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
If you haven’t had your fill of debates about creationism, Hector Avalos (a scholar of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament who happens to be an atheist) will be debating someone named Juan Valdez on the topic “Is Genesis 1-3 a scientifically reasonable account of the origin of our world?” The debate will take place on February 16th, and you can watch it here (the countdown has begun). It will be interesting to see how this debate, which is not between people claiming... Read more
“The scientific problem with creationism has nothing to do with God. You can believe in one or another kind of God while being part of the scientific quest. You just have to keep asking how God creates life and the cosmos, and you have to subject your answers to the tests of evidence. Creationists say God made the world in six days, but offer no explanation of how God did it. Thus they have walled themselves outside the realm of... Read more
I tried to think of an amusingly sensational headline for what is a legitimately important piece of news. As Josh Mann and Larry Hurtado have both pointed out, it looks like we will soon see the long-awaited publication of the results of the tests on the papyrus fragment known as “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.” Read more
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