Feedback: Will Ken Ham “Crumble to Scientific Facts” in the Debate?

The following article is a response to a comment on the Ken Ham Facebook page. The comment was made in relation to the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham at the Creation Museum on February 4. First, here is the comment in its entirety:

Yes please promote, the more people that see you crumble to scientific facts the less people [sic] will suffer from your religions influence. I'm excited and I hope you bring your A game though I can't imagine why he agreed to debate you when you ignore even the simplest of provable evidence like carbon dating, DNA, or the fact that there is a dead woman being forced to incubate a baby in Texas because of technology. If left to God they would both be dead whether you think that is right or not. Your book condones slavery, incest, and claims that 2 of every animal can fit on a hand built boat along with enough food for all of these animals and be built by one man during a time without light bulbs or refrigeration. People can live in whales, and God's reckoning is without equal. God if He existed is a murderer, and stands idly by as his "good" creations rape and murder each other and does nothing because free will. It saddens me that an adult could believe such things as fact. You are robbing your children of their lives and wonder by filling every unknown with an imaginary friend. Indoctrination is abuse.

Dear Brandon,

After reading your post, I wanted to respond to you publicly, since you posted it publicly. You have misrepresented God in many places, but you have also made assertions inconsistent with the atheistic religion inherent in this post. What I write in response is bold, but presented with kindness.

Yes please promote, the more people that see you crumble to scientific facts

This is a strange misconception—we love the scientific facts! In fact, they work beautifully in a Christian worldview. This is why most fields of science were developed by Bible-believing Christians like Faraday, Newton, Pasteur, Boyle, and so on. Because the Bible is true, we have a basis to do observable and repeatable science.

the less people [sic] will suffer from your religions influence.

Why do you even care in an atheistic evolutionary worldview about people suffering? Suffering is not a bad thing in that religion; instead it is one of the heroes in your worldview. It is the mechanism of suffering (which according to evolution is merely a chemical response in the brain) that supplies the needed selection pressures that “evolution” is supposed to overcome. A consistent atheistic evolutionist should be cheering when people suffer and die since that is what is supposed to pave the way for the next “stage of evolution.”

In contrast, it is from a Christian worldview that suffering—and its ultimate culmination in death—are enemies (1Corinthians 15:26). They resulted from Adam’s sin in a literal Garden of Eden (Genesis 3).

I'm excited and I hope you bring your A game

I hope Mr. Nye brings his A-game as well. All he needs to do to prove creation wrong is to change a single-celled organism (like an amoeba) into a cow over millions of years of natural processes for the audience to observe. (Of course, that still doesn’t explain where the single-celled organism came from!)

Also, I’m curious to see how a materialist (which atheists, agnostics, and secular humanists inherently are) will debate using logic, which is not material. After all, Mr. Nye’s materialism demands that anything that is not material doesn’t exist.

though I can't imagine why he agreed to debate you when you ignore even the simplest of provable evidence like carbon dating, DNA,

This is what is called an “ignorant conjecture” (as philosophers define it). We do use carbon dating to refute an old earth. Carbon dating doesn’t work to calculate millions of years as so many people are mistakenly under the impression, but only thousands of years—maximum. Hence, when we find dinosaur bones with carbon-14 in them, it shows they are not millions of years old—a fact which is consistent with the biblical record.1 Even then, C-14 dates are not absolute since they have so many assumptions required in guessing the calculation, such as the following:

• We know the initial amounts of parent and daughter material.
• There was no parent material added to the original specimen.
• There was no daughter material added to the original specimen.
• There was no parent material removed from the original specimen.
• There was no daughter material removed from the original specimen.
• The rate of change from parent to daughter material has remained constant.

And yes, we also use DNA as evidence of our worldview, which is an incredible system designed by God for storing information (which is abstract). I understand this is really a problem for the materialistic atheists since information also is not material, hence a stumbling block to defending the validity of the materialistic religion.

or the fact that there is a dead woman being forced to incubate a baby in Texas because of technology.

[For the readers, I want you to realize what this atheist is doing. He has redefined life and death to be what he wants it to be and then attempts to the make a point based on this bait and switch. This is called a contrary to the fact conditional fallacy. So I want to take a moment to comment more thoroughly here.]

Where did God give you the authority to redefine terms of death? You have essentially claimed that people who are viewed as dead should be finished off when you call a person who is not dead, “dead.”2 And by this assertion, you clearly want this lady’s body, which still fights for life, to be ended. David in the Bible had to deal with a situation like this. For seven days, David’s child was lying in wait to die, but David did not treat the child as dead (2 Samuel 12:15–17, 22–23), but cared for him and even pleaded with God for his life to be fully restored.

