Did Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution advocate racism and genocide?

Ken Ham thinks so. He is the leader of the Christian group Answers in Genesis and the founder of the Creation Museum built last year in Petersburg, Kentucky. Ham just released a book titled, Darwin’s Plantation: Evolution’s Racist Roots.

The New York Times includes several of Ham’s comments:

”What Darwinian evolution did I would say is provide what people thought was a scientific justification for separation of races,” Ham said in an interview.

In the new book, Ham says that Darwin’s theory that natural selection caused gradual biological changes over time, puts some races ”higher on the evolutionary scale” and others ”closer to the apes.”

”Although racism did not begin with Darwinism, Darwin did more than any person to popularize it,” Ham writes.

Ham further contends that the theory fanned the flames of ”ethnic superiority.”

”Stalin, Hitler and Mao were responsible for the deaths of tens of millions — and it can be shown they did this because of the influence of Darwinian naturalism…,” Ham writes.

The Darwin Report has this to say:

Historically speaking, Charles Darwin came from a family of abolitionists. His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, strongly disapproved of slavery. And Charles Darwin wrote negatively about the slavery he witnessed on his travels in his book, The Voyage Of The Beagle. Darwin’s The Descent Of Man is also an argument against racism, since one of the points in it is the common ancestry of all the humans races. And simply using the word “savage,” as Darwin did, in its 19th century context doesn’t make a man a racist. Political correctness and cultural sensitivity were more than a century away.

But of course, David L. Schultz, associate professor of biology at Nicholls State University in Louisiana, sees the bigger agenda, calling Ham’s attempts as “a ploy to get evolution out of the curriculum.”

”Of course everybody’s against teaching children racism, so if you call it racist, you can have it removed,” said Schultz. He testified before a Louisiana legislative panel that took up the bill that would have tied evolution with racism. The measure was eventually stripped of any reference to Darwin.

I think I’d rather take the words of a true biologist with scientific reasoning on his side instead of a non-scientist, creationism-loving nutcase who believes that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth together.

It just wouldn’t be the holiday season without Bill O’Reilly and his contrived ‘War on Christmas,’ would it?

The Fox News pundit is back again to yabber on and on about our attempts to “diminish Christmas for secular progressive reasons.” Apparently, the city of Fort Collins, Colorado, and their decision to choose white lights over the “more Christmas-y” colored lights has really gotten Bill all riled up (a video of the segment posted on the blog Think Progress can be seen here).

Despite what O’Reilly would have you believe, we Humanists do respect Christmas, as we respect Hanukkah, Kwaanza, Eid, and other December holidays (we even have our own in HumanLight). Every religious and nonreligious holiday in the month of December celebrate similar themes: happiness, peace, love, joy. However you want to celebrate is up to you.

O’Reilly is the only one fighting in this so-called ‘war.’ For someone who cherishes this time of year so much, his hate-filled mongering is about as un-Christmas as you can get.

The world is at a very strange place when a letter from 138 senior Islamic clerics and scholars to 25 Christian leaders, most notably Pope Benedict XVI, has seeming made little difference in the world. The 29-page letter was sent on October 11, 2007 from well-known figures from the Sunni, Shiite, Salafi, and Sufi branches of Islam representing more than 40 countries throughout the Middle East and beyond.

The letter states, in part, that “Christianity and Islam are the largest and second largest religions in the world and in history. The relationship between these two religious communities [is] the most important factor in contributing to meaningful peace around the world.”

This is good, maybe even wonderful, but why is no one really cheering? Well, it has been suggested that the Vatican is more attracted to creating diplomatic relations with Muslim governments than in engaging Muslims in theological dialogue.  

In an October 19 interview with the French Catholic daily La Croix (reported on by Reuters), French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, called the letter “an eloquent example of a dialogue among spiritualities.” He also noted that Christians would have to discuss curbs on building churches in the Islamic world.

While Tauran seemed to want to discuss important issues between the two religions, he went on to dismiss the possibility since “Muslims do not accept discussion about the Quran, because they say it was written under the dictates of God. With such an absolutist interpretation, it’s difficult to discuss the contents of the faith.” Interreligious dialogue can take place “with some religions,” Tauran continued, “but with Islam, not at this time.” Christians aren’t exactly meeting the group of Islamic clerics halfway if this is the attitude to be taken.

Conservative critics have also jumped on this line from the letter:

As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them—so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes.

This has struck some as a half-extended olive branch. Perhaps we need to get some humanist or atheist to moderate since we wouldn’t take a stance on the Quran or the Bible or Papal infallibility. Maybe I’m joking, but then maybe not.

1. “I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did.”
Sharm el-Sheikh August 2003

2. “I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.”
Statement made during campaign visit to Amish community, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Jul. 9, 2004

3. “I’m also mindful that man should never try to put words in God’s mouth. I mean, we should never ascribe natural disasters or anything else to God. We are in no way, shape, or form should a human being, play God.”
Washington, D.C., Jan. 14, 2005

4. “Well, first of all, you got to understand some of my view on freedom, it’s not American’s gift to the world. See, freedom is God — is God given.”
Interview with TVR, Romania, Nov. 23, 2002

5. “And there’s nothing more powerful in helping change the country than the faith — faith in Dios.” National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast, Washington, D.C., May 16, 2002

6. “God bless the people of this part of the world.”
Minneapolis, Minnesota, Aug. 4, 2007

(Thanks to Atheist Perspective for compiling the list from Dubya Speak and bringing it to my attention. The complete list can be found here. )

During the course of a recent online journey through the wonderful world of conservative blogs, I was distracted by an strange advertisement for “The Nazareth Cross: the World’s Largest Cross.” Based on the picture used in the ad I didn’t think it could be real. I was mistaken.

