Writing Studies 3302 Spring 2009

As I strive to seek a subjective viewpoint, I found it hard to reason with many of the points presented in the film (“What About God?”). As I have my own thoughts on this or that, I tend to find validity in “a god” because of freedom in belief, however, I found many points of contention with many views expressed in the film–and contention based on consistency, not freedom of belief. First, as humans, we are bound by nothing when electing a belief, or a belief system, however, in electing a certain belief (system), oblige ourselves to follow that belief system. As analogy, consider a graph, with many scattered data points, or a “scatter plot”. As humans we evaluate each data point to find a trendline, tangible, smooth, and patterned. Once we select our trend-line, we compel ourselves to follow it. This analogy may be related to the film we saw today. First, Ken Ham reminded me of banana man (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF3L359yKjs) Dawkins referred to. Ham’s rebuttal to “a million years ago” or the big bang/evolution was to rhetorically ask “where you there?”. However, all of Ham’s arguments beg the question “Mr. Ham, were you there? Did you see Noah’s ark, or Adam and Eve, or can you at least provide an authoritative piece of evidence (not the bible)?” Likewise, Mr. Baird’s seemingly indignant response to slimy beginning of human kind seems to by an unwillingness to let go of something. What is he holding onto, or any of these Ham-like people? The evidence for evolution and against creation is irrefutable. If 2+2=4, then 4+4=8. If you can add, it might be apparent to you that evolution is more or less a matter of fact. I retract my previous statement on “freedom in belief”, and submit, freedom in ignorance. Fairy tails aren’t true, but hey, they may have kept you happy as a kid.

After reading some opinions and suggestions in the Answers In Genesis website I had a few things on my mind. One of the first things I read was the "Where's the Proof?" The first guy was talking about how both the theories of creation and evolution are based on the same kind of proof because we all have the same world and forms of life on the earth. However, I don't think that that is how the two groups view life at all. I can not say that evolutionists have all the proof they need to convince me one way or the other but I definitely can say that no believer of creation has nearly enough to convince me at all. He discussed how we can not compare the past and present because we were not there. However, we at least have a few names of people who wrote down things and studied the world thousands of years ago where as we have very little knowledge of where ideas and stories of events that are in the bible actually originated from. It is also hard to compare the two ideas because another controversy of the bible and creation is whether or not we interpret the ideas literally or abstractly.
He also discussed the ability to put on the "glasses" of the other perspective. He mentioned that non-Christians have a hard time doing that. However, I feel like he might have been describing Atheists to Christians, making a generalization and forgetting about the space in between Christian and atheist; those who are agnostic. Also, he seemed to be pretty tied up in the idea of proof and truth in each belief system, but I thought that religion was a faith/trust based belief system that was not concerned with proof and rather a person just knew that it was right, so he had me kind of confused at that point.

After reading the preface of Jobe Martin’s “The Evolution of a Creationist” I was left wanting to hear his story–a good job on his part. I wanted to hear his story to see how far he was willing to go in his quest to justify creationism. He went as far to say that evolutionists and creationists “study the same data”. Yes, we have the same empirical data, however, the data is not what is being argued, out of context. Rather, it is the basis for interpretation of such data (quite obviously). His disclosure of oversimplification and redundancy also undermine his credibility pertaining to science. I could go on, but I’d rather get to my main objection. In the latter pages of the preface he keeps referring to “as Christians we . . . “ and “we Christians are losing 70% of our evangelical Christian young people . . . “. I find these statements to be of something ulterior to his intended point. To me, such statements insinuate a “politically” motivated intention or the workings of a cult. I also found the sentence “we send our children off to these schools and universities unable to defend their faith.” I find the keyword here to be “their” as in “their faith”. Is Martin suggesting faith is something of objective nature? In addition, Martin seems to resent the professor’s comments on the microbiology student’s paper. However, I think the professor was totally justified in what he said (based on the quoted sentence from the paper alone). Science is not to be commingled with a priori.

