God of the Gaps VS Newton

Reading "The Ascent of Man" is the best part of my commute.  In it I found this jewel of a quote by Sir Isaac Newton:

"To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age.  'Tis much better to do a little with certainty, and leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things."

Brilliant.  Just brilliant.  It's probably one of the best comebacks ever to the old "but science can't explain everything" stupidity.  The fact that it comes from every creationist's favourite scientist just makes it so much sweeter! 

No, science can't explain everything right now.  That doesn't mean that your mystery of choice will never ever be explained.  We may not even get the answer in your lifetime but that doesn't mean we will never get the answer.  With each generation of scientists building on the work of their predecessors, we keep learning and understanding more, just like Newton said.  So if I can't give you a scientific explanation right this second, it doesn't mean the answer isn't out there.   It certainly doesn't mean that you get to make up your own answer in the meantime!

In the past there were tons of things we didn't understand.  Today we understand a lot more about a great many things.  Interestingly enough, everytime something was figured out no matter how long it took us or how difficult it was to figure out, the answer has never ever EVER been "magic".

So on that note since I started this post with a quote from an eccentric genius I'll end it  with the words of another brilliant weirdo:

"Life is full of mystery, yeah,
But there are answers out there
And they won't be found
By people sitting around
Looking serious
And saying isn't life mysterious?"

Tim Minchin, Storm

Wings of a Dragon

Turns out blogging through an entire Chick tract was a mistake.  It's been days and my brain still feels damaged from trying to make sense out of that much crazy.  Did I learn my lesson?  Time will tell.  Problem is that because of it my brain recoils like a whipped puppy now every time I attempt to write a blog post so clearly I'm going to have to ease back into this very gently...

I know this is a little old by now but I still laugh every time I watch it.



It has everything.  Bizarre claims about humans and dinosaurs co-existing, Christianity and American patriotism used as interchangeable concepts and of course a general contempt for all science.  At least Megan and Nick are doing it as a joke.  Kent Hovind does the exact same thing in his seminars only it's not funny because he's being serious.  And I'm going to stop right there because I'm about to try and explain a crazy person again and that never ends well for my psyche.

Anyway, enjoy!

Recent Ancient Beliefs

When I was a young fundamentalist Christian, I felt very secure in my beliefs.  After all, the things that we believed in MY church were the things that all real true Christians have always believed.  The rest of Christianity may fall away from the one true faith thanks to all their compromises with the fallen world, but not us!  No, we would always stay true to the things that Christianity have always taught and always believed.  We knew we were right because we were holding fast to what had always been right.  So it came as quite a shock to me to find out that so many of my age old beliefs were really quite modern!

I've blogged before on how some of our doctrine wasn't as Bible based and unambiguously clear as I once thought.  But it's really more than that.  It's not just about how "Bible based" my beliefs really were it's how recent they were, considering that these were the things that, supposedly, "Christians have always believed".

Christians have always been Young Earth Creationists.  Except they weren't.  This wasn't always an article of the faith, once upon a time it was totally acceptable to be a Christian and believe in an old Earth.  Throughout Church history there have been a variety of opinions on just how to interpret Genesis and the consensus was not always on the side of a strictly literal interpretation.  Some Christians fear that accepting science undermines the authority of the Bible (and therefore their own authority) and therefore we have the modern insistence on YEC as a tenet of the faith.  But listen to what the early church leader Augustine of Hippo (354 AD to 430 AD) had to say on the topic in his commentary on Genesis:

The full quote is even better!

So to paraphrase Augustine, if a literal interpretation conflicts with science then stop holding on to the literal interpretation because you will only embarrass yourself.  Or as he wrote elsewhere: "In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different Interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture."  This also shows up the claim that, Christians have always been Biblical Literalists.  This just completely flies in the face the long history stretching all the way back to the Judaic Rabbis of debating and discussing the meaning of Scripture.  The whole strategy of throwing out all interpretation and only taking every verse at literal face value is a fairly recent invention. I believe that the strict literal approach arose in opposition to Higher Criticism gaining more mainstream acceptance around the 19th century.



Around this time a new doctrine also arose amongst Christians, that of The Rapture.  I was taught that Christians have always believed in the Rapture but no, this belief is only about 200 years old.  Christians may have always believed in the Second Coming of Jesus but the idea that all Christians would be snatched up to heaven some time before that is very new.  In fact the entire premillenial dispensationalist end times doctrine has very recent origins.  Before that time, most Christians were postmillenialists and if you go all the way back to the New Testament it certainly looks like the early Christians were amillenialists in they weren't following any kind of prophetic playbook, they expected Christ to return at any time.



Have you been following the current events in American politics?  Christian legislators are doing all they can to outlaw abortion and even contraception.  After all, Christians have always believed that life begins at conception.  Except it turns out this belief isn't even as old as I am!  As The Slacktivist points out, this is A ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal.  Now just to be clear, yes Catholics have for centuries held this belief.  Catholics.  Not Protestants.  Up to the 70s evangelical protestants did not believe that abortion was murder or that contraception was evil and they even quoted from the Bible to back it up.  But I guess the sexual revolution and the rise of feminism was scary enough for Protestants to put aside their differences and start agreeing with the Pope.


Once upon a time, to be Christian you had to believe that Jesus was the Son of God and that He died for your sins.  These days it seems that to be Christian you have to believe that life begins at conception, homosexuality is a sin, science can't be trusted, every word in the Bible is literally true, the Antichrist is coming, sex before marriage is a mortal sin, Christian morality must be enforced through legislation, welfare is from the devil and oh yeah, some stuff about Jesus.  Seems to me like Fundamentalist Christianity has little to no relation to the fundamentals of the Christian faith at all.  Funny how ancient and eternal truth can change over time...

Uncle Arthur Lies About Science

When I saw a hilariously terrible bit of scientific misinformation called "Did Charlie make a monkey out of you?" over on Scotteriology, it reminded me of my very first encounter with the Theory of Evolution.  When I was a wee toddler my parents used to read to me from a delightfully traumatizing series called "Oom Attie se Slaaptyd-stories" (better known to the rest of the world as "Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories") by the Seventh Day Adventist author Arthur S Maxwell.  To say that this left me with a slightly incorrect impression of what evolution actually claimed would be a massive understatement.  I remember that even as a five year old, I was stunned that people could believe something as utterly ridiculous as evolution!  Since teaching evolution was a taboo under the state run Christian National Education in the Old South Africa I was a committed young earth creationists until deep into my grownup years.  In my defense though, I went all those years hearing only the version of the Theory of Evolution as told by Christian Apologists - so really I had no idea what evolution was really all about.  To may shame it took me almost three decades before I actually bothered to look it up for myself and found out what science actually had to say without the filter of fundamentalist Christianity blocking my reception. 

