Henk van de Goor's Bloggers@large

In the same week the Pope is struggling with some incredibly dumb people who deny the full extend of the holocaust, we have a religious scandal of our own. Famous TV-personality Andries Knevel, has denounced the creation of the universe took place in 7 days (well, 6 days actually as the 7th day was for resting). As he is part of the EO (a Dutch evangelic TV-station) this has caused a scandal within the TV-station and its followers. In August 2007 I wrote already about the EO when they purposely left out a whole segment of David Attenborough's documentary 'The Life of Mammals'. In a TV-show he declared that he believed in creationism before, after that he adopted the 'intelligent design' theory, but now – he stated – he believes that Darwin was right, and evolution is the explanation for how things work in this world and universe. He also stated that he firmly believes that God is the instigator behind evolution, so he still believes there is a God. On TV he read this statement and even signed it.

I say: good for him! I also think that you can believe there is a God and still believe Darwin was right. After all: you could argue that evolution did not 'invent' itself.

Off course his statement send a shock wave throughout the religious backbone of the EO. Apparently even in a country as The Netherlands, there are still people who believe that everything written in the Bible should be taken literally. Even though there is no scientific evidence whatsoever. It's like standing in the rain and denying your getting wet because it rains. Just because some book says it isn't raining.

I've said it before and I will say it again: some say money is the root of all evil but I say it's religion. It's the reason why people strap on a bomb to blow up other people. As long as ignorant religious people do not leave room for other religions and thoughts, there will never be any enlightenment for us all.

Yes folks, we seriously could do without these fanatics.

I find some comfort in the fact that these people do never adapt to their surroundings and this will cause them – slowly but gradually – to become extinct.

Thank God for Darwin.

Every person on this planet knows what the deal is about a parent that warns their kid to not do something ("do not eat after dark, don't do drugs, don't have sex" etc..). Yes, you have guessed it: it makes it more interesting because it's forbidden. Chances are your kid will do it behind your back to find out why. It's reverse psychology at it's best.
Well, something similar is going on in Holland at the moment. Dutch public broadcasting company BNN said they are going to air the '70's porn classic "Deep Throat" on Feb. the 23rd. Off course Dutch Christian politicians that are part of our government here, ("ChristenUnie") are trying to prevent this: as is the common Pavlov reflex of Christians when it comes to sex. Off course their objections just bring attention to the issue and I can predict already that the movie will be the best watched TV-event this year.

The funny thing is that history repeats itself. Or - as I always like to put it: "History does not repeat itself, people do." It seems that the ChristenUnie has not learned anything from the history behind "Deep Throat". The effort by local and federal government to ban the movie (a national effort to eliminate 'smut'), only had the opposite effect: the movie became a cult classic and a lot of famous people went to see the movie including Truman Capote, Jack Nicholson and Johnny Carson. In fact the movie became a phenomenon.

It became a national cause and sparked the debate about freedom of speech in relation to sex. From that perspective it's not weird to show the movie as it is a testament to the state of things in 1972 in the USA. BNN will also have a discussion program and a documentary about the movie (see clip below). There are a lot of dimensions to the movie and the story behind it, so I'm sure it's worth watching.

In a sense I guess we should thank the ChristenUnie for all the attention they have drawn to the movie by their "moral appeal" to BNN to not air the movie. Well guys: no one it forcing you to watch it so what's the fuzz about?

Please, please, pretty please; can someone put a cork on religion? Some say money is the root of all evil but I say it's religion. About a week ago my friend Vincent mailed me about something I had missed completely as I was busy working my ass off. The Dutch TV station EO (Evangelic Broadcasting Company) secretly has been removing all references to evolution from their programs and most notably from David Attenborough's documentary 'The Life of Mammals'. They even completely ignored a whole episode that is dedicated to the evolution of mankind from apes to homo erectus.

The reason why the EO did this is simple; evolution has no place if you believe in creationism. Obviously for the EO this means that you can just apply censorship and just cut out everything that does not fit your beliefs. Even though - clearly - believing that God created heaven and earth in 6 days is just ludicrous. Every piece of scientific evidence points in the direction of evolution and the fact that Earth is older than 10.000 years.

I guess there is no point in even starting to debate things like this with the people that believe in creation. What's even worse: now there are (religious) people that start teaching some other travesty of science, called "intelligent design". Intelligent design claims that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." Therefor there must be a "God".

A key strategy of the intelligent design movement is convincing the general public that there is a debate among scientists about whether life evolved, in order to convince the public, politicians and cultural leaders that schools should "teach the controversy". However: there is no such debate. Within the scientific community the scientific consensus is that life evolved.

Luckily for us Europeans most people seem to have some braincells left. In June of 2007 the Council of Europe's "Committee on Culture, Science and Education" issued a report, The dangers of creationism in education, which states "Creationism in any of its forms, such as 'intelligent design', is not based on facts, does not use any scientific reasoning and its contents are pathetically inadequate for science classes." In describing the dangers posed to education by teaching creationism, it described intelligent design as "anti-science" and involving "blatant scientific fraud" and "intellectual deception" that "blurs the nature, objectives and limits of science."

Right, we just had another all time low for one of Hollands stupidest politicians: the semi-fascist Geert Wilders. This Wednesday he came up with yet another dumbass idea: he wants to forbid the Koran because - according to him - it is just as bad as Hitler's "Mein Kampf". It is not the first time that Wilders came up with such a stupid idea. Earlier this year he stated that Muslims that want to stay in Holland should "rip out half of the Koran and throw it away". I am for freedom of speech but this kind of pathetic populism is just outrageous. I guess Wilders just is screaming to be murdered and then live on like some hero, just like Pim Fortuyn.

What a clown!