This book looks so bad, I want to read it: Evolution is Wrong, by Erich von Däniken.
I saw some quotes. This one is so stupid it might cure my temptation.
I shouldn’t read this book, Erich is the one who needs to do some reading.
Every once in a while, it sinks into the creationist mind that they have a problem, the heat problem. They extraordinarily rapid transitions they claim had to have occurred — a globe-drowning deluge falling out of the sky and surging up out of the earth in a year, vast amounts of lava building huge geological features in a geological instant — would involve the release of immense amounts of heat, among the multitude of impossibilities in their flood myth. Just ask Phil Plait.
Creationists need the Earth (and the Universe, don’t forget) to be 6000 or so years old, due to a lengthy list of “begattings” in the Bible. The problem is, we see lots of processes going on right now that are very slow — but we see their effect because the Earth is incredibly old. But if the Earth is young, these processes have to have been cooking a lot faster in the past. Cooking indeed, because these forces expel a lot of heat. And it can be hard to dump that heat: it has to go somewhere (like an oven heating up a room when you open the door), and we just don’t see that happening.
Just imagine all the tectonic activity that we say was spread out over billions of years compressed into a single year, as creationists believe — there’d be enough heat generated to melt the crust of the Earth. Or consider all the radioactive decay that occurred to generate the elements we find on the planet, which we say is an indicator of great age. They want all that to occur in about 6000 years, postulating in some cases that radiometric dating is falsified by accelerated rates of decay…boom, that would mean natural nuclear bombs would have been popping off constantly.
Some creationists realize this, and invent all kinds of wacky mechanisms for dissipating planet-melting quantities of heat. Dan Phelps finds one who admits the one true solution: voila, it was a supernatural miracle.
However, it is important to appreciate that our inability to identify an acknowledged mechanism for removing the excess heat deposited during and after the Flood, an issue first identified over 35 years ago (Baumgardner 1986), is only a problem in the sense that it represents the limited nature of our human understanding. In a biblical context there is no fundamental problem because God purposely brought about the Flood (Genesis 6:17) as a judgment on the wicked human race of Noah’s day and covenanted with Noah to preserve human and animal life through the cataclysm (Genesis 6:18). He sovereignly accomplished both objectives, implying that environmental temperatures could not have risen beyond biological endurance limits. The only real problem is our current lack of understanding of how this was accomplished; the Flood account in Genesis 6–9 does not tell us directly whether supernatural processes were involved, though it seems very likely that they were. The same basic issue arises in connection with the topics to be covered in Parts 5 (heat due to Accelerated Nuclear Decay) and 6 (heat due to bombardments from space) of this series, and will be considered at greater length in Part 7.
I’ve been saying for years that creationists have an easy out for dealing with the difficulties their model generates. Just say it was a miracle. Just say God did it.
Usually they are reluctant to do that because it’s an admission that they don’t actually have any kind of scientific explanation.
I was reminded on Mastodon that I used to live in Eugene, and shared the city with a particular creationist that I debated, once. Then I was reminded again how old I’m getting because that debate happened in 2008, fifteen goddamned years ago. Bleh. It was a boring debate and I wasted my youth on it.
Anyway, here’s what I wrote about the debate with Geoff Simmons, way back in, I remind you, 2008. Some of you may remember that because you’re getting as old as I am.
It was a radio debate on KKMS, the regional Christian talk radio station, back when they’d occasionally bring me on to humiliate local Christians (they learned their lesson, eventually). I grabbed the recording before the station deleted the archive, and posted it on YouTube so you can enjoy it now.
Jesus, but he was stupid and dishonest. I was wise to finally give up that ugly habit.
Calm down, he’s not dead yet. At his age, though, he’s probably contemplating his future successor. Bodie Hodge, his son-in-law, is a blithering goober, and the other people at the top of his organization are women, so naturally they’re out of the running. Andrew Snelling, Terry Mortenson, Danny Faulkner? Negative charisma. Tim Chaffey? He’s tall, that’s about it. Nathaniel Jeanson? An insufferable twit.
Apparently, Ken has been recruiting back in the homeland of Australia, and he has landed a real winner: Martyne Iles. He’s perfect. He’s young. He’s loud. He’s a confirmed hater: he doesn’t want anything to do with the gays or the transes, he despises the idea of climate change, he hates commies. He’s a cerfiable culture warror, and his ideology lines up nicely with Ken Ham’s.
