Unlike most former fundamentalists, I’m from England. It happens over here too. I went to a school that used Accelerated Christian Education, so I knew that the world was less than 10,000 years old. ACE schoolbooks say it is “not possible” that we evolved, and “scientific evidence proved the Darwinian theory of evolution was false.” On the contrary, they said that Creationism has “unquestionable proofs.”
My PACEs said fossilised human footprints have been found next to dinosaur tracks in the same rock. Those tracks don’t exist; they’re the Creationist Piltdown Man. But my schoolbooks told me they were proof man had walked the earth at the same time as dinosaurs, so it had to be true.
I was also part of the Word of Faith sect, which preaches that Christians’ words have creative power. Just as God spoke the world into existence, anything a Christian says in faith will happen!
Because of that, I wasn’t allowed to say anything negative, because it would come true. Even if I had doubts, I couldn’t voice them. I was taught that doubts were simply the devil planting thoughts in my mind, and I had to drive them out by filling my mind with God’s Word. If I began to doubt, I felt guilty for submitting to the devil.
Mostly, I didn’t doubt because I felt God’s presence when I prayed. I knew God was real, because I experienced Him all the time, and because “science” proved it.
Then, after a massive bout of depression, I had a breakdown at school. My parents removed me and sent me to a normal school. My social skills were crippled after years working in silent cells at an ACE school. I was bullied for my beliefs about science, God, and sex.
And then we were taught about evolution. It was the first time anyone had explained what evolution taught (I thought Darwin believed a monkey randomly gave birth to a human one day). I was struck by its elegance. I was still a Christian, but it got me thinking.
I realised that if God made my brain, he must have meant for me to use it. So I bought a book on philosophy. I hated the fact that, as much as I tried to believe in God, the arguments against his existence made more sense than the arguments in favour.
It took me seven agonising years to unpick the web of lies and bullshit I was sold as a child. Sometimes I think I’m still doing it. I’m determined never to be as much of an extremist as I was back then, so I won’t rule out the possibility some kind of God exists. But I can see no reason to think there is. And that’s why I’m an atheist.
Jonny Scaramanga
United Kingdom
I had a similar experience of oppressive Christian schooling and (P)ACE lessons. They put us in a cube farm and got us to go through these learn-by-rote cartoon books. To complete a book, you had to pass the book’s fact-based test and also recite a per-book bible verse. The whole experience was crippling. Luckily for me, the school had to conform to the national curriculum for GCSEs. I went on to get a good set of GCSEs at that school, A’levels elsewhere, and a genetics degree. I now work in synthetic biology – I guess I was one of the ones that got away.
While I don’t naturally gravitate towards government interference, this is exactly the sort of thing where children must be protected from their parents and national minimum standards really make a difference. The national curriculum may be limited and limiting for the more able teachers, but it is so vastly better than the alternatives like P(ACE).
What a coincidence! Jonny Scaramanga is also featured on the newly-released Token Skeptic, Episode One Hundred and Twenty-Three with Jonny Scaramanga. Enjoy!
“But my schoolbooks told me they were proof man had walked the earth at the same time as dinosaurs, so it had to be true.”
This stuck with me. It makes me so angry how children’s trust is consistently violated by people with no qualms about lying to them, and then it makes me even angrier to think that they’re most likely doing it because they themselves don’t know any better, because THEY were lied to, as well. The mind of a child can be so open and inquisitive and hungry for knowledge, and their potential is limitless until people feed them complete and total misinformation. It’s like typing the wrong directions into a GPS system — it’ll do all the right things, but based totally on the wrong destination.
Kudos for being curious enough to find your way out.
Thanks for posting this, PZ. I really think it’s important to get the word out.
@Matthewpocock Would you like to write something on your experience for my blog? It’s at leavingfundamentalism.wordpress.com. I have a standing invitation to anyone with experience of ACE to write what they think.
