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 Friday, July 11, 2008

Creationists in Europe

By Paul Hsieh @ 6:51 AM

Danish historian Peter Kjaergaard writes on the disturbing rise of both Christian and Muslim creationists in Europe. In his discussion of the slick, glossy Muslim book Atlas of Creation, he notes:
One of the most astonishing claims in the book is that Charles Darwin -- the quiet Victorian gentleman naturalist -- was responsible for the worst evils of the 20th century: racism, communism, fascism, Nazism, terrorism and, ultimately, 9/11.
I guess the Muslims weren't really the ones to blame for 9/11.

Kjaergaard concludes:
One thing is clear: creationism has indeed come to Europe and unfortunately, therefore, we have to take it seriously. We can't afford to be complacent, or imagine that creationism is just a bizarre and distant American phenomenon. Just as manipulative as the worst of American creationists, European creationists are hard at work and some of them have a lot of money... What we have seen so far is just the beginning.
All the more reason we need to fight for rational education here in America. If mysticism and faith become entrenched in American education, then there's no reason to believe that other Western countries will be somehow immune.

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 Comments

Friday, July 11, 2008 at 10:07:30 mst
Comment ID: #1
Name: Alex
E-mail: cycle2life(at)gmail.com
URL: http://razboiulcutine.haipa.ro/

I guess the Muslims weren't really the ones to blame for 9/11.

You are right about that :)

Friday, July 11, 2008 at 12:31:35 mst
Comment ID: #2
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/areed2

Not surprising. With Marxism disconfirmed on its own terms by the facts of history, Marxist influence throughout the world has been replaced by American Pragmatism. And Pragmatism instantiates Kant's agenda: limit knowledge (in the case of Pragmatism, limit principled conceptual knowledge to zero) to make room for faith. With intellectuals world-wide committing intellectual suicide by Pragmatism, supernaturalism fills the vacuum.

In that sense it is later than many Objectivists think. Ayn Rand wrote for a world in which the Marxists were the main source of bad ideas and bad policy; distributing her novels - which do not address Pragmatism directly - to teachers of English does little to address a post-Marxist world in which American culture and American business are the main propagators of Pragmatism. We need to get Aristotle and Archimedes and ITOE into science classrooms and into the hands of scientists and science-based Geeks (especially science, math and computer teachers) worldwide, because in most of the world scientists and science-based Geeks are the only people left who still know how to think about reality in terms of principles.

Friday, July 11, 2008 at 15:14:08 mst
Comment ID: #3
Name: B. Dietz
E-mail: dietzint34(at)yahoo.com

"Ayn Rand wrote for a world in which the Marxists were the main source of bad ideas and bad policy; distributing her novels - which do not address Pragmatism directly - to teachers of English does little to address a post-Marxist world in which American culture and American business are the main propagators of Pragmatism."

Also, there are no religious villains in Rand's novels. This is problematic as the world of the future is likely to have many religious villains as religion as a political force is growing. Rand attacked the source of both Pragmatism and Religion but you have to get the philosophy to see why that is so. I fear many people may say "her villains are Marxists and Marxism is dead so what is the relevance of her books?"

Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 14:42:16 mst
Comment ID: #4
Name: Paul Hsieh
E-mail: paul(at)geekpress(dot)com
URL: http://www.geekpress.com

B Dietz notes: "Also, there are no religious villains in Rand's novels."

That's true. However, there are a couple of brief mentions of religious characters in Atlas Shrugged, such as this reminiscence by Hank Rearden from Part 1, Chapter 8, "The John Galt Line":

Unsummoned, the picture of a face seen twenty-seven years ago rose suddenly in his mind. It was the face of a preacher on a street comer he had passed, in a town he could not remember any longer. Only the dark walls of the slums remained in his memory, the rain of an autumn evening, and the righteous malice of the man's mouth, a small mouth stretched to yell into the darkness: "...the noblest ideal -- that man live for the sake of his brothers, that the strong work for the weak, that he who has ability serve him who hasn't..."

Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 15:08:45 mst
Comment ID: #5
Name: Larry Boy
E-mail: Larry_boy(at)mailinator.org

WOW! We actually got several copies of this book mailed to our biology departments. Lovely pictures. The book essentially consists of a series of statements of the following form: "Here is a 30 million year old fossil. It is much like this current organism. Here is a 60 million year old fossil. It is allot like this organism."

Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 15:36:14 mst
Comment ID: #6
Name: Steve D'Ippolito

Richard Dawkins (whose grasp of philosophy is sloppy, but whose grasp of evolution is impeccable) has a good writeup on Atlas of Creation:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2833,UPDATED-Venomous-Snakes-Slip ...

Turns out that many of the pics are mis-attributed, including some of the "living" creatures that are actually fishing lures. One example is named in the writeup, others in the discussion that follows.

In other words, for all it's slickness, Atlas of Creation is just as laughable as anything out of "Answers in Genesis."

Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 15:39:18 mst
Comment ID: #7
Name: Steve D'Ippolito

I forgot to add that Atlas of Creation seems to assume that evolution states that species *must* change over time; any species that has remained stable for hundreds of millions of years is therefore prima facie proof that evolution is a crock. Needless to say, the assumption is wrong and therefore the argument falls flat. Strawman. Strike two against this effort.

On the plus side, at least the book concedes that the earth is more than 10,000 years old.

Sunday, July 13, 2008 at 6:16:50 mst
Comment ID: #8
Name: Sascha Settegast
E-mail: sascha.settegast(at)gmx.de
URL: http://www.sascha-settegast.de

A former classmate of mine was a creationist, and she had heated debates with my biology teacher. Also, the minister of education and culture of the State of Hessen is a creationist, as far as is known, but up to now all her attempts at incorporating her believes into the curriculum have failed.

Personally, I believe that Europe is maybe two decades behind the US in terms of religion. At least, I perceive more and more young people who are seriously religious up to a critical point.

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