At the same time, I do commend you for going against a common evolutionary notion. You did call the child growing in the womb a “baby” as opposed to “fetus” or “animal”—terms that are often used in order to downgrade the fact that the baby is living and fully human.

Now, let’s be more precise here: It was not “a baby” it was “her baby.” Why wouldn’t this mother want to see her baby grow and live, even when that mother is evidently deteriorating away toward death?

If left to God they would both be dead whether you think that is right or not.

Actually, why do you lay the blame of death on God? Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is not the cause of death, but it was man’s sin in a literal Garden of Eden that brought death into the world—explained just three chapters into the Bible. Death is the fully justified punishment for sin (e.g., Romans 5:12; Genesis 2:17; 3:19).

Since we all sin (Romans 3:23), we all deserve death (Romans 6:23). One should not blame God. For God, even when we were still sinners, stepped into history to become a man, our relative, Jesus Christ, and died the death we all deserve on the Cross once for all (Romans 5:8; 6:10). His shed blood satisfied the wrath imposed by that justified punishment. The infinite Son satisfied the infinite punishment demanded by the infinite Father. This is why the debt has been paid, and salvation is a free gift in Christ alone (Romans 5:14–21).

Your book condones slavery,

What do you mean by slavery? Biblical slavery (servitude) was much different from what most people today think of as slavery (e.g., what some Europeans and Americans shamefully did with some African peoples, which is a recent example of forced slavery in the Western world).

Slavery (servitude) in the Bible was when someone was overextended in debt and could not pay it off. They would sell themselves into slavery for a seven-year term to pay off that debt to a wealthier person. During that time, they were given room and board, were paid a small wage that they could put into savings, and were taught a vocation. Then when they came out of this seven-year servitude, they could enter the culture with means and a profession.

Any historian would also recognize that it was Christians in the U.S. and UK (e.g., abolitionists like Lincoln, Newton, and William Wilberforce) who led for the freedom of our brothers and sisters from the harsh unbiblical type of slavery that was plaguing these nations.

From an atheistic perspective though, why not enslave people? It is survival of the fittest, right? Recall, there is no “god” who sets what is right and wrong in an atheistic worldview. Do you realize that Exodus 21:16 is proof that God opposed the type of forced slavery that was going on in places like the U.S. and UK?

incest,

Where do you get this idea in your religion that incest is wrong? Do squirrels not breed with their sisters? They do. Do deer not breed with their sisters? They do, too.

We, as Christians, get the idea from Leviticus 18. It was Moses who received this teaching from God after the exodus from Egypt. God said to no longer have sexual relations with close kin. Before that time, it wasn’t wrong (e.g., Abraham married his half-sister and Cain, Seth, and so on. originally married sisters or other close relatives). When genetic mutations started piling up in the population, close intermarriages were eventually leading to offspring having deformities, which is one of the reasons for Leviticus 18. It was men in non-Bible-based cultures who continued to marry and have children with their sisters—some even to this day.

So for an atheist to say that incest is wrong, he must borrow that truth from the Bible. So, you are borrowing from the Bible to argue against it.

and claims that 2 of every animal

This is what is called a “a straw man fallacy.” Genesis 6–8 makes it clear Noah took two of every kind, thus likely closer to about 2,000 animals total. Even using very generous figures, they could easily fit on the Ark built to the dimensions given in the Bible.

can fit on a hand built boat

What makes you think they didn’t use some sophisticated tools and construction techniques back then? They did live in a culture with 1,600 years of collective experience and technology. The U.S. has only been around about 225 years and look what this country has been able to accomplish technologically.

along with enough food for all of these animals

It was easy. Again, see here.

and be built by one man

Again, this is a straw man fallacy. What makes you think it was one man? One man, Noah, was in charge. Do you really think AiG President Ken Ham built the Creation Museum all by himself?

during a time without light bulbs or refrigeration.

This is both irrelevant and speculative. Do you realize that most wooden ships in history that brought people and animals around the world were built before refrigeration and light bulbs?

Consider this, too: after 1,600 years of human history from Adam to Noah (some people living upwards of about 900 years), they could have accomplished a lot in terms of technology. Keep in mind that after the Flood and the division at Babel much technology was lost. We cannot rule out that amenities like light bulbs and refrigeration existed before the Flood, and I would leave the option open.

Besides, they could easily have had equivalent technology like most people in the past have used. People can make light in other ways (e.g., lanterns) and use ice blocks for refrigeration to transport food or to reserve in ice caves. After all, we have discovered an ancient battery and ancient computing devices (see point 2 here).

