On Creationism

 A recent post by the Discovery Institute continues the creationist idolisatin of CS Lewis Lewis was undoubtedly a great author, but despite how creationists might portray him, he was not a world authority on science. I guess they have no one better. They quote Lewis from a letter in 1943: I don’t of course think that at any moment many scientists are budding Westons: but I do think (hang it all, I live among scientists!) that a point of view not unlike Weston’s is on the way. Look at Stapledon (Star Gazer [sic] ends in sheer devil worship), Haldane’s Possible Worlds and Waddington’s Science & Ethics. I agree Technology is not per se neutral: but a race devoted to the increase of it[s] own forces & technology with complete indifference to either does seem to me a cancer in the universe. Certainly if he goes on his present course much further man can not be trusted with knowledge.2 Note that Lewis's argument is very much founded on a book, Star Maker, by Olaf Stapledon. A b...

I came across a post by Jason Lisle. He is a creationist astrologer... sorry astronomer. Is there a difference for creationists? Anyway, about is the post... The gist of it is: Racism is awful, but... He starts: " As Christians, we are very concerned about this because we believe that all people are made in the image of God and therefore deserve dignity, respect, and fair treatment regardless of ethnicity. " That is great, but conveniently ignores centuries of racism perpetrated by Christians. Naturally, Lisle shifts the blame squarely on evolution. It is not the Christian way to consider the beam in your own eye, right? Christianity is in the business of being the victim, not the bully, so cannot ever accept that a Christian was ever a racist. And when black folk object to racism, Christians have to undermine those efforts, lest their own fails get exposed. This is an example of exactly that. The Black Lives Matter movement has recently been very important in raising the is...

 Apologetics is a defence of the faith. It is Christians reassuring themselves that their beliefs are true. How do they do that? Simple: Christianity is true (as all Christians agree) Therefore Christianity is true Hmm, looking... well a little circular. So dress it up! Christianity is true (as all Christians agree) Therefore the verses in the Bible are true The Bible says this, this and this Therefore some claim or another is true Therefore Christianity is true Hmm, still looks a little circular. Okay, we all agree Christianity is true (well, all Christians do) so skip the first two lines. The Bible says this, this and this Therefore some claim or another is true Therefore Christianity is true And that is all there is to it. Of course, it is still circulate, but to a Christians it does not appear circular because they just "know" the unspoken assumptions are true. And if you dare to point out that their arguments are circular, they will just tell you it is up to you to dispr...

 The Discovery Institute's raison d'être is to destroy evolution. They have no science on their side, so they are reduced to empty rhetoric and underhand tricks. The latest post by David Klinghoffer is a great example of the sort of shenanigans they get up to, and the doublethink required to believe them. Klinghoffer introduces the article: The year so far has delivered a stunning lesson in the fragility of freedom and of civilization. Endless lockdowns matched with urban chaos — it’s hard to believe these two shattering phenomena overlapped entirely by accident. How exactly, though, do they relate? At Mind Matters, Michael Egnor suggests Darwinism as a missing link. So to be clear here, Klinghoffer is claiming that Darwinism is to blame for both lockdown and what he calls urban chaos. He begins with the usual creationist lie that Darwinism caused the Nazis (and communist Russia). It is not true - but the Discovery Institute are here to destroy Darwinism, not to tell the tru...

Creationists continue to accuse Darwin of racism. Their argument appears to be: Darwin was racist Racism is wrong Therefore all Darwin's ideas are wrong The logic is clearly flawed, but still they trot it out - I guess because they have nothing better on offer. But the sorry fact is that racism has been rife throughout Christianity. Is that reason to conclude Christianity is wrong? Here is a recent example by the Discovery Institute, though it is rather saying science is bad, rather than specifically Darwin. It is about Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy who made the "Cornerstone Speech" - so called because he quotes one of the Psalms. Yes, this racist and advocate of slavery was a Christian. No surprise there! An example from Ken Ham here , with the same lies and hypocrisy, very much targeting Darwin. The main reason for this page is so the next time someone on CARM pretends a link from Darwin to racism, I have a ready response. Anti-Semitism...

The Problem of Evil is the issue that first turned me away from Christianity (I was never actually a Christian, but was raised in a Christian family). Some Christians try to turn it around, and suggest this is also a problem for atheism. One such is this at BeliefNet . Atheism really has nothing to say on some of the issues here, such as human worth, but humanism does, so some of this is from an atheist-humanist position (humanism was originally Christian, so not inherently atheist). Human Worth The first argument is that we believe people have worth: To begin with, there is the shattering offense of evil. It seems to me that the breathtaking revulsion we experience when seeing Jeff Bauman being wheeled through the streets of Boston, his legs blown to ribbons by the unspeakable actions of terrorists, signals something about the perceived worth of human beings. We recognize at that moment that this is an objectively evil act, one that has marred a valued and loved creature of God. In Ju...

Evangelical Christians in the US are very strongly anti-abortion. However, it was not always so. As recently as 1970 the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) - the largest Protestant denomination in the US - advocated for legalising abortion. A Complete Reversal The landmark law case in the US was Roe v. Wade, in 1973, and abortion has been legal since that time. Jane Roe was the pseudonym of the woman wanting the abortion; Henry Wade the district attorney who stood for the state, prohibiting it. Roe was represented by two attorneys; one was Linda Coffee, a member of the SBC. The Baptist Press interviewed her after the successful conclusion of the trial. The decision of Roe v Wade was generally regarded as a good one by the SBC. To evangelicals of that time abortion was seen as a Catholic issue. You can find a list of abortion-related resolutions made by the SBC from 1971 onwards  here . It is clear that in 1971 they saw abortion - quite reasonably - as undesirable, but it ...