Seven days later

At a party over the weekend I managed to have a half-hour's conversation with a professed Creationist without offending her. I feel kind of proud of myself for it, because ordinarily someone telling the table loudly that they're a Creationist would lead me immediately to categorise them as other and see them as somehow mentally less than fully competent. We talked about music and powerkiting and not about religion, and I didn't tease her or needle her or challenge her or anything.

The one thing I did say early on when it was a whole-table conversation (before everyone decamped and left me holding the Creationist) was that the perceived opposition between religion and science is absolutely false, that they're not opposed and certainly not mutually exclusive. (People who think otherwise should read Terry Pratchett's latest opus, Nation, which is pretty goddamn awesome.)

When I lived in the States, I used to feel quite scathing towards Creationists, because there there are enough of them to do idiotic political things like try to change school curricula. But in Britain, it's hard not to see them as sort of touchingly innocent. "You think God made this? Aww, bless."

Seven days later

At a party over the weekend I managed to have a half-hour's conversation with a professed Creationist without offending her. I feel kind of proud of myself for it, because ordinarily someone telling the table loudly that they're a Creationist would lead me immediately to categorise them as other and see them as somehow mentally less than fully competent. We talked about music and powerkiting and not about religion, and I didn't tease her or needle her or challenge her or anything.

The one thing I did say early on when it was a whole-table conversation (before everyone decamped and left me holding the Creationist) was that the perceived opposition between religion and science is absolutely false, that they're not opposed and certainly not mutually exclusive. (People who think otherwise should read Terry Pratchett's latest opus, Nation, which is pretty goddamn awesome.)

When I lived in the States, I used to feel quite scathing towards Creationists, because there there are enough of them to do idiotic political things like try to change school curricula. But in Britain, it's hard not to see them as sort of touchingly innocent. "You think God made this? Aww, bless."