Reuters: Atheists, Humanists Push Campaign for 'Darwin Day'
 

Atheists, Humanists Push Campaign for 'Darwin Day'

By Robert Evans

GENEVA (Reuters) - Atheist, agnostic and humanist organizations in the Americas, Europe and Asia are gearing up for a five-year campaign aimed at achieving international recognition of Feb. 12 as "Darwin Day."

Their target date is 2009 -- the bicentenary of the birth of British biologist Charles Darwin whose own faith in a deity who created the world collapsed before the theory of evolution he set out in 1859 in his ground-breaking "The Origin of Species."

Why push for an annual celebration of Darwin now? His ideas are widely shared and even religious leaders from churches that once denounced him as a heretic accept that life on Earth evolved over 3 billion years from primitive forms.

"Because a Darwin Day would send out a signal that science matters in an era when pseudo-science and fear of science seem to be gaining ground," argues the British Humanist Association, which is playing a key role in the campaign.

In the United States, where a survey in 2002 found that 45 percent of the population believe an all-powerful deity created the universe and all life in it within the last 10,000 years, this concern has even stronger force.

Under the administration President Bush (news - web sites), who says he is a born-again Christian, U.S. humanists and atheists say there has been a broad offensive by "creationists" aimed at undermining or even halting the teaching of evolution in schools.

The creationist stance has been boosted by a newer movement arguing that, while the Earth may indeed be billions of years old, evolution leaves open many questions that can only be answered by the existence of an "Intelligent Designer."

CREATIONISM 'VERY SCARY'

"It is very, very scary," says Amanda Chesworth, head of the U.S. Darwin Day movement which works to counter the trend by organizing community festivals marking the biologist's birthday. "Creationism is spreading further and further."

"Our nation went from the Earth to the moon a few years ago and discovered these worlds date back billions of years. Now it is sticking its head in the sand, claiming the whole lot was made in a flash a few millennia ago by one entity."

In Britain, where, unlike the United States, religious observance is weak, there are strong concerns among secularist groupings over the promotion by British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites), a professed Christian, of "faith-based" education.

Blair's Labor government has allowed creationists to take over funding and administration of at least one state school where pupils are taught creationism.

Other schools may follow, Keith Porteous Wood of Britain's National Secular Society says, unless critics speak out.

In India, where humanism and atheism have a strong tradition and are not so distant from traditional Hindu thought, which rejects "ultimate truths," rationalists are alarmed at the rise of an aggressively militant version of Hinduism.

Narisetti Innaiah, a leader of the country's Rationalist Association, argues that children should be taught about all religions in schools "but on scientific lines."

"They should be taught that gods and demons, devils and apparitions, heaven and hell, are all human creations, and that the world's scriptures are all human works," Innaiah says. "Children should have freedom to choose any religion, or none."

Events marking Darwin's birthday this year are scheduled in the United States, Canada, Mexico, India, Nepal, Australia, South Africa, Zambia, Argentina, Brazil and Peru.

LATIN AMERICAN CHALLENGE

Latin American humanists, arguing that Catholic teachings of humility have done little to encourage populations mired in poverty to fight exploitation, face a mounting challenge from evangelical Protestant groups funded from the United States.

In a church a stone's throw from the Darwin Research Station on Ecuador's Galapagos Islands (news - web sites) -- where the biologist gathered much of his evidence for evolution -- fiery evangelical sermons on hellfire awaiting unbelievers are on the daily menu.

In Europe, humanists in former Soviet-bloc countries where Catholicism is strong -- like Poland and Slovakia -- are also struggling to raise their voices against what they see as religious indoctrination in state schools.

Slovak humanists plan protests around Feb. 12 over a concordat that their country's government has just signed with the Vatican (news - web sites) mandating religious education in schools.

But in Muslim countries, proponents of Darwin Day say the idea is a nonstarter, for the moment. In many, the nonreligious and even scientists who take a Darwinist view can face prison, or death, for propagating agnosticism or atheism.

"However, even there a change may come," says a former Asian Muslim who renounced his faith and has written several widely read books, under the pseudonym Ibn Warraq, questioning the basis of Islam.