I just had a very quick and dirty google for ACE in the UK – there are over 50 schools teaching this stuff? How the hell do they stay within the law (if they do, that is) and what the hell happens with ofsted inspections?
I had no idea it was this bad. I thought there were like two Vardy academies, and that was bad enough.
And echoing Alex M, kudos on having the mental strength to get away from this. And my sympathies (I kind of feel that should be condolences, if you see what I mean) for having had to endure such a horrible experience of anti-education.
[unrelated, really] If you don’t mind my asking, is it music that you teach? Or another subject?
@opposablethumbs
Yeah, BBC Radio 4 reported that when New Life Academy opened in 2010, it was the 60th ACE school in the UK. The fundamentalist Christian Schools Trust also has 40 non-ACE schools, so that’s at least 100 off-the-radar fundy institutions in the UK.
Basically, you can teach what you want in a private school, and that’s how they get away with it. Ofsted has actually praised aspects of ACE in reports. In my interview with the Token Skeptic podcast, I explained why that’s insanity.
Thanks for the kudos, but I was really lucky. Post-ACE (I left in year 10), I had a normal education and some excellent teachers. Although I was long out of school by the time I deconverted, their lessons in critical thinking, and their clear explanations of the falsehoods I believed, stayed with me until I was ready to consider them honestly.
Yeah, I teach music.
Fuck. I didn’t realise quite how much of a free rein private schools can have. That’s appalling.
I supppose ofsted loves the “good behaviour” and just says tut-tut about the science.
This is child abuse.
You’re almost there, Jonny.
“I’m determined never to be as much of an extremist as I was back then, so I won’t rule out the possibility some kind of God exists.”
No more extremist than ruling out the possibility that Santa Claus (Father Christmas) exists!
Don’t worry plutoanimus, I don’t harbour any belief that there is a God. I’m just saying there was a time when I would have told you I *knew* God was real. I don’t think for a second there is a God, but I’m not stupid enough to say I *know* there isn’t.
I felt things that I might characterize as a presence in my teenagerhood, even though I was a pretty confirmed atheist. I still feel it, especially when in the green world, and I feel incredibly lucky to be almost overwhelmed by it much more easily than most others. Things are so beautiful. Maybe that’s not any God, but something like my soul talking. Walt Whitman pretty much convinced me that what I and others were feeling there, was really just the body talking (includes my nervous system). His “the body is the soul” stuff. I think Russel suggests the experiment of removing iodine from your diet to see if your eternal soul is affected. Hi Ho.
Crap, that should be Russell, Bertrand, with two L’s.
PACE? Fuck, where do they teach this bullshit? Are they private or state schools??
My parents were teachers, and Christian. My father is probably revolving in his grave right now…
I took a look at the Token Skeptic link supplied by Kylie @ #2, and I was shocked to read that ACE schools used the same methods of discipline I endured at a Roman Catholic Convent primary school in Dorset, England in the early ’60s! Every nun carried a ruler, a cane or had a belt and these were administered freely for any (real or imagined) transgression of rules we were never allowed to know with any degree of certainty. We were the best behaved bunch of little schoolboys (in public) you can possibly imagine!
Until my 3rd year biology teacher (for 14 yo in the UK education system) taught us the theory of evolution and natural selection I had accepted the babble story of Genesis and Creation Week. Once evolution and natural selection was explained it just fit so well with reality that the entire foundation of my faith crumbled. For this I thank Mr. Danny Belcher, who must be long retired now but deserves credit for helping me escape the mind-crushing trap of religion.
To be fair the school chaplain crowned it all later the same year with his laughable defense of the existence of gawd; when he proclaimed that if there was no gawd he’d wasted 7 years of his life going to seminary college! On this I agree with him – he did indeed waste 7 years of his life.
@jonnyscaramanga
Sure, I’d be happy to post something how? If you’d like to get in touch directly, Google for “turingatemyhamster email” and send me a message.
They’re all private schools. That’s why they get away with it.
