Creationism, in all of its guises, from young earth creationism to intelligent design and beyond, is so clearly at odds with the modern scientific worldview that parodies of those who promote creationism abound. Even more than a disagreement over supposed scientific "facts," the biggest problem with all of creationism is that its proponents want to redefine science in a way that makes the subject completely meaningless.
What would be outrageously funny about this, if it weren't so incredibly sad, is that even the most extreme parodies of the creationist position, have to be taken seriously. For example, here's one such example making its way around the Web:
Funny, right? Well, given that many creationists have a completely perverted perspective on entropy and the laws of physics, this parody isn't, in fact, a parody. Because, in addition to the disgraceful war on women the Republican presidential candidates seem intent on waging, they are also attacking evolution and the very nature of public education. Education, in the universe they're currently inhabiting, should be entirely up to parents. Parents, they say, are in the best position to determine the individual needs of their children.
So, let's look at the world's leading creationist organization, Answers in Genesis (AiG) -- the folks who brought us the Creation Museum-cum-theme-park in Kentucky, and see what they have to say about entropy and the laws of physics.
Simply put, those laws dictate how energy is transferred through the environment and they explain why entropy, or the amount of disorder in a system, always increases unless energy is added to the system. Those laws explain why perpetual motion machines cannot exist, why all living things ultimately die and so much more.
Or do they?
Well, not really, not if you're Ken Ham, director of AiG, or many of his employees. Just recently in an hour long radio interview in which he criticized The Clergy Letter Project, he explained his concern with clergy members who recognize that the Earth is billions of years old.
The question is where did sin come from? Because if there was no literal fall in Genesis, why are we a sinner? And if you believe in millions of years, you've got death and bloodshed millions of years before sin. The Bible says death came as a result of sin and if you're saying you can't take that history as written, and you're taking man's ideas of evolution of millions of years outside the Bible and you're reinterpreting God's word, you're ... undermining the authority of God's word.
Because this is such a complicated concept, Ham has created a fancy graphic that explains the technical science to his lay audiences. Here's how he explained his view, a view at odds with that of the physics community, that the laws of physics are not constant:
That's pretty compelling evidence for overturning the laws of physics. Incorporating technical subjects into a home schooling regime thus seems fairly easy.
But, wait, even for Ham and AiG things get a bit more complicated. I'll let Ham explain how organisms feeding on other organisms can do so without death occurring:
When I make the claim that the Bible teaches there was no death before sin, I'm referring to the death and bloodshed of animals and humans. You see God created man and the animals to be vegetarian originally. There wasn't any physical death until after the fall. But if animals and man ate plants before sin, doesn't it mean there was death because plants died? Well, the Book of Genesis actually has the answer. It tells us that plants are not living in the same sense as animals are... They don't have the life principle that animals have. Plants were given for food so they don't die in the animal sense.
Some Christians say that even in the original creation, plants had to decay and Adam and Eve had to digest food. Therefore they say things were decaying before sin, so it wasn't a perfect world in the Garden of Eden!It is reasonable to infer that in a perfect world, there was controlled decay, which is necessary for life. But once sin entered the world, things were no longer "perfect." Without the decay perfectly controlled, everything, including our own bodies, now runs down and decays.
In fact, the folks at AiG go further and explain that some entropy is actually a good thing and thus it would have been present before sin. Here's a short extract from a piece AiG published in 2010 on the second law of thermodynamics:
We could not digest our food without the second law being in operation. The breaking down of food into simpler molecules is a consequence of this process. The molecules are broken down to release the energy that is used to maintain the body and even provide for growth.
It doesn't end here. The same AiG writer who "explained" the difference between good entropy and bad entropy, provides us with another lesson on the topic. Even after sin, when death and destruction became a part of the human condition and animals began to suffer, there were periods when the laws of physics ceased to function, times when entropy no longer prevailed.
