I Hate Green Eggs But I Love Ken Ham!
(With apologies to - no, forget it! I do not apologize to “Dr. Seuss”; in fact, the following is far superior to that stupid “Seuss” book.)
By John Lofton, Editor
But, I love Ken Ham, I do.
I do not like green eggs here or there.
But, I love Ken Ham anywhere!
I do not like green eggs in a box, with a fox,
In a house, with a mouse.
Green eggs make me sick just to see’em.
But, I love Ken Ham and his (His) museum!
I love Ken Ham because he’s a Christian with a brain and he has the guts to defend the faith. I also love him because he drives the God-haters nuts - or I should say he drives them even nuttier.
There I was one evening (5/26/07) watching my tape of that day’s “Good Morning America” program which ran a piece about Brother Ken’s new $27 million (no debt!; all paid for!) Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. In her intro to this piece, the co-anchor lady noted that the Creation Museum “depicts a story that’s a, well, a far cry from what many of us learned in science class.”
KEN HAM (right) - A courageous Christian soldier with zeal and knowledge, a brain and the guts to defend the faith.True, absolutely true - if you went to government-run schools like I did in my hometown, Orlando, Florida. In these schools, what we were taught about science (and everything else) was (may I say it?) crap, dung, false, lies because such “education” was not God/Christ/Bible-centered - which is interesting because theology was once called “the queen of the sciences.” But, that’s another story.
Now, reporter Dan Harris’ report. He tells us, accurately, that the Creation Museum is a high-tech sensory experience with animatronic dinosaurs and a movie theater with seats that shake, all designed by the same man behind some of the attractions at Universal Studios in Florida. A male visitor is shown saying: “Oh, it’s cool. It’s cool. Yeah. It’s cool.”
But, there’s a danger, according to some folks. Harris says: “Mainstream scientists worry that because this museum is so sophisticated, it will be more effective at giving children a distorted view of science.” Then we see “mainstream scientist” Dr. Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education saying about these supposedly gullible kids: “They’ll show up in classrooms and say, you know, ‘Gee, Mrs. Brown, I went to this very spiffy museum last summer and they say that everything you’re teaching me is, is a lie.’”
Then, right after this (I cheered!), we see Ken Ham saying, re: Scott’s statement: “And I say, ‘Great. Amen.’ That’s, that’s what this place is all about. It’s meant to challenge people.” Indeed. It’s meant to expose the lies of the evolutionists.
In conclusion, Harris says (though I disagree with the “scientific evidence” bit): “The people here at the Museum say they have two primary audiences, Christians who need scientific evidence to bolster and defend their faith, and non-Christians who need to be saved. Diane?” Diane is co-anchor Diane Sawyer. And after watching her for years, I can say, for certain, she definitely needs to be saved!
Now, a report on National Public Radio (5/28/07). Host Steve Inskeep says: “Just to define our terms here, there are certainly people who read the Bible and interpret it in such a way that they find no conflict between the theory of evolution and what’s in the Bible, but it sounds like in your reading of the Bible there is a huge conflict.
DR. LAWRENCE KRAUSS- No ‘advance answers’ in science but is sure answers to questions about the universe are in ‘nature.’Ham: “There is a conflict, actually, if you try to add evolution to the Bible and take Genesis as literal history. For instance, the Bible teaches man was made from dust in Genesis, whereas evolution would teach that men came from some ape-like ancestor. And I know there are many Christians that would say they believe in evolution in millions of years, and I would say they’re being inconsistent in regard to their approach to Scripture, because a literal Genesis is actually the foundational history for the rest of the Bible for all doctrine.”
Excellent! No attempt here to reconcile the irreconcilable. No attempt to merge light and dark. Oh, and no follow-up question by Inskeep who asks next for a description of the Museum.
Referring to the respective views of evolutionists and Biblical Creationists, Inskeep says: “It seems like more than differing interpretations. A scientist might argue — a conventional scientist might argue — he or she is looking at the evidence and following that evidence where it goes. Your starting point is that it’s already known that the world is only 5,000 years old and that it was created in seven days, and you must look at the evidence in a way that fits what you already take as truth.”
