Retired high school teacher who had sued school for 'teaching the religion of atheism' in biology classes claims that atheism is the new 'flat earth society'

Remember Tom Ritter, the retired high school physics and chemistry teacher who sued the Blue Mountain School District in a federal court in Pennsylvania because it was allegedly violating the First Amendment by teaching the "religion of atheism" using taxpayer dollars?  The theory of evolution, he claimed, was the "religion" of atheists.

As far as we can tell, nothing has happened in his lawsuit, but today Ritter issued a press release accusing atheists of being members of a modern day flat earth society because they "ignore the second law of thermodynamics."  Here's his press release in its entirety:

The Second Law says we are constantly converting useful energy into waste heat. There is plenty of evidence for this, none for the contrary and this is ongoing. The First Law says the amount of total energy is fixed. We may safely predict, therefore, that at some point in the future the universe will run out of useful energy and all reactions will stop for want of energy.

What will happen then?

And why the interval of this present existence?

Like those who dismiss photographs of a round Earth, those who say there is no God (Atheists) are the modern home of the Flat Earth Society.

Tom Ritter

(Tom Ritter taught academic physics and chemistry for over a decade in a Pennsylvania public high school and was, to hear his students, a great teacher.)

P.S. Atheism is properly capitalized because it is a religion, that is something based on an article of faith, which in turn is something important that cannot be proved. The existence of God (or not in the case of Atheists) is a good example.

Ritter's argument about the second law of thermodynamics is a common one held by biblical creationists, but he does not really explain in his press release what the law is or why it means that atheists are ignorant.  One of the most succinct explanations of the law appears in Evolution Frequently Asked Questions website:

The second law states that "In a closed system (one in which energy cannot enter), Entropy will not decrease." Since Entropy often refers to disorder, this law is often taken to mean that order cannot arise from disorder. How then would life, which is highly ordered, form naturally? The answer, simply, is that life is not a closed system. Energy is constantly being added to the Earth from the Sun, which fuels the plants, which in turn fuel other life. This is how plants, for example, can have more energy than the seeds they originally sprouted from. But life is not the only example of order from disorder. Snowflakes, crystals, lightning, and sand dunes are all examples of non-living matter organizing into complex structures.

D. Beeksma

One of the growing crowd of American "nones" herself, Deborah is a prolific writer who finds religion, spirituality and the impact of belief (and non-belief) on culture inspiring, fascinating and at times, disturbing. She hosts the God Discussion show and handles the site's technical work. Her education and background is in business, ecommerce and law.

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