Prominent creationist charged with blackmail, fraud, torture and child abuse

[Roy]

Adnan Oktar's Turkish YEC organisation has been raided by the authorities, and Oktar and his followers arrested for a long list of serious offences. More details here.

[rogue06]

Not the first time he's been in trouble for things like blackmail, extortion and threats of violence against opposition, use of cocaine, and encouraging a theocratic revolution. He's the Islamic extremist that YEC groups like Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and AnswersinGenesis (AiG) love.

[One Bad Pig]

Given the Turkish authorities' penchant for trumped-up charges and choke hold on the press, I'll take much of this with a grain of salt. Never heard of him before.

[rogue06]

Not the first time he's been in trouble for things like blackmail, extortion and threats of violence against opposition, use of cocaine, and encouraging a theocratic revolution. He's the Islamic extremist that YEC groups like Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and AnswersinGenesis (AiG) love.

Probably should back that up

A totally different kind of example illustrating the total lack of honesty and integrity of the leading YEC organizations can be seen below.

A few years back the leadership of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) cozied up with a group run by the Turkish Holocaust denying criminal Harun Yahya (real name Adnan Oktar and widely known for his use of blackmail, extortion and threats of violence against opposition, use of cocaine, and encouraging a theocratic revolution) to form conferences in opposition to evolution. ICR got interested in Harun Yahya's group when they started publishing anti-evolution tracts and immediately wanted to help.

When these connections were exposed by the Washington Post and others ICR did what any self-respecting group would do when caught red-handed. They lied through their teeth about the whole sordid affair. ICR went into full denial mode. When he was queried about past and present links with Yahya/Oktar, Bruce Wood, ICR's Public Information Officer, replied in part, "ICR has never cooperated with him... The primary reason for non-cooperative relationship is a distinctive in the beliefs of ICR and Mr. Oktar... We know of no such occurrence/relationship."

That is a provable falsehood.

ICR worked hand in glove with his "Bilim Arastirma Vakfi" (BAV - called the "Science Research Foundation" or SRF in English) on at least two occasions at creationist conferences in Turkey on April 4 and June 5, 1998^[1].

BAV's (a.k.a. SRF) website specifically noted ICR's contribution. Duane Gish, then Vice President of ICR, and David Menton, a member of ICR's Technical Advisory Board, made on-camera testimonials to BAV claiming to have aired their differences on religion (remember what Wood claimed^[2]). Gish even states he hopes for collaboration with BAV.

Their website quotes Gish as saying:

"We certainly urge our colleges in America to cooperate with the SRF, this marvelous Foundation, in anyway possible."

Dr. John Morris, ICR's President (and son of Henry Morris, the organization's founder and the Father of the modern creationist movement), gushed enthusiastically:

"Let me recommend these young men to you, without any reservation... The men of the Science and Research Foundation are very bright individuals who have the ability to have an impact in Turkey."

Here is a picture (sorry about the small size) of the speakers at one of the conferences (the second one) that they deny they attended along with a few characters from AnswersinGenesis (AiG) as well

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From left to right: Ibrahim Tuncer (BAV), John Morris (ICR), Edward Boudreaux (AiG), Duane Gish (ICR), Altug Berker (BAV), Carl Fliermans (AiG), David Menton (ICR), Edip Keha and Michael Girouard.

Gish also spoke at the first one as well, and since the above image has Gish with his face buried in his hands, here's another picture from the conference

[ATTACH=CONFIG]28833[/ATTACH]

After the irrefutable evidence that ICR (and AiG) surfaced one YEC apologist declared that they were they went there to try to bring the Muslims to Christ. But as John Morris made clear to the "Washington Post" they were there to assist their new allies oppose evolution, saying that

"Why I'm so interested in seeing creationism succeed in Turkey is that evolution is an evil concept that has done such damage to society."

That was their motivation not any attempt to evangelize. Although it is entirely possible they did try to turn them to Christ that would have been secondary. It was all about opposing evolution.

