Every Friday, my daughters go to 'Music Time' at the local baptist church. Since I have wangled it so I get every other Friday off, one week in two, I take the girls and give K___ a bit of time off.
My mother-in-law often makes cracks about me going to something being put on by a church. I do point out to her that I'm an atheist not a Satanist and consequently not actually all that concerned about a fictional entity. I'm not entirely sure that she doesn't think I'll melt as soon as I step over the threshold.
Music Time is run by a few women from the church and there are a few mentions of God and Jesus. Mostly it's just Humpty, Incy Wincy and counting songs about monkeys jumping on beds. 95% of it is entirely secular.
There are one or two things that do make me wince a bit. They do a song about God's flood killing all the sinners which concludes with a verse proclaiming how this demonstrates God's love for humanity. Disregarding the fact that the Biblical flood never happened, what struck me about the song was the disconnect between the verses about God killing all the sinners and then this lovely-dovey coda. There was no attempt at a rationale as to how God killing all these people equated to love and it just made my brain stutter and go, 'eh?' Only a child could sing such things and accept there was a no problem there.
They also do a song that includes the lyrics, "This is the nose God chose for me, thank you Lord!" and in my head, I always substitute the word 'genetics' for 'God'. I'm aware this is wanky, and I don't attempt to stop my daughter singing their version, but it is nonsense. Would someone who was facially-disfigured also be expected to praise God for gifting them a schnoz that they couldn't breathe through, for example?
The song I do enjoy is the old one about the wise man building his house upon the rock:
Anyway, after the singing is done, they put out a few snacks and we all natter about how awful little Tarquin and Jemima are. Friday just gone, a man wandered into the hall and started chatting to me. I recognised him as the minister of the church from photo on a board in the entrance hall, though I couldn't have told you his name. He asked me about what I do for a living and probed me as to whether I'd always intended to do what I do as a profession. I said that I hadn't, and explained how I'd had to get a post-graduate degree in order to allow me to take up my current discipline.
"And what about you?" I asked. "Did you always intend to go into the church?"
"No, I was a scientist," he revealed. "In fact, I was in the middle of a PHD in biology when I became a Christian."
A biologist who became a baptist minister? Could my ears be hearing correctly? Thing is, I've always steered clear of getting involved in any religious discussions at Music Time. It's not like the subject came up a lot, but obviously, with the people organising the thing being in the church, naturally it was mentioned in passing a few times. However, no one ever asked a direct question, so I never felt the need to say anything about my own beliefs (or lack thereof), but this was too good to let go.
"May I ask you a somewhat loaded question?" I asked.
He cocked an eyebrow but said that I could. "If you were a biologist, where do you stand on the issue of evolution versus Creationism?"
He considered this and then answered. It hadn't occurred to me at the time, but of course, he might have thought I was a Creationist, so was weighing what he said from that perspective. He told me that when he'd first become a Christian, he had felt it was important to believe the Bible literally, but, having considered his position further, he concluded that it wasn't important to believe in a six day creation, and that it was, in his opinion, metaphor designed for the bronze age target audience. What was important, he said, was that God was behind it.
I told him that although I wasn't a believer, his position seemed to me to be the logical position to take if one were one (which is not to say there aren't still issues with cognitive dissonance, but at least you're not constantly organising tag team cage fights between reality, logic and evidence in the blue corner versus faith, wishful thinking and putting your hands over your ears and going 'la la la' in the red in your own bloody head).
We ended up having a good chat about what his biological discipline had been (regrettably, it was a very narrow field of interest and I wasn't familiar with the area, so I've forgotten it) and discussed the Simon Singh libel case among other things science-related. It was something of a relief to know that whatever differences we may have - and I'm 100% sure we do - they're not Creationists.
Since first becoming interested in the evolution\Creationism battle a few years back, I've spent quite a lot of time and effort in attempting to do my bit to hold back the encroaching tide of stupidity, and a good number of the people I've had discussions with, particularly online, have been so egregiously idiotic that it's difficult to not fall into a lazy default characterisation of everyone with a religious belief. Once you've been told the most blatant lies by someone, you start to tar everyone with the same brush. It's not something I'd do with the sort of C of E type of Christians, but anyone "with a personal relationship with God", I'll admit I have a tendency to prejudge. It's good to have such things brought to your attention.
It was still genetics that gave 'em that snout though.
My mother-in-law often makes cracks about me going to something being put on by a church. I do point out to her that I'm an atheist not a Satanist and consequently not actually all that concerned about a fictional entity. I'm not entirely sure that she doesn't think I'll melt as soon as I step over the threshold.
