tgamble

Depends on what kind of audience is there. There might be a few shouts of AMEN! and STONE HIM!

excreationist

John Solum:
Well he might say that you'd follow a lot of Christian morality and you personally might try and be a good person, but society as a whole is decaying from them not taking the Bible literally. (e.g. accepting gays, etc)

And if you ask him about where the morality of non-Western people who didn't have contact with the Jews came from, he'd probably say that they would have had some oral traditions passed down from Noah, including a moral code. And cultures all over the world have flood stories involving a boat and animals - but it has become distorted with time. And this could also happen with the primitive people's morality.

Well he would include just about any liberals who think that pornography, premarital sex, abortion, homosexuality, etc, is ok. The atheists would be the worst since they don't acknowledge an absolute source of morality. I think he would be able to come up with a very good response to what you're saying. And that is bad. I mean having an evolutionist there asking their toughest questions and Ken Ham being able to answer them easily - it shows that evolutionism is just on a very shaky foundation. (Or that's how it would appear to the audience at least)

Well I could answer it quite easily in his style and it would a good opportunity for him to show how good his knowledge is so I think he'd answer it.

He says things like people are "soul-destroying terrorists" all the time. I don't think that would wake people up to anything.

As I said earlier, the focus of Ken's talks and articles isn't scientific. It is usually aimed at Christians and is about the Biblical, theological and moral reasons why Genesis must be taken literally.
I don't know if you could call him hate-filled. He is peace-loving I think though, and he wouldn't encourage gays to be killed, like in the OT. He'd just think that they get what they deserve on judgement day. I think he is just taking a strong stance to try and "wake up" Christians against the evils of liberalism. And I guess he would hate evil and Satan, etc. If he was fairly indifferent to these "immoral" people than he would be kind of supporting the liberals. And remember that Jesus said "Whoever isn't for me, is against me" - there is no middle ground.

Maybe you could research "the honest creationist", Kurt Wise... see if you can find the original documents. (I want to track them down too some time) That might make people think. Ken Ham might admit that Kurt Wise might believe in spite of the evidence, but he then would say that in reality, the evidence for creationism is overwhelming and evolution is scientifically bankrupt. Then he'd go on to the next question from someone else.

Anunnaki

I remember seeing him on the PBS evolution show a while back and it was scary to see how he could work the crowd so well. It`s not that the crowd would have been hard to win over since they all looked like they had lower IQ`s than a turnip,but the majority of them probably were voters and own at least one firearm.

I wonder if he`ll be bringing that redneck guitar playing minstrel along to Grand Rapids. If so you`ll want to wear your dancing boots because you`re in for quite a treat.

You could ask him if he has a plan for when people stop listening to him. Perhaps he could be Abe Lincoln at a presidential theme park?

[ January 22, 2002: Message edited by: Anunnaki ]</p>

Kosh

Sadly, as much as we'd all like to fantasize
about a Hollywood style confrontation where
Keven Bacon dumbfounds John Lithgow in front
of his congregation and gets the whole town
to start dancing... the reality is that it's
probably more like an Amway gathering. They
don't wanna here any of the "negative" stuff.

You'd probably be drowned out in shouts of
"Lucifer!".

Such is how programming works....

Icky

I would say this:

"Evolution is not mentioned in the Bible, so it is undoubtably false. But I have been thinking. Neither Australia or America are mentioned in the Bible either. Does that mean that you were born in a land that does not exist and that you are now speaking in a land that does not exist?"

excreationist

Well I (Ken Ham's fill-in) would say - creationists do believe in evolution - microevolution, where animals can adapt through a loss of useful genetic information. There is a lot of evidence for micro-evolution. Evolutionists believe that this can be extrapolated out so that they don't need to rely on a creator to explain the world. They don't want to be personally responsible for their actions - instead they blame things on "animal instincts" (though we were created in the image of God). These evolutionists selectively use parts of science that support their false religion that they have no one to answer for.

If you take the Bible literally, the earth was created only 6000 years ago. This is not enough time for macro-evolution to work, according to the unproven theories of evolutionists.