In the beginning, God sustained His creation in its perfect state. The account of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness provides a glimpse of how things might have been in the original creation. The garments of the Israelites did not wear out, nor did their feet swell for the forty years they camped in the desert (Deuteronomy 8:4). God is omnipotent and perfectly capable of sustaining and protecting His creation.
When we permit theology to define our science, we end up with gibberish, but not even consistent gibberish. Entropy is our punishment for sin, except when it isn't. Entropy is bad, except when it's good. Plants don't die when they stop living.
Please explain why we would turn over the responsibility for education to people like this, people who are beyond parody?
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William Grassie: Big History: Engaging the New Narrative of Science
You cannot have a death without a life, a destruction without a creation, an end without first a beginning, and an infection without a live body.
How can you believe that ALL animals were 'created' to eat meat when there is evidence to the contrary with teeth and the digestive system?
Can they not see that without science, small pox, the plague etc would have swept the world of its entire population?
If people in Africa had continued to believe that AIDS is healed by the laying of hands that there wouldn't be a working age group left in that continent?
How can you dispute the very thing that proved that the world is not flat?
How can you possibly continue believing in an all powerful, all loving god when you see a small child suffering with excrutiating pain?
For example, try one of the more obvious problem of the lack of probabilistic resources the gather the mutatations necessary for even the most modest improvements of cellular machinery.....I mean,..give us something more interesting than the milk toast you just put together here.
Joe Jensen, Canada.
photon - massless object that has wave particle duality and until recently used as the speed limit for scientific calculations. the bottom line is that science has no more answers than religion.
our existence is based on sensory observations, therefore our existence is questionable.
Yes, creationism is a farce . . . but back to the Clergy Letter Project (CLP).
As I stated in an earlier post both the Christian Letter and the UU Letter (but not the Rabbi letter) state, “We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.”
In an effort to better understand this assertion could you, as founder of the CLP, please provide a few examples of "biblical truths" in contradistinction to "scientific truths?"
Cheers and Regards,
DF Batchelder
It is this same spiritual death, separation from God, which occurs in non-believers. For some, it is due to nurture and for others it is due to nature. Yet, regardless of the cause the outcome is still the same.
For many people, atheism feeds the ego and neglects the soul. And, in life or death atheism provides no answers with 100% certainty. For an atheist there will never be, in death, an "I told you so moment". Therefore, your time is at hand...eat, drink, and be merry.
Don't believe what I just wrote is true? Then, watch the posts responding to this statement. The posts will run the gamut of defense. Everything from fear-mongering to absurdity.
Sorry, I don't humble myself before man. However, before God Almighty my head will always be bowed, and the words from my mouth will only be praise.
Actually, I'd think it's pretty obvious that being an atheist is a position of far greater humility than believing a supreme being is preoccupied with the state of our souls.
If you expect people to believe that all of the complex and unfathomable wonders of this world and humanity did not originate by the God of Scripture, please don’t insult us by claiming it all began from some primordial slime puddle that was hit by a bolt of lightening. Hollywood surpassed that with their Frankenstein shtick!!
P.S. Where did the primordial slime and lightening come from?
By the way, whenever science obtains the answer to one question, it leads to yet another question. That will always be the case for as long as humans retain the trait of curiosity.
With evidence, everything can be challenged and improved, and thus we add to our current knowledge.
Has anyone ever held a news conference to announce, through careful research, that they have discovered an Eleventh Commandment?
Religion is different in that it is not an honest pursuit of discovery. It begins with final answers in mind, and then sets out to prove the answers or to spin anomalies to the dogma (usually brought to light by scientific discoveries) in ways that will comport with the dogma. To a great degree, that's what the whole pursuit of Christian Apologetics is.
that's at least four questions that would be left...you're sure not very good at the question game.
1. one plus one equals?
2. our species is called?
3. true or false - the earth is older than 10,000 years
if you can't answer these questions correctly, you are not eligible.