That’s very strange, Axegrrl. I live in Toronto and that night they aired Andre Rieu…

Being in the UK, and being one who doesn’t watch broadcast TV anyway, I have just watched it via the web (thanks for the link).

It makes me more inclined to agree with Richard Dawkins in that these religious people are truly deluded.

Also, and even though I do not live in the US, I would like offer my thanks and appreciation to all those who were involved in the stand against ID creationism being taught in US state schools. It is clear that there is a long way to go, but if the US is to avoid falling into a new ‘dark age’, this is a fight that people of good conscience cannot afford to lose.

During the dark ages in Europe, the Middle East was the world leader in intellectual matters. After Europe broke the yoke of religious dogma and superstition, the intellectual, economic and living standard benefits led to it becoming the dominant region, and giving birth to the ‘civilised’ west we see today. If we compare that to the fall of the Middle East as religion gained precedence over reason, we should feel very concerned as to the fate of the US, if religion does succeed in supplanting reason as the perceived route to knowledge.

Having said that, if religion does take over in the US (with the certain to follow ‘dark age’), those of us in Europe (a much less religiously radical place generally) will be in economic ascendance again! Yippee! (only joking!)

Everyone on the side of reason, please keep up the good fight.

Ski.

I have been under the impression lately that creationism is also prevalent the U.K. as well? From the little reading I’ve done there is only a partial correlation to the rise in the Muslim community (only like 2%) and that the effects are seen more wide spread. Some of the same treads I’ve noticed here seem to be there as well such as - worries of understanding science, the teaching the controversy line, literalism in sacred text, etc. The numbers seemed high last time I looked, something like 40% of the population do not believe (don’t like using that word in this context but..) in evolution, and 30% of students.

It also seems some of the surveys I have seen look as weird as they do here. Such as the paradox in how the questions are answered. This goes for god belief as well with 50% or so saying they believe in god, but over 70% saying they are Christian. But, it is the disconnect from religion that seems to sway things and I have a feeling that is more to do with historical features. But, there also seems to be a rise in “spiritualism” that has “supernatural” basis’.

I remember seeing where in a very short period of time, around a 20 year time span around half of Christians just stopped going to church. That seems remarkable and makes me wonder why.

Perhaps you could shed some light on this? I’ve often wondered to about the statistical significance when comparing the U.K. to the U.S. The U.K. has a population of about 60,000,000 whereas the pop of the U.S. is around 300,000,000.

I just thought I’d post the NY Times review on the program HERE.

There are, of course, religious nutters here as well, however for the most part, there seem to be far fewer on the extremes than in the US.

in the last uk census there was an optional question about belief. 71% said they were christian with the next group ‘no religion’ being 15.5 percent. I have also read that many people say they are christian purely out of habit, rather than actually believeing!

Tony Blair has tried to give religion more prominence with more money for religious schools but most people are too ‘middle of the road’ for the extremes to make too much progress.

I have met creationists, but they are rare, or at least few people express that they are creationists.

The cloud on the horizon is radical islam. there seems to be quite a few who want to bring sharia law to the UK. the general responce is “if you wish to live that way, go somewhere else”, but as the numbers of islamic people increase, it may well become more of an issue.

Ski.

I’ve been following this crapola in one way or the other for the past 20 years. My interest started peaking around 10 years ago, largely because of Skeptic magazine and their essay style book reviews of IDer’s offerings and their fairly straight scientific approach to the issue.

It may seem heresy to say, but for me the fact that creationist have gotten in bed with the IDer’s is a good thing. The more the shift occurs and people are willing to entertain the idea we are talking billions of years instead of six thousand, you have gone a long, long...........way. The six thousand year mark also is significant because of the fact this isn’t so much a literal reading of any sacred text, it is an interpretation. This is why I side with those that think debating the IDer’s is a good thing, if done right (as with Shermer) there is always room to explain evolution. Now I know the argument is that it legitimatizes their side and they come to the debates with deep bias, but an opportunity to communicate science in an upfront way should be taken. In a trial setting such as Dover you have a kind of formal debate going on and the extension from there is to reveal a non ridiculing tone, because a judge would not allow for that. The science is shown and the underhandedness of the IDer’s revealed.  Science is defended and constitutional law protected.

I thought they did a really great job of it. I just saw it yesterday online and was really impressed with the extent at witch they took all the speculation out of the ID/creationist claims.  And the fact that they are putting the whole thing online is an excellent resource for anyone in the world who might be confronted with this kind of soft thinking in science.  If I had the money, I would buy it, just so money went to those who made that.

It used to be heresy to say the earth was spherical, it used to be heresy to say the earth revolved around the sun, blah, blah.

You always have to give religion a little time to accept scientific discoveries as truth and then edit their dogma to fit.  Roman Catholics, although bashed on this forum as the worst type of Christians lol, are pretty good about accepting science as it comes along.  There is definitely a delay, but it happens eventually.  Thomas Aquinas did not shy from science, and he is recognized as a saint.

Damn! Can’t even watch stuff from that site here in the UK! :(

EDIT: You can watch it? Huh? Where?

Kyu

facebreaker, hi.

facebreaker1212 - 10 March 2008 11:18 PM

It used to be heresy to say the earth was spherical, it used to be heresy to say the earth revolved around the sun, blah, blah.

You always have to give religion a little time to accept scientific discoveries as truth and then edit their dogma to fit.  Roman Catholics, although bashed on this forum as the worst type of Christians lol, are pretty good about accepting science as it comes along.  There is definitely a delay, but it happens eventually.  Thomas Aquinas did not shy from science, and he is recognized as a saint.

That’s a generous thing to say, but maybe too generous. Certainly the ‘top men’ in a church accept things that the peasants in the provinces won’t accept.

Btw: It was never heresy to say that the earth was spherical. A spherical earth was accepted since Plato. There’s a single early-medieval cleric named, i kid you not, Cosmas Indicopleustes, who’s been cited in old histories of science as ‘typical’ when he most certainly was not. (Here’s his cosmology: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/awiesner/cosmas.html)

Further, it was never heresy to say that the earth revolved around the Sun. This may sound a bit tricksy, but for what it’s worth, Galileo was prosecuted for saying he had a proof that the earth moved.
(Further and curiously, the proof was not even that it revolved or orbited but that it rotated on its axis. He claimed that his theory of the tides was the proof. (Of course he was also pushing Copernicanism in general, but he wants his proof of a rotating earth to make the orbiting more plausible along with the other pieces of evidence that an orbiting earth is likely.)

Some protestants of the 16th-17th century resisted Copernican theory more than others, however.

cheers,

kirk