Certain Christian Nationalists, part of an organization known as LifeWise Academy, have found a way to get their religion into public schools in Ohio and are attempting to do the same here in Kentucky (and many other states). In Kentucky this could result in public school students visiting the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum in lieu of public school instruction. Below, I document Ohio students being taken to these fundamentalist Christian attractions with the cooperation of public schools. Kentucky students may also end up learning creationist nonsense during public school instruction time.

Recently, LifeWise Academy has been attempting to get a foothold in Kentucky’s 171 public school districts. LifeWise Academy is an Ohio-based ministry that has found a possible loophole to get Bible-based instruction into public school classrooms during school hours via “release time.” Release time laws in many places allow students to leave public school instruction for an hour a day, or in some places an hour a week, to receive religious instruction off-campus. However, LifeWise Academy has made release time into a major event where students get to leave school to receive numerous perks, such as pizza parties, while being evangelized and instructed in other ways.

Students whose parents do not allow them to participate have to remain in school for classes or study hall. There have been many complaints in Ohio of students that do not participate being bullied and/or ostracized. Many of the LifeWise activities promote Christian Nationalism, fake history, and various right-wing political ideologies, which leads to more bullying of marginalized students who do not participate. This mistreatment of non-participants is well-documented in the Facebook Group (Secular Education Program, formerly Parents AGAINST LifeWise).

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Photograph by Malcolm Schongalla.

Photography Contest, Honorable Mention.

Photograph by Al Denelsbeck.

Photography Contest, Honorable Mention.

This little book, On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not, is not exactly about epistemology, that is, how we know what we know; rather, it is about how we think we know, even when potentially we do not. Indeed, it seems to me that it explains why the philosopher Lee McIntyre was by his own account singularly unsuccessful in convincing virtually any science denier about anything (see my article here).

The author of the present book, Robert Alan Burton, is a neurologist, not a philosopher. The book was originally published in 2009 and recently rereleased. It is well out of my area, so I have no way of knowing how much is dated. To oversimplify, Burton argues, somewhat apologetically, that there may be evolutionary advantage to having a module that quickly tells you, you are right. As he notes in the Preface,

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Photograph by Joel Eissenberg.

Photography Contest, Honorable Mention.