More Intolerance

by Ken Ham on October 22, 2012

Well, it seems that many secularists will never quit trying to make a mockery of God’s Word. The BBC in the UK has started airing a new documentary TV show called Conspiracy Road Trip. Each show has a theme, and the host, Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell, takes a group of people committed to whatever belief he’s talking about and tries to convince them that they’re wrong.

Maxwell considers creationism a “conspiracy,” no different than a belief in UFOs. Of course, it becomes obvious that the program is not intended to sincerely search out a matter but to make a mockery of Christians—particularly biblical creationists.

In a recent episode, Maxwell took five British creationists on a tour of various sites in America (though not all of them were professing Christians). He asked five evolutionary scientists to speak to the group. Maxwell claims he just wanted to have a debate, and seemed at first like he was trying to be objective. However, as he realized that most of the group would not be swayed, he lost his objectivity.

At one point, Maxwell took the group to the Grand Canyon to meet with Don Prothero, an evolutionary geologist and professor at Occidental College in California. Prothero told the groups that he’s a scientist and that he deals “only with natural forces and things that we can observe and test in nature.” He then proceeded to give an evolutionary/millions of years explanation of the Grand Canyon’s formation. His determination to deal only with “natural forces” eliminates God automatically. In other words, he started with the assumption that God and His Word have nothing to do with explaining reality. He started with a bias against anything to do with the God of the Bible. He did not start by looking objectively at the evidence.

Though he claims to work only with observational (or operational) science, evolutionary ideas like millions of years of history are not observable or testable. They’re part of what we would call historical (or origins) science. (Find out more about this distinction in Troy Lacey’s (AiG—U.S.) article, Historical and Observational Science.)

Prothero falsely claims that “all scientists around the world” believe in naturalism and uniformitarianism. One of the TV participants, a vocal creationist and professing Christian named Phil, challenged Prothero on this false claim, noting that there are many scientists who are creationists. In fact, not only does AiG employ such scientists with advanced degrees (like Dr. Georgia Purdom, Dr. Andrew Snelling, Dr. David Menton, Dr. Tommy Mitchell, Dr. Terry Mortenson, and soon Dr. Danny Faulkner), but a list of very qualified creation scientists< appears on the AiG website.

Prothero’s response to Phil speaks volumes. “I don’t count them as scientists.” In other words, he has arbitrarily decided that if a person is a creationist, he or she cannot be a “scientist.” So much for Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Michael Faraday, and so on!

You see, evolutionists really cannot handle any dissent from their view of human origins—their religion—the religion of evolution and millions of years. So they resort to questioning people’s credentials and refusing to acknowledge their abilities and qualifications as scientists if they disagree with their evolutionary beliefs.

Recall Bill Nye’s recent video about how necessary he believes evolutionary ideas are to every area of science. He believes that we will be unable to produce good scientists without them. (You can read my blog post on Bill Nye’s comments.) But, molecules-to-man evolution has nothing to do with observational science and the great advances scientists have made in research and technology!

In the BBC program, evolutionist Jerry Coyne told the creationists that “any reasonable person who’s not perverse” would have to call the account of Noah’s Ark a “fairy story.” Throughout the episode, the host, Maxwell, like the evolutionary scientists, spoke very negatively of the creationists in his group. He was puzzled as to why all the supposed evidence for evolution and millions of years did not sway them. But of course, his agenda all along was to mock those who believe the creation account in Genesis.

Unfortunately, the program’s failures do not all lie with the evolutionary scientists and the host. With the exception of one (Phil, mentioned above) the creationist participants displayed their own lack of biblical knowledge or the ability to defend their position with reasoned and well-researched answers. Phil seems to have a firm grasp on what the Bible actually says about creation. Of course, he was generally shut down when he tried to explain his views.

Such is typical of so many intolerant secularists nowadays. They don’t want Christians to be shown giving answers and thus showing up the evolutionists for what they are—anti-Christian activists with a blind faith in their anti-God religion of evolution and millions of years. But most of the other participants on the TV program seem unfamiliar with what Genesis says about creation, Adam and Eve, the global Flood, and so on.

I don’t want to eliminate personal responsibility for professing Christians to be reading their Bibles, but I think this highlights an even bigger problem. If the church fails to teach apologetics (i.e., how to use logic in defending the Christian faith and giving answers to the skeptical questions), believers will not be able to give an answer when they are faced with skeptical questions about their faith.

I usually find that when the secular media are discussing the topic of origins,

  1. they try to find some leader in the church who compromises with evolution,
  2. they find people whom they know are not equipped to answer the questions, and
  3. they avoid using creationists who are qualified scientists.
They act this way because they are not out for the truth. They want to shake their fist at God—and “suppress the truth” (Romans 1).

Overall, this BBC program is just another demonstration of the kind of intolerance for God’s Word that exists in our Western culture today.

Frankly, we weren’t surprised at all about what happened during this show—we expected it. And particularly with the BBC network involved, we anticipated nothing but a slam against Bible-believing Christians. That seems to be the norm for the BBC, as we have discovered over the years (especially in its coverage of our Creation Museum). We have found them to be perhaps the most aggressively anti-God media in the world today.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

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