The subject, above, was being discussed on local radio and one of the speakers was Margaret Nelson, an active member of Suffolk Humanists and Secularists. Margaret gave her usual balanced, intelligent reasoning against the suggestion. The radio presenter tried, as they do, to play devil's advocate, and tried to "catch her out" - he failed miserably. I could not resist emailing Margaret with my views, which she then prompted me to post in the forum on the Suffolk H & S website. I did that, and provide another version of it below...
They can discuss it all they want and I don't see a problem in discussing it among those who don't believe, either, but I would strongly object to my children, or grandchildren now, discussing it in a
science lesson. That's no more logical than discussing it in history lessons. Creationism is not science because it's not fact. It's not even "theory" in the same way that evolution is a theory. They (believers) don't seem to see that it is exactly as Margaret said in the radio programme; simply a primitive way of explaining the inexplicable.
Evolution, and the big bang theory both have evidence to support them. Creationism is quite simply ridiculous - it just couldn't have happened that way, it was just a very primitive way of explaining to very primitive people how it might have happened, that has subsequently been proven wrong.
And even evolution and big bang don't answer the question "what was here before that?" and "is there a supernatural being who controls all this?" I don't know why god-believers don't use the argument that yeah, OK, the old testament was wrong in some details but even the big bang was caused by the almighty, and he created the conditions for life to begin. I'm not suggesting that that's sensible because I don't believe in ghosts, holy or otherwise, but if I wanted to believe in an almighty god, then I think I could find a way to make him/her still responsible for everything.
P.S.
Poor deluded Mark, who telephoned in with totally illogical reasoning about why creationism is true (which was not the point of the programme anyway). He rambled on about humans having the imprint of some "prehistoric" creature on his shoe, and that could only happen if dinosaurs and humans had co-existed.
No, Mark, your argument is totally devoid of logic. When I was in Dorset I (could have) got an imprint of a millions-of-years old creature in the sole of my shoe - an ammonite, which lived between 251 and 450 million years ago. I didn't have to be there millions of years ago for that to happen. It could have happened last week, 251 million years after the last ammonite squirmed on this earth.
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