"There are millions of people across the Islamic world who hold rationalist views and will hopefully one day be able to voice them in freedom."

The concept of having a whatever day is very stupid. I do not see how it would encourage a shifting in demeanor towards the sciences and formal logic to have an evolutionarily inferior steak in the name of darwin every year.

It doesn't. Some atheists just wanna be Christians, Part II. It disgusts me, and I am an atheist.

Darwin really opened a can of nasty freakin' worms too, e.g. Eugenics.

I'm all for this holiday if it means that we get an extra day off work and school. :)

Skinner must have fished with them.

And the fact that these guys put so much faith in science and deny "absolute truths" is disturbing in and of itself, but calling themselves "rationalists" puts icing on the cake.

You can take the idiots out of their religion, but you can't take the religion out of the idiots.

Brak brak brak..

EDIT: Fuck it. Nevermind.

Artificial, please don't post to mock OAO in every other thread he visits.

Oh heavens, no! Let's not mock anyone on an i-mockery forum!

Oh, silly me, I forgot: only certain people here are allowed to do that. I mean, it's not like these boards are about mockery or anything. We should definitely be civil with the little fucker who treats everyone who disagrees with him like an idiot, right?

Fuck it. Whatever.

Why do I even need to explain this? This constant oao mocking is derailing every worthwhile thread he posts in. And if oao was a particularily interesting person (even in a bad way) I guess it would be better but oao is just average and many of the things he posts here are blatant flaim bait. I mean, mocking something that really deserves it is one thing, and obsessing over a sorry 16 year old kid with delusions of philosophical profundity is another.

Now, young man, I hope to see more of that mentality next time you see oao post more of his usual drivel.

I'll take a Darwin Day over Jesus Day any day of the week. :snicker

Okay. I'm sorry. :(

Even if it does happen, I doubt it'll ever amount to much. Atheists/Humanists/Free Thinkers/whathaveyou are far too disorganized to become a powerful bloc. And despite what some say, that Atheism is "just another religion", its disorganization says quite a lot actually - many who hold such beliefs shun such dogmatism, IMO.

I for one would like to see it take off. There may be no "absolute truths", but I can say absolutely that Creationism is just plain wrong.

I'd like to see it happen, too, but I'm not overly optimistic about its chances. Whether we like it or not, the free-thinkers are completely outnumbered, and I don't expect that to change anytime soon. If our society is based on majority rule, we're going to be playing by the rules of religious types for some time.

I think a person like Darwin deserves a special day, concidering his accomplishments towards science.

I always hate to see bigot atheist bash religion like its some inferior way of thinking. Eventhough I'm not a religious person and am pretty close to being an athiest, I still think that religion has given good concepts to help develop society. People who believe in them are just brought up to do so, there not necessarliy stupid.

And its not like you can fully trust science either. There are a lot of scientists that really believe that black are genetically inferior to white people, that men over 60 are gay and how they have these "machines" that can tell if your racist or not.

There are plenty of scientists who aren't scientists too. :rolleyes

Too much hoopla about Darwin. Religious pseudoscience is only gaining ground in America and other assorted religious countries, not so much in more civilized parts of the world. Pushing a Darwin Day is not going to accomplish anything except a sacrifice of all the money spent on lobbying, etc. etc. etc. These folks should find something more worthwhile to do. Like a barbecue. Those are fun.

Helm, you could spend your time more wisely by going against the grain of your ethnic heritage by 1) taking a bath and 2) engaging in hetrosexual sex.

Why don't you try doing something really uncatholic, like shutting the hell up and/or not being an idiot?

"Helm, you could spend your time more wisely by going against the grain of your ethnic heritage by 1) taking a bath and 2) engaging in hetrosexual sex."

Even AB should be able to recognize what is so idiotic about those who have faith in science while simultaneously holding that there are no absolute truths.

If nothing can be absolutely true, what the hell is the point of science? If we deny that things can be true, the entire point of science is lost.

Wait, so there's no confusion: did they deny the existence of absolute truths in general or just absolute moral truths?