I also want to comment on Henry Morris’s “Tenets of Creationism” as I found many questionable arguments. First, the term scientific creationism should be changed to something like empirical creationism or deductive creationism. Science, in practice and in principle directly opposes creationism, thus they should not be put together. Second, Morris oversimplifies evolution by insinuating evolution stipulates earth history was dominated by uniformitarianism. While the mechanism of evolution may be abides by this principle, evolution also stipulates Cuvier’s catastrophism via the fossil record. I thought Morris was politically correct in titling his piece “the tenets of creationism” as they can only be substantiated by immaterial belief.

I was shocked by a lot of what I saw in these readings. There were multiple times that I just kept thinking “cult” in my head. Don’t get me wrong, I think that religion can be a wonderful thing, but I just thought that some of these things were so outrageous and almost brain washing. It might just be difficult for me to see things from another point of view because I am far more ready to believe in science than the bible, and I think that if I were to be Christian (or any religion), it would have to take science into consideration.

It just boggles my mind that so many people reject evolution because of what they are told in religious teachings. In the preface of “Evolution of a Creationist,” the author said that students are “deserting their Christian roots” by the thousands in college, and I just thought to myself that they are doing so because they are exposed to scientific principles and other ways of thought that they were shielded from before. They are given multiple possibilities for the origins of life and are able to finally think for themselves.

Lastly, I kept thinking about the Christian religion and God. God made humans curious and gave them freewill and then condemned them to death and hell for the way He created them. Supposedly, He knew what would happen, so why didn't He just create the people that would be saved in the end? Wouldn’t that have been easier?

“Biblical history is the key to understanding dinosaurs.” That’s what the Creation Museum believes, anyway. This may be one of the, for lack of a better word, stupidest things I have ever read. The idea of putting animatronic humans alongside animatronic dinosaurs in this museum is also pretty outrageous in my opinion. I don’t think it’s a hard concept to grasp that fossilized dinosaurs are embedded in different strata than fossilized humans. It is a scientific impossibility that they existed at the same time. I actually watched “Religulous” this weekend and there was a section where Bill Maher did an interview with Ken Ham and talked about the museum. In that segment it showed an exhibit with little children playing by a stream with a T-Rex close by. T-Rex was a known carnivore, and it peacefully co-existed with humans? I don’t find that very likely.
In the Get Answers section I found this quote about countering the critics: “How reliable are skeptics’ personal attacks on creationists? What does this teach about skeptics’ integrity?” I thought it was funny that this question was basically implying that skeptics who openly attack creationism have no integrity.

Kenneth Ham's teachings bother me a great deal. If we chose not to question anything because it goes against God's greater plan and because we were not there when it occurred, there would be an insurmountable number of advances or inventions that would not exist today. Ham's explanations seem largely grounded in speculation. He states that the average size of dinosaurs going onto the ark were only the size of sheep and the bones later found showing quite the contrary are those of extremely old dinosaurs. Maybe I am misinformed, but a generous portion of discovered dinosaur remains dispute this notion. In addition, Ham states that the majority of the animals on the Ark were the youngest in the strongest. Therefore that is why the fossils we find today are larger. So God chose to save only the strongest and fittest? To me this is very similar to natural selection in that only the strong survive. However I am sure Ham would find some way to dispute any connection of the two theories.

Martin's piece was another extreme viewpoint for creationism. He uses his christian conservative faith in God to justify the criticism of other faiths. He states that "Most Humanist, Marxist, New Age, Islamic and Postmodern professors have an agenda—they want the minds and hearts of our kids! Most of us Christians do not have nearly as well defined an agenda." It seems that in his mind professors have evil intent. Watch out-If you let your adult offspring think for themselves, then you are turning them over to the devil. Why is it that there are so many extremist followers of the Christian faith that cannot fathom that its followers may think for themselves? Yes, professors may open our mind up to many different ideas we were not privy to before attending college or participating in certain classes, but I find it offensive when others assume college students cannot make decisions for themselves.

