Author Archives: Bob Seidensticker

About Bob Seidensticker

I'm an atheist, and I like to discuss Christian apologetics.

Escape from the Creation Conference (2 of 2)

Posted on by

Statue of triceratops with a saddle from the Creation MuseumThis is the second of two posts about the Reality-Distortion Zone that is a Creationist conference.  Read the first one here.
The second lecture was by a science teacher.  He injected more than a dozen Bible quotes and Christian imagery into what was otherwise a decent astronomy lecture.
The irony was lost on him.  He used videos, animations, presentation software, a PC.  He showed Hubble photos of galaxies and satellite photos of solar flares.  He lauded the Apollo program.  This was science revealed to us by technology built on science.  He made a good case—science delivers!
One video took us on a five-minute trip through the universe, accelerating from Earth past the solar system, Alpha Centauri, our galaxy, and our local group of galaxies to eventually take in the entire universe.  And the ancient prescientific desert tribe that made up the Genesis account was stuck back there on Earth 3000 years ago, trying to make sense of things with their Iron Age worldview.
There was yet more unacknowledged irony when he emphasized the size of “God’s creation.”  The Bible says, “[God] also made the stars” (Gen. 1:16).  That’s it.  That’s all the Bible says about the 99.9999999999999999999999999% of the universe1 that’s not the earth.  Makes you think that the authors of Genesis didn’t know about the vastness of the universe.
He played the audio of Apollo 8’s famous Christmas Eve 1968 reading of Genesis 1:1–10.  According to that passage, here’s what God was up to on the second day:

And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.”  So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it.  And it was so.  God called the vault “sky.”

See if that sounds like this: “[They] envisioned the universe as a closed dome surrounded by a primordial saltwater sea.  Underneath the terrestrial earth, which formed the base of the dome, existed an underworld and a freshwater ocean.”  This was the cosmology of the Sumerians, who preceded the Jews by centuries.
To me, the Apollo reading of this prescientific view of nature doesn’t sound majestic but is meaningful only as it highlights what we’ve discarded.
The speaker made the obligatory slam of Continue reading →

I Survived the Creation Conference (1 of 2)

Posted on by

Noah's ArkI attended the 2011 Seattle Creation Conference and made it out to tell the tale.
The slogan of the conference was, “Dedicated to glorifying God through the scientific study of His Creation and refuting the false claims of Evolutionism.”  (Is it just me or does that last phrase betray a presupposition?)  There were prayers galore, sometimes both opening and closing a single lecture.
If the speakers were confident that science will eventually support the biblical view, they could let the science speak for itself.  They could show confidence that science will lead us to the biblical answer.  The question, “If Science and Scripture diverged, which one would you follow?” came to mind, but the answer was obvious.
This was a young-earth Creationism conference.  “Young earth” means: the earth is less than 10,000 years old.  “Creationism” means: evolution is nonsense.  There were probably some old-earthers there too, but I’m pretty sure that I was the only one stupid enough to accept the scientific consensus on evolution.
The remainder of this post is about lectures by Mike Oard from Creation Ministries International, who spoke for two hours on Noah’s flood.  (Let me add that everyone was polite, including me, so I’m attacking the “science,” not the speakers.)
Oard began with a couple of Bible quotes to justify using reason.  It’s odd to need such a justification in a conference “dedicated to … scientific study,” but OK.  One quote was, “Examine carefully; hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thes. 5:21).  I suspect that the last phrase was seen as license to pick and choose.
He stressed that, while some Christians imagine this to be a local flood, it was global.  I enjoy seeing Creationists attack each other, but Continue reading →

Confused Thinking About Homosexuality

Posted on by

A church sign says "I kissed a girl and I liked it then I went to Hell"In an article subtitled “Christian defense against Homosexuality,” the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM) attacks homosexuality.  I’ve pulled out claims that need a response.

Homosexuals want others in society to think like them (and behave like them?).

Is this the fabled Gay Agenda® where homosexuals will make all Americans homosexual to weaken the country for an eventual Communist takeover?  Or something?
“If you have to ask, you are probably already under its pernicious influence and blithely hop-scotching your way straight to Hell.”  Thank you, Betty Bowers.

They want others to accept them.

Well, yeah.  Is that a problem?

What gives them the right to try and change society into what they want it to be?

I’m pretty sure that’s what they said about African Americans during the Jim Crow period.

Saying that homosexuality is natural because it occurs in the animal kingdom does not mean it is morally correct. Animals also eat each other alive, devour offspring, etc. Should we imitate those things as well because the animals do it?

So then do we at least agree that homosexuality occurs in nature and then is, by definition, natural?
As for morality, let’s not get cocky.  For barbarism, no one beats humans.  Only humans have invented Continue reading →

Jesus and Aliens

Posted on by

Raphael’s “Mond Crucifixion” painting is modified to show an alien-headed Jesus on the crossThe editor of the New York Times recently published an article called “Asking Candidates Tougher Questions About Faith.”  He opens with this:

If a candidate for president said he believed that space aliens dwell among us, would that affect your willingness to vote for him?  Personally, I might not disqualify him out of hand; one out of three Americans believe we have had Visitors and, hey, who knows?  But I would certainly want to ask a few questions.  Like, where does he get his information?  Does he talk to the aliens?  Do they have an economic plan?
Yet when it comes to the religious beliefs of our would-be presidents, we are a little squeamish about probing too aggressively.

