The December 12, 2008 issue of Science Magazine (online only to subscribers) suggests that creationism is a growing movement in many Islamic countries.
The author, Salaman Hameed, writes that:
The Koranic narrative of creation includes a six day account of creation. The length of each day, however, is not clearly specified. One day has been defined as “a thousand years of what you count” (32:5) or as “a day the measure of which is 50,000 years” (70:4). The resulting ambiguity leaves open the possibility of a very old earth. Indeed, young-Earth creationism is wholly absent in the Muslim world, and the universe billions of years old is commonly accepted. On biological evolution, Islamic scholars and popular writers hold a wide range of opinions that represent a broad spectrum of culture and politics, from secular Turkey to the conservative monarchy of Saudi Arabia and the Muslim diasperas in Europe and in the United States.
Contrary to the scholars and Islamic communities, more than half of the lay population of five of the six listed Islamic countries studied considered that evolution by natural selection “could not possibly be true.” Those anti-evolution countries include Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia and Egypt. For instance, only 8% of Egyptians give credence to evolution by natural selection. In the sixth listed country, Kazakhstan, evolution well accepted. A recent survey of 25 Muslim university students from Turkey and Morocco indicated that most of them rejected “macroevolution” and tied it to both atheism and to the impossibility that random mutations could lead to complex species.
This widespread rejection of evolution in many Muslim countries gives rise to a potential solution to the problem of creationism here in the United States. I suspect that most of our American creationists are highly suspicious, if not hateful, of Muslims. I thus think that our American creationists might go a long way toward rejecting the attitudes and beliefs of Muslims–they will tend to want to do the opposite of what the Muslims are doing. Therefore, let’s start a campaign to put up lots of billboards along the highways prominently indicating that most Muslims reject evolution by natural selection. Let’s see, then, if these billboards have the effect of causing American creationists to those rethink their position so that they “aren’t like Muslims.” If the campaign is wildly successful, we might even see fundamentalists holding Darwin Appreciation Days at their churches.
P.S. This post is for all of you American creationists who insist that I pick on you because you are Christians. Not true. See? I’m picking on the Muslim creationists too.
Don't we cover this interfaith alliance against reason regularly? Like in May 2008 with World Renowned Creationist Arrested, Convicted or September 2006 with Not All Creationists are Christians.
The prominence of creationism in Turkey is almost certainly due primarily to Harun Yahya, a prolific young-earth creationist who also has a tendency to lobby the Turkish government to ban websites that criticize him (including, on one occasion, all of WordPress.com).
I welcome the rational logistics of any religion that doesn't ignore the actual recorded historical facts concerning the early days of mankind on the planet. I don't agree with all of the writings and comments of Mohammed, but the physical facts I find compelling especially when they agree in any portion with what the Hebrew writers recorded.
Mohammed was further removed from the events but yet he still has some in common with the Hebrew written version. Did they use similar sources, or did they get divine inspiration from similar places? I can't answer which is more physically correct, but the Bible sure gives a more detailed log than Mohammed. Mohammed is probably working from the basis that Mose's writings were essentially correct, but adds his own commentary concerning the affair.
I happen to appreciate some of what the Koran has to say about the physical world wide flood of Noah's Day. A couple of statements not found in the Bible that could actually shed some light on what happened. The Koran states that the waters poured forth from "an oven," the Koran also gives a time frame of at least six months for the time spent on the Ark, and the Koran also states that the Ark also came to rest upon a mountian.
These ovens were probably much in line with what the Bible describes as the fountains of the great deep. I take this to imply that tremendous geothermal energy erupted at the start of the flood.
Even today there are places places used as natural cooking locations where the steam heat from the ground can actually serve as an oven to cook in. This tells me that before the flood there were common place locations where geothermal energy was very intense. This also meant that geothermal energy spiked intensely at the start of Noah's flood. The natural waters that used to keep the climate moderated and misty in the mornings were also the source of the initial flood waters. Noah seeing the onset of increasing geothermal activity must have known the time for the flood was at hand. The animals both instinctively and at the direction of God also knew that things were not as they should be.
The time frame given for the entrance into the Ark and disembarking from the Ark in the Koran doesn't state it lasted just six months. It just gives the days of the months, so more than six months i.e. a year and six months could have been possible. Either way, a boat trip of at least a six month means this was no small flood that deposited Noah on a fluke mountain top somewhere.
Crash creationism all you like Erich. I find it best to build bridges anyway possible between people.
You're only claim to fame here is being an equal opportunity skeptic against anything religious, oh yes, unless the religion is naturalism.