People can live in whales,

The Hebrew word used in the Bible isn’t necessarily a whale—it is better-translated great fish (Jonah 1:17). And this was no ordinary fish, but this fish was specially prepared by God for Jonah. Naturally, this is no problem for the God who created everything and is control of all things.

and God’s reckoning is without equal.

This we agree on! (Though this is surely being sarcastically directed at us.)

God if He existed is a murderer,

God does exist, but I disagree that He is a “murderer.” This is like a murderer in a courtroom saying, “If the judge exists, then he is a murderer!” It was man that committed himself to death by sin. Yet God stepped in to history to become a man and take that death on our behalf. Perhaps you fail to understand the basic character of the God of the Bible. I want to encourage you begin a study of the Scripture with the book that is great to get started: Begin.

and stands idly by as his "good" creations rape and murder each other and does nothing because free will.

Again, I suggest you read the first three Bible chapters from the God that you criticize. God’s perfect creation was marred by sin and death due to Adam. This is why we are in the state that we are in. It is due to sin.

But just so you know, rape and murder are wrong in a Christian worldview (e.g., the Law of Moses, The Ten Commandments, etc.) but are perfectly acceptable in an atheistic worldview where there is no god who sets what is right and wrong. If people are their own boss instead of God, then why not do these things in your religion?

Keep in mind, however, that in the atheistic/agnostic humanistic worldview that you and Mr. Nye profess, everything is a chemical reacting with other chemicals in a predetermined fashion. So you should not be upset by one chemical reacting with another chemical (it is Christians who call those “so-called chemical reactions” rape and murder and view them as sin). But in your religion, rape and murder are just chemicals doing what chemicals do.

It saddens me that an adult could believe such things as fact.

I echo this same sentiment toward the atheistic religion that is professed here. Sadness is merely chemical reactions in the brain, though, from the atheistic worldview and are no different from other chemical sensations such as love, hate, hot, or cold.

You are robbing your children of their lives and wonder

And yet earlier you were pushing to let a child die, which is literally robbing a child of his life. Robbing is forbidden by the Ten Commandments—it is a Christian doctrine, not an atheistic one.

Animals rob things all the time, and if you really believe people are just animals, then you cannot say anything about it being bad, by your own standard.

Furthermore, this arbitrary rule of yours works both ways. I can just as easily declare that indoctrinating children to believe in false things like evolution and atheism robs kids of their lives and wonder.

by filling every unknown with an imaginary friend.

Yet it is the evolutionists who defend their imaginary “missing links” and even call them “ancestors,” their supposed big bang, and their imaginary millions of years. Consider the irony here: You don’t believe Adam and Noah existed (who were real people and your ancestors), but you are willing to look at artists’ representations of animal bones and say that they are your ancestors?

Indoctrination is abuse.

So you believe that when evolutionists indoctrinate children about evolution it is abuse? Indoctrination of false beliefs is abuse. Let’s be forthcoming here. Hitler indoctrinated the youth to believe in evolution and, in line with that, declared that the German people were superior. This humanistic evolutionary worldview has led to widespread bloodshed around the world. Teaching children the truth (e.g., God’s Word) is not indoctrination at all but is instead diligently refuting falsehood.

Conclusion

By your comments, it seems that you oppose abuse and robbery, believe sadness exists, accept that good exists (though it is God that defines good), believe rape and murder are wrong, argue that incest and slavery are wrong, believe that the suffering of others is an enemy, and declare that science is possible. What is interesting is that these are what Christians believe based on the Bible.

But from an atheistic perspective, there is no God to dictate morality and so anyone can have their own morality. So if atheists want to abuse, rape, murder, enslave (e.g., “the stronger over the weaker”), perform incest, and cause the suffering of others, it is not wrong in any absolute sense—by their own professed religion. Sadness and suffering are just chemical reactions in the brain that are no different from love and joy in an atheistic worldview.

Furthermore, science is possible because God upholds the universe in a consistent fashion and has told us He will do so until the end (e.g., Genesis 8:28). How does an atheist know that in the future (i.e., tomorrow), the laws of nature won’t change in a constantly “evolving universe”? It would be arbitrary to make such an assertion.

It sounds to me like you are pushing for all these Christian things and yet want to embrace atheism and evolutionism at the same time, which, as systems, would oppose most of the things you profess to believe.

I’d like to suggest that you reevaluate what God says in His Word. Since you obviously accept much of Christian thinking, I want to encourage you to leave behind atheistic beliefs that you have been taught and join the ranks of those who believe in God and His Son, Jesus Christ.

With boldness, and yet with kindness,

Bodie Hodge