Who Wants a Job?

June 18, 2007

If you live in West Virginia, your job search is over!

Mercer County is looking for a part-time Bible teacher.

(It would be wonderful to have an atheist teach that class.)

If you’re interested, you must “must hold or be eligible for a WV teaching certificate.”

Oh, and you have to have a “dregree in Bible.”

I didn’t even know “Bible” was a major. Bible Studies, perhaps. A quick Google search tells me Bible really is a major… it just sounds strange, like an incomplete statement spoken by a caveman.

What did you major in?

Bible.

Oh, and if someone can tell me what a “dregree” is, that’d be helpful.

(Thanks to Lee for the link!)

[tags]atheist, atheism, Bible, West Virginia, Mercer County schools[/tags]

June 18, 2007

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Mriana

Backwoods hillbillies seems to be the same all over- like in Missouri, they can’t read, spell or talk properly. I’ll translate since they seem to be unedumacated hillbillies like I deal with here.

They are asking for someone who has a degree in Religious studies, specifically Christianity to teach the Christian Bible in their so called primary and secondary schools (K-12). Of course, there is a hidden qualification that is not written in plain English there- must at least act like an Evangelical Fundamentalist.

Yes, I got all of that at that. Comes from living around them for too long.
writerdd

Hmmm. Maybe I should apply. I went to Bible School instead of College. And I do know how to act like a fundie….
Maria

LOL, WV, surprise surprise……..
Lee

Here is the web address that describes Mercer County – for any interested parties: http://www.mccvb.com/
Personally, I try to avoid the southern part of the state.
HappyNat

“dregree” lol, that is classic. So I’ll assume good speellin’ isn’t a requirment.
Bart

What kind of degree would be “equivalent” to a dregree in Bible? Would a dregree in Quran be acceptable? I’m guessing it wouldn’t. What about a degree in the Torah?

BTW, why is a class such as this allowed in public schools again?
Richard Wade

Wait a second. This is the Mercer County public school system? As Bart is asking, is this class allowed in public schools? General tax revenues are paying for this?
Lee

Perhaps I might forward the link for the job to the Americans United group.
vovic

Hey now. Not all of us in the DubVee are hillbillies. I do some occasional work for NASA out of their facility in Fairmont WV. This isn’t all that surprising though. Southern WV is pretty bad. With the exception of Charleston and Huntington. I can hear the banjos when I go down that way.
Mriana

Richard Wade said,

June 20, 2007 at 2:31 am

Wait a second. This is the Mercer County public school system? As Bart is asking, is this class allowed in public schools? General tax revenues are paying for this?

Yep. That’s the Bible Belt for you. Try living here. 🙄
Richard Wade

The U.S. really is like two separate countries. One in the middle and the other on either coast.
Darryl

The U.S. really is like two separate countries. One in the middle and the other on either coast.

One of the consequences of having a big country is that it can support separate subcultures. I have more in common with Germans than I have with Republicans in Georgia, and I’d prefer the company of the former over the latter.

The South was never reconstructed. When the rednecks vowed “the south will rise again,” I’m sure that they had no idea–I neither did I–that they would arise by spreading their rebellion to the all the ‘red states.’
Ash

Richard Wade said,

June 20, 2007 at 12:44 pm

The U.S. really is like two separate countries. One in the middle and the other on either coast.

suggested title for a new atheist/religious book – “america – the doughnut of sanity”…?
Darryl

suggested title for a new atheist/religious book – “america – the doughnut of sanity”…?

More like a sandwich really.
Darryl

The United States of American: The Sandwich of Sanity

I kind of like that. It’s poetic.
Richard Wade

The alliteration is good in the Sandwich of Sanity, but the outside part of a sandwich is the boring bread part and the goodies are in the middle. We need a better metaphor that doesn’t portray the sane outside as the boring part and the lunatic center as the goodie part. The doughnut idea was good but there’s those top and bottom connecting parts of sanity that don’t exist in the country. Hmmm. This is an important problem.
Darryl

You haven’t tasted my home-made wheat bread–the bread is the best part.
What about the inversion: The Sandwich of Insanity? In this sandwich, the center is pimento loaf or sliced spam (ugh!). Of course, the all-important alliteration is lost.

