Discovered!: Why the Council of Europe thinks ID threatens human rights

See the detailed critique When will Europe wake up? Council of Europe ‘condemns creationism’ (but it ought to reconsider where the ‘threat to human and civic rights’ is really coming from) at Creation Ministries International. Jonathan Sarfati

Chuck Says,

"The liberals in power certainly think that religion must not, under any circumstances, be connected to the state - which we both seem to agree is preposterous!"

No we don’t agree when the "under any circumstances" or the "connected" part. For me that is an extreme and ultimately hurtful way to conduct the government. I think that for example if schools want to teach religion courses as a matter of belief- as in theology it is fine. I think that if families want to send their children to private religious schools instead of government schools then the government should give them vouchers for that. It is not a church and state connection it is a people and state connection- and how the people choose to live is their choice- atheistically or not. For example I have no governmental problem with the government paying for Kids to go to a school strictly teaching atheism. I have a personal ethical and moral issue whith parents decision to send their kids there but it should be the people's choice. The founding fathers were religious despite the lies teachers tell their students. They use to pray before various governmental affairs. No, church and state was never meant to be fully disconnected. To do this would require that every tax payer be an atheist! The first amendment was there to prevent an oligarchy from arising and to stop the government from using religion to control people. It offers freedom of religion- and freedom from government formed laws that directly respect various religions. The belief in design is not a religion. The designer could be good, bad or indifferent to humanity. The designer may want worship or may not. May approve of churches or may not. That is where the freedom part comes in. Freedom to believe what you want and speak sentiment allowed without fear of religious restriction. The ultimate problem here is that the atheism that permeates societies around the world right now - especially in old Europe and America- is sort of an anti Christ. They use the sins of the Roman clergy to deduce that the concept of religion and faith is perverted and false and morally wrong. They fail to recognize that the number of priest sexual offenses is less then the number you find on average among society as a whole. Religion is not bad. It is government’s role to protect it as a freedom and protect the people from other people seeing it as weapon. And the atheistic Darwinism taught in schools is a form of religion that is being used to control the masses- and is from my perspective invading their rights- especially to a good education. The Darwinists however see it as THE TRUTH- the mark of a religion- and therefore deny the reality of the way they are propagating origins sciences. All one has to do is to read Behe's new book "Edge of Evolution" to see that obviously life's origin could not be random or purposeless- if it was it wouldn’t be here- and it certainly could not be as complex. For the record I see the sins by priests within the various churches to be undermining religion- in fact I see it as the anti christ. It leads people astray to the market place of deviance and physical desire and leads to pain and suffering for many. Frost122585

Frost 122585, The liberals in power certainly think that religion must not, under any circumstances, be connected to the state - which we both seem to agree is preposterous! Uncommon Descent and other excellent forums that spread the message of Intelligent Design theory demonstrate that ID theory and religion - while historically and intellectually similar - are fundamentally different disciplines. Really, I enjoy your description of the Darwinist agenda: the "anti-God anti-design world"; it shows the fundamental problem with atheism: it cannot infer any instance of design, for it rules out an intelligent agent from the onset! Darwinism fails on both an intellectual and philosophical level; ID Theory will eventually succeed! chuckhumphry

Denyse, I’m not sure that Thomas Johnson is quite right. Faith schools are common in Europe. In the UK you can set up a public faith school (Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Islamic) and the government will pay for it for you. There are private faith schools of other faiths e.g. Hindu. All have to conform to the government-decreed curriculum, however, although this allows for faith teaching. And their existence is contentious. The issue is the old one of ‘is ID science?’ Rightly or wrongly it is generally considered in Europe that there is as much scientific legitimacy behind ID as there is behind the Scientologists saying we’re all descended from thetans (or whatever it is that they say). It’s exactly the same thinking as not having ‘faith-healing’ class in med school. Of course, I fully understand that the ID movement would dispute this assessment of the scientific status of ID. I do think it is true that Islam and perceptions of Islam have accentuated these issues. duncan

Chuck said,

"It’s more than that, it’s the Atheistic Darwinists that are fundamentally anti-human rights. It’s obvious to anyone that anyone believing that the universe is unguided- will think they have carte blanche to do what they want. Without an external authority to tell us right from wrong, people will naturally descend into decadence and idolatry. Just compare America to Europe: it’s obvious that historically, the more secular a nation, the worse off its citizens!"