My own view is that religion is off topic.  Candidates for a job as pastor can expect questions about religion.  But for the job of president?  Religious questions are out of bounds.  We’re governed by a secular constitution that includes the constraint, “No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust.”
I long for the day when a candidate will dismiss a question about his/her religion with, “That’s irrelevant.  Next question.”  Ask about candidates’ values, their specific plans, their qualifications, and so on, but one’s religion is as relevant and as personal as questions about the style of one’s underwear.
A columnist from GetReligion.org was quick with a response.  She seemed outraged at the Jesus/aliens comparison, but her most substantial comment was to reprint the comparison and state, “I’m not joking.”
Is outrage appropriate?  Which belief—in aliens or Jesus—raises the bigger questions about a candidate’s ability to reason?
Sure, I see the difference between Jesus belief and alien belief.  Jesus is supernatural.  Space aliens are not.  We have nothing to compare a supernatural Jesus to except myths or legends, which sure makes the Jesus story look like a myth or a legend.
On the other hand, aliens aren’t supernatural.  They are life forms (we know about plenty of those) who travel using technology (we know about plenty of that).  Science keeps finding strange new animals on earth living in extreme environments—at the bottom of the ocean, under miles of rock, in glaciers.  Is it so hard to imagine them on other worlds?  Their discovery would be surprising or even shocking, but we wouldn’t need to discard any scientific laws if aliens presented themselves.
I’ll agree that belief in aliens with insufficient evidence is a bit nutty.  But that’s nothing like believing in supernatural beings with insufficient evidence.  I’m not joking.
Photo credit: Jesus Was a Space Alien
Related links:

  • Bill Keller, “Asking Candidates Tougher Questions About Faith,” New York Times Magazine, 8/25/11.
  • Sarah Pulliam Bailey, “NYT takes on aliens, baggage, Trojan horse faith,” GetReligion.org, 8/25/11.
  • Issues, Etc. interviewed GetReligion.org columnist Sarah Pulliam Bailey in its 9/1/11 podcast, “Media Coverage of the GOP Candidates’ Religious Views.”

Compatibility Problems with IE9?

Posted on by

Having trouble viewing this site with Internet Explorer?  A few readers are.
If so, just click on the torn page icon (Compatibility View button) in the address bar.

Nazi Soldiers Indoctrinated with Darwin? How Convenient.

Posted on by

1871 image of a monkey with Charles Darwin's headWhy were the Nazis so disagreeable?  Because they were force-fed evolution, of course!  Christian podcaster Greg Kokul thinks he’s uncovered the Nazi/evolution connection.
In a recent Stand to Reason podcast (starting at 5:00), Kokul spoke of being informed that German soldiers during World War II were issued two books, Goethe’s Faust and a German translation of The Origin of Species.  And it was Hitler himself who insisted that they get them.
(Wow—right out of the gate we’re embracing Godwin’s Law!)
About the logic behind Hitler’s assigning these books, Kokul says:

It’s because the ideas in The Origin of Species served [Hitler’s] purposes well, and if a person actually believed what Darwin taught, then they would make good Nazis.

My first complaint is that Kokul accepted the story uncritically.  This story nicely supports his worldview that evolution is both harmful and wrong, so he passes it on with no fact checking.  I do my best to take the opposite approach: when I find a delicious story that skewers an opponent (either a person or idea), I want to make sure that I have strong evidence so that I don’t look ridiculous after passing on flawed hearsay.
In doing my own research on books issued to German soldiers, the only page I came across was a post in another atheist blog (IAmAnAtheist) who’d heard the podcast and asked the very same question.  That blogger raised a great point: Why issue those two books and not Hitler’s own Mein Kampf?
That Origin was a central part of Nazi thinking seems unlikely.  The official Nazi library journal in 1935 listed twelve categories of banned books.  One category was:

Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism.

(If anyone comes across evidence for this books question either way, please add that to the comments.)
Now let’s move on to critique Kokul’s ill-informed ramblings on evolution.  One of Kokul’s favorite ploys is to try to tie eugenics with evolution.
First off, Darwin himself rejected eugenics.  In The Descent of Man, he said, “No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that [not culling the inferiors] must be highly injurious to the race of man.”  Creationists enjoy quoting just the paragraph that contains this sentence and ignoring the very … next … paragraph where he overturns this argument.
Darwin rejected eugenics, Greg.  Of course, you’ll be quick to backpedal and argue that Darwin’s own personal opinions say nothing about the validity of evolution.  Agreed!  Which is why whether or not Hitler kept his copy of Origin under his pillow says nothing about the central issue here: Is evolution the best explanation of why life is the way it is?  Which is why this entire conversation is simply mudslinging.
“Hitler was bad, and Hitler and Darwin were BFFs!  And Darwin was ugly!  And … and he probably ate babies!  And didn’t recycle!”  Whether true or not, it’s irrelevant.
This is what one does when one doesn’t actually have a real argument.
Science is not policy.  Evolution is science (the domain of scientists), and eugenics is policy (the domain of politicians).  Any scientist who advocates eugenics has left the domain of science and jumped into policy.  Eugenics isn’t science, and criticism of eugenics is no criticism of science.
Which brings up the last point: Did Hitler base his eugenics policies on evolution?  Kokul seems to imagine a kind and gentle Adolf Hitler, picking up litter and helping little old ladies cross the street, being turned to the scientific Dark Side® after reading Darwin.  But wasn’t there plenty of anti-Semitism around already?  Didn’t Martin Luther himself write the violently anti-Semitic On the Jews and Their Lies?
This bypasses the issue: Is evolution correct?  Bringing up eugenics is not only flawed but irrelevant.
It’s the white flag of surrender.
Photo credit: Wikipedia
Related articles:

  • The Stand to Reason podcast archives are here.  The podcast referenced here is from August 21, 2011.
  • “Six Things in Expelled That Ben Stein Doesn’t Want You to Know…” Scientific American, 2/11/09.
  • Full-text version of Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man available here.