I’m sure you’ve all been wondering what the views of professional ignoramus Ken Ham are on gay marriage…well, at least those of you who haven’t read the Answers in Genesis articles on homosexuality before. No surprise, Ken Ham is on the side of the haters.
…when Pastor Rick Warren interviewed Obama in 2008 before the election, he said that marriage was between a man and a woman. As he declared this, he said he was a Christian and that “God’s in the mix.” Now I do not know what he meant by that statement, but I’m assuming he’s implying that God has something to say about marriage. And God does have something to say about marriage—He says marriage is between a male and a female and that homosexual behavior is an abomination, and thus “gay” marriage is as well!
Then follows prolonged slavish masturbation over various quotes from Leviticus, Romans, Corinthians, etc., the usual suspects. One mild surprise is this:
A couple of points must be made. First, the Bible explicitly calls homosexuality an abomination (Leviticus 20:13) and places it in a list of other vices (1 Corinthians 6:9–10). It is wrong for any Christian to condone homosexuality, since God’s Word clearly speaks against it. However, it is also wrong to single out homosexuality and shrug off the other sins listed in these passages.
So Ken Ham abides by all the old Jewish dietary laws? Does he kill gays? His bible is pretty clear on that; they’re supposed to be put to death, but they’re walking around, and some probably even visit his “museum”. Does he refuse to get tangled up in lawsuits with other Christians, for instance? Has he offered a sacrifice of a male without blemish from the cattle, from the sheep, or from the goats? Has he put to death anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord?
There are a lot of very specific orders in there. I think Ken Ham has been shrugging off quite a few Biblical sins. That last one, for instance—he should have had his guards gun me down the instant I walked into his little temple to lies in Kentucky.
Ah, PZ, you are forgetting.
Ken Ham is special. That means he can pick and choose what rules apply to him.
Ham, ham? Is Ham a sin? Just saying,…
Well of course.
No one actually follows the Bible perfectly. If they did, society would collapse in days.
Has he ever eaten shrimp? Or worn blended fabrics? Or trimmed his beard?
Uh oh. Ham (and his name is so appropriate here) has a potential scandal on his hands: Leviticus 11:7-8 very clearly prohibits the consumption of pork, and Exodus 23:19 seems to imply that combining the milk and the meat of the same animal is also verboten… and yet Noah’s Cafe, located inside the Creation Museum, serves a….
BACON CHEESEBURGER!
Oh, Kenny boy, I think you’re going to burn…
Probably.
Why do you think that Ken Ham is against public education? Well, besides all of the atheist teachers who will turn children against Christ. All of those atheist teachers are also homosexuals who are out to get a taste of the purity of straight christian children.
Oh my, and please do check out the link to the Noah’s Cafe menu that I provided in #5. It’s HILARIOUS.
….he should have had his guards gun me down the instant I walked into his little temple to lies in Kentucky.
Um, please don’t give him ideas.
We already know people like Ken Ham aren’t the brightest around. They get by simply because their followers aren’t either.
But seriously? He must be very aware that reading the bible selectively is what they all do. The bible is inconsistent on a lot of issues, it is also promoting many things that are horrible acts of crime in modern society. Of course you would have to pick and choose if you insist on basing your ethics on a book written in the bronze ages instead of simply using your common sense and just try to be a nice person.
But reading his and his minions response to Libby Anne, it is clear that reason is pretty far from their minds.
Maybe it’s just that I’m grumpy and not feeling all that well and have a huge headache, but I really am sick and tired of Ken Ham’s… well just Ken Ham.
I work in education. I help people who are wrong quite a bit. I don’t have a problem with people being wrong because that’s where learning begins.
What I DO hate is people who are so viciously wrong, shove it in everyone’s face, and then smugly and arrogantly wallow in their nasty shit pen of wrong, then try to foist that wrong filled dreck onto young, impressionable people.
Ken Ham is a true, deep, unrelenting idiot whose stupidity at any given moment is surpassed only by his stupidity in the next given moment. I feel a deep, violent anger every time the man says “The Church of Millions of Years” or some other idiotic bleating like that. In a reasonable world people who thought as he did would, to quote the late Mr. Hitches, “be out in the street, selling pencils from a cup.” (This may be the single best insult I’ve ever read or heard)
I mean my evolution, Ham was the turd who said that if you put on your Bibleglasses™ all of science makes sense because you filter it through your
biasesBible knowledge. He seriously believes that nearly every major natural wonder was carved out by a big-ass flood that happened about the time that the Sumerians were building cities and shit.I must walk away from my own rant and bash my head against a wall to eliminate the piercing sound of that miserable man’s voice from my head.
