Law and Lawson

2 responses to “Law and Lawson”

1. 

   Gelert

   December 6, 2007

   The children of some relatives attend a Church of England Faith school. However, as well as an excellent academic record which attacts non christians too, it studies other world religions as part of RS, and encourages question and debate. Their parents are Christian and obviously hope their children will be, but the climate is one of open choice. I’ve been privy to some great debates, and the kids make their own choice about whether to look into it further or reject it.

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2. 

   Geoff

   December 7, 2007

   That’s the sort of education that I support, and, it might surprise you to learn, so do Dawkins and Dennett. Here’s Dawkins: "Let children learn about different faiths, let them notice their incompatibility, and let them draw their own conclusions about the consequences of that incompatibility. As for whether any are ‘valid’, let them make up their own minds when they are old enough to do so."
    
   The sort of school where comparative religion is taught, as well as understanding of the great literary and cultural history of the major world religions, I have no issue with. The sort of school I object to is where the head of science teaches creationism: "As we stated at the beginning, Christians, with very good reason, reckon the Scriptures of the Old & New Testaments a reliable guide concerning just what we are to believe. They are not merely religious documents. They provide us with a true account of Earth history which we ignore at our peril."  Oh, and this particular teacher also insists that Noah and the Flood are historical facts having geological consequences: "We must acknowledge within our grand geophysical paradigm the historicity of a world-wide flood as outlined in Gen 6-10. If the Biblical narrative is secure and the listed genealogies (e.g. Gen 5, 1Chro 1; Matt 1 & Lu 3) are substantially full, we must reckon that this global catastrophe took place in the relatively recent past. Its effects are everywhere abundantly apparent. Principal evidence is found in the fossil-laden sedimentary rocks, the extensive reserves of hydrocarbon fuels (coal, oil and gas) and the legendary accounts of just such a great flood common to poulation groups world-wide. The feasibility of maintaining an ark full of represenative creatures for a year until the waters had sufficiently receded has been well documented by, among others, John Woodmorappe."
    
   A letter raising concern about the educational standards of this school was drafted by the Bishop of Oxford and sent to the Prime Minister of the time, Tony Blair. The letter was jointly signed by the Bishop and Dawkins, and by a further eight bishops and nine senior scientists. Unsurprisingly, as Dawkins writes: "we received a perfunctory and inadequate reply from the Prime Minister’s office, referring to the school’s good examination results and its good report from the official schools inspection agency OFSTED. It apparently didn’t occur to Mr. Blair that, if the OFSTED inspectors gave a rave report to a school whose head of science teaches that the entire universe began after the domestication of the dog, there just might be something a teeny weeny bit wrong with the standards of the inspectorate."

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