Showing posts with label Focus On the Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Focus On the Family. Show all posts

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Ken Ham Once Again Demonstrates That He Has No Understanding of Science

Ken Ham says that evolution is religion.  In an interview with The Christian Post, Jeannie Law writes:
"You see, evolutionists have beliefs just like creationists have beliefs. For instance, this movie — 'Is Genesis History?' — the Ph.D. scientists that are in this movie, their role as scientists in a modern world is to show that observational science confirms the Bible's history about creation, and then the flood, the tower of babble," Ham stated. "So it's not science and creation, it's not science and religion, it's really a battle of two worldviews."

The 65-year-old describes it as a conflict of two starting points — God's word or man's word. He said the dispute lies in historical science, which is science about beliefs in the past. Some believe in what God says happened throughout history and others believe in what men say.

"So it's really a battle between two religions. Evolution, that's a religion. It's really the pagan religion of this age to explain life without God," he argued. "There's always been a battle of two religions since the beginning."
Is Genesis History? is a new film out from The Truth Project, an organization that has a record for botching truth when it comes to science.  Steven Martin wrote, in 2009, the following:
Focus on the Family is promoting their “Truth Project” to churches and small groups. A quick look at the lesson overview shows that, ironically, the Truth Project doesn’t seem to put much stock in truth when it comes to science (see lesson 5). For example, this lesson states that “Darwinian theory transforms science from the honest investigation of nature into a vehicle for propagating a godless philosophy”. Completely untrue.
If you phrase the study of evolution in this way, you don't have to address the scientific merits of the theory. Instead, this is a craven appeal of the emotions of Christians to get them to reject the perfectly valid scientific theory of evolution because it is not of God.

Onward.

Ken Ham's entire talking point for this perspective is his mistaken impression that we cannot reconstruct the past.  He is quoted as saying:
"When it comes to knowledge of our past, concerning our origins, that knowledge is very different because now you're talking about, 'How did the universe come into being [when] I wasn't there to see that happen?'" Ham explained.
This is completely facile and betrays a complete lack of understanding of how science works. Indeed, daily events require us to reconstruct events for which we were not present. This is no different than reconstructing a crime scene or conducting an archaeological excavation, in which we reconstruct past events. Would Ken Ham actually have us believe that we cannot know anything about our past because we weren't there? That is nothing short of idiotic and comes from someone who has no understanding of science.

Off-Topic: I have complained to the Christian Post about their website before.  When I went to the site today, a video ad that covered the right side of the screen auto-loaded and played, which I watched and then stopped.  While I was writing the post, the stupid video reloaded and played three more times.  This kind of thing is what is ruining the internet.  

Friday, December 04, 2009

Dennis Venema Videos on Being an Evolutionary Creationist

In his post on Focus on the Family's "Truth" Project, Steve Martin had a link to some videos done by Dennis Venema on how a Christian can accept evolution. Dennis teaches biology at Trinity Wesleyan University and was faced with a situation where his church began to use the "Truth Project." He felt that he needed to respond, so he gave a series of lectures on evolution. He has graciously posted these to YouTube here.

There are eight of them and I would encourage you to look at all of them. Here is the first one.



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Focus on the Family and the Truth Project

Steve Martin over at An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution, has written a post about the new Truth Project that is being initiated by Focus on the Family. It is a call to "speak the truth in love." He writes:
Focus on the Family is promoting their “Truth Project” to churches and small groups. A quick look at the lesson overview shows that, ironically, the Truth Project doesn’t seem to put much stock in truth when it comes to science (see lesson 5). For example, this lesson states that “Darwinian theory transforms science from the honest investigation of nature into a vehicle for propagating a godless philosophy”. Completely untrue.
Daily we run across a creationist who has no clue about the fossil record spouting nonsense. What do we, as Christians do about it? Well, I write this blog, hoping it will reach out to people that are curious, questioning or searching. Steve says that maybe that is not enough:
Given what has been said above, I would like to propose a guideline for when we as ECs should NOT remain silent. When either 1) a Christian organization in which we participate or 2) our local Church officially promote anti-evolutionary views, I believe that we must speak up. In this instance, we must “speak the truth in love” and provide the message that:

a) the scientific evidence for common descent is massive
b) the acceptance of biological evolution is compatible with an evangelical expression of the Christian faith

For us to remain silent in these circumstances would be a disservice to the gospel. It would be unloving to our brothers and sisters who are being told that their faith rests on a specific view of science that is demonstrably false.
If you have followed this blog for any period of time, you know that I have been leaning the same direction. My problem is that I have come, increasingly, to view the young earth creation model as a radical misinterpretation of the scriptures. I have, however, tempered on my thinking that it might be a modern-day heresy.

I just had a long conversation with my boss about the concept of heresy and his perspective (and I see the wisdom of it) is that as long as a core teaching of scripture is not being violated (think creeds, here) it is not heresy. Different interpretations of Genesis fall in to this category, since the omnipotence and immanence of God is not being debated. However, for me to say that someone who thinks that the world was created 6 000 years ago is not saved is clearly wrong. But I have seen people use that belief as an article of faith and salvation. I will speak up about that!

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