So for nostalgia's sake I decided to dig up the story and read it again.  I have to say, it was worse than I remembered!  When it comes to accurately portraying the theory of evolution, Uncle Arthur makes Kent Hovind look like Richard Dawkins!  I can't describe to you just how incredibly dishonest it is because if I tried you would think I'm making things up.  So instead I decided to just post the entire story right here.  Now I admit I'm not up to speed on copyright law but I'm fairly certain one is allowed to post someone else's work provided you cite it properly and don't claim it as your own.  If I'm wrong about that, please do correct me.  Also, since I only have the Afrikaans copy of the story and was unable to find the original English online I had to translate it myself.  So then what follows is not the original words of Arthur S Maxwell but rather the Afrikaans translation by C. van der M. van Wyk translated back into English by me.  The original story ('n Storie Wat Nie Waar Is Nie) appears on page 71 - 75 of book 5 of the Bedtime stories series.  Sit down when reading this, don't drink anything that will burn your sinus cavities if you snort it by accident or ruin your computer if you spit it.  I promise that I translated this as accurately and as close to the original text as possible, keeping the grammar, punctuation and sentence structure as far as possible.  It may appear at times that I tweaked it to make it sound more ridiculous but I assure you I took no such liberties - this is the exact story I heard as a child. 

BTW, if anyone can get me the original text of this story I would very much appreciate it!

Not even kidding!

"A story that isn’t true
copyright Arthur S Maxwell

I don’t mean that my story isn’t true.  On the contrary, it’s very reliable.  See, I know the boy who told it to me, and he wouldn’t tell a lie to save his life.  I’m going to call him “David” to protect his true identity.

David came back from school one day and told his dad the story he heard that day.  It went like this:

In the history class the teacher wanted to tell start right from the very beginning of things and so he told this funny little story.  He said that life on earth began as a little bit of slime in the ocean.  This bit of slime grew and grew and eventually broke up into little pieces.  One piece decided to become a fish, another piece a plant, and another crawled out on land and decided to become a worm.

From this first fish, first plant and first worm came all other fishes, plants and animals.  At least that’s what the teacher said.  Then he tried to follow the history of the worm until, billions and billions of years later, it became an animal with legs!  How ridiculous!  This worm, he said, started crawling until he grew a wart on his belly.  This wart later became a leg.  Some worms got four warts and so grew four legs.  Others got many warts and they turned into centipedes.

Animals got eyes, he said, because the light of the sun shone on them.  The sun burned a freckle on them and the freckle later became an eye.

Then as millions of years went by, some of the worms whose warts became legs turned into dogs, some into cats, some into leopards and lions and tigers and giraffes and so on.  The teacher then told them that one group of worms later developed arms and legs and became monkeys.  The most advanced of the monkeys were playing with sticks one day.  By chance they happened to rub the sticks together and made a spark.  That is how they learned to make fire and the warmth of the fire caused their hair to fall out and they became people.

So then, this is the story that David’s teacher told him that day.  It’s a story that is told to children the world over.  But, it is not a true story.  Do not believe it!

It’s not true, because God tells us in the Bible that He made all things.  They didn’t “evolve” over millions and billions of years from a speck of slime in the ocean.  He made everything Himself through His wisdom and Omnipotence.  We read in the Psalms:  “By the Word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth. … For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm.” (Ps 33:6,9).  Regarding mankind we read:  “So God created mankind in His own Image, in the Image of God He created them; male and female He created them.” (Gen 1:27). 

See just how ridiculous this untrue story sounds that’s being told to so many boys and girls today?  If you just think about it you may just burst out laughing!  That first speck of slime in the ocean, who put it there?  Who made the sea so that it could grow there?  Who made the land upon which the first worm crawled when it became tired of the ocean?

And just think of all those poor worms with the warts under their bellies.  How did the warts form on just the right places so that legs could form on a spot where they would be useful?  And why didn’t they get more warts on their legs so they could stick out in all directions?

Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?  And just think about those eyes!  Oh dear!  The sun shone on the freckle until an eye formed they say.  But why did the sun have to pick a freckle right next to the nose?  And then again another freckle right on the other side of the nose as well?  Why not a freckle on the back of his head, on one of his legs or maybe on his tail?  Why didn’t eyes grow all over the body?

Also, if it really was the light of the sun that changed the freckles into eyes, why didn’t it make them strong enough to look into the sun?  Why did these same sunbeams have to go and make eyelids to keep the light out?  Finally, what about those poor monkeys who supposedly changed into people.  They lost their hair because they invented fire and didn’t need hair to keep them warm?  No way!  Why didn’t they lose the hair on their heads as well then?  And why don’t cats lose their hair today if they sleep in front of the fireplace?  And why do monkeys in warm climates still have their hair?

No children, this story isn’t just untrue but it also sounds like nonsense.  It was thought up by people who didn’t love the Bible and tried to find a different explanation for the origins of things.  If you ask me I think their story is a thousand times harder to believe than the simple Biblical story of creation."

Have you ever in your life seen a strawman brutalized quite like this?  It's like Uncle Arthur is actually an Atheist missionary in disguise!  It would be pure genius actually, because if you want kids to realize that their religious leaders are lying to them/don't know what they are talking about/are ridiculously ignorant about things they claim to be knowledgeable about, then tell them a story as ridiculously false as this that can be easily demolished with but a handful of actual facts.  I can promise you, they will never trust their church again.

To be read ironically by adults, never seriously to children!

Bran Covered Jack

The problem with writing in my second language is that I sometimes find it very hard to say exactly what I mean.  Afrikaans is a very visceral, descriptive language that lends itself very well to idiom.  Sadly this means it usually loses a lot when you try to translate it to a more boring language like English.  For instance we have this saying that goes:  "Meng jou met die semels dan vreet die varke jou" which if translated directly reads: "If you mix yourself with bran, the pigs will eat you" - which makes little to no sense.  Bran after all is a wholesome, colon-friendly product and I'm not sure pigs are particularly into it.  "Semels" on the other hand would more accurately be not bran but rather the waste product you get after milling wheat or corn, the stuff not really fit for human consumption that's best fed to animals.  The meaning of the idiom here is that if you hang out with a bad crowd you'll eventually become indistinguishable from the rest of them.  So to translate it properly I guess I'd have to change it to "If you roll around in carrion you'll end up surrounded by vultures".  With that out of the way, lets talk about someone who really exemplifies my new idiom - Jack T. Chick.

