There's some good news from Amsterdam: Muslims lost in a bid to censor an obnoxious right-wing politician, Geert Wilders, who is known for his harsh criticism of Islam.
But under this small victory is something much more sinister: a new trick that makes censorship seem OK.
Geert Wilder's case was dismissed on a highly-technical "escape clause" in the law. The judge ruled that Wilders' remarks were directed at Islam (the religion), not at Muslims (the people). That meant his remarks didn't constitute hate speech. Apparently in The Netherlands you can hate a thing but not a person. It's disturbing that the case was thrown out on such a thin technical issue.
This is a small victory for free speech in a modern country where free speech shouldn't even be a question. I'm frankly shocked by this case. Is it really possible that free speech is disappearing in a modern democracy?
Lars Hedegaard, Islamic expert and president of the International Free Press Society, was found guilty of racism today by Denmark’s Eastern High Court. He was fined about $1,000. He will appeal.
The charges stemmed from what Hedegaard says were factual statements made about the higher-than-average incidence of family rape in the Muslim world.
But under Denmark's racism law, Article 266b, it doesn't matter if what you said was true. It only matters that a group was insulted.
Got that? Telling the truth can be illegal.
European Muslims have discovered a very clever Orwellian trick. Instead of being for censorship,
It's so nice when neighbors in need can help each other. Especially when the task at hand is something really unpleasant ... like helping each other murder their daughters.
Two Muslim mothers, Khatun and Subrato, discovered that their daughters had eloped with two Hindu men. Apparently that's just about the most shameful thing a girl could do – so shameful that the mothers decided they had to kill their own daughters.
So Khatun and Subrato tied the two young brides, Zahida, 19, and Husna, 26, to their cots with ropes, threw nooses around their necks and
When will the violence between religions end? Will Christians, Muslims and Jews ever be able to get along and live in peace? They've been killing each other for thousands of years and it seems there's no end in sight.
This week we got to witness yet another example of this ageless fact when ultraconservative Salafi Muslims in Egypt decided to burn down a Christian church. Their logic? They claimed the Christians had kidnapped a Christian woman who had converted to Islam. Twelve people were killed in the conflict. These are the same guys who cut off a man's ear for allegedly befriending a prostitute (note that there was no trial ... they just decided he was guilty).
I'd like to think that this barbarism is just a relic. We all have hope that in the not-too-distant future the moderates will win the day, the extremists will be put in jail, and we'll all live as one big happy world where everyone can worship (or not) in peace and with respect for other faiths.
It's pure bullpucky. It will never happen.
The church burning in Egypt illustrates the fundamental problem: religions evolve as the
I rarely celebrate anyone's death, but today I'll make an exception. Osama bin Laden was a terrible person. He was the ultimate vandal, destroying everything around him purely for his own ego gratification and the joy of destruction. I don't believe for a moment that bin Laden believed his own propaganda about jihad and Islam. He was nothing more than a sick, murderous sociopath, and religion was nothing more than an excuse.
So today I'll make an exception and join America and the world in celebrating the death of this evil man. Congratulations to the Navy Seals who did an incredible job carrying out their mission. Congratulations to our intelligence professionals who found bin Laden and made the mission possible. And congratulations to the President and his generals, who showed restraint and wisdom. Their leadership ensured that the appropriate amount of force was used and that no civilians were killed.
But as we dance in the streets and celebrate, let's not lose sight of the real problem: religion-fueled terrorism. Osama bin Laden may be dead, but
The news about Terry Jones, the Qur'an-burning Baptist preacher, just gets better and better: now there's a "gun incident" for our amusement. Except that Jones isn't a very amusing guy.
This morning, Terry Jones was in court in Dearborn, Michigan trying to convince a judge and jury that the city of Dearborn should be forced to give Jones a permit to protest Sharia law outside a local Muslim mosque.
Can you imagine what the judge and jury will think when Jones tells them the "gun incident" isn't important?
Gun incident?? What gun incident? Why, the one where
Yesterday I called Pastor Terry Jones a coward and jerk. Jones is the one whose Qur'an burning in Florida triggered violent protests and more than sixteen deaths. Today I want to get to the truly guilty parties in these murders: the Muslims who rioted and killed those people.
I really don't understand this. How is it that a two-bit Baptist preacher in Florida is taken seriously by Muslims? This guy can barely scrape up enough money to maintain a small church and a pitiful congregation. If it weren't for the Muslim reaction, this guy would be nothing but a passing joke, another loser that could barely make the back page of the newspaper on his best day.
