Thinking Christians spurn hammy creationism

Evolution is rooted in the ideas of Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant and Voltaire. Adam Smith was an advocate of the free market and the British Foreign Office used the ideas of Adam Smith to condone the extermination of the Australian Aboriginals by ignoring complaints.

The story of Creation at the beginning of Genesis is a poem. It is quite clearly and literally a song with its own verse structure, and a chorus that is behold very good indeed. The poem was written by people with a keen sense that the human body needs a rest after six days of work, in order to be able to continue. They clearly had a thing about seven days, but that’s another story, not the Creation story. Seven days is certainly a wonderful trope in which to sing a song about the universe and everything in it. Seven is a great poetic number for making verses. This seems to be what we have got in Genesis. And after all, if God takes a rest on the seventh day then it is only right that we do. Let’s face it, there a lot of weeks in our lives. Genesis is a startling collection of origin stories, all stuck together. We have the origin of Creation (a poem), human cohabitation (a myth), various accounts of babbling towers and the like (legends), and stories about foundations of a nation (narratives). Time frames in such literary genres were not meant to be taken literally by the people who wrote them, and we do them a disservice if we try to do so. Especially odd is the idea that the human race originated in a garden, especially as the first people to build gardens were the Mesopotamians and Persians. It is not a coincidence that the writers of Genesis set Eden in a garden, because they’d seen one with their own eyes. It certainly was a handy image for their theology.

Ken Ham and those like him usually come from a Protestant fundamentalist position which has tended to attribute literal truth to every word of the Bible. Often the Bible they refer to is the Authorised Version of 1611 also known as the King James version. Even though this was an excellent English translation at the time English is probably not a good language to understand the full range of metaphorical depth in the original texts. Reading the Bible literally is, to my mind, as great an error as applying a narrow Scientistic approach to the Religion/Science debate. Scientism and Biblical literalism opposing each other does seem to me to be a case of ignorant armies clashing by night. The Church has, at times, attempted to put a brake on scientific theories which have threatened the traditional view of the universe as with Galileo. This approach has now been disavowed and corrected. My feeling is that what draws science and religion together is that sense of awe and wonder ancient people, such as the Hebrews, felt at observing the universe. That underlying apprehension of unity seems to me to be naturally implanted in people and to be the basis of religion.

People of Ken Ham's persuasion accept the use of metaphor in everyday speech but, for some reason, not in the Bible text. If the creation story is literally true, Ham should explain how Noah obtained two koalas and the specific food needed to sustain them for a period of 40 days. Were any of the animals pregnant when they entered the ark? Literalists claim that what the words say is what the words mean. What, then, do they make of 'Drink to me only with thine eyes'?

Thank you Chris, very well expressed. Brought up a Presbyterian, I used to teach Sunday School when I was in my teens. I got into a lot of trouble for espousing such views. At the time both I and the kids in my "class" (only a few years younger than myself) had already rejected what is now call creationist theory. What a breath of fresh air the Catholic Church was for me, many years later!

There are many thinking christians like me, who find a so-called 'debate' between science and faith quite destructive of faith and reasonable thought. Landgon Gilkey's books such as "Maker of Heaven and Earth" led me to a more profound faith many years ago.

#One doesn't have to be a biblical fundamentalist to reject Mr Harvey's poem reductionism,given the strides in form and redaction criticism[including comparisons with contemporary literature eg: 'Ancient Near Eastern Texts'[ANET] # Nor am I enamored with evolution infallibilities http://cdn-4.commonsenseconspiracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Piltdown-Man-Hoax.gif #.Father Middleton SJ ought dump Fr Teilhard SJ: Piltdown Man WAS hailed in the museums and textbooks as the most wonderful of EVOLUTION finds. Over 500 doctoral dissertations were performed on Piltdown Man. Surely this find will stand the test of time and establish evolution as a fact of science; or will it? All was well until October of 1956 when the entire hoax was exposed. Reader’s Digest came out with an article, summarized from Popular Science Monthly, titled “The Great Piltdown Hoax.” Using a new method to date bones based on fluoride absorption, the Piltdown bones were found to be fraudulent. Further critical investigation revealed that the jawbone actually belonged to an ape that had died only fifty years previously. The teeth were filed down, and both teeth and bones were discolored with bichromate of potash to conceal their true identity. And so, Piltdown Man was built on a deception which completely fooled all the “experts” who promoted him with the utmost confidence. According to M. Bowden et alii: “. . . the person responsible for placing the faked fossils in the pit at Piltdown was[drum rolls] Teilhard de Chardin S.J.” # Finally for scientific probity how does one 2nd test in situ macro evolution millions of years ago?[Y-chromosomal Adam and mitochondrial eve]

