I’ve been featured in Kent Hovind’s regular Wack-An-Atheist nonsense, as have many other opponents of creationism. Now a different person has criticized him, Dan McClellan, a bible scholar, who points out that no, the bible does not discuss dinosaurs.
Ol’ Kent is going to have to flail about a bit in response, and I’ll be looking forward to it. I’m going to predict that what he’ll do is declare McClellan to be an atheist by default.
Also, I despise those tik-toks or whatever that feature someone just smiling and nodding along, but making sure that their face is on screen the whole time. I’ve seen a few lefty videos like that. Speak up and contribute something!
I believe that’s part of the “dual videos” trend that keeps the attention of Gens Z and Alpha.
Kent clearly misspells his name. The first letter should be a “C”…….the second letter is incorrect too……..
Love McClellan’s opening comment about Hovind: liar, fraud, and now, wife abuser. What an out standing example of the Christian man. Reminds me of a certain president.
McClellan gets a lot of obnoxious comments from so-called Christians, many of them focused on the fact that he’s a Mormon and therefore not a “true” Christian. He’s done a video about how there is no single authority to decide who is a Christian and who isn’t.
As for dinosaurs in the bibles, the whole thing is dinosaurs.
I don’t know if McClellan is an atheist but he sure knows his Bible. His videos are always spot-on and very easy to follow for the layman.
rietplum — McClellan is not an atheist. He is a Mormon, in fact a convert to Mormonism. He does seem to know the state of Biblical scholarship. His PhD from University of Leicester is in the “cognitive science of religion” so he seems to have a reasonable idea of where “religions” fit into the overall human experience.
Kent is certainly whacking something, but it’s not atheists.
Ah, but the Bible mentions birds, and birds are dinosaurs, aren’t they? Checkmate, athiests!
Mount Keen @2
I don’t understand. Perhaps if you spelled it out and explained your reasoning.
I haven’t seen her take the Hamster or Whorvind but Monte Mader does a good job of eviscerating extreme right Christian Nationalists. She has impeccable qualification for this. Among other things she studied theology at the home of fundamentalism, Liberty Univesity. https://montemader.com/
I’ve been following McClellan for several years now. He is a Mormon, but his scholarship and social media presence is as free from religious bias as it is possible for a human to be. He’s a legit scholar with loads of peer-reviewed work, well versed in biblical Hebrew, Koine Greek, and, I believe, Aramaic. In his social media presence he tries to present the consensus of what biblical scholars say about various topics. He stresses, rightly, that TikTok and YouTube are not where the scholarship happens, that’s in journals, which he is just trying to summarize and make accessible to the public. He does not discuss his personal religious views on social media. Politically, he is progressive and an LGBTQ+ ally. I’ve met him, and he’s also a genuinely warm and nice guy.
People superimposing their faces on videos just to nod along?
Oh DAHLING! That’s SO 2024!
Now we have AI “people” superimposed on human people’s content nodding along, and even AI “people” on AI “people’s” videos nodding along. All skimmed, developed, and farmed by AI agents, consumed only by AI agents. It’s the perfect diet content, free of calorific humans and free of fatty content.
It’s the algorithmic apotheosis of the internet. The AIs WILL free us after all, we’re going to have to go outside and touch grass and not use the internet at all because it will become an unusable “vacuum fluctuation” filled content void (and yes, I am aware of the irony of a “filled void” it’s intentional and quantum! ;-) ).
Can we hope Talking Heads were right?
Louis
@3
Slightly off topic, but I’ve seen that one and wish it would go out to all the liberal s out there who insist that the Christian Right isn’t “Christian.”
“Their priority is not the truth, their priority is plunking that tuning fork in the loins of the dogmatism of their audience so that they feel good…”
That’s quite a metaphor.
<snicker>
There’s one born every minute.
He’s a bloody religious apologist.
A card-carrying adherent of Moroni. An adherent.
How such a person is supposedly is left to the imagination.
Here, for you: https://www.mormonstories.org/mormon-bible-scholar-dan-mcclellan/
↓
Join me as we delve into the fascinating journey of Dan McClellan, who revolutionized biblical scholarship on TikTok. With over 600k followers, he democratized access to biblical knowledge, showcasing his deep background in Jewish and Bible studies. From his unique mission experiences in Uruguay to his thought-provoking discussions on homosexuality and creation accounts in the Bible, Dan’s insights captivate.
Born agnostic, his conversion to Mormonism took a more social and emotional route than intellectual. He’s an active church member, even as he navigates complex topics. Armed with degrees from BYU and Oxford, his scholarship journey encompassed questioning traditional beliefs about historical accuracy, leading him to prioritize data over dogma.
His TikTok journey balances his roles as a church employee and a respected scholar, bridging the gap between academia and the public. He explores intriguing topics like God having a wife and homosexuality in the Bible, backed by meticulous research. Don’t miss Dan’s upcoming book that promises to dive deeper into these compelling issues. This interview is a stimulating exploration of faith, data-driven analysis, and respectful dialogue.
