Ken Ham is very concerned about sin, and cartoon ducks, and the curse of homosexuality — more than he is concerned about the pandemic, apparently. Pink News wrote about his fury over gay ducks appearing in the cartoon Duck Tales, prompting him to condemn gay reporters for not being more concerned about sin than COVID-19.
In a new Facebook post, Ham said: “A gay news source wrote an article about me with this headline: ‘Thousands of people are dying from coronavirus every day, but this Christian fundamentalist is raging over two gay cartoon ducks.’”
He suggested that he would have preferred the headline to be “150,000 people die each day in the world, and Ken Ham is concerned for their spiritual state and their eternity because of the raging pandemic of sin”, but added, while knowing nothing about the journalist’s religious beliefs, that they would not understand because “God of this world has blinded the eyes of those who don’t believe”.
He then, bizarrely, went on to speculate about the journalist’s death and whether they even cared about people dying from COVID-19.
Ken Ham wrote:
Yes, the worst pandemic of all – sin – is raging about us and the death toll is 100 per cent. I predict the writer of the article about me will one day die.
From a perspective of a non-Christian, why do they care if people die?… If you die and that’s it and you won’t know you ever existed, why do they care about people dying?
It’s true: Ken Ham doesn’t care much about the pandemic. From Dan Phelps: “From early in the pandemic the Ark Encounter amusement park only “suggested” the use of masks and complained bitterly about closures and Kentucky mask mandates. YouTube videos by Ark visitors indicate mask wearing is practiced by a small fraction of visitors.” So yes, he is not at all inconsistent here — he really does believe that sin is a greater worry than dying of COVID-19. He has even claimed that viruses are a good thing for humanity.
Evolution, on the other hand, says that death has always been a part of nature. This view, found nowhere in the Bible, was actually embraced in a recent article by the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today. His belief in evolution led him to declare that it is a biological reality that “bacteria and viruses are not bitter fruits of the fall, but among the first fruits of good creation itself.” But this idea makes God the author of bad things.
Even in a fallen world, God remains omnipotent and perfectly capable of sustaining and protecting His fallen creation. But when Adam sinned, the world was cursed. Suffering and death entered into His creation. The whole universe now suffers from the effects of sin.
In the biblical worldview, viruses had an originally good purpose in creation. In fact, many viruses today are being investigated for their positive benefits, including possible symbiotic relationships and the regulating of populations of bacteria in our gut. Viruses are also used for gene therapy. Such modern-day research offers us a glimpse into the original created purpose for viruses.
Cool cool cool. So what sin was David Menton guilty of, and what virtue has he acquired?
If you don’t recall, David Menton was one of Ken Ham’s pseudoscientific minions — I’ve mentioned him a few times. He’s a guy who got a Ph.D. in biology, and used it to lie for Jesus. Ken Ham has now announced that David Menton died “after a brief illness”. He doesn’t say what that illness was, but the newspaper obituary does.
Dr. David Norman Menton, 83, of Petersburg, KY passed away from Covid Saturday, December 11, 2021 in Edgewood, KY.
Hmmm. Maybe if Ham had been a bit more diligent and rational in policing all those people strolling around his “museum” and Ark Park, his great friend
would still be alive today.
Arguably, in Disney Duck universe, children being adopted into a household that lacks a mother is what traditional family means.
Most likely, David Menton was an antivaxxer. There is a high correlation between fundie xian and antivaxxer.
Somewhere around 90% or so of patients dying of Covid-19 virus in the ICUs are antivaxxers. Almost all of them are fundie xians.
The brighter among the GOP and fundie xian leaders are however, vaccinated. These are educated, rich, and powerful men. They have a lot to lose and don’t want to die. It’s the lower levels of the GOP and fundie xianity that drink their poisoned kool-aid.
Hummingbirds! Violet and her Dad’s were hummingbirds, not ducks!
Errrr… so I picked up from… from… the kids I babysit… in Canada! Yeah, that’s believable… I mean, that’s it.
Y’know, I’m normally quite fond of fantasy stories, involving gods and magic and forces that don’t actually exist. But this Christianity mythos just leaves me cold. I mean, what is this “sin” thing supposed to represent? What’s it a metaphor for? Social ostracism? bigotry? the arbitrary whims of our capitalist overlords? bad posture?
When you’ve written some hot gay ducks into your scriptures, call me – your stories might actually be vaguely worth bothering with then.
I watched “Duckman” during the 1990s. Even though he was a toxic character I am pretty sure he was straight.
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I assume Duck Tales are owned by Disney, so like The One Ring they are tainted by evil, never mind the gays.
