Conservapedia

For years homeschooled children have had to rely for all of their information on Wikipedia, which is full of dangerous ideas that homeschooling was supposed to prevent from seeping into the home. Now, finally, there is an alternative, which doesn't have any controversial ideas at all: Conservapedia. Conservapedia is based on good Christian values, unlike Wikipedia, which I gather from the name, is based on Wiccan. In Wikipedia, according to the founders of Conservapedia, "Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance." But Conservapedia gives Christianity its due for being so supportive of the work of Galileo and Copernicus.

"The administrators who monitor and control the content on Wikipedia do not represent the views of the majority of Americans." reads Conservapedia's entry on Wikipedia (helpfully redirected from Wackypedia in case you mistype). "For example, only 10% of Americans accept evolution as it is taught in public school, yet virtually 100% of Wikipedia administrators accept it and will quickly censor factual material contrary to evolution." The biases in Wikipedia that Conservapedia corrects are all outlined in an article called "Examples of Bias in Wickipedia."

"Wikipedia allows the use of B.C.E. instead of B.C. and C.E. instead of A.D. The dates are based on the birth of Jesus, so why pretend otherwise? Conservapedia is Christian-friendly and exposes the CE deception" is the Number 1 Example of Wikipedia bias. Example 5 points out "Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most English speaking users are American." On Conservapedia less acceptable English spellings of English words are banned in favor of proper American spellings. "Gossip is pervasive on Wikipedia," reads Example 8. "Many entries read like the National Enquirer. For example, Wikipedia's entry on Nina Totenberg states, 'She married H. David Reines, a trauma physician, in 2000. On their honeymoon, he treated her for severe injuries after she was hit by a boat propeller while swimming.' That sounds just like the National Enquirer, and reflects a bias towards gossip. Conservapedia avoids gossip and vulgarity, just as a true encyclopedia does." In fact, one of the reasons I stopped reading the National Enquirer is because I was tired of all the stories about Nina Totenberg's affairs and her latest stints in rehab. Conservapedia doesn't even have an entry on Nina Totenberg, much to my relief.

Another example of Wikipedia bias that Conservapedia cites is its unfair attack on the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which must be particularly upsetting to Conservapedia's founder. Started in November 2006 "as the class project for a World History class of 58 advanced homeschooled and college-bound students meeting in New Jersey" Conservapedia was founded by its most prolific writer Andrew Schlafly, the non-gay son of Phyllis Schlafly, who just happens to be the legal counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Schlafly is an outspoken critic of vaccines (which as someone who hates needles I fully support), has warned that abortion causes breast cancer, filed briefs on behalf of Terry Schiavo and revealed that junk science claiming a link between asbestos and cancer is what led to the World Trade Center's collapse.

I am astonished by all of the things I have learned already from Conservapedia. For example, I was unaware of something called the Law of Mass Conversation: "Matter cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change form." Now that I think about it, I have observed that often when you're in a conversation with a large group of people you sometimes think you have let a matter drop, but you end up rehashing the same topic over again in a different form. This happens a lot on the Internet, too. But I had no idea someone had written a law about it.

But that's just one of the many fascinating, unbiased facts I learned. After spending the day hitting the random search button I felt like a Renaissance man, the good Christian kind. Of course, since anyone can edit the Conservapedia, the entries are constantly changing, so the links go to the last version I saw. Feel free to register and add your own insights, although it would be difficult to improve on some of these entries:

Kangaroo: "Like all modern animals, modern kangaroos originated in the Middle East and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood." (I'm sure skippy will be very interested to learn this.)

Theory of Relativity: "Nothing useful has even been built based on the theory of relativity.…'All things are relative' became popular as atheists and others used relativity to attack Christian values. There remains enormous political support for the theory of relativity that has nothing to do with physics, and Congress continues to spend billions of dollars unsuccessfully searching for particles predicted by the theory of relativity."

