European Council to Vote on Anti-Creationism Education Resolution

The Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly will spend part of next week debating and voting on a resolution that opposes the teaching of creation and intelligent design in science classes, saying attacks on evolutionary theory are based on “forms of religious extremism” that attack both science and human rights. A Reuters wire explains:

The resolution, on the agenda for October 4, says European schools should “resist presentation of creationist ideas in any discipline other than religion.” It describes the “intelligent design” argument as an updated version of creationism.

The vote was postponed because some council members “felt the original text amounted to an attack on religious belief.”

Reuters reports that the original draft resolution was to be voted on in June, but the vote was postponed because some council members “felt the original text amounted to an attack on religious belief.”

Assembly member Anne Brasseur tellingly describes the contradictory nature of the resolution, claiming, “There are different views of the creation of the world and we respect that. The message we wanted to send was to avoid creationism passing itself off as science and being taught as science. That’s where the danger lies.”

In other words, the view of Ms. Brasseur and many of her associates is that the different views of creation are to be respected—so long as none of them are taken to be scientifically accurate, which would be dangerous! And who gets to decide what is scientifically accurate, and what is dangerous?

And in a memorandum added to the resolution, Brasseur wrote, “The aim of this report is not to question or to fight a belief. It is not a matter of opposing belief and science, but it is necessary to prevent belief from opposing science.”

Again, it seems Brasseur does not want to “question” or “fight” any beliefs, as long as none of them encroach on science, which Brasseur treats as an objective body of knowledge somehow isolated from “belief”!

Although not binding even if passed, the resolution is perhaps most frightening because it alleges that creation education is not only an attack on science, but also an attack on human rights (the resolution apparently doesn’t explain how). How sadly ironic is it that we’ve headed away from a Western culture that values the free exchange of ideas and toward one, it seems, that refers to Bible-based belief as a dangerous form of religious extremism and where only darwinians are allowed to be the gatekeepers of “truth.”

To read more, see Council of Europe Proposes Creation Motion Again by AiG–U.K. speaker Paul Taylor.

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