OK, it’s T-ball time for Brother Ken, Inskeep having just placed on a tee a huge softball, this softball being the notion that science is just, you know, neutral, just following the “facts” wherever the “evidence” leads, no bias, no presuppositions. On his first swing, this softball is knocked out of the park, over the center field wall.
Ham: “Well, you see, I would disagree with that. You know, I had a debate on the Alan Colmes radio program with Dr. Eugenie Scott, who admits that she doesn’t believe in God, she’s an atheist, and she leads an organization against creationists in America. And so when she looks at evidence, she already has some beliefs to start with. Her belief is that God or the Bible has nothing to do with that. She’s already ruled that out. And I think that’s an important thing to understand.”
Inskeep: “Are you saying - wait a minute, are you saying that all scientists who believe in evolution are trying to disprove God? I just want to understand that.”
Ham: “No, I’m not saying all scientists who believe in evolution are trying to disprove God. But what I am saying is that all scientists have presuppositions that they start with to determine how they interpret evidence.”
Again, a superb response.
Presuppositions are important things to understand because they are the light in which all “facts” are viewed and interpreted. My theological mentor Dr. RJ Rushdoony, and Cornelius Van Til (I’ve called him Rushdoony’s Rushdoony) never tired of reminding us that there is no such thing as neutrality, no such thing as brute factuality, no such thing as starting with a blank slate when approaching a subject.
In a report on CNN (5/28/07), the correspondent says, re: the Creation Museum: “It does have a message, and it’s a big one. This new museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, is not afraid to embrace the Bible’s version of creation, regardless of what scientists say. It’s a new voice in the national debate about evolution versus creationism….Here the Bible’s account is taken word-for-word, that Earth and all its inhabitants were created in six days. A much different account of what you will hear at a natural history museum.”
Amen! Not ashamed of the Gospel, the Word of God. That’s Ken Ham.
Hmmmmmmm. But, did you catch that presupposition, the reference to “a natural history museum.” Get it? History is “natural” — not super — natural. And in a “natural history” museum you will always see the natural/no-God/evolutionary view stated as fact.
Then in this CNN report, we see Mike Novacek, Provost of the Museum Of Natural History say, simply assert: “There’s absolutely no scientific evidence aligned with the notion that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.” Really? Absolutely no such evidence? How about this, a point with which even non-Christian historians agree: There is no reliable history before about 6,000 years ago.
The CNN reporter says of Brother Ken that “he’s confronting the theory of evolution head on.” Yes, sir! — another reason I love him. He’s a head-on, zeal-plus-knowledge kind of guy.
Finally, a Fox News report (5/28/07). Brother Ken’s opponent in this segment is introduced as “Dr. Lawrence Krauss, a professor at Case Western Reserve University and an advisory board member of the group Campaign to Defend the Constitution, which opposes the museum.”
Yikes!, I thought, now I’ve heard it all! So, the Constitution doesn’t allow the Creation Museum?! The Creation Museum is unConstitutional?! This argument, however, is not asserted.
The host of this show, John Kasich, a former Republican Congressman from Ohio, asks Krauss, about Ham: “Doctor, tell us, what’s your objection? Here’s a guy trying his best to bring some science into this. Where do you object?”
Krauss: “He is not bringing science into it. That’s the problem. It’s the semblance of science, but it really isn’t science.
The way science works is we kind of ask questions about the universe, and nature gives us the answers. We don’t know the answers in advance. That’s a key part of science.”
Whoa! Wait just a minute!
In the first few sentences out of his mouth, Krauss contradicts himself and reveals his presupposition. Unlike Ham, he implies, “science” just asks questions, the answers are not known “in advance,” and “nature gives us the answers.
Ooooops! The scurrying sound you here is a very large cat escaping a bag! Krauss has just revealed that despite what he just said, he does believe there are “answers in advance” to “science” questions and these answers are to be found in “nature.”
