I still had to wait ten fucking minutes to access the site-- either they're really popular or their server is shite. But in any event, I was there.
Here's the full text of the encyclopedia's mission statement:
A conservative encyclopedia you can trust.
Conservapedia has over 3,800 educational, clean and concise entries on historical, scientific, legal, and economic topics, as well as more than 350 lectures and term lists. There have been over 633,000 page views and over 15,700 page edits. Already Conservapedia has become one of the largest user-controlled free encyclopedias on the internet. This site is growing rapidly.
Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian "C.E." instead of "A.D.", which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance. Read a list of many Examples of Bias in Wikipedia.
Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America. Conservapedia has easy-to-use indexes to facilitate review of topics. You will much prefer using Conservapedia compared to Wikipedia if you want concise answers free of "political correctness".
Contributions that comply with simple commandments are respected (and improved) to the maximum extent possible. Please improve this website as you use it, and please cite your sources. With your help, Conservapedia will continue to be an online encyclopedia you can trust. This is also a meeting place, and appropriate questions may be posted at Ask questions.
On the same page, you'll find a "Today in History" section. Religious-righters, though, don't tend to value accurate historical knowledge very much (for instance, many Christian fundie-rightists are trying to claim that America was founded as a "Christian Nation" and that all the Founders were fundies like them. In fact, they were largely Deists. . . but anyway). This might explain some of the historical milestones the excyclopedia lists, such as
February 2
Did you know that faith is a uniquely Christian concept? Add to the explanation of what it means, and how it does not exist on other religions.
Not only is that statement completely idiotic, but even by the most liberal (pun intended) definiton, this is not even a historical event!!
Sigh.
The mission statement claims that Con'pedia is "growing rapidly." To see it this was true, I randomly looked up a few topics. Here's what I turned up:
Japan
Group of islands of the western coast of Asia.
Yup, that's the whole article. And yup, he said western, not eastern, coast of Asia.
Judaism
Judaism is the world's oldest monotheistic religion, founded by Abraham around 1800 BC. Most modern day adherents to Judaism (known as Jews) live primarily in the United States, Russia, and Israel.
Their article on Islam is larger, but also kinda schizoid. The first part seems to be quite complimentary to the faith, praising its "simplicity", and could very well have been written by a Muslim:
Islam is a religion of Abraham that has grown to be the second largest religion with over 1.4 billion followers. . .Muslims practice complete monotheism, worshiping Allah and believing Muhammad to be his last and greatest prophet. They live by the Koran, the pure and holy word of Allah that must be treated with the utmost respect. Muslims wash their hands before reading the book, which is considered complete and perfect only in the original Arabic, and burn old copies instead of throwing them away. Muslims follow the five pillars of Islam, which are straightforward and easy to understand. The belief in one god is clear, and encourages familiarity. . . Giving to the poor keeps them from becoming greedy or putting too much stake in worldly possessions. A month of fasting brings them closer to Allah. A pilgrimage to Mecca shows respect for the prophet Muhammad and his journey. Intoxication, gambling, stealing, adultery, and false accusations of adultery along with other offenses, are forbidden and highly punishable. Because Islam is an uncomplicated religion to live by, it is sure to continue in its popularity around the world.
The very next section of the article abruptly switches gears, arguing that Islam is nothing more than polytheistic crap:
Although most Muslims profess belief in a single, almighty God, a substantial minority of accredited Western scholars believe that the Muslim belief system can be traced back to distinctly polytheistic antecedents. Some, for example, have attempted to to link Allah to a moon deity. [1] Others have pointed to the pagan roots of various Muslim prohibitions, such as the ban on pork originating in the 3rd-century AD Damascene cult of the pig-god Jamal. [2] There is some evidence that traditional Muslim scholars have been suppressing this information as well as various recently-recovered scrolls that hint at early Muslim human sacrifice (e.g., at Uhud).
Strangely enough, the article on Christianity is as brief as that on Judaism:
Christianity is a religion that follows the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, as described in the books of the New Testament. It is the world's most popular religion, with over two billion members.
The atheism atricle is actually very pro-atheist, and I suspect that it must have been written by a disgruntled ScienceBlogs reader and not a member of Con'pedia's target readership. You can read it for yourself; I'm moving on.
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter was the 39th President of the United States. He was a democrat who served from 1977-1981, after being the governor of Georgia. Unfortunately, his method of leading was not compatible with Congress, as a result he couldn’t get things done. During his presidency he experienced many trying problems such as inflation, energy crisis and worst of all the taking of American citizens as hostages by Iran. In 2002 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace.
Ronald Reagan
. . .Considered by many to be the greatest American President, Ronald Reagan's greatest accomplishments include leading America peacefully through the Cold War, lowering taxes, promoting a free economy, and staunchly opposing socialism and communism, and ending the Cold War in victory for the United States. . .
Yup. . . Reagan led us through the whole Cold War, he did.
Global Warming
Global warming is a phrase which commonly refers to a scientific theory and to political proposals that follow if the theory is accepted. The scientific theory is widely but not universally accepted within the scientific community. Conservatives who are opposed to the political proposals that flow from acceptance of the theory, are properly skeptical of the motivations of the theorists, and challenge the scientific validity of portions of the theory. . . The theory is widely accepted within the scientific community despite a lack of any conclusive evidence, though that is not to say there is no evidence at all. . . It should be noted that these scientists are motivated by a need for grant money in their field of climatology. Therefore, their work can not be considered unbiased, though no more than any scientist in any other field . Also, these scientists are mostly liberal athiests, untroubled by the hubris that man can destroy the Earth which God gave him.
I was gonna look up more stuff, but me and my family are about to head out for Naomi's birthday dinner. I'll post more on a future blog.
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