Gospels: "The greatest writing in the history of the world is the Gospel of John....This single book has done more to shape human thought and behavior than any other work. Our uniquely American First Amendment right of free speech is based on ministers preaching of the 'Word' of God as described in the first few verses of the Gospel of John."

George Washington: "Washington is perhaps the person other than Jesus who declined enormous worldly power, in Washington's case by voluntarily stepping aside as the ruler of a prosperous nation."

Scopes Trial: "Hollywood has little regard for the truth. Its movie version Inherit the Wind changed everyone's name, thereby preventing libel suits, and changed the facts in order to ridicule religious belief. Thanks to Bryan's victory in the Scopes trial, Tennessee voters have been educated without oppressive evolution theory for 75 years. Free from the liberal indoctrination, Tennessee voted against native son Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential election - probably the only time a candidate has lost the Presidency due to losing his home state. If Tennessee had a high level of belief in evolution comparable to that of East Germany, then you can bet Gore would have won his state and the Presidency."

The Da Vinci Code: "Dan Brown is responsible for feeding millions of readers a pack of lies cleverly wrapped up as a historically accurate novel."

Holocaust: "The Holocaust was the massacring of the Jewish race during World War II. The Germans are not to blame for this but the Nazi are. Besides 6 million Jews dying, 3 million Christians were killed also along with many priests and nuns. This is a very touchy subject for the Jews and is not often discussed amongst them."

Communism: "Communists believe that if they share everything, no one will ever have to work."

Most of the articles in Conservapedia are scrupulously sourced. For example, the entry on Isaac Newton -- "Sir Isaac Newton was one of the inventors of calculus and the propsed [sic-whoops!] the theory of gravity (It should be noted that gravity, like evolution, is just a theory and has never been proven to be true). He was a Devout Christian whose discoveries were inspired by God." -- refers you to the Bible Code Digest, which proves that Newton was a devout Christian. Virtually all of the science entries cite books by Dr. Jay L. Wile, the respected author of homeschool textbooks.

Unlike Wikipedia, which is full of too much information that can easily confuse people, most of the entries in Conservapedia are refreshingly brief, giving us just the facts we need to know: "Sufi: Sulfism [sic]; the tradition of Islam containing the beliefs dedicated to Allah." Concise, accurate, to the point. Who said encyclopedic necessarily means "comprehensive," I mean, besides Webster's dictionary, with its well-known liberal bias.

But Conservapedia is not just a dry, factual compendium of articles. In addition to scholarly encyclopedia entries, the Conservapedia contains "Debate Topics" which pose a number of provocative questions: "Crusades... Good or Bad?" "Did Jefferson Copy the Declaration of Independence?" "Is it even possible to install democracy in a Muslim country?" and "Was it wrong for him to allow the attack in order to wake up the American public and motivate Americans to fight and win the war?" which refers to Franklin Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor. This last topic has led to quite a debate between some frequent contributors and Andrew Schlafly, who not only believes that Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor in advance, buts thinks it was a good thing he let it happen.

Unfortunately, Conservapedia doesn't have an entry yet for Franklin Roosevelt or for other minor Presidents like John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman or Theodore Roosevelt, although it does have very illuminating yet succinct entries for Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and William Henry Harrison. But the encyclopedia is still growing and with your help its 3000 or so articles based on incontrovertible conservative facts will soon approach Wikipedia's 1.5 million entries filled with liberal lies. However, there is one disturbing lack that both encyclopedias share: Neither of them has an entry about this modest blog.

Crossposted at Shakespeare's Sister

Update: Someone has finally corrected one of Conservapedia's most egregious inadequacies and added an entry for this modest blog: "Jon Swift is 'a reasonable conservative who likes to write about politics and culture.' He maintains a modest log on the internet ('weblog,' or 'blog') that is entirely factual, rational, and most importantly, conservative. Jon Swift is not funny and has no monkeys in his family tree." Here is a screenshot (click on it for a closer look):


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