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Islamic Creationism

Mon, 2008-03-17 02:04 — Healyhatman
Question:: 
I've recently been assaulted by horrible videos and text-based websites claiming that certain passages of the Koran, just like Christian creationists / biblical literalistics say, conform to or are validated by modern science. Examples like in the Koran a line saying there's one force that guides everything - this is interpreted as relating to efforts to construct a grand "theory of everything". It obviously ignores the fact that such a theory might not even pan out, which is besides the point. One of the most stupid things I've seen from these Koranical literlists though is claiming that the Koran shows that they knew the Earth was round, because it says the World is "spread out like a carpet". I lay my carpet flat, but the question at the end of all this is: Is Islamic creationism as prevalent as the American Christian version? Are there as many intellectually vapid claims made? What about the Islamic arm of the Intelligent Design movement, are there Muslim schools in America and other parts of the world being assaulted by parents urging the Islamic schools to "teach the controversy?"
Atheist Answer: 

There are passages of the Koran which do seem to refer to aspects of modern science. That's because they're vague as all get out and, as the carpet example shows, enough creative interpretation can make anything fit the old writings.

The Islamic creationist lobby is very active in certain countries, for example Turkey. Sometimes it even collaborates with the Christian creationist lobby to fight evolution. Evolution contradicts the Koran too, and even if it didn't Muslims regard the basic timeline of the Bible as accurate. They fight evolution to preserve the inerrancy of their core texts, just like the creationists we're used to.

The anti-evolution claims and arguments in Islamic creationism are interchangeable with the Christian ones. On public access TV here in Australia, a Muslim host presented a Christian creationist video with no qualms.

The difference is that there is no equivalent to the Intelligent Design movement in Islamic creationism. While some of the arguments aren't religious in nature, there's no attempt to present creationism as a secular scientific theory. There's a far more honest and direct effort to defeat evolution and replace it with the Koran's version of events.

This is not surprising as church-state separation isn't always a constitutional issue outside of the United States. Turkish school curricula are under direct religious assault, as in many countries. There's no need for such contingency campaigns as "critical analysis of evolution" and "teach the controversy". Those only came about in America when the initial Intelligent Design movement was blocked in court. Intelligent Design itself was only conceived in 1987 when Christian creationism in schools was ruled unconstitutional.

- SmartLX

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Thu, 2008-04-03 14:47 — JackH (not verified)

Islamic Creationaism

In the Library I work in (in London) there are loads and loads of Islamic books on "the great Darwin Deception" like the Christians they also disagree with the concept of evolution. The muslims are actually even worse - some of these tomes read as if Darwin was the anit-christ (or anti-mohammed) himself!