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Hi, everyone, and welcome back
to another episode of the Nonprofits. Now

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for this story, we're going to
head back to school in Minnesota this time,

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and Eli is going to be driving
the bus there. Eli, what

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do you got for us? A
Minnesota Republican lawmaker opposed a major education bill

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that, among other things, would
prevent book banning by school districts. The

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specific section of SF thirty five sixty
seven that State Senator Glenn Grenhagen opposes would

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allow parents to restrict material for their
own children, as well as allow librarians

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or other qualified individuals to restrict the
availability of materials at their discretion, as

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long as those choices are not based
on viewpoint, content, message, idea,

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or opinion conveyed. Glen Glenhagen argues
that liberals are actually okay with censorship

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because they've been in that business already, and in the same speech argued that

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refusing to teach creationism in science class
is just such censorship. This seems to

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be Gg's effort to get those ridiculous
nonfiction books out of his school's libraries.

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This article is by the one and
only hem Meta at The Friendly Atheist on

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May seventh, twenty twenty four.
Now before we really get into this.

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I know, Eli, you look
back, you looked in the Greenhagen's background

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bit for us. Can you tell
us what kind of person he is?

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Yeah? So he Glenner is a
climate change denier, is a Christian nationalist,

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which is pretty clear based on what
he's saying here. In twenty twenty

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three, he proposed what he called
the Critical Thinking Bill hemet Meta linked to

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in this article. He wrote about
the bill that Gwenhagen proposed that would have

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school districts teaching that and this is
a direct quote. Sickness, disease,

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pain, suffering, and death are
consequences imposed by the Creator, and that's

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something he wanted to be taught in
schools. It was his education plan.

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So it's clear he's trying to push
his religious views into government. And this

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guy has absolutely no business there.
I won't tell him that he can't have

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his religious beliefs, but man,
do I want him fired? Cynthia?

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Do you think that his reasoning is
flawed? And it's so why it's unsurprisingly

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flawed? Kelly, I kind of
expected you to tell me that. Well,

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I mean, he trots out the
tired old creationist talking points, like

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the cosmological argument, and the watchmaker
analogy. He suggests that because a computer

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has a maker, the far more
complex human eye must have also a creator.

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And that's classic. I mean,
how many times have we have heard

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these particular tropes said on some of
the Collins shows, like The Atheist Experienced,

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Talk Heathen and also on Truth Wanted
over and over and over again.

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I mean, like, and you
know, I feel bad, guys,

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can I can I confess something?
May I can find something? Please?

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Yes? Thank you. When I
was a Christian, I also espouse some

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of the same flawed reasoning, especially
with look at the eye. It is

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so complex. See this eye?
So obviously, if it's so complex,

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God made it that way, right, But in actuality, no, that

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was not the case. The eye, along with human beings being an ape

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species, basically evolved as time went
on for us to be able to survive

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in our surroundings. That's called evolution, folks. So this whole thing about

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him trotting out these particular analogies that
have no particular merit whatsoever, is,

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as I said, unsurprisingly flawed.
Yeah. I'd have to agree with you.

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And I think a lot of these
tropes that he pulls out, I

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think I don't think they really land
with non Christians. I think they mostly

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just solidify their own Christian ideologies right
now. Well, the bill itself has

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a lot of problems. You know, in Illinois last year they passed a

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law banning book banning, and I
thought that was a great thing. I

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think they've done a lot of great
things with the government in Illinois moving forward

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state government. But this bill,
I'm not so sure about. What are

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your thoughts on the bill? E
Lie, I kind of agree with you

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on that, that's a little bit. I'm not sure about this. So

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I think that once you get into
like deciding what information is available to who,

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now you're constructing their reality and that
like I've told people that like in

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social relationships, like no matter what
the truth is, just tell me the

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truth because I make decisions based on
information that I gather, and if I

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don't have good information, I can't
make good choices. Kids need to make

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choices about the world too. Kids
need good information and they need all of

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it, and we don't need to
worry so much about them getting the wrong

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information the false information. Teach them
how to determine what is good and what's

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not, and critical thinking skills once
you get to the point where you're restricting

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what's available, you are constructing the
reality that you want for another person,

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and that's just not right. I
don't think. Yeah, I agree with

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you. I think everybody knows.
I've raised a couple of kids, and

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I thought that was one of the
most important things that I did, was

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to get them to understand how the
question everything. You know, Jimmy,

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do you think that there's a larger
story to be told here? Yeah?