How about The Oreo of Sanity? (personally, that doesn’t do it for me, ’cause I prefer the cookie over the filling)

The Peanut M & M of Sanity? (Nothing beats chocolate)

The Almond Joy of Sanity?

What are those Pepperidge Farm cookies with the oval wafers? The cookie is clearly superior to the filling.

It’s too bad that muffins don’t have muffin-bottoms like their muffin-tops. Am I the only one here that loves the top most of all? Same thing goes for the skin of a pudding–especially chocolate.

I’ve got it! The Sushi of Sanity! The stuff on the outside is best! What I wouldn’t give for a nice unagi right now. I realize that we’ll have to extrapolate a little bit (or wrap that eel all the way around the rice), but that’s not a problem for imaginative people.
Miko

“The Milk Dud of Insanity.”

(Bart Simpson: “She’s like a Milk Dud. Sweet on the outside, poison on the inside.”)
monkeymind

You’re assuming that Southern California is part of the yummy sane coating and it’s clearly not. Also Florida is part of the Axis of Insanity IMO. And what about parts of the Upper Midwest that are pretty liberal? And if you look at the famous blue/red maps there are lots of islands of blue all over. So I would propose the Stewpot of Insanity, with sane chunks of nutritious goodness floating in an insane broth.

-a NorCal gal
Karen

You’re assuming that Southern California is part of the yummy sane coating and it’s clearly not.

Ay! I resemble that remark … Siamang and I are here, after all!
😉
Siamang

Snark.
monkeymind

Ronnie Reagan and the governator – both from SoCal. ‘Nuff said.

-Monterey Bay monkey
Darryl

Hmm . . . leave it to a bunch of atheists to complicate a problem. Richard was right: this is an important problem. If we choose some metaphor to represent Richard’s initial idea, which does have just enough truth to it to generalize, we’ll have to fudge a bit and loose the complexities of the national stew. This is why a collection of metaphors is needed; no single one can capture the many aspects of our national condition.
Richard Wade

Ronnie Reagan and the governator – both from SoCal. ‘Nuff said.

Ronnie baby was born in Tampico, Illinois and Mistah Govenah of Caleeforniah was born in Austria. ‘Nuff said.

I however am a native of southern California, so watch those smart alec remarks, fog lover. 😉 (If you’re nice I’ll send you some indoor tanning lotion and some avocados.)

Maybe we should try non-food metaphors like bookends of sanity with a Bible in the middle. Or two oases of sanity with a desert of superstition in between. My apologies to the hapless refugees on the small islands of sanity in the middle. Maybe you should get out while you can.

I’m so glad that so many are taking up the effort on this most important problem.
Darryl

Maybe we should try non-food metaphors like bookends of sanity with a Bible in the middle. Or two oases of sanity with a desert of superstition in between.

Oh, great, Richard. Complicate our task even more. Argh!

Come on you literary people out there; this is your stock and trade–make with the metaphors. My imagination begins to flag once we depart the sweet realm of snacks.

When’s Hemant coming back again?
Mriana

The stars were so dim that they asked the Sun to brighten them with knowledge saying, “We pray thee to teach us.”

(Think allegory)
Mriana

So Sun sent it’s beautiful daughter Diana to enlighten the stars.

Come on you literary people out there; this is your stock and trade–make with the metaphors.

How’s that for you, Darryl? Took two posts of allegory, but there you go from a literary person. 😀
Richard Wade

Uh,…. huh? (wtf smiley here)
Ash

from one ill thought out and facetious comment, a movement is born. now we just need a name and a theology and we’re done…

gotta love you guys…
Richard Wade

If you mean my comment about America being really like two separate countries, I beg to differ. That was a well thought out and facetious comment.

Harumph.

If you mean sombody else’s facetious comment, well you may have a point.
Mriana

Richard Wade said,

June 22, 2007 at 12:49 am

Uh,…. huh? (wtf smiley here)

Darryl asked for literary people to come up with something, so I did. You have to think allegory to get it, Richard.

