Monday, December 31, 2007

Fundamentalists Making the World a Better Place

Here are two recent examples of fundamentalists making the world a little less good for the rest of us.

First are the Christians. A Texan higher education panel has recommended the Institute for Creation Research be allowed to offer masters degrees in science education. While it's not yet final, this is not Texas' first dalliance with creationist leanings in recent times. This is troubling, but unfortunately not surprising. I should not have to explain to readers why this is a bad thing.

Next up are the Muslims. Al-Azhar, one of Islam's highest seats of learning located in Cairo, has come out and said that any woman who becomes pregnant due to rape must have an abortion. While it's nice to see someone religious supporting abortion, my quarrel is with the must part. This is taking freedom away from the woman to make the decision. Most may want to do so, but such a decision should never be forced. I also don't like the reason why raped women must have an abortion: to maintain social stability. Social stability is not a participant in deciding to have an abortion. It is a matter for the mother, usually the father (but not in this case), possibly a doctor in the case of medical issues, and anyone else they want involved. The state should not require or prevent an abortion in any situation as it is a matter for the individuals concerned.

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3 comments:

D said...

a friend of mine who's doing a postdoc in pure evolutionary biology (the hard stuff that can't be interpreted as creationism) is being funded by some intelligent design people. It all sounds a bit fishy to me. heh heh heh.

Hewhoblogs said...

Amen to that!

Hewhoblogs said...

I've read a few books about evolutionary biology since this time in my life.

The answers to all the questions that they had are in first year books and can be understood by someone that stopped doing biology in year 10. It is like they are willfully going out of their way to misunderstand evolution so that their narrow and petty world view doesn't come under fire.