Karl: I don't believe in building friendship bridges by making assertions that are provably untrue.
To the extent that you and I might someday have a friendship, it won't be based on my agreement that the Earth is only thousands of years old, not billions. On the other hand, it might be a bridge builder for me to acknowledge that you enjoyed a story, or found inspiration from a story, that was provably untrue (whether it be a story that Noah was 900 years old or a story that Mr. Spock was from the planet Vulcan).
When good friends and potential friends have disagreements that can be resolved by reference to known facts, they are honest with each other. Nor do genuine friends monkey with the burden of proof of natural phenomena. In my opinion, to do that is simply another way of being dishonest. Making a shell game out of the burden of proof is worse than paltering. http://dangerousintersection.org/2007/02/25/stop-…
One more thing. For the record, observing physical things in a careful way guided by skepticism, where intense criticism by other intelligent members of the community is INVITED is not religion. I don't know of a single church that employs this type "religion" with regard to its belief system.
I'm tiring of your argument that science is really religion, and I assume that the rampant epistemological chaos that would result from that approach makes sense even to you, Karl.
Paltering… what a great word, thanks! But "palterer, palterer, pants on fire" just doesn't work somehow…
(anti-spam word ="skeptic")
The flood stories in Genesis and the Koran are cribbed from the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. An example of what the great Scottish harper and storyteller<a>Robin Williamson calls an "old traditional idea called a rrrrrrip-off." Also described by JRR Tolkien as the ever-simmering "pot of story."
Erich states:
"One more thing. For the record, observing physical things in a careful way guided by skepticism, where intense criticism by other intelligent members of the community is INVITED is not religion. I don’t know of a single church that employs this type “religion” with regard to its belief system."
Examine how the Hebrews and Christians evaluated which texts were to be selected for inclusion as part of their inspired "Word of God." You may be enlightened about what got chosen and not chosen by the unintelligent members of the community. The belief systems chosen by the Hebrews and Christian didn't evolve with the evolution of their societies. They have had the same basic core beliefs since the selection of these materials began thousands of years ago.
Same basic message. There is a God who created mankind for a purpose. Included in this purpose was an inherent free will in man and a necessity to learn how to chose right from wrong. The promise of a solution to the apparent inability of men and women to chose right from wrong is a part of both belief systems. Christians recognize the solution through faith in the promise being fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Hebrews that don't recognize Jesus as their Messiah nonetheless still look for a solution to the problem. Those looking for the Messiah will one day bow their knee willingly and in thankful appreciation.
Those who discount the existence of God and any purpose in their lives besides what they can make of it in a physcial sense do not wish to discuss personal accountability to a creator or any system of right and wrong to which they will be held accountable, unless it is one of their own making. Of course they can't even measure up to their own historical systems of right and wrong so they keep dropping the right choices abd permitting more and more wrong choices as the only human thing to do.
I take it for granted that in many places in these writings the authors attribute either an active or a permissive will of "God." to be involved. This is because from a point of view of foreknowledge and predestination there are not any events that occur that are outside of God's will in one way or another.
You however would be see the drivel from these egocentrist band of meshuga bitten souls as canard of a salacious nature that appeals to the primitive clan motivated urges of these poor deceived Hebrews and Christians who just can't help themselves.
The modern scientific thought process helps us know much better today how to avoid all of the appearances of faith in gods of any type. So much so that we claim to not worship anything of an unknown mysterious nature. The Hebrews at least stated that they worshiped what they knew and what was passed on from generation to generation. Today's modernists say they worship gods less and less because they disjoint themselves more and more from the past.
The strange thing about both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures that I hold as sacred is that they both show that the people who wrote the words did not consider themselves infallible or somehow better than anyone else on earth. These writings show both the positive and the negative sides of human nature. They don't point to a picture of a perfect human leaders who get everything right and never mess up. The hero of one chapter is the faithless fool of the next chapter or vice-versa. You may consider this hypocritical, I call it part of being human and possesing a mind that is prone to thinking that its workings can be trusted all the while it is building rationizations for why it okay to do the wrong thing once in a while. Once trapped in this system of thinking the exit is hard to find without someone knocking down a wall that use to be a doorway.
People easily slide from facts that are true or false, into believing theories are reasonable or unreasonable or into opinions that are either correct to hold or improper to cling to. People learn to late in life how to tell these mental constructs apart from one another. The Hebrew and Christian Bible enable people to see all of these mental constructs for what they are and how to work your way throught the ever present minefield of life with all of the distinctive points of view clamoring for attention and trying to enslave a persons mind and very soul as well.
