Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jack the Bodiless · 03-28-2002, 06:49 AM

Nigel McQuoid is the principal of Emmanuel College, Gateshead, the school at the heart of the current "creationism in the UK" scandal.

He's also as odd as a seven-fingered glove, and so is his predecessor, John Burn. The following quotes are from <a href="http://www.christian.org.uk/html-publications/schoolcu.htm" target="_blank">here</a>.

McQuoid and Burn on evolution:

Quote:

There are those who argue that Science and Christianity can be harmoniously reconciled and that no significant tension remains. We cannot subscribe to this view. It seems to us that attempts to reconcile evolutionary theory with the Biblical account of creation strain and distort scripture and that they introduce a symbolic reading of Genesis which cannot logically deny the symbolic reading of the Virgin Birth, physical Resurrection of Christ or the Second Coming.

Clearly schools are required to teach evolutionary theory. We agree that they should teach evolution as a theory and faith position. Again it is important to distinguish between evolutionary theory and the faith position of evolutionism. Clearly also schools should teach the creation theory as literally depicted in Genesis. This too is a faith position of which young people should be aware.

We believe that schools, in the interest of a true education, should help young people see the issues and the evidence base for the Creation/Evolution debate. We do not believe that Evolution is an unimportant side issue. Nor is the tension between science and religion.

Young people must also be helped to understand that science cannot deal directly with the past. Scientists cannot go back in time to directly examine the animals and rocks of long ago. They cannot observe the past or test it and young people should be made aware that whilst the majority of the scientific community hold to evolutionary theory some atheistic scientists cast significant doubt upon it. Both Creation and Evolution provide ways of explaining the past that are beyond direct scientific examination and verification. Ultimately, both Creation and Evolution, are faith positions.

We believe that the science teacher should provide opportunities to demonstrate this.

McQuoid and Burn on religious diversity:

Quote:

There are some Christians who naively believe that Religious Education, worship and spiritual concerns are matters for home and church alone. There is no such thing as a neutral classroom. Schools are not value-free. We live in a world of competing world views and among these are relativism, secularism, atheistic humanism, post-modernism, new age pantheism and scientism, as well as the traditional world religions. It does matter what children learn and all Christians should be concerned about the learning of all children.

And yet, we hear that there is no such thing as Truth, only opinion - your opinion and our opinion. The supreme commitment of many sophisticated people today is to just such relativism. The fact of the matter is that once a person gives up belief in the one true living God he ends up not in believing nothing but in believing anything. Ours, ironically, is as Michael Novak argues, an age of arrogant gullibility wherein lies the supreme contradiction and absurdity of those who are 'absolutely committed to relativism'!

Biblical Christianity proclaims itself as Truth. Sadly many Christians have given up the battle for public truth and settled instead for a commitment to private truth. Christianity is true because it is true, not because we believe it to be true. For this very reason we need to argue for public truth and ethics. We need to help our young people at school examine the assumptions of the many world views which compete for their minds. Biblical Christianity is perfectly capable of standing up to such an examination. We hear much about the rights of children and young people and yet an education which fails to help them in this search for truth and virtue fails them spectacularly.

McQuoid and Burn on Shakespeare:

Quote:

Knowledge is dry and rarefied if it has no context in ordinary life and experience. And so, dear English teacher, when you are reading Macbeth with Year 10, why avoid mentioning the relevance and dangers of the occult in modern times?

McQuoid and Burn on humanistic morality:

Quote:

"If it is all right for you and it doesn't hurt anyone else, then do it" is the prevailing, pervading and profoundly anti-Christian view of this Age. Unless this is countered by a positive Christian viewpoint delivered across and beyond the taught curriculum, these are the views that will seep into our young people. They already absorb this message from their magazines and TV screens. Are we to stand back and watch the very same absorbed in our classrooms?

This, from the "Literature" section, is classic hypocrisy from fundamentalist inerrantist Christians:

Quote:

However one develops such themes, the starting point must be to strip away the mystique and unquestioned power of any writer. Too many readers believe from too early an age that, because it is printed in a book, it must be true. Our Literature teachers must be in the business of teaching children to question and challenge and, as a result to demand of literature a quality of message that is honourable, respectable and worthy of good report.

Given this richness of opportunity for positive Literature teaching by Christians, it is sad to note that there seem so few English teachers in our schools who are committed to Biblical Christianity.

...Well, duh, I wonder why?

Coragyps · 03-28-2002, 06:59 AM

Quote:

Christianity is true because it is true, not because we believe it to be true.

Quote:

the starting point must be to strip away the mystique and unquestioned power of any writer.

And their heads still don't explode!

scigirl · 03-28-2002, 07:18 AM

Quote:

Young people must also be helped to understand that science cannot deal directly with the past. Scientists cannot go back in time to directly examine the animals and rocks of long ago.

Yet, we know for an absolute fact that the claims about the past by the Bible are true!

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Deimos · 03-28-2002, 07:32 AM

Quote:

Yet, we know for an absolute fact that the claims about the past by the Bible are true!

Of course, scigirl! You see, the writers of the Bible are inspired by GAWD himself (cause the Bible says so) therefore the Bible is the absolute authority on the past

. See how easy it can be to understand things when they are explained with a Biblically orientated logic system

.

Jack the Bodiless · 03-28-2002, 08:03 AM

Interestingly, <a href="http://www.humanism.org.uk/creationism.pdf" target="_blank">this document</a> at the British Humanist Society contains quotes from another cretinist document at the same site as McQuoid and Burn's, but the link they provided is giving me a 404 Not Found error.

Could the Worshippers of Truth have removed an uncomfortable truth from their site? Surely not...

MrDarwin · 03-28-2002, 08:07 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by scigirl:
<strong>
Yet, we know for an absolute fact that the claims about the past by the Bible are true!

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> </strong>

Yes, but those are true because they are true!

[ March 28, 2002: Message edited by: MrDarwin ]</p>

Peez · 03-28-2002, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Young people must also be helped to understand that science cannot deal directly with the past.

Notwithstanding that everything we experience is from the past. After all, it takes a finite non-zero time even for a photon to reach our eyes from an object 1 m away (to say nothing of the much longer time it takes for the signal to reach the brain and be processed).

Peez

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03-28-2002, 08:03 AM	#5
Jack the Bodiless Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: UK Posts: 5,815	Interestingly, <a href="http://www.humanism.org.uk/creationism.pdf" target="_blank">this document</a> at the British Humanist Society contains quotes from another cretinist document at the same site as McQuoid and Burn's, but the link they provided is giving me a 404 Not Found error. Could the Worshippers of Truth have removed an uncomfortable truth from their site? Surely not...

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