One of the things I've learned in life is that we give power to people who make us angry. When someone tries to hurt me, the worst thing I can do to that person is to not even notice. If someone launches a nasty attack on me, my best response is, "I'm sorry, did you say something? I wasn't paying attention."
On the other hand, if I respond to my attacker with a vigorous defense and counterattack, then my attacker knows that I've been hurt. He knows I actually care
For once, I find myself rooting for the Christians, Jews and Muslims. They've got a real scandal on their hands and are actually taking a hard look at themselves.
The Christian Headlines Blog is courageously breaking the news that financial fraud is rampant in religious institutions worldwide. In 2011, more money will be stolen in the name of Jesus than will be spent on missions worldwide!
The January 2011 issue of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research reported that Christian religious leaders will commit an estimated $34 billion in financial fraud in 2011 while only $31 billion will be spent on global missions. Researchers from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity estimate that Christian religious leaders will commit $90 million in financial crimes daily and the fraud is growing at a rate of 5.97% each year. If the researchers are correct, religious financial fraud among Christians will almost double in 14 years to $60 billion annually by 2025.
... Barrett and Johnson in the reference book “World Christian Trends” reported, “Probably 80% of all cases are kept private or swept under the carpet, but each year a rash of megathefts (over $1 million each) is uncovered and publicized in the secular media.”
The Christian Headlines Blog is pulling the covers off this scandal with a series of insightful blogs that starts today.
When someone embezzles from a bank, it's no big deal. Willie Sutton, the depression-era bank robber, was asked why he kept robbing banks and famously replied, "Because that's where the money is." We expect thieves to be attracted to banks.
But thieves are attracted to money and don't much care where it is. Anywhere money flows
Debating morals with theists sometimes makes me feel feel like John Cleese and the Dead Parrot.
"It's dead, that's what's wrong with it." "No, no, it's resting!" "I know a dead parrot when I see one and I'm looking at one right now!" "No, no, it's not dead, it's resting."
... and so on, with the shopkeeper repeatedly saying something that everyone can see is plainly false. The parrot isn't alive, it's dead! Deceased!
It's like that when debating morals with a theist. They constantly harp back to their only argument, that without God there can be no morality. A case in point is Gary Hardaway's essay, CAN ATHEISTS BE GOOD CITIZENS? Hardaway starts with a few irrelevant quotes from the most religious of America's founding leaders such as James Madison in order to lend credibility to his case. But then he gets to the old dead-parrot argument:
The fatal, disqualifying flaw arises when the atheist encounters the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The atheist cannot agree with the Founders. In honesty he has to say, “Men do not have a Creator. Their unalienable rights do not come from a Creator. They come from another source.”
So far, so good: Hardaway is actually correct. Unalienable rights do not come from a creator! There is no God, just an idea of God that humans created. Human rights are unalienable because we have become a civilized species capable of rational thought. Using the same Rationalist reasoning that was created by the ancient Greeks and refined for two thousand years, we've figured out that human happiness and dignity are the foundation of all morals and ethics.
So we're good, right? Alas, no. Hardaway goes on:
What might this other source [of human rights] be? Government? But government can take away what it has bestowed. ... Atheists have an insoluble problem. If God doesn’t exist, human beings can have no special value.
Ah, there it is. The old dead-parrot claim. It's nothing more than "proof by repeated assertion." If you say something often and loudly, then it must be true!
Sorry, Mr. Hardaway. Atheists don't have an insoluble problem. God doesn't exist, and the universe doesn't give a damn about humans. If we manage to detonate all of our nuclear weapons and turn this planet into a sterile rock, that rock will keep orbiting the sun for another few billion years. The Earth won't care, the sun won't care, the universe won't care.
Reports are coming in about an atheist blogger in the Palestinian West Bank who was caught in a sting via Facebook and now faces the death penalty. It seems the best he can hope for is life imprisonment. Even members of his family say so.
This should completely dispel any doubts anyone might have about the importance of America's strong separation of church and state. The fact that in the year 2010 there are still people being put to death for their religious beliefs should be repugnant to every civilized human, regardless of faith.
But that's what happens when you mix government and religion. History proves it. Down through the ages, whenever the two mix you'll find that the zealots eventually get into power and persecute everyone who doesn't agree with their views. Not just their religion, but their particular sect. Without strong legal limits on religious coercion (such as in the UK) or an outright separation (like our Constitution), it seems inevitable. Is there even one place in the world that has religious tolerance and religious leaders who are superior to the elected leaders?