Does that palace of idiocy that Ken Ham runs operate on Sundays? If so, he should kill all the Sunday workers. (Exodus 35:2)
and places it in a list of other vices
That list condemns only “bottoms,” by the way. So Ham slips through on a technicality.
However, I believe he’s in violation of 1 Corinthians 6:1.
And for his defense, when he’s put on trial, he just has to quote the fucking bible, & his deeply-held belief that it’s the inerrant word of his fucking god-thing. I mean, it’s endorsed by the statement on the currency of his adoptive nation.
I want to see Ken carrying around a special little chair of his own so he doesn’t get the menstruation cooties from any women who dare not to sequester themself from society.
and yep, open 12-6 on Sundays. Stone the heretic, stone him! http://creationmuseum.org/
I started thinking, “Have you guys ever been to the creation museum?” but that thought quickly morphed to, “We should totally have a Pharyngula field trip to the creation museum with Professor P.Z. to narrate.” I will offer my house as a sleeping place to as many will fit. Pleeeeaaaase?
Ken sure do love him some cherries.
It’s been done.
@Dick the Damned
The Sabbath is on Saturday, there isn’t any passage in the Bible that said that it should be changed to Sunday.
The Bible doesn’t say that marriage is between a man and a woman anyway, most Bible characters were polygamists. In any case, in a secular democracy, what the Bible says is effing irrelevant isn’t it?
“Answers in Genesis” At first I misread this as Answers in Genitals which somehow made more sense.
btw and totally OT but is is true that GNU-atheists is a recursive acronym for ‘GNU-atheists are Not Unitarians’?
Or did I just make that up???
Ken Ham. Blithering Hatefilled Idiot.
Does Ken also subscribe to Geocentrism ? Flat Earth ?
The stars are just a canvas with lights stuck to it ?
Fucking Cafe Christian.
@15: There’s an “out” for that. Interpreting the Bible literally, the Sabbath rules were given to the Hebrews, and the Sabbath is Saturday (ask any Jew), so it’s not clear that it must be applied to Christians and their holy day of Sunday (even if it often has been in the past). Note that this abrogation of OT prescriptions goes right back to the NT itself (see eg. Acts 15, also numerous places in Paul. That’s if you care, which you’re not at all obliged to.)
Carla, where do you think this inspirational photo was taken?
OK, some of you creative types, how about a picture of Ken Ham with the caption “You have to be this stupid to enter the museum” or some such.
In fairness, their pork-serving cafe has a reduced menu on Sundays. So they are sort of half-keeping it holy I guess?
It turns out the Flat Earthers and the Creationists don’t tend to get along. They both think the other group is crazy and ignoring the copious amounts of evidence. Go figure.
There is some concurrence between geocentrists and Creationists. Well, it’s mostly one way: geocentrists tend to be Creationists, but most Creationists are not geocentrists.
But seriously, the president of the Flat Earth Society believes in evolution (and AGW, for that matter) and doesn’t understand why anybody would doubt it given the voluminous evidence. Go figure…
Wait! What about Jonathan and David? 1 Samuel 18:1-4
18:1 And it came to pass,when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul,that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David,and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
18:2 And Saul took him that day,and would let him go no more home to his father’s house.
18:3 Then Jonathan and David made a covenant,because he loved him as his own soul.
18:4 And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him,and gave it to David,and his garments,even to his sword,and to his bow,and to his girdle.
So if (#22) the out is that the Hebrew rules can be ignored then leviticus can be shoved in the trash with the prawn leftovers.
@27: Oh, pretty much (and this is what I was taught in the fundy church I wasted my teen years in, when I should have been out learning about sex and drugs and rock&roll). Of course, fundies do a lot of cherry-picking within Leviticus — Teh Ghey is still eeeeviiillll, and capital punishment is still God’s Will, even if pork and shellfish are now yummy.
> A couple of points must be made. First, the Bible explicitly calls homosexuality an abomination (Leviticus 20:13) ~~ Ken Ham
Actually it doesn’t. “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.” It explicitly calls anal sex between two men an abomination. This may imply homosexuality, but it doesn’t mention it “explicitly”. And apparently lesbians are fine. :)
Does it explicitly call out anal sex? Were the Hebrews really into having anal sex with their wives? And if not, I don’t think you can call this “explicit”, because you at least have to read the implication that anal sex = analogous to vaginal sex. If it’s just penetrative sex, then it would have to include oral sex as well and I’m sure we could come up with some other things.
