Are creationists arrogant? A review of King Crocoduck's series: Part 1

In my first post of this series, I drew attention to the way King Crocoduck (abbreviated here as KC) pronounced, “defecate.” I've since learned that KC's first language is Russian so, given that English is his second language, he actually speaks it well. I've studied Greek and Spanish and, though I'm not fluent in either, I know how difficult it is to learn a new language so I shouldn't slight KC for what is technically an accent. Still, he does have a peculiar manner of speaking. Based on the way he interjects mellow drama into his narration, I believe he's trying to sound like Carl Sagan but comes off sounding more like an annoyed Adam West. That's just my musings. Anyway, in his first video on the Arrogance of Creationism, KC attempts to address the ultimate origin of everything. He uses a lot of technical terms and scientific-looking graphics but, in spite of his verbosity, he really doesn't explain anything.

In a snippet provided by KC as an example of the arrogance of creationists, Tom the creationist says, “Nothing cannot explode or expand – or whatever – or bounce, as some now say.” KC thinks it would be helpful to define terms so he provides his own definition of “nothing.” Aristotle is quoted as saying, “Nothing is what rocks dream about.” That's actually very clever. KC, however, dismisses a philosophical definition in favor of a definition that is “concordant with physical reality.” He then goes on to describe a vacuum which, according to KC, “is as close to the philosophical definition of 'nothing' as you can get.” KC is cheating. A vacuum is still something. Space, time, and physical laws, for example, still exist inside the vacuum. So KC equivocates in his explanation of a universe from nothing by redefining “nothing” to mean “something.”

Michael Shermer, the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, once described a conversation he claims to have had with his daughter. He was trying to explain the initial singularity before the Big Bang to her and said (paraphrasing), “Imagine all the planets and stars and everything else in the universe crammed into a single suitcase.” His inquisitive daughter replied, “What was outside the suitcase?” That insightful question exposes the flaw in KC's definition of 'nothing.” According to the theory, nothing exists outside of the suitcase – no space, no time, no dimensions, no anything. It is so foreign to anything we have experienced that it is only through philosophy that we can attempt to describe it.

A common misconception of the Big Bang is that all the matter in the universe once existed in a single point, then began to expand into already existing space. That's the exact impression KC gives when he says, “Now, [Tom] asserted that 'nothing' cannot expand. But space can and is. And since the vacuum is an inherent property of space, the vacuum can expand as well.” So either KC doesn't understand his own theory (meaning he is ignorant) or he is intentionally exploiting the common misunderstanding, hoping that people won't see how he's not addressing Tom's criticism (meaning he is a liar). He concludes this point emphasizing how it's important to define your terms in science to “avoid vagueries like, 'nothing.'” //RKBentley shakes his head//

Next, KC attempts to address the origin of matter. He plays another short clip of Tom asking, “So where did your matter come from?” KC begins his reply by talking about how matter is just a condensed form of energy, cites Einstein's formula, E=MC², rattles off a list of scientific terms, talks about the inflationary epoch, rattles off some more scientific terms, and concludes his “explanation” saying, “3 minutes and 20 seconds later, the universe expands to the point where the temperature cools sufficiently to allow protons and neutrons to form and there are your first hydrogen atoms”. In other words, he spends nearly a full minute trying to sound very scientific but, at the end of it all, offered nothing but smoke and mirrors. If you strip away all the technical terms, KC is basically saying, “the Big Bang started, and a few minutes later, all the atoms in the universe appeared.”

At this point, KC spends some time talking about the formation of stars and the fusion of higher elements. I could offer some criticisms on these points but why bother? So far, he still hasn't addressed the origins of space, time, or matter. Without these things, the formation of stars and the higher elements is academic.

What KC says next is very telling. At about 3:22 in the video he says, “So, in summary, all matter comes from energy and energy – in accordance with the first law of thermodynamics – is eternal.” You can see, then, that all the scientific jargon was just fluff. At the end of it all, KC mere asserts that matter (energy) is eternal. Why didn't he just say that in the first place?

I see at least 3 problems with KC's eternal matter argument. 1) It really is a dogmatic statement which hardly differs from saying an eternal God did it. 2) KC knows that no system is perfectly efficient so if all energy were contained in a single point for an eternity, it should have reached total entropy already. 3) I wrote a post about an infinitely old universe a while back. It's logically impossible to cross an infinite amount of time. If a person believes in an infinitely old universe, he is saying we have reached this point of time after an infinite amount of time has already passed which is absurd.

KC next spends a little time critiquing Tom about a quote made by Paul Davies which, for the sake of space, I won't detail too much except to say KC did raise some valid points about Tom misquoting Davies and also creating the false dichotomy of “Christians versus evolutionists.” From there, he segues into talking about the initial singularity from which the Big Bang supposedly began to expand. I noticed while he was speaking, he seemed to waver back and forth between two positions.

Listen careful to some of the things KC is suggesting: he just finished saying that energy is eternal and was converted to matter in the conditions of the Big Bang. But earlier, when defining, “nothing,” he said, “if you have a system to remove all the matter and all the energy, you've essentially removed everything that physically exists including the 4 fundamental forces, what you're left with is a vacuum.” Still, KC was quick to add, “But even then, you still have the vacuum energy in the system.” According to Wiki, “Vacuum energy is an underlying background energy that exists in space throughout the entire universe.” We see again that, even though KC is trying to say how the universe came from “nothing,” he still is assuming space and energy – not what most of us think of as “nothing.”

Next KC talks about quantum fluctuations within a vacuum. He says the “inseparable energy [of the vacuum] is made of up of particle/anti-particle pairs spontaneously popping in and out of existence... Seeing as you [Tom] are aware this process exists and is very well understood, it remains a mystery to me as to why you are so appalled at the notion that something can come from nothing. It can and it does – all the time.” Time after time, KC says things come from “nothing,” but in every case, he is talking about “something.” He is talking about space, time, and energy. It reminds of comedian, Steve Martin's investment strategy: “OK, you start with $1,000,000....”

