Church of England backs Darwin over 'noisy' creationists

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The Church of England expressed deep concerns last night about the spread of creationist views as it prepared to unveil a website promoting the evolutionary views of Charles Darwin.

Anglican leaders fear that “noisy” advocates of a literal interpretation of the Bible - especially in the United States, where even the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, is a vocal supporter - are infecting the perception of Christianity worldwide.

The Church will launch the website on Monday, a few weeks after the 150th anniversary of Darwin's first public proposal of natural selection and amid growing controversy over the teaching of creationism in schools.

The Rev Professor Michael Reiss, a biologist and director of education at the Royal Society, provoked a furore this week when he called for creationism to be treated in science lessons as a legitimate “world-view”.

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The Church of England weighed into the debate yesterday when a Church House spokesman admitted that the treatment of Darwin's theory of evolution by Victorian clerics was wrong.

He said that science and religions were “perfectly compatible” and attacked creationism as a strand of Christianity that created a false impression of the Church as a whole.

The Rev Dr Malcolm Brown, one of the inspirations for the website, said: “We felt there would be public interest, particularly because of the rise of creationism in the US.

“Christian attitudes don't have to be either a complete swallowing of Darwin and everything that has been done in his name, on the one hand, and, on the other, the complete rejection of scientific method with a literal interpretation of the Bible.

“A culture that doesn't have a great deal of historic understanding of the Christian faith can easily characterise all Christians as being like the most noisy ones.”

A church spokesman added: “Creationism should not be taught as a scientifically based theory but could be included in discussion of the development of scientific ideas down the ages or in RE.”

Rasmandala Das, of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, said that the Hindu approach was to teach all different views of the creation across the curriculum.

Members of the humanist movement dismissed creationism as “simply wrong” but agreed that religious believers must be engaged by science teachers rather than ignored.

Andrew Copson, director of education for the British Humanist Association, said that Professor Reiss was right to think it was better to take the opportunity to debate the issue than to belittle children by telling them: “Shut up, that's for RE. Should a teacher say, ‘Shut up, that's for RE'? Obviously not,” he said. “If a child raises it in a classroom you don't say, ‘Shut up'. You say, ‘That's not a scientific perspective.' It can be an opportunity to demonstrate what a scientific perspective is.”

Tahir Alam, of the Muslim Council of Britain, expressed concern that there was a rising trend of intolerance towards religious beliefs and said: “Secular atheism is getting very dogmatic.” Mr Alam said of creationism in science lessons: “In any educational context, if children raise questions and have beliefs which are different to the teachers, people should not be dogmatic about not discussing it.”

However, Rabbi Dr Tony Bayfield, head of the Movement for Reform Judaism, expressed doubts: “It would be as unacceptable for Judaism for schools to teach creationism in science lessons as it would be for them to teach the Dawkins secular fundamentalist view that Darwin and God are incompatible.”


Quite an interesting report from 'The Times'.

Whilst it's common for extreme American creationists to come under ridicule, it's rare we hear of Muslims being ridiculed for their equally extreme creationist views.

Or is it just me?

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[billvon 3,133]

>Whilst it's common for extreme American creationists to come
>under ridicule, it's rare we hear of Muslims being ridiculed for their equally
>extreme creationist views.

I think that, in general, extreme Muslims have bigger problems in their schools than whether biology or creationism is being taught.

[jakee 1,611]

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Whilst it's common for extreme American creationists to come under ridicule, it's rare we hear of Muslims being ridiculed for their equally extreme creationist views.

Probaby because christian creationism is closer to home for most of us, whereas Islam (in the US/UK) is viewed as a very seperate minority and we don't really have much idea about what they believe. It's much easier for us westerners to see the difference between different christian sects, becaue we're pretty familiar with them, than it is to distinguish between different levels of muslim fundamentalis.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

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I see your point if you apply it to particular areas such as Pakistan and their Madrasses.

But I didn't mention extreme Muslims. I meant just Islam in general, throughout the world.

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[billvon 3,133]

>But I didn't mention extreme Muslims.

Sorry, you said: "Whilst it's common for extreme American creationists to come under ridicule, it's rare we hear of Muslims being ridiculed for their equally extreme creationist views."

I know several Muslims, none of whom advocate teaching creationism of any form in public schools. So in my experience, average Muslims do not have extreme creationist views.

In both cases, it's not the moderates who are the problem - it's the extremists.

