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I'm from the UK. Hardly anyone here questions the scientific explanations of the origins of the universe, or evolution, because we understand how science works. Darwin is on the £10 note for a reason, the universe is 13.9 Billion years old according to the cosmic microwave background radiation, you lost this argument some time ago, get over it. (on a side note, I am completing a PhD in a geology department, and the guy who sat behind me for two years was studying how those giant woodlouse things evolved for his whole PhD, using fossils. In addition to that inadmissible anecdata, I can assert that the scientific consensus on Evolution is much more emphatic that you claim.) Secondly, yes, like many young people I was brought up in a (UK version of a) religious house and attended a faith school. I am now a Secular Humanist (you seems to call that an Atheist, although it would be more accurate to say that I don't believe anything about deities, than to say I actively refute their supposed existence,) and this transition is entirely common here. Frankly, I think there are much more important things to do in the world than debate unprovable things about gods. For example: persuading people that gun ownership is bad; state-funded healthcare is good; and that religous extremism/violence (including Christian violence that occurred in Europe centuries ago) would be silly if it weren't so damn serious. (also, I'm sad that your comment is a direct child of mine, and thus I am prohibited from downvoting it.) |
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) actually poses problems for Big Bang. Obviously you are unfamiliar with the most recent findings from 2001, so I suggest you start learning about it here:
http://creation.com/recent-cosmic-microwave-background-data-....
Furthermore, the CMB merely PRESUPPOSES a big bang in the first place (and big bang is by no means certain - as many astrophysicists will tell you), so there are many assumptions involved in drawing inferences from it. The CMB is also very smooth - contrary to big bang predictions - and the observed mass density does not agree with big bang predictions either. There is no evidence, observational or otherwise, to prove that a big bang actually occurred (which is why many scientist disbelieve in it) nor is there any definitive evidence that the universe is billions of years old (I think that old chestnut arose from uniformitarian geologists' misguided counting of strata, mistakenly believing each layer to have been laid down over 'millions of years', even though recent laboratory experiments as well as direct field observation, have proved it can happen in hours or days).
Like any typical atheist (even though you describe yourself here as a Secular Humanist)you refer to "Christian violence that occurred in Europe centuries ago", forgetting of course that the most appalling violence, including mass genocide, took place in modern history at the hands of exclusively atheistic regimes, all of whose despotic leaders followed Darwinian theories completely (e.g. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mau Tse Tung, etc).
As it happens, I am from the UK too (and I'm an astrophysics major). You are free to refute the "supposed existence" of God in your own home, but please do not try to impose your own secular values on me, or on other people of faith in the UK, and especially not on my child's chance of benefiting from a decent indoctrination-free education. That's something I WILL defend, vigorously.