Next year is the big Darwin anniversary. Two hundred years after his birth and 150 after the publication of On the Origin of the Species, millions will celebrate the life and work of Charles Darwin, one of the most brilliant scientists in history, and a man who was thoroughly decent, honourable and likeable.

Unfortunately, he has become caught up in the crossfire of a battle in which Darwin exhibited little personal interest. On one side of this cartoonish debate are the creationists. Their precise numbers, in the UK, are uncertain, although the major survey Theos /ComRes are conducting into the public’s beliefs about Darwinism, creationism and ID, which will be published next year, should help us find out more. Numbers aside, the point is that creationists dislike Darwin and regularly criticise him for supposedly undermining their religious beliefs.

In the other trench lie the militant Godless who – bizarrely – wholly agree with the creationists. Darwinism, they proclaim, does indeed undermine religious belief and a good thing too. Darwin is their icon and they frantically genuflect before his image, in a way brilliantly parodied by the satirical magazine The Onion.

The truth is, as ever, more complex. Darwin was too interesting, too careful a thinker to be caricatured in these ways. He was a Christian and yes, he did lose his faith. But he was never an atheist. He engaged in religious debate with friends but confessed to being in a hopeless “muddle”. He agonised over whether the exquisite beauty of life on earth was worth the pain of natural selection. He hated religious controversy and was deeply respectful of others’ views. He took upon himself the duties of a country parson whilst living at Downe and contributed to the South American Missionary Society. And, to top it all, he often doubted whether, his mind being evolved, he could even trust it in such matters. All in all, he was too complex, too subtle a man to be left to the polemicists.

Times Archive, 1887: The life of Darwin

It has been said with truth that we must go back to Newton before we meet with Darwin’s peer

• So, in the interests, of rescuing him from the no-man’s-land in which he has become trapped, here are 10 Darwin quotations, from his later years, which you are unlikely to hear from the mouths of either creationists or atheists in 2009.

1. “The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.” (Autobiography)

2. “It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist & an evolutionist.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879)

3. “I hardly see how religion & science can be kept as distinct as [Edward Pusey] desires… But I most wholly agree… that there is no reason why the disciples of either school should attack each other with bitterness.” (Letter to J. Brodie Innes, November 27 1878)

4. “In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879)

5. “I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879)

6. “I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the son of God.” (Letter to Frederick McDermott, November 24 1880)

7. [In conversation with the atheist Edward Aveling, 1881] “Why should you be so aggressive? Is anything gained by trying to force these new ideas upon the mass of mankind?” (Edward Aveling, The religious views of Charles Darwin, 1883)

8. “Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?” (Letter to Graham William, July 3 1881)

9. “My theology is a simple muddle: I cannot look at the Universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficent Design.” (Letter to Joseph Hooker, July 12 1870)

10. “I can never make up my mind how far an inward conviction that there must be some Creator or First Cause is really trustworthy evidence.” (Letter to Francis Abbot, September 6 1871)

Nick Spencer is director of studies at the public theology think-tank Theos which is conducting, in partnership with the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion a project on evolution, faith and Charles Darwin. Mr Spencer’s book, Darwin and God, will be published in 2009 by SPCK.

God, Evolution and Charles Darwin -Times Online

Muslim spiritual leaders could be denounced publicly by their own community as part of a campaign to expose imams whose silence on domestic abuse is leading to women being burnt, lashed and raped in the name of Islam.

Muslim scholars are to present the Government with the names of imams who are alleged by members of their own communities to have refused to help abused women. Imams are also accused of refusing to speak out against domestic abuse in their sermons because they fear losing their clerical salaries and being sacked for broaching a “taboo” subject.

Some of Britain’s most prominent moderate imams and female Muslim leaders have backed the campaign, urging the Home Office to vet more carefully Islamic spiritual leaders coming to Britain to weed out hardliners. A four-month inquiry by the Centre for Islamic Pluralism into domestic abuse has uncovered harrowing tales of women being raped, burnt by cigarettes and lashed with belts by their husbands, who believe it is their religious right to mistreat them.

At least 40 female Muslim victims and many social workers from northern England - including Bradford, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham - were interviewed as part of the inquiry, which is expected to be published next month.

During its investigation the organisation - the British arm of a longestablished US think-tank - received a number of complaints about imams who had turned a blind eye to cases of domestic violence, many of whom are followers of Wahabbism, a puritanical interpretation of the Koran espoused by Osama bin Laden.

There have also been similar complaints about clerics from the Tablighi Jamaat movement, which is accused of radicalising young British Muslims with its orthodox teachings.

The organisation’s international director, the Muslim scholar Irfan al-Alawi, told The Times that he would be forwarding the names of the imams to the Home Office, which has promised to investigate the allegations. He called for them to be stripped of any government grants that they may be receiving. He is also seeking legal advice about exposing the imams at public lectures and forums throughout the country.