I hope the civilized people of the world, whether Christian, Jewish,
I have the perfect solution for Pastor Terry Jones! Let's give him a ride to downtown Kabul in Afghanistan, and give him a Quran and a book of matches. Then we'll see just how committed to Christ and the Bible he really is!
I'll bet General Petraeus, who has strongly condemned Jones, would be happy to help out. Why, I'll bet Petraeus would love to give Jones a ride in a nice, fast jet straight from Florida to the front lines.
But maybe Petraeus doesn't want to rile things up in Afghanistan – who could blame him? So here's a better idea: Pakistan. It seems the United States Embassy in Pakistan has also condemned Jones for his self-centered, unpatriotic and foolhardy grandstanding. I'll bet they'd be glad to give him a ticket to Pakistan. The embassy could take Jones down to the center of Islamabad, hand him a Quran (they have a lot of Qurans in Pakistan) and a match, and let Jones do his grandstanding there!
It seems to me if Jones is really committed to Jesus and his Bible,
How would you feel if you were a soldier training in Virginia, and your sergeant gave you this choice: attend a Muslim concert by a band known for its Islamic proselytizing, or be locked in to clean your barracks with no phone, internet or TV allowed until the concert was over?
That would never happen in the United States Army, right? I mean, we're a nation that represents freedom ... freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion. Our Army is there to defend these constitutional rights! Right?
Apparently not everyone in the Army sees it that way. Except it wasn't a Muslim concert, it was a Christian concert. And it wasn't the Christians who objected, it was the Muslims, Jews and atheists. It's just fun to flip the roles around so that even Christians can see how wrong this is.
Apparently this concert was part of the "Commanding General's Spiritual Fitness Concerts" series. A Captain (who probably wanted to earn points with the General) gave the order that men had to attend or be punished. Apparently following orders,
Do you believe God can do amazing things through prayer? We want you to select an atheist friend or relative and pray for them by name each day during the month of April, 2010 (and beyond!) It’s easy and could make an eternal difference for someone you love.
And I'm your man! A real Atheist, but also an honest one who would admit that he's wrong! But I'll warn you, I'm a pretty hard case.
In fact, why not make it a challenge? If all you Christians each pray for a different atheist, what's God going to do? He can't convert us all, that's too much work even for Him. So why don't you all get together and pick ONE atheist, and everybody pray for that person?
Where does free speech end and hate speech begin? Is it OK to say, "Fuck Islam" or "Fuck Christianity" or any other religion? How about "Fuck religion"? (And let's not forget "Fuck atheism"!)
If you go to Facebook.com and search for "Fuck Islam", you'll find over 500 groups. And many, including several with large memberships, are Islam-bashing groups with lots of nasty things to say.
But just scroll down a bit in the list and you'll find lots of "Ban the 'Fuck Islam' Facebook group" groups. Or boycott, protest, demand-censorship, and so on. And paging down through the groups, you find "fuck the fuck Islam group" and even deeper parody.
When I first saw the "Fuck Islam" group on Facebook, I was up in arms. Although I am an atheist and don't care for most religion, I try to always keep the debate respectful (except in the rare case where I believe religion hurts or kills people or appears fraudulent).
So is "Fuck Atheism" a form of hate speech? I don't know. One comment I read says no – hate speech has to suggest violence, some sort of action, and this expression merely indicates contempt. I thought this was an excellent point.
On the other hand, this sort of speech surely doesn't help anything. It further divides an already-divided world, it ends dialog, and it angers Muslims (or whatever group is being insulted).
Should "Fuck Islam" groups be banned from Facebook? If I were in charge at Facebook, I suspect I'd favor free speech over censorship.
I'm sorry, but I have to ask you to take me off of your mailing list. While I respect family, and enjoy a lively discussion, your recent emails are too much.
I put up with any number of times when you called my beliefs "unAmerican" or "unpatriotic." But this latest disrespectful video propaganda, which accuses the duly elected President of the United States of being a Muslim and traitor, goes beyond civilized discussion. It's hate speech, it's unpatriotic and disrespectful to both the President himself and the office of President, and it shows a remarkable ignorance of the plain facts.
It's sad that American conservatives have stooped to this low form of dialog. Rather than discussing policy, conservatives use character assassination. Rather than bipartisanship, conservatives have become obstructionists, even at the cost of hurting the American people. At every turn, conservatives are blocking progress, shouting "The sky is falling!", and throwing mud on everyone in sight.
