Many Muslims Adopting Old-Earth Creationism

Also from The New York Times:

Creationism is growing in the Muslim world, from Turkey to Pakistan to Indonesia, international academics said last month as they gathered here to discuss the topic. But, they said, young-Earth creationists, who believe God created the universe, Earth and life just a few thousand years ago, are rare, if not nonexistent.

This article is a veritable font of knowledge on the subject of Old Earth Creationism and Muslims, but I wonder how many people are shocked that in this modern era of religiosity that such a form of dogma could arise. I'm no more shocked than when seeing mountain people dig rattlesnakes out of pine boxes and kiss them, or people honestly attest to Jesus coming to America to be a prophet to the American Indians.

The article goes on to say more about this phenomenon in the context of Islam:

For many Muslims, even evolution and the notion that life flourished without the intervening hand of Allah is largely compatible with their religion. What many find unacceptable is human evolution, the idea that humans evolved from primitive primates. The Koran states that Allah created Adam, the first man, separately out of clay.

Pervez A. Hoodbhoy, a prominent atomic physicist at Quaid-e-Azam University in Pakistan, said that when he gave lectures covering the sweep of cosmological history from the Big Bang to the evolution of life on Earth, the audience listened without objection to most of it. “Everything is O.K. until the apes stand up,” Dr. Hoodbhoy said.

What we're seeing is not necessarily a dogged denouncement of science as a whole, but only in how science seems to explain the rise of humans out of the ranks of certain other primates.

Obama Admin. Refuses to Back Religion Anti-Defamation Bill

From MSN:

The Obama administration on Monday came out strongly against efforts by Islamic nations to bar the defamation of religions, saying the moves would restrict free speech.

"Some claim that the best way to protect the freedom of religion is to implement so-called anti-defamation policies that would restrict freedom of expression and the freedom of religion," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters. "I strongly disagree."

This is a bill that is probably very divisive among religious people, but it is decidedly anti-American, if you are a proponent of certain kinds of speech. No one, incidentally, backs attacking people because of their religious beliefs, but the beliefs themselves are an entirely different story. It seems as though certain Islamic sects are presenting an effort to curb one's ability to be critical of actions based on belief, trying to paint those who are critical as "persecuting" Islam itself.

U.S. Opposes Bid to Bar Religious Defamation