Bruce Gerencser shared a cartoon from Answers in Genesis on a recent post. It clearly had the labels the wrong way around, and so I fixed them: If anything reflects the activity of the eternal Word of God, it is the natural world, which no human being created or could create. And if there is anything that reflects fallible changing human opinions, it is the Bible, which is demonstrably the work of human authors, and whose varied viewpoints can be... Read more
This version of the Bayeux Tapestry telling the story of Star Wars was created by Aled Lewis. HT IO9 Read more
I confess that I don’t really know the music of the Indigo Girls, even though I have long been aware that “become one of the Indigo Girls” was an answer to the question “what can you do with a degree in religion?” Yesterday I heard their song “Closer to Fine” on the radio, and its lyrics immediately struck me. Here they are: CLOSER TO FINE I’m trying to tell you something about my life Maybe give me insight between... Read more
The quotation comes from a comment on Facebook, and is used with permission. The comment was on this post from “Questioning Answers in Genesis” which I shared, which addresses a specific claim that Ken Ham made in his debate with Bill Nye, as well as the broader issue of what young-earth creationists say about radiometric dating. Read more
I was notified about this event coming up in April. Given how the Ham-Nye debate went, maybe this is something to approach with hope rather than excessive concern? It is being organized by the Center for Inquiry in Ottawa. A Facebook page has been created for the event. Did a man named Jesus live in Palestine 2000 years ago? Zeba Crook, professor of religious studies at Carleton University thinks so, but historian and philosopher Richard Carrier disagrees.Join us at the... Read more
The quotation is taken from Mark Joseph Stern’s recent Slate article “The Cruelty of Creationism” or “How Creationism Imprisons the Mind.” Click through to read more of it. Creationism…isn’t a harmless, compartmentalized fantasy. It’s a suffocating, oppressive worldview through which believers must interpret reality—and its primary target is children. For creationists, intellectual inquiry is a sin, and anyone who dares to doubt the wisdom of their doctrine invites eternal damnation. That’s the perverse brilliance of creationism, the key to its self-perpetuation: First... Read more
When we discussed the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham in my Sunday school class this past weekend, I highlighted one major reason why Ken Ham’s variety of Christianity disturbs me. For young-earth creationists, exposure to mainstream education, scientific evidence, and a range of viewpoints and the cases for them, is something dangerous that Christians ought to avoid. Their very faith is at peril. The message conveyed by them is that Christian faith is something that cannot withstand scrutiny.... Read more
Fred Clark posted about young-earth creationism’s approach to the Bible and its historical connection to the hermeneutic used in defense of slavery. Here is a diagram that he shared, with a quote from the post superimposed: See too Arni Zachariassen’s post objecting to Ken Ham’s claim that Darwin was a racist, and Pete Lefevre’s post about Ken Ham’s case for young-earth creationism. Read more
Via Corinthian Matters and First Things, I learned of the above, which is a translation of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians into a different format, that of the terrible PowerPoint… Read more
The nit-picker in me wants to point out that people do not evolve, populations do. Evolution occurs over generations, not over silent moments. But having said that, my initial reaction to the cartoon above, shared by P. Z. Myers, was to think “My Sunday school class would totally do that.” Loren Crow wrote on Facebook: “I propose that we change the acronym YEC “young-earth creationism” to YECH “young earth creationist heresy.” This would clarify matters considerably, in addition to providing... Read more
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