KC spends the last few minutes of his video talking about how weighty the science is in studying origins and how most people are too stupid to understand it. Interestingly, he completely denies any utility in philosophy when considering the origin of the universe. For example, he objects that Tom's, “philosophical ponderings on causality are even remotely comparable to the rigor and discipline required to even understand the subject under discussion – much less disprove it.”  Hmmm. Tom said the effect cannot be greater than its cause. What exactly is KC's objection to that? KC wants us to believe something can come from nothing but all he was able to do in this video is say that everything came from an eternal something which he simply redefined as nothing. If an effect can be greater than its cause, then something like perpetual motion should be possible. KC knows it's not but he can't admit to that because it gives credence to Tom's argument. Instead, KC attacks all of philosophy.

KC obviously doesn't realize how much of science is based on philosophy and assumptions. He basically wants us to take off our thinking caps, put logic aside, forget common sense, and listen to what “scientists” say about the origin of the universe.

No thank you.

Read the entire series:

Introduction

Part 2

Part 3

Are creationists arrogant? A review of King Crocoduck's series: Introduction

I recently came across a 5-part series of videos titled, “The Arrogance Of Creationism.” They were made by a belligerent evolutionist who posts under the name, King Crocoduck (who will henceforth be referred to as KC). For anyone unfamiliar with the term, crocoduck, it's an imaginary creature invented by Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort to highlight evolution's glaring shortage of transitional creatures. I'm fairly certain it was done half in jest but evolutionists have seized upon it and now tout it as an example of creationists' supposed lack of understanding of evolution. The term isn't really relevant to my series; I just mentioned it to give some background.

Anyway, KC's biography describes him as, “Just a physics graduate, here to debunk pseudoscience of all varieties.” His mission is to “crush” the beliefs of “those who seek to defecate all over [science.]” By that, he means creationists. His YouTube channel boasts over 57,000 subscribers and over 4.1 million views. In the first video, he introduces a young-earth creationist identified only as, “Tom.” In the description, he says his first video in this series is a response to a 15 minute video made by Tom and provided a link to the original video. When you click on the link, though, you find the original video has been removed.

KC says that Tom is a member of a group that identifies themselves as the Truth Defenders. I googled “Truth Defenders” and found a FaceBook page, a Twitter account, and a website that all appear to belong to the same group but I couldn't find anywhere where they talked about creation. There are also a couple of YouTube videos that have “Truth Defenders” in the title but none seem to deal with creation. KC describes Tom as having a trait common to all creationists – arrogance. Without knowing anything about Tom besides the short snippets KC includes of him in the video, I can't say if KC is representing Tom fairly. It's a little frustrating too because, when I hear the contempt and condescension spewing from KC as he narrates his own videos, I would love to know what he considers to be arrogance.

Actually, I know what KC means by arrogance: creationists are arrogant because they disagree with secular theories of origins. Yes, that's precisely what he means. In KC's world, science is the ultimate method of gaining knowledge, only what can be known scientifically is true, and anyone who disagrees with a scientific conclusion is a pompous jerk who “defecates” on all of science (KC pronounces it as “dee-fe-cates” which I find amusing). It's a sort of No True Scotsman argument – everyone who agrees with KC is normal, rational, and cool. Everyone who disagrees is an imbecile.

KC is certainly a ardent follower of the scientism I discussed a couple of months ago. He considers science to be the final arbiter of what is true and any opinion held by a majority of scientists is a fact. Throughout the series, KC cites questionable ideas, that have only been published in scientific papers and never observed, and asserts them as though they are settled science. In his first video, for example, he talks about the ultimate origin of matter and energy (a subject that is certainly controversial and far from settled) as though it's yesterday's news. He fearlessly asserts “facts” he cannot possibly know are true then insults and belittles creationists who are skeptical of them.

I'm going to do a short series critiquing each of the videos in KC's series. A critique of the first video will be in my next post. I'm using this post as a sort of introduction so that I might highlight a few things to look out for. Logical fallacies abound: appeals to authority, ad hominem, equivocation, conflation, and plenty of old-fashion name calling. Curiously absent from the series, though, are concrete examples of how creationists are being arrogant.

KC said creationism cannot survive without arrogance. He even named his series, “The Arrogance of Creationism,” so you would think he would spend his time showing us supposed examples of arrogance. Instead, KC spends most of the time presenting an argument for his theory, then calls creationists arrogant for disagreeing. The arrogance and mellow drama in KC's voice make for a certain irony. It's a sort of pot-calls-kettle-black approach.

Check back soon for my first critique. God bless!!

Read the entire series:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

God is evident in what we DO know

Answers in Genesis has a list of arguments they feel creationists should avoid using. I too have heard Christian apologists making very weak points and I just shake my head wishing they'd stop. I've thought about making a list similar to AiG's but many of the items would overlap and AiG has a much bigger audience than I so what would be the point? There is one particular argument, though, that I've heard used frequently and no one is telling them to stop. The argument goes something like this:

A Christian will hold up a piece of paper or draw a circle on a whiteboard. He asks an atheist to pretend the circle or the paper represents all the knowledge there is in the universe. He then asks the atheist to draw another circle inside the larger circle to represent all the knowledge we actually possess. I've never really seen an atheist actually draw a circle; usually an answer is provided by the apologist. The apologist might put a tiny circle or even a dot, meaning we only know a tiny, tiny bit of everything there is to know. In other words, of all the things there are to know in the universe, we probably know less than 1% of it. The Christian then delivers the “death blow” by saying, “If this paper represents everything there is to know, and we only know this little bit, how can you be sure there's no evidence for God among everything you don't know?!”

This video shows Glyn Barrett making this very argument, recounting a supposed debate he had with an atheist. I've seen other videos where Christians make the exact same argument and I don't want to embarrass them by calling them out. Here, however, Barrett sufficiently embarrasses himself by obviously inventing the entire debate so if he should object to my using it as an example, I say he's brought it on himself. But I digress.

I guess the teeth of this argument is that it illustrates the fallacy of claiming a universal negative. That is, I really can't say a certain thing doesn't exist anywhere in the universe unless I already know everything that exists in the universe. Note – many people claim it's impossible to prove a negative but that's not true. For example, I can prove I don't have $100 in my pocket by turning my pocket inside-out and showing you it's empty. I can prove I don't have $1,000,000 in my checking account by showing you my account balance on my smart phone. However, I can't prove life doesn't exist anywhere else in the universe because I can't show you everything else in the universe.