If you look at his earliest works they portray only very standard, straightforward message of Christian evangelism - get right with Jesus before  you die or you will go to Hell.  If he had stuck to these, chances are most people wouldn't even know the name Jack Chick.  What made him really famous however was the fact that he eventually began wrapping the gospel message in the most batshit crazy conspiracy theories known to man.  Why did this happen?  I would hazard a guess that perhaps it happened because he started spending time with the most batshit insane members of the Christian fringe you could hope to find.  Here are some of the folks who helped Jack become the man he is today:

Alberto Rivera.  If you know any of his work, you know that Jack Chick hates Catholics more than the Westboro Baptists hate the gays and Katy Perry combined.  From what I've learned in his comics and tracts, the Catholic church was responsible for creating Islam, Communism, Freemasonry, the Nazis, the Mormons, the Mafia and just FYI the entire Holocaust was basically a new Catholic Inquisition against the Jews!  Apparently, the Catholics have been working for Satan for millennia trying to destroy all real Christians (Protestants) and the only true Bible (King James 1611, duh!).  In fact, when the Antichrist eventually shows up, it's going to be none other than the Pope!  Now these are some pretty wild claims so you would assume he has some very solid evidence to back it up.  Instead what he has is the word of one man, Alberto Rivera.  Alberto claims to have been a Jesuit priest who had access to lots of secret Vatican inside info.  Eventually all these horrible truths, coupled with the fact that Catholic dogma contradicted the Bible led him to reject Catholicism.  The Jesuits then locked him up and tortured him in an asylum in Spain trying to force him back to the fold but eventually he escaped and spent the rest of his life fighting to expose the Vatican.  The thing is, unlike Chick, the Christian magazines Cornerstone and Christianity Today looked into his story and found a few small discrepancies.  For one thing the Catholic church denies that he was ever a  Jesuit priest or a bishop and the 3 doctorates he supposedly held turned out to be from a Colorado diploma mill.  They even found an employment form showing him married and with two children in the US while he was supposed to be a celibate priest in Spain.  Furthermore they found that "Rivera had a 'history of legal entanglements' including fraud, credit card theft, and writing bad checks. Warrants had been issued for his arrest in New Jersey and Florida, and he was wanted by the Spanish police for 'swindles and cheats'; while in the USA in 1967, he claimed to be collecting money for a Spanish college, which never received this money." (Source). 

John Todd.  John Todd a.k.a "John Todd Collins", "Lance Collins" and "Christopher Kollyns" was the man responsible for alerting Chick to the dangers of the occult.  Chick published three comic books (not tracts, comics) explaining how secret Satanist Druid Illuminati agents control the world, all based on what he learned from John Todd.  Did you know that all Rock music - even Christian Rock - is actually satanic and when you listen to it you bring demons into your house to make you less of a good Christian?  Same goes for Dungeons & Dragons, Horoscopes and Star Wars - all plots to turn Christians into Satanists!!  Again, a tiny bit of background checking raises serious doubts about his claims.  Most of his claims are either impossible to verify or downright false.  What we do know is that he was married several times, alternated religions between charismatic Christianity and Wicca several times though it seemed that for him religion was merely a means to get close to teenage girls.  Wherever he went, complaints seemed to surface regarding inappropriate sexual behaviour towards underage girls.  He spent a few months in jail for forcing oral sex on a young girl and years later was convicted on several rape charges and sentenced to 30 years in jail.  He eventually died in a mental health facility.  The sheer insanity of his life is hard to capture in a paragraph so I would strongly recommend this summary of his life here and here or for a briefer rundown, his Wiki page.

Kent Hovind.  When Chick felt the need for a science adviser to help him illustrate the war godless scientists are waging on the clear and obvious literal truth of Genesis he turned to Dr Kent Hovind aka "Dr Dino".  Whenever Chick mentions anything about evolution, just know that Hovind was his source.  Unlike the others I've mentioned so far, Hovind didn't fabricate his past.  He does however fabricate some of the worst, laughably false, most facepalm inducing attacks on science that you are ever likely to find.  He is so terrible that he is even shunned by the rest of the Young Earth Creationist community!  You have to be a new kind of terrible for Answers in Genesis to publicly distance themselves from you - and Kent Hovind is.  He claims to have many years experience teaching science in high school.  What he does not mention is that he only taught "science" at unaccredited church schools.  His doctorate is likewise from an unaccredited diploma mill (just like all his qualifications) and is not in any scientific field either, it's in Christian Education.  He is currently serving a 10 year prison sentence for tax evasion.  (Source)

Rebecca Brown.  With the departure of John Todd (though Chick did support and defend Todd to the last) Jack was in need of a new source for fresh occult info.  Lucky for him, help was at hand in the form of Dr Rebecca Brown - medical doctor by day, demonslayer by night.  I already discussed her rather unorthodox views in a previous post on Dirty Sexy Demonology so for more info do check it out.  The post was satirical but I didn't make up anything she actually teaches, you will find everything I mentioned in her books!  Thanks to her, Chick had up to date info on how demonic Halloween was and got to stay current on all the latest plots by witches and satanists to infiltrate and destroy Christian churches.  In gratitude he got her books published and so released her patented Curse Theology on the public.  Now unlike everyone else on this list, her credentials are actually real, she really did go to med school.  However she's not technically a doctor anymore (and not just because she's a full time demon hunter and witch smeller now).  "In 1984, Brown's medical license was revoked by the issuing state of Indiana. The licensing board ruled that on numerous occasions she had "knowingly and intentionally misdiagnosed her patients", blaming their illnesses on "demons, devils, and evil spirits." A board-appointed psychiatrist diagnosed her as suffering from "acute personality disorders including demonic delusions and/or paranoid schizophrenia" and observed her injecting herself with unknown substances. The board also found that she had over-medicated her patients and administered improper treatments, as well as failed to properly document their treatment." (Source.)  For a more detailed discussion I would recommend these: Part 1.  Part 2.

With friends like these, is it any surprise Chick tracts are as insane as they are?

The Tyranny of Evidence

In the wake of Prop 8 being overturned a lot of footage flooded the airwaves and internet featuring word battles between the proponents and the opponents of gay marriage.  One piece featuring Tony Perkins and David Boies however managed to transcend the issue:




In case you didn't feel like watching the video, the bit I'm referring to was the following statement by David Boies:

"It's easy to sit around and debate and throw around opinions -- appeal to people's fear and prejudice, cite studies that either don't exist or don't say what you say they do. In a court of law you've got to come in and you've got to support those opinions. You've got to stand up under oath and cross-examination. And what we saw at trial is that it's very easy for the people who want to deprive gay and lesbian citizens the right to vote, to make all sorts of statements in campaign literature or in debates where they can't be cross-examined.

