Fearful certainly, but Meek? I don't think so!
In a blog post dated 15th April and ironically entitled "In Meekness and Fear" Ken Ham, Answers in Genesis Theme Park manager, remarks on a transcript of a conversation between "Old Earth" Astronomer Hugh Ross and the president of Biologos, Deborah Haarsma. Ham informs us that during this conversation Hugh Ross....
"....implied that in contrast to us at Answers in Genesis, Reasons to Believe and BioLogos try to avoid “vindictive language” and “ad hominems” in their conversations on origins"
This is true! But Ham, needless to say, denies it and instead rationalizes his particularly abrasive personality as follows:
"We can (and should) speak authoritatively.....standing on the authority of God’s Word and not compromising with man’s ideas about origins."
...implying of course that Hugh Ross and other Christian scientists like Deborah Haarsma are compromising. If such moral slurs aren't ad hominems, then I don't know what is! In fact the moral slurs and ad hominems are so natural to Ham's confident self-believing way of thinking that he is quite unaware of the effect of what he is saying. As a rule fundamentalists like Ham see sinful malign motives round every corner (See epilogue) and have no compulsion in accusing detractors of the heinousness of their position. In his post the slurs and slander come in thick and fast:
"....interpret the Bible however they want."
"We should not impose our ideas on God’s Word (as Hugh Ross and BioLogos continually do)"
We shouldn't let the fallible, sinful world dictate what we believe about the past any more than we should let the sinful ways of the world dictate our attitudes!"
"Pray that they [Ross and Haarsma] will repent and return to the authority of God’s Word as the foundation for their thinking in every area! "
Ham's vindictive fulminations are no stranger to this blog. See here for other examples:
As usual Ham's attacks find their rationale in his intellectual short comings and misunderstandings about the nature of science: See here for example:*
It seems that fundamentalist cultures attract personalities like Ken Ham and this is not necessarily to do with espousing Young Earth Creationism either. Young Earthists such as Paul Nelson and those on the web site "Uncommon Descent" seem to manage to put their case forward without using the "nuclear options" of charges of compromise, heresy and blasphemy. Embattled fundamentalist communities such as "Answers in Genesis" appear to attract and select for obdurate personalities who are looking for the security of epistemic certainties and a supporting sectarian community from which they can condemn a world that has alienated them. The associated self-belief and self-deceit which supports the holy remnant conceit of these quasi-cults leaves only one logical conclusion open to these fundamentalists; namely, that all those who disagree with them are bad conscience heretics and this belief in turn provides divine sanction for the condemnation of "heretics" in the strongest (and nastiest) religious language.
As Sir Kenneth Clarke once said:
....to try and suppress opinions one doesn't share
is much less profitable than to tolerate them. This conclusion should have been
reached during the reformation, it permeated the writings of Erasmus,…alas a
belief in the divine authority of our own opinions afflicted the protestants
just as much as the Catholics……
I have heard it said that "an evangelical is a nice fundamentalist". Perhaps we could be more explicit and say a fundamentalist is a nasty evangelical!
Epilogue: Witchcraft and Conspiracy Theorism (20/04/15)
A very religious fundamentalist like Ham sees disagreement with himself as sure sign of sinful motives, bad conscience and guilt. He cannot accept that ontological complexity and epistemic intractability very easily results in differing opinions for quite genuine reasons, reasons absent of malign motives. Instead he believes that those who disagree with him are willfully disobeying the obvious meaning of holy writ. In effect Ham believes he has secure knowledge of the private consciences of Christians like Hugh Ross and Deborah Haarsma. To him Ross and Haarsma have broken a religious taboo and have become ritually unclean and nothing they say can dissuade him of their good consciences; hence his call for them to repent. Ham's recriminations have parallels with the accusations of witchcraft one sees in rural Africa. Victims of such accusations can say nothing to clear themselves in the face of accusers who believe they have a secure knowledge of the truth, knowledge that is in fact a fiction from the imagination (perhaps even a monster from the id!). As I have remarked many times in my blogs, the suspicious fundamentalist mentality which sees the world as the domain of broken taboos, ritual uncleanness, hatred, persecutions, flawed consciences and evil genius provides fertile ground for the paranoiac and fictitious constructions of conspiracy theorism.
Footnote:
* 29/04/15 On Ham's Scientific ineptitude: Words, and that includes the words of the Bible, don't contain meaning; rather they trigger meaning as they impact upon a substrate of cognitive resources strongly influenced by culture and knowledge of historical context. We therefore cannot escape from an assumed knowledge of the past when we interpret the Bible. But knowledge of the past is the very thing that Ham attempts to downgrade with his repeatedly used false dichotomy between historical and observational science, thus undermining his own claimed grasp of Biblical truth. And of course he is naive enough to repeatedly use the anthropomorphism that God is an "eyewitness" of the Genesis creation.
Epilogue: Witchcraft and Conspiracy Theorism (20/04/15)
A very religious fundamentalist like Ham sees disagreement with himself as sure sign of sinful motives, bad conscience and guilt. He cannot accept that ontological complexity and epistemic intractability very easily results in differing opinions for quite genuine reasons, reasons absent of malign motives. Instead he believes that those who disagree with him are willfully disobeying the obvious meaning of holy writ. In effect Ham believes he has secure knowledge of the private consciences of Christians like Hugh Ross and Deborah Haarsma. To him Ross and Haarsma have broken a religious taboo and have become ritually unclean and nothing they say can dissuade him of their good consciences; hence his call for them to repent. Ham's recriminations have parallels with the accusations of witchcraft one sees in rural Africa. Victims of such accusations can say nothing to clear themselves in the face of accusers who believe they have a secure knowledge of the truth, knowledge that is in fact a fiction from the imagination (perhaps even a monster from the id!). As I have remarked many times in my blogs, the suspicious fundamentalist mentality which sees the world as the domain of broken taboos, ritual uncleanness, hatred, persecutions, flawed consciences and evil genius provides fertile ground for the paranoiac and fictitious constructions of conspiracy theorism.
Footnote:
* 29/04/15 On Ham's Scientific ineptitude: Words, and that includes the words of the Bible, don't contain meaning; rather they trigger meaning as they impact upon a substrate of cognitive resources strongly influenced by culture and knowledge of historical context. We therefore cannot escape from an assumed knowledge of the past when we interpret the Bible. But knowledge of the past is the very thing that Ham attempts to downgrade with his repeatedly used false dichotomy between historical and observational science, thus undermining his own claimed grasp of Biblical truth. And of course he is naive enough to repeatedly use the anthropomorphism that God is an "eyewitness" of the Genesis creation.