Whatever of Mr Ham's personal faith is not the issue. What is probably more to the point is that he has opened a commercial theme park founded on the proposition that the Genesis account of creation is literally true. In the end he is no different from the 'prosperity gospel' entrepreneurs at Hillsong. The rigours of scientific exegesis and socio-religious criticism don't put bums on their seats. After the crisis of Evolutionary theory broke in upon the Christian world, Samuel Wilberforce's fundamentalist Anglicans were routed by Thomas Huxley in the famous 1860 Oxford debate. The lesson was not lost on saner Christian minds especially those who still remembered the Galileo debacle and the loss of credibility by the Catholic Church. Leo XIII in 1893 officially warned against biblical fundamentalism and advised that core religious 'truth' cannot contradict scientific 'truth.' Pius XII begrudgingly reaffirmed this in his own teaching especially in his 1943 Encyclical 'Divino Affante Spiritu'. In his 1965 'Aspects of Biblical Inspiration', the great Pierre Benoit OP of the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem finally, in a brilliant one liner, cut the Tordion knot of Catholic and other religious fundamentalism. He wrote, 'Only that which is formally taught is revealed.' In the biblical creation account what is formally taught is that 'God made the world.' Science attempts to tell us how this was done. This is news is not good news for business.

Thank you for an interesting article Fr. Chris. Obvious that people like Ken Ham tend to confuse the thinking protocols of science and religion, which in fact can come across as 'anti Christian' - Christ advocated truth not falsehood. This does great injustice to Christianity. British Scientist/theologian John Polkinghorne discusses the relationship between science and religion in the search for truth - his basic tenet being that science's roll is in addressing the how questions while the philosophic mind and religion are necessary to address the why questions. Science cannot answer religions questions for it just as religion cannot answer science's questions for it, yet it is essential that both modes of thinking strive for truth. I believe that Ken Ham sees science and religion as foes rather than friends. Both are necessary if our search for truth is balanced and real. The great Albert Einstein once stated a great truth when he said 'religion without science is blind, and science without religion is lame'. A suggested mind reasoning and broadening exercise for those who tend towards 'divorcing faith from reason' would be to goggle the name Alister McGrath and view the deep and reasoned you-tube discussion with Richard Dawkins over one of McGrath's latest book 'The Dawkins Delusion'

The respective roles of Science and Religion is that Religion seeks an explanation of the Ultimate Cause of the Universe as we know it, and calls that Ultimate Cause "God". The task of Science is to investigate HOW God did it. Problems usually arise when some Theists attribute to God qualities that belong to humans rather than to God.

Mark 16:18 says, "They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them." OK that's in the Scriptures! Are you going to put your faith in that verse of the bible? or is that against the command "not to tempt thy lord, thy God?" Two days ago, Jamie Coots, the pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name in Kentucky was bitten and died! What does that say about "FAITH??" Either the words of Scripture are true or they are not! and THAT is why Coots' son will continue to pray and dance with snakes - in fulfilment of this promise that appears in the Scriptures. Crazy? you betcha! But it was Leo XIII's encyclical "Providentissimus Deus" (1893) that commanded Catholics to believe in the total inerrancy of the Bible which was deemed "incompatable with error!" Catholics have come a long way in the last 100 years - thanks God and EDUCATION for that! The prevalence of Creationism, unfortunately is a sign that much more needs to be done to empathetically and sensitively deal with both reason and belief! Hope in change is a positive virtue.

Sadly the Catholic church Doctrines of the Faith contains as many incredulous beliefs that are every bit as bad and misleading a creationism.

Father John George says “One doesn't have to be a biblical fundamentalist to reject Mr Harvey's poem reductionism,” which might be true, but that doesn’t the change the possibility that Mr Harvey’s view is probably true. Personally, it’s hard to see what is reductive about Genesis 1-3 being a poem. Scripture is full of poetry, its purpose being to expand rather than reduce awareness.

