Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Here are some articles about it. The Guardian one is from last November.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/nov/30/free-schools-creationism

The second is last summer

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/deborah-ross-so-you-think-teaching-creationism-in-school-is-farfetched-7956891.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8931518/Islam-Charles-Darwin-and-the-denial-of-science.html


At University College London we have numbers of Islamic students, almost all dedicated, hard-working and able. Some, unfortunately, refuse to accept Darwin’s theory on faith grounds, as do some of their Christian fellows; and just a couple of years ago a Turkish anti-evolution speaker (a Dr Babuna, as I remember) was invited on to campus to give an account of why The Origin is wrong. He was the scion of an extraordinary – and very rich – anti-evolution organisation based in his native land that has sent out thousands of lavishly illustrated creationist books and has linked Darwinism to Nazism and worse.

Much of their propaganda has been lifted from Christian fundamentalism and there is a certain irony in where it has ended up. I have had plenty of verbal complaints from undergraduates of both persuasions that I am demeaning religion, while others ask that they be excused lectures on my subject, or simply fail to turn up.

In schools things are worse: some kids will walk out rather than listen. Their teachers can be just as bad. The most virulent attack I have had in recent years came from a physics teacher in a respected north London state school, who – to the embarrassment of his colleagues – barracked my talk on evolutionary biology with repeated statements that Darwinism contradicted the laws of thermodynamics. I was forced, uncharacteristically, to be rude.

Anyone, of course, is free to believe whatever they wish. But why train to become a biologist, or a doctor, when you deny the very foundations of your subject? For a biology student to refuse to accept the fact of evolution is equivalent to choosing to do a degree in English without believing in grammar, or in physics with a rooted objection to gravity: it makes no sense at all. The same is true for doctors. How can you put a body right with no idea as to why it is liable to go wrong?

I have tried asking students at quite what point they find my lectures unacceptable: is it the laws of inheritance, mutation, the genes that protect against malaria or cancer, the global shifts in human skin colour, Neanderthal DNA, or the inherited differences between apes and men? Each point is, they say, very interesting – but when I point out that they have just accepted the whole truth of Darwin’s theory they deny that frightful thought. Some take instant umbrage, although a few, thank goodness, do leave the room with a pensive look.

post 25438
picks up on just one school (grindon hall) and raises the very valid question as to whether or not gov't funding should be withdrawn in the light of that school's apparent refusal to accept drawinism


post 25439
does not seem to mention any particluar school at all - or did i miss something?


post 25440
is about a lecturer at ucl who complains bitterly that certain students refuse point blank to accept evolution and further that "The most virulent attack I have had in recent years came from a physics teacher in a respected north London state school" .... so that article can scarcely be said to support your argument!

There are lots of examples and easy to find

http://bcseweb.blogspot.co.uk/p/creationism-in-schools-isnt-science.html

This April (2011), all Year 11 children in a state funded school were brought together and had a visitor introduced to them as a scientist. He then spent the next one and a half hours presenting these sixteen year olds with a series of well polished Young Earth Creationist claims, described as scientific theory.

The visitor was Philip Bell, a full time Evangelical preacher from Creation Ministries International (CMI) who presents creationist views as scientific facts and denies evolution. He states on his website that his preferred method of evangelising is infiltrating at a grassroots level as he feels this has more successful conversions.

 CMI described the school visit on their web site as ‘ministry to school children’.

The parents knew nothing of this until after the event, when one, who happens to be a trained Geologist, and thus qualified to evaluate what had been said, wrote to the school to complain. 



The Chair of Governors replied that this was all part of the Religious Education (RE)curriculum and that she should not worry because they also invited a speaker ‘to present the case for evolutionism’ so that both sides were heard, both ‘scientists’ were given equal time and both talks were presented to the children as ‘a belief’.



These recent events at St Peter's Church of England School, Exeter, show creationists are now openly using RE classes and the school timetable to advance their claim to be offering a valid scientific alternative to established knowledge, even within the State school system.

