to think creationism has no part in education in 2010?

[SantasMooningArse]

OK so I know I will be shot down under the 'don;t send your kids to a faith school' rule but to clarify:

A) I am a Christian; just of the friends variant rather than mainstream. I have a religion degree, I am far from anti- faith, just anti extreme.

B) It's the only scholl in walking distance and when we moved here we didn;t have a car I could use; it was also the only school with a space as we moved mid year. It i 3 minutes away.

C) I would dearly love my others to go to a different school but can't co-ordinate the pick ups due to being aprt dependent on SN transport for another child.

D) It's technically not a Church school but a VA one.

Anyway just received Governor's report which comes with a report each year from the local Diocese which is linked to their funding from a will. The report states (quote) '
The 6/7 creation myth seemed to rear it's head agin and I do wonder whether teaching as fact something we know to ne myth is the right thing?'

Later on under things to consider it says 'Crreation?'

I have no issues with it being taught as part of a wider 'some Christians believe...' thing but when ds2 was an infant his teacher told hom Mummy and Daddy were wrong about evolution; I had thought it was one long retired extreme though not general schooling.

I would much prefer ds4 to attendf the under subscribed school a few miles away (DS£ attends the attached SNU so know it well) but can't work out transport. I do find creationism a step too far though.

haha..well I think if they had examined it objectively they wouldnt still be believing in it! I dont think following a GCSE/A level syllabus for science means you are exempt from being delusional..do you?

I describe it as irrational myself.

I have of course actually gone slightly beyond A level myself, but clearly not thinking as I did so.

I disagree that you can't examine things objectively and then still have an irrational response or belief in something that is on the face of it at odds with the object of study. Of course I have questioned my faith. It is naive in the extreme to think that if only people applied scientific thinking to their religious faith then they would just stop believing, just because that is your experience. It goes against the evidence of the many scientifically trained, and scientifically active, people who have a religious faith. It isn;t a sound conclusion to draw at all.

"Actually, there's a lot of proof for an intelligent creator. So much of what we see (and take for granted every day) cannot have happened by chance."

Large-scale evolution is not chance either. There is a chance element to evolution - the 'chance' of a given mutation happening, which in large populations over large time scales becomes a mathematical certainty. Once variation exists, the population will move towards whatever state is best suited to the current environment. This has been demonstrated many, many times.

In other words, evolution is not chance!!

Will read in depth tomorrow (am ill and tired) but in response to Euphemia it's a VA school run by the Church: there are no entrance criteria based on faith, no alternatives and it serves it's own carchment.

If ti were like the catholic school, taking Catholic children who already had a cathchment, no problem. It is the only school in our part of a Welsh village, and quite simply I don;t think I could afford the petrol to commute the boys elsewhere.

I'm a Christian.
I'm very clever, thank you very much.

I don't think anyone is saying Christians in general are stupid. Creationists yes.

Christians are merely delusional.

it's being taught as part of the act of daily worship which forms a hige part of teh day and then is used as a basis throughout the school- they all have an Assmebly. Although the incident in the infants over 'I am sorry Mummy is wrong' was about dinosaurs IIRC.

Governor is a key member of the lcoal Diocese; Bishop IIRC. His being worried suggests to me that's more than conventional 'this si what some beleive...' stuff.

St youa re right of course, but I just feel I have so many battles with them. I upset one staff member when they sent home a booklet a few eyars ago that was all this is evil, evil is sin, sin is dark and black and.... good is from God, good is white.... (you may or not guess what my complaints were there).

I wanted the boys raised in mainstream Christiniaty, which to me Creationism is not a major belief. like most boys theya re semi experts on the big bang and dinosaurs etc- and as a result they both declare themselves as having no beleif in Christnity whatsoever. I know a Curate was moved on by the Vicar as she was preaching real creationist, evangelical stuff in a very Liberal CofW Church and her kids attend. We also had a poster about teh bible being God's literal truth which IMO it is not, it is written by humans about God. The new Head seems to have gone one step further.

Thankfully ds1, the one with AS who takes it all as fact, leaves the school in September anyway as he is pushing 11. DS2 though had a level of fiath- wanted to be confirmed, would attend Church with me- and has rejected it all over the past few eyars, in part as a result of some teachings at the school and what he feels also is a non Christian, non charitable attitude there. Such a shame.

Thefallenmaddonna No I can see why people feel they cant let go of it..sadly after years of indoctrination by our families and schools its bloody hard to let go of the whole thing and accept it as bollocks..have to say I felt glad when I finally got there, but the totally irrational part of me would probably say an 'our father' if I thought I was about to die..!