(He might throw in more Bible verses and say it more diplomatically and persuasively though.)

for more details see <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1316.asp" target="_blank">"The Necessity for believing in six literal days" by Ken Ham</a>

BTW, many of the cities in Palestine wouldn't have been mentioned in the Bible. It doesn't mean that the existence of those cities or places like Australia are incompatible with a literal interpretation of the Bible.

[ January 22, 2002: Message edited by: excreationist ]</p>

John Solum

Hi excreationist,

Thanks a lot for your response. I'm troubled by the implications of some of your statements. If I understand you correctly the fact that Ken Ham refers to evolutionists as soul-destroying terrorists wouldn't come as a surprise to his followers (or perhaps to most creationists), and would in fact be a point of view that they agreed with. Do you think this is correct? I know that Ken Ham and folks like Henry Morris and Duane Gish felt like that, but I was under the impression that a lot of creationists, and in fact most Christians, didn't. Do you think I'm wrong?

In my experience, most of the Christians I know don't regard creation/evolution as the salvation issue that Ham/Morris/Gish make it out to be (by the way, I'll read the article by Ham that you linked to, I've read a similar one by Henry Morris, maybe Ham will say something different-I'll let you know). The ones that are creationists hold that point of view, in large part, because they regard it as a viable scientific alternative to evolution (and the age of the earth, etc.), which is how AiG and the ICR present their brand of YEC. In other words they think that there's an evolutionary interpretation of the data, and there's an equally scientific creationist interpretation of those same data. I don't think that's a valid point of view, but I'll save that for another discussion.

My motivation for asking Ham the "soul-destroying terrorist" question was to illustrate to the people in the audience (who I assumed would have the point of view of most of the Christians I know) that Ham's motivation isn't scientific, that it's religious, and that Ham regards people who don't accept it (which would presumably include friends and family out the audience members) as either soul-destroying terrorists or part of the forces of evil. I was trying to get the audience members to realize that according to Ham their science teacher in high school or their geology professor, or the people in their congregation who belive in an old earth (to provide a few examples) are in the business of destroying souls.

Most of the Christians I know would be repulsed by that, and if they found out that Ham felt that way they'd be less-iinclined to accept his claims regarding YEC at face value.

I realize that I wouldn't have to opportunity to respond to Ham's response to me, but the easy response to that claim is that there are a lot of Christians who don't accept YEC, and that he's lumping them with the forces of evil. I realize that he doesn't consider them true Christians, but hopefully that wouldn't be the case with a lot of the audience members since they'd know people in their congregations who weren't YEC. Maybe that's too naive.

I can see how an answer like that would convince his audience, but I don't think it's appropriate to say that my questions is one of the toughest. It wasn't really a question about evolution, it was a question about Ken Ham's character and motivation. I fully understand that it's impossible to effectively point out the scientific problems with YEC during the question periods of talks by creationists since there's simply not enough time to point out the flaws their claims. What I was trying to do is to get the people in the audience to realize that things aren't as cut-and-dried as Ham claims, and I was trying to motivate them to do some research into YEC instead of just taking Ham's word for it.

He may be peace-loving, but that doesn't mean that he isn't hate-filled. He refers to evolutionists (I realize that I don't know for certain whether or not he includes all evolutionists in his claim) as soul-destroying terrorists who are worse than the people who carried out the attacks on September 11. I can see how he'd try to justify that by saying he hates Satan, but hopefully that wouldn't fly. He's effectively saying that I (as someone who promotes evolution) am a worse person than the 9/11 terrorists, and I know that the Christians who know me recognize that claim as absolute nonsense. I hope that the Christians in Ham's audience know someone who's like me, and I wanted them to realize that Ham considers such people evil. My motivation in asking the question is to make it personal for the audience members (i.e. I 'm trying to get people to think "According to Ham's reasoning Aunt Martha, who I know is a good Christian, is evil.").


