While I was wasting spending time looking for intelligently written and clearly presented arguments for a Young Earth, I came across a suite of sites that are well worth the time to peruse. They are beautiful, ornate, and relatively well-reasoned. Visit www.evidencesofcreation.com and some of its links.
It’s not a very different view from the Christian Fundamentalists, but some of the names are different. For example:
“… the theory of evolution, the unique method of denying the existence of Allah …”
Check it out.
The Arabs and Persians have a much longer history of reasoned discourse than do the Europeans. The Middle East preserved the spirit of science from ancient Greece as the Roman Empire (pragmatic and disinterested in the methods used by the Greeks to get to where they were) rose and fell, and its regions subsequently were controlled by the Roman Christians for about a millenium, “the dark ages”. Only when European scholars began translating Arabic texts did the teachings of ancient Greece (and the thousand years of further discoveries in math, medicine, and astronomy) begin to spread into Christian culture.
Although periodic Muslim religious fervors threatened to wipe out these potentially infidelic ideas several times, it always survived in pockets, and spread again.
Try finding a copy of “Arab Science” by Edwin P. Hoyt, or try this site for a summary of the evolution of Arabic science from the time of The Prophet until it perfused into Europe.
Dan: Thanks for the link to the Evidence of Creation site. It’s really striking how it parallels so many Christian sites in its advice and approach. In fact, if you changed all references of “Allah” to “God,” “Muslim” to “Christian” and “Qur’an” to “Bible,” (and deleted the references to the Qur’an quotes), it would be unlikely that anyone would think that the site was anything other than a run of the mill fundamentalist Christian site. These guys have SO much in common with each other, it's hard to believe they don't get along. If fundamantalist Muslims and Christians would only put aside their (minor) philosophical differences and team up, they could REALLY make life difficult for skeptics and free-thinkers!
I noted, especially, the Muslim approach to DNA. It starts out like this: “This superstitious belief of materialism is called "evolution.” http://www.evidencesofcreation.com/dna01.htm
Why can Creationists &/or Intelligent Design (ID) advocates solve Sudoku Number Puzzles so quickly?
THEY JUST PUT A “G” IN ALL THE EMPTY SQUARES.
It’s just a matter of faith! It’s the same method creationists and now ID specialists resort to in trying to prove their unsustainable “intelligent design theory”. Creationists can just stop searching for reality by just assuming all gaps in current understanding and/or knowledge of evolution must be filled with a (G=god) solution. As Prof Richard Dawkins explains in chapter four of The GOD Delusion; “If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default must fill it.” Saves them having to think and question I suppose.
Much like the progress one makes by eliminating the possible numbers in each square as a Sudoku puzzle is solved, “gaps shrink as science advances and God is threatened with eventually having nothing to do and nowhere to hide.” This of course “worries thoughtful theologians” however the greater worry for scientists (and the rest of us) is that groups through politics or fear will walk away from the “essential part of the scientific enterprise [that is] to admit ignorance.”
Nothing is more dangerous than a, ‘I have all the answers’ arrogant preacher followed by a bunch of non-thinking ‘god-botherers’ driven by blind faith who absolve themselves from their societal responsibilities with the comfort of unquestioning feeble-minds!
Although some see Dawkins as a bit of a raver and less scientific in his arguments than he could (should) be, if you read Pascal Boyer's "Gods, Spirits and the Mental Instincts that Create Them", Dawkins’ 'emotional' approach to battling the “ID” lobby is also needed.
caliibre
For those interested Pascal Boyers articles . . .
A summary and some of my own conclusions titled
"Parents should think carefully before subjecting their children to Religious Indoctrination" is on my blog 2nd article down: http://caliibre.blogspot.com/
A 'full' range of his (and other) great articles are found here:
http://artsci.wustl.edu/%7Epboyer/LuceWebSite/Luc…
The specific document mentioned is here: http://www.srhe.ucsb.edu/lectures/text/boyerText….