“I have to make sure that I don’t end up with a lawsuit on my hands but at the same time expose what is going on in the community,” he said.

Yousif al-Khoei, spokesman for the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (Minab) - a government approved body set up to improve the standards among British imams - admitted that some clerics condoned domestic violence although he said it was a “minority practice”.

He insisted the problem was to do with specific cultural beliefs rather than religious ideology, but said that the board was determined to tackle the problem by promoting “proper Islamic guidelines in the public arena”.

However, he gave warning against the idea of publicly identifying imams, saying that would risk turning them into “martyrs” within their own community.

“Instead, we should encourage women to seek advice from proper imams,” he said.

While the number of domestic violence cases has almost doubled in the last three years, according to the Crown Prosecution Service, the figures fail to reflect the physical abuse cases within the Muslim community.

Such cases, on which there is no data because they are largely unreported, are driven by cultural and religious beliefs instead of alcohol and drug abuse, said Shahien Taj, director of the Henna Foundation, which deals with honour crimes and domestic abuse victims.

Ms Taj, who is a member of the Government’s Muslim Women’s Advisory Group, said women were reluctant to come forward about the abuse they experienced because they were “groomed and brainwashed” into becoming interdependent on their direct families and not encouraged to take their complaints to the outside world.

Dr al-Alawi said there were cultural and religious reasons why some imams would not want to raise the issue of domestic violence in the mosque. “A lot of women who are brought from foreign countries to join their spouse here, firstly they cannot speak English and the imam is very reluctant to have a conversation with a woman because they feel there is a barrier and the woman should not be approachable to the man.

“There’s a lot of sexual abuse as well, which is apparently considered taboo for Muslims to talk about, whereby husbands are forcing themselves on women after they had been out with other women - rape case,” he said.

Sheikh Irfan Chishti, director of the Light of Islam Academy and a former member of Tony Blair’s Preventing Extremism Together taskforce, said there was “religious justification” among some imams for the abuse and subjugation of women.

He said female victims were in many cases afraid of seeking help because they feared retribution and being accused of tarnishing or disobeying Islam.

“Women don’t speak up and if they do speak up they can get battered,” Sheikh Chishti said.

“Some men are brought up to believe that because they are superior therefore inadvertently or by default women are inferior and therefore submissive.”

He said that female Muslims needed to be empowered by moderate community leaders and the younger generation should be encouraged to condemn and report domestic violence.

Sheik Chishti also said young and British-raised community members should be encouraged to take over mosque committees. “You will not have change in the mosque until you change the culture of the leadership.”

Purge on Muslim clerics who turn a blind eye to the abuse of women -Times Online

Ted Vaden, Staff Writer

Readers obsessed with anti-Islam video

Ted Vaden, Staff Writer Comment on this story

Should The News & Observer allow itself to be used as a vehicle for disseminating offensive speech against a religious faith?

No, was the resounding response from readers who objected to a DVD that was distributed in The N&O last weekend. The video, titled “Obsession,” portrays radical Islam as an organized global terrorism campaign aimed at Jews, Christians and America.

It depicts armies of jihadist warriors, suicide bombers in training and armed children chanting anti-Western slogans. Images of Islamist militants are juxtaposed with scenes of goose-stepping Nazi troopers. Graphic footage displays carnage from attacks in New York, London and Madrid.

“This is a film about a radical world view and the threat it poses to us all, Muslim and non-Muslim alike,” a title says at the beginning of the video.

After the DVD was distributed Sept. 13, protests poured into News & Observer offices. We received at least 300 e-mail and phone messages, and about 50 people canceled subscriptions

“By taking responsibility for the delivery of this movie, an esteemed newspaper lent credence and stature to a movie which is, at best, hyperbolic, frightening propaganda. Surely, money cannot replace ethics,” wrote reader MARY HARRISON.

“Gee, if I was still teaching, this video could be a classroom aid to show how some use hate and religious intolerance to scare people,” wrote retired fourth-grade teacher MARY GILBERT of Raleigh. “However, I would not want to poison young minds by having them watch it.”

The DVD was distributed by The N&O as an advertising product, inserted along with the advertising circulars into the paper. Jim McClure, vice president for display advertising, said he recognized that the DVD would be controversial and consulted with other executives before accepting it.

But he concluded that the paper should not deny advertisers the opportunity to reach the N&O audience because their message is unpopular or offensive to some. “The ultimate question is, at what point do you draw the line and start censoring things based on comfort level?” he said.

Many readers, citing The N&O’s well-publicized revenue problems, accused the paper of selling out scruples for advertising dollars. McClure said the paper doesn’t disclose what customers pay for ads, because they expect confidentiality for competitive reasons, but money was not a factor: “There was no consideration that this was so lucrative that we have to lower our standards and accept this. It was accepted on its merits.”

