Best of luck, Haluk Ertan.

“Turkey is now the headquarters of creationism in the Islamic World. This is no longer only Turkey’s problem, it is now the problem of the whole civilized world,” says Haluk Ertan, a professor of molecular biology at Istanbul University. He’s one of a handful of Turkish scientists who have been working to counter creationism’s spread in the country.

But if you package pseudoscience nicely enough, it will win.

In the past year, BAV has blanketed several European countries and the US with its glossy “Atlas of Creation,” a lavish 768-page tome weighing more than 13 pounds, sending it to scientists, professors, journalists, and schoolteachers…”Every Islamic bookshop I know of stocks Harun Yahya’s material. It

Sorry I’m a little quiet. You can thank the spambot, for one thing – it deposits comments (porn ads) on an old N&C, and I have to remove them. The number of comments has been steadily rising; it doubled between yesterday and today. Yesterday I had 8 pages to delete, today it’s 18. It’s a slow process – click ‘check all,’ click ‘delete,’ then wait, then click yes, then wait; repeat. 17 times. It’s slow, because I don’t have broadband. I can do other things at the same time, but it’s jerky and interrupted. Deleting 18 pages takes a very long time.

Anyway, it’s just as well for me to be quieter. I’ve learned that JS has to pay more … Read the rest

Ah well that is reassuring. The Grand Mufti of Egypt explains about apostasy and stuff.

[F]rom a religious perspective, the act of abandoning one’s religion is a sin punishable by God on the Day of Judgment. If the case in question is one of merely rejecting faith, then there is no worldly punishment. If, however, the crime of undermining the foundations of the society is added to the sin of apostasy, then the case must be referred to a judicial system whose role is to protect the integrity of the society.

Excellent. From a religious perspective, no earthly bastards will punish you for apostasy, it’s only God who will. Of course, God will presumably do a pretty thorough job … Read the rest