But when they come into court and they have to support those opinions and they have to defend those opinions under oath and cross-examination, those opinions just melt away. And that's what happened here. There simply wasn't any evidence. There weren't any of those studies. There weren't any empirical studies. That's just made up. That's junk science.

... A witness stand is a lonely place to lie. And when you come into court, you can't do that. And that's what we proved."

 What he said here is true for so much more than just the issue of gay marriage.  Creationists, Conspiracy theorists, Holocaust deniers, Climate Change "skeptics", Anti-Vaxers - they all claim that the facts and evidence support their position.  On their websites, literature and in debates they confidently proclaim that the truth is on their side.  Yet every time they actually land in court and they are forced to tell the "truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth" it all seems to collapse like a house of cards.  For a fantastic example, see the Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District.  The Intelligent Design community finally got their day in court and they fell apart spectacularly.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions but not to their own facts.  Sure, it's easy enough to claim to have facts but the funny thing about facts is that they can be tested and verified.  That is why proponents of many "alternative" viewpoints prefer to spend their time yapping about how "the mainstream" is suppressing the truth instead of actually backing their claims with facts.  That is why (I think) the Discovery Institute prefers to spend their funds on literature, lectures and debates instead of any lab work.  The lab, like the court is a place where evidence trumps all.  And when the evidence is not on your side you tend to stay as far away from it as possible.

Life under the tyranny of evidence is not always a kind and cozy affair but I would take it over the alternative any day!

Of Lions and Stepfathers

Seeing as how I very recently blogged about the whole “Darwinism inevitably leads to  Racism & Genocide” claim I was hoping to never ever have to write about this again.  Then in the aftermath of a debate between PZ Myers and Jerry Bergman on the topic "Should Intelligent Design be taught in the schools" I read the following in an email response by Ross Olson of the Twin Cities Creation Science Association (who organized the debate):

“The only point at which the crowd got rowdy was with the mention of evolution's influence on Hitler. Actually, that issue is not solved by shouting because there is a strong case that the desire to improve the race leads to eugenic and ethnic cleansing policies. Indeed, your claim that morality comes from our culture needs to answer the question, "What if my culture is the Mafia?" Other evolutionary apologists have candidly pointed out that the only morality that can come out of evolution is that I leave my genes, as many of them as possible, to the next generation.”

I was in the middle of my usual response to claims like these – a deep sigh and a facepalm – when I suddenly realized I could think of a better example than the one I gave in my previous post on the matter.

OK, let’s forget about evolution for a moment.  Any Creationist worth his/her salt will tell you that Evolution is not a scientific fact because it’s not observable and repeatable etc.  So let’s look instead at a scientific fact no one can deny.

Lets talk about lions.

Could you be any more majestic?

You think “lion” you tend to think of an animal with nobility, majesty, fierce power and beauty - and they are certainly all of those things.  Admit it, that's the kind of animal you would like to associate yourself with right?  But wait, there is one little thing about lions that they may have glossed over in The Lion King.  See there is something that happens in the wild that you probably won't enjoy seeing.  From time to time you find that the resident males in a pride will be driven off by other males and these new males will take over the pride.  Once that happens their first order of business will be to kill off all the cubs in their new pride ASAP.  This in turn leads to the females in their new pride becoming sexually receptive again and mating with the males who just killed their babies, bearing the new males new offspring.

If this was you and your mom met someone new you would look nervous too.

This is a reasonably well known - though understandably not popular - fact about lions.  We may not like to think of it much but it is a fact and in case you have trouble believing my claim I have included several sources at the bottom of this post.  A simple google search will find you even more.  Anyone who knows about lions from PhD's to Game Rangers will confirm that.  I'm not going to embed a video because (trust me on this) it's not pretty to watch but if you really need to see it for yourself, a couple of those links have video footage or alternatively you can simply go to Youtube and search for “lion infanticide” or “male lion kills cubs” and you will find plenty of documentary footage.  Heck if you still don't want to believe all that just go into the wild and study lions for yourself, you are bound to see it.  It's not like we are talking about the exception here, more like the rule.  This is a fact.  Not a nice one, not a pleasant one and certainly not an easy one to watch but an undeniable fact.

So if you are a Creationist and you think that an acceptance of Evolution inevitably leads to racism, ethnic cleansing and school shootings how do you react to this fact?  Do you think that this will inevitably lead to stepfathers killing all their stepchildren?  Should this fact not be taught in school for fear that it may cause the bloody collapse of the foster care system?  Now to be fair I used to be a Young Earth Creationist myself once so I don’t want to set up a strawman argument here.  I know the Creationist position is not so much that everyone bases their ethics and morals on nature (though you would be excused if you weren’t clear on this just from reading Creationist propaganda pieces) but rather that unless you believe that God supernaturally created human beings as and that we as His special beings therefore get all our morals and ethics directly from Him as our Creator, there is nothing stopping people from basing their ethics and morals on nature (or whatever they find to their liking).  I’m guessing there are a lot of non-creationist stepfathers out there though.  Do you honestly believe that if they all knew about this fact about lions the streets will be running red with the blood of stepchildren?  If you actually believe that then you (my hypothetical Creationist friend) are seriously out of touch with reality.  Here is why.

Remember when they taught you in grade school that you were a mammal?  I do.  I seem to also remember that at no point in time did that cause me to reject my moral upbringing, renounce my faith or change my feelings on genocide.  At no point did I figure this logically inferred that I needed to act like any mammal other than the human mammal I had been my entire life.  Similarly when I later learned that I was mostly water it never made me want to run away from home to go live in a pool.  Neither did learning that humans were carbon based make me want to burn people for fuel.  Now let’s imagine for a moment that I was either moronic enough or insane enough to actually think and do these things – would that make any of the scientific facts I just named any less true?  No.  Totally, absolutely, positively not.

Seriously I can't stress the "no" part enough here

So for the millionth time, can we please drop this whole “Evolution is wrong because it would turn people into amoral eugenicist genocidal monsters” line of argument?  It has absolutely no basis in reality.  None.  At all.  Science doesn’t work that way, reality doesn’t work that way, morals don’t work like that and neither does ethics.  The veracity of our scientific ideas do not stand or fall based on the moral implications someone may or may not derive from it.  So pretty please, why not just let this entire stupid argument go?  In real life, people just don’t act like that.  Oh we learn from nature and we do apply scientific principles to our lives all the time, I’m not arguing that.  Take this lion infanticide thing for example.  We see it applied all the time.  When a new CEO, president or even pastor takes over then usually the first thing they do is to kill off all the pet projects of their predecessor and start their own – we've all seen it happen I’m sure.  But you know what we never seem to see?  Loving stepfathers who upon learning that lions kill their step-cubs decide that this must apply to them too (because it is a scientific fact after all) and then proceed to murder their stepchildren, thats what!  Doesn’t matter if you believe in God, evolution or the Celestial Teapot, that is just not how reality works!

