Free Thinkers have assumed the role of Orwellian thought police. In George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four Big Brother keeps watch so that no one will think unauthorised thoughts.
Joel Kontinen
The British Humanist Association (BHA) has approached tourist boards in the UK, urging them to cease promoting the Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm in Somerset.
Early this year, the BHA sponsored a conspicuous bus campaign in London with ads doubting the existence of God. Now, when a zoo farm wants to promote the existence of God, the humanists, who would describe themselves as free thinkers, are assuming the basic Orwellian model of not tolerating any dissenting views.
The Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm opened to the public in 1999. It houses a hundred animals and attracts approximately 120, 000 visitors each year. Noah’s Ark does not hide its belief in a creator God.
However, Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm promotes a much longer time frame of earth history than traditional creationism but it seems that the very idea of doubting Darwinism causes problems for dissenters. Recently, Ben Stein himself was expelled from New York Times.
Miranda Stevenson, director of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums, says, ''I find it extraordinary that an organisation that I thought promotes free thinking appears to want censorship.”
Perhaps free thinkers ought to change the name of their ideology.
Source:
Telegraph. 2009. Noah's Ark Zoo in creationist row. (27 August) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6100222/Noahs-Ark-Zoo-in-creationist-row.html
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