Turkey drops evolution from curriculum

[Sparhafoc]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41003105

"They want to teach about the origins of man as it is written in religious texts, as if we all descended from Adam and Eve,"

And it looks like its also important that children learn about jihad, for fuck's sakes.

Education Minister Ismet Yilmaz argued that the word was misinterpreted and what it actually meant was to serve the community, to increase welfare, to secure peace and understanding of one another.

According to the dictionary of the Institute of Turkish Language, jihad is an Arabic word meaning "a religious war".

Again, this is what Creationism is really about. Supplanting science and knowledge based study with traditional mythology asserted as fact when every believer should know it is faith.

To our resident Christian Creationists - you are the people paving the way for these morons to do this. You provide them the arguments, and the outcome will be completely contrary to what you imagine. All we'll do is entrench partisan beliefs around the world.

Science is singular, it crosses all cultures, and any nation that fails to respect knowledge is one that is doomed to regress to idiocy.

 

[Visaki]

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk would spin around in his grave.

 

[leroy]

"We only say this: Let's not teach this subject at this level, but delay it to undergraduate study," he added.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41003105


To me it doesn't sound too radical.

but rather to me (subjetive opinion) it sounds like a good idea worthy of consideration.

 

[Bango Skank]

I witnessed a few christian creationists celebrate Turkey's decision here in finland. Apparently for some of them it won't matter that it's islamic creationism, as long as it isn't about evolution.

Seen many times the same twisted logic used in topics about former atheists who converted, but not in christianity (Anthony Flew for example). Apparently it is better to believe and worship false gods than being an atheist.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk would spin around in his grave.

I'm a bit more worried about the impact on other things than some dead dude!

For example, there's a big question concerning today's population of the region - there are a lot of people of other religious affiliation living there, as well as a huge number of ethnic minorities (the two often go hand in hand).

Plus there's the long term effect of a fundamentalizing Muslim nation with high development and infrastructure sitting right on the borders of Europe. Turkey's a very powerful nation in a very strategic position. I can't see how educating children in Jihad - regardless of the multiple meanings it may have - can be seen as anything but ludicrously dangerous for the world.

When Christians and various usually right-leaning groups and individuals in our societies talk about Islam needing a reformation, there's a huge set of problematic assumptions there, not least that the Christian Reformation was the rebirth of antiquated fundamentalism. One is that there is no functional head of Islam that can be cajoled into prosocial policies, so each and every nation has a suite of varyingly trained theologians running round espousing all manner of particular interpretations based on their relations with that community, including its history and its status. Turkey is clearly under the sway of some very serious Dominionist type religionists who want to install proper Islamic values on Turkey, and which good Muslim could refuse that? The problem, as is manifestly clear to all those who are not One True Muslims is that we all know there is no One True Islam, and it's just as possible a crackpot, vicious, antisocial one could form as a benevolent, tolerant, neighborly one.

To go back to the similarity between the situation in Turkey and the Creationist movement of the USA, you only need to look at some of the characters in that particular drama. A good example would be Adnan Oktar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adnan_Oktar

Adnan Oktar (born 2 February 1956), also known as Harun Yahya,[1] is a Turkish author as well as an Islamic creationist.[2] In 2007, he sent thousands of unsolicited copies of his book, The Atlas of Creation,[3] which advocates Islamic creationism, to American scientists, members of Congress, and science museums.[4] Oktar runs two organizations of which he is also the Honorary President: Bilim Araştırma Vakfı (BAV, literally, "Science Research Foundation", established 1990), which promotes creationism and Milli Değerleri Koruma Vakfı (literally, "National Values Preservation Foundation", established 1995) which works domestically on a variety of moral issues.[5]

In more recent years, Adnan Oktar has been known for his televangelism on his TV channel, A9 TV, noted especially for featuring 'kittens', his female devotees.[6] His organization is commonly referred to as a cult,[7] and he has been described as the "most notorious cult leader in Turkey."[8] Oktar filed more than 5000 lawsuits against individuals for defamation in the last decade,[9] which led to the blocking of a number of prominent websites in Turkey.
...

Oktar has been preaching about the "Turkish-Islamic Union", which would bring peace to the entire Muslim world under the leadership of Turkey.

...

In 2010, Oktar was selected as one of the top fifty of The 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre of Jordan for his dissemination of creationism in an Islamic context, and other extensively distributed publications on Islamic topics.

With an anti-secular government, Turkey is primed for snake oil sellers like this chap. And of course, snake oil sellers are never just selling one type of snake oil. They've got one for every occasion.