Ken Ham is not claiming that science is anti-religion. He and other creationists present creationism as the science which supports the biblical story of direct creation of humans and all other species of life, thereby refuting the theory of evolution. In his excellent presentation (no matter what one thinks of the content) he argues for people to take a more critical view of evolution, rather than just accepting it as proven reality. This perhaps indicates his awareness that scientific method is inherently critical, cautious to accept a finding until 'proven in the balance of probabilities.' The most restrictive criterion of a scientific theory is that it can be falsified. Because there is no test by which direct creation by God could be falsified, creationism is not a science. Another criterion for determining if a statement can be considered 'scientific' is acceptance by a clear majority of the scientific community as the current science of the particular topic. Again creationism fails against this criterion. It is fine to teach the biblical account of creation in those churches and synagogues who hold fast to a literal reading of scripture. But creationism itself should not be taught because it is falsely presented as a science.

Actually in the U.S. approximately 46% do believe in Adam and Eve (or at least humans only being around for less than 10,000 years.) The belief in the scientific view of the evolutionary process is only around 15%. Thus Ham's nonsense is not a minority view at all.

G. K. Clifford claims that in the United States approximately 46% of the population believe in Adam and Eve, when in fact everyone believes in Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve is not the question, the question is about how we interpret Adam and Eve, how we understand what this story is about. There is nothing in the story of the Garden of Eden that contradicts a scientific view of the evolutionary process. The story is not about science, it’s about human identity and humans’ relationship with their maker. It is a form of explanation. It’s theology. The Bible and science are actually talking about the same thing, have the same concerns. What is different is the way the nature of their explanations. Our knowledge about human origins has improved, but this does not therefore exclude Adam and Eve, it makes Adam and Eve even more relevant and interesting as an ancient way of describing the growth of consciousness.

A Corps, science itself has resorted to genesis nomenclature In human genetics, #Y-chromosomal Adam (Y-MRCA) is a name given to the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) from whom all currently living people are descended patrilineally (tracing back only along the paternal or male lines of their family tree).y chromosomal adam ## Mitochondrial Eve: [In the field of human genetics, the name Mitochondrial Eve refers to the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all currently living anatomically modern humans, who is estimated to have lived approximately 140,000–200,000 years ago. This is the most recent woman from whom all living humans today descend, on their mother’s side, and through the mothers of those mothers, and so on, back until all lines converge on one person. Because all mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) generally (but see paternal mtDNA transmission) is passed from mother to offspring without recombination, all mtDNA in every living person is directly descended from hers by definition, differing only by the mutations that over generations have occurred in the germ cell mtDNA since the conception of the original "Mitochondrial Eve".]

Dear Apple Corps: No, the early versions of the Gallup poll explicitly asked people whether they believe Adam and Eve existed and the results were the same. Of course even though this completely contradicts your claim this shouldn't be a problem as it should be interpreted allegorically and the deeper, real meaning of the poll is that actually everyone believes in Adam and Eve (including the 20% that are not religious). Thank god for sophisticated theology and the ability to deflect any scientific, historical and moral absurdities/atrocities in bible such as talking snakes, exoduses from Egypt and numerous genocides instructed by god. But virgin births, curing lepers and resurrections - that stuff was obviously real and accurate accounts, not metaphors, and how anyone dare to doubt it.

Creationism, as postulated by Ken Ham and his ilk, seems to me to be the opposite side to the same coin as Scientism, which claims that the methodology of Science is equally applicable in all other fields. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism Both appear overly simplistic.

GKC RE EXODUS: 1. Exoduses happened in the second millennium BC, and the Israelite one is widely attested and strongly emphasised in the Hebrew Bible. 2. Israel, Edom and Moab are all mentioned in Egyptian sources shortly before 1200. We know that they existed, and were known to Egypt, at that time. 3. Semites and others are known to have been present in the cosmopolitan Ramesside Nineteenth Dynasty, from the court of the Pharaoh down to slaves. 4. The biblical narratives contain all sorts of realistic details that could not have been invented in Jerusalem or Babylon centuries later: salt-tolerant reeds, water from rock, habits of quails, kewirs, and so on. 5. The instruction not to go north to Canaan fits perfectly with Egyptian presence in the area in the thirteenth century BC. 6. “The tabernacle is an ancient Semitic concept, here with Egyptian technology involved, all from pre-1000, even centuries earlier.” 7. The content and shape of the Sinai covenant fit the late second millennium BC, as a comparison with firsthand sources shows, rather than covenants many centuries later. 8. Slaves who made bricks would not have shaped a covenant or treaty like the Sinai one; the story demands an educated, court-level diplomat to have put the whole thing together. Thus “we would be obliged to invent a Moses if one were not already available.” [ Kenneth Kitchen, the world-renowned Egyptologist, on the historical reliability of the Exodus story.]

