Jess Murray

On Tuesday morning there was an article in the paper about Islamic creationists being a tad anal about the teaching of evolutionary theory. In such situations I usually employ the phrase ‘lighten up!’ and get back to more serious issues such as “dicks for fingers versus dick for a nose”. But for once, I actually slipped out of my apathetic shell and got a little bit angry. While I would like to precede this sentence with “for want of a better phrase”, I can’t: creationists are simply fucking nutters.

According to The Times groups of conservative Muslim scholars and students believe they have to make the choice between evolution and creationism, without any room for compromise. Now, an 800 word column is no place to sum up a centuries worth of arguments against religious belief, but as I’ve told several creationists who always seem so perplexed as to why I study a subject of lies (archaeology), evolution and religion can work together. Furthermore, creationism is a completely and utterly 100% flawed concept in light of all the evidence that archaeology, geology, paleontology and genetics have put forward. Many creationists argue that this ‘evidence’ is ‘just a test’, but for what end? So the majority of reasonable, logically orientated people could burn in Hell? Guess most of us Cambridge students are fucked then. And that whole “7 days” thing doesn’t have much going for it either. If I’m correct, Bernard’s Watch only premiered in 1997.

By the looks of it, creationism, like neo-nazis, are getting a bit out of hand. Earlier this year I read about the Creation Museum, which as the name suggests, is a museum dedicated to perpetuating the creationist farce. The existence of such a ridiculous museum makes me wonder why I can’t start my own museum, such as “the world according to Peter Sutcliffe education center”. That being said, they’d probably be of a similar vein, so I’d have competition. In my opinion, the most important question regarding creationism is the extent to which we let adults, be it teachers or parents, indoctrinate children with ideas that have no factual grounding. I suppose it all comes back to fundamental political questions of liberty and freedom, but really, if a school teacher told children that the “pull out before you shoot off” technique was the safest form of birth control, and genuinely believed that to be the case, would we stand aside and let them usher children into a life of 16 kids with 16 doses of child benefits? What if they taught that dealing crack to the elderly was acceptable way of celebrating the Harvest Festival? What if they encouraged their pupils to go swimming with Michael Barrymore?

I wonder if, amongst the creationist circles, you get those who are actually doubting the whole 7 day scam and quite fancy jumping the bandwagon into sanity. Imagine the day they finally snap, sitting amongst fellow believers for some pre-evening-service drinks, only to get so sick of Father John’s ridiculous denial of evolution that they stand up, pour their menial plastic cup of orange squash over someone’s head, going on to imitate the Hulk, throwing the tin of custard creams against the wall, showering everyone in Tesco-extra-value crumbs. This is followed by them pulling out their cock to shake around the room – piss everywhere – coupled with a few anguished screams of desperation, before storming out of  the church hall to sprint to the nearest museum of antiquity. In the morning a cleaner will probably find them nestled amongst and cradling some bronze age bones muttering “I’m sorry” over and over again before being transferred to the nearest psychiatric care center. Sob stories like this should make us consider how we treat the creationist plight. Stonewall, Women’s Aid, Child-line? Creationists in Need more like.

So what are we to do? We turn to the one of the most powerful media forces influencing Britain’s world view: UK Living. “Creationist Makeover” is a show hosted by Anika Rice, John Fashnu and Richard Dawkins in which unfortunately blinkered members of the population with no concept of even the fundamentals of stratigraphy are taken off their DFS sofas and have their beliefs challenged, hopefully ending in a conclusion in which Take That play triumphantly in the background to newly found Darwinian smiles. Regular features of the show include a shoddily made CGI recreation of the pleistocene, in which Fashnu, Rice and Dawkins, dressed in mock leopard furs, give the bewildered creationist a tour around prehistory, showing them that there was indeed a time in which human’s shat on the floor and spoke in grunts. They then take said creationist 30,000 years into the future and surprise them with the fact that we’re still shitting and grunting. Fashnu will exclaim: ‘You didn’t expect that did you?’, and everyone will giggle at the hilarity of brute fact. Another feature would involve the age-old trust-building task. The creationist is forced to stand on a 3m high platform, blindfolded, and told to fall backwards in the trusting knowledge that they’ll be caught. However, in a twist of the format, they’re left to fall to the floor, probably breaking their collarbone, and proving that they shouldn’t trust everything they’re told.

And if UK Living turn down such an idea, I suppose I can always turn to Channel 5. And if even they won’t take it, then I guess it’s down to us: next time you meet a creationist, give them a slap on the wrist and tell them to stop being a silly billy.