February 22, 2005

Replacing Jesus with "Earth" for Pre-Schoolers

I WAS GOBSMACKED BY THE "Mommy is a Democrat" kids book yesterday (The Poster Child for Pap ). I'm gobsmacked again when a Google search brought me to the Preschool Education Music & Songs : Holiday > Earth Day page. This is a list of songs set to the tunes that "everybody" knows that seek to implant a healthy respect for the earth. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Still, if you scan the page, you'll see more than one tune that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. It really is starting to look like "Brave New World" in the kinder classrooms.

The one that induced nausea in me was the follwing "revision" of "Jesus Loves Me." Keep in mind that this is not a parody site, but a source of "lesson material" for teachers across America to draw from. How deeply they draw, I don't know.

God's Good Earth
added 4-17-01
Original Author Unknown

Sung to: "Jesus Loves Me"

Let's take care of God's good earth,
water, forest, air, and soil
Don't toss out that used time foil
Ride your bike and don't burn oil.
CHORUS
Love one another
Share with each other
Save God's good earth
And learn to do with less
Only buy the things you need
Enjoy the simple things in life
Do a hobby, play some game...
Eat at home, invite some friends

Another of these deathless ditties has the lyrics:
We will walk instead of riding, you all come.
We will walk instead of riding, you all come.
We will walk instead of riding,
We'll save gas 'cause no one's driving
To the happy Earth Day party, you all come.
Jesus wept.

Posted by Vanderleun at February 22, 2005 7:10 PM
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Comments:

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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

What is "time foil?"

Typo on your part... or theirs?

Posted by: Jeff at February 23, 2006 10:10 AM

Good question. Tin foil? Used one time foil?

Who knows how this mind set works?

Posted by: Gerard Van der Leun at February 24, 2006 11:36 AM

Your comment was denied for questionable content.

Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at plugins/Blacklist/lib/Blacklist/App.pm line 44.

Could you elucidate?

Posted by: Alan Kellogg at February 25, 2006 7:03 AM

And just for the hell of it. From a rather different version of Old Time Religion:

It was good enough for Dagon
A conservative old pagan
Who still votes for Ronald Reagan
And it's good enough for me

Posted by: Alan Kellogg at February 25, 2006 7:06 AM

"We will pray to Zarathustra
We will pray just like we use'ta
I'm a Zarathustra boosta
And it's good enough for me."

Earth Day. That's when we all get together at our friends' and do yard work, yes?

You mean people do something else on Earth Day?

Posted by: B. Durbin at February 25, 2006 5:41 PM