Yes Chuck, but remember countries that have religion in their governments don’t function either- old, old Europe being a good example. That is why the founding fathers put in the first amendment "no law respecting an establishment of religion" - meaning that no religion will tell people how to live their lives. But the liberal majority in the country think that this means that religion and church cannot be connected to state at all in any way possible, which is an over reaction and ridiculous interpretation of the second amendment because the amendment refers specifically to "laws"- that is rules people must fallow based strictly upon beliefs that originate out of religions or churches. The obvious inconsistency as regards ID is that even if you can conflate ID with the bible there is still no law that says Christianity or God must be taught in public schools. Furthermore, the theory of intelligent design does not require belief in "anything" -- all it does is postulate that given all of our knowledge and the scientific data and evidence we have for origins, that design is the best and most obvious answer to the questions of origins. It is "an inference" to the best explanation not merely a "belief" and it does not claim to be a deduction either. But most people in society have not taken a course in logic and don’t know what induction is. If the left did they would most likely try to reformulate logic and philosophy to fit their anti-God anti-design world- something that incidentally already occurred in old Europe- in the Vienna circle in pre WW2- it was of course Kurt Gödel that proved what I intutivly knew ever since I took my first logic course- which is that all things are a mater of induction or inference- because deduction and logic is inherently flawed with incompleteness and the possibility of inaccuracy, contradiction and mistake. The theory of ID is the concept that an intellect had a part in evolution and origins mainly in biology and cosmology. It is a theory based strictly upon the scientific evidence and popper reasoning. It has nothing to do with religion because it requires no belief except in the validity of theory. However that is not to say that theology and ID dont share certian lies or reasoning. The differnece is that theology is based on belefe, faith and scripture, where ID is reasoned out of scinece and philosophy. Darwinism however requires belief, religion and philosphy as well. A form of atheism, which the belief that there is no intellect or guiding force behind origins. Darwins theory has since been displaced by the modern overwhelming evidence for design and planning. Yet, all of those people quoting the second amendment fail to understand what religion is. Religion is not a belief in God- it is a belief in anything. There is nothing special about postualting a God that is not equaly special about postualing his inexistence. Both effect peoples world views, both effect religion, both effect reasoning and philosophy- human choises and ethic etc.- The differnce is that Darwinsism is "only" support by belief. Darwin’s theory of evolution- while partly right in its obvious point of the role of "natural selection" (or selesction for the theologically inclined) and variation among species-- But his other part requires nothing but faith when one looks at the claim of random mutations. This is a statement of atheism which is a belief and hence a religion - in the fairness of the word. Its fine to teach evolution in school but they should not be allowed to mention his claim about randomness or purposelessness because that is a religious statement.- and if you dont agee with tme then at the least it is an anti- religios statement and stillshould not be allowed be cause the first amendment says "law RESPECTING an establshment of religion." "Respecting" can mean both poistive (for) or negative (against) action. Remember the left always says "separation of church and state!" but those words never appear in the constitution - the word RELIGION does. And that word applies logically and rationally with equal relevance to atheism- which is unscientifically unfounded. The only difference is that Darwinism is a useless and pointless faith that mainly has negative outcomes and effects and hence has no official church that I know of. The point being that if the left can make the debate confused with church instead of religion then design which is dishonestly easily conflated with various churches can be smeared and politically destroyed. So you can either teach the straight theory of evolution without mentioning anything about randomness or purposelessness or religion- or you have to teach all of the differnet religious and metaphyical interpretations of the data such as aliens, natural laws, God, Designer, Atheism and randomness and anything else people think up. The point I am making is that the institution is corrupt everywhere you look - absolutely corrupt and it is ruining the interests of good kids in origins sciences because its claim for a purposeless randomness life makes the whole field seem pointless- and this claim is not merely being stated as belief but as fact! This is a political war not a scinetific one (despite the propaganda) and we need to speak out against the lies. As regards real scinetists of any caliber- Newton's theological writings are amazing and he was an absolute believer of the first order. Teachers tell their students that he was agnostic and all oft us BS but they are just lying. Luckily we are winning the battle of truth even if we are loosing the battle of politics. But I have faith that truth will win out. Its ok to have separation of religion and state- and church and state- but you cant have one without the other. Check this out everyone- it is one of the best things I have ever stumbled upon on the web- http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=44 Enjoy. Frost122585