After reading every article for tomorrow's class, I was left feeling sorry for the all of the young children who fall prey to the illogical fanaticism and fear-mongering that is the Church. With every biblical anecdote or metaphor being thrown at the feet of every wary parent in the readings, I saw the scene from the “What About God?” video in which a little girl in the front row is singing along to a song praising disbelief in evolution, all the while she is gleefully ignorant to the brainwashing that is really taking place.

The preface that we read for Jobe Martin's book is a prime example of fear-mongering. “Parents, have fear! Your children go to college and learn to lose their faith! We must get to them before they do!” There's a reason why young adults are deserting their religious faith in favor of scientific reason - it's because they're no longer constrained by the censorship and ignorance proliferated by the Church. In Chapter 21, the author wrote about the fears of Creationists that America was “going mad,” yet the only thing I find maddening is the fact that so many people are so easily convinced by these “scientists,” who are little more than self-proclaimed experts and manipulating facts to fit their story of creation.

As I said in my last post Kenneth Ham is very scary. I’m amazed at how well this webpage is put together and the strength of content in it.

Rhetorically the Six Short Days video is very powerful, appealing to ethos, pathos and logos. For instance, making the girl giving the presentation the most credible and likable character creates ethos for “six short days”. The ethos of evolution is purposely attacked when the teacher is made out to be fool and the skeptical girl is made to be extremely annoying. Pathos is utilized through comedy; the audience is continuously prompted to laugh at the plausibility of evolution, natural selection is turned into a joke. Pathos is also used by appealing to our need for redemption in the face of God’s judgment, the want to go to heaven. Finally, establishing The Bible as a factual document utilizes logos. The girl in the video says, “if the Bible is true and I believe it is, it should be able to explain all the evidence and it does.” Intertwining this pseudoscience with actual science such as the existence of dinosaurs makes it much harder for children to detect the falsity of the original premise quoted above. I have barely scratched the surface of the rhetorical genius of this video and am amazed that the same people smart enough to make it are also dumb enough to believe it.

“Guyot and Dawson tended to minimize the roll of miracles or intervention and maximize the roll of natural selection.” This is a rough quote from the author of our chapter 21 reading. This seems to be the main roll in most creationists’ argument, at least in the book. In my opinion this method of argumentation is comparable to saying that they few things we can’t explain we label God and everything else is science. Something we spoke on earlier in class. It’s the exact same technique just with more or less data shifted around. There still is the problem with, “just believing,” or, “faith,” which is in my opinion blind by definition.

It’s hard to realize a public school that can’t teach evolution though that was the case in the early 20th century. It doesn’t take much to conceive of the situation though. Everything takes time to develop and something as intense at natural selection isn’t going to be taken into account without and ton of scrutiny, especially from the opposing views. And, even more especially, when the opposing views are that of great power such as The Catholic Church.

I found the list, “Arguments that should never be used,” on the answers in genesis website to be quite funny. I feel I don’t need to get into much more detail on that specific situation. All for now…

Biblical Creationism is one thing that I cannot understand. How do Biblical Creationists make it work that Adam and Eve were the first two humans, yet when they reproduce, they create perfectly competent children without any mental or physical handicap. Instead they create humans with ever-advancing intelligence. All experience today tells us that inbreeding produces birth defects and handicaps. We have laws against marrying siblings and, in some cases cousins, for this very reason. Yet, we are supposed to look at Adam and Eve and believe that two people and lots of inbreeding produced the highly competent set of humans we have today. We are also made to believe that the Earth is 6,000 years old. How do you reconcile this when there is so much counterevidence, including carbon dated layers of Earth which help prove its age? I guess what it comes down to is that Biblical Creationism does not work with science, and thus does not work with me. If the Bible is going to be taken as semi-truth, it must be reconciled using the Scientific Creationism hypothesis rather than the biblical one.