Honestly, who in their right mind would just base their behavior purely on some arbitrary thing they read somewhere?




Sources:
Wikipedia article on infanticide
The Lion Research Centre
Prides, Coalitions and Infanticide Among Lions
The African Lion - Infanticide & Female Response

Darwin, Racism & Things that Don't Matter

Finding a Creationist argument against evolution that is filled with ignorance and completely out of touch with reality is like finding someone named John – if you can’t find it you must not be looking very hard.  Yet there is one Creationist argument that manages to surpass its peers.  It is more ignorant than the “evolution is just a theory” argument.  It’s more devoid of fact than the old receding moon argument*.  Yes, I am referring to the old “Darwin was a racist and so is evolution!1!1!!” argument.  Here is a fun recent example,  from a review of a new book called “DARWIN'S RACISTS - YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW” (no, I didn’t add the ALL CAPS, that was all them):

“DARWIN'S RACISTS - YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW exposes the real Charles Darwin: a racist, a bigot and 1800's naturalist whose legacy is mass murder. This well written book shows that Adolf Hitler, along with other genocidal mass murderers, was influenced by Darwin's half-baked Theory of Evolution. This book exposes Darwin's Theory of Evolution for what it is: an elitist and racist dogma that has infiltrated our every area of culture thereby undermining sense and sensibility.”

It would be hard for any other argument to fail this hard on so many levels.  Adding insults to ignorance is no way to win debates and this entire argument is utterly meaningless.  Let me count the ways.

It’s meaningless because it doesn’t matter if you like the facts.  Let’s pretend every single nasty thing the Discovery Institute, Ken Ham, Kent Hovind and all the rest ever said about Darwin and evolution leading to genocide and evil is 100% true.  In fact, let’s make up some more even worse things and let’s say they are true too.  So what?  Truth is not a democracy.  We don’t get to vote out our least favourite facts American Idol style.  Truth is truth, regardless of where it comes from or where it takes you.  Facts are facts no matter their implications. 

It’s meaningless because we don’t use scientific theories to determine our behaviour.  The Creationist insistence that exposing kids to evolution will turn them into raping, pillaging homicidal maniacs is about as out of touch with reality as you can get.  Do you stop thinking that your loved ones are special because atomic theory tells you they are just the same atoms, electrons (and lots of empty space) as everyone/everything else?  Do you push people down stairs because the theory of gravity compels you to?  Of course you don’t because that is ridiculous!  Scientific theories describe how the natural world functions and that is all they do.  They are descriptive, not prescriptive and therefore how we behave towards one another is on us, not the laws of nature. 

It’s meaningless because defaming the inventor does not defame the invention.  This is theological thinking at work – prove the prophet is a fraud and you render his message meaningless (See Swaggart & Haggard).  However while this may be the case in the field of ethics and morality, it hardly applies anywhere else.  If I could prove to you that the Wright brothers were paedophiles, would you stop flying?  If I could demonstrate beyond a shadow of doubt that the inventor of the wheel was a cannibal would you stop driving?  No?  Then why do they imagine that bigotry in Darwin’s life should be the silver bullet that kills the Theory of Evolution?  Many of our greatest scientists had some seriously kooky beliefs but we consistently don’t care because it’s irrelevant to their accomplishments.  Over here in the real world we don’t care that Newton stuck a needle in his eye just to see what would happen or that Tesla dreamed of death rays – their science stands independently of their eccentricities.

It’s meaningless because Darwin wasn’t the lord and king of racism.  If you listen to Creationists talk about Darwin you would swear the whole world was just filled with liberty, equality and brotherly love until he wrote The Origin of Species and ruined it for everybody.  The truth is that slavery, racism and bigotry was around for millennia by the time Darwin was born.  Darwin was not the evil racist he is made out to be, in fact he was very enlightened for his time - opposing slavery and treating people of all races with compassion.  The key words though being for his time.  Of course you can find racist statements by Darwin, he was a product of his time.  Look for instance at these words by a contemporary of Darwin:

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”

The person speaking here is none other than the great emancipator himself, Abraham Lincoln**.  See, while both Lincoln and Darwin were very liberal and enlightened for their time regarding race, we would still consider them incredibly racist.  It’s really pointless to go throwing around quotes by Darwin without considering the historical context of those words.

It’s meaningless because evolution did not influence Hitler.  I should probably just mention Godwin’s Law and move on, but since every Creationist ever seems the feel the need to connect Hitler to Darwin I feel I need to address this issue.  So then, here we go – you can’t blame Darwin for what Hitler did because:
- Hitler was not a fan of Darwin, in fact The Origin of Species was banned by the Nazis. 
- The only time Hitler ever used the word evolution in his book it was to refer to the development of political ideas in Germany.
- In Mein Kampf, while Hitler never mentions biological evolution, Darwin or eugenics he did in fact use God and Creationism as motivations for his ideas: “It is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator if His most gifted beings by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands are allowed to degenerate in the present proletarian morass, while Hottentots and Zulu Kaffirs are trained for intellectual professions.”***
- Hitler didn’t need Darwin to whip the German people into a racist frenzy since anti-Semitism had been going strong in Europe for centuries (See Martin Luther’s fun little book “On the Jews and their lies”).
Seems to me like it’s a lot easier to make the case that Hitler was influenced by Christianity (just check out these Nazi artifacts) than to wangle a connection to Darwin!

It’s meaningless because racists always find reasons.  Hitler may have used the Christian faith to fuel his agenda but I don’t believe for a second that following Jesus turns you into a hatemongering anti-Semite.  It is as wrong to blame Christianity for Hitler as it is to blame Darwin.  Hitler did what he did because he was just that evil.  I believe he would have used the Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales to further his agenda if he believed it would have helped.  Racism will always find a justification.  I don’t doubt that you can find people out there who really do use evolution as an excuse for their racism.  However when I grew up under Apartheid it had the full backing not of Darwin but of the church.  Pretty much all the Christian churches from Reformed to Pentecostal supported the idea that segregation was God’s idea and to a lesser extent that black people were supposed to be subservient due to the curse of Ham.  Again, I say this not to show that Christianity = racism but instead that people will always find reasons to justify racism.  I believe you will find racism in some form all over the world and I bet that every culture finds really sensible sounding reasons to justify it.  It’s probably a remnant of our tribal days, this sense of our side is totally good and their side is  totally bad****.  But as we grew more civilized we found more civilized reasons for it.  Whether it’s science, religion, your upbringing, because you got mugged or because they bombed Pearl Harbour – if you are being racist, the odds are you will find a reason to make it all sound logical and sensible to your own ears.