Erich says science is not a religion to him, but he uses it to rule out what is of a religious nature. Erich will have no "gods" today, thank-you.
Karl: You're missing my point. I don't know of any religions that make a point of questioning their core beliefs, certainly not on an ongoing basis [Though see here: http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/11/10/athei… ]
Erich,
Then please listen to my point of the onging process of over 2,000 years in the selection of the canon for the protestant church. They were still evaluating previously included writings up through the 1820's. There were things taught in apocryphal writings from the intertestimental period that were clearly rejected as not in line with other well agreed upon beliefs concerning reality and direct recorded historical events. They in essence culled the extent of holy writ because of an evaluation of both what had been taught and what should be taught. Finge beliefs have a way of becoming core beliefs if not attended to diligently.
You may not know of any religions with an evaluatory methodology because most of them didn't have any onging process of monitoring core beliefs which so often promote the extremists fringe view of those possessing just enough knowledge about a part of the full teachings to make themselves dangerous for the general public.
Some people of course go to the extremist position that anything I darn well think is a little bit on the impossible side to explain by my rational mind better be left out as well. Thomas Jefferson wanted to perform his own deist editing and remove so many of the apparent non-sensical miraculous stuff that could make the canan more palitable to his naturalist point of view. He was struggling with how to be "more scientific" even back in his time.
Lo and behold, naturalists having been doing this, both before and after Jefferson. I would venture to say that there were even some naturalists like Philip among the apostles who wanted hard and fast evidence for himself as well. The process of forming the canon I'm sure had some naturalists perspectives included. There are some matters written in scripture which were not verified by multiple witnesses, but there are enough matters with a nature that seem conflicting with modern science that did have multiple witnesses which I will not toss under the bus even though the respected academia tells me to let it go.
Mark doubts Joshua's request for the sun to stand still was impossible to accomplish. Ever see light bend through a refractory material? Ask a magician how he tricks most people into seeing what they want them to see. The sun could have kept moving but the suns rays could have bent or refracted or reflected for long enough to leave a lasting impression upon the situation. Maybe the light passed through the tail of a comet that acted as a lens to keep the light above the horizon or the refractive index of the atmosphere somehow allowed the sun light to bend further than usual. Maybe instead of the typical quick sunset that appear to be here in an instant and gone the next it lasted for much longer so the nearly finished battle could be completed during brighter hours and not linger on through dusk and twilight.
I know the Bible is interpreted to say the sun stood still, but the prevailing scientific belief about the cosmos was geo-centric at the time. The writer used the common scientific model of the time, discredit them for getting it wrong and not having the divine inspiration to say that the light endured for a very unusually long time period.
Excuse me the next time I say look at that sunset as well. I should say – look at the refracted light coming over the horizon while the world turns and makes the sun look like it's dropping out of view.
Erich:
You are correct, experimental science is not religion, but any assumptions be they hypothetical or inductive flashes of insight all stand a chance of being called religion in my book. I never intended to discredit actual observable, measureable and repeatable reality by applying some sinister cloak of deception.
I happent to like that part of science very much.
Not a single culture with a worldwide flood story was aware of the entirety of the world, nor had the ability to communicate with it. Not a single flood story can be historically placed simultaneously with another, and several are purported to occur when historic evidence elsewhere on the planet shows no flooding. Geological indicators of catastrophic events around the world do not show concurrent timing. There is no reason whatever to believe that there was ever a worldwide flood beyond wishing a particular mythology is correct, and nothing outside of it to offer proof. Attributing the plausible and testable characteristics of our geography to the Noachic flood is a feat of mental gymnastics that would put L. Ron Hubbard to shame. It is, as I see it, the Calvinball of science.
"Excuse me the next time I say look at that sunset as well. I should say – look at the refracted light coming over the horizon while the world turns and makes the sun look like it’s dropping out of view."
See, Karl? You DO know the difference. Now just apply that same discipline and methodology when you consider the true age of the earth.
Bash away, bash away, bash away all.
http://www.icr.org/article/4311/
Karl: connecting the dots regarding evolution by natural selection is not a matter of intelligence. Some grade school children can understand the arguments. Rather, it's mostly a matter of intellectual courage. It's a matter of whether one is willing to question treasured beliefs to reach higher truths.
Lots of highly intelligent people refuse to take the plunge. Dr. Benjamin S. Carson is an admirable and highly accomplished man. But it seems that you are (improperly) invoking the fallacious argument I have termed the "ex hominem" argument. See http://dangerousintersection.org/2007/11/22/the-o… You wouldn't deny, would you, that brilliant people are often wrong and that fools are sometimes correct? Therefore, the truth value of a statement can't possibly be proven by one's general regard for the person uttering that statement.
