Mark 16:17-18: And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

Wait! It gets even more complicated:

Matthew 7:22-23: “….Lord, Lord… have we not…in they name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

Jesus said his followers would be able to do these things….He asserted that those who believe will have these signs. Yet, the masses of Christians do not have these signs. Taken to its strange conclusion, we could assume that there are no Christians who believe as Jesus required. It is of interest to know that even having these signs and using Jesus’ name does not automatically make a person beloved by Jesus. Such a person may even be evil, in Jesus’ own estimation.

Above text taken from the book Judaism’s Truth Answers The Missionaries by Beth Moshe.

Then, at some future date when people are sick and tired of religion and religious wars, a new Age of Enlightenment will arrive.

History repeats itself.

Back to the original topic at hand: This guy Freshwater sounds like some kind of wacko Christian-style Stanley Milgram social psychology experimenter. Freshwater’s students may require years of therapy to undo the damage he has done to them. (And who will PAY for that therapy? Freshwater? I doubt it!)

The thing I always come back to is this: How would Christian parents of a public school child feel about someone of a different faith teaching HIS/HER religion to that child?

“…a quarter of the teachers also reported spending at least some time teaching about creationism or intelligent design. Of these, 48 percent — about 12.5 percent of the total survey — said they taught it as a “valid, scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species”.

This 12.5 percent is actually pretty much coincident with the number of really hard core Christian Neo-Fundamentalists that are believed to be out there in the general American population, based on polls that I have seen in the past. If you will recall the many past polls used to dipstick the popularity of the Bush administration and its policies, about 13 percent of the population in every poll ALWAYS thought he was the most wonderful person to ever walk the Earth since Jesus. I doubt this group could have been swayed even if “W” were found to be haviing sex with his daughters.

However, I guess the troubling thing to me is this. If you take 12.5 percent of a given total teacher population in any school district, and find that that 12.5 percent are hard core Christian Neo-fundamentalist in character, what it really means is that most likely every one of them to the last man or woman is probably functioning as Mr. Freshwater is alleged to have functioned in the science classroom. It is just happening under the radar. Now that is scary!!!

This isn’t about religion, though it appears his animosity to students and refusal to teach the curriculum was fueled by his odd beliefs.

How badly must a teacher injure a student physically before we say “enough?” How many students must be harmed before somebody says “fire him?”

Were this guy a student in most Texas schools, he’d have been out on his ear on the no-tolerance of injury standard. Were he a teach in most Texas schools, the local authorities probably would have had to protect him from local parents.

How much mayhem do Christians get to commit? Why do we allow Christians to harm more people than anyone else? (Maybe my membership in my local congregation is better protection from firing than membership in NEA . . .).

See these posts:
“Torturing children, the Constitution, and a teacher’s duty to protect children”
“The Firing of John Freshwater”

Freshwater’s claims of “freedom of speech” are spurious. He’s a government employee teaching religion in a public school. He also assaulted a child, for which there is a separate civil suit pending.

However, from what I’ve read about this case it’s clear that lax administration is a root cause in the problems the school district is facing now.

As Americans, our constitutional rights are among our most precious posessions. I think most of us would rate them well above our homes, cars, and jewelry. If someone burns down our house or steals our car or jewelry, the law sets stiff prison sentences for that person. It should be the same with our constitutional rights—if we truly do value them so highly. The federal courts have ruled until they are blue in the face that actions like those allegedly committed by this Ohio teacher were a violation of the constitutional rights of children and their parents. Given the number of past court rulings and their contents, it is clear that violations such as this can be nothing else but premeditated and willfull violations today.

Therefore, for those who premeditatedly and willfully violate a person’s constitutional rights in the face of a mountain of settled law, I support a mandatory 10 year sentence (without chance of parol) in a federal prison for each cited offense—offenses being assessed serially rather than concurrently. That’s how I feel about. I do not think it is cute. I do not think it is a laughing matter. I do not think it is just good-natured culture war fun to pull a stunt like this in a public school classroom. I am serious about this.