Most atheists understand the impossibility of proving a universal negative and so won't claim to know that God doesn't exist anywhere. Instead, they simply say that they've never seen evidence for God. In that case, what does the argument above accomplish? We're just basically telling the skeptic there could be evidence we haven't found yet and he'll probably say, “OK, I'll look at it when you find it.” You see? There's nothing compelling in just saying there could be evidence out there somewhere.

Besides not being convincing, this argument actually reinforces some of the criticisms of Christianity made by atheists. For example, critics often claim that Christians only have blind faith and not evidence. This illustration tacitly admits that the evidence for God still hasn't been discovered, we just believe it's out there. Critics also accuse Christians of believing in a god-of-the-gaps; this argument seems to do just that by saying the evidence for God exists in what we don't understand.

Instead of saying the evidence for God can be found in what we don't know, I assert that God is clearly evident in what do know! We know that everything that begins to exist has a cause. We know that life cannot rise spontaneously from non-living matter. We know that nature displays design and purpose which are characteristics of created things. From everything we know scientifically, there must be a transcendent, powerful, intelligent Designer who made it all.

Another claim made by skeptics is that our advances in understanding have continuously pushed back the need for God. Ha! If anything, we see more and more the need for God. Darwin, for example, believed a single cell was a “simple” blob of goo that could just fall together by a fortunate arrangement of amino acids. However, we now know that even a single cell is enormously complex. The more we learn about a cell, the more we realize such a thing requires a Creator.

The irony in all this is that it is the atheists who have put their faith in what we don't know. We know, for example, that matter/energy cannot be created naturally. How then can all the matter/energy in the universe have just appeared out of nothing? Even space and time had to appear out of nothing. So what must have happened flies in the face of what we already know can't happen yet atheists still cling blindly to the belief that an answer lies somewhere in what we haven't discovered. Neither have we observed a living cell form from non-living chemicals. Neither have we observed novel features appearing in a population. Many things necessary for secular theories of origins to be true have absolutely no evidence yet atheists sincerely believe the evidence for these things are going to be found someday.

I would say to all atheists that it's OK to ignore arguments that ask you to think evidence for God exists in what you don't know. Instead, I would ask you to think hard about what you do know and seriously question the evidence for what you believe. Do you have evidence that matter/energy/space/time can just appear out of nothing? Do you have evidence that life can rise from non-living matter? You know that you don't. Can you see that design and purpose are evidence for a creator? You know that it is. There's no need to wait around, wondering if clear evidence for God will someday be discovered. I'm saying that God is clearly seen in what you already know is true!

Will “good” unbelievers go to hell?

I was watching YouTube the other day when a self-described agnostic asked Frank Turek this question:

I generally try to be a good person but I don't believe in the Christian God. Do you think I'm going to hell?

I've seen other stuff by Dr. Turek and he knows a thing or two about apologetics so I'm sure he's heard questions like this before. I don't know why, then, he seemed to dance around the subject for 5 minutes before saying, “If you don't bow your knee to a Creator and get the free gift of eternal salvation, God will not force into His presence against your will.” I'm not sure what the venue was but the crowd seemed sympathetic to Turek, judging by the polite applause that came at the end of the clip. Some of the unbelievers commenting on the video were a little less impressed with his answer.

I'm not going to bash Turek because we've all had those times where we are put on the spot and can't articulate our thoughts well. How many times have you, after some encounter, thought to yourself, “Oh, I wish I would have said....”? But having watched the video and taking time to reflect on the question, let me suggest how I might answer it.

The Bible commands us to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15). If we love this girl, we will tell her yes, if she does not accept Jesus, she will go to hell. We say this not because we want her to go to hell or because we are judging her and her lifestyle. Instead, we tell her precisely because we don't want her to go to hell. We are telling her what the consequences of her decisions will be and it should be our goal to change her mind.

Stop and think for a moment – what is the point behind asking such a question? I'm asking rhetorically because it's obvious why: the girl is trying to make the Christian seem intolerant, narrow-minded, and mean. The question commits the logical fallacy of appealing to emotion. Whether or not it seems unfair that “good” people can go to hell does nothing to demonstrate that it's not true. The question attempts to provoke a sense of outrage toward the seeming unfairness that a loving God would allow someone who tried to be good to go to hell. To not answer the question directly might make an apologist appear to embarrassed by the “unfairness” to give the obvious answer. It's exactly the kind of response the critic wants.

What if, instead, a person were to ask, “If I jumped out of an airplane at 10,000 feet without a parachute, do you think I would die?” The answer is an immediate and urgent, “Yes! A fall from that height will certainly kill you. Please tell me you aren't seriously considering doing that!” We're not judging that person; we're describing reality. It wouldn't matter if the person sincerely believed he wouldn't die from such an act, we know he would and should do everything we can to stop him. Why are we any less convicted or urgent about their decision to reject God?

The girl started her question saying that she tries to be good. I would also ask her why she thinks it's important to be good? Since she is an agnostic and not an atheist, maybe she thinks there could be eternal consequences to doing bad. Notice that she said that she tries to be good; I would ask how well she's done. Does she think it's wrong to lie, for example. If so, then has she told lies? Certainly she has. Has she ever cursed at anyone? Has she ever stolen anything – even something little? If she fairly judged herself according to things she knows are wrong, she would see herself as a lying, thieving, murderer at heart. If there are eternal consequences to our actions, isn't she worried about all the bad things she knows she has done? Wouldn't it be great to know that she can have forgiveness for her sins?

The girl asked this question to try to argue. What an opportunity such a question is to share the gospel!

It's OK to say someone is wrong!

It's the law statewide in WA but will soon be coming to a restroom near you – the end to gender discrimination! What discrimination? They mean the barbaric practice of having separate facilities (restrooms, locker rooms, spas, etc) for men and women. How archaic it is that modest people do not want to disrobe in front of people whose gender is different than their own!

It's the usual tactic of liberals to force the majority to kowtow to the minority. Last time it was gay marriage. It wasn't enough that a gay couple had the right to have a ceremony and call themselves married, liberals wanted to make everyone else to treat them as married. Now they're doing the same thing with gender-confused persons. They can't just pretend to be another gender, we're being forced to accept their stated gender.

