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Saturday, February 09, 2008

Creationism expanding in Europe

An AOL news article says,

LONDON (Feb. 9) - After the Sunday service in Westminster Chapel [a 165-year-old evangelical church that is not affiliated with nearby Westminster Abbey, where Darwin is buried], where worshippers were exhorted to wage "the culture war" in the World War II spirit of Sir Winston Churchill, cabbie James McLean delivered his verdict on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

"Evolution is a lie, and it's being taught in schools as fact, and it's leading our kids in the wrong direction," said McLean, chatting outside the chapel. "But now people like Ken Ham are tearing evolution to pieces."

Ken Ham is the founder of Answers in Genesis, a Kentucky-based organization that is part of an ambitious effort to bring creationist theory to Britain and the rest of Europe. McLean is one of a growing number of evangelicals embracing that message -- that the true history of the Earth is told in the Bible, not Darwin's "The Origin of Species."

Europeans have long viewed the conflict between evolutionists and creationists as primarily an American phenomenon, but it has recently jumped the Atlantic Ocean with skirmishes in Italy, Germany, Poland and, notably, Britain, where Darwin was born and where he published his 1859 classic.

Darwin's defenders are fighting back. In October, the 47-nation Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog, condemned all attempts to bring creationism into Europe's schools. Bible-based theories and "religious dogma" threaten to undercut sound educational practices, it charged.

. . . A British branch of Answers in Genesis, which shares a Web site with its American counterpart, has managed to introduce its creationist point of view into science classes at a number of state-supported schools in Britain, said Monty White, the group's chief executive. . . . .
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. . . .the British government is taking over funding of about 100 Islamic schools even though they teach the Quranic version of creationism. He said the government fear imposing evolution theory on the curriculum lest it be branded as anti-Islamic.

Unfortunately, the article presents the conflict as just being between Darwinism and religious creationism -- there is no discussion of the scientific criticisms of evolution theory.

Europe is actually a more fertile ground than the USA for promoting criticism of Darwinism in the public schools because many European nations -- including Britain -- have no constitutional separation of church and state, which Darwinists have been abusing in the USA to block criticism of Darwinism in the public schools. And European nations -- like the USA -- have no constitutional separation of bad science and state.

I myself am opposed to the teaching of biblical creationism in the public schools, though I think it is OK for public-school science classes to have evolution disclaimer statements that mention biblical creationism in order to help reduce Darwinism's offense to the fundies (though of course the evolution disclaimer statements can be effective without mentioning biblical creationism). Actually, biblical creationism does not offer much to teach, because the story of creation covers only about two pages of the bible. I am of course also in favor of teaching the scientific weaknesses of Darwinism.

Also, as creationism spreads to other developed countries, the Darwinists' argument that creationism in the USA is making the USA a world laughingstock becomes less tenable.
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7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is reminiscent of a poll recently published in England. Nearly 20% of the population thought that Winston Churchill was a mythical figure while over 50% believed that Sherlock Holmes was real.

Sunday, February 10, 2008 12:33:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Indeed -- there's more.

Sunday, February 10, 2008 1:03:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Creationism expanding in Europe" ...

Along with Islam.

Sunday, February 10, 2008 1:09:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Creationism is expanding in Europe while atheism is spreading in America due in part to the combined efforts of the three biggest Darwimpian ideologues in the history of biological science, Pharyngula "godless liberal" Myers, Christopher "hiccup" Hitchens and Richard "blind mountaineer" Dawkims, not one of whom has ever published a word on the only matter which has ever been in question - the mechanism of a long ago finished organic evolution.

I love it so!

"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison

Sunday, February 10, 2008 3:54:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

< Nearly 20% of the population thought that Winston Churchill was a mythical figure ... >

Wouldn't Larry likely be part of that 20%?

Sunday, February 10, 2008 9:58:00 AM  
Blogger Pete said...

Am I getting the idea from this 'Shock! Horror! News flash that 'Creationism is Coming to Europe' that this is a new topic here in Europe? Believe me we have been teaching it here from way, way back. Indeed, the Pilgrim Fathers may have taken it over the the 'colony.'

True, our religious leaders, so called because they wear their collars back to front and call themselves Rev. etc, have taken a liberal approach to the topic of origins. But belioeve me, those of us here who believe the Bible to be God's word, have akways accepted the Genesis record.

Forutnately, since the arrival of Answers in Genesis and several othger oprganisations, we now have much great eraccess to good, science based resarch into origins. This way we can be more confident of the truth of creation and the weak points of the evolutionary hypotheses

Thursday, February 14, 2008 3:41:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, there would certainly be no shortage of mutations if Pete were in charge of genome replication.

"The the" + "belioeve" + "akways" + "eraccess" + "etc" (no period), etc., are not lethal to the intelligibility of the message, but taken together, they constitute a new language (i.e., species). Forutnately.

Sunday, February 17, 2008 11:20:00 AM  

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