On the Answers in Genesis website, they claim that the Earth is only 6000 years old because that is what the Bible says. They said that dinosaurs and humans existed together and the reason that the dinosaurs became extinct is because Noah didn’t bring them all on his ark when the great flood came. In this same section, the text backs up their claim that evolution is false because “there were no witnesses or written record.” Then they go on to elaborate by saying that in the biblical view of history the written record was produced by an eye witness whom they believe as God. The only sources this website seems to use in order to back up its claims are “other scientists” or the Bible.
The text from that reading is almost identical to the Dinosaurs in the Bible video with Ken Ham. And for the record I would just like to say that I think Ken Ham is a complete nutjob. He talks so fast I don’t know how anyone, especially a bunch of kids, could understand what he is talking about. I haven’t heard anything that would make me believe what he is talking about. I personally think it is a bunch of garbage from another person who is trying to make a living off of taking advantage of people who take the Bible word for word.

Number’s article does not give a kind view of Creationist Theory in my opinion. He took two examples of prominent figures in the antievolution movement and picked apart their credentials. I found the passage “….resolved to drive every evolutionist from public school payroll. Those who lost their jobs as a result deserved little pity, for as on rabble boasting Creationist puts it,’German soldiers who kill Belgian and French children with poison candy were angels compared with teacher and textbook.’”, (Pg. 281) to be particularly harsh against Creationists.

Although I agree with Morris when he writes that the Bible should not be taught in public school because of judicial restrictions and because teachers who do not believe in the bible should not be asked to teach the bible, I am not convinced by his article that Scientific Creationism is a better alternative. It is great to be able to use scientific data to develop the creation model since it helps bridge science and religion, but the scientific method still cannot be applied towards scientific creationism. A dual system of teaching is not valid if the scientific method cannot be applied to scientific creationism. Without meeting that criterion, scientific creationism cannot be taught alongside a science based curriculum.

I chose to read Ken Ham’s answers to dinosaurs on his website and I found the passages he selected as proof that dinosaurs existed at the same time as men to be extremely poor examples. He selected Genesis 1:20-25,31 and Job 40:15-24. The first example is an account that God created everything. I never doubted that dinosaurs existed. Yet I do question Mr. Ham’s claim that they existed at the same time as humans and that passage does not answer my question. The second example is an obscure description of an animal that stood besides Job who had “strength in his hips…moves his tail like a cedar, the sinews of his thighs are tightly knit, his bones are like beams of bronze…” does not a dinosaur make. These are very abstract descriptions that could be interpreted to many land animals. Again his example does nothing to proof one way or the other. I think the only reason why Mr. Ham wants people to believe dinosaurs exist at the same as humans goes back to making humans “special” and still have dominant over animals. If humans and dinosaurs existed at once as it is claimed by Mr. Ham I doubt Homo sapiens would have survived.

Ronald Numbers make and interesting point that in their criticism of evolution, creationists often reject the notion that human could have developed from apes, other mammals, sea creatures, microscopic organisms, and so on down the evolution gradient. This reject of humans evolving from animals came across distinctively in the “What About God?” movie. On multiple occasions creationists expressed their disgust in the belief that humans evolved from another life form. I wonder if the concept of evolving from another life form is a subconscious blow to their ego. Is being a human from the beginning part of a subtle superiority complex? Personally, I think the concept that we evolved to our level of intelligence while other species around us didn’t truly makes us superior creatures. I’m proud, in a sense, of our evolutionary accomplishment. I understand that the main reason creationists reject evolution is because it contradicts the Bible, but I think there is also a subconscious superiority complex involved as well. The comments about disgust over evolving from other life forms reinforce my theory. If there is no complex involved, why make those comments? Isn’t it enough to just say, “That’s what the Bible says?”

This week’s readings were really quite interesting. I was particularly intrigued by the preface to The Evolution of a Creationist and the Answers in Genesis webpage.