The problems I have with this are the same problems being discussed by everyone else. Why do I have to share a locker room with a woman because she's confused about her gender? And what's to stop a grown man from using these laws to spy on little girls in restrooms? If a man wants to wear a dress and say he's a woman, he can. There wasn't a law against it. But now there are laws that say women have to welcome him into their locker rooms and restrooms. What about my rights? What about my right to privacy? What about my right of association? What about my right of religion? It's the majority that is made to feel uncomfortable for the sake of sparing the feelings of the minority. It's insane.

But none of this is really the point of my post. Instead, it's about this twisted attitude of tolerance that says we must accept people for who they are. Here's a short video that really drives this point home.

At the end of the video, the interviewer sums it up well. How can we discuss complicated issues if one side believes no one should ever say another person is wrong? A 5'9”, grown, white man could say he's a 6'5”, 7-year-old, Chinese woman and enter the first grade. You can see the college students hemming and hawing in the video, struggling to be tolerant of what they knew were ridiculous claims, but they just couldn't bring themselves to say the interviewer was wrong. It's funny, because I'm sure these same students would have no problems telling me I'm wrong to believe in creation or that Christians are wrong to call someone a sinner.  It's my opinion that this brand of tolerance is dangerous. 

I've heard about a strange disorder called xenomelia (literally, “foreign limb” in Greek). People with this disorder do not identify with one or more of their extremities. They might feel like their foot, for example, doesn't really belong to them. Victims of xenomelia will often ask doctors to amputate the intruding limb. Fortunately, most doctors will refuse.

My point in raising xenomelia is to demonstrate that the correct treatment for victims of dysphoria is not necessarily to indulge their disorder. Since we don't amputate the healthy limbs of people with xenomelia, why should we perform gender-reassignment surgery on people with gender-identity disorders? From a Federalist article we read:

[A] study commissioned by The Guardian of the UK in 2004 reviewed 100 studies and reported that a whopping 20 percent (one fifth) of transgenders regret changing genders.... The review of 100 studies also revealed that many transgenders remained severely distressed and even suicidal after the gender change operation. Suicide and regret remain the dark side of transgender life.

I'm not a medical doctor – but neither are most of the liberals (or these college students) who are pleading for tolerance and acceptance of the transgendered. It seems to me the jury is still out on the best treatment of gender-confused people and this rush to normalize them isn't helpful to anyone, especially the victims. I believe we've let political forces influence our medical decisions. It will not surprise me if laws are passed that ban counseling for gender-identity disorders if the goal is to rid the victims of the desire to change genders.

But this phenomenon to “not judge” people for how they identify themselves isn't limited to gender-identity. We see similar “tolerance” of other types of body modification like tattooing, piercings, gauging, and even more extreme examples. There are also examples of people obsessed with improving appearance through plastic surgery and boob jobs. At what point do we tell people they're harming themselves? Or are we just supposed to indulge any behavior because that's how they identify themselves?

Yet more than all that, I feel this attitude is especially dangerous in the Church. How many times have you heard Christians say something like, “we have to hate the sin but love the sinner”? I agree, but part of loving the sinner is to tell them they are sinners in need of forgiveness. We cannot water down the gospel by telling people, “Jesus loves you just as you are.” If we allow people to think it's OK if they are gay or a philanderer or a drug user or whatever other vices they may have, we're telling them they don't need a Savior!

1 John 1:8-9 says, If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The key to the gospel is repentance. Unless a person is convicted of his sin, he will not feel the need to repent. If we are telling people they have no sin, the Bible says we're lying! If we love people, we need to tell them the truth. It's for their own good! It's OK to tell people they're wrong!

Can Darwinian evolution produce a healthy society?

Evolution is amoral. If nature is all there is, then there is really no such things as good or evil. One man killing another is really no different than a lion hunting a zebra or an apple falling from a tree. They are all just descriptions of things that happen without an interest if they're right or wrong. Of course, we recoil at comparing murder to an apple falling from a tree. We know, almost instinctively, that murder is “wrong.”

It's this built-in sense of knowing some things are always wrong which suggests that maybe nature really isn't all there is. Maybe there's an absolute standard of what is right – a transcendent truth that trumps any individual's opinion. Where might this universal standard be? Some might suggest that our sense of morality comes from community. It's a collective agreement on what works best for society as a whole. Everyone is better off if people don't kill, steal, and cheat.

When we start looking to societal norms as “right,” we still cannot find solid grounds to identify any particular behavior as wrong. Most people consider slavery to be wrong. However, slavery was allowed in the US for 400 years – from the time of the early settlers to the time it was a flourishing, world power. How can we objectively say that we're right now and they were wrong then? When the Nazis were being tried after WWII, most of them claimed that their war “crimes” were legal in their society. Again, who are we to say that another people in another place are wrong and we're right? The bottom line is that if there is no immutable law that transcends human opinion, then might makes right. There are no, inalienable, God-given rights. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are only privileges the state lets us have.

I was on YouTube the other day and I was watching a debate between an evolutionist (David Silverman) and a creationist (John Rankin). Most debates of this kind focus on the evidence for or against the respective theories. However, this particular debate discussed the question, “Can Darwinian evolution produce a healthy society?” As usual, Silverman, the evolutionist argued that our moral values are basically evolved instincts to do what is best for the community. Blah, blah, blah. I've blogged about these types of comments before.

To his credit, though, Silverman was a little more candid about the idea that there is no ultimate right or wrong according to evolution. His opinion was basically, “whatever works is right.” But the most intriguing thing he said was that it is the very idea of “absolute truth” that is harmful to society! According to him, it's the religious zealots, the ones who think they know God's truth, who will strap bombs to themselves or fly planes into buildings. His is a clever tactic. Well, maybe not clever but certainly novel. He says on one hand that whatever provides the most benefit to the most people is “good” but believing there is a such thing as objective good is “bad.” Incredible!

I see a couple of flaws in his approach. Obviously, it contradicts itself. After all, how can he seriously say in one breath that there is ultimately no objective right or wrong, then in the next breath say that believing in an objective moral standard is “wrong”?