And now he’s been hired as Chief Ministry Officer for Answers in Genesis.
Also interesting: he was formerly the Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby, but he was kicked out. The apparent cause was that the ACL, under his leadership, was flopping badly. Australians kept passing those danged liberal laws anyway. He was ineffective and obnoxious.
The ACL grew rapidly under Iles – its membership tripled, Iles said – but its size wasn’t the board’s problem. It was struggling for political impact. In a few short years, it recorded losses on virtually every single key issue: same-sex marriage was legalised in 2017, just months before Iles took the post; almost every state in the country has loosened laws on abortion and voluntary assisted dying; and major steps against gay conversion therapy have been made in Victoria, WA and NSW. And faced with the potential for a multi-term Labor government that saw the group as – at best – irrelevant, the Australian Christian Lobby needed a major strategic reset.
So now he has left Australia to a country that if more favorable ideologically. He’s just like Ken Ham!
They have one other thing in common: they’re both abominably stupid. Here’s Iles’ “evidence for god”.
No one ever thought that intricacy could come out of simplicity or that order could come out of chaos in anything except creation.
Also, beautiful sunsets
. Fanaticism and banality, such a great combination.
It’s a match made in heaven.
Answers in Genesis is looking for a full-time high school science teacher. I’m not looking for a new job, but even if I were, I’m stunned by how supremely unqualified I am for this position.
The qualified individual must be an evangelical Christian committed to living a biblical lifestyle in all areas and in full agreement with the schools statement of faith. The teacher is expected to be in alignment with the science and biblical positions held at Answers in Genesis and able to teach science from a biblical worldview in the classroom. The teacher must also be able to distinguish operational vs historical science as well as be able to articulate the evolutionary beliefs correctly while being able to refute them biblically and scientifically. The teacher must also have a good understanding of AiGs presuppositional apologetic approach and know how to incorporate it in the classroom.
The teacher shall be one who feels called of God to the teaching profession. The teacher must maintain a teachable spirit while demonstrating patience, humility, integrity, and kindness while performing his/her day-to-day duties. He/she must be devoted to prayerfully work with administration, faculty, students, and parents to develop and maintain a school which is thoroughly Christian and academically exceptional. The teacher shall prayerfully help students learn attitudes, skills, and subject matter that will contribute to their development as mature, able, and responsible Christians to the glory of God.
I don’t meet the requirements in a single sentence of that summary. Of course, nowhere in there does it say anything about degrees or training or experience, all that matters is conformity to the peculiar notion of science held by AiG.
Oh, at the end of the long list of detailed stuff, almost every bit of it about theological purity, there is a passing mention of what I might expect for qualifications of a real teaching position.
It is expected for the teacher to:
- Hold a minimum of a bachelors degree or equivalent in related field
- Have completed student teaching and/or other educational field experience.
It is preferred (but not necessary) for the teacher to:
- Have two or more years of classroom teaching experience.
- Have a current teaching certificate from a Christian school association and/or State Teaching Certificate in Education.
- Have a masters degree in education or a science field.
Did you finish Bible school? Did you teach Sunday school? You’re qualified. (I’ve done neither.)
Kent Hovind still exists! He was kicked off YouTube (sort of: he’s still there under the ‘Genesis Baptist Church’ channel, and his main outlet seems to be Rumble), but he persists in a diminished fashion. Here’s a neat summary of his status:
Hovind, who spent nine years in prison for tax avoidance, runs the DAL park in Repton, Alabama. The park is advertised as family-friendly, featuring playgrounds, animals, and a “science center” that claims that humans and dinosaurs shared the earth mere thousands of years ago. Former DAL workers, some of whom lived at the park, have accused Hovind of enabling a culture of impunity for Jones and for other close friends, who allegedly abused drugs, stole money, and killed a dog on or near DAL property. Hovind was also convicted of domestic violence in 2021—a ruling he is appealing.
Yes, that’s Kent, reduced to running a low-rent cult for rednecks, and fishing for rubes on the internet.
The latest development is that his good buddy Chris has been arrested for child abuse.
