line from our highly trained professionals, you might be at risk of responding to emails from Mrs. Miriam Abacha who needs your help in claiming $20 million)

 

 

 

      Here is a story that reveals what today's highly trained educaion professionals' priorities actually are.

 

Call it a case of the Red and Black flu.

 

Tired of struggling to find enough teachers to staff its classrooms on the Friday before the annual Georgia-Florida football game, the Clarke County (Ga.) School District -- which includes Athens, home of the University of Georgia -- decided to cancel school altogether.

 

According to area media reports, 137 teachers last year called in sick the day before the big game, and the district was able to find only 113 substitutes.

School administrators studied the absences over the years and found a pattern -- almost twice as many teachers call in sick the Friday before the annual game in Jacksonville, Fla., about 360 miles away, than on an average school day. So the district decided to call off school the Friday before the game. And Clarke County is not alone; the schools in nearby Madison and Oglethorpe counties also are taking the day off.

 

Although some parents and teachers are questioning whether the day off places too much emphasis on football over academics, at least one school administrator believes it's a wise move on the district's part.

 

"I've heard parents say that it's ridiculous, but the reality of the situation is, if there are so many people in this system and this community that go to the game -- if that's a reality -- it's irresponsible [to have school on that day] if that really is our community," said Barrow Elementary School principal Tad MacMillan, according to the Athens Banner-Herald. "I think the school system is wise to factor that in when they plan the calendar."

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3674820

 

 

GOVERNMENT SCHOOLED STUDENTS UNCONSCIOUSLY ENGAGE IN SELF-PARODY

 

     Here is more evidence of how the "self-esteem" movement has run amuck in government schools. Someone needs to tell these "near voters" that Lake Woebegon is a joke. Not everybody can be above average.

 

   Employers, save yourself a headache. Hire a homeschooler.

 

  

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Today's American high school students are far likelier than those in the 1970s to believe they'll make outstanding spouses, parents and workers, new research shows.

 

They're also much more likely to claim they are "A" students with high IQs -- even though other research shows that today's students do less homework than their counterparts did in the 1970s.

 

The findings, published in the November issue of Psychological Science, support the idea that the "self-esteem" movement popular among today's parents and teachers may have gone too far, the study's co-author said....

 

She believes that decades of relentless, uncritical boosterism by parents and school systems may be producing a generation of kids with expectations that are out of sync with the challenges of the real world.

 

"High school students' responses have crossed over into a really unrealistic realm, with three-fourths of them expecting performance that's effectively in the top 20 percent," Twenge said...

 

Compared to their counterparts from the '70s, today's youth also tended to rate themselves as more intelligent and were more likely to say they were "completely satisfied" with themselves...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20081112/hl_hsn/usteensbrimmingwithselfesteem

 

 THE END IS IN SIGHT

(of this edition of The Continuing Collapse)

 

   Because you have so faithfully worked your way to the end of this lengthy edition of The Continuing Collapse, here is a reward. Much of the creation/evolution debate focuses on Darwinism. Christians ought to know that cosmology provides evidence of design that is extremely embarrassing to the Dawkins/Harris/Dennett axis of atheists.

 

    The following very readable article will provide you with a powerful additional apologetics resource. Cosmology offers a choice between a designer and something like Hinduism. You might ask those who opt for the "multiverse" explanation how they feel about cows and Occam's Razor.

 

Desperately Fleeing God in Cosmology

   

Nov 17, 2008 — Does the fine-tuning of the universe require belief in God?  Or will multiverse theory allow for a self-perpetuating, eternal, godless cosmos?  Tim Folger explored this topic in an interview with Andrei Linde, a cosmologist currently at Stanford, in Discovery Magazine.  The opening line sums up the controversy: “Our universe is perfectly tailored for life.  That may be the work of God or the result of our universe being one of many.”

    Folger and Linde stated repeatedly and emphatically that our universe appears designed.  They discuss the multiple fine-tuning coincidences, like the mass of protons, that would rule out stars and life if they were just 0.2% more massive than they are.  “We have a lot of really, really strange coincidences, and all of these coincidences are such that they make life possible,” Linde says.  Folger asserted that physicists dislike coincidences.  To avoid them, some cosmologists have been driven to postulate that our universe may be just one of many.  We just inhabit one of the very, very rare lucky ones where the constants of physics came together by chance to permit life:

Call it a fluke, a mystery, a miracle.  Or call it the biggest problem in physics.  Short of invoking a benevolent creator, many physicists see only one possible explanation: Our universe may be but one of perhaps infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast multi­verse.  Most of those universes are barren, but some, like ours, have conditions suitable for life.

    The idea is controversial.  Critics say it doesn’t even qualify as a scientific theory because the existence of other universes cannot be proved or disproved.  Advocates argue that, like it or not, the multiverse may well be the only viable non­religious explanation for what is often called the “fine-tuning problem”–the baffling observation that the laws of the universe seem custom-tailored to favor the emergence of life.

    “For me the reality of many universes is a logical possibility,” Linde says.  “You might say, ‘Maybe this is some mysterious coincidence.  Maybe God created the universe for our benefit.’  Well, I don’t know about God, but the universe itself might reproduce itself eternally in all its possible manifestations.”

Those interested can read the whole article, where Linde and others elaborate on the pros and cons of the multiverse hypothesis.  One line on page 3 stands out.  Bernard Carr, a cosmologist at Queen Mary University in London, said, “you might have to have a fine-tuner.  If you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse.”  Linde admitted in the end that he cannot predict whether the multiverse hypothesis will gain traction any more than he can know anything at all: “What can you predict?  What can you know about the future?”

The prophet Amos teased those in his day thinking wrongly about the day of the Lord’s judgment: “It will be as though a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him!” he said.  “Or as though he went into the house, leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him!” (Amos 5:19).  If Linde thinks he can escape God by running toward naturalistic cosmology, the bear of ultimate questions will gnaw on the bones of his speculation.  If he runs into the house of the multiverse, the serpent of ultimate causation will bite his circular reasoning.  The multiverse cannot escape from the question, “Why is there something instead of nothing?”

    The multiverse conjecture abandons science and reason.  It throws up its hands and puts faith in the Stuff Happens Law: anything can happen, anywhere, anytime, without any reason, and we can never know why (see 09/15/2008 commentary).  Linde may feel comfortable that this law fits in with his own Hindu background, but he cannot call it science.  See the 10/23/2008 commentary about the “naturalism-of-the-gaps” fallacy.

    A feeling of desperation runs through the article: isn’t there some way we can escape the obvious that God created this fine-tuned universe?  Their cure is worse than their ailment: stuff happens.  May as well give up on rationality altogether with that kind of explanation.  The Stuff Happens Law may disqualify as a scientific law, but the Law of Human Depravity has 100% predictive success.  Paul explained, “there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.  All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Romans 3:11-12).  Without God providing a way back to reason through His Son Jesus Christ, (Romans 5), we would be running from God from one fantasy to another forever...

    http://creationsafaris.com/crev200811.htm#20081117a

 

REMEMBER:

 

1. Feel free to circulate The Continuing Collapse.

 

2. If you aren't hearing about at least some these government school problems from your pastor, why is he your pastor?

 

3. FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS.

 

“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm – but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.” T.S. Eliot