Europe sees creationism as threat to human rights

Europe sees creationism as threat to human rights

Europe's primary human rights body will vote on a proposal this week to defend the teaching of Darwinian evolution and keep creationist and intelligent design views out of science classes in state schools in its 47 member countries.

This has always been a problem with the liberal idea of "cultural diversity." Far too many cultures still treat women as chattel, glorify religious violence, and battle science because its provable tenets contradict their fairy tales from the ancient past. This is where liberalism breaks down. We have get shitty with people: religious indoctrination is child abuse, stupid lies and made-up fantasies about the origin and evolution of life on earth form the basis of the belief systems that permit ignorance and abuse everywhere there is fundamentalist religion, whether christian or muslim or hindu.

You know what will be really hilarious? If the vote goes through to prevent the teaching of fantasies as science, creationsit cacklers everywhere are going to slapping their lips together in the form of rapidfire hate speech like never before. Fox News will become the comedy channel.

Richard Dawkins Has a Posse

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

There's something really interesting to read in the page on the foundation's mission:

Feminists and homosexuals have taught us the value of consciousness-raising. A phrase like “One man one vote” either causes you to flinch, or is uttered with intent to make you flinch. It is nowadays almost impossible to hear the phrase with its original innocent meaning of “One adult person one vote.” Some atheists and freethinkers try to raise consciousness about, for example, the phrase ‘under God’ in the US Pledge of Allegiance. I am more interested in raising consciousness about something else: the habit, practised not only by religious people, of labelling children by the religion of their parents. This is a Catholic child. That is a Muslim child. I want everybody to flinch when they hear such a phrase, just as they would if they heard, That is a Marxist child. It is immoral to brand young children with the religion of their parents. At present, hardly anybody’s consciousness is raised to this. I would welcome suggestions, perhaps from those with experience of the feminist and gay campaigns, for the most effective ways to raise consciousness. I would like such consciousness-raising to be a particular project of this foundation.

For somebody who claims religion is a thought virus, this seems like an oddly naive hope. The only way to kill a virus is to quarantine it until it has no more carriers. And that, of course, smacks a little too much of a "final solution" and is completely unacceptable. I think we're going to be stuck with religion until the Singularity happens.