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I do think there is a larger
story because we are focused on I'm sorry,

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I can okay, great, Yeah, yeah, so good. Well,

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yeah, there's a large story because
while we're focused on talking about,

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you know, the bill and the
opposition to that bill by set elected officials,

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I think what we need to really
be talking about as well are the

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fact that some of the elected officials
that are just finding their way into government

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still lack a certain aptitude. I
mean, I'm not surprised, just like

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Cynthia said that this guy is a
Christian nationalist, a creationist. He has

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absolutely no idea how the United States
was founded because he believes it was founded

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on Christian principles. Now, we
might be a Christian influenced society. But

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the document, the Constitution basically or
clearly states that there's going to be a

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separation of religion and government, and
the various sects of Christianity were very much

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the ones that the founders had in
mind when they put it together. This

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guy thinking that creationism is science is
ridiculous. It might be good for literature,

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might be good for history or philosophy, but it's certainly not good in

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science. That's just unfounded and unfounded
claim at this day and age, you

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know, considering what we know,
it's just it's crazy. It's ridiculous.

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But these people keep finding their way
in, and you know, I almost

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wonder should we be having a discussion
on qualifications now. I'm of the mindset

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that yes, we should have free
and fair and open elections and an equal

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society where everybody has the same opportunities. But men are there are just some

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jobs where we need a little bit
more discretion. I can think of.

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I can even think of a couple
of people in Washington, DC that probably

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shouldn't be there because they're not mentally
capable. I would say, I don't

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want to mention any names, but
I bet everybody can think of at least

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two or three. So I see
Cynthia making a face over there. Now

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Grewenhagen has the spouse ideas of another
controversial character, has any Cynthia? Oh

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goodness, well let's see. Well
I was thinking of David Barton. Okay,

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yeah, that is I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, Kelly, I'm trying

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to go on with that. Oh
yeah, are you talking about in this

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nostalgia for you know, his pseudohistory? Yeah, right, right, yeah,

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Because Barton is kind of a kind
of a crazy character to begin with.

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So when you've grew and Hagen following
this guy's ideology, it's pretty it's

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it's kind of a red flag to
me. Yeah. It was his insistence

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on conflating democracy with mob rule,
and you know, and basically saying that,

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you know, with this particular mob
rule that it will reveal a deep

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misunderstanding of both American governance and also
and scientific and I'm sorry in inquiry.

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So he has this desire to inject
religious methodology into the public education under the

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guise of free speech. And it's
not just misguided, but it's also very

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dangerous. So oftentimes if you are
taking different portions of your belief system,

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as we talked about many times before, and injecting into curriculum and teaching it

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as factual in a scientific atmosphere.
What's that's going to do is is going

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to melt the minds that you're actually
teaching as this is fact, this is

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the way of the world, this
is how it's supposed to go. But

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if it's actually against the methodology that
we have come up with, this scientific

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method, which I think is a
pretty good method in order for us to

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figure out what's the closest state of
fact or not. You know, we're

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putting into these particular myths, legends, things of that nature that's coming from

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a book of fables into curricula that
is supposed to be set up specifically for

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teaching kids how the world works.
That's what science does. We're taking that

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particularly out. That's not going to
be a good thing. Jimmy, we

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lost it for a little minute,
and I wanted to hear your thoughts on

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the actual bill itself. We talked
about a little bit while you were gone,

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but I wanted to get your thoughts
as well. Well. Of course,

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I am not going to be in
favor of banning any books, but

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on that note, you know,
I actually have a problem, or maybe

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a slight issue with the bill,
just one aspect that says children will be

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at will have access to certain books
or literature in the school with the help

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or at the discretion of qualified individuals. What makes a qualified individual my theory

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is, or not my theory,
but my perspective is, if it's in

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the school, then it's all ready
been qualified, right, they don't need

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any more discretionary practices or people trying
to restrict access. I would say that,

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you know, if the book is
in the library, the child or

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the student should have access to it. We shouldn't be trying to dissuade them

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from going in any direction and seeking
knowledge, finding that knowledge wherever they may.