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I pretty much agree; but there is something rather significant and disturbing about this. Islam, with it's creationist views, rarely acknowledges the theory of evolution, therefore cannot fully understand astronomy, anthropology, biology, geology, palaeontology, physics or zoology. So it's the social, political and cultural implications of such ignorance which is quite disturbing. Surely a society which does not promote specialists in these areas cannot expect to evolve into a competetive economy.

In rejecting all this, they believe it demonstrates moral superiority over degenerate Western values. But it's readily apparant they're rejecting science itself, which is going to really help their future generations.

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

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>But I didn't mention extreme Muslims.

Sorry, you said: "Whilst it's common for extreme American creationists to come under ridicule, it's rare we hear of Muslims being ridiculed for their equally extreme creationist views."

I know several Muslims, none of whom advocate teaching creationism of any form in public schools. So in my experience, average Muslims do not have extreme creationist views.

In both cases, it's not the moderates who are the problem - it's the extremists.

A 2006 poll of UK higher education students showed that less than 10% of Muslims accepted the theory of evolution.

In Indonesia, Pakistan and Egypt, the proportion of the population that believes in Darwins theory of evolution is 2, 5 and 3% respectively.

That, as I pointed out in my reply to Jakee above, must surely be a problem.

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[billvon 3,133]

>A 2006 poll of UK higher education students showed that less than
>10% of Muslims accepted the theory of evolution.

OK. And here in the US, more than half of the people believe in creationism.

But that's not much of a problem for me, provided they're not trying to force it into schools or setting health policy by it. They can believe whatever they want. Again, the only problems I have are the extremists who see science as a threat to their way of life, and use children to try to get their religious message spread.

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Listen to this; Pervez Hoodbhoy, who wrote the article 'Islamic Failure' said this:

"A more public example: One of the two Pakistani nuclear engineers who was recently arrested on suspicion of passing nuclear secrets to the Taleban had earlier proposed to solve Pakistan's energy problems by harnessing the power of genies. He relied on the Islamic belief that God created man from clay, and angels and genies from fire; so this high-placed engineer proposed to capture the genies and extract their energy."


Read the full article here:

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=4244

Bill, having a few Muslim mates who don't have creationist views doesn't exactly equate to a great deal. This is an issue. Surely these chaps must recognize it?

edit: In fact, it's such a good article I'm going to post it.

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[jakee 1,611]

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"A more public example: One of the two Pakistani nuclear engineers who was recently arrested on suspicion of passing nuclear secrets to the Taleban had earlier proposed to solve Pakistan's energy problems by harnessing the power of genies. He relied on the Islamic belief that God created man from clay, and angels and genies from fire; so this high-placed engineer proposed to capture the genies and extract their energy."

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that's probably not true. Unless he was 10 at the time...

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[jakee 1,611]

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Islam, with it's creationist views, rarely acknowledges the theory of evolution

What is the entity of 'Islam' which is capable of ackowledging things?

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

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Quote

"A more public example: One of the two Pakistani nuclear engineers who was recently arrested on suspicion of passing nuclear secrets to the Taleban had earlier proposed to solve Pakistan's energy problems by harnessing the power of genies. He relied on the Islamic belief that God created man from clay, and angels and genies from fire; so this high-placed engineer proposed to capture the genies and extract their energy."

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that's probably not true. Unless he was 10 at the time...

Perhaps. Perhaps we went mental like David Shayler.

But why do you think it's probably not true?

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[jakee 1,611]

Quote

Quote

Quote

"A more public example: One of the two Pakistani nuclear engineers who was recently arrested on suspicion of passing nuclear secrets to the Taleban had earlier proposed to solve Pakistan's energy problems by harnessing the power of genies. He relied on the Islamic belief that God created man from clay, and angels and genies from fire; so this high-placed engineer proposed to capture the genies and extract their energy."

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that's probably not true. Unless he was 10 at the time...

Perhaps. Perhaps we went mental like David Shayler.

But why do you think it's probably not true?

Because it sounds utterly ridiculous and is entirely unsourced.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[livendive 8]

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Whilst it's common for extreme American creationists to come under ridicule, it's rare we hear of Muslims being ridiculed for their equally extreme creationist views.

Or is it just me?