But the thing that really struck me is a point that seems to have completely escaped Silverman. His claim is that our sense of morality is an evolved trait that instinctively drives us to act in a way that's best for society overall. He further claims that religious dogmatism works against the best interest of society. What Silverman completely overlooks is that, if evolution were true, then our seeming irresistible urge to believe in a divine being is also an evolved trait. The overwhelming majority of people in the world today – indeed, the majority of people who have ever lived – all believe in some deity. So then, if evolution is true, there must be some sort of survival benefit to believing in God (or at least a god or gods)!

Once again we see the case of a flawed world view unable to measure up to its own standards. If our sense of right and wrong is an evolved trait, then our belief in God, another evolved trait, is instinctively right. Since the majority of people believe, then belief seems to be the preferred trait. Therefore, unbelief – aka, atheism – is morally “wrong.”

What we have is a paradox; if Silverman is right, then he's wrong.

Radiometric Dating: Epic Failure

Mt. St. Helen's erupted in 1980. As far as volcanoes go, it was a rather tame eruption but it was one of the larger ones to happen in this generation. Because of its size and occurrence in our lifetimes, it's been the subject of much scientific inquiry. Dr. Steven Austin, a creationist and PhD geologist, collected rock samples formed in the eruption and had them tested using the potassium/argon dating method. The results on different samples gave ages between .35 (+/- .05) and 2.8 (+/- .6) million years. The known age of the rocks was 10 years old.

The fact that accepted, “scientific” dating methods failed to assign the correct age to the rocks should cast doubt on the ages assigned to rocks of unknown age. However, evolutionists cried foul. Mark Isaak, on the website, Talk Origins, said:

Briefly, Steve Austin collected a sample from the Mount St. Helens lava dome, known to be ten years old then, and sent it to a geochronology lab which tells people very clearly that the methods they use cannot give accurate dates on samples expected to be less than two million years old. In other words, Austin deliberately arranged for the dating to be invalid and then pretended it was someone else's fault.

I thought Mr. Isaak's response was a little vague. He did not spell out exactly why the lab cannot give accurate dates on recent examples. He did provide a link to a site that explained young samples should not have enough 40Ar present to be detected. The fact of the matter was, though, that Austin's samples did have detectable amounts of argon and thus yielded ages much older than the actual ages of the samples. I wrote to TO and expressed my disagreement. Here's a quote from my letter:

Mark Isaak's response to Harold in September's feedback was grossly misleading. Mr. Isaak stated that evolutionists' dating methods "cannot give accurate dates on samples expected to be less than two million years old." He does not explain that the reason is that there SHOULD NOT BE enough of the daughter element present to be detected. In the link provided in the response, Dr. Henke states, "A few thousand years are not enough time for 40Ar to accumulate in a sample at high enough concentrations to be detected and quantified. Furthermore, many geochronology laboratories do not have the expensive state-of-the-art equipment to accurately measure argon in samples that are only a few million years old." This is a real problem for evolutionists. 1) If a rock of unknown date tests to be 3 million years old, how can we be sure it's not only 50,000 years old? By your own admission, accurate dates cannot be given for samples under 2 million years old. 2) If the world truly was created only 6,000 years ago, you must acknowledge your dating methods would be WORTHLESS in trying to establish that.

In reply, Chris Stassen of TO quickly moved the goal post, saying, “'Not able to give accurate dates' generally means that the range of uncertainty swamps the measured age. It does not mean that any arbitrarily old age will result. For example, an age of 0.5 ± 1 million years is not considered either accurate or terribly useful, even though it is correct.” I was tempted to point out that the range of uncertainty swamping the measured age didn't happen in the case in question but I let it go.

My exchange with Talk Origins happened in October, 2006. So why am I bringing this all up now? I guess there are a couple of reasons. First, it's still relevant to the debate because secular scientists still resort to these same arguments whenever their tests fail to accurately date rocks of known ages. But more than that, I recently came across a funny video that uses a perfect analogy to drive home these very points.

Ian Juby hosts a periodic show on YouTube called, “Genesis Week.” His humor is a little campy but, overall, I find his videos interesting. The full video (self titled, Rant #100), can be viewed here but I've edited it down to the relevant section below.

Isn't that a hoot? He echos the very points I've made before but his glass of water analogy really nails it. Secular dating methods don't give “no date” for rocks of known origin – they give erroneous dates which are much older than the actual date. How then can we have any confidence in the dates assigned to rocks of unknown age?

There are at least a dozen assumptions that must be made when radiometric dating is being used to determine a rock's age – none of which are testable. One assumption, for example, is that none of the daughter element is present in the sample at its origin (or at least that the exact parent/daughter ratio can be known). In science, nothing is really ever proven “true” but some things can be proven false. I believe this particular assumption has been proven false. What then of the other assumptions? Why should I believe any are valid?

The fact of the matter is that I don't. I don't see why any reasonable person would. But then again, we are talking about evolutionists.

What Does Noah Have in Common with Barney?

My daughter loved watching Barney the Dinosaur while she was growing up. I mean, she really loved it. She would dance, sing the songs, and be memorized the entire ½ hour the show was on. My wife and I didn't mind so much because barney was a decent show. It taught lessons like sharing, playing nice together, picking up after yourself, and other things kids need to learn. I guess a lot of parents felt the same way because Barney, at least at that time, was enormously popular.

So what does any of this have to do with Noah? I'll tell you. Have you ever been in a kids' Sunday school class where they told Bible stories about Noah, or Daniel, or David? They sometimes color pages with little cartoons of Bible characters. They sing songs and play Bible themed games. They hear life lessons about being nice to other people, obeying your parents, and worshiping God. These are all things that Christians parents should want their kids to learn. It's a lot like watching Barney.

My daughter is 21 now and doesn't watch Barney anymore.

I think Churches sometimes do a disservice to kids by teaching them from the Bible like it's a fairy tale. They might not say it's a fairy tale, but they teach it with the same trappings and trimmings as kids see on Barney. It has the music, the games, and it always seems to end with “a moral to the story.” In their little minds, I'm not really sure how kids can be expected to distinguish between Bible stories taught in this manner and other fairy tales like Barney, Mother Goose, or Aesop's Fables.