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Now, there are, of course
some things that probably shouldn't be in

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elementary school or high school libraries,
but we also need to make that a

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blanket policy. So for example,
if you want to eliminate things that have

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homosexuality in it, or murder or
what have you, then we got to

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look at banning the Bible and the
Koran as well, right, we got

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we gotta keep things consistent and make
it fair for the kids' education. But

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yeah, I mean I think that
the nature and spirit of the bill is

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good and you know, minus a
few little hang ups I have with some

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of the verbiage or maybe how these
policy is being acted, you know,

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this is exactly what we need to
see, uh more of Yeah, I

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agree, I agree. We certainly
don't want to teach third graders how to

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make napalm. Say, but yeah, I agree that you should be able

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to have most information available to most
children. I don't have a problem with

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that at all. Eli. Going
back to you, if you do you

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think we should have some kind of
like a committee maybe overseeing the book buying

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at a at a school library or
do you think because they you know,

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as Jimmy mentioned that, they mentioned
that they talked about qualified people, do

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you think it should be up to
one person a libraryan or maybe a committee?

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And should it be somebody in the
library or outside the library? I

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think definitely not one person. I
think that's I think that's too much for

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one person because historically, when we
see you know, people get into positions

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of power and authority that it almost
always goes at least a little bad.

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Like nobody ever does that flawlessly,
and it's been like a bash and of

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you know, good leadership and authoritarianism. But I think if that's the route

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that's being taken, I think a
good route is to have you have a

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committee with some oversight, then you
know, with an external committee overseeing that

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one to ensure like that way,
the first committee is checking and balancing each

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other to make sure, like know, these these are the reasons for which

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we can restrict material, and these
are the only reasons for which we restrict

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material. And you don't get to, you know, take your personal beliefs

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and then kind of word silent them
a little bit and you know, make

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it sound like it fits one of
these criteria for the purpose of getting it

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out. We're we're going to make
sure we're doing this the right way.

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And then to have an external committee
overseeing that one would just be another layer

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of protection, you could say.
I think that would be a reasonable way

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to at least give it a shot. Jimmy, you talked about how Senator

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Gruenhagen's proclivity to characterize politics as mob
rule, and Cynthia mentioned that came up

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as of Burns philosophy as well.
Now, do you think that it might

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be that their side of the aisle
might be causing some of that mobral.

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Well, I think that in recent
years, especially the last eight years,

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we have seen the conservative right of
this country's political spectrum frequently turned towards marborol

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right. And you know, I
say that hesitantly because I do think that

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there are some conservatives in our government
that I have a great deal of respect

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for, even if I disagree with
them. But you know, it's like

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my favorite this has got to be
one of my favorite movie quotes of all

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time. But it comes from the
great Jeff Goldblum and the character that he

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played in UH Independence Day and he
said a person is smart, but people

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are stupid. I think it was
Jeff Goldblum. But a person is smart

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and people are stupid. Right,
And I think that the conservatives in this

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country are coalescing around this idea that
they have to take things by strength and

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by force if it doesn't go their
way. Where could we Where do we

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see this kind of influence coming from? Well, exactly the kinds of places

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that they get their dogma, their
doctrine from, right, the Bible or

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more traditional conservative ideologies that result with
or look at let's say military use as

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as a first cause. Right,
So in the conservative political spectrum. They're

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typically associated with using the military earlier
as an option for diplomacy, right,

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Or they're concerned with security, They're
concerned with their own safety. I mean,

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these are things that manifest themselves into
this kind of behavior, this coalescing

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around this idea that there needs to
be some kind of fight, there needs

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to be this strong man. And
I am not surprised at all that he

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is that this thought process has not
only entered his psyche but is now spilling

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out right characterizing politics as mobrel I
think Hamitt Meta, the author, very

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astutely and adequately identified that, and
I thought Cynthia made a great point as

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well. Yeah, I mean I'm
a little bit concerned about how that plays

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out in our political spectrum now,
Cynthia, you know, Jimmy had a

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great point there, and there does
seem to be a lot more aggressiveness coming

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from this side of the aisle,
from particular from the Christian right as well.

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Do you think this is maybe just
the last throws of a dying animal.

