Creationist Ken Ham: The State Has Created 'The Church of Evolution With Darwin As The High Priest'

Cybercast News Service ^ | February 16, 2016 | 4:07 PM EST | Michael W. Chapman

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

Very well said. Yes, there are millions who would rather think that God is a trickster on a cosmic scale than that He occasionally speaks in allegory.

[Original Lurker]

I use the same patch of ground for my vegetable garden year after year. At peak season my plants are astounding. At the end of summer’s growing season everything is ripped up and plowed asunder.

Come early winter you would never know anything had ever grown there.

I have 144 heirloom tomatoes (some half dozen varieties) that just popped up proudly displaying their cotyledons.

The cycle begins again.

[Wilhelm Tell]

The so-called Observational Science is interesting. YEC people will say “Were you there?” any time a natural event in the distant past is mentioned. This is almost a post-modern view in that it denies that reason can be used to understand things. The only thing you can trust evidently is whatever you have directly experienced.

[AppyPappy]

Young Earth Creationism is based on a theory that cannot be proven. It is based on a literal timeline that may not be complete. Dates and times were not literal in the Bible. Numbers represented something. If something happened in 40 (days, years), it means a long time. It could have been 40 but that is not the point of the number.

[Montana_Sam]

Not being a young-earth creationist myself, I still find the puerile ‘scientific’ explanations to be far sillier. Evolution, in the round, is a dreary little theory for people who never learned how to think for themselves, and who want to deny the fact that willful intelligence is non-evolutionary.

[Wilhelm Tell]

The book, “The Lost World of Genesis One” by John Walton points that out. There is a lot of symbolism and liturgical meaning that would be natural to an ancient Hebrew - things most of us (myself included) would have little or no knowledge of.

[ifinnegan]

“what Ham here calls “observational science” is just rubbish and anti-science, and should in no way be mistaken for the real thing.”

Yes. And?

My point was Hamm is right about the creation of a Church of Evolution with Darwin as prophet.

Read my post again.

[ifinnegan]

“there are literal mountains of evidence supporting evolution theory”

Literal mountains of evidence.

I’m wondering if you know what literal means or what mountain means.

I’m thinking you may be in the Church Hamm is talking about.

Where’d you get your degree? And what is it?

[dp0622]

hmm. I’m Christian. I believe and pray, but I am human with human frailties and hope we aren’t just monkeys in suits.

[dp0622]

that last line is me.

that there is more than the material world we see.

but i dont know what i’m basing it one, except the bible.

[Original Lurker]

Paul said not to:

devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies.

[dmz]

It’s Marxist to believe that only the material universe exists.

<><><><

That the material world is all that exists long predates Marxist thought.

Materialism vs. dualism goes as far back as the earliest philosophical musings of the ancient Greeks.

Aristotle’s empiricism is a form of materialism, and I cannot imagine anyone suggesting that Aristotle is really the Founding Father of Marxist thought.

[Olog-hai]

Agreed. I didn’t say exclusively Marxist. But this is one of the primary drivers of Marxism.

[BroJoeK]

Montana_Sam: “Evolution, in the round, is a dreary little theory for people who never learned how to think for themselves, and who want to deny the fact that willful intelligence is non-evolutionary.”

Setting aside your belittling of science, willful intelligence is *certainly* evolutionary, as is clearly demonstrated when you consider the *evolution* of such technologies as automobiles or aircraft.
There, willful intelligence each model year “naturally” selects those ideas which worked best in the past, and adds to them such new ideas as their intelligence may suggest.
The results, over, say, 100 years, evolve cars from Ford’s old “Tin Lizzy” to today’s latest innovations.

As Christians, however, we believe the difference between human vs. Divine intelligence is that God knows His Plan from the beginning of time to its end — alpha & omega.

[BroJoeK]

ifinnigan: "My point was Hamm is right about the creation of a Church of Evolution with Darwin as prophet."

Just so we're clear on this point: I agree that, by definition, atheism is a form of religion.
This makes all those "fancy terms" I used -- i.e., ontological naturalism -- just gussied up words for the religion of atheism.
No dispute about that.

But science itself -- modern natural-science -- is neither atheism nor religion.
It falls into another category, another fancy term: methodological naturalism.
Methodological naturalism -- science -- simply says: we will set aside our religious views for purposes of investigating the natural realm, and will create only natural explanations for natural processes.

Methodological naturalism does not deny the existence of a Supernatural realm, nor of Divine miraculous interventions, but it does rule those are inappropriate for scientific study.
It leaves them instead to the good doctors of theology, philosophy and religion.

The confusion comes because some people of science also glom onto the atheistic beliefs of philosophical naturalism.
So, when they represent themselves as "scientists", people are led to think: "oh, that means science must be an atheistic religion".
No, it means only that some scientists are also atheists, nothing more.

Agreed?

[BroJoeK]

iffinnegan: "I'm wondering if you know what literal means or what mountain means.
I'm thinking you may be in the Church Hamm is talking about."

I'm wondering if you know what literal means, or what mountain means -- do you, really?
Is this something you need to discuss & debate, because I'm happy to do it, if you're confused.

iffinnegan: "Where'd you get your degree?
And what is it?"

Note my tagline below.
I have more than one advanced degree from well known schools, but most important, I have a Doctorate in Hard Knocks from the School of Life, being now "semi-retired" with time to read, and hundreds of books in my home library on any number of interesting subjects, including this one.

So, if you really wish to discuss those literal mountains of evidence supporting evolution, then I'd first invite you to consider any natural hill or mountain you wish.
If you dig down through that mountain, you will soon find that it is composed of geological layers, after layers -- called strata -- many of which can be radio-metrically dated, by dozens of different methods, and some of which layers include fossils.

In most mountains the datings will show younger material on top, increasingly older material underneath, and any fossils in that mountain will correspond in time to those same fossils found elsewhere.
This is all evidence supporting evolution, literally, mountains of evidence.

Of course, if you steadfastly refuse, for religious reasons, to see the "mountains of evidence" that's your choice.
However, the mountains remain, regardless of your willingness, or not.

[BroJoeK]

dp0622: "hmm. I'm Christian.
I believe and pray, but I am human with human frailties and hope we aren't just monkeys in suits."

It's your choice, to believe or not, and your choice what to believe.
What makes sense to me is a Divine Creator of the Universe, including some miraculous interventions.

But regardless of interventions, please consider this analogy: when you plant a certain small seed, you know it will grow into a great tree, and you know just what the tree will look like.
Likewise, God planted a small seed -- the Universe, the "Big Bang" if you will -- knowing that it would grow into us, and beyond.
Except, except that God didn't just "plant" the seed, He created the seed, and it's "DNA", and the Ground it's planted in, plus the water, air & nutrients to help it grow, all according to His plan & design.

So, acknowledging everything comes from God, and then saying, "evolution is God's chosen methodology" takes nothing from God, nor His miraculous Creations, imho.

[BroJoeK]

dp0622: "but i dont know what i'm basing it one, except the bible."

Your choice.
When you seriously consider the alternatives, you see that is not a bad choice, indeed, is the best possible choice, imho.

[dp0622]

Thanks. That was a great post.