When these same kids start school, what might happen? Ask yourself this question: If I wanted to learn about science or dinosaurs or the universe, where might I look? Really. Think about it for a second. Name some places where you might learn about science. Next ask, If I wanted to learn about morality or religion where might I look? The answers seem obvious. Like it or not, if people want to learn about science or “facts,” the first places they think to look are schools or text books and if people want to learn about religion, only then would they look to the Bible or the Church. People tend to only think of the Bible as a book about religion. If they want to learn about the “real world,” then you have to go to school or turn to science.

We are telling kids that schools are important and will teach them things they need to know about the world. We believe it ourselves. So when these kids go to school and hear that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, there really was no Flood, and men used to be apes, I think they're apt to believe it. Worse yet, these things directly contradict the “stories” they heard in Sunday school. On Sunday, they sing songs like, “♪Oh God said to Noah, 'There's gonna be a floody floody....'♪” Then they go to school on Monday and hear that there really was no Flood. Which do you think they'll believe? The nursery rhyme or the “facts” they learned in school?

Simply telling children that we don't believe in evolution isn't enough. Imagine a group of kids going to a museum and seeing the fossils of dinosaurs, seeing stone tools used by “ape-men,” and reading that these things lived hundreds of thousands or even millions of years ago. To them, these are “facts.” This is “evidence.” They might ask their Sunday school teacher about evolution or if dinosaurs really lived millions of years ago. The Sunday school teach might answer, “Oh, we don't believe that.” A curious child might ask, “No? Then what do we believe?” The teacher answers, “We believe that, '♪God said to Noah there's gonna be a floody floody....'♪” You can see how that's not convincing.

Christ called us first to preach the gospel. He then commanded us to make disciples. Preaching the word is only have the job; we also must be teachers. When we teach the Bible to children, I think we should approach the task in much the same way that kids learn in school. We don't just talk about a man named Noah. Instead, we explain that he was a person who lived in history. When they find a fossil (probably of a shell), it's evidence that this place was once under water – just like the account of Noah tells us. Instead of showing cartoons of Noah's Ark with Noah standing on the deck of the Ark in a raincoat surrounded by a menagerie poking out of every window, we need to show them to scale drawings of what the Ark might have looked like. When they ask us about fossils of dinosaurs or Neanderthals, we need to show them how these things are explained by the Bible.

Making lessons interesting and understandable to kids is fine. But above all else, we need to be sure that they understand that the “stories” from the Bible are real events that happened in history. David, Daniel, and Noah were real people just like their moms and dads are real. We need to explain that Barney is just a character like Sponge Bob.

Kids grow up and they stop believing in Barney.  We don't want them to grow up and stop believing the Bible.  Noah is really nothing like Barney.

The Appendix: Evidence Against Evolution

Ordinarily, I would never consider a sit com to be representative of any group but I'm going to use a scene from The Big Bang Theory as the backdrop for a discussion about the appendix. I'm doing this for a couple of reasons. First, I don't think anyone would argue that a vast majority of evolutionists consider the appendix to be vestigial so it's not like the show misrepresents this attitude. Second, it's just a funny scene and I'm going to exploit it for the sake of making my blog more interesting.

Enjoy!

Isn't that hilarious? Anyway, back to business. As I've already said, the appendix is touted by evolutionists as the champion of vestigial organs. The theory of evolution virtually demands that there be vestigial organs and so, when the label of “vestigial” can be attach to some structure, they are quick to trumpet it as evidence for their theory. I cannot recall ever having a discussion of vestigial organs without the appendix being used by evolutionists as an example.

By way of definition, a structure is considered vestigial if it has lost all or most of its original function. Even if the structure has function, it can still be considered vestigial if it doesn't perform its original function. The wings of a bat, for example, could be considered vestigial forelimbs because they are no longer used for walking but are now used for flying. Every definition I've heard of vestigial suffers from a range of weaknesses which I've talked about on my blog before. I'm not going to quibble over the definition of vestigial now. Instead, I'm going to question the idea that the appendix is evidence for evolution at all.

According to evolution, the appendix evolved in some ancestor of humans and once served an important function (or at least it evolved to serve some function). Since we are descended from this supposed ancestor, we have inherited that structure but, over the many generations of mutation and selection leading from the non-human ancestor to us, the appendix has lost its original function. For this reason, it's sometimes called an “evolutionary leftover.”

Humans are not the only creatures with an appendix. Dozens of mammals have appendixes – but not every mammal. Here's where the theory starts to get thorny. According to the theory of common descent, we should be able to trace the appendix along the so called “nested-hierarchy” where all the animals which have an appendix also share a common ancestor. The problem is, there is no predictable pattern among the mammals with appendixes. The appendix appears in some species of primates, rodents, and even marsupials but is absent from the intermediate groups linking these species. It's not at all what we would expect if evolution were true.

Failed predictions are usually considered evidence against a scientific theory. However, the fact that the presence of the appendix follows no predictable pattern hardly raises an eyebrow among evolutionists. As is often the case, they invent ad hoc theories to explain the failed prediction. Here is a quote from Science Now:

In a new study, published online this month in Comptes Rendus Palevol, the researchers compiled information on the diets of 361 living mammals, including 50 species now considered to have an appendix, and plotted the data on a mammalian evolutionary tree. They found that the 50 species are scattered so widely across the tree that the structure must have evolved independently at least 32 times, and perhaps as many as 38 times. [Bold added]

Give me a break. The structure “must have” evolved 30+ times? There's another possibility, you know. Namely that the seeming random appearance of an appendix is evidence that the creatures on the “tree of life” are not related in an evolutionary sense. I wonder if the scientists even considered that possibility.

When creatures that aren't closely related share similar features, it's attributed to “convergent evolution.” As the story goes, there is sometimes a “best” solution to make a creature better adapted to its environment and “nature” will happen on that same solution time and time again. In the case of mammal digestion, the appendix must have fit some important need so well that “nature” created one on at least 30 occasions! But that “just so” story, that the appendix evolved so often because it was the “best solution,” stretches credulity if the appendix is now considered vestigial in most of the creatures that have one!