While it is one thing to hop into bed with a group of Muslim extremists led by a criminal Muslim holocaust denier interested in starting a theocratic revolution in Turkey, the evidence that they cannot be trusted to tell the truth is demonstrated by the fact that they tried to lie their way out of it when knowledge of their association became known outside of YEC circles












1. And BAV/SRF is right in the thick of Yahya's thuggish activities having been forced to pay fines to six professors that they harassed, threatened and slandered and are well known to use women to have sex with scholars and secretly video tape it and threaten to release the tapes if they didn't cooperate.

2. "The primary reason for non-cooperative relationship is a distinctive in the beliefs of ICR and Mr. Oktar"

[rogue06]

Given the Turkish authorities' penchant for trumped-up charges and choke hold on the press, I'll take much of this with a grain of salt. Never heard of him before.

It's a bit surprising given that Erdoğan is Oktar/Yahya's sort of leader.

[One Bad Pig]

Probably should back that up

Interesting.

[Sparko]

so this guy is a muslim YEC?

[Roy]

Yes - the Turkish version of Kent Hovind.

[rogue06]

so this guy is a muslim YEC?

Yes - the Turkish version of Kent Hovind.

He was the guy responsible for the multi-volume Atlas of Creation and sent unsolicited thousands of copies to schools and various people in Europe and the U.S. which claimed that life forms had never undergone even the slightest change and have never developed into one another using pictures of fossils and modern day animals. It was hilariously inept.

Often the "fossils" were fake being clumsily carved and the images of the modern animals not much better. Probably the most notorious example is his pictures of a Caddisfly which is obviously a fishing lure complete with hook

Yahya lure1.jpg Yahya lure2.jpg

Personally I like this one as well

Yahya frog tail.jpg

Yup. Exactly the same. Well, except that the fossil "frog" had shorter legs and a freaking tail. Oh wait that's a salamander not a frog.


Another example of his "understanding" about that which he seeks to criticize is his attack on starfish

I should add that the Turkish Holocaust denying creationist Harun Yahya (real name Adnan Oktar)^[1] has his own "interesting" version of this. From his website:

...Evolutionists say that fish, for example, have come from a creature that resembles a starfish. This means that one day, due to mutation, a starfish lost one of its arms, and during the next millions of years it lost all of its arms except for some that started by themselves to develop into fins.


Source

Folks, this is just the sort of thing you just cannot make up. Here is an image from that webpage illustrating what he is babbling on about:

Yahya starfish website.jpg

And here from his gloriously inept book Atlas of Creation is this including the caption:

Yahya starfish book.jpg
For example, evolutionists claim that starfish evolved into real fish over millions of years.
According to that claim, there must exist many transitional forms between the two species.
However, not one fossil belonging to any such transitional form has ever been found.
There are starfish and fish in the fossil record, but no forms between the two.

I think that might have been where Magellan004 (the poster who said magnets were illegal in Australia among other things) might have got some of his ideas:

m004 starfish.jpg

[psstein]

The book, while almost comical, is one of the most visually appealing pieces of creationist literature I've ever seen, seriously. No expense was spared in preparing the book and images themselves. Now, as for the content... that's a different story.

[rogue06]

Adnan Oktar's Turkish YEC organisation has been raided by the authorities, and Oktar and his followers arrested for a long list of serious offences. More details here.

Source: 35 rape complaints filed against Turkish televangelist Oktar

Source

© Copyright Original Source

Source: Arrests in Turkish televangelist case reach 179

Source

© Copyright Original Source

If he's on a most wanted list that suggests that he's in hiding.

[One Bad Pig]

It seems somewhat misleading to refer to him as a televangelist, as evangelism is more or less a Christian concept.

[rogue06]

It seems somewhat misleading to refer to him as a televangelist, as evangelism is more or less a Christian concept.

Agreed. I have not previously heard of him referred thusly.

[Rushing Jaws]

Agreed. I have not previously heard of him referred thusly.

The name Harun Yahya sounds familiar, though.