British Politics: Creationist Schools

The United Kingdom’s very own hobgoblin Michael Gove has given his dubious seal of approval to three creationist-led ‘free schools’, once again proving that this world is beyond help.

For those not familiar with the UK’s ongoing state of decay, free schools are just like any other school, except they are not run by the local authority, opening the gates for any mad cult with a warrant from their god to brainwash our children.  Although religious schools are not a new idea in this country, this news has reignited the scrutiny by the public of these corrupt institutions. 

Various news sources have naturally clamoured to either stir or placate the issue, but the disaster at hand is fairly plain to see on two of the new schools’ websites (one of them apparently doesn’t exist yet).  While they both employ a relatively flexible definition of creationism, they are confident in affirming the notion that their own particular version of the “omnipotent sky fairy” story is scientifically adequate to be presented as truth. 

Sevenoaks School has gone for a lighter touch by constraining their wasting of children’s valuable time to RE lessons, as per the religious schools standard.  I am not against religious education when taught well, but too often the curriculums of ideology-based schools are mired in indoctrination and irrelevance.  Meanwhile, Grindon Hall helpfully highlights the internal contradiction of faith-based knowledge with the following:

“We believe that God, as sovereign Lord of the universe, is capable of creating the world in a few 24-hour days, or over a period of millions of years.” 

“We vigorously challenge the unscientific certainty often claimed by scientists surrounding the so-called “Big Bang” and origins generally.”

A plausible alternative to science

Not only is this recklessly stupid, but it teaches students the wrong idea about science; that it is acceptable to fill gaps in scientific knowledge with “God did it”, rather than actually using intellect and rigour. 

This comes within a week of Germany banning the archaic ritual of circumcision for religious reasons, much to the indignation of the penis slashing zealots, and proving that our island is still hopelessly backward compared with our neighbour mainland Europe, whose dangerous secular ideas we continue to shun for no apparent reason.