Looking For Answers in Genesis
Examining the claims and contradictions of the world's largest young-earth creation organisation.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
What Do You Think?
Is this an actual photo of Darwin pretending to be keeping a secret, or a photoshopped pic courtesy of AiG?
The Disappearance of Freedom of Speech
In addition to this blog I also maintained a replica of it on Facebook with the same name, 'Looking for Answers in Genesis'. In fact, the Facebook page attracted more interest than this blog and so I continued to update it more frequently.
And then I checked it today, only to discover that it has vanished. Yep, the whole thing. Every post, every 'Like', every comment - all gone.
How could this happen? Did AiG contact Facebook and complain about it? Or do Facebook Pages just 'disappear' for no apparent reason??
Whatever. The fact is, it's gone. Of course contacting Facebook about it is pointless. As a massive company they couldn't care less.
Well, it looks like this blog will have to be my only outlet for my thoughts about AiG.
And then I checked it today, only to discover that it has vanished. Yep, the whole thing. Every post, every 'Like', every comment - all gone.
How could this happen? Did AiG contact Facebook and complain about it? Or do Facebook Pages just 'disappear' for no apparent reason??
Whatever. The fact is, it's gone. Of course contacting Facebook about it is pointless. As a massive company they couldn't care less.
Well, it looks like this blog will have to be my only outlet for my thoughts about AiG.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
AiG currently in 3rd place in the Ark building race.
First Noah built an Ark, then AiG had grand plans for one, but it looks like a chap in The Netherlands has stolen AiG's Ark thunder and gone ahead and built his own.
Johan Huibers took 20 years to build his fantasy boat which includes a restaurant, a movie theatre and a petting zoo. (I'm not sure if there is a swimming pool on the Aloha Deck, but my travel agent assures me there is a good chance of a night club on the Lido Deck).
For AiG this must be a bitter blow as their own 'Ark Encounter' faces ever increasing delays due to a lack of financial donations. Their 'Creation Museum' is also experiencing low attendance figures.
'Ark Encounter' Vice President Michael Zovath says there is currently no date in mind to begin construction on the AiG Ark. Looks like Johan in Holland has a lot to smile about, him and his stuffed tiger.
http://news.yahoo.com/dutchman-launches-life-sized-replica-noahs-ark-145330205.html
(Since Noah's Ark is not copyrighted I guess AiG can't launch legal action against him. I have no doubt they'd love to try).
Johan Huibers took 20 years to build his fantasy boat which includes a restaurant, a movie theatre and a petting zoo. (I'm not sure if there is a swimming pool on the Aloha Deck, but my travel agent assures me there is a good chance of a night club on the Lido Deck).
For AiG this must be a bitter blow as their own 'Ark Encounter' faces ever increasing delays due to a lack of financial donations. Their 'Creation Museum' is also experiencing low attendance figures.
'Ark Encounter' Vice President Michael Zovath says there is currently no date in mind to begin construction on the AiG Ark. Looks like Johan in Holland has a lot to smile about, him and his stuffed tiger.
http://news.yahoo.com/dutchman-launches-life-sized-replica-noahs-ark-145330205.html
(Since Noah's Ark is not copyrighted I guess AiG can't launch legal action against him. I have no doubt they'd love to try).
Saturday, May 12, 2012
AiG gets an F in ancient British history
When it comes to figuring out ancient British history, AiG really needs to go back to school and learn a thing or two. Here’s
a rundown of how they try to rundown secular historical research.
In the June – August 1998 edition of AiG’s ‘Creation
ex Nihilo’ in the ‘Focus’ section there was an article called ‘Giant ‘Stone
Age’ temple stuns theorists’, with a footnote that it came from ‘The
Independent’. What followed was a diagram of a circular wooden structure, like
several known throughout Britain ,
and the text underneath began with,
‘As old as Stonehenge , the remains of a
huge structure in England have been revealed by X-ray, shattering the usual ideas of
‘primitive man’. (page 8).
Oh geez. First of all, no-one who investigates
the British Neolithic, Bronze Age etc would ever label the peoples of those
eras as being ‘primitive.’ To do so would not only be thoroughly erroneous, but
would also be an insult to our ancestors. Secondly, the structure they have a
drawing of is none other than the circular structure found at a place called
Durrington Walls, near Stonehenge , dated to about 2,800 BC, and discovered in the 1960’s. There are
two other similar round buildings from the late Neolithic era which are
‘Woodhenge’ in the Stonehenge district, and ‘The Sanctuary’ which is part of the Avebury stone
circle complex further to the north. Just why AiG is touting this as an amazing
creationist proving discovery is a mystery, for it is nothing of the sort. The
almost identical ‘Woodhenge’ was discovered in 1925! This is not news,
archaeologists have known of these buildings for a long time now. Also, who
exactly are these ‘theorists’ who are ‘stunned’ that the article mentions?
