Science Teacher John Freshwater Fired

“I don’t know how Christians could defend a man like this.”

You give the answer in the next sentence: “They cling so strongly to their beliefs, they don’t care when he harms students or breaks the law, as long as it’s done in the name of their personal god.”

….Mary Lou Sinzinger, a Freshwater supporter. “This God-fearing community is one of the reasons we moved here.”

Why would you fear a god of love and forgiveness?
Me thinks the sky faerie is multiple personality; and a psychopath.

It’s amazing how laws and human treatment are not an issue when it comes to defending another christian.

But then again, isn’t that basis of many stories in the bible?

Par for the course. At least this guy got fired for not doing his job.

I wonder if there are former, or ‘liberal’ Christians speaking out against this man, and his actions – both ‘anti-science’ and abusive against children.

Mary Lou’s “God Fearing” Reaction displays such a stereotypical ignorant attitude it makes me wonder if Christians can think for themselves at all.

I’m suspicious of the branding accusation, just because I’ve seen similar stories turn out to be fake so many times. For example, I suspected right away that an Obama-voting Zorro did not really carve a “B” onto Ashley Todd’s face before the election. More recently, there was a similar case in Switzerland where a woman claimed that skinheads scratched fascist slogans onto her body, but it turned out to be fake as well. Then there was that census worker who was found hanged with “fed” written on his body. The investigation concluded that it was likely suicide, made to look like murder.

I’m not saying that this guy is innocent, just that accusations of “branding” raise a red flag with me. I hope the lawsuit gets to the truth of the matter.

Comment at DT:

“THe electrostatic device that you say he used to “brand crosses into students arms” was mearly a science demonstration. the cross was really an x and was to show at what point the electricity would pass into the body. as for it leaving any mark at all or causing severe lasting pain; that is total bull. Yeah it hurts and shocks a little at first but thats what electricity does.”

Frankly, if he had burned a cross into me, my father would have put the fear of something a heck of a lot more real than God into him. And I had childhood friends whose fathers would, I think, have started the discussion by simply breaking the idiot’s arm. He should count himself lucky that he did what he did and got away unharmed.

Firing this guy should have been step one. What I want to know is, why he isn’t in jail for injuring children.

“why it is important to examine this objectively and not let bias affect your observations.” If he was a real science teacher, critical thinker, he probably wouldn’t be a believer. Good for the students of that community.

They fired him June 2008. Freshwater is appealing and that process is still going on. Latest on Tuesday was that he surveyed students on whether religion was important to them.

Richard P
Don’t they want to open a creation museum in Ohio? I’d love to know if Ken Ham would hire someone who abuses children for god.

Oops the “museum” is just outside Ohio. However the original point stands, I’m sure this guy is more than qualified to work at the “museum”.

IMO, the first list item, “He refused to remove a personal Bible from his classroom”, is not something he should have been required to do. However, the other seven list items should have got him booted out as soon as they were noticed. Burning crosses on kid’s arms? Why, oh why? That should have been enough.

He had a bible. So what? So do I. It’s the best weapon against dogma that I have.

What’s going on? I think there may be a mistake, your link to “voted to fire him” is from June of 2008. I’ve been following this fairly well and don’t think it’s over yet.

A year doesn’t surprise me. My ex was arrested for several counts of child molestation. It took 18 months of plea bargaining before jail and he was still getting visitation with his toddler son. (I’m trying not to judge the mother of my daughter’s half-brother but I for the life of me can’t understand how she would allow that. There isn’t a law on the books that would have gotten me to turn my daughter over to him once I learned he was a perv.)

It’s amazingly horrendous what you can get away with doing to kids. They’ve very few rights. Ever notice that when you see a person charged with child abuse on the news, the kid’s usually already dead if they’re the parent? Teachers, coaches, babysitters, preists, etc. have usually had some kind of sexual relationship with them? And if the sicko having sex with a teen is a woman, it’s not treated seriously?

For all the threats of taking kids away, they rarely do unless the abuse is utterly horrible and blatant. They have to be raped or murdered or within an inch of either. It’s depressing.

The thing is — this I learned when my daughter accused her father — the innocent until proven guilty thing, in the case of child abuse, is a tough hurdle to overcome. To have physical evidence, the abuse has to be extreme. My daughter couldn’t testify against her father because, in NY at that time, a child had to be 10 to do so because the theory was that they could be coached. Now I ask you, who can lie better? A three year old or a 10 year old?

As for the “God” fearing thing, my former rabbi told me that it meant more to be in awe of him rather than quake with fear. Even as he said this, I thought well this must be one of the differences between Christianity and Judaism because that’s sure not how I was raised. I was supposed to love “God” while trembling in fear of what he would do to me if I sinned.

Pretty twisted. I think DemetriusOfPharos pretty much has it called. Rather an abusive relationship.

Micheal I don’t equate christians with being stupid, I equate christians as being willfully ignorant.

I went to Mount Vernon Middle School and had John Freshwater as a teacher (1998-1999). A lot of the issues involved at in this case came after I was a student. Also, I was still in my “Youth Group” phase at that point, so a lot of his points of view don’t stand out TOO strongly, because they probably coincided with mine at the time. That being said…

He was an intimidating person. He had some sort of device that would give a shock (different than the one that made the crosses) and he would make different students touch it and would not take no for an answer. There was no lasting damage done, but as a timid 13-14 year old it was quite scary.

Also, he taught evolution from a “this can’t possibly be correct” standpoint. I remember walking away from class thinking that no rational individual would ever endorse evolution. Fortunately, my stance has since changed, but his teaching was harmful in these areas.

I have a friend who got an “F” on an assignment to write about a book by a Lesbian advocating homosexuality. The terms of the assignment had a directly implicit requirement to speak his views on the subject, so he did. This is a published book writer and newspaper reporter who in a fair evaluation would have gotten an A every time.

The teacher told him he “didn’t understand” what they were trying to say. In this case he went against principles and rewrote to her pleasure and got an “A”.

That kind of thing is rampant in university academia.

My freshman high school biology teacher, first class, blasted every Christian’s religion in the class as he emphatically stated he would not tolerate dissent to darwinism, ever.

If it’s religious freedom to suppress offense to atheism, why is it religious freedom to promote offense to a religious assertion under color of science?

Especially such an unsupported re-invented ancient pagan dogma like darwinism.

–alan