I'm somewhat familiar with Kurt Wise (I even got to meet him recently, and I have to say he's a really nice guy), and I have to say I'm impressed with him. I think a lot of his conclusions are wrong, but at least he's honest. I'm also pretty satisfied that Art Chadwick is an honest YEC, but I'm not as familiar with him.

excreationist

Yeah, that would be right.
Note that I can only find <a href="http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&selm=9tf8kb%24rhu%241%40suaar1ac.prod .compuserve.com" target="_blank">one</a> piece of evidence that Ken Ham said "soul-destroying terrorists". But I guess that that person didn't go to the trouble of fabricating a whole article.
I don't think Ken Ham is saying that all evolutionists are deliberately trying to destroy souls - I think he would agree that it is Satan that is trying to mislead people, working through the evolutionists.
The last part sounds fishy: "Your gift of even $38.65 will help provide answers to our
questioning and hurting nation!"

Maybe it originally said UK$10 or AUS$20 or something.

Well as a creationist I didn't think that evolutionists usually deliberately got people sinning a lot and going to hell. But I think I thought that the devil worked through them, to undermine the Bible including the Gospel message.

No, put I don't think those other Christians would be aware of the Ken Ham talk or bother going. So I think your comments would reach deaf ears. (Well I guess some creationists would invite evolutionist Christians, etc - so there would be a couple people you could possibly reach) But as I said, I think Ken Ham could justify his statement quite easily.

Well that's what they say - that they're just going by the evidence. But say there is evidence that the earth is young. Why not then believe that it is 100,000 years old then? They believe it is 6000 years old because the Bible says so. Has research led them to believe that there was a recent global flood? Have they looked all over the world to check geology first and then come up with a hypothesis? They just end up going with what the Bible says.
And many creationists mightn't think that a belief in creation is really necessary for salvation, but it does make you take the Bible more seriously and avoid moral decay (e.g. now there are legal brothels in Nevada, premarital and homosexual sex everywhere including on TV, etc)

Well he does rely on Bible verses all the time. Of course his motivation is religious!! But he says that science can help back him up, and you wouldn't have enough time to refute that. (You might have time to ask him one tough evolutionary question, which he can easily answer)

I think Ken Ham means that the devil can work through them. They don't necessarily do it deliberately. And if their friends and family are promoting the gay lifestyle (which Ken Ham condemns using Bible verses) then it is pretty obvious that they are leading others away from God and his morality.

Well you'd just be quoting a few words of his and he could use a lot of Bible verses to justify what he said. Remember that verse about "whoever isn't for me [Jesus/God] is against me"? Well this is the same kind of thing. Since they aren't for Jesus then they are therefore against Jesus.

I haven't heard of Art though...

<a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedback/default.asp" target="_blank">AiG feedback</a>
You can look at the archive to see how they "demolish" negative feedback - some of which is by highly educated people. Basically the negative feedback is a single issue and they just put a new spin on it and add a lot of information and links (though you aren't allowed to have links) and have the last say. So you can get used to how Ken Ham would probably respond to you.

crocodile deathroll

This so called "creation science" that Ken Ham promotes is most cased is just an oxymoron. It is certainly not should be taught along side biology or geology or cosmology as is not even close to these sciences, because it is all grounded in what one reads into the natural world and not what is read out of it.
If you prefer to teach it in a science class room then teach it in the context of a discipline like anthropology, and if it is taught in anthropology then you cannot ignore other creation beliefs such as the Australian Aboriginal dreamtime, the Inuit creation myths, Yanumami, Bantu, Mayan, Aztec, Easter Islanders and the list goes on there are thousands of other creation myths.
The Biblical creation myths are not more credible than these.

crocodile deathroll

Kosh

I disagree. I think the very reason so many
Christians still buy the myth is that they are
at fairly watered down levels of suspension of
disbelief. Let's look out how the Genesis myth
is portrayed:

It's statements like "And then God said let there
be light, and there was light".

And then God made man, and all the birds of
sky,etc, etc.

I know this is nt word for word accurate, but you
see where I'm going, right?

It says that God did it, it says it occurred,
but leaves the actual manifestation of the miracle
up to the imagination of the listener.

Compare this to other myths where they say
stuff like "And then the earth burst forth from
the gods belly".

Modern people hear that stuff say "Yeah, right".

The Christian myths however are vague enough that
people are able to bend their minds around them
easier. This is also what leads to the "Well
the days just meant ages" controversy.

Very very brilliant strategy, IMHO.