I
find it curious that the article begins with ‘As old as Stonehenge ’, because Stonehenge was begun about
2,900 BC as a circular ditch and bank. But the year 2,900 BC is, according to
the AiG version of history, centuries before Noah’s Flood, a flood that is
supposed to have wiped clean the Earth, including, no doubt, Stonehenge . So does AiG accept
the date for the beginning of Stonehenge ? What seems likely is that someone from AiG saw the article in ‘The
Independent’ and decided that it would look good in their magazine. Clearly,
whoever okayed the inclusion of this article in ‘Creation ex Nihilo’ has no
knowledge whatsoever of British Neolithic
archaeology, nor an ability to determine what is genuine news and what is
simply empty padding rearranged to look impressive.
The UK Sunday Telegraph printed a story back in
May 1996 about a fellow called Mark Whitby who believes he knows how Stonehenge was constructed and
how he feels other ideas about how the stones were moved are wrong. (He
believes each stone could have been put up by about 120 people in five days)
Fair enough, I suppose there are any numbers of ways that the large sarsens
could have been erected and scientific inquiry of this nature is always
welcomed. But AiG’s tag to this story, printed in their ‘Creation’ magazine is
so hopelessly silly one wonders who thought it worthy of printing. It went,
‘The demonstration shows that ideas suggesting such things as help from
‘spacemen’ are not required. All one needs to assume is that the early
post-Flood inhabitants of Britain , though lacking access to the technological inventions of today, were
no less clever than people nowadays. Not surprisingly, the archaeological
establishment has attacked Whitby ’s idea, suggesting that people then were probably too weak from an
inadequate diet, or (here is the evolutionary bias) may not have even had
greased planks.’ (Volume 18, Issue 4. 1996)
For a start, who is actually claiming that
‘spacemen’ built Stonehenge ? Apart from the odd alternate-archaeology books which crop up
occasionally, a Stonehenge built by aliens is not a running contender. For AiG to hint that
archaeologists believe that the inhabitants of the Stonehenge environs were too weak
to build such things because of an inadequate diet is shear nonsense.
Obviously, Neolithic and Bronze Age people did build Stonehenge ! Go and look at it for
yourself, its right there near the A303 from Amesbury. I’ve seen it myself, it
exists. Silbury Hill in Wiltshire predates the stones at Stonehenge by centuries yet was an
even more massive undertaking. Clearly our ancestors were more than strong
enough to undertake such gigantic structures. Can AiG name one book on British
archaeology that states such a claim? And finally, there is the predictable bit
about ‘evolutionary bias’ with regards to knowledge of greased planks. Whether
Stone Age Britons had them or not I have no idea, but I think that since my
ancestors could build such enormous structures then quite probably they did
have greased planks. Maybe the editors of ‘Creation’
could have done a bit of research into British prehistory before including
articles that serve no purpose.
In the March-May 2002 issue of ‘Creation’
magazine on page 8, we have a story reported from ‘The Times’ called ‘Stone Age
Engineers’. The article briefly outlined a Stone Age farmhouse that was
uncovered in Perthshire , Scotland , and how it was discovered that the house had a living area,
kitchen and bedroom. While a find such as this is always exciting, it is
certainly not unique. Skara Brae is the name given to a similar Neolithic
settlement found in the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland ,
and occupied from about 3,100 BC to 2,500 BC. This is today considered to be
the best preserved prehistoric settlement in northern Europe . Beds, dressers and
hearths were all found inside including an assortment of tools and other fine
domestic debris. It was discovered in 1850 and excavated in 1920. But AiG
thinks this is proof of the settlement of the direct descendants of Noah,
though the tools and domestic debris bear no resemblance to items from the Middle East . Once again, AiG
doesn’t even try to offer any sort of insight into this discovery, it just
slaps on the tired old bit about,
‘Not surprising, since these were post-Flood descendants of Noah,’
and then leaves it at that. What this find
actually represents is another wonderful piece of real ancient British history
and has nothing at all to do with Noah, his sons or any other Biblical figures.
AiG’s contribution to our understanding of ancient British history is nil.
Could AiG perhaps explain in what order the burial mounds, stone circles and
other megalithic works were constructed? When was Silbury Hill built, before or
after the nearby outer Avebury stone circle? What was the function of
causewayed enclosures? Do the Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge predate or postdate
the construction of the blue stones? Upper
Palaeolithic , Mesolithic and Neolithic are
all just lumped together by AiG under the banner of ‘Stone Age’ without any
attempt to realise that these ages are distinct yet connected in so many ways
with each other and which show a progression of technology and artistic
sophistication.