So let's wrap this up: The appendix appears in no discernible pattern on the so called, “tree of life” which calls into question the entire concept of common descent.  We have to believe the appendix is so important that it evolved independently 30+ times but it's also so unimportant that most creatures that have one don't need it.

Hmmm.  Please explain to me again: how is the appendix evidence for evolution?

Remembering on Memorial Day

What George Jones Can Teach Us About Atheists

George Jones died last Friday (April 26). Jones was an icon of country music since before I was born. I admit that my father was literally a hillbilly, having been born and raised in eastern KY, and he was also a big fan of country music. Jones was one of my dad's favorites. I remember being only five or six and sitting with my father, in his den, listening to the old vinyl records of Jones and other country singers. Later, I actually bought him the Best of George Jones and Tammy Wynette on 8-track. That gives you an idea of how old I am.

Anyway, Jones wasn't what anyone would call a model Christian character. He was married four times. His early career was marred by alcoholism and later he became involved in cocaine. I'm not trying to disparage the man, mind you, I'm just trying to say that Jones is not usually the kind of person we would turn to for spiritual advice.

Stay with me, because I'm going somewhere with this.

So, I'm watching some George Jones videos on YouTube – He Stopped Loving Her Today is probably my favorite – when a thought occurred to me. One of Jones' biggest hits was, She Thinks I Still Care. If you haven't seen it, you owe it to yourself to watch it.

Here's the first stanza of the song:

Just because I asked a friend about her
Just because I spoke her name somewhere

Just because I saw her then went all to pieces

She thinks I still care

Excuse the gross alliteration but the story in the song is simple: the man has lost the woman he loves – a typical country theme – and he begins doing little things like asking friends how she's doing, “accidentally” calling her number, going to the same places they used to go together, etc. He denies that these things mean he still cares about her but as you hear all the things he does, you know that he obviously still does.

What, then, can George Jones teach us about atheists? Let me give you a theory. People may deny feeling or believing certain things.  But when they obsess over that thing they deny, it belies their denials. Have you ever noticed that? Maybe so. I know I certainly have.

I believe in God. I believe the Bible. I believe in creation. I'm not coy about my beliefs and spend a great deal of time defending them. If you've ever read my blog, you'll see that I'm sincere. Conversely, I don't believe in Big Foot, I don't believe professional wrestling is real, and I don't believe in alien abductions. These things aren't important to me. If other people want to believe in them, I don't care. I think it's foolish but I guess people have the right to be foolish. I'm not going to waste a lot of my time trying to talk them out of it.

I think a lot of people feel the same way that I do. How many websites have you visited that are dedicated to disproving Big Foot? People might mention it, as I've done here, but they don't dedicate a blog to it. They don't write books about their non-belief.  They don't visit college campuses and lay out their arguments against Big Foot for impressionable, young students.  In other words, they don't obsess about it.

You probably see where I'm going with this but let me spell it out. Atheists claim they don't believe in God. I get it. To them, my belief in God is about as rational as a belief in alien abductions. However, atheists don't “not believe” in God the same way that I don't believe in Big Foot. They don't passively disbelieve but rather, they actively promote their disbelief. They blog about how foolish it is to believe in God. They wax on and on about how science has disproved the Bible and Jesus wasn't a real person.  They write books and make speeches about why they don't believe... yadda, yadda, yadda. They want to not believe and they also want everyone else to not believe. Atheists obsess about the idea of God.

Isn't that curious?  I mean, if I were an unbeliever, why should it bother me if someone else believed in God? I'm sure it also wouldn't bother me even if someone tried to persuade me to believe in God. It doesn't bother me now, for example, when people try to convince me there's a Big Foot. I listen politely but later I put it out of my mind. It's not so with atheists. They militantly brandish their unbelief and would bludgeon Christians with it if they could.

I think I know the reason why they speak so. They deny there's a God but their continued obsession belies their denial. They act like they don't care about the existence of God but, as George Jones said, I think they still care.

Morals are Silly!

Morals are silly! That's not my opinion, it's the title of a YouTube video posted by a girl calling herself “healthyaddict.” Healthyaddict is an atheist who posts videos where she usually bashes Christians and occasionally defends atheism. In this video, she's responding to another video by a person posting as “Jesusfreek777” and she attempts to explain where morals come from. As usual, I'm going to recommend you view the video before I begin discussing it. It's only 3:12 long. Go ahead. I'll wait. //RKBentley taps his foot patiently//

I didn't choose this video because healthyaddict is the most articulate defender of atheism. Frankly, I've heard other, more articulate atheists make these same points. I picked this video because healthyaddict is very brief and I believe she is more representative of the casual way people usually make this argument. By the way, I spend about as much time looking at material critical of Christians as I do examining material defending Christians. When I talk about the unbelievers' arguments, I want to fairly represent their views and not build a straw man of their position. In this case, you can hear healthyaddict's position in her own words. I can't be accused of misrepresenting her.

Are we all agreed? Then let's move on.

She opens her video with the comment that “morals are silly” but she never really addresses what she means by that. It's very strange. From there, she changes direction and begins explaining her theory on the origin of morals. It's to this point that I'm going to respond.

Healthyaddict says that morals come from natural selection. That's not a big surprise because that's all that atheists or evolutionists ever have as an explanation. She's a little vague, though, in that she doesn't explain how this mechanism works. Is she saying that morality is a conscious act where we choose behavior that offers the greatest survival advantage or is morality an evolved trait where we instinctively act in ways that offer the greatest chance for survival? Either way, I will show you why she's wrong.

For her first example, she says that if we go around killing people “then the species would die off.” I guess she's saying that if we killed people carte blanche, then eventually we'd kill everyone. That's a little overreaching, don't you think? Again, I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth but I'm going to try to help her out. What she might be trying to say is that if we go around killing people, we are more likely to be killed in revenge. Therefore, if we act peaceably toward our neighbors, we're more likely to be left alone by them and, so, are more likely to live longer, have more kids, and pass along the trait of being peaceable.

