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Real sadness at saying goodbye
It isn't too often that I agree with George W Bush and here
is the trouble. If you have been reading my column regularly
over the past seven years, you'll already have a clear idea
about where George and I connect.
Not on the Road Map for Israel: I have always believed that
Ariel Sharon has a dozen ideas during his morning shower better
than anything the Pentagon can dream up in a month of committee
meetings.
Not on the war in Iraq: unlike George, I've seen active service,
I've fought on a battlefield, and when he was dodging the
draft I was dodging shrapnel. And I know that killing will
always lead to more killing.
Not on abortion: I have every reason to hate it, for I lost
every one of my brothers and sisters to backstreet abortionists.
But I know, whether it's legal or not to terminate a pregnancy,
it is going to happen. Maybe if my mother had been able to
go to a pregnancy counsellor, instead of being at the mercy
of my father's will, she might have been able to keep more
of her babies.
But you knew these things. I have written about them before.
Where George and I agree is on the teaching of science in
schools. We both think that children should be told that human
beings don't have all the answers, that there are many mysteries
that science simply cannot solve, that the simplest questions
often become the most profound riddles - simple questions
like, "where did we come from?".
I raised a cheer for Bush when he suggested that schools
across America should teach the rudiments of "intelligent
design" as well as evolutionary theory.
It seems as logical as teaching metric and imperial systems
of measurement, feet and metres, or French and German, or
classical music and jazz.
Darwin theories have never seemed like the whole of the answer
to the "where do we come from?" question. They don't
address spiritual dimension - where do our soles come from?
Where do our spirits go? Intelligent design is a refinement
of creationist theory - it accepts that life evolves, but
it points out that evolution cannot create life. For creation,
a creator is required.
Children should know this. It's wrong to teach science as
if everything is known, as if atheism is the proven path to
intellectual purity.
I respect all religious beliefs when they are sincerely held,
and, of course, I would defend the late Robin Cook's right
to believe in a universe without a God, and I would defend
Tony Blair's conviction that Christianity is the true way
of God.
I don't believe either viewpoint, but no-one should be denied
their faith.
Most especially children should not be denied, young minds
should be opened by teachers, not trapped shut. The concept
of a creator should be implemented in every growing human
mind as an idea that can be accepted or rejected as the child
matures.
It is wicked to teach people that the notion of God as a leading
force is heretical to the creed of science. I meet many people
who are embarrassed to admit to their friends that they feel
an instinctive certainty that God exists - they fear they'll
be labelled gullible, or superstitious, or illogical.
That fear and guilt was instilled in them at school, when
they thought that Darwin was right and God was dead (the last
time I checked it was the other way round).
I feel passionately about this. That's why you've heard me
say it all before.
It's time for me to end this column. I am sad to say it but
I don't want to bore you.
It's been a fantastic privilege to write these pieces - more
than 300 of them - and I am deeply grateful to the editor,
Paul Harris, for giving me so many thousands of column inches
to say so much.
I have talked about many of the fascinating people I have
known during my career, from Ali to Dali and Moshe to Maggie.
The best of these columns were collated into a book, Unorthodox
Encounters - I wanted to call it Unorthodox Jew, but that
was a step too far across the line of controversy. At least
I never had to worry about that with the Jewish Telegraph
- not a word was ever censored, though I sometimes drew fury
and outrage from readers.
I have discussed the bible, my encounters with UFOs, my experiences
of war and kibbutz and lawsuits and fatherhood. When I began
these columns, my children were teenagers, now they are in
their 20s, making homes of their own.
Most of all, I wrote about my mother, and all she gave me
- my whole and my moral toughness and my life itself.
It was a privilege to be able to write a tribute to her in
these pages when she passed away last month.
Whatever I attempt to write now for the Jewish Telegraph
will always run the risk of being an anticlimax - and that's
not fair on the editor, myself or, most importantly, the readers.
It makes me sad, but I am signing off. God bless all of you.
Email
him at uri@urigeller.com
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