Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Answers in Genesis

  • Ken Ham Strikes a Blow for Integrity – NOT

    Read more at Exploring our Matrix.

  • Debunking Flood Geology

    This video from AIG Busted is informative, humorous, and quite sarcastic. Hat Tip: Exploring Our Matrix.

  • On Bundling Tourist Attractions

    The Christian Post reports that the Cincinnati Zoo was forced to quit bundling its tickets with those to the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY. This has been blogged to death all around the internet, and I’m going to join in ganging up on the story.

    According to the Creation Museum’s founder, Ken Ham, however, the zoo received hundreds of complaints, many of which were opposed to the faith and ideas that the museum presents.

    “It’s a pity that intolerant people have pushed for our expulsion simply because of our Christian faith,” Ham said, expressing disappointment in the zoo’s decision but also understanding of its perspective.

    I want to pick on a couple of points in that one.

    First, in calling opponents of this deal “intolerant people” Ken Ham accepts to bizarre modern notion that a lack of endorsement or assistance constitutes intolerance. I don’t regard those who refuse to give money to my church as intolerant. I don’t regard those who refuse to give money to a political candidate they oppose as intolerant. Bundling tickets is sharing value. It’s not intolerant to fail to do so, neither is it intolerant to oppose doing so.

    Second, the problem here is not the Museum sponsor’s “Christian faith.” It’s their completely untenable scientific ideas which their Museum is designed to promote. I’m a Christian. More importantly folks like Dr. Kenneth Miller and Dr. Francis Collins are Christians. It’s not the Christian faith that’s the problem, it’s the particular unscientific views of Answers in Genesis that are the problem.

    The Museum pushes young earth creationism, which requires a wholesale rejection of the bulk of modern science either directly or in its implications. Of course, we don’t see them rejecting all the technology that’s based on atomic theory when they reject radiometric dating. That would be impractical. But it’s implied.

    In bundling tickets, the Cincinnati Zoo was, in my opinion, giving too much tacit recognition to a museum that should be treated as outside the bounds of scientific discourse. There is simply no redeeming value in it at all. Now note that I don’t say it should be closed, or that its sponsors should be imprisoned, but I do say that they should not be treated as scientists engaged in the endeavor of bringing science to the public.

    One of the great negative side-effects of post-modernism has been this idea that all ideas are somehow equal and that we are intolerant if we don’t treat them as such. It goes hand in hand with the view that if we allow the expression of all sides of an issue, giving them equal time, we have somehow properly covered that issue.

    My view, on the contrary, is that ideas have to earn their place at the table. People who espouse unpopular ideas should be prepared to do the work of getting them to that place. The Creation Museum presents propaganda for a viewpoint that has never earned its place at the table, and indeed has repeatedly demonstrated that it doesn’t deserve such a place. An organization that is engaged in science should not even appear to endorse it.

    David at He Lives takes quite a different position than I do. He says:

    Ken Ham’s (silly) creation museum and the Cincinnati Zoo had a joint Christmas promotion—buy a ticket to one, see both. Now that is an odd, strange-bedfellows sort of pairing—but so what? People who wanted to visit both attractions could save a little money, and both places get a piece of the pie, including potential visits to their respective gift shop and restaurant cash cows. A win-win.

    Of course I risk having David tell me I have my “panties were bunched around his eyeballs” as he did of James Leach, but I agree much more with Leach. These are not merely two tourist attractions. I’m betting that neither institution would claim that as their primary purpose. The Creation Museum has as its goal religious proselytization, and the Zoo, one would hope, has an educational purpose.

    I would suggest that this was not the pairing of two tourist attractions, both of which were harmless. I would see it much more as similar to Disney World offering a bundled package with a tour of some whorehouses.

    But I’m sure I’m just over the top. I take both my science and my faith seriously. Because I take my faith seriously, I wouldn’t want my church contributing in any way to the Creation Museum. Because I take science seriously, I don’t want any scientific institution or group to contribute in any way to the Creation Museum.

  • Expelled: No Mainstream Scientists Allowed

    Well, I got past my hardware problems, and then started to read my e-mail and some of my RSS feeds. First, I came across an e-mail from Christianity Today’s ChristianBibleStudies.com, from which I often get useful material. Today, they’re wanting me to pay $5.95 for a discussion of the movie that I can use in my Sunday School class.

    I am not encouraged by their link to an interview with Ben Stein that starts out:

    Ben Stein got his start as a lawyer and a speechwriter for Presidents Nixon and Ford, and in more recent years he has written books, offered investment advice, and hosted both a game show (Win Ben Stein’s Money) and a reality TV show (America’s Most Smartest Model). But he is probably still best known for playing the boring high-school economics teacher who took attendance in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

    Now Stein is tackling education of a different kind, as the star of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a documentary about the Intelligent Design movement—and the academic establishment’s efforts to stifle the debate over the limitations of evolutionary theory that many ID advocates have been calling for.

    I decided not to spend $5.95 and probably not to discuss Expelled! in any Sunday School classes either.

    The problem I have is that Expelled! is also squeezing some folks out, and they are making Christianity Today a co-conspirator in that process. The ones squeezed out? All those Christians, even evangelical Christians who would like much of what Christianity Today publishes, but who accept the theory of evolution.

    This is one of the many problems with this movie. It frames the controversy as one between theists and atheists, between moral people and immoral people, and thus leaves out Christian evolutionists, moral atheists, and many people who are not particularly religious or anti-religious, but are simply out there doing the best science they can. As one of those Christian evolutionists, I find this implication appalling. According to this movie and its promoters, I’m a co-conspirator with a bunch of Nazis to persecute Christians.

    I recall a student of mine who took my Creation-Evolution seminar–the short, four hour version–and then talked to one of his fellow students in biology class. This man was interested in Christianity, and attracted to it, but simply found the evidence for evolution overwhelming. My young student was able to explain to him that the theory of evolution was not contrary to all forms of Christianity, and soon he was involved in a local church.

    I was disappointed in Christianity Today, but I was pleased to note that Reasons to Believe, with whom I often disagree, has noticed the nature of the Expelled! propaganda piece as well. As reported on The Panda’s Thumb, they have asked folks associated with their ministry not to endorse the movie in a way that connects with their official business:

    Therefore, we ask all chapter members and volunteers to refrain from endorsing EXPELLED in any official way. This request does not extend to your personal interactions-only to any actions taken in association with or on behalf of Reasons to Believe. (The whole quote is here.)

    Through a comment on the Panda’s Thumb article, I found this post by Ken Ham on the Answers in Genesis blog, who, not surprisingly is excited by the film’s release and is encouraging all his supporters to view it. (Note that the Answers in Genesis blog doesn’t allow comments or trackbacks. Perhaps that is their demonstration of how much they value dialog.)

    If we Christians are to welcome such mainstream scientists into our community, our family, we will have to learn to be reasonably respectful toward them. It would seem that not calling them Nazis would be a good start in that direction! If this is a battle about freedom of speech, then it should apply to all parties. If it is a battle in the culture war, then it’s unfortunate that a salvo such as this has been launched at so many devout Christians who accept the theory of evolution.

    I do not object to vigorous argument, as long as it is vigorous and honest. Expelled! fails to meet the standard.

    Hmm. That’s enough rambling at the end of a day spent largely taking my computer apart and putting it back together. If I said anything really weird, I’ll make that the excuse!