Yes, the Nazareth Cross Project aims to build a 60 meter (180 foot) tall cross in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth, which is widely considered to be the birth place of Jesus.The website for the project is mostly an effort to get people to donate the funds needed to build the cross. Donors will be able to include their personal engraving on one of the 7.2 million tiles that will adorn the cross. These tiles will be made of local stone, gold, silver, or platinum, depending on the generosity of the donor. Since the website exists primarily to bring in donations, I am somewhat comforted by the possibility that this is all a scam.

Of Nazareth’s 64,800 inhabitants, approximately 70% are Muslim. I wonder how they feel about this? Is it really helpful to have a 180-foot cross obstructing the skyline of this predominantly Muslim city? Sadly, the crusades of the high Middle Ages continue to serve as a powerful symbol and starting point in a long history of perceived Western meddling in the Middle East. Well, here we have a newer, more tangible 180-foot, gold/silver/platinum plated symbol of Western meddling.

That oughta win a few hearts and minds, not that we’re doing a very good job anyways.

The town of Ave Maria, Florida, isn’t just any old town. It’s a vision-turned-reality for Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, whose lifelong dream was to create a community of residents who share his Catholic values. The town comes with its own Catholic church and university, while adult book stores, strip clubs, and even pharmacies that dispense birth control are strongly discouraged, of course.

Ave Maria is open to everyone, but does anyone else see how difficult it would be for an atheist, Muslim, Jew–anyone who’s NOT a Catholic, for that matter–to actually live there? Why can’t they just be honest and say that this is a Catholics-only community? To be honest, I’m not entirely opposed to it, as many Humanists have been in favor of creating Humanist living communities for years, but I fail to see the value in shunning diversity by restricting oneself to Catholic-only neighbors.

And what would a classified ad for housing in Ave Maria look like?

Spacious 3 bedroom/2 bath in quaint Florida town. Walking distance to church. Five minutes to public transportation, shops, and restaurants. Serious inquiries from Catholics only; others need not apply.

The Washington Post recently reported that a judge agreed to a $660 million clergy abuse settlement between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and alleged victims of clergy sex abuse. Cardinal Roger Mahony issued an apology an then said Monday that he would spend the rest of the day praying for those who claimed abuse. In reality, it seems that what made the most difference for the abused was not prayer but their taking action and telling their own stories.

Michael Hennigan, the archdiocese attorney, said private meetings with 70 of the plaintiffs made the most impact on him.”It changed us all, and it changed our perspective on what’s happened here,” he said. “I’d like to say that the church would have been reformed without these cases, but I don’t know that’s true,” he said. “These cases have forever reformed the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. It will never be the same.” Does it take 70 cases to change an Archdiocese? How many to change a church?

The Creation Museum’s “Adam” is an actor who’s played a number of roles, including that of owner of a porn website called “Bedroom Acrobat.” The Museum, which opened in May and tells the Bible’s version of how Earth was created, recently pulled a video featuring Eric Linden as Adam after learning from the Associated Press of his online appearances. The 27-year-old actor appears as Adam in 1 of 55 videos featured on visitor tours at the Petersburg, Kentucky museum and told the AP that he is no longer affiliated with the site.

If you failed to catch Wednesday night’s episode of Nightline, which pitted actor Kirk Cameron of Growing Pains fame and evangelical minister Ray Comfort against Brian Sapient (and someone known as “Kelly”) of the Rational Response Squad on the topic, “Does God Exist?” then you’re in luck: the segment appears online at ABC News.

What’s your opinion? Who presented the best arguments? Who was just downright awful? Let us know!

A new coalition of more than 100 largely evangelical Christian leaders and organizations asked Congress on Monday to pass bills to strengthen border controls but also give illegal immigrants ways to gain legal residency. The new group, Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, includes members like the Mennonite Church U.S.A.; the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which represents Latino evangelicals; individuals like Dr. Joel C. Hunter, pastor of Northland, a megachurch in Longwood, Fla.; Sammy Mah, president of World Relief, an aid group affiliated with the National Association of Evangelicals; and Jim Wallis through Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

Wallis touched off a spark at a Sojourners press conference announcing the coalition, when he remarked, “If given the choice on this issue between Jesus and Lou Dobbs, I choose my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

Jim Wallis’s statement on Lou Doubs

Lou Dobb’s reply

The first 2 blog posts on Beliefnet responding to Wallis strongly emphasize his previous claims that, “religion does not have a monopoly on morality,” and that our public discourse be steeped in reason rather than trying to convince Congress to bend to scripture. It would be foolish, a blogger cautions, not to include those of other faith traditions (as well as the non-religious) in conversation about moral issues facing our county, and indeed you have to cherry pick one religion to find the points that support your side (as, admittedly, I’m doing here by only include two blog posts).