Never forget, Jim, that every single problem that Obama is trying to fix was created by a Republican President. Two unfunded wars that will force huge increases in taxes, attacking Iraq while ignoring the nuclear programs in North Korea, Iran and Pakistan, letting the Talilban slip away from Afghanistan because Bush's oil friends needed Iraq ... the list goes on and on.
And since it was the "He's a Muslim" video that finally prompted me to write this letter, let's talk about that.
First, what if Obama is Muslim? All of those things he says in the video excerpts about the accomplishments of Islam and Muslims are true. Maybe you didn't read your history, but I did. The Muslims did, in fact, preserve much of civilization's knowledge through the Middle Ages, when the Christians were trying to snuff it out. The Dark Ages were a Christian creation. Algebra was invented by Muslims. Astronomy, philosophy, medicine ... Islamic scholars were way ahead of Christians during the Middle Ages. And all those other compliments Obama paid to Muslim history, they're actually true.
Why is that so hard for you to accept?
Second, where do you get the idea that the President can only be a Christian? Every American has the right to be part of our government, it's right there in the Constitution. If you were in the United States Navy, didn't you swear to defend that very same Constitution? Didn't you ever learn what's in the Constitution?
Third, I find it very ironic that while some conservatives accuse Obama of being Muslim, others accuse him of being an Atheist. Which is it? He can't be both, but I guess to a evangelical Christian, Muslims and Atheists are about the same. Still, it would be nice if you guys could coordinate your fabricated stories.
And finally, Obama is, in fact, a Christian. If you'd taken the time to watch the original videos of Obama's speeches, as I did, you'd see that he never once claimed to be Muslim. That hack piece of video propaganda you sent cut him off in mid-sentence many times, a stupid propaganda trick that any fool can see through. It's just plain dishonest.
I know you're sincere in your love for America, and I want you to know that I am too. But I consider your emails to be unAmerican. To be a true American, you have to accept that this is the land of freedom, the land where we respect one another's beliefs, and the land where our President is everyone's President. I didn't like George W. Bush, but I never once accused him of being unpatriotic, nor did I ever disrespect the office of the President. Obama was elected in an honest and fair election. Your side lost. Have some respect for your fellow Americans and take the loss gracefully.
When you sent that video, you wrote, "If you do not like this, don't let me know because it will cause me to question your patriotism to the United States of America and as a US Navy Veteran, that offends me more than you will ever know." Well, too bad, Jim. It goes both ways. Your right-wing unAmerican propaganda offends me more than you will ever understand. Family harmony has kept me silent, but no more.
I enjoyed some of the stuff you sent, especially good, fun jokes and stories. But I just can't ignore your intolerance and hate mail any more. So I hope you'll remove me from your mailing list. Thanks.
Your cousin, Craig
P.S. By the way, you were wrong about this picture, too. You called our President a "PIECE OF ANIMAL EXCREMENT" because he was being disrespectful to the veterans by not saluting. In fact, the President is not supposed to salute. He's a civilian, and only those in the armed forces are supposed to salute. The man with his hand over his heart was the one making the mistake, that gesture is for the Pledge. In fact, Obama is showing his respect correctly, by standing and bowing his head, as all civilians should. The President may be the Commander in Chief, but he is not in the military. That's one of the most unique things about our country, that our armed forces are headed by a civilian. So please don't call your President "ANIMAL EXCREMENT" when you haven't even checked the facts. Something smells like excrement here, but it's not the President.
Conservative Islam is once again showing that it is the enemy of knowledge.
This morning's National Public Radio had a wonderful report about the new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). With one of the largest endowments in the world, a whopping $10 billion, KAUST promises to bring education and technological diversity to a country that is highly dependent on oil. Although the Saudi royal family is known for its heavy-handed rule, in this instance there is no doubt that King Abdullah was truly looking to modernize his country, to help foster a strong technology base that will outlast his country's oil supply. He saw that education, not money, is the key to the future.
The university opened with great fanfare and excitement, with journalists from all over the world reporting on this exciting new opportunity. Then, perhaps inevitably, religious obstructionism set in, in the form of a popular Islamic cleric, Sheikh Saad al Shethri.
