The Genesis Account

Some Christians take the early chapters of the Book of Genesis literally; that is, they believe the Earth was created in 6 literal 24 hour days no more than about 10,000 years ago. A small minority of Christians, also of a literalist frame of mind, interpret other verses in the Bible (See for example Ps 104:5, Is 40.22, Job 26:10, Rev 7:1, 1 Chron 16:30 ) to mean that the Earth must be stationary and flat; Flat Earth Christians, by definition do not believe the Earth is a globe orbiting the Sun. For both Young Earthists and Flat Earthists any science which contradicts their beliefs is likely to be written off as a product of fallible human thinking; they do not see their understanding of the Bible, which in the final analysis is a product of their minds, as also subject to fallibility.

However, many Christians (possibly the majority), especially those in Universities, the sciences and Christian colleges, do not accept Young Earth and Flat Earth theories and  believe the Earth (and cosmos) to be many millions of years old. These Christians would likely claim that the disputed passages are a product of one or more of the following…

a)  A cultural perspective,

b)  Metaphorical/figurative/mythical expression,

c)  A poetic literary genre,

d)  A polemical and symbolic (rather than literal) attack on the world view of the religions of the day.

But whatever are one’s views on this subject, the Genesis account, above all, provides a clear polemical affirmation that God created everything apart from Himself.  This account cuts across religions which at the time of the writing of Genesis 1 were inclined to attribute divine status to created objects (such as the sun, moon and stars). It also cuts across some modern Gaia theories of the Earth. In contrast the Genesis account is clear that God is something other than the observable natural world and that the latter is not a totality.

The Genesis creation account describes creation using commonplace human thought-forms based on everyday observations. This makes the account comprehensible to a wide spectrum of human cultures, particularly the peoples of the Bronze Age who penned the account and who had no powerful instrumentation or sophisticated mathematical theories with which to aid in the description of cosmic organization. 

For the rest of this article see here

A stuck gramophone record

A somewhat embattled Kenneth Ham. 

Ken Ham, hard-right Trump voting Biblical literalist, firebrand fundamentalist, "Young Earth" theme park supremo and bigoted blowhard recently published a blog post criticizing BioLogos, a Christian organization which promotes evolutionary creation. The target of his criticism was an open letter from BioLogos about science and faith.  In his criticism Ken repeats for the umpteenth time his profound misunderstanding of the nature of science and how it works.... 

KEN OPINES: Throughout the letter, they never really define what they mean by science, but based on their other writings, it’s clear they are lumping historical and observational science together.

 Historical science deals with an interpretation of the unobserved past, and BioLogos has the wrong starting point. 

Observational science is science we can directly test and observe (e.g., technology, medicine, etc.), and while this type of science often doesn’t have the same problems regarding interpretation that historical science has, your worldview still matters!

MY COMMENT: That Ken might actually have an inkling that his "historical science" vs. "observational sciences" dichotomy may not be as simple as he makes out is suggested by his admission that this type of science (i.e. "observational science") often doesn’t have the same problems regarding interpretation that historical science has.... So, if so-called "observational science" often doesn’t have the same problems regarding interpretation I read that to mean that Ken is admitting that "observational science" sometimes does have the same problems of interpretation! Too right it does! What about the "observational sciences" of economics, social sciences, psychology and even complex technological systems...etc? Observation is not necessarily  so easy even for present-tense-continuous processes is it Kenneth?

What is beyond our Ken is that all science is observational in so far as all the theories of science submit themselves to observational sampling. The problems of interpretation arise because of differences that these objects have in their epistemic distance; that is,  their amenability to the collection of the relevant observational samples.

 As always Ken's polarizing mind tries to turn a question of degree into a black and white either/or question which allows him to sort people into sheep and goats using a shibboleth (an approach to society common to both the hard-right and hard-left as they seek to demonize the opposition). I have addressed Ken's naive conception of science on several occasions. Viz:

Quantum Non-Linearity: Beware: Anti-Science Mind at Work

Quantum Non-Linearity: Mangling Science Part 5: Two Kinds of Science?.

Quantum Non-Linearity: Mangling Science Part 2: Opening up Ken’s Can

Quantum Non-Linearity: Epistemology, Ontology, Creation and Salvation

Ken might also like to ask himself whether the bizarre coordinate transformation proposed by his cosmologist mate Jason Lisle (and published on the AiG web site and with whom Ken eventually fell out) which tried solve the Young Earth star light problem by making all distant galaxies "now" objects, makes them observational or historical science. I suspect that  once again we've got here another question which is beyond our Ken. 

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I have also addressed Ken's fundamentalist tendency to reinterpret reality and distort it in the process. See here....

Quantum Non-Linearity: History? No, more like Hamstory!

Views, News and Pews: The Distorting Lens of Fundamentalism

Views, News and Pews: The "Answers in Genesis" world of half-truths

I would also charge Ken with acting as a crypto-cult leader who comes very close to using spiritual intimidation and spiritual abuse in order to ease through his will. See here....

Views, News and Pews: Jeepers Creepers II: The John Mackay Affair

Views, News and Pews: Fundamentalist Publicity Sects.

Views, News and Pews: Hell and Hamnation Watch

Views, News and Pews: Calling down Hell and Hamnation on Heretics!

I would also question Ken's understanding of the basis of morality; morality isn't based on Ken's concept of the "letter of the law" but rather the "spirit of the law". The true spirit of the law is only meaningful because human beings (and God of course) are centres of conscious cognition. See here....

Views, News and Pews: The dangers of rule driven morality.

If I was as bigoted as Ken I could turn the very words of Ken Ham on himself, simply by replacing "Man" with "Ken" as per the following quote based on an extract from his own writings.

Instead of starting with God’s Word, Ken starts with Ken's ideas and then tries to fit God in somewhere. It’s a compromise of mixing Ken's ideas (really, Ken's religion of rule following) with God’s Word—and God hates compromise.

I think it's sobering to remember that Christianity is and has always been a wide collection of overlapping, highly variegated sub-cultures of which Ken and AiG, the Watchtower Organization, the Children of God, The flat earth movement, Trumpite evangelicalism, Putinite Orthodoxy, The Mormons etc. are just a few if perhaps rather extreme examples; and yes, this is the human shower I identify with  See page 8 of this document.