Your comment about your parents gives me hope. I’m an affirmed atheist, but I think that to defeat fundamentalist education, we need to the non-crazy Christians onside. So far, I’ve found plenty of Christians who are almost as concerned about it as I am.
Hi Jonny, I have read your testimony with great interest, and also the encouraging comments from your fellow Atheists. This is probably a great relief, as apparently you received so much bullying from those people when you declared your faith in a Creator back in High School. Of course, when there is no opposition, you will be encouraged. But, remember Johnny, it is a conditional praise as long as you toe the party line. Sadly, this is typical for any human group you join as it is a trait that humans show.We hate to ascribe to minority opinions, and this is a way that I find many males show – peer pressure if you do not ascribe to the four ‘requirements’ of masculinity in our Western culture – alcohol, sex, atheism and conformity
Four factors are pertinent to your retreat to Atheism: In analysing this man’s ‘conversion’, there are four key factors to consider:
a. You had a severe bout of depression during adolescence,
b. You described yourself as a social cripple, which means you were either shy or withdrawn,an ‘introvert.’
c. You were bullied for your beliefs about science, god and sex.
d. One or more of your parents was in the ‘word of faith’ sect.
I would firstly like to say that I am a committed follower of Jesus that does not agree with the the extreme ‘blab it and grab it’ teachings of the ‘Word of Faith’ sect. I believe that many of their teachings are harmful in causing susceptible humans to believe they can avoid medical treatment, or to use the Christian faith as a means rather than an end – a means to success, prosperity, wealth, or other materialist objectives. I do not agree with the views of Kenneth Hagan, Kenneth Copeland, or Oral Roberts. I share this belief with the majority of mainstream, Charismatic and Pentecostal denominations in the world – apart from perhaps in Africa and parts of the USA.
Given this, I do not agree with the thought that ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’ is required, and hence a full rejection of the founder of Christianity, Jesus Christ. Your parents may have made a mistake when you were taken into a mainstream school all those years ago, particularly when you were in depression. This depression meant that, at the time, you were sensitive to the viewpoints of the males who bullied you in the new high school, and you were desperately wanting to recover; yet at the same time receiving negative peer pressure about your beliefs in God, sex, and science. You hence made any attempt to ‘fit in’ as you were likely an introvert, melancholy, and exhibiting a high degree of a trait called ‘neutroticism.’ If you show a high level of neutroticism, it means you are highly susceptible to depression and stress, and decreases your ability to think clearly and to make objective decisions when you are under stress. It also makes you susceptable to depression.
Under these circumstances, your likelihood of accepting any teachings, that would reduce your stress to acceptable levels for you, was highly likely. Hence, your point of least resistance as an adolescent was to accept the teachings presented by your evolution teacher as it was the mainstream belief of all male students, and was going to allow you to reduce the bullying you felt; and enable you to make friends and give you acceptance. Logically, you would dispense with any thought or belief that you were taught as a child – namely about God, sex and science – if it was going to destroy your goals at the time. Your goals were to 1) feel acceptance, 2) to decrease your level of stress, 3) to reduce the level of bullying you face if you maintained your beliefs in God that you were taught.
I feel sad that this had to happen to you, and saddened that your parents didn’t see the signs sooner. I too received some pressure from my school and my university as I strived to reconcile my faith in Jesus with the often negative male stereotypes that say you lose your masculinity in some way if you believe in God, reject extreme views of being able to drink copious amounts of alcohol with your friends, and to boast about your sexual conquests in an environment where females are seen as a ‘piece of meat’ to be enjoyed when required by a male who defines his masculinity as a ‘conquering animal who does not need to control himself.’ Sadly, females have now joined this bandwagon as a result of evolutionary teaching, of media bombardment, and peer pressure as a result of a polished marketing technique designed to capture the hearts and the purse strings of the 8-30 year old market.
