Muslim students and creationism

Harun Yahya - idiocy

I was dismayed by a Muslim meeting about creationism.

It was at University College Cork, held by the Muslim Cultural Society, on 18th Feb, and was billed as “The Atlas of Creation - a nightmare for Darwinism”. Never was an event more aptly named. The blurb said : “This conference will present the collapse of the theory of evolution because this theory constitutes the basis of all anti-spiritual philosophies. Since Darwinism rejects the fact of creation—and therefore, God's existence—over the last 140 years it has caused many people to abandon their faith or fall into doubt. This talk will focus on scientific refutation of Darwinism through fossil record and palaeontology.”

The extent to which my worst fears were exceeded, exceeded my worst fears.

It was a 4-hour event with two lectures plus Q&A. The audience consisted of 60 Muslim students and me. This must have been a very high proportion of the Muslim students at the college. What dismayed me, was not just that the event took place at all, but that the audience evidently lapped it up. Not a glimmer of dissent or debate.

Harun Yahya was the main speaker and you can get a flavour of his idiocy from his website . Here's a sentence plucked at random: "Harun Yahya is well-known as an author who has written very important works disclosing the imposture of evolutionists, the invalidity of their claims and the dark liaisons between Darwinism and bloody ideologies." 

I got my question in first, hoping that others would come in behind me. But none did so. I said I was disappointed the Muslim Cultural Society had chosen to make anti-science their theme, and asked, why didn’t they focus on the story of Arab and Muslim science being the foundation of European science?

Afterwards they were all very polite about it, thanked me for coming, and tried to convert me!  Jim al Khalili is the man they should be inviting, I suggested to one of the organisers.  I don’t think they will.

Are the Muslim students at UCC unusual?