Genesis God probably wasn’t omnipotent. He had more than enough superpower to create an entire universe. But he didn’t have enough power to create a perfect universe, or see the future consequences of his creations. So he didn’t realise his special tree needed a barrier around it to keep Adam and Eve away.
In other news from the batshitcrazy,wackaloon sphere.
No,you won’t believe it.
Glen Cook’s book series “Instrumentalities of the Night” provides a much more interesting narrative for Christianity and associated religions than Christianity itself!
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And “Garrett, P.I. ” has a protagonist in a city inhabited by mostly atheists, even though there are a lot of bona fide gods around (although a pitiful lot).
God in narrative:
Richard Kadrey’ story arc about the killer Sandman Slim (himself one of the nephilim, as we find out) has a more realistic take on Zod : he is a demiurge.
Having stolen the universe from a set of seriously bad gods, he had no manual, leading to all kinds of disasters along the way.
As god gets a serious case of split personality, he fractures in different parts that are fighting each other.
Angels from one of the nastier factions make common cause with fundamentalist agents from Homeland Security , causing as much trouble as the bona fide demons (not to be confused with the ex- angels living in Hell- some of them are decent enough).
Seriously, give Richard Kadrey a chance. His books are much inspired by ‘spagetti western’ films, and consistently get good reviews. Unlike the bible.
Wait wait wait. You zipped right by the sentence where Ham espouses a Gnostic world-view and defies most mainstream Christian theology:
The God of this world is straight-up Gnosticism, which proposed levels of gods, with an inferior, cack-handed god in charge of this material world, and a higher one coyly hiding beyond. So Ham is reverting to the cult that preceded and contended with early Christianity and lost to it!
Plus, he is asserting that the reason his message isn’t getting across is because that God, or some God, has blinded the eyes of the ones who don’t agree with Ken Ham. There is Biblical precedent for this, where Yahweh is said to have “hardened the heart” of Pharaoh so that he wouldn’t listen to reason, giving Yahweh the excuse he needed to hit Egypt with some more plagues. Yahweh, what a joker.
No, seriously, if Ham believes this, he has undercut all the teachings of Christianity about redemption, and all possible justification for Hell or any retribution by God. If I’m an atheist, by Ham’s own words it must be so because God wants me to be one. And if I’m doing what God makes me do (by “blinding” me) there can’t be any sin in that.
In that one sentence, Ken Ham has made a logical train-wreck of all his beliefs. Good work, Ken.
You could just as easily say that the gods made Ken Ham and the fundie xians stupid and evil.
The fundie xian heartland of the midwest and Southeast are always getting hit by tornadoes and hurricanes. In fact, Kentucky just got hit by record tornadoes in December, which isn’t supposed to be a tornado season month.
It has been clear for a long time and they have been blinded so they never catch on.
God hates fundie xians.
Here’s another one: Washington state Sen. Doug Ericksen. Less prominent perhaps, but a Trumpite who was pro-COVID. He tested positive while on a trip to El Salvador…a curious place to go and one the State Dept. has warned against going to because of COVID. As the article notes, “Ericksen fought, through protest and legislation, Gov. Inslee’s orders and mandates intended to fight the spread of the virus.”
Ken Ham, another kooky pro-vaxxer.
Wait. That doesn’t seem right.
Covid-19 is turning into almost the perfect storm against antivaxxers. Each new variation has been more infectious than the last, making them harder and harder for the unvaccinated to avoid, and avoid getting very sick, even dying. It’s going to be almost impossible for antivaxxers to avoid Omicron, so they’re in for a rough time over the next couple of months.
But will they change their mind? Nah, of course not.
I saw a great chart over on the r/Coronavirus this morning where they shifted the death rate 14 days to the left to line up with the infection rate. The lines track almost perfectly until the UK’s booster program too effect, since then the deaths have been going down even though infections are rising.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusUK/comments/rjxu07/booster_effect_in_action/
It’s still a couple of weeks too soon to gauge the booster’s effectiveness against dying from Omicron (and people are already dying), but Delta is still a threat and lives are being saved. If you haven’t been already, now is the time to get boosted!
Mr. Ham should take note of the fact that in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus criticizes hypocrites and hypocrisy no fewer than fifteen times. I think Ham should first go after the hypocrites before attacking anyone else.
Hmm, hypothetically-maybe-stated-without-any-basis Menton’s problem was “complications from pneumonia.” Which is certainly a possible description of COVID comorbidity… and of “that other thing.”
Ruminations on this resembling how the righteous have historically attacked apostates and enemies (or, for that matter, the fundamental mechanism of both middle-school lunchroom cliques and social media) are left for the heathens. That is, the usual audience here. But Ham has nevernevernever engaged in any of that. OK, not in the last five minutes (he was in the bathroom).