Father John. Sorry. As soon as I posted it I realized pointing out the myth of exodus was a stupid example and could rile someone. I should have used a less controversial example of a biblical historical absurdity. Of course, the mainstream consensus is that the traditional exodus story is a myth. One of the major problems is that despite having extensive, detailed records from ancient Egypt from that era, including military records, commercial records, court records, and royal records, there is absolutely no mention of a massive Jewish population or sudden exodus (let alone millions wandering the Sinai). The tiny snatches of suggestive evidence you gave are really trampled by it. Evangelical christians like Kitchen get around this problem by changing the traditional story to there being around 20,000 rather than 2-3 million people. This in turn contradicts the conquest stories (for which there is also little evidence). But at least it would mean that there would have been less genocides where the great loving and forgiving god instructed the dashing of babies heads against rocks (which if it is another bible metaphor or allegory totally escapes me as to what great meaning it conveys).

GKC The Biblical Archeological Review on the Exodus is hardly hard core fundamentalism.[Sadly a top BAS scholar my former lecturer passed away in 2013 viz Fr Jerome Murphy O'Connor OP] http://c795631.r31.cf2.rackcdn.com/ancient-israel-in-egypt-and-the-exodus.pdf

GK Clifford is correct in his evidence based interpretation of the Exodus as a foundational myth in Israel's sacred tradition. John George's contribution is a straight verbatim cut and paste from the a source such as the 'Watch Tower', the Reader's Digest or Dr Rumble. The Exodus narrative is rooted in the liberation of the Israelites from the Babylonian captivity and the return in and during the sixth century BCE. Second Isaiah reflects all this. Clifford is right in identifying a literalist interpretation of Exodus to be located more in biblical fundamentalist groups, either Catholc or not, than in those who do the tough and demanding work of critical exegesis.

Those of you who are theistic-evolutionists should think of where your position leaves you: 1. God cannot have created man for relationship. The opening chapters of Genesis give us the glimpse of God's relationship with Adam. We talk about having a relationship with God. Yet if he took millions of years to evolve man with whom He could have a relationship, how important was His purpose for this? 2. Instead of speaking through prophets and Jewish / Christian leaders over the years to reveal how He created the world, He used Charles Darwin (who espoused racism.) So, is the Origin of the Species scripture? 3. If so, it backfired, because professed believers have backslidden having been persuaded of another origin of man, rather than creation. 4. If He used evolution, God chose a method based on the strongest winning and the weak dying - despite this being contrary to Kingdom ways revealed in scripture. Survival of the fittest is not found in the Bible. 5. If death and decay, as we find in millions of years of evolution, occurred before perfect man (or do you not believe a man was perfect), when exactly did the fall occur and sin and death come in? With no Fall, there is no need for salvation, no need for the Cross, no need for the Resurrection - so it pretty much destroys the foundations of the Christian faith. 6. I guess as theistic-evolutionists you do not believe in the Flood. So in that case, Jesus made it up and the apostles were deceived when they referred to it? 7. Why, in the case of creation, did it take God millions of years to speak life into being? Is He some kind of mad-experimenting professor trying to get it right? For that is how you portray Him. Finally, could one reason that you won't believe the Genesis account of Creation be because you are afraid of what your family, friends and colleagues may think of you?

my brother Dr. Kevin Treston's latest book puts this all into perspective--Emergence for Life not Fall from Grace

Two of the most significant differences between creationist speakers and those that have commented below is one that the commentators it would appear have not noticed. The first one is that the creationist speakers I have encountered are humble and polite. The hubris, smug superiority and arrogance of you "thinking Christians", would make a Pharisee or prodigals older brother blush. The second is that you virtually never deal with the science as is the case with the posts here. Seeing as how the scientist cannot answer the following questions see how you intellectually superiors go. 1. How could mutations - exchanged, deleted or added genes duplicated, chromosome inversions - create the huge volumes of information in the DNA of living things? 2. Give ONE example of species to species evolution? If you can go to the top of the class, because PZ Meyers can't. 3. How did new biochemical pathways, which involve multiple enzymes working together in sequence originate? 4. As asexual reproduction has twice the reproductive success of sexual reproduction. How is sexual reproduction advantageous, how did the organism transition to sexual reproduction and how could female and male reproductive organs evolve separately but function together? Plenty more where those came from. Put down the chardonnay, pull your heads in (or out) and do some real thinking? Looking forward to your answers. Thinking creationist.