The Sheikh declared that men and women shouldn't study together, that was unacceptable. Moreover, ideas like Evolution are irregular and alien, and shouldn't be taught. And to try to prevent the University from ever making real progress in educating young Saudis, the Sheikh decided that religious "scholars" should review the University's curriculum, to ensure that it doesn't contradict the Qur'an.
The good news is that Sheikh Saad al Shethri didn't get his way. He was widely criticized in the press, and was fired from his job on an advisory panel to the King. But he was able to keep his teaching job at an Islamic university, and his words have sparked a battle between reformists and conservatives in the country. His actions caused significant damage to the open flow of ideas and knowledge in Saudi Arabia. Where once journalists were free to visit KAUST and report on this amazing new center of education, they are now banned, and the University is trying to keep a low profile while the storm rages. Who knows what damage this obstructionist cleric's opinions might bring?
Conservative religions are justifiably afraid of progress. They rely on ignorance, they teach a "world history" that is just plain wrong, and their morals and laws are outdated by several thousand years. If we lived by their idea of progress, we'd still be wandering in the deserts and watching our children die of starvation and disease.
They know all too well the dangers of education: Their beliefs don't stand up in the face of real knowledge.
So we should expect this sort of behavior from conservative Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, whenever real knowledge is being taught. It's up to more reasonable people to push forward anyway, to fight to keep humanity moving forward.
You knew it would happen, but it's still shocking: Bryan Fischer, a Christian and the "Director of Issues Analysis" at American Family Association, wants to ban all Muslims from the U.S. Military. This is so unpatriotic and un-American it's a disgrace. They should take the word "American" out of their organization's name, they don't deserve to use it.
I may not agree with their religious views, but I know that the vast majority of both Christians and Muslims are honest, moral, patriotic, and thoughtful people. I've had the pleasure of knowing many Christians, and a number of Muslims in my lifetime, and I honestly can't tell the difference. Both groups believe in Yahweh, the God of Abraham, and have morals that they believe are given by God. Both groups have the usual assortment of mostly good, honest people, a few immoral people, and a few who stand out as exceptionally praiseworthy.
As far as I can tell, Mr. Fischer, a senior director at AFA, doesn't know what it means to be an American, he knows little about Islam, and he doesn't even know what it means to be a Christian. He's also an ignoramus about how sin works, because he's trying to blacken the reputation of all Muslims using the deeds of one. Maybe Mr. Fischer should go back and read about the Oklahoma City bombing by his fellow Christians, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Using Mr. Fischer's logic, maybe we should ban all Christians from the United States military.
While I disagree with most of the politics of the American Family Association, I respect them as fellow Americans. I know they, like me, are interested in making the world and America a better place; we just differ on how to achieve that. But with men like Mr. Fischer in their midst, I have to wonder if they truly understand our Constitution, and the religious freedoms that we all enjoy because of the wisdom and tolerance of our founding fathers.
The one good note in all of this is that another blogger at AFA has issued a rebuttal to Mr. Fischer. Unfortunately, with Mr. Fischer's position as a Director, the other blogger's article seems pretty weak, though well written.
Another barbaric, ugly, inappropriate and cruel beating of a woman is about to be carried out in the name of Allah. Her crime? Drinking a beer and admitting she's a Muslim. The punishment? Caning – being beaten with six strokes of a rattan cane.
What's weirder, the law under which she was sentenced only applies to Muslims! In other words, just say your a Christian or Jew, and you can drink all the beer you like, but admit your a Muslim, and get the tar whipped out of you if you hoist a cold one.
I usually respect religions, even though I disagree pretty profoundly with their beliefs. But this sort of stuff makes me shake my head in disgust. It's inexcusable that in this century, there are religious police who have to arrest, humiliate, and abuse Muslims in order to make them follow Allah's laws.
The clerics who resort to this sort of barbarism aren't religious leaders of Islam. They're brutal dictators. A real Muslim leader wouldn't need to resort to violence to keep the faith.
Why aren't Muslims everywhere, especially here in the United States, raising their voices and marching in protest of this despicable deed?
Could a US Supreme Court Justice actually believe that religious people have more rights than non-religious people? In an interview with Harmodia ("The Daily Newspaper of Torah Jewry"), Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia virtually confesses to bias against non-religious people.
Justice Scalia, who is sworn to uphold our Constitution, writes:
My court has a series of opinions that say that the Constitution requires neutrality on the part of the government, not just between denominations, not just between Protestants, Jews and Catholics, but neutrality between religion and non-religion. I do not believe that. That is not the American tradition.