@6timgueguen
Where god really messed up was giving snakes the ability to slither up trees. The fact that he gave them the power of speech would have been irrelevant without the former in this case, I mean, who’d take seriously a voice emanating from the weeds?
The snake had legs.
It also had an intelligent mind, at least the equal of the two not all that bright humans they were talking to.
God messed up everything.
Why was the snake in the magic garden anyway?
And why were the Trees of knowledge and Life also there. He had an entire universe to locate those trees. They could have been in Australia, Jupiter, or the Andromeda galaxy.
Tell Ken Ham the gay cartoon characters could go “The Ring” on him if he attracts their attention.
(Why not? We already have a narrative universe where you are not constrained by the laws of nature)
Sometimes I think the pin-headedness of guys like Ham are the reason that people are fleeing religion. I am an atheist but I was raised in a household where I became fairly familiar with the Bible. I don’t believe the Bible is “true” in the sense that it is the unerrant word of some God. However, I can’t help but note the similarities between the Exodus story of the Passover when the faithful among the Hebrews painted their doorway lintels with blood so that God’s Angel of Death would pass over their homes. In the same way, one could develop a construct where one could believe that God gave us vaccines, distancing and masks to avoid the Angel of Death that is COVID. Sarah Palin and Ken Ham and all the other nut jobs who don’t see God’s handiwork in this but who imagine God is all about condemning gay people (note: made by Him in His own image according to their Scripture) are the bull goose looneys of the world.
not made but exposed
the thing that I think finally “put the final nail in the coffin” is the whole idea of there was no death until after the fall. nothing says this is mythological and symbolical like a time before there was death
I pity them that follow people like that. they are the ones who are blinded and can not see the kingdom of god spread out right in front of them.
His world is so narrow and pinched and cased in fear it really is very unappealing and does seem to miss the teachings of the christ in their own book
Ye gods (sic), there’s no purpose in trying to put logic to work on this steaming turd that is theology. Polish it anyway anyhoo, still a turd it will remain.
My fav is how Milton puts it in Paradise Lost: yes, god did know that humanity was going to sin and fall and suffer and all, but went ahead with the plan anyway. So it was a stitch job from day one, but Milton ignores this little fact ’cause he’s more interested in describing how Eve is going around all in the nudd.
I wish I were joking.
From the journal of Joseph Banks, August 30 – September 1,1770.
Available here: https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0501141h.html
On encountering the indigenous peoples in a part of “New Holland” (now Australia) that Banks named Botany Bay…places already named long before this encounter.
The trees were here, along with the snakes, but no sin. You need an evil, vengeful god to have sin.
@5 birgerjohansson
“I assume Duck Tales are owned by Disney, so like The One Ring they are tainted by evil, never mind the gays.”
As shitty a corporation as Disney is, I’d say that attitude is still really unfair towards the people who worked on the show itself (and actually cared about it and worked hard to make it fun, unlike the company).
(And yes, as Akira MacKenzie pointed out in @3, the characters in question are hummingbirds – sabrewings, specifically -, though that’s kind of besides the point.)
Raven @19:
The serpent himself has an answer by way of George Bernard Shaw.
Back to Methuselah
Tacitus @14: Covid-19 is turning into almost the perfect storm against antivaxxers. Each new variation has been more infectious than the last, making them harder and harder for the unvaccinated to avoid, and avoid getting very sick, even dying…
…and, paradoxically, giving them even more excuses not to do anything at all to protect themselves or those near them.
@27
looks like the only answer they will accept for all the problems facing humanity is that jesus should show up in the flesh and fix it. never mind that “god” has given us help in the form of the ability to figure out things we can do to help solve all of the problems.
Is animated series Queer Duck (2000) too obscure even for this knowledgable bunch or is it in poor taste to bring up? I would not have been aware of it except an episode was included on a DVD of Further Tales of the City I borrowed from the library some years back. So anyway, there is more than a little precedence for gay cartoon ducks.
Some Christians might have a bigger problem with Scrooge McDuck diving into his pile of gold coins. E.g. 1 Timothy 6:10 (love of money is the root of all evil) or Matthew 19:24 (harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, etc.). I know, I know, not Ken Ham or most of today’s evangelicals.
unclefrogy@28
Such optimism! I’m reminded of this Tom the Dancing Bug comic. Has it occurred to you that evangelicals actually want life to suck for most people? If Jesus showed up, they’d have a cross set up before you could say “penal substitutionary atonement” since clearly the first attempt didn’t take properly.