This sounds plausible at first but it fails under scrutiny. First, it's well known that animals often fight and kill each other – even members of the same species. Sometimes, they fight for reproductive rights where the victorious male is allowed to mate and the defeated male is dead. This actually strengthens the species as a whole by removing the weaker males from the gene pool. If survival of the fittest is the goal, why would it necessarily be morally wrong for humans to kill each other if it were for something like the love of a woman?

Furthermore, under the “don't kill and you won't be killed” theory, would imperialism be objectively immoral? In the US, under our Manifest Destiny mission, we militantly displaced whole nations of American Indians, killing many of them and forcing many more onto reservations. Since this allowed the invading, white men to prosper, it must be moral by healthyaddict's standard.

Healthyaddict also attempts to tackle the dilemma of altruism. Why do humans do things that are a cost to them and a benefit to others? It doesn't make any sense according to evolution where everything is measured only by its survival benefit. Healthyaddict suggests altruism is a sort of reverse to the “don't kill and you won't be killed” principle; altruism is a “do this and they'll do it back to you” strategy. She gives the example of chimps picking bugs off other chimps. They do it in the hope that later, some chimp will pick bugs off them. I think healthyaddict needs to look up the definition of altruism. If you are expecting something in return, then it isn't altruism by definition. When people give money to starving children in third world countries, they never expect the children to someday repay them. Neither does the giver imagine that someday he might find himself in a third world country and will need some, middle class Westerner to give him food.

About 2 minutes into the video, healthyaddict undoes her entire point. She says, “I do think some things are very core when it comes to altruism, not killing each other generally, not raping each other. I think that's kind of like a universal standard because of natural selection.” You can see that the idea of morality by natural selection is so vague as to be meaningless. It's far more subjective than objective. No behavior could really be called immoral if an argument could be made that it offers some survival value. Yet she uses words like “core” and “universal standard” when it comes to the immorality of things like murder or rape. Is there a “core,” “universal standard” of morality or isn't there?

Immediately after stating that some things are universally wrong, healthyaddict points out that some attitudes of morality change over time. She uses the example of homosexuality. Now, homosexuality does not convey any survival benefit. Evolution hinges on reproduction and attraction to the same sex guarantees there can be no offspring. If perpetuation of the species is the objective, then homosexuality should never be viewed as moral. So if attitudes toward the morality of homosexuality have changed, something other than natural selection must be the standard by which it is judged. I would ask healthyaddict, what is that standard? What makes murder and rape always wrong and homosexuality sometimes wrong?

Healthyaddict highlights the futility of the atheist's position. Atheists strive mightily to demonstrate that there is no transcendent, absolute standard of morality. They know to acknowledge the existence of immutable morality strongly suggests there must be a transcendent Judge of right and wrong. So they equivocate and change the meaning of morally “right” to mean “what is expedient.” Yet when it comes to things like rape and murder, atheists immediately label them as absolutely immoral.

Easter is almost here!

Monkeys For Uncles

I posted a video from the group, Apologetix, several months back. At that time, I had seen a few of their videos and thought they were great. I still think they're great but now I've seen many more of their videos. It seems they've written a ton of songs and I keep finding new ones. Here's one I just came across that I felt I had to share. I don't know how I missed it for so long!

I know it lampoons evolution more than it offers compelling arguments against it.  I do think there's a lot of truth in it but I'm not posting it in order to persuade anyone. I just think it's funny! “Monkeys for uncles”... what a riot!!

Enjoy!

I Demand A Plan From Hollywood!

I'm not exactly sure why the majority of celebrities are liberal but I have a few theories.

First, liberalism goes hand in hand with elitism. Since celebrities receive adoration from the masses, they tend to think they're important people which is only a small step away from thinking they're better than everyone else. They quickly develop the belief that everything they say is wise and often use their celebrity status as a platform to tell everyone else what is best.

Second, I believe people derive satisfaction from hard work. Since celebrities don't really work hard, they often engage in charitable causes in order to feel they're doing something worthwhile. However, instead of serving (like most people do when they help with a charity) celebrities feel they need to tell other people what to do. As I said above, their attitude of self importance makes celebrities think they know what's best for everybody and their idea of benevolence is to force everyone else to "be good."

The problem is that liberalism is hopelessly intertwined with hypocrisy. To be a liberal is to be a hypocrite and celebrities are no exception.

Liberals think that guns cause gun violence and they believe that if we can just restrict more people from having guns, it will reduce the violence. They don't seem to take into consideration the “disregard for life” mentality held by the people who commit crimes with guns. What inspires a person to pick up a gun and kill someone? Such an idea is anathema to Christians who believe that we are created in God's image and murder is literally a crime against God. On the other hand, the Bible says that people who hate God love death (Proverbs 8:36). Perhaps the root of the problem isn't guns but is a violent culture that rejects God and glorifies killing in movies and video games.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook (and other mass shootings), several liberal celebrities have lent their celebrity status to promote a video called, “Demand a Plan” where they call on their fans (i.e. “the masses”) to demand that legislators pass more gun laws. By appearing in the video, I suppose the celebrities hope their fame will move people to action. I guess it's not unreasonable to think a celebrity can induce people to act since businesses pay celebrities millions of dollars to advertise their products. But if these celebrities think their appearance in a video can influence people to lobby against guns, why don't they also see that, by starring in movies where they use guns, their fame and influence might be promoting the same violent culture they're trying to combat?!

Here's a hilarious video where images of celebrities shooting and killing people are added in between the same celebrities' calls for more laws restricting guns. I don't need to explain why the video is so powerful. The hypocrisy of the liberals who profit from gun violence - and even use guns themselves - while they claim to want to end gun violence is plain to see.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not asking for laws that restrict the use of guns in movies. There is the First Amendment, of course, and I recognize that people have the right to make offensive movies. I'm for liberty and wouldn't have it any other way. Celebrities, too, usually cloak themselves in the First Amendment to hide the shame and guilt of the trash movies they star in. I wish that they would champion the Second Amendment like they do the First.

What I am calling on is a little self control from Hollywood. Why don't they lead the charge and start making films that edify instead of dehumanize? I'm not even saying all movies have to be G-rated; just cut out some of the wanton, gratuitous stuff.  Instead of using their fame to call for gun control, these celebrities should tell movie producers they're not going to star in films as murderers who shoot people with guns.

I demand a plan from Hollywood!