The school is adamant it has done nothing wrong despite presenting creationism on equal terms with modern science to sixteen year olds. 



In a recent statement, the Department for Education has stated that secretary of state for education, Michael Gove is ‘crystal clear’ that creationism has no scientific validity and should not be taught as science. Yet here we have a school presenting Creationism as a valid scientific position, and justifying this by reference to Religious Education.

you haven't advanced your original case one millimetre, so suggest your learn how to present an argument better and concisely and with luck, accurately

Dad's Army star Bill Pertwee who played warden Hodges dies in his sleep, age 86

'Put that light out!'



JUST THREE SURVIVING DAD'S ARMY CAST MEMBERS LEFT

Are you one of them?

8-

My argument is fine. I said that there were faith schools that teach creationism as opposed to Darwin.

The biggest group of these schools is Muslim.

so far, you have identified just one "dodgy" school and even that wasn't muslim, so suggest you check what your wrote, never mind the facts

personally, i see nothing at all wrong with inviting someone to a school to try to "sell" the idea of creationism .... the individual can then make up his mind whether or not that argument has any credibility or not

The school was allowing the talk as a scientific view.

Vatican Confirms Atheists Still Going To Hell, Despite Pope Francis Remarks

The Vatican has clarified that atheists will still go to hell if they reject God, after Pope Francis broke with tradition to deliver a homily stating non-believers who do good will be redeemed through Jesus.

The Pope's words made headlines around the world after he gave an unprepared speech in which he emphasised the importance of “doing good” as a principle which unites all humanity.

After international media attention, the Vatican attempted clarify how exactly one gets in to heaven, with Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman, saying that people who know about the Catholic church “cannot be saved” if they “refuse to enter her or remain in her.”

That is, atheists are still going to hell.

However there was still hope for the sinful among us, as “every man or woman, whatever their situation, can be saved. Even non-Christians can respond to this saving action of the Spirit. No person is excluded from salvation simply because of so-called original sin.”

cynic
It looks like we may meet down there.

.. Well don't hang around on our part -):

Hays,

I think you are making a point, but as you do frequently in your zeal, you are missing the point.

Your obvious atheistic stance and “beliefs” and unquestionable scientific reliance on your undoubted intellect, seems to have become a religion for you.

----------

Strange for me some friends who had Phds from Oxford in Maths and Physics and Chemistry still cling to their belief in a god as the reason for their existence.

Quite mystifying to a mere mortal like myself.

What infuses British governments with a mania for thrusting their sticky hands into other people’s messes that are absolutely no responsibility of ours?

Foreign Secretary William Hague spent the Bank Holiday at an EU meeting in Brussels, striving to persuade his European colleagues not to renew their arms embargo against Syria, and instead ship weapons to the anti-Assad rebels.


HAGUE IS A WAR MONGER AND SHOULD BE JAILED FOR IS ACTIONS
KEEP OUT OF SYRIA IT IS NOTHING TO DO WITH US

oh do at least try to stop being such a total idiot, though i guess that's a bit like asking a dog to stop baying at the moon!

i THINK i agree that supplying arms to the syrian rebels is a very dangerous move, but with russia/china(?) already supplying arms to hezbollah who support assad, the choices and decisions are not nearly as clear cut as may seem on first sight

cynic you should of had radio 4 on at 7 30 this morning and listened to the top man on terrorists and middle east
he said that to arm the rebels would be a great danger to the world

i'll happily buy into that argument as i commented above, and would give equal time to the counter one, but as usual, it's the additional loony crap that you clutter up the place with

Spy on your neighbours, says former MI5 head Stella Rimington
People who suspect their neighbours may be extremists should inform the security services because “the enemy is everywhere”, the former head of MI5 has said.

is she a nutter has well CYNIC
go to wolverhamton out side Lloyds bank go to Birmingham they are openly shout
abuse against people walking past them and the police say nothing