Seriously, if Krauss really believes that, according to “science,” no answers are known “in advance,” why start out looking in “nature.” Why not say something like: “Well, science has no advance answers so Mr. Ham might be right on some things, the Bible might be right, etc. Answer, again: Because where you start looking for something is — in advance of looking there —where you believe that something might be. And, in Krauss’ case, the only place he thinks answers about the universe are is in “nature,” an assertion that, by implication, excludes anywhere else.
JOHN KASICH- Reads the Bible but, obviously, either does not believe it and-or understand it.Krauss goes on to say: “And what this Museum does is it will confuse kids about what’s science and what isn’t science…It also gives a really bad message that somehow science is anti-religion — that just trying to understand the world we’re encouraging kids to be atheists. And that’s nonsense. And it’s unfortunate for kids. And it’s also unfortunate for science. Especially in this country, where right now we do a really bad job of teaching science. If we want to be competitive in the 21st century, we better do a better job.”
Well, yes, teaching Godless science — which is what’s believed in by Krauss and what’s taught in all the government-run schools - is “a really bad job of teaching science” because teaching Godless science is a lie.
Kasich: “Doctor, what would you say about the argument that God created the spark that started life in the universe? And secondly, at some point God created the conscience, the soul, created the human being? You know, put the special stuff into the human being that’s sort of a reflection of God? Would you accept that in concert with evolution?”
Krauss: “Well, in principle, yes. I mean, the point is those are not scientific questions. And science just deals with things you can quantify and things you can measure. It makes predictions. absolutely.”
Of course. Krauss has no problem — “in principle,” in the abstract - believing this. He just doesn’t believe in the specific, real-life, one, true, God of the Bible, before Whom we are to have no other gods. And who has “quantified” and “measured” evolution? - other than those who already believed in it before they began their “quantifying” and “measuring?”
Kasich: “All right. Mr. Ham, what about the argument here that evolution is consistent with — with the fact that God created, God sparked life early on? God then made man special, different from animals? Why is it not acceptable that evolution and creationism can be compatible?”
Ham: “Well, there are many in the church that would say that evolution and creation are compatible. But evolution and a literal Genesis are not compatible — a literal Genesis.”
Kasich (not getting it at all): “Genesis is not the deal here. I mean, if you put a man standing next to a dinosaur, I mean, why can’t we say that it both works? — that God made this great thing happen, but at the same time, you know, evolution is not a bad thing?”
Ham: “Well, it’s not the God of the Bible who made it happen, because He doesn’t say that. If you read the Bible, for instance, Jesus in the New Testament —”
Kasich: “I do read the Bible.”
Awkward pause here, Kasich’s assertion proving that “reading” the Bible doesn’t mean, necessarily, that you believe or understand the Bible.
Krauss: “I think it’s worth jumping in. There are literally millions of people, who are people of faith, who understand that science tells us how old the world is. And they — they don’t have to feel like they’re atheists because they don’t buy this nonsense about 6,000-year-old universe.”
“People of faith.” I hate this phrase. It tells us nothing about such “people.” It’s like telling us what is believed by “people with noses.” Right - they have noses and therefore - what?!
Kasich (to Krauss, finally making some snese): “Doctor, there are a heck of a lot of scientists that say that — you know, they discount God. And that’s the problem.”
Krauss: “I think there are people like that.”
True - and Krauss is one of these people.
Ham: “I’d like to answer some of this if I could.”
Kasich: “We’re out of time, guys. I think reasonable guys like you can get together and agree there’s a certain mystery in life, a certain mystery in life….No one has the answer. But I think the Museum is a very interesting thing, Mr. Ham, and I bet you’re going to get a lot of visitors. Thank you both for being with us.”
Wrong, Mr. Kasich. God has the answers (and the questions) and many of the more important answers and questions He has given us in Genesis, sir. Oh, ye of little faith.
A shorter version of this article appeared first on “World Net Daily” http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56615