However, as you grow older, you see that you no longer have to ascribe to the views of your mainstream mates to feel acceptance. You can re-examine your roots to find whether there were truths that you have rejected. I examine Jesus’ life and see him as a great man of strength who was willing to reject the view of the majority to follow the right path. He went against the popular views of the race he was born into – the Jewish race. They had some bigotry against women, non-Jewish people, and anyone who supported the oppressors of the time – the Romans. Jesus would challenge the views that were held in that time about marriage, divorce, God, relating to enemies, materialism, wealth, the best occupations, love, sex, and so on.
He remained poor, and poured his life into a group of twelve students with limited education, limited wealth, and even frowned-upon occupations. He challenged bullying, expectations of conformity, and popular views of sickness and what constituted evil, conformity and the mainstream views of the day. I admired his resolute firmness when people challenged his views, and his ability to stay true to his beliefs and faith even when being physically and mentally tortured by his own people.
So, Jonny, I challenge you today not to take the easy path to gain acceptance and to escape stress and depression. I challenge you to revisit the teachings of Jesus, and to review popular beliefs about masculinity and acceptance. I found that supporting atheism supports bullying, prejudice and discrimination. In supporting the teachings of Jesus, I have become less self-centred, more sensitive to the people around me, more free to be whom I want to be, more examining of the messages conveyed to me by mainstream society and … more content with my own identity. By emulating Jesus’ life, I believe I have become more assertive, more tolerant of other people’s beliefs, and have socialised with people of all cultures, creeds and religions.
I have a stable marriage, my children are more happier, and my way of thinking is far more broader than having to ascribe to the mainstream marketing messages that material wealth, a high paying job, a high tolerance to alcohol or other addictive substances; and the ability to be around good looking and famous people with the right body shape; is required to ‘fit in’.
May you examine the possibility of God in a real way without the chains of bullying being placed on you. Atheism is for weak, selfish males who are too afraid that, if they let go of their crutch of Atheism and consider the claims of a divine being over their lives, they may lose out on something else. May the emotional crutch of Atheism, that so many males in Western society take up from fear or feelings of inadequacy, be dispensed with as you investigate the claims of Jesus who stated:
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me-watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
(Matthew 11:28-30, ‘The Message’)
antigodless @ 17;
If you project much more you could set up shop as as a spotlight for hire…
Translation, delusional evidenceless fool.
Translation, examined a mythical/fictional character, not the basis for firm advice.
Translation, listen to me, a delusional evidenceless blowhard without cogency.
Translation, in my delusions you can’t have a long term marriage without being fuckwitted by imaginary things. Never mind a number of 30+year marriages at Pharyngula.
Translation, you must become as delusional and fuckwitted in thinking bout imaginary things as I am. I need you to support me in my delusions, and not think for yourself.
Still waiting for you conclusive physical evidence for your imaginary deity proselytizer. PZ, time for the hammer.
At this point, it’s obvious that antigoddist is deliberately trying to get banned, presumably to feed their persecution complex.
Pretty sad when that’s all you’ve got going for you.
Oh, and by the way, Jonny. Many Atheists think you have to believe in evolution to be a scientist. This is the biggest lie served to us in the past eighty or so years by scientists who want to: a) keep their job, b) win research money, c) are high in pride, d) too scared to stand up against peer pressure, d) don’t want to give up a particular aspect of their lifestyle, e) use God as a scapegoat for any hang-up or stress they experienced in their life.
As one writer previously mentioned, over 48% of people in the US believe in Genesis. Don’t tell me no scientist exist in that vast population. Atheists would like to believe in that lie, but I have news for them. There are deist Scientists among them.
The Piltdown man freud is one reason why I believe atheists, and indeed evolutionists, lie to maintain the myth they learned in schools.
@ antigodless;
I think you should read the standards and practices of Pharyngula. You will see that proselytising is the fourth entry on the list of bannable offences.
auntiegodless is a deluded attention-seeker. Ignore.
“The crutch of atheism”. And I thought I had heard it all. Fortunately, jonny sounds as if he is too well grounded to fall for that load of tripe.