Personally, I am glad that Johnson offered a thesis as to why the Council of Europe might relate intelligent design theory to loss of civil rights (with which it has never been associated in North America, certainly). In fact, the Expelled movie, due shortly, would seem to suggest the opposite for North America. I would rather believe that the C of E had an intelligent (if wrong) idea than that its members had merely been smoking something unwise, which was my original conclusion when I read their statement. Johnson's thesis, in a nutshell, is that ID advocacy tends to push Westerners toward democracy but Middle Easterners away from it. If that's true (and perhaps it isn't true), it is certainly worth discussing - to find out WHY it is or isn't true. My own sense, to start with, is that in the Middle East politics totally claims many things that politics only partially claims here in North America. Here we assume that many areas of life are not properly the business of government - or only in part and only for specific purposes. Famously, the governments of the United States and of Canada made a point of not establishing a church. That doesn't mean that they were supposed to be anti-religion, simply that religion was not the government's business, but rather the business of the churches that people freely attend. The churches govern their own affairs and clergy are NOT on the public payroll, as they are in some European countries. I don't think it a surprise that North Americans generally believe in God, science, and freedom of religion. They all go together quite well, actually. O'Leary

I'm curious to know what evidence Thomas K. Johnson has for his assertions. I know Harun Yahya is pushing Islamic creationism (some of us were discussing his Atlas of Creation last night over dinner, and complaining that none of us were sent a copy), but I never got the impression that they were in the mainstream of European Islamic thought. I'm certainly not aware of a call for genocide of non-Muslim Europeans. Bob O'H

Daniel King, It's clear that much of Europe (with few exceptions) is a godless continent. Darwinism, socialism, postmodernism and secularism and run rampant. If one is a Christian, one recognizes the dangers of such philosophies. Only with their complete intellectual destruction can a nation be secure. Thankfully, we live in the United States - a blessed country - that is, as long as we keep such dangerous beliefs under wraps. chuckhumphry

sparc, I don't get what you're getting at. Care to explain? chuckhumphry

I find this explanation highly enlightening. Despite the more overtly religious tenor of American and even (to a lesser degree)Canadian society, I don't think we on this side of the Atlantic are immune from the type of response shown by the Council of Europe. When your security is threatened, protection of civil rights starts to become "tempered" by concerns about security rather quickly, and scapegoats are never far away. SCheesman

above: should be "reputed opinion wrt the RC Church" SCheesman

sparc, same in what way? How is discussing a European issue with a non-European supposed to be in any way equivalent with discussing it with someone who actually lives in the environment? And what does the reputed opinion of the Martin Bucer Seminary have to do with their insights into the issue discussed here. What insights can you bring to this issue? Is it sparc or snark? I'm with Denyse. SCheesman

This whole thread could disappear into the night with no loss, and it well may, unless you start saying something to the purpose.

Teach the controversy? poachy

Just compare America to Europe: it’s obvious that historically, the more secular a nation, the worse off its citizens!

In what ways? (I hope nobody minds this question. I'm just interested in the details.) Daniel King

sparc, you wrote, "Isn’t citing the Vice President for Research and Personnel Development Martin Bucer Seminary who according to the seminary’s web pages hosted an intelligent design creationists symposium in Prague (October 22, 2005) the same as discussing the issue with a Toronto-based journalist; grandmother; Roman Catholic Christian?" Watch it. You and your posts may be gone soon. This list is for intelligent people who want to discuss issues, not personalities. You are not persuading me that either you or your posts belong here. This whole thread could disappear into the night with no loss, and it well may, unless you start saying something to the purpose. O'Leary

@ chuckhumphry didn't the hyper-American Discovery Institute hold an ID creationist conference together muslim creationists in Turkey on February 24, 2007? Have they been guided by an external authority telling them right from wrong? And did both sides follow the same authority? sparc

I won't call this a discovery. Isn't citing the Vice President for Research and Personnel Development Martin Bucer Seminary who according to the seminary's web pages hosted an intelligent design creationists symposium in Prague (October 22, 2005) the same as discussing the issue with a Toronto-based journalist; grandmother; Roman Catholic Christian? BTW, if you can read German you will realize that the Martin Bucer Seminary is not too enthusiatic about catholics. sparc

Frost122585, It's more than that, it's the Atheistic Darwinists that are fundamentally anti-human rights. It's obvious to anyone that anyone believing that the universe is unguided will think they have carte blanche to do what they want. Without an external authority to tell us right from wrong, people will naturally descend into decadence and idolatry. Just compare America to Europe: it's obvious that historically, the more secular a nation, the worse off its citizens! chuckhumphry

Discovered!: Why the Council of Europe thinks ID threatens human rights Because they are socialists. And socialists dont believe in human rights. Frost122585