(Am happy to be a clever, delusional Christian becuase am a happy delusional one sitting on a charitable cloud of kindliness which is pretty much what my personal faith is; God is love. it's a central belief in my own faith but am very much of the opinion that I wanted them to find their own place; I specialised in Buddhism and thought of a lot of that and Islam for example, but can;t be doing with anti- homsexual, woman hating, creationist nonsense that in my experience does often (not always) get tied up together.

I wonder if I would feel glad? I don't struggle with it any more. Well, I struggle with the flavour, but not the actual faith. I am happy with the dual perspective thing. And I wonder why, if it is simply indoctrination, different people respond differently. There are many people (yourself included clearly) who have 'broken free' if you like. I genuinely don't think it is down to having thought harder about it all.

Funny that you think you would experience 'the twitch upon the thread' in extremis.

I used to be a Christian and was as clever then as now.

Just less delusional

I think different people respond differently for so many different reasons, but perhaps life experience being the main factor. I just realised that actually if I sat down rationally and thought about it it clearly didnt make sense. Also doing A level Theology didnt help as part of it was looking at how the new testament was written and to be honest really showed it to be one persons handy work. Also if you look back throughout history people have used systems of belief to help them come to terms with things they dont understand. All types of beliefs over time have sought to explain things and many of them seem quite irrational and daft now but then they were not. I actually think the whole religion thing does now seem rather silly and anachronistic, but for some it is a crutch and facing up to the fact it isnt true is really too difficult for some. Just IMO.

I think I have thought about it a lot; I wans;t raised Christian, it's something that gradually came to me, then I lost agin for a while when my boysnwere diagnosed but came back when I was studying despite attepts to ignore. it's a faoith though rather than a routine of church attendance and Vicar bothering which is soemthing seemingly common amongst the older Welsh populatin, I suspect many of those haven;t thought it through so much.

I don;t think my take matches much of the local purist flavour though (for example, I see more pralalels between Atman / Brahman descriptions than some of the creationist ones about what I beleive- but I have a strong faith in Jesus).

Which is why I follow a Quaker path.

Kitten can I ask when you did your A level>

Who arote the Bible is something with so many theroetical answers but my degree is fairly recent and single writer theories aren;t very much in vogue ( or were not in 2008), at least amongst my Lecturers.

I tend to think that its not purely a matter of reason either. It takes something like the opposite of a 'leap of faith'. I have to say it was like the scales falling from my eyes when I dared to really not believe - everything was coherent, made sense.

Gosh many years ago now..in the 90's

Anyway, Santa, YANBU. Perhaps you should write to the governors, quote

'The 6/7 creation myth seemed to rear it's head again and I do wonder whether teaching as fact something we know to be myth is the right thing?'

and say that it is definitely the wrong thing to be doing and if that is happening what steps are they taking to ensure that it does not occur any more, and how do they propose to correct any mistaken ideas that children may have thus aquired.

Something like that anyway. Sounds like they know its wrong but are too wishy washy to confront whichever teacher(s) are doing it.

First of all, I've not read the entire thread (about half I think(

I think children should be exposed to ideas regarding religion and theology qs long as a particular faith or lack of is not imposed upon them.

I clearly remember my first R.E. lesson at school. The teacher requested that anybody who didn't believe in Jesus raised their hand.

I raised my hand, nobody else did . I don't believe in God, but that doesn't mean I'm not interested in religion, faith and all the history entwined within it. I think it's an incredibly important subject as long as it's taught properly and without bias or judgement, and it should be included as a subject in the NC. I DON'T agree that it should be a mechanism to enforce any religious belief, I don't care which one it is. School isn't the place. .

All very well, but what would Jesus do...?

What Would Jareth Do.

Personally speaking, I would probably go further than all this and say I think Creationist views are strangely anti-Christian, as it encourages people to leave the perfectly good brains God gave them at the door.

Incidentally, that's why I also think bright women spending their lives indoors attempting to be 'quiverful' and the like, is also a bit of a insult to their Maker, despite the PR that is often spun about this sort of social practice. It's not the number of children they are having, it's the selfishness of hanging onto their talents and only applying them to advance their own domestic situation. It leads to an imbalance within society.

This is all a very personal view, however. I know that.

I have an inking what Jesus would probably do, btw.

1. Tell people to stop fighting.
2. Mutter about rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God's.

Quite, Boffinmum. I've read the Gospels and I can't see anywhere where Jesus tells people not to use their brains.