I do wonder how well I would have done if I had attended a school like that. Like to think that I would have eventually seen through the bs but hard to know.
Translation, have no solid and conclusive evidence against evolution, just my religious presuppositions and delusions. Ergo, I must delusionally pretend scientists are as delusional as I am to pretend they have nothing but an evidenceless belief system like I do. Never mind their million or so scientific papers showing evolution happened over the 4.5 billion years of the Earth.
Translation, I wish to believe scientists, who follow the evidence except where their imaginary deity is concerned, are as fuckwitted and ignorant as I am. I want everybody to be a loser like I am. It is the only way I can feel good about myself…
antigodless @ 21;
One can be a scientist and not believe in evolutionary theory. There is nothing stopping one studying, say, particle phyiscis while ignoring the vast weight of evidence that supports evolutionary theory. Being a biologist who rejects evolutionary theory, however, is like being a physicist who doesn’t believe in gravity.
In general terms, a respect for the evidence and the theories it supports is kind of useful if one wants to be a scientist that people take seriously. If all one aspires to be is a fringe kook, however…
The myth of the evil, Darwinist persecutors of the faithful? Really? That is the best you can do?
You do understand that deists do not necessarily believe in the genesis creation myth, right? And that one cannot be an atheist and a deist simultaneously, since even belief in a non-interventionist god is still incompatible with atheism?
If you are going to attempt to argue against atheism, gaining a basic understanding of the terms first would probably be a good idea…
Or not. Your incompetent flailing is utterly hilarious.
The fact that Piltdown man was discovered to be a fraud, and the fact publicised, speaks to the self-correcting nature of the scientific method.
Really, you example actually supports our contention rather than your own. At this rate, we may as well stay silent, and let your ignorance and rhetorical incompetence make our case for us…
You realize that the Piltdown Man fraud was exposed by scientists? Scientists who, following the scientific method, amassed enough evidence to show that it was a fraud? Same for Niobrara Man. Same for lots and lots of other mistakes and frauds.
This shows why your dreams about scientists accepting the theory of evolution as our best explanation for the diversity of life on earth only through peer pressure or money is absolute and total bullshit. If a scientists could amass the evidence to show that evolution is not happening, or that what we know about evolution is all wrong, that the diversity of life on earth and the facts of the fossil record are better explained by something else, that scientist would be on top of the scientific world. Proving another scientist, proving an accepted hypothesis, wrong is a great way to get noticed and achieve one’s dreams.
Meanwhile, you continue to lie.
Doesn’t your so-called holy book have some things to say about liars?
[meta]
Amusingly, antigodless attempts an avuncular attitude:
You don’t even see how you’re projecting, do ya?
(You implicitly impugn others by extrapolating from your own miserable attitude)
antigodless wants us all to toe his party line.
I’m always amazed how mindless godbots and mindless liberturds all think the best way to convince us they are right is to preach at us. It does the reverse, shows us how wrong they and their message are. If they only lead with the evidence. OOPS, that presumes they have some….
We know they exist, they just don’t make up 48% of scientists.
You’ve done that before, you know–make a claim about scientists and pretend to back it up with numbers that are mostly made up of non-scientists. It’s fucking dishonest, like something straight out of How To Lie With Statistics. Bait and switch, if you will.
Of course Genesis is horseshit when it comes to its description of the world and the universe. It’s not even close enough for jazz.
The Piltdown man was a deliberate fraud, of course, which was proven BY SCIENTISTS in 1953. And it was always controversial among scientists. Fortunately, science has a means by which it can test competing ideas.
Religion does not, which is how you’ve ended up with a multitude of versions of your religion that you don’t seem to care for.
Over time, science converges on a reliable answer. Religion diverges.
So why are you still hanging on to Piltdown Man? It’s an example of science working the way its supposed to. It eventually revealed the fraud–unlike religion, where a fraud like Joseph Smith can create a huge new church, without even having to show anybody his stupid Golden Plates.
