> militant godbothering atheist
What? That makes no sense. It's like saying militant beef-eating vegetarian.
> Just imagine it: Some child asks Mr Jones in science class in some primary school full of 8 year olds whether God made the world. Jones gives a diplomatic answer. Little Johnny goes home and tells his parents. The next thing Jones hears is that he is now on a disciplinary charge for "teaching Creationism".
Yes. That is exactly what should happen.
If some child asks Mr Jones in science class in a primary school full of 8 year olds whether God made the world, Jones should say, "The verifiable, testable evidence suggests that this is not the case. See here and here and here. Some people believe that a supernatural being, such as God, Vishnu, or Ra did create the world -- they are entitled to their beliefs, but those beliefs do not stand up to scientific rigor."
This is the only reasonable position for a science teacher, in class, to take.
Imagine, for a moment, if some other part of the school curriculum was able to be influence by the religious beliefs of the teachers. Let me give a few examples:
History student: "Mr Jones, is it true that horses were introduced to North America in the 16th century?"
Mormon Mr Jones: "Horses were always in North America, as documented by Nephi in 590 B.C."
English student: "Mr Jones, is it I before E, except after C, or is that rule not taught anymore?"
Muslim Mr Jones: "Actually, Arabic words have holy power and a special relationship with Allah. It is the most holy language and you should write in that instead."
Maths student: "Mr Jones, if the train leaves at 5:30pm, heads west, and goes for months, won't it just circle the world?"
Hindu Mr Jones: "No, of course not. The Earth is flat, as told by NARASINGA PURANA. If you go too far west, you will fall off."
You think it's fine to let other religions do as you want Christianity to do? Let a teacher's religious viewpoints influence what they teach? That's insane.
> This is the intention. This is the design purpose of the law; to permit malicious local atheists to harass church schools.
No. It's not. The purpose is to stop lying for Jesus, where Christians -- slowly but surely confronted with the evidence that their worldview is a fiction -- resort to either deluding themselves ("I choose not to accept the evidence"), or worse, resort to indoctrination of children in order to validate their life-long beliefs.
> And why do people even want to teach Creationism? Because of all the atheists who did trolling tours of the bible belt sneering, "Science proves your religion is a lie! Har har!"
People want to teach Creationism because fundamental, Biblical literalists realized that if they didn't convince people that the Bible is real when they were children and highly susceptible to manipulation, they wouldn't accept it as adults because the tale is, frankly, ludicrous.
The cornerstones of Creationism are:
- Science and evidence are lies/conspiracies/not to be trusted.
- Faith -- believing in something in spite of evidence -- is a virtue and superior to believing in things because of evidence.
- Never change your point of view for any reason, no matter how overwhelming the evidence to the contrary.
- Because we don't know everything, this is justification to prove anything wrong. Except God.
> No society is well served by making ideologically-based denunciations possible.
Science isn't an ideology. It's a search for facts. It makes no moral judgements, no pronouncements, and has no dogma. It is simply facts.
> No society is well-served by trying to prevent members of the world's largest religion - which created our society - from running schools and teaching in them.
Here's a perfect example of why teaching Creationism in schools is wrong.
My initial reply to this question was: "The world's largest religion? You mean Islam, right?"
And then I thought -- no. I don't know that for sure. I should check that. So I googled it. Yep, Christianity is the world's largest religion. So what did I do then?
I changed my position in light of the evidence presented to me.
The truth is not a popularity contest. Even if the facts make you feel uncomfortable -- I, like many others, don't like being wrong -- the facts stand. They are what they are. I may not like Christianity being the dominant religion on this planet. I might love it. I might hate it. I might despise it with all my being and try, with everything I have, to undermine and destroy it at every turn.
None of that changes the fact of the matter, which is that Christianity is the dominant religion on this planet.
The evidence strongly suggets that the Earth was not created 6,000-10,000 years ago by a God. This is fact. It, too, many make people feel uncomfortable -- but the fact stands. The Earth is billions of years old. You might not like this. You might hate it.
It doesn't matter. It is fact.
Creationists don't care about facts. They don't want to know the truth. They just want to create more Christians, either through lying for Jesus or deluding themselves that they'll "eventually" be proven right, even if that has to happen after they die.
> The real story in UK schools is that Moslems are trying to hijack the schools in order to indoctrinate suicide bombers. So the government rushes into action and passes a law ... against the Christians. It's appalling.
I think it's hilarious how badly Christians are reacting to the idea that Muslims are infiltrating schools and influencing kids, indoctrinating them into a religion. They hate it because IT IS EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT TO DO, just for a different religion.
So they're really just jealous that Muslims are doing it better.