Dear Steve, thanks for these questions, most of which, of course, are part of the ‘Question Evolution’ campaign created by the young Earth creationist organization Creation Ministries International. The best way for you to understand the answers is to take a course in biology or read a biology textbook. But if you want some briefer answers, quite a number of individuals and groups (e.g. RationalWiki) have taken the time to go through them and explain the answers. Just google something like ’15 questions for evolutionists answered (or debunked)’. There are also quite a few youtube videos debunking them as well. You are right in that many of them are condescending. But I would guess these people were polite the first few times in responding to creationists, but many people don’t have the patience of Job and become frustrated after a while when the same answered arguments are repeated again and again.

So, FR Middleton, would you bet your soul on the dogmatic proclamation that Mary ascended body and soul into heaven? Doesn't that seem just as irriational and unecessary to the Christian belief system as a literal interpretation of creation? I find this tit for tat theologising a bit pointless when the default concept of God held by society in general is already so vapid.

I'm with AURELIUS on this one. The problem that 'thinking Christians' have in rejecting a literalist interpretation of Genesis is that at the same time they insist on the factual truth of other equally far-fetched and fanciful propositions. The creationist may be 'hammy' and irrational, but at least s/he is internally consistent. Just imagine, if you will, the power for good that organised religion could be, if it ditched all of its 'incredible beliefs' and looked instead for the truth in its rich mythology. But I did have a chuckle at Steve's reference to Darwin who (he said) 'espoused racism', whilst ignoring the racism implicit in the ideas of 'Jew and Gentile', 'God's chosen (and rejected) people', 'the promised (and not promised) land', and so forth.

The new myopic literalism of course is the literal interpretation of macro-evolution as infallible dogma-pace Lucy and Piltdown Man and that perennial "missing link" aka #THE transitional fossil viz any fossilized remains of a life form that exhibits traits common to both an ancestral group and its derived descendant group. This is especially important where the descendant group is sharply differentiated by gross anatomy and mode of living from the ancestral group. These fossils serve as a reminder that taxonomic divisions are human constructs that have been imposed in hindsight on a continuum of variation. Because of the incompleteness of the fossil record, there is usually no way to know exactly how close a transitional fossil is to the point of divergence. Therefore, we can't assume transitional fossils are direct ancestors of more recent groups, though they are frequently used as models for such ancestors.

A science based interpretation of the Adam and Eve account is an intellectual exercise. It takes place in the head. Another interpretation is a faith based exercise. It takes place in the heart. To debate the two as unique interpretations is absurd. The two are entirely compatible expressions in the language of their times. Tony B

Tony B Faith involves intellect and will[understanding and assent] #The intellect under the light of revelation plumbs the depths of Adam and Eve Even exegeted authoritatively by magisterium[theological method] #Ancillary human sciences though secondary to Revelation can help clarify "the fine print" [Archeology. historical/form/redaction/source criticisms, etc But one must adhere with will[heart]assisted by grace to the primary sources of scriptural/magisterial/theological knowledge viz Sacred Revelation with secondary assistance from human empirical sciences by integration.

Good on Ken Ham for being a voice of reason among the atheistic clergy of the high church. There is a God. He created everything and the evidence for that creation keeps growing. DNA is a remarkable code that points to an intelligent designer not random chance. A sentence is all that is required for SETI to announce alien life exists, yet DNA is information that would fill thousands of volumes. Please stop repeating the clichéd comments of the new atheists and find out for yourselves if there is any reasonable basis for the information presented by the millions of creationists worldwide. I urge you to review the information with open minds. Start now by googling 'creationism'. Love that idea for 15 minutes and then you'll start to find the enormous difficulties in the forensic-based explanations offered by those scientists who believe a microbes to man evolution story. Remember keep an open, non post-modern mind.