Further proof of AiG’s poor understanding of
ancient European history was amply demonstrated in a little piece they found in
‘The Sunday Times’ (The Sunday Times, p.17, 16 June 1996) and which they titled
‘Early European writing overturns theories.’ Apparently some markings on
fragments of pottery are being viewed by some historians as an early form of
writing from about 1,500BC. If correct this would certainly be a spectacular
and wonderful insight into our past, but AiG’s tag to the story goes,
‘The early settlers of Western Europe were the
descendants, not of apemen, but of those affected by the Babel dispersion, a
couple of centuries after the Flood.’
Woodhenge |
Stonehenge |
Silbury Hill |
Avebury |
Saturday, May 5, 2012
The Rant, or A Rant - Either way it was going to happen.
How did we end up with ‘Answers in Genesis’? I mean, in
terms of the Western World we’ve had the Reformation, we’ve had the
Renaissance, we’ve had the Enlightenment, we’ve had the Industrial Revolution –
there’s been progress affecting every layer of human existence, and then in the
late 20th century along comes this literal Bible-believing group
that wants to send us back to some distant point in the past, and some sections
of the community enthusiastically respond to it. What happened to us? How did
our culture allow such a backward group of men develop? Young-Earth Creationism
isn’t some fly-by-night rabble; it’s a slick, professional phenomenon that
every day seems to attract more and more adherents.
These people really believe this stuff. They actually sign up
with this one organisation and allow this one organisation to dictate to them
their version of Bible-inspired world history. And the thing is, ‘Answers in
Genesis’ make it all up. That’s an important point, they make it
up. The Ice Age, dinosaurs, continental drift, Neanderthals… none
of these things are in the Bible, but AiG pretend that they are, based
on their own interpretations of what’s written in the Bible.
It boggles the mind
that seemingly intelligent men and women can be so susceptible to AiG’s brand
of creationism. AiG is nonsense – it promotes fiction, it offers false clues to
understanding our world, it contributes absolutely nothing to science or
education, and it willingly distorts the Bible and holds it up to ridicule.
These people should be ashamed of themselves for wasting time, money and
resources by promoting such a ludicrous version of history, cleverly disguised
in the name of faith and religion.
The powers that be at AiG are all playing a fantasy. They
dress up in suits and open a museum and hold interviews and publish books and
spout from the pulpit yet it’s all make-believe. They are living a delusion, a
waking dream where they can act-out their fantasies, immune from the real
world. And the gullible public sends in their financial donations to these actors
to perpetuate their daydream.
AiG is akin to Peter Pan’s Neverland, a place where the
children never grew up, where they keep ‘playing’ despite the outside world
moving on. And just like children, they throw a tantrum whenever anyone disrupts
or questions their make-believe world. Trust me, I’ve been on the receiving end
of their vitriol and quasi legal threats simply because I dared to question
them. They must be a scared bunch indeed, being so defensive by an ordinary
(well, maybe slightly extraordinary guy) going about the very real world
activity of analysis and reflection regarding their beliefs.
The concept of ‘God’ creating humankind in his (or her) image
is a beautiful one indeed, but subverting science to prove dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark
is reprehensible to say the least. For AiG, Christianity is no longer a faith,
it is instead a set of graphs, charts and mathematical equations, all designed
to wow us into thinking that young-earth creationism is a real proposition. The
‘faith’ element has been done away with by AiG, to be replaced with shonky, dictatorial
fairly-tale science.
One of the key things I’ve noticed about AiG is that they
are a reactionary organisation, meaning that they react to new scientific
discoveries, rather than actually making them. For example, the ‘Scientific
American’ magazine will publish details of a new discovery regarding, say, human evolution, and all AiG can do is refute
it with a couple of Bible quotes and a few dredge-ups from their past articles,
and that’s about it. Really, that’s all AiG can muster. They certainly aren’t
an out-in-the-field bunch of people; instead they are a sit-at-their-computer
group who whine and complain about what actual, hard working experts are doing
and discovering out in the real world. And yet they view themselves,
arrogantly, as being better than everyone else.
Ultimately, AiG are just another addition to the modern
world’s collection of religious extremists who offer nothing but division,
selfish dogma and hatred. Hatred for other Christians who don’t follow their
beliefs, hatred of evolutionists, hatred of secular science, hatred of free
will. This ain’t good, this ain’t good at all. Is this what the Western world
has fought for all these centuries, to end up with AiG and its walls of
ignorance, censorship and anti-intellectualism?
AiG is nothing more than an egotistical, self-important, self-centred bunch of people who believe they have God on THEIR side and the rest of us are either dumb, delusional or brainwashed simply because we don't agree with them. They are the ultimate waste of space.
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