In any case, I agree with the last part: Leviticus is silent on lesbians.
Larry Clapp
There is at least one newer translation that uses the word “homosexual”.
That must be the one Ken is using.
In order for there to be sex, there must be at least one penis involved.
No penis, no sex, no sin.
@32: I assume you’re ironically reflecting the putative POV of the Levitical authors here. Because I think Greta Christina (along with lots of other lesbians and bi women) would disagree with that.
Eamon Knight
Good catch ;) :)
Ah lordy. So he wants to apply 1st Corinthians and expel and shun any homosexuals?
Oooh, ooh, let’s play “smack the hypocrite with his double standards”!
1st Corinthians 5 says to expel the sexually immoral, probably also implying gay people and any atheists considering Romans 1, but how about the other stuff: swindlers, liars, drunkards, greedy people, etc??
So to expel “sexually immoral” people, like, say, everyone who’s cheated or had a divorce or looked at porn? So most men and women in the church have got to be expelled (I remember plenty of times people confessing to have masturbated to porn in the church, so yeah, they’re all fucked). Gingrich would be in deep shit with a “real” church, along with boatloads of other Christians.
Oh, and Corinthians doesn’t like drunkards, so expel them too, because that’s how you treat addictions: with removal of all social support!
Oh shoot, the list includes slanderers, the greedy, and swindlers. Sorry Ken Ham, you’ve gotta go too, on all these counts. You made crap up about former creationists, you constantly try to profit off of false science using swindling methods and taking advantage of your followers, you really should be excommunicated entirely.
Ken Ham? Consistency: You’re doing it wrong.
Verily, bated has been my breath.
No, wait, sorry. The other thing: not even at gunpoint.
You’re going to tell me anyway, aren’t you?
“See, I don’t like that.”
-Hellboy, Hellboy, 2004
Dr. Audley at #26:
Is that what the kids were calling it in those days?
Jadzia626 at #10:
Here all these years I’ve been thinking bats were mammals. Turns out it they’re birds. Thanks, Utterly Reliable Non-Contradictory Logically Consistent Independently Verifiable Testament of Ultimate Truth and Knowledge!
I’ll have to check the grocery store later to see if they have any bat bouillon cubes for cooking.
Still learning,
Robert
What I find most hilarious about this is that they will in one breath quote the sections of Leviticus and Deuteronomy they like (usually while wearing a cotton-poly suit at an expensive shellfish fundraiser dinner) but then turn around and tell you “Jesus abolished the old law, we live under grace, not sin” etc etc.
Uh, no. Paul abolished the old law. What did Jesus say? Oh, that’s right, “Not one jot (iota) or tittle of the law shall pass away, until all these things [i.e., armageddon] be fulfilled.”
Whoopsie! But then again, show me the Christian who listens to Jesus anyway :)
The Bible is not “God’s Word” – it is a work of historical fiction, written by more than one human being, perhaps under the influence of drugs, thirst or starvation (all of which assist with hearing those elusive divine voices inside one’s head) – and of course this is no different from the Koran, the various Hindu scriptures, the Buddhist texts, etc. etc. Someone came up with them and wrote them down. They’re works of fiction, also known as mythology, no different than ancient Greek, Mayan, Norse, Egyptian, Sumerian and endless other mythologies.
Why is it so hard to get that through their head?
@richardelguru #20
Heheh. Some people did suggest we turn it into an acronym like Stallman’s GNU and they gave some definitions that were close to yours (I recall GNU Not Unicorn), but gnu is actually just a homophone for new that was first written by Hamilton Jacobi. See the Pharyngula Wiki entry on Gnu Atheism for more details.
As for Ken, it has always been the elephant in the room that most fundie Christians agree almost completely with the Westboro Baptists about gays even though most fundies are too embarrassed to go out there and picket pride parades and funerals with the Westboro clowns.
ikesolem:
I would say the difference is that many of those you named often had more interesting stories and better narrative aesthetic.
Still learning,
Robert
When I first looked at the menu, I read the address as Bullshit Church Road. I wasn’t too wrong.
@38:
Because they have the shield of faith and the helmet of hipocrisy?
Just found this today and can’t vouch for its accuracy, but the early church may have had no problem performing same sex marriages: http://www.gaychristian101.com/Gay-Marriage.html
doesn’t Ken still rape piglets?
I mean, why isn’t THAT the news story here!
I became an atheist over exactly this point – Paul was a lying liar. Whoever Jesus was, he wasn’t represented by Paul, and therefore, Christianity is built on sand. My faith vanished in a puff of smoke.