It’s meaningless because evolution must be the worst possible reasoning for white supremacy.  There are plenty of reasons why evolution does not equal racism, but here is just one.  Creationists seem to think that the evolutionary term “survival of the fittest” means that only the strongest, fastest and smartest will survive and that it therefore implies an elitist, winner-takes-all mentality.  It does not.  In evolutionary terms, “fittest” means “best at having offspring”.  Now take a look at population growth statistics and tell me if you think white people are “fittest”...  Far from supporting evil behaviour, “survival of the fittest” tends to undermine it.  Altruism makes you “fit”, being a good parent makes you “fit” – basically all the things that are good for family and community increase our “fitness”.  Being genocidal does not.

However I guess in the end the most meaningless thing to do is to try and convince those who buy into this fallacy regarding Darwin and racism that they are wrong.  I’ve had this conversation too many times to still believe it makes an actual impression on anyone who has their mind made up.  Somehow the facts will always be irrelevant.  For some reason they will still expect the organ music to swell and the ladies to faint when they reveal that the full title of Darwin’s book is (...wait for it...) “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.”  Nevermind the fact that we already know that.  Nevermind the fact that the only reason we call it “The Origin of Species” or simply “The Origin” is because saying “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life” everytime you mention it is ridiculous.  Nevermind the fact that if you actually read “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life” you would see that “races” refer to varieties of plants and animals, not black, white and Asian.  No they will still whip out that title in debates as if it’s a clove of garlic and you’re a vampire.  Guess that us vs. them thing is stronger than we like to admit.  No wonder we have such a hard time getting rid of racism…



 *  If you ever watched one of Kent Hovind's videos you know he loves this argument.  He claims that since the moon is moving away from the earth, if you go back in time the moon would be closer and if you go back millions of years the moon would have been so close it would have been pretty much on the surface of the earth (he makes a lame joke about the dinosaurs getting "mooned to death") and therefore it proves the earth is 6000 years old. You have to wonder how much time Hovind spent working this out.  Just using a pocket calculator I found the following:
The moon recedes at 4 cm per year (4 cm = 0.00004 km)
Rewinding 4500000000 years = 180000 km closer to earth
On average, the distance between the Moon and the Earth is 384403 km
Therefore at a recession of 4 cm per year the earth would have been approximately 204403 km away from the earth 4,5 billion years ago.  Science - It works, bitches!!

** Source: ABRAHAM LINCOLN, fourth debate with Senator Stephen A. Douglas, Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858.The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 3, p. 14546 .

*** Since there is no way I'm linking to Mein Kampf, rather check out the very informative article:  Creationists, Hitler and Evolution


**** You have to love the irony here - the same engine that powers racism is powering this Creationist assault on Evolution.  When they ignore the Christianity of the Nazis and the KKK and instead blame evolution for every social ill ever it all comes down to the ancient instinct of "Our people good, your people bad!"

Why Teleology is terrifying

WARNING: The following blog contains disturbing images and descriptions of natural phenomena. This is the last cute picture on the page. Scroll down at your own risk.

I recently listened to a sermon on how to reach atheists, dealing specifically with the so called “proofs” for the existence of God – the Cosmological Argument, the Ontological Argument and the Teleological Argument. After listening to these arguments I have to say that if I was an atheist, those would have failed spectacularly to convince me of the existence of God. To me, the Cosmological Argument fails because even if you accept that there is an ultimate cause to the universe it certainly doesn’t follow that this cause has to be God. The Ontological Argument is the kind of thing that makes philosophers all giddy but anyone more practically minded would first go “Huh?” and then realize that it could just as easily be used to prove the existence of elves, unicorns and fairies. I think it’s for this reason that you don’t come across these arguments very often (at least in my limited experience). The Teleological Argument (aka the Argument from Design) on the other hand remains very popular and is the main reason most Christians feel the need to fight tooth and nail against evolution. After all, if you believe that every creature great and small is designed by a higher intellect and that this designer is God, then it follows that you will also feel that any suggestion that organisms came to their present state through natural means is in fact just another way of saying that there is no God. This is why to many Christians belief in God and acceptance of evolution will forever be mutually exclusive. This is also why the Creationism vs. Evolution debate will never be resolved as it is not about scientific evidence or reason but rather about defending the Faith. No amount of science and evidence will ever change that. Therefore I am not going to waste my energy trying to explain the facts of evolution or attacking Intelligent Design. Rather I will take the less exhausting (and futile) way out and explain why I think it’s a terrible idea to use the Argument from Design as a proof for the existence of God.

Recently I came across this satirical video that asks a question so obvious I have to wonder why it never occurred to Dr Behe – if the bacterial flagellum proves the existence of God, what does it prove about God?



It reminded me of an interview with Sir David Attenborough where he mentioned all the hate mail he gets from Christians for not giving credit to God in his nature documentaries. He said: “They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator.” To me that sums up the problem with the Teleological Argument in a nutshell. It’s easy to imagine that all the beauty in nature proves God, but what about all the horrors of nature? If nature is a proof of God then what exactly does that say about God? Its easy (for some, me not so much) to believe that all plants used to be good but then some grew thorns and became poisonous or that some vegetarian animals started eating meat instead because of the Fall, but what about all those creatures who seem designed for nothing else but death and pain and suffering? Snakes, spiders and scorpions are only the tip of the iceberg. For a view into the abyss, look at:

Leucochloridium paradoxum is a species of flatworm that as part of its reproductive cycle infests a snail. Inside the snail it migrates to the eye stalks of the snail and then proceeds to stretch and change them until they resemble pulsating brightly coloured caterpillars. Birds see this and come rip the (normally retractable) eye stalks off the snail allowing the parasite to finish its life cycle inside the bird.

Sacculina is a type of barnacle that latches on to a crab. The female Sacculina seeks a joint in the crab’s shell and then ejects her protective shell, reducing herself to a gelatinous blob, and invades. "Inside the host, the parasite grows long, root-like tendrils throughout the crab's body, eventually emerging as a bump on the underside. During this process she renders the crab infertile, and creates a small opening in the crab's back that will allow a male Sacculina to make residence there. Soon the crab is filled with millions of Sacculina eggs and larvae, and like a zombie, the crab cares for these eggs and larvae as though they were its own, losing all interest in mating. When a male crab is infected, the parasite alters its physiology and behavior to be female, to better care for the Sacculina's young. The parasite basically rewires the crab for its own ends, and the crab becomes a helpless vehicle, expending its energy caring for the young organisms that will move on to inflict themselves upon other crabs."