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Is that something we can look forward
to in the future that we will

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defeat this. I'm hoping that reason
actually rules, but I'm not really sure

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Kelly. And the reason why I
say that is because it seems like that

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when we are on the precipice of
actually having reason and rationality being the center

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of our politics, something cups comes
in and just completely upends it, you

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know, and we saw this,
like you know, I would agree with

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Jimmy in the past eight years,
how that has completely been upended by people

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who want to make sure that the
status quos is kept as far as like

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how we are ruling and even how
you know, our curriculum is showing up

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in schools right if they're there.
There was a push I would, I

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want to say, about twelve thirteen
years ago, to be heavily push pushing

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step in and especially in public schools
to keep up with emerging technologies and also

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making sure that kids are going to
be prepared for the world that is going

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to be ahead of them, because
as we know, as time goes on,

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we're going to be more you know, scientifically a technology based. Right.

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However, it just seems like that
we're just having people that are pushing

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in government and also you know,
people who are influencing those who happen to

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be sitting in influencial seats to completely
undermine that and take it away. It's

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almost like that they're trying to dull
our kids with pushing these particular you know

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things, these myths and legends as
I mentioned previously, instead of actually teaching

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a fact and scientific methodology and things
that have improven and things that exist and

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things that actually are in reality and
how they are applied in today's society.

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It's very concerning. And I know
that we have talked at length about the

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erosion of people going to church,
the rays of the nuns, right.

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We talked a lot about the different
research that actually that's behind this. But

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I'm almost feeling like this moral majority, which maybe be like the minority per

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se, it's still very much so
loud and organized, even though they fight

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amongst themselves, and they're still very
much so influential about how our legislation and

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also how you know, our schools
show up in today. Now. I

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know all three of you have young
children. I'm past that point fortunately for

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me. But are you are the
three of you concerned about your children in

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public schools in the future. And
I'll start with Eli. I mean,

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we're gonna talk strictly about curriculum.
I think I'm for my son in particular,

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I'm not really concerned because if my
son is anything like me, you

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know, I think he's going to
be good at learning, and he seems

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to be like he does great,
he's phenomenal, so I think it won't

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be hard. A lot of the
education roles on the parents as well,

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and I think a lot of parents
forget that, especially the ones that want

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to, you know, restrict reading
materials in their school's libraries. And I

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can talk to my son when he
starts talking about ghosts or magic and or

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or you know, God, when
he goes to church with his mom.

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When he's with her, I can
talk to him and just I don't even

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have to tell him like, oh, I don't believe that. And here's

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why. I can ask him questions
about it and have him think about it

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on his own and determine on his
own what he thinks is true or not.

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And that's all we're all really doing. Yeah, I think for the

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same reason, I'm not as concerned
as I could be if I were in

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an area that this was more common. You know, we came to a

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place where we really trust the public
school system, and we want to stay

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here for our children's benefit. And
so for that reason, I think I

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think that I'm I'm okay. I
think I'm okay because I, as a

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parent, am going to take on
a lot of the responsibility for educating my

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children, and if there's something they
come across in school, you know,

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I make sure to teach them that
that needs to be questioned. If it

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can be destroyed by the truth,
it deserves to be destroyed by the truth,

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right. And then if something ever
happens to me, you know,

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my wife is a wonderful mother,
incredibly intelligent, and I think that she

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would do absolutely great. But yeah, parents, parents need to be guiding

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their kids. Yeah, I agree. And Cynthia, what how about you?

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Well? As alum of Catholic schools
and being recently unfriended by my seventh

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grade Catholic school teacher for saying atheist
things, Yeah, that happened. Congratulations,

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they know. I feel so accomplished. I feel so accomplished. One

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of the things that I have decided
for for my little boy is to make

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sure that some thoughts of criticism,
of critical thinking and skepticism is always going

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to be a part of his daily
life. And I definitely want him to

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question and even though that, you
know, for the most part, he's

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probably going to end up like in
you know, in he's probably going to

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be in the public school education system. I there's still going to be times

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where he may there may be some
influence of Christianity is on whatever that I

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may have to like, you know, kind of uh walk him through and

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and really you know, take him
through the you know, the skeptic track

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about you know, is this fact, is this fiction? Why or why

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not? So I am in that
Illinois area where you know, the band

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on book banning has happened, and
I'm very glad about that. However,

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I know that there's still always going
to be teachers that are there that are

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you know, feel that they're teaching
as God said. And I know that

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I'm probably going to have to intervene
and say no, God said not,

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and you will not do that in
my case. Yeah, I think we

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have to really be protective of our
kids' lives. I really do. And

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so thank you Cynthia for that.
And speaking of life, I had the

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