From the video transcript in the OP:
Not being a Christian, he’s clearly not referring to himself.
Whether non-Christians have also been extremely confused about where dinosaurs fit into the Bible is left unstated.
Why the proposition is even being taken seriously is only explained a bit later:
Self-reflexiveness is not one of his virtues, obviously. Being himself a “content creator”.
(Maybe he’s “as free from content creator bias as it is possible for a human to be”, eh? ;)
John Morales @14:
Mormon Stories podcast – Dan McClellan Part 3, How “Thoughtful” Mormons Stay in the Church (4:12:08)
Look: the dude literally chose to convert TO a religion, a MONONIc one.
Remains in it.
That’s bias right there.
Pro-religious for fucking sure, look at his walk, not his talk.
As part of his Mormonism, he was a fucking working for the church, a missionary for it in Uruguay.
To claim such a person is “He is a Mormon, but his scholarship and social media presence is as free from religious bias as it is possible for a human to be.”
I literally quoted those claims from his social media presence!
“I don’t want to endorse any position” sez the missionary.
Good grief! How credulous must one be to accept that claim?
“but I pray for a day when that will no longer be the case”, sez the non-biased non-endorsing religious dude.
Damn clearly a religious apologist.
“what about just the ethic of being a representative for the church or even teaching Sunday school or priesthood within the church or seminary knowing that your your [unorthodox progressive] paradigm within it […] are contradictory and problematic”.
Not biased one bit, nosiree!
(Bah)
There is nothing better than Dan joining a Mormon church to ruffle all ideological feathers. He’s the academic fox inside the dogma henhouse, a provocateur and gadfly.
Oh yes, graduating from BYU and joining the Mormons surely ruffles lots of feathers.
(Be aware I damn well know what happens to those who swim upstream in that cult)
From the above bits:
I know a good case.
Its founder(s) loved to pork women, lots of women.
So Joseph Smith set up a cult in which male authority was absolute.
A patriarchal religious movement.
This is historical information! What academic imagines finds that obscure?
See? The guy lies through his teeth.
And people buy it.
He is the fox in the foxhouse. One of them.
On a different tangent, I was duly amused by the video’s thumbnail subtitle: “what Hovind gets wrong”.
That phrasing suggests that there is at least one thing Hovind does not get wrong about dinosaurs in the Babble.
‘Hovind gets it wrong’ would not have that connotation, but then, it would not be vague clickbait.
(I notice these things)
Dan McClellan – Why don’t I apply the same critical lens to the Book of Mormon? (3:15)
Dan McClellan – Why don’t I criticize Latter-day Saint scripture? (5:08)
The more he (rightly) undermines orthodoxy and criticizes the labelled subculture he’d opted into, he seems to corner himself into that bit earlier about claiming religious identity for “access to power and resources”.
Dan McClellan – Why do I hate the Bible so much? (1:54)
I’ve not seen an explanation for why he chose, and continues to choose, the Mormon institution over any other affiliation to facilitate that fandom.
John Morales @19:
He’s got a video arguing that polygamy IS biblical, with all OT mentions condoning or endorsing it, “including passages that purport to represent God’s own perspective”, with NT pretty much ignoring it in an era when it’d already fallen out of fashion, and then later separate Jewish and Christian texts condemning it.
So I interpreted that statement in #16 as about an absence of justification for maintaining patriarchal / polygamist policy in the present day that he would find satisfying.
Dan McClellan – The Bible’s sexual ethic is irrelevant today (5:24)
Dan McClellan – Again on the Bible saying women can’t lead congregations (9:51)
That generalization would encompass founders enabling their own inclinations to pork, and leave room for reformers to reject tradition as inadequate justification.
His use of serving “your identity politics” is awkward. He’s talking about reforming the identity itself, and it weirdly obfuscates group leadership.
Good grief!
John Morales @19:
Can you even read?
“a patriarchal church […] as with polygamy, I don’t think that there’s a good case to make for why it is the way it is” is two claims; (1) patriarchal church and (2) polygamous church.
He explicitly says (in that particular quotation) “I don’t think that there’s a good case to make for why it is the way it is”, right?
So to then claim that “He’s got a video arguing that polygamy IS biblical, with all OT mentions condoning or endorsing it,” is to claim he does in fact have a good case. Right? It’s biblical!
(Shame mormonism is not at all biblical ;)
Was it ever justified?
Remember, this is the One True Religion that was founded by Joe the pervert and child groomer in 1830 and that he specifically deliberately chose to join.
Sure he is. Praying for it, he is. Must be in his thoughts, too.
Bah.
—
Anyway, point is one need not be a Babble scholar to know there are no Dinos in the curated collection,
Neither in the original Jewish version, nor in the Christianised fanfiction we call the New Testament.
And note he is not even a Christian. So hardly disputing his own, is he?
(For that, he prays, allegedly)