What I found most interesting in the preface was the teacher’s reaction to the introduction of that one senior’s microbiology paper. First of all, I was impressed that the student had enough bravado to write that on his school paper in the first place and turn it in. But then I was shocked at the reaction his teacher had! The teacher basically told the student he was stupid, even though he (the teacher) believed it as well. From a sociological perspective (my minor), this is really quite interesting: that one must completely separate their religious beliefs from their professional ones, even when that means you have to lead to basically contradicting social roles.
I really enjoyed exploring the Answers in Genesis webpage. I found myself clicking on links all over the place and really getting absorbed in some of the articles. I was particularly entertained by the kids section. The Six Days video was very informative and presented in a way that kids could really understand. It answered a lot of questions that I, as an adult have, and therefore children might have as well. The museum sounds really impressive and intriguing. It is such a unique idea, to have a museum that matter-of-factly presents creation in the same way that other history museums are presented. I find the concept refreshing. I think the museum would be really interesting to visit someday. Overall, I was just really impressed with the site and the information it presented.

I was extremely offended when reading the preface to “The Evolution of a Creationist” and “The Tenets of Creationism.” The term “Scientific Creationism” implies that there is some science involved in the hypothesis put forth, but in these articles, I did not see any scientific evidence at all. The idea of “decreasing complexity” sparked my interest because evidence clearly shows that species are getting more complex. The authors wrote about how humans are distinct from other animals and different from “mere biological life,” yet how can this be true when we are less complex than animals? Doesn’t our intelligence, reasoning skills, self-image, etc. demonstrate that we are more complex? These two ideas seem contradictory. In the preface, I was kind of offended by the author’s attack on the college education system and how professors have an agenda and “want the minds and hearts of our kids.” Many people get a college education in order to get them a good job once they graduate, but I personally came to college looking for knowledge and personal growth. At huge universities and learning institutions we have so many more opportunities to learn and so many more resources with which to explore the world that the given statistic of losing 70% of the evangelical youth is not surprising to me. In high school we have classes that are limited, parents that control what we do and see, and a lot of times teenagers simply do not care about learning what else is in the world than what they are presented. The idea that getting a better education and gathering knowledge from sources other than the Bible and ministry was quite offending. Granted, a lot of people lose interest in religion, but there are also people whose faith is renewed and strengthened through their own explorations.

The first thing I thought as I was navigating my way through the Answers in Genesis website was it’s a theme park. The Creation Museum is like a theme park, maybe without the rides. I know this is a place my parents would have never taken me as a child but I could see how kids would like it. Children don’t know any better and if they have fun that museum is the best place in the world and everything they learned would be true. As I was watching the six short days videos for kids I thought about the What about God video. The same thoughts kept crossing my mind are these people brainwashing kids. Kids would be instantly drawn to these videos even if they didn’t understand what they were watching. The videos might not mean much to children who know nothing about God or the Bible but children would still be drawn to them.
I wasn’t surprised to read about the change of science education in schools in chapter 21 but it still makes me think. How might science education and research be different in universities if Creationism was still the only thing that was taught?

My small town high school did not teach evolution or creationism in the normal science classes. We had one week on evolution in AP bio, but it was taught by one of the members of the Catholic church, and he taught evolution as an incomplete theory. His quote has always stayed with me, "I just can't believe that you can throw the parts for a computer in a garage and come back in a few million years expecting it to be fully assembled and functioning. Life is too complex." I should say right now that I believe God had a hand in making life and until they can explain the Big Bang, I believe he said it. But I don't believe that 'one error in the Bible invalidated the entire book.' I've always thought that the point of the Book was to teach people (who are inherently lazy and self interested) to work together for love of a brother.

I must also say that I was surprised that our own U was the Lexington of the evolution-education war. Riley and Morris were spurred into battle against the 'teachers and textbook writers who corrupted the souls of children and thereby sentenced them to eternal death.'

The line 'antievolutionists liked to wrap themselves in the authority of science' was particularly interesting because =at this point= faith was no longer enough.

we had a very diverse reading this week . a unifying idea of all of this is the concept of creationism . The people @ answers in genesis.org are clearly insane . They have some really bizarre ideas . And the really scary thing about all that is that there's a lot of people who believe what they're saying . in all honesty it does not make a difference to me if the earth was created by god and seven days or not . Why would that change the way things are today ? People would find other things to fight about . When I was reading the information on an icr. org I was amazed at all the subdivisions . What also concerned me was the strictest of each classification . Can not we all just get along ? Clearly debating creationism versus Darwinism is not going to get us anywhere . I am willing to believe that god created the earth but I'm not willing to fight over things that can never be proven . that crazy web site did give me some good ideas on how to market my new religion so for that I am grateful .