Karl writes:—"Mark doubts Joshua’s request for the sun to stand still was impossible to accomplish. Ever see light bend through a refractory material?"
Don't have a problem with that. I said the sun didn't stop. Which means, of course, the sun didn't stop. It's a fairly clear statement in the text. A lot of people of a certain mindset accept it verbatim. I also have no problem believing that the perception of time slowing, which is an acceptable psychological phenomenon connected to the fight/flight physiological responses could account for such a perception. My point was, the sun did not literally stop.
Plus, Erich, every argument Dr. Carson made in the article was one that has been thoroughly addressed and refuted. Many reflect a lack of understanding of evolutionary theory that directly contradicts the proclamation that always seems to precede it – "I've studied the evidence, and. . ."
Karl, please calculate the mass of refractive material necessary to create the illusion of the sun and the moon standing still for a full day and then resuming its natural course.
Please tell optical scientists what magical material would have a high enough refractive index and perfectly arranged range of refractive indices and yet be perfectly transparent over the huge thickness this would require (claim Nobel prize).
Note that this material would have had to completely surround the Earth, and yet pass through it. Explain how (claim Nobel prize).
Please indicate where this huge mass came from and went (claim Nobel prize).
It would have deflected the orbits of all the planets, so they must have been totally irregular before this event to end up so close to circular in the present. This is a Physics 101 calculation for any such class with a prerequisite of calculus.
Simpler exercise: Illustrate with a diagram of a circle any assortment of mirrors and lenses you choose to show how the sun (say, out to the left) could have appeared to stay normal to the circle (radial) and nowhere else, at 8 equidistant points around the circle. Then show how these 8 arrangements smoothly flow from one to the next.
Now add in the still moon, which normally travels a dozen times its own width in a day relative to the sun (as was well known in Joshua's time).
<sub>Spam word: thinking</sub>
Dan,
There is recorded data that makes no naturalistic sense either. The solstis data when tracked from forward and backward directions has a hitch in it. If anyone can explain this scientific data by some readily available scientific physical phenomenon as you say a noble prize is waiting.
There is agreement among many historical sources that the event occurred, what caused it is well beyond human comprehension and not readily provable without some kind of a flat out suspension of time for at least the vicinity of the earth, sun and moon. It works well for TV, and science fiction to mess with time, but when a real time event points to such a possibilty it is scoffed at.
Check out this website and similar links.
http://www.s8int.com/page35.html
This is data verified by astronomers researching this event from recorded solstisis observations.
If we disregard calendar changes and deal only with a chronology based upon solar motion, and go back to the earliest available records, and trace the calendar through to the time of Joshua, the day of Joshua's battle was on a Tuesday, whereas if we compute backwards to the time of Joshua from the present day, the day of the battle would have been on a Wednesday. The day of the month is the same, but it is a different day of the week.
In other words, if we reckon from the first recorded solstice in the ancient Egyptian records, the day is Tuesday, but if we reckon back from the most recent solstice, the day is Wednesday.
Sounds frustrating but the data doesn't lie, unless one declares a naturalistic impossibility over the records of astronomers.
Karl, there is much written about such alleged evidence. Yet somehow no one has ever made such evidence available for observation by the world at large. Several generations of writers have published books claiming evidence for a missing day in calendars, or an extra day in calendars, or enormous asteroids that somehow no one noticed except the author. Yet they never get around to saying where exactly this evidence may be found. You have to accept it with faith.
We don't swing that way. Show us the evidence. Every time I directly say to you, show me the evidence, and collect your Nobel Prize, you change the subject. It has happened many times in our discussions.
I have no doubt that volumes are written in support of many improbable ideas. But one of the pillars of science is to seek the First Source. That actual piece of evidence behind what people write about people writing about.
Days of the week are arbitrary, as are the dates of the month. Neither of these are reliable in the sense that they can be independently confirmed. Various civilizations dealt with the irrational relationship between days, months, and years in different ways. Adding extra days when and as suited to push the current calendar back into alignment with the stars.
Karl writes:—"There is agreement among many historical sources that the event occurred, what caused it is well beyond human comprehension"
Beyond human comprehension (cue theramin music now)
Oh for….
How about this, Karl: it was as much fiction as Homer claiming Achilles was invulnerable except for his heel. Is that plausible? Just wondering.
Dan states:
"Somehow no one has ever made such evidence available for observation by the world at large."
If you mean available for inspection you are not correct. These records are open public documents. They are parts of long kept journals, records and the writings of respected leaders of civilizations.