Oh wait–I know why you use arguments like those. You’re fundamentally dishonest.
Really? Some…?
Have you actually read that shitfestered old book?
antigodless
Atheism is the sensible conclusion of anyone who examines the question of whether a god exists, given that they’ll find absolutely no evidence for one doing so. It has nothing to do with being weak, selfish or male. People who are weak and selfish will exhibit those traits regardless of what they believe.
Antigodless, enough godbotting. You’re done. You are confined to TZT, and may not post anywhere else.
When exactly did a divine being touch down on Earth and make a claim “over” someones life? And what is it that atheists think they will miss out on if they give up atheism? Inquiring minds want to know.
Aww.
*smirk*
Scaramanga, eh? Do you own a golden gun?
Well done.
brontodon, clearly there was no golden gun, but rather honesty and endeavour:
(Your allusion is on the weak-ass side of mediocre, since it was Francisco Scaramanga who had the Golden Gun)
It’s so cool that antigoodness’s one-person performance of The Idiot came to a climax with their trump card, Piltdown Man – proof positive that they are totally fucking clueless on the subject of evolution or even just the history of science.
I’m almost sad antigodless was banned before I got here. I would’ve slapped him down. He’s such a moronic evangelist that he didn’t bother to find out more details of my story before launching in on his epic TL;DR splurge. Of course I considered moderate Christian positions on my exit from the faith. Unlike him, I try to display some intellectual honesty.
Jonny, I for one (see above) appreciate your testimony and have some inkling of its intensity.
(I’m pretty darn sure I’m not the only one, and may many others be uplifted by your example!)
—
Also, antigodless hasn’t been banned, but confined to TZT on pain of bannination.
Sorry, I don’t understand the rules, Mr Myers. TZT are just pictures of zombies. I am happy that Mr Scaramanga read the article. I’d love to hear your opinion and read where I went wrong in your opinion. But, as I am supposed to be banned by the fella who wrote in red letters, I am not sure I would be given the chance to respond in the long term.
I don’t believe your brush with Christ-followers are quite over yet. Would love to hear your feedback, Jonny.
Fuckwit, you have only delusional OPINION. We have facts and evidence, including no evidence for your imaginary deity, making it delusion, and you a delusional fool.
Where you went wrong was you preached. You presented no evidence. You just preached. Where is the solid and conclusive physical evidence your deity exists, and your babble isn’t a book of mythlogy/fiction? You never, ever, presented any conclusive physical evidence that confirmed you presuppsoitions. You OPINION is bullshit unless you can back it with evidence. That’s what you did wrong.
That is the owner of the blog. Dr. Myers, an educated person, unlike you.
Go to the TZT and talk all you want. We will ridicule your evidenceless fuckwittery. Which is everything you say.
They drop by here and spread their nonsense. They are all like you. NO EVIDENCE, JUST DELUSIONAL OPINION. Nothing but hot air, blather, and delusions. No evidence…
To: “Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls”:
Thanks for the tip. You’re a real fine nerd.
@antigodless You mainly went wrong by spewing a vast avalanche of cliches which I’ve heard a thousand times before, rather than engaging with me as individual. Also, as others have pointed out, your complete lack of a cogent argument was something of a disincentive to listen to you. In short, you were rude, and that is why I am being rude to you.
@brontodon For the whole of my life, every time I have ever announced my name anywhere for the first time, someone has made that comment. It was always that way, and ever will be. My grandad was at school with Ian Fleming. I had the name first. Well, my family did.
@john morales Thank you.
Mr antigodless was too slow and stupid to dodge the banhammer, and my warning went unheeded. He is now a splotch in the dungeon to be ignored.
And you are a fuckwitted idjit. Go here, or go away. The banhammer will be applied if you don’t.
@johnnyscaramanga
That was a great piece, Johnny – it’s hard to overcome that level of indoctrination.
Re: antigodless
Wow, that was a mountain of stupid.