Thus… I came up with:

The stars were so dim that they asked Sun to brighten them with knowledge saying, “We pray thee to teach us.” So Sun sent it’s beautiful daughter Diana to enlighten the stars.

If thinking allegory doesn’t help you, bend your mind towards Acharya S.’s thinking, then allegory.
Richard Wade

Well I guess I’m as dim as the stars. Sorry. Ok, Acharya S. says that religions are based on earlier myths. I put that setting on my Allegory Decoder 2.0 and ran your (lovely) allegory through it but it didn’t come out as “a country with well educated, sophisticated people on the coastlines and uneducated, superstitious people in the center.”

I’ve been known to miss what’s right in front of me while looking for something obscure. I pray thee to send Diana the babe to enlighten me. I’ll understand if you have to use the rolling eyes smiley.
monkeymind

MRIANA to Richard Wade: Don’t make me get out my rolling eyes smiley!

so watch those smart alec remarks, fog lover. 😉 (If you’re nice I’ll send you some indoor tanning lotion and some avocados.)

Fine, smog-breath, as long as you acknowledge that Santa Cruz is the real Surf City. We can grow avocados here, BTW. And isn’t an avocado an atheist’s wet dream? Why would an Intelligent Designer make us split and pit the avocado and mash it in a bowl with lime juice? A truly benevolent god would have provided the guacamole in a handy container.
Mriana

OK here’s the explaination, Richard. The sun is God in a lot of mythology. The stars, in this case refer to the people, but can be constellations, tribes, countries, etc. Diana was a moon goddess in Roman Mythology (also called Deanna in some myths).

Now can you put the pieces together in my little allegory?
Richard Wade

Monkeymind,
Ok, (cough) I’ll have to take your word for it about Santa Cruz surfing. (cough cough) I’ve heard of it but it’s never been filmed because nobody can see more than 50 yards off the beach. (cough cough ahem) You’re right about avocados soundly refuting ID which is one of the reasons I love them. (cough cough choke gasp wheeze)

By the way I never trust air I can’t see. (wheeze gasp choke cough puke) The smog has gotten much better here over the years. Used to be that incoming planes got stuck in it and slowly sank to the bottom, settling down on houses. (cough) I’m feeling better now.

Mriana,
Yeah I got all that immediately, including the subtle Trek reference to Deanna being your daughter. If the sun is male that casts you as his mate. Darryl asked for literary people to come up with “something” and your allegory certainly is something, as nice as it is. It just doesn’t have anything to do with a country with an intellectual hollow spot in the middle, (apologies to the exceptions) like a doughnut or a sandwich, or a peanut M&M. As imperfect as they are, those allegories are on the right track. The backward people in the Midwest whom we are dismayed about aren’t asking anybody for enlightenment, they’re rejecting it and trying to sell us their ignorance. If Diana/Deanna showed up there she’d be politely run out of town.

We’ve really got to get this very serious problem resolved before Hemant gets back or he’ll think we’ve been goofing off in his absence.
Mriana

Hey, I tried. 🙁 Oh well. You can’t say I’m not creative. 😀 Can you?
Richard Wade

Mriana, you’re very creative and far more knowledgeable than I could possibly fathom. Your allegory could be spun into a nice folk tale. Sometimes I feel like a bumpkin around you and others here when it comes to your literary knowledge. My education is like the doughnut allegory. For instance I’d heard of Acharya S.’s general ideas but never of her herself until you mentioned her this morning. So I went running off to Google to find out what you were getting at.
Darryl

We’ve really got to get this very serious problem resolved before Hemant gets back or he’ll think we’ve been goofing off in his absence.

Exactly!
Karen

By the way I never trust air I can’t see. (wheeze gasp choke cough puke) The smog has gotten much better here over the years. Used to be that incoming planes got stuck in it and slowly sank to the bottom, settling down on houses. (cough) I’m feeling better now.