Christopher Link Jones, 55, was arrested late last month in Aiken, South Carolina, the Aiken Standard first reported. An arrest warrant shows Jones charged with criminal sexual conduct with a minor under 14. Jones was previously convicted of battery and lewd acts on children in California.
Jones’ California criminal record created rifts at Dinosaur Adventure Land, a creationist theme park where Jones is friends with head preacher Kent Hovind, and where Jones has been accused of sexually abusing a boy. Hovind and Jones have blamed the previous conviction on a plot to silence Jones for what he claims was his work with Infowars founder Alex Jones.
In an interesting example of wishful thinking and projection, Kent is still defending him.
Reached by phone about Jones’ latest arrest, Hovind said it was not feasible to perform background checks on all DAL visitors. Even so, he said. “I would doubt he’s guilty.”
But Hovind doesn’t need to perform a background check; he’s already aware of Jones’ past conviction.
“Well even that doesn’t mean you’re guilty,” Hovind said. “How many people, later, convictions get overturned? Thousands of them. Sometimes 20 years, 50 years later.”
Just like you’ve deluded yourself into thinking your conviction for tax fraud will be overturned? Face it, Kent, you were guilty, guilty, guilty, and Christopher Jones, your good friend, is a sleazy child molester.
Oh, great. Ken Ham offered a basic course in genetics, which I found irresistible, since I’ve only been teaching genetics for something over 20 years. Maybe? I’ll learn something new. Unfortunately, all I learned is that Ken Ham has an irrational contempt for poodles.
Yuck. Stephen Meyer addressed me on Twitter — that site really has become a cesspool. Anyway, he claimed I hide my evilutionist views behind complexity, so I had to address that. Because it was so stupid.
Also, I’m really annoyed when they drag out deceased scientists who despised them and prop them up as arguments against evolution.
Time to revise all of taxonomy, according to Ken Ham. He was annoyed by a sign at the local zoo.
Humans are animals? Something must be done!
From a biblical worldview perspective, humans are different to animals. Only human beings are made in the image of God. ““Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”” (Genesis 1:26).
God made animals differently, “And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds”” (Genesis 1:24). When God created Adam, He brought animals to him to name to show there was no one like him, as none of the animals were made in God’s image, “But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:20).
Because of the emphasis today that man is just an animal & thus affecting people’s view of humanity & how they view various moral issues, I suggest Christians use the criterion “made in the image of God,” for an additional Kingdom. This would place man in his own Kingdom, The Human Kingdom. We need our children to understand that humans are special & made in God’s image, whereas animals are not made in God’s image.
He’s gonna fix that. First step: redesign that zoo sign.
Humans are as different from all other organisms as paramecia are from sequoias, or elephants from mushrooms. The evidence for that is a) the Bible, and b) Ken Ham.
I’m afraid I’m going to have to demand a full phylogenetic analysis of that tree. I don’t think Answers in Genesis can do it. I don’t think they have the slightest conception of the rigor required of systematics.
Part of the money-making strategy at Answers in Genesis is to constantly promote how popular they are in a never ending cycle of self-fulfilling prophecy. One of the recent lies has been that they bring in so many tourists that hotel chains are building new places near the Ark Park to meet the booming demand.
It is true that the country contains many yokels who like to vacation in a boring wooden box that reassures them that their interpretation of the Bible is true, but it’s not exactly a growth industry. They’ve had to constantly misrepresent their popularity to get support from state and local government, and wouldn’t you know it, hotels aren’t springing up all around the place. Ken Ham has been bragging about one new hotel in the neighborhood, but surprise surprise, it isn’t in response to demand — AiG is spending its own money to have it built. Gotta spend money to make money, you know. If that involves building a whole Potemkin village to make themselves look popular, that’s what they’ll do.
Ken Ham is being quiet that Answers in Genesis (AIG) owns part, or perhaps all, of the new Hampton Inn that just opened adjacent to the Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky. Moreover, he is trying to make it look as if the supposed “success” of the Ark Park has brought the new hotel to the region. Information below shows that AIG shares a high-level employee with the new hotel, and the LLC that owns the hotel shares a Post Office box with AIG.
AiG is perfectly within its rights to use its own money to build a hotel to serve its little “attraction,” but it does bring into question the purpose of all those tax subsidies it has received, and I also wonder why they are so desperate to hide their role.
Fabulous new housing development going up in Wiliamstown, Kentucky!
