Ken Ham and the Church of Darwin

Ken Ham was the subject of an article on Christian News Service, which began the piece with the astounding claim that Ham is "a biologist."  He has a bachelor's degree in applied science, with an emphasis in environmental biology.  That doesn't make him a biologist.  No matter.

Michael Chapman writes:

In an interview on VCY America on Feb. 10, two days before the international Darwin Day, host Jim Schneider said to Ken Ham, “I was disturbed in my spirit to hear we have House now and Senate resolutions declaring Feb. 12 to be Darwin Day, and as much as that grieved me, it grieved me even more though to see that churches are doing the very same thing.”

Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis and founder of the Creation Museum, said, “Churches are doing the very same thing. And think about this: At the same time, they’re trying to throw nativity scenes out of public places, take Christ out of Christmas, and then they claim there’s separation of church and state but there is no such thing as church and state.”

“The First Amendment doesn’t even have that terminology in it,” said Ham. “The establishment clause is about the state not establishing a church. But the state has established a church, it’s the Church of Evolution, with Darwin as the high priest, if you like, and a lot of these teachers and professors as priests in this religion of evolution that they’re imposing through the schools.”

Welllll...where to start.

January 13 is Stephen Foster Memorial Day, January 15 is Lee Jackson day, January 18 is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, February 4 is Rosa Parks Day, February 15 is President's Day, February 15 is Daisy Gatson Bates (I had to look her up) Day, February 28 is Linus Pauling Day, March 7 is Casimir Pulaski Day (Had to look him up, too)...Do I need to go on?

So why would “Darwin Day” be a problem? It is a problem because, despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary, Ham thinks evolution is a religious point of view. There is not a shred of evidence for this perspective but that is the one he has. Consequently, to create a Darwin Day is to create a “church” holiday. The post continues:

“Molecules-to-man evolution is a fairy tale,” said Ham, author of The Lie: Evolution. “That’s really what it is. It’s man’s story, in rebellion against God, to try to be his own god, to try to explain life without God. We need to make people realize what it is.” “We actually, we have this on our website too, we actually will encourage you to say ‘not the theory of evolution but belief in evolution,’” said Ham. “The reason is because when people say theory, the idea of a theory is that there’s evidence for it. There’s no evidence for evolution, so it’s not even a theory.”

It is unconscionable for Ham to regard evolution as having no evidence when quite the reverse is true.  This brings me to a harsh accusation.  Even Todd Wood, the young earth creationist in Dayton, Tennessee, who actually works with biological data, recognizes that there is a mountain of evidence for evolution, even if he chooses not to accept it. 

For Ham, on the other hand, to continually state that evolution has no evidence despite the multitude of people who have shown him otherwise is a lie.  It simply is.  Ken Ham makes no effort to learn even the basics of evolutionary theory because he chooses not to.  That is his choice, but to pontificate from AiG and state that evolution has no evidence is irresponsible, arrogant, duplicitous and mendacious.