Sunday, March 27, 2011

Ronald Numbers

I recently attended the Madison Science Pub to hear the speaker, Mr. Ronald Numbers. He's the author of Creationists: From Scientific Creationism To Intelligent Design, which is the definitive book of the history of creationism in the United States. (Highly recommended.) I learned two important things from his talk. One, he happens to be a professor at the University of Wisconsin, which means I'm going to have to try and take one of his courses sometime. And two, creationism is expanding worldwide.


The late Stephen Jay Gould was once asked about creationism, and, according to Numbers, replied that it was a primarily American phenomenon, confined mostly to the southern states, and would never catch on in countries abroad.

That prediction proves that brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong.

Today, creationism has taken strong root overseas, primarily in the pan-Arab world, and is surprisingly strong in Europe. We secularists, who once bragged about how enlightened and secular Europe was in comparison to the United States can no longer be quite so smug. According to Numbers, those who doubt evolution has risen to a shocking 40% in Great Britain, fueled by a conservative revival and an influx of Muslim immigrants. Islamic immigration is a pan-European phenomenon as well, with cultural clashes taking place in France, Germany, Holland, The Netherlands, and even the Scandanavian triad.

Meanwhile, creationist arguments which have been so effective in the U.S. have been picked up and echoed by Muslims in the East. Turkey is now the most hostile country to evolution in the entire world. Islamic fundamentalism feeds off of creationist doctrine, fanning the flames of religious extremism to white-hot temperatures in the Arab world.

And now I hear on the news of potential revolution in Syria.

This is damned serious, folks. What happened in Tunisia last January has erupted into a pan-Arabian revolt against all dictators. They want democracy. Good for them. But democracy creates dangerous opportunities for radical fundamentalists to rob people of freedom. Hell, the U.S. has been ample proof of that!

So, folks, it's time to stop handling creationists with kid gloves. In order for democratic freedom to stabilize in the Arab world, fundamentalism must be toned down.

And that means creationists in every country, especially this one, had better shut up! Human freedom depends on it! So if you just happen to be a creationist...

Back the fuck off!

Eric

Friday, March 25, 2011

Ken Ham: Expelled!

Thanks to P.Z. Myers and his blog, Pharyngula, for bringing to light an interesting recent occurrence. Apparently, a group of young-earth-creationists who hold conventions for home-schooling children have disinvited Ken Ham from their upcoming convention and all subsequent conventions thereafter. Ken apparently made defamatory comments regarding their material and questioned the salvation of some of them. This was too much, even for these guys. The actual letter they sent to Answers In Genesis follows:


After much prayer and deliberation over the weekend, Great Homeschool Convention's Advisory Board has unanimously decided to disinvite Ken and AIG from all future conventions, including the Cincinnati convention next week. The Board believes this to be the Lord's will for our convention and searched the Scriptures for the mind of the Lord and the leadership of the Holy Spirit before arriving at this decision. The Board believes that Ken's public criticism of the convention itself and other speakers at our convention require him to surrender the spiritual privilege of addressing our homeschool audience.Please know that our Board is 100% young earth and we largely share AIG's perspective from a scientific standpoint. That is why Ken was originally invited and treated so graciously and extremely generously in Memphis and Greenville (far beyond what we do for other speakers or their ministries). Our expression of sacrifice and extraordinary kindness towards Ken and AIG has been returned to us and our attendees with Ken publicly attacking our conventions and other speakers. Our Board believes Ken's comments to be unnecessary, ungodly, and mean-spirited statements that are divisive at best and defamatory at worst.

One of the core values of our convention is that we believe that good people c an disagree and still be good people. We believe that Christians do not need to personally question the integrity, the intelligence, or the salvation of other Christians when debating Biblical issues. Ken has obviously felt led to publicly attack our conventions and a number of our speakers. We believe that what Ken has said and done is unChristian and sinful. A number of attendees are demanding explanations from our board and we must respond to them.

We believe that Dr. Ham is very intelligent and deliberate and that he decided that publicly slandering our conventions and defaming a number of our speakers is what he wanted to do. Whereas Ken chooses to conduct himself in a way that we believe to be unscriptural, we cannot countenance that spirit as we believe it would not honor the Savior whom we serve.

A public statement will be prepared for distribution at the convention explaining our Board's decision. Anyone who inquires regarding Dr. Ham or AIG will be referred to that statement. We have no intention to defame or publicly slander Dr. Ham, the Creation Museum, or the work of AIG. Our Board would respectfully request that Dr. Ham and AIG prayerfully consider doing the same. Our Board takes seriously the admonition of Jesus in John 13:35, "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another."

Sincerely,

Brennan Dean
Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc.


Wow. What else can one say to something like that?

Here's what: Creationists love to insist that evolution leads to immoral behavior. It seems that creationism is certainly no guard against immorally attacking fellow Christians, either.

Eric