Cymothoa exigua is a small crustacean that enters through a fish’s (specifically, a red snapper) gills and uses claws to attach itself to the base of the snapper’s tongue where it survives for a while by drinking blood from an artery. Eventually the fish’s tongue will disappear (There is some confusion on what exactly happens, whether the louse eats the tongue or simply causes it to atrophy due to blood loss) and once the tongue is gone, the louse becomes the new tongue and manipulates the fish’s food and consumes the free food particles as the fish eats.

Now these animals are all designed specifically to do things that are unspeakably horrible and cruel (not to mention really disgusting) and if they owe this design to an Intelligent designer then this designer makes the Spanish Inquisition look like a lovable bunch. However if they owe their design to evolution then they are merely the products of an imperfect world and its just nature being heartless nature. This is why I think Christians would be better off just letting go of the Argument from Design and simply accepting evolution. For if Teleology proves God then the God it proves is anything but kind and compassionate.

(For more on these and other terrifying creatures check out the article: "The 7 most horrifying parasites on the planet" )

Dishonest by Design

There are many good reasons to reject Intelligent Design Theory. First of all, it doesn’t even deserve the name “theory” because it isn’t one. Unlike real scientific theories, Intelligent Design offers no mechanism, makes no predictions and cannot be falsified. Now that’s a good enough reason right there to fully reject it and all attempts to put it in the classroom. However, up to this day that has not been enough to discourage ID proponents who continue to insist that saying “Golly gee, that sure looks complicated!” is the same as doing science. There is however an even better reason to reject it, namely the fact that Intelligent Design requires massive dishonesty.

While I may completely disagree with Creationism, at least I can respect Creationists for being honest about what they stand for. Kent Hovind and friends may have their faults but at least they are not going pretend that they don’t believe the universe to be 6000 years old. In fact they tend to be completely upfront about the fact that they believe everything in existence was created in its present form in 6 days around 4000 BC and that humans and dinosaurs co-existed. Not so with the ID crowd. Most of them believe exactly the same thing, but they pretend that they don’t. Here is a great example:



Notice how that lady steadfastly avoided every question about what exactly she believes? This is what all ID proponents have to do. They have to pretend that ID is not religious, they have to pretend that they don’t really think the “designer” is necessarily God and most of all they have to pretend that they aren’t really Creationists. How can any Christian follow something that requires so much willful deceit? What happened to not being ashamed of the Gospel? What happened to always being prepared to give an answer for the hope in you? When did it become OK for the disciples of Jesus to deny Him in public?

Seems to me that Intelligent Design forces its supporters to act less like Disciples of Christ and more like followers of L Ron Hubbard! Hiding the truth about what your faith stands for (until you reach the right level/are brainwashed enough not to question it) is something Scientology is supposed to do. They lure you in with promises of mental health and only tell you the crazy story about Xenu later. Christians on the other hand have always been completely upfront about what they believe. You may think us silly but we will tell you about everything from the virgin birth to the resurrection and all the miracles in between right on day one so that you can make a completely informed decision about what you are letting yourself in for. At least that’s what we used to do in the days before Intelligent Design…

Some may disagree with me and claim that in this case the end justifies the means. Again I have to disagree. Intelligent Design is the worst thing to happen to Christian Evangelism since the Crusades! Has anyone actually thought this through? For ID to actually work 3 things need to happen:

1 – Scientists have to stop doing science, cease looking for explanations and mechanisms and simply accept that certain features were somehow designed by "someone" or "something". This alone would take a miracle on the level of the parting of the Red Sea.

2 – The identity of this designer must then be debated until Scientists are willing to completely abandon the Scientific method and simply accept that the designer was a supernatural being.

3 – Lastly, once everyone can finally agree that the designer was God the debate would then have to start regarding which God? Yahweh? Allah? Vishnu? Odin?

Only when all 3 of these issues have been conclusively settled would Intelligent Design have any claim to effective evangelism. Honestly, how many decades do you think that will take? Is it really worth compromising so much for a strategy that has so virtually no chance of ever working and if it ever did would probably take over a century?

I think not.

Who wants academic freedom?

I have always found it ironic that few things in this world demonstrate the basic principle behind evolution better than Creationism. Over the last couple of decades it has managed to survive (thrive even) in an increasingly hostile environment thanks to its ability to adapt via mutation. At first it existed as pure Creationism, later it tried to remain relevant by redefining itself as Creation Science. When that failed it became Intelligent Design and when that faced extinction after the Dover trail, it went through three more rapid transitions as calls to: “Teach both sides”, “Teach the strengths and weaknesses” and “Academic freedom”. While these evolutionary changes may seem quite severe, I would actually have to agree with Creationists that these changes simply constitute “micro-evolution” – the changes were all superficial, at its core it has remained filled with dishonesty and hypocrisy throughout.

This latest mutation of Creationism pretends to be all about honesty and fairness. It tells us that scientists are mean and petty and that they just don’t want to give all ideas equal time. They, the Creationists – sorry, Intelligent Design Proponents – on the other hand are all about academic freedom. They, unlike those mean old evolutionary scientists, don’t simply discard ideas simply because they disagree with it. For instance the moderation policy on the ID website “Uncommon Descent” states:

“that UD, unlike the Darwinists, doesn’t ban or censor ideas… Our role is not to censor ideas but to provide a forum where hard questions can be discussed calmly, fully, and fairly, and we trust that when that happens truth will prevail.”

Of course this turned out to be utter bovine excrement! Recently, one of the regular contributors to the site, ID proponent Dave Scot, dared to go against the official party line that Evolution = Racism by pointing out that some of the most racist groups out there are fiercely pro creationism and anti-evolution. Shortly after posting that, his post was removed and Dave Scot was banned from the site. Of course it's not that easy to make something disappear from the internet, you can view his original post here. The following note to all contributors appeared in its place:

“The moderation policy does not apply to you; you are held to a higher standard. I expect your posts to have at least some tangential relationship to Darwinism, ID, or the metaphysical or moral implications of each. The purpose of this site is not to provide a place for you to jump up and rant on one of your pet peeves. DaveScot will no longer be posting at UD.”

You have to admire such commitment to academic freedom and the open marketplace of ideas, don’t you? Is it really academic freedom they are after? Not in the least. Rather they just want their ideas to be given the same weight as established scientific principles without having to muck about with all that hard work and evidence that said scientific principles had to provide in order to become established in the first place.

