Questions In Genesis: Ken Ham’s Creationist Shtick

I have a confession to make. Over a decade ago, I took my family to a Ken Ham creationism event. My kids were taught that dinosaurs and humans coexisted, a few thousand years ago, and they also learned a magic phrase – one guaranteed to stop evolutionists in their tracks. More on that later.

In a presentation for the adults, Ken talked about how evolution attacks the very foundation of Christianity – the book of Genesis. After all, if Genesis is not literally true, then there was no Adam and Eve, no Fall of mankind through eating a forbidden fruit. No Original Sin. No need for a savior. This is something which I actually agree with Ken on.

Ken and his cohorts see themselves as valiant warriors, defending the Fortress of Faith from the attacks of evolution, humanism, and atheism. This is what ‘creation science’ is: an attempt to keep people from abandoning the belief that Genesis is an actual account of how the universe and life on Earth came to be. Since this ‘science’ doesn’t (and cannot) make any discoveries, it mainly consists of two things: making uninformed people distrust evolution, while trying to turn the Genesis stories into a plausible model for how things were, in the early days of the human race. Young Earth Creationists are in defense mode because they are locked in their Scripture castle, prisoners to their own beliefs, while Science is out exploring the world. Real science has the ability to update and correct, based on new discoveries – something which Bible-loving fundamentalists can never do. Songwriter Tim Minchin sums this up concisely in his song Storm.

Here is Ken’s magic question for evolutionists: “Were you there?” Because of course, Ham knows the Big Guy Upstairs, who was there and who helpfully wrote it all down in a book called the Bible so that Fundamentalist homeschoolers could learn science from ancient, nomadic sheep-herders. Well, Ken, I have a question for you: “Were you there… when the book of Genesis was written?“

No? I didn’t think so.

Let’s see, so that would mean… your own logic just kicked you in the ass. You know nothing about who wrote the book of Genesis, and you certainly don’t have any proof for your claim that it is a divine record of how the universe came to be.

Maybe your shtick sells to fundamentalists bereft of scientific literacy, or critical reasoning skills, but we’re not buying it. In fact, I think that you know that the  phrases you teach children to robotically parrot don’t disprove evolution, but you deceitfully peddle them anyway. You might be miserable at science, but you sure as hell know that you have a nice little cash flow coming in from selling nonsense. You can’t ever tell the truth because then you’d lose your livelihood.

One other thing. All the stuff you do, using dinosaurs?

Well, we’re onto that.

Bait.

It’s all about luring kids in so that you can get your sweaty hands on their impressionable minds. We know that young-earth creationist ministries use dinosaurs like pedophiles use candy. You’ve got your windowless van parked near where the children are, colorful dinosaurs painted all over the sides. Get ‘em while their brains are too young to put up a fight – right?

Written by J. M. Green