The DVD was inserted into some 70 newspapers around the country, including The New York Times and sister McClatchy papers The Charlotte Observer and The Miami Herald. One of the few newspapers that did not accept it was The News & Record in Greensboro.

“Even though we would have loved to have had the revenue stream, we just felt that it was not material that we wanted to subject our readers to,” said publisher Robin Saul. “I just felt it was divisive and a ploy to play on people’s fears, and I didn’t see it to be educational at all.”

It should be pointed out that a minority of readers — perhaps 15 percent of my callers and e-mailers — were glad The N&O accepted the video. “Thank you for not siding with censorship,” wrote Jeffrey Cox of Raleigh.

Let’s point out also that some of the angry benders of my ear told me they had not actually viewed the DVD. I did sacrifice an hour to it, and I was alternately repulsed and bored. Although the film took pains to say that most Muslims are not violent, that disclaimer was buried in the avalanche of anti-Islamic images, slogans and interviews with experts of dubious credentials.

My instinct is to defend The N&O’s decision to distribute the DVD. The newspaper is in the business of fostering public debate of controversial ideas. It invokes regularly the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and free press when seeking information from recalcitrant governments and publishing stories that offend some readers.

Orage Quarles III, N&O publisher, said that in the arena of public debate, newspapers should err on the side of allowing too much free speech. “If we’re not upsetting somebody every six months, we’re not doing our job. That’s just in the nature of this business.”

In this case, The N&O went an extra step by publishing a front-page story about the DVD and the controversy it has caused nationwide. The story, published the same day as the distribution, explained The N&O’s reasons for accepting the DVD but included criticism from Muslim advocates and others.

Still, I have a problem with this particular entry into the free-speech marketplace, because we don’t know where the speech is coming from. The DVD package contained a name and address for the sponsor, The Clarion Fund of New York City. A Clarion Web site gives no information about its directors or its funding. It says the film was made possible by a large donor, but doesn’t identify who.

Omid Safi, a professor of Islamic studies at UNC-CH, has researched the video and the Clarion Fund. He says the producer of the video is a Canadian native who now is a rabbi and Zionist leader in Israel. Distribution was aided by a Christian Zionist organization headed by Texas evangelist John Hagee, he said, and a Clarion Fund Web site recently published, then removed, an article that endorsed John McCain over Barack Obama for president.

Safi noted that the DVD was placed in newspapers only in key election swing states, suggesting it’s intended to scare voters into the McCain camp. “The whole premise of this film is that the West doesn’t know what radical Islam represents,” Safi said. “Fair enough. Tell us what you represent.” My calls to the Clarion Fund were not returned.

I think newspapers have an obligation to be as transparent as possible with readers about the information they provide. In this case, I think the DVD fell short in two respects.

First, it should have been labeled as paid advertising content, as the newspaper would require of a political advertisement. Despite the story on the front page, it’s clear from their comments that some readers perceived the video as somehow endorsed by The N&O. McClure said it’s the first time he could recall that The N&O has distributed a DVD.

More important is the lack of information about the source of this controversial content. Without that, the readers were not in a position to make an informed judgment about the message they received.

The Public Editor can be reached at ted.vaden@newsobserver.com or by calling (919) 836-5700

A readers response

Dear Mr. Vaden: (Paper’s Public Editor)

Thank you for your article cited below. As a Muslim I’m in total agreement
with Mr. Jim McClure, the paper’s V.P. for advertising, who decided to
include the DVD “obsession” in the paper out of respect for free speech,
even if it was offensive to some. I totally support his stand on free speech
and decry the opposition of some people to this DVD. Thus may I have Mr.
McClure’s email and address to send 70 copies of the BBC documentary “THE
WAR PARTY” that details the push for the Iraq War by JEWISH NeoCons who were
in highly strategic government positions, think tanks paid for by right wing
extremist foundations, and the Jewish controlled media? I’d also like to pay
for the distribution of 70 ciopiues of the highly acclaimed scientifically
based investigation of the collapse of the WTC, especially WTC 7 that was
not hit by a plane, called “ZERO”.
 
Or if he wishes I could send him a documentary of the brutal inhumane
savagery of Israel’s indiscriminate civilian bombing in Lebanon in 2006?
 
I can’t imagine him turning down such DVD’s given his strong support for
free speech. I could understand his reluctant fear for distributing a
revisionist history of the Holocaust or Jewish terrrorism against
Palestinians by Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, two former Israeli Prime
Ministers.
 
Shame on those Christians, Jews, and Muslims who don’t respect Mr. McClure’s
strong belief in Free Speech no matter who it offends.
 
I look forward to your response and the kind agreement of Mr. McClure
 
Respectfully;
Mohamed Khodr

newsobserver.com | Readers obsessed with anti-Islam video