>If the Left is the side of liberty and equality, as opposed
>to the side of authority, power, private wealth, status, and
>order -- the Right -- then the it seems to me it's the role
>of the Left to defend the freedom of ordinary people to
>think and believe what they wish. If that's creationism or
>the Great Turtle, so be it. Science, which can tell us how
>to vaporize great cities in the twinkling or an eye or give
>us Frankenstein foods to eat and intelligent machines to
>talk to, needs little advertising, much less coerced faith.
There is no suggestion that religious faith is being suppressed. But tolerance of spiritual mumbo jumbo should not imply that stupidity is on a par with intelligence. School students deserve to have the best understanding placed before them, so that if they want to believe rubbish, then at least they have been offered an alternative.
God did not create man, who did descend from the apes. It's not a belief system, it is the outcome of real investigation of nature. If the opposite were the case, then clearly that is what should be taught in schools. But teaching something you know to be false is as destructive as teaching that the holocaust never happened, or that there were no such people as native Americans, or that there has never been a revolution in England.
I have to say that I am not at all surprised that Gordon's contribution is made here. His detestation of science is shared by many contributors who now find, to their surprise, that they are in agreement with Christian fundamentalism.
In message <19990828.065657.3454.1.farmelantj at juno.com>, James Farmelant
<farmelantj at juno.com> writes
>Jim H,
>
>Is it true, as I have often heard that many RE teachers in Britain
>are atheists or agnostics?
A good friend of mine is teaching a degree course in teacher training in RE, and is just completing a PhD in theology. She is also an atheist. When she taught RE in a secondary school, a vicar who's son she taught asked her at one parents' evening what her own beliefs were. Thinking that she was about to be rumbled she thought she had better brave it out. 'I'm an atheist' she said. 'Very good' he said 'very good'.
There is a current in the Church of England at the moment who talk about the 'inner God', meaning that they are essentially Feuerbachian atheists, who believe that Christianity is a metaphorical humanism. Marx said years ago, something to the effect, 'Church of England, which is to all extents and purposes agnosticism. Today you would have to say atheism. Church attendance is in single percentage points. -- Jim heartfield