While I was still trying to figure that out, I asked various clergy how that transition happened. No-one could explain. One apologised profusely, almost in tears. He left the church shortly after – I must have touched an already very raw nerve. He’s not the only clergyman to have lost his faith.
#29 Larry Clapp
Well, “when a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman” could possibly be a prohibition on two men having sex in the missionary position…..
As for the OT condemnation of homo-sex (called “buttsecks” by enthusiasts):
Somebody somewhere has said that this prohibition is aimed against patronizing the sacred prostitutes that were a feature of Semitic pagan temples. This assertion raises questions in my mind that I hope some Pharyngulite can give definitive answers to:
1. Is that claim actually true? Does the Hebrew text really use words of that meaning? Or is it wishful thinking by nice pro-gay folks? Or is it inferred from the cultural context of OT Judaism in Palestine?
2. The implication is that Semitic temples generally had sacred prostitutes on staff. What is the evidence for such a claim?
3. Further, that the sacred prostitutes included both males and females. Again, what is the evidence for this assertion?
#37 Azuma Hazuki says:
Yet isn’t there a gospel account of Jesus and his disciples getting flack for picking ears of grain and eating them on the Sabbath, leading to Jesus saying that the letter of the law kills, the spirit is the thing. (I paraphrase) Contextually this refers to the hyper-precise honoring of The Law by the Pharisees, who were the Ultra-orthodox of the day. Or is this yet another of the inconsistencies that the bible is notorious for?
#44 newfie says:
This reference points to John Boswell’s book “Same-sex Unions in Pre-modern Europe”. I’ve read the book and imo Boswell was reading far too much into the sources he used. He might be right, but it sure felt like special pleading.
It’s now many years since Boswell published his thesis. What has been the scholarly community’s reaction to it? Has a consensus developed that he was right, or otherwise? The situation is closely parallel to Margaret Murray’s “The God of the Witches” which hypothesized that the witches of pre-modern Europe were followers of an ancient pre-xtian religion. The scholarly consensus now is that Murray was full of shit, but this hasn’t stopped the Wiccans from happily adopting the thesis as the basis for their religion.
#37 Azuma Hazuki
One of the rationalizations for the Jesus/Paul dichotomy on the Mosaic Law is that Jesus came to convert the Jews and Paul the Gentiles. So the Jews still had to adhere to the Laws (despite the fact that Jesus seemed to dismiss the need to follow them – “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”); and Paul tossed most of them away because they were a barrier to the conversion of the Gentiles.
Frankly, I find the idea of a “different strokes for different folks” salvation to be absurd; and both the Gospels and Paul are so hopelessly internally contradictory on faith vs works, that they they are useless.
echidna — Yes, exactly. Saul/Paul was another messiah, in a period when they were springing up left and right. He had the pedigree, the connections, the means, and even THE VISION to be so. He’s practically the role model for a lot of later-day hucksters who invented religions from more-or-less whole cloth (Joseph Smith, L. Ron Hubbard, and the king of them all, Mohammed). There’s more Paul in the NT than there is Jesus: Luke-Acts (really an intro to his story), and the letters attributed to him. Of course, we could ask similar questions of Saul/Paul as Jesus. Is this a real, historical person? The evidence is thin.
Does he kill gays? If he could get away with it, he would.
Actually, the verse about “lying with a man as with a woman” in the Levitical holiness code addresses Jewish participation in non-Jewish religious rituals which include temple prostitution—the word that the KJV translates as ‘abomination’ is the old Hebrew to’evah, which denotes ‘ritually impermissible’. It’s the same word the Torah uses in verses condemning idolatry. If the authors were trying to communicate the idea that homosexuality in and of itself was morally impermissible they would have used the word ‘zimah’ (i.e., “morally perverse”).
Key prohibitions of the Holiness code are repeated in Deuteronomy, BTW, and where this verse is recapitulated in Deut 23:18 the authors use the Hebrew word kadesh, which denotes a temple prostitute.
Fascinating bit about Paul and Jesus! But if it were so, why does Paul specifically defer to Jesus (though NOT Jesus’ actual disciples…hmmmm…) then? Far from being another messiah, Paul would be a prophet…something like Muhammed, bees pee upon him.
@jgc1, #52: That’s fascinating. Could you point me to anything more authoritative? I’m not even sure where I’d begin.
It’s kind of sad to think that much homophobia was justified based on a translation error. Kind of like that joke about “celebrate” vs “celebate” [sic] — “they forgot the R!!!”
Of course, bigots need little excuse for their bigotry. If it weren’t this verse it’d be something else, I’m sure. *sigh*