Huh? Did I get that right? It seems like he's saying atheists and agnostics don't have the same rights as religious people. The Constitution "requires neutrality," but "I do not believe that." No matter how many times I read this quote, I can't find any other interpretation.
This is shameful. I can find no other words for it. At the start of the interview, Justice Scalia purports to be neutral, claiming that, "my religious views do not affect my opinions at all." But this falls flat once you read the rest of the interview.
The interview ends with these chilling words:
"G-d protects," [Charles de Gaulle] said, "little children, drunkards and the United States of America." I think it may be true. And the reason may be because we honor Him as a nation. We invoke Him in our country, our Presidents invoke Him, my court open its sessions with "G-d save the United States." Those things are not insignificant.
In other words a Supreme Court Justice of the United States actually believes that God personally intervenes, and monkeys with the laws of physics, in order to change the course of history itself, to favor the United States above all other nations on this Earth, because a few dozen men and women happen to invoke his name each day.
Of course, those millions of Muslims in the Middle East who invoke God's name much more fervently, five times per day, certainly don't deserve God's attention. They're not Christians like Justice Scalia, are they?
This is such egotistical arrogance it would be funny, if not for the fact that people like Justice Scalia run our country. This is the stuff that wars and genocide are made of. This is how, for example, the American People get infuriated when 3,000 citizens were murdered by terrorists on 9/11, but have no trouble with the fact that 150,000 Iraqi civilians were killed by American bombs.
It's sad that a man can hold such un-American, unconstitutional views, and still become a United States Supreme Court justice.
I've always wondered: Does God have genitalia? Does He have a penis and scrotum and testicles? And if so, what the heck does He do with them?
I mean, if God has a penis, why?
Does He have a relationship with some goddess somewhere? Back in the good old days, like in Moses' time, the Jews were pagans (yes, they really did believe in many gods, in spite of what you were taught), and a lot of the Jews thought maybe God and Isis were hanging out together, and maybe even doing the dirty. But since the Abrahamic religions evolved the idea of monotheism, that means Isis and those other goddesses were just figments of everyone's imaginations, which sort of implies God really didn't have a girlfriend after all. And presumably, since God doesn't commit sins, and masturbation is a sin, that's out too. So a penis thing would be pretty useless.
And surely God doesn't need to take a leak, since He is God. I mean, he doesn't need to eat or drink, right? So there's nothing to pee either, so that doesn't explain why God has genitalia, if indeed He does. In fact, that kind of leads to more questions than answers, because if He doesn't eat, then why does He need a stomach, intestines, and all that other stuff inside?
But if God doesn't have a penis, scrotum, testicles and such, and maybe not even a stomach and intestines, then it's kind of odd to say we humans were made in His image, because we do have all that stuff in order to eat, drink and procreate. So maybe the Bible means "in his image" sort of like a snapshot or something, like, on the outside we'd say, "Hey, look, I look just like you, God!" but if a surgeon could get God on the operating table and take a look inside, he'd say, "Hey, this isn't right! This guy's got no stomach, or anything!"
I guess maybe that Genesis creation stuff is a myth or something. It sure can't be literally true, since you'd have to overlook an awful lot of crazy stuff to believe all of it.
As a follow-up to yesterday's blog ("Education, the Enemy of Religion?"), I found a story in USA Today that would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Creation, a new British film about Darwin's life, has been sold to distributors in virtually every country in the world ... except the United States. Here, in one of the most technologically-advanced countries in the world, Christians are afraid of the truth.
This is not some flaky television show, or a blatantly anti-Christian propaganda piece. It is a top-notch story of the personal struggles of a scientist. Reuters calls it "one of the best delineations of intellectual and emotional struggle seen on film in many a year." It stars Paul Bettany as Darwin, and the wonderful (and Oscar-winning) actress Jennifer Connelly, who is Bettany's wife in real life, too.
In other words, it is a biography that should find a ready market in America, and would find a market if it was about any important scientist in history except Darwin. This is so ironic, that "father" of Evolution Science, arguably the most important, best-proved theory in the history of science, is the only one who is vilified by the religious right.
The only reason Evolution Science is singled out and rejected by religious people is because it disagrees with some ancient oral histories, stories that were finally written down by Jewish scholars 2,500 years ago, and declared "the word of God" by a self-appointed committee of rabbis around 2,300 years ago.
I sincerely hope that Creation eventually finds a market here in America. I know I'll watch it if it does.
del.icio.us
reddit
StumbleUpon
Posts