At a glance their appeals to teach all different theories to schoolchildren and to explore the strengths and weaknesses of scientific principles seems noble enough. Once again though, that’s not what they actually care about. They don’t want to discuss how little we understand about light and gravity in physics class, they don’t want to give equal time to holocaust deniers and moon landing hoaxers in history class and they certainly don’t want to discuss all the weaknesses of creation science and intelligent design! For that matter, neither would they want to give all religions equal time in the classroom. No, the only strengths and weaknesses they care about teaching to kids are the weaknesses (a.k.a the unanswered questions) of the theory of evolution (they don’t actually want you to know that much about the strengths though) in order to make their own ideas look more plausible. Ultimately, its not all sides they want taught, it’s their side they want taught at the expense of ideas they don’t like (See the wedge document). Its not academic freedom they want, it’s the freedom to put non-scientific ideas on equal footing with established scientific fact. That’s not academic freedom at all, that is pure foolishness!

The baffling inconsistancy of Creationism

I read an interesting piece by the Creationist organization Answers in Genesis recently that explained that because the Earth/nature is cursed and man is fallen we cannot really trust things like science, experimentation, reason and logic because they must be untrustworthy. Since the Fall rendered all human capability to correctly interpret the evidence utterly useless, we should then rather blindly put all faith and trust in the Bible as it is the only interpretation that can be trusted. So if you have hard evidence telling you one thing and the Bible telling you another you should discard the evidence and believe the Bible instead. Words like “interpretation” and “allegory” are for hell-bound heretics. The funny part is that these people sincerely believe that telling intelligent, thinking people not to think or reason is an effective form of evangelism.

OK so it’s not that funny, but sometimes I have to laugh to keep from weeping.

I have noticed however that most Young Earth Creationists are so busy patting themselves on the back for defending the literal truth of the Bible that they never even realize how hypocritical their behaviour is. I wonder if it ever occurred to them that they contradict everything they claim to stand for everytime they go to the doctor? Of course to prove this I’ll be using some of that inherently fallen human “reason” here so maybe it doesn’t count. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

As it has been explained to me frequently, you can only be a real Christian if you believe that that the Universe and everything in it was created 6000 years ago in 6 literal days of 24 hours each, everything in its present form. You also need to believe that a massive worldwide flood 4500 years ago killed every human and animal in the world except for those on the Ark. Now of course there may be some evil atheist scientists out there who would try to show you “evidence” that “proves” that this cannot be literal truth. However as a real Christian you must accept the above doctrines as literal truth and reject all “evidence” to the contrary because:

1. This is what the Bible teaches and it gives no other options.
2. This is what God said through Moses and God also gave the 10 Commandments through Moses so to reject it is to reject the Commandments too.
3. Jesus also referenced this so therefore to reject it would be to reject Jesus.

Now with such compelling reasons you would expect utter consistency among creationists – surely they will treat every other scientific theory the way they treat the Theory of Evolution right? Well you would expect it but you would be wrong. For some unexplained reason they make an exception for germ theory.

See if they were consistent, Creation Scientists would be rejecting the pathogenic theory of medicine by using the exact same guidelines as they use for rejecting evolution. (As far as I can tell the only people who are actually this consistent are Christian Scientists – not to be confused with Christians who are also scientists of course!) Here is why Bible literalists should also be rejecting the germ theory of diseases:

1. It goes against the Bible

Just like evolution, germs are never mentioned in the Bible and therefore cannot be taken as a scientific fact – surely if it was a fact God would have mentioned it somewhere! The Bible makes it clear that diseases are not caused by the so called “germs”. Diseases are caused by demons, Satan or by God Himself so clearly then this so called “germ theory” is really just another attempt by the Atheist Agenda to marginalize and discredit God. The Bible clearly teaches that disease is supernatural in origin and therefore all evidence given by scientists with a naturalistic bias cannot be trusted. The supernatural nature of disease is further demonstrated in the Bible by the fact that the sick are not told to see doctors (as they would have been if there was any truth to this “pathogen” thing) but are rather instructed to seek healing through prayer.

2. It goes against Moses.

God clearly pointed out to Moses that He was the one who caused diseases and He was the one who cured them. The only reason people so readily accept the germ theory of disease is because it gives them an excuse to sin without guilt. After all, if you can reject what God said to Moses about disease you can reject what He said about adultery being wrong!

3. It goes against Jesus

Jesus never talked about germs at all. Instead He repeatedly endorsed the supernatural origin of disease by healing illnesses supernaturally and driving out the demons that were causing disease. Germ theory is just another attempt by Satan to discredit the authority of Jesus and any acceptance of germs theory is in effect a denial of the fact that Jesus is the Son of God and the only way to the Father.

In fact even the non-theological arguments creationists’ use against the Theory of Evolution can be used against the pathogenic theory of medicine. Germ theory is also “just” a theory, you an argue that it caused millions of deaths (far easier too than with the ToE I might add), it certainly doesn’t provide any clear moral guidelines for living and it demeans the intrinsic value of human beings by suggesting people are nothing but breeding grounds for these pathogens. Also, while there are some stories about scientists being wrong about evolutionary details in the past it cannot begin to compare to the many medical horror stories from the past!

Logically then you ought to find a consistant rejection of this and similar scientific theories among fundamentalist Bible literalist Christians. Of course the reality is that you will find no such consistency. Even though the germ theory (and several other scientific theories) should be opposed by the same reasoning they use to oppose the Theory of Evolution it is not. Why not? Why pick on evolution? For that matter why do the same people who so frequently express a desire for a return to Biblical Law go to the police when their daughters are raped? After all according to Biblical law the rapist is supposed to pay the dad and marry the girl, not be prosecuted! Funny how the same people who get all excited about fun things like executing gays and witches are less enthusiastic about that part… Why is this?

I'm afraid that question will have to remain rhetorical as I have no idea why so many Christians have this weird double standard. It certainly makes no sense to me. What I do know is that this has to stop. Ignoring all evidence that contradict your position is no way to gain credibility - quite the opposite in fact! The double standard is fooling no one. As for me, I have faith in God and I accept scientific findings (regardless of what they are) and contrary to what my Young Earth Creationist brethren may say, I don’t think this makes me any less of a Christian. I believe in the Bible too, I believe that it is God breathed and useful for instruction. I just don't see how that automatically means taking everything as literal, especially when the evidence disagrees. Regarding things in the Bible like the Creation account I believe that God met people at the level they were, giving them what they were able to process. (Take the rape legislation in the Bible for instance - sure its incredibly barbaric now but back when it was written it was a giant leap for womens rights!) I don’t for a second believe that God intended for us to ignore facts just so we could keep continue having faith in Him. I think faith is supposed to be better than that. I don't think God would ask us to be that brainwashed either.