Personally, I've never had a Muslim trying to convince me of their extreme creationist views, nor try to teach my daughter those views. In fact I don't even know what those Muslim views are. By contrast, I've been told the Christian version thousands of times (or at least it seems like it). That might have something to do with the difference.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

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Quote

Quote

Quote

"A more public example: One of the two Pakistani nuclear engineers who was recently arrested on suspicion of passing nuclear secrets to the Taleban had earlier proposed to solve Pakistan's energy problems by harnessing the power of genies. He relied on the Islamic belief that God created man from clay, and angels and genies from fire; so this high-placed engineer proposed to capture the genies and extract their energy."

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that's probably not true. Unless he was 10 at the time...

Perhaps. Perhaps we went mental like David Shayler.

But why do you think it's probably not true?

Because it sounds utterly ridiculous and is entirely unsourced.

Found this for you: "They may have turned to Mahmood, who admired the radical Taliban militia that controlled Afghanistan, a neighbor of Pakistan's. He also held unusual views on such topics as the role of sunspots, genies and palm-reading in modern society. A 38-year veteran of Pakistan's nuclear program, Mahmood spent years working on a process to enrich uranium, and rose to chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission.

http://meaindia.nic.in/bestoftheweb/2002/03/03bow02.htm

Could probably find more but I can't be arsed.

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[kallend 2,184]

Quote

Listen to this; Pervez Hoodbhoy, who wrote the article 'Islamic Failure' said this:

"A more public example: One of the two Pakistani nuclear engineers who was recently arrested on suspicion of passing nuclear secrets to the Taleban had earlier proposed to solve Pakistan's energy problems by harnessing the power of genies. He relied on the Islamic belief that God created man from clay, and angels and genies from fire; so this high-placed engineer proposed to capture the genies and extract their energy."


Read the full article here:

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=4244

Bill, having a few Muslim mates who don't have creationist views doesn't exactly equate to a great deal. This is an issue. Surely these chaps must recognize it?

edit: In fact, it's such a good article I'm going to post it.

I think extreme fundamentalist Muslims should be encouraged to spend as much time as possible searching for and investigating genies.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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Sure, as long as it applies only to your extreme fundamentalist Muslims.

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[Andy9o8 3]

I find it ironic and amusing that American Christians and Jews who believe they have guardian angels mock Muslims who believe in genies.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=5833399&page=1

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Most Americans Believe in Guardian Angels
More Than Half of Americans Say Guardian Angels Watch Over Us
By DAN HARRIS
Sept. 18, 2008

More than half of all adults, including one in five of those who say they are not religious, believe that they have been protected by a guardian angel during their life, according to a new survey by Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion.

The survey polled 1,700 respondents of diverse religious faiths: evangelical Protestants, black Protestants, mainline Protestants, Catholics and Jews.

[billvon 3,133]

>Bill, having a few Muslim mates who don't have creationist views
>doesn't exactly equate to a great deal.

For me, actually seeing and talking to the people in question provides a good grounding in reality; serves as a useful backup for sensationalist magazines/websites.

>This is an issue. Surely these chaps must recognize it?

Haven't really talked to them about it. Of course, lots of Christians believe in a fiery place with demons called "Hell" and a floaty cloudy place where things are great called "Heaven." Hasn't affected my life much.

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It isn't about your life, as Christians believing in Heaven and Hell isn't quite relevant either.

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[billvon 3,133]

>It isn't about your life, as Christians believing in Heaven and Hell isn't quite
>relevant either.

??

All religions have beliefs that are silly to some. Since christians are used to the idea of people rising from the dead, a celestial reward for good behavior, spirits of the departed continuing on etc they seem less silly to us, and nuclear gnomes seem more silly. But they all have an equal grounding in reality.

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My main point was in post 6:

"..but there is something rather significant and disturbing about this. Islam, with it's creationist views, rarely acknowledges the theory of evolution, therefore cannot fully understand astronomy, anthropology, biology, geology, palaeontology, physics or zoology. So it's the social, political and cultural implications of such ignorance which is quite disturbing. Surely a society which does not promote specialists in these areas cannot expect to evolve into a competetive economy.

In rejecting all this, they believe it demonstrates moral superiority over degenerate Western values. But it's readily apparant they're rejecting science itself, which is going to really help their future generations."


Perhaps the article regarding the genie has distracted you from this. Still, if it's of your interest, that's also fine. You relate it to Christian beliefs - and how other religions may see them as being ridiculous. But seeing as the topics are now about Christian and Muslim beliefs, are there any Christian nuclear scientists trying to harness the power from Genies?

Essentially it's my belief that the majority of Muslim nations need to develop their cultures. And honest and truthful education for the masses would make a fine start.

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'