The conflict that seems to inevitably arise between evolution and creationism in the schools is incredibly frustrating. Only science belongs in a science classroom, which is not to say that creationism cannot be addressed. I believe that school should be as objective an arena as possible, particularly the science classroom. Therefore both evolution and creationism could be taught as scientific theories, with all arguments for and against presented. Furthermore, I think that there ought to exist an arena for religion, even in public schools. This is not to say that religious doctrine should be taught from a theological perspective, but that there should be a religion class in which religious doctrine, practice and history (from varying religions) should be taught from an historical/anthropological/psychological perspective. This way children who have been exposed to very strong belief systems and those who have been exposed to nothing are both forced to understand religion from a studious perspective. I think that this would help eradicate a lot of the stigmas and misconceptions that arise.

I must say that after watching some of the videos on the answersingenesis.org website, I am less skeptical about some of the young-earth creationist arguments. I was surprised that many of the arguments have a scientific basis and are reasonable and logical. Ken Ham, president of “Answers in Genesis,” suggests that “dragons” and “serpents” in the Bible might actually refer to what we today call dinosaurs. He also cites discoveries of ancient human cave drawings of animals that resemble dinosaurs. Ham’s argument is that dinosaurs are not millions of years old, but in fact, they walked the earth only a few thousand years ago alongside humans. Creationist geology professor, Steven Austin, argues that the petrified forests at Yellowstone National Park might not be as old as we thought. Growth, burial, and petrifaction of the twenty seven layers of forests would have taken millions of years, but Austin considers an alternative process. After the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, thousands of trees torn from the hillsides landed in nearby Spirit Lake. After years of floating, the trees eventually sink upright due to the high density of the root end. Volcanic ash in the lake helps the trees to quickly petrify. Sonar scans have detected over two thousand upright objects under the water. The bottom of the lake has essentially transformed into a petrified forest. Austin argues that the forests at Yellowstone became petrified through this fast-track process, and that they are only thousands of years old.

The problem with these arguments is that they might make the possibility of a young earth less improbable, but they do not offer positive proof. There are gaps between the evidence suggested and the conclusions drawn. For example, ancient drawings of dinosaur-like animals and Biblical references to dragons and serpents do not unequivocally mean that humans lived with them. Perhaps ancient humans discovered the fossil remains of a dinosaur. Frightening stories would likely be told of the animal’s possible existence elsewhere on earth, these stories eventually ending up on the walls of caves and in the Bible. Austin’s discovery at Mount St. Helens offers an alternative explanation of how the petrified forests at Yellowstone were formed, but it does not prove a young earth. Even if the forests are actually much younger than previously thought, it does not necessarily follow that the earth must also be younger.

It is amusing to see both sides of the creationist or evolutionist argument attempt using each other’s “tools” to prove their point. Creationists using scientific methods to validate biblical events, evolutionists diligently working to lock down irrefutable evidence of aged objects. On the Answers in Genesis website there was an article that provides creationists with a rebuttal for the question of water or life on Mars and their suggested response is that Noah was a Martian and the flood happened on Mars. (The article was titled “Was Noah a Martian” by Ken Ham) His works could don the name “conversational retaliation; a random arsenal” you don’t have to buy it your self… you just have to win.
One thought that crossed my mind while reading Numbers piece in the book when he brought up the “team of ten” was that it seemed like finding just a couple of poster-boys, like Morris or even Martin, was all they needed. If people higher value to someone’s opinion because they switched sides, then why is it not ok to look into both possibilities? I would be curious to know the ratios between creationist-scientists and evolutionist-Christians.

2DKEEC