If you mean that such evidence has been made available for first hand scrutiny of original documents by Dan Klarmann or other naturalists who might not agree with what they mean, you are correct.
I fully believe these records are available for anyone requesting copies of them for reasonable research reasons. If you know what to ask for and who to ask for it, it is open and available through normal requests of freedom of information. This material is readily researchable to any one interested in it.
This is not anywhere near the same as why Obama doesn't want his records put in any researchers hands.
The evidence is historical and documented. It is puzzling to the naturalists who prefer to chaulk it up to myths, fairy tales, imagination, mis-interpretations or fables.
Check out this website and similar links as well in the foot notes at
http://www.s8int.com/page35.html
This is data verified by astronomers and many respected works by the scientific minds of their times and cultures.
Numerous places in recorded historical (assumed scientific to some degree) documents from various locations and cultures provide data that point to longer days and longer nights. Numerous historical data also exists for the entire possibility that east and west have also switch directions, within recorded human history.
Plato references such an occurance, what's with this?
Does the entire crust and mantle spin independently of the electromagnetic inner and outer cores, and if so can a sudden enough reversal of the magnetic poles cause the interactions of these rotating spheres to affect each other.
If the inner and outer cores were either quickly, slowly or exteremely slowly to somehow be energized in a way that reversed the dynamo, how would the mantle and crust respond?
Are the contact locations (that could act like a clutch, with friction) between the mantle and the cores of such a nature that the earth's magnetic field reversals could have actually been recorded in history as very puzzling data such as longer days, longer nights and even a complete reversal of east and west?
It does make sense that a reversal of the electromagnetic field of the earth could only come from a reversal of the directional spin of these same materials in its core.
The major sea floor spreadings could also be related to the workings of the clutch that nearly burns out while the mantle and crust are being brought to a fairly quick stop in a single day and then brought back up to speed.
Evidence of these process would have had to have been global and not in any ways only local events. The data investigated does have a global flavor.
Karl: Try this: Note the daily temperature sinusoid in the middle eastern summer and compare to the sinusoidal input from solar flux. Project what the daytime temperature would be if the flux were locked at maximum for 24 hours on Joshua's special day. Name any life form that could have survived this event while exerting themselves out in the open.
These are much simpler calculations than the sheer stresses between viscous concentric fluid shells in a mostly molten ball based on the idea that these arbitrarily defined layers function independently, or that magnetic effects within the planet could have been of the super-MRI strength necessary to make such drastic changes in a period not only within human memory, but back and forth within a day.
I've already addressed the surface acceleration and inundation problem of this event, if the cause of the long day were from any mechanism actually stopping the rotation of the planet. Biggest tsunami ever. I prefer your magical meteor hypothesis, and eagerly await your diagrams of how it could have happened.
Karl, I take it that you have never experienced a false dawn. In some locations, under the right weather conditions, a distant weather front can alter the refractive index of the atmosphere, creating an optical illusion that the sun has temporarily stop moving, or in a few cases make it appear to change direction. I witnessed a false dawn several years ago, at about 8 PM when for about 10 minutes the sun appeared to be rising, from the West.
The Sun standing still may have actually been an interpretation of some similar phenomena, or of some other rare astronomical or geological phenomena. There have been several documented times where there was darkness that seemed like night as a result of major volcanic erruptions as well.
But if the Earth were to suddenly stop turning every thing that wasn't nailed down, and most things that were would suddenly be thrown in an Easterly direction at over 1000 miles per hour because of the inertia.
Who says Joshua's army was fighting during summer?
Most armys faught in the spring after the crops were planted.
The sun appeared as stationary in a morning position during the battle on that day. Sure the sun heats the earth, I didn't say it didn't, this also means that some place got real cold that "day" (night) as well.
If a clutch were disengaged it would still have required a significant braking action to bring that much mass to a gradual near stand still. The mantle and crust could not have been slowed so gradually that the change in rotational inertia was imperceptable. The shorelines would have indeed been inundated with very high tides perhaps even huge tsunamis. There would have been earthquakes for sure. Cultures have reported these as well as other unusual obswervation and omens in the skys. Some cultures have even reported a longer night, imagine that.
It would have been as if a generator coil traveled through a 360 degree rotation. Less impulse for 90 degrees (clutch being disengaged), opposite impulse slowly increasing and then decreasing through the next 180 degrees (gradual increase and then gradual decrease in braking) and then increasing impulse back to normal during the last 90 degrees (slow reapplication of the forward clutch).
The cores didn't have have their motions reversed, just slowed and then brought back to their usual rates of rotation. This would have had the same effect as the clutch model presented above.