Music Time is run by a few women from the church and there are a few mentions of God and Jesus. Mostly it's just Humpty, Incy Wincy and counting songs about monkeys jumping on beds. 95% of it is entirely secular.
There are one or two things that do make me wince a bit. They do a song about God's flood killing all the sinners which concludes with a verse proclaiming how this demonstrates God's love for humanity. Disregarding the fact that the Biblical flood never happened, what struck me about the song was the disconnect between the verses about God killing all the sinners and then this lovely-dovey coda. There was no attempt at a rationale as to how God killing all these people equated to love and it just made my brain stutter and go, 'eh?' Only a child could sing such things and accept there was a no problem there.
They also do a song that includes the lyrics, "This is the nose God chose for me, thank you Lord!" and in my head, I always substitute the word 'genetics' for 'God'. I'm aware this is wanky, and I don't attempt to stop my daughter singing their version, but it is nonsense. Would someone who was facially-disfigured also be expected to praise God for gifting them a schnoz that they couldn't breathe through, for example?
The song I do enjoy is the old one about the wise man building his house upon the rock:
The Wise Man Built His HouseThe only reason I like that one ('like' being a relative term pertaining to children's songs you hear waaay too often rather than music one might listen to through choice) is that I amuse my small brain by pretending the rock is analogous to reason, science and scepticism, and the sand is analogous to religious faith, thus cleverly satirising the intended point of the song. I am aware this may also reveal something quite pathetic about me...
The wise man built his house upon the rock (*3)
And the rain came tumbling down...
Oh, the rain came down, And the floods came up (*3)
And the wise man's house stood firm.
The foolish man built his house upon the sand (*3)
And the rain came tumbling down
Oh, the rain came down, And the floods came up (*3)
And the house on the sand fell down!
Anyway, after the singing is done, they put out a few snacks and we all natter about how awful little Tarquin and Jemima are. Friday just gone, a man wandered into the hall and started chatting to me. I recognised him as the minister of the church from photo on a board in the entrance hall, though I couldn't have told you his name. He asked me about what I do for a living and probed me as to whether I'd always intended to do what I do as a profession. I said that I hadn't, and explained how I'd had to get a post-graduate degree in order to allow me to take up my current discipline.
"And what about you?" I asked. "Did you always intend to go into the church?"
"No, I was a scientist," he revealed. "In fact, I was in the middle of a PHD in biology when I became a Christian."
A biologist who became a baptist minister? Could my ears be hearing correctly? Thing is, I've always steered clear of getting involved in any religious discussions at Music Time. It's not like the subject came up a lot, but obviously, with the people organising the thing being in the church, naturally it was mentioned in passing a few times. However, no one ever asked a direct question, so I never felt the need to say anything about my own beliefs (or lack thereof), but this was too good to let go.
"May I ask you a somewhat loaded question?" I asked.
He cocked an eyebrow but said that I could. "If you were a biologist, where do you stand on the issue of evolution versus Creationism?"
He considered this and then answered. It hadn't occurred to me at the time, but of course, he might have thought I was a Creationist, so was weighing what he said from that perspective. He told me that when he'd first become a Christian, he had felt it was important to believe the Bible literally, but, having considered his position further, he concluded that it wasn't important to believe in a six day creation, and that it was, in his opinion, metaphor designed for the bronze age target audience. What was important, he said, was that God was behind it.
I told him that although I wasn't a believer, his position seemed to me to be the logical position to take if one were one (which is not to say there aren't still issues with cognitive dissonance, but at least you're not constantly organising tag team cage fights between reality, logic and evidence in the blue corner versus faith, wishful thinking and putting your hands over your ears and going 'la la la' in the red in your own bloody head).
We ended up having a good chat about what his biological discipline had been (regrettably, it was a very narrow field of interest and I wasn't familiar with the area, so I've forgotten it) and discussed the Simon Singh libel case among other things science-related. It was something of a relief to know that whatever differences we may have - and I'm 100% sure we do - they're not Creationists.
Since first becoming interested in the evolution\Creationism battle a few years back, I've spent quite a lot of time and effort in attempting to do my bit to hold back the encroaching tide of stupidity, and a good number of the people I've had discussions with, particularly online, have been so egregiously idiotic that it's difficult to not fall into a lazy default characterisation of everyone with a religious belief. Once you've been told the most blatant lies by someone, you start to tar everyone with the same brush. It's not something I'd do with the sort of C of E type of Christians, but anyone "with a personal relationship with God", I'll admit I have a tendency to prejudge. It's good to have such things brought to your attention.
It was still genetics that gave 'em that snout though.