When I was a kid we used to have “smog alerts” and my chest would hurt when I played outside on smoggy days. Now I can’t remember a smog alert in years, AND I can even see the mountains most days (of course, I’m about five miles away from them!).
😉
Mriana

Richard Wade said,

June 22, 2007 at 1:26 pm

Mriana, you’re very creative and far more knowledgeable than I could possibly fathom. Your allegory could be spun into a nice folk tale. Sometimes I feel like a bumpkin around you and others here when it comes to your literary knowledge. My education is like the doughnut allegory. For instance I’d heard of Acharya S.’s general ideas but never of her herself until you mentioned her this morning. So I went running off to Google to find out what you were getting at.

Thank you and yes, I was poking a bit of fun at the Bible too, with what I’ve learned from her. I don’t know if you found her site or not, but it’s truthbeknown.com

We’ve really got to get this very serious problem resolved before Hemant gets back or he’ll think we’ve been goofing off in his absence.

Goofing off? Hey, my writings are works of art, not goofing off. 😆
Siamang

Richard,

Check your email.
Richard Wade

Oh sh1t he’s back! Okay let’s finish this terribly terribly important problem:

America is like a kumquat: sweet on the outside, unpalatable in the middle.

America is like two erudite parentheses bracketing a vacuous space in between.

In America the IQ goes down the further one gets from sea water.

America: Thank goodness for coast-to-coast flights.

In the Cretaceous Period the Midwest was a warm shallow sea. Still is.
Darryl

In the Cretaceous Period the Midwest was a warm shallow sea. Still is.

Ooh, Richard, I think you outdid yourself with that one–nice. It’s got poetry all in it, and just a smattering of go-for-the-jugularism.

Hey, wait a minute! You’ve been holding back! I’ll bet you had this stuff in the tank just waiting for the right moment. Get us all worried about a problem of your invention and, just in the nick of time, you come charging in to save the day.

Hmm . . . From now on, I’m keeping an eye on you.
Lee

You guys are so funny… I love the dialogue that this topic brought out. However, I will point out that West Virginia actually did side with the Union during the Civil War – hence its separation from Virginia in June of 1861, which led to statehood. That’s not to say that there were and are not many West Virginians who do align themselves with the Southerners – and call themselves Rebels. But, being from the Deep South myself, I let them know very quickly that where I’m from, they’re neither considered Southerners nor are they Yankees… they are quite simply ‘hill-folk’ – they have an identity and a subculture that’s all their own.
West Virginia is also not that far from the sea… the Eastern Panhandle extends eastward and wedges itself neatly – well, not-so-neatly – in between Maryland and Virginia – just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Chesapeake Bay. And lets not forget that (Gawd’s Chosen Nut-Case) Pat Robertson’s stomping ground is Virginia Beach…
Darryl

You’re right, Lee; Virginia is a bastion of Christian fundamentalism and right-wing idiocy. I think our final metaphor has to exclude the southern states from Virginia all the way over to Arizona. Let’s face it, we’re in the minority. Maybe we’re more like a the Green-winged Teal hen: a completely unimpressive bird except for a little spot of beautiful iridescent green on its sides.

See it here: http://www.schmoker.org/BirdPics/2007/DabbleDucks/GWTE2.jpg
Richard Wade

Darryl,

My last similies/metaphors/allegories whatever I was mulling over no earlier than yesterday afternoon while I had to do some actual work. But the Cretaceous one was a very-last-minute inspiration as I typed. I wasn’t holding back. Honest. Would I kid you? I mean, you’re right that I’m probably capable of manipulating people just as you described, but I didn’t. This time.

Lee and any lurkers,
I never feel completely comfortable on the rare occasions that I indulge in bashing a region or state or any place that somebody calls home. When it comes my way it can hurt, so I usually avoid it or try to keep it lighthearted. Every place has its problems, quirks and virtues. Every place has its idiots and geniuses, its heroes and villains. When we can laugh at ourselves we grow, but sometimes it ain’t funny. So here is my blanket apology to anyone whose toes still hurt as this silly conversation seems to be winding down.
obscurifer

a) We could dust off that old Schoolhouse Rock “Great American Melting Pot” song.

b) Exactly how is this constitutional?