The spread of organized Christian creationism to Islam began in the 1980s, when the Muslim minister of education in Turkey turned to the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), a Christian institution then located near San Diego, California, for help in developing twofold curriculum that would teach evolution and creationism side by side. In 1990, the Science Research Foundation (BAV in Turkish) was formed in Istanbul, headed by Oktar.[39]

For many years Oktar drew on the writings of young earth Christian creationists to develop his case against evolution. However, Islam does not require belief in Young Earth creationism, and making use of the fact that earth may have existed for billions of years, Oktar later produced material which was more similar to Intelligent Design. In fact, Harun Yahya's website was listed as an "Islamic intelligent design" website by the Discovery Institute.[39] However Oktar does not embrace use of the term 'Intelligent Design' due to its lack of specific mention of God, calling it 'another of Satan's snares'.[39][40]

In early 1998, the BAV launched its first campaign against evolution and Darwinism.[11] Thousands of free copies of Oktar's book, The Evolution Deceit,[41] and the booklets based on this book were distributed throughout Turkey.[42] They regularly ran full-page ads against evolution in daily Turkish newspapers and even ran an ad in the U.S. magazine TIME.[5] The funding of the campaigns is unknown.[15] BAV spearheaded an effort to confront Turkish academics who taught evolutionary biology[43] A number of faculty members were harassed, threatened and slandered in fliers, leading to legal action against BAV (see "Legal Issues" below).....[15]

Even those of us who may be unfamiliar with Muslims would still recognize the similarity to well-established Christian Creationists there (Hovind!). It's no surprise - Oktar copied them, their arguments, their techniques, and their disdain for honesty, just as so many modern Islamic televangelists ironically borrow the words of Christian apologists.

Oktar's arguments, format of argument, and hubris are perfectly recognizable in popular (and sadly, local) Christian Creationists.

Oktar published volume 1 of his Yaratılış Atlası (The Atlas of Creation), with Global Publishing, Istanbul, Turkey in October 2006.[47] Volumes 2 and 3 followed in 2007. A dedicated website (yaratilisatlasi.com, English atlasofcreation.com) registered to Global Yayıncılık (Global Publishing), Istanbul, went online also in 2007.

At 28 cm x 43 cm and nearly 5.5 kg, with a bright red cover and almost 800 glossy pages, most of them lavishly illustrated, "Atlas of Creation" is according to the New York Times "probably the largest and most beautiful creationist challenge yet to Darwin’s theory, which Mr. Yahya calls a feeble and perverted ideology contradicted by the Koran".[4] Tens of thousands of copies of the book were sent -- unsolicited -- to schools, prominent researchers and research institutes throughout Europe and the United States.[4][48]

Well known for including such 'fossils' as fishing lures and plastercasts.


Oktar is blessed by the fact that his nation's government is well entrenched and sympathetic to his cause, and this is well worth being worried about.

But we might also want to consider the USA and question whether we are right to consider it resistant to such a fundamentalist government. Trump has shown how quickly any semblance of normality can be turned on its head with his white supremacist 'fine people' comments. Let the Bernhards and the Leroys of this world back in charge of western nations as they were during the Inquisitions, but this time give them the modern machines of war, and we will see hell on Earth.

Creationism doesn't have any teeth in most of Europe, but we also need to look to our East and make sure that this fundamentalism isn't mirrored in historical tango.

I don't describe myself as a secularist often, but there are times when it is appropriate to. The separation of the Church and State is essential - it protects us from the worst aspects of ourselves. And any Christian from our cultures who disagrees should really stop and think how recently it was that Christians killed other Christians because one was socially, politically, and judicially dominant over the other group.

Secularism enshrines the right for all to exist, not for one idea to dictate what is allowed to exist.

 

[Sparhafoc]

I witnessed a few christian creationists celebrate Turkey's decision here in finland.

There's an interesting parallel between those Christian Creationists crowing about how Turkey's an example of how they can succeed (and we've seen them on this forum), and the alt-right response to Brexit.

Perhaps it's just that Creationists and white supremacists are fuckwits, but I think there's a wider issue there with respect to how both groups essentially got left behind by society.

Apparently for some of them it won't matter that it's islamic creationism, as long as it isn't about evolution.

Yup, it's one of those compelling ironies.

That's why I find it amusing when I see my Pakistani friends' appealing to Muslim televangelists who are mouthing Christian apologetics - if the argument was sound and valid as fundamentalists claim, then the answer would necessarily be this god rather than that god. But none of them see it - the fallacy of religious homogeneity.

Seen many times the same twisted logic used in topics about former atheists who converted, but not in christianity (Anthony Flew for example). Apparently it is better to believe and worship false gods than being an atheist.

It initially sickened me that such apologists would appeal to a man with dementia as a platform from which to crow, but then I learned more about the kind of people who crow about such things and why they're apologists, and then it sadly all makes sense.