I wanted to write a quick post concerning something I read today on Ken Ham’s blog, entitled, “Richard Dawkins Chides a Real Scientist.” As you probably know, I have been writing a book entitled The Heresy of Ham, in which I am arguing that not only is Ken Ham’s young earth creationism unscientific, but that his overall claims regarding Genesis 1-11 both unbiblical and have never been held in the history of the Church. It is not simply that he thinks the earth is only 6,000 years old–that is not heretical, it’s just wrong. But it’s that he claims that if you don’t believe that, then you are undermining biblical authority and are a compromise Christian who is leading people astray.
In any case, I follow Ken Ham on Twitter, and every day the same scenario plays out: he puts a link out there to something from the Answers in Genesis website, which makes some incredibly false claims about either science, the Bible, or both, and inevitably, very angry atheists write comments like, “No, you can’t prove the fairytale that is the Bible,” or “Science has proven belief in God is as screwed up as your organization.” (No, those aren’t actual quotes, but you get the idea).
It bugs me to read those things because I can tell that many people, specifically atheists, are enraged at Ken Ham–but it’s not because he’s speaking the truth, and they’re have this “I hate God and want to live according to my own debaucheries, and Ken Ham is pricking my conscience” sort of mentality. No, they are enraged at him, and by extension Christianity as a whole, because what he is proclaiming regarding science is so demonstrably false that they are ticked off that someone who claims to be a Christian and following God is so blatantly telling lies. And if that isn’t bad enough, Ken Ham then routinely condemns those who don’t accept his lies–he arrogantly calls them foolish, rebellious sinners. If I was an atheist, I’d be ticked off too. Therefore, it infuriates me that because of Ken Ham there are people who are being even more turned off to Christianity.
In any case, today he wrote a post entitled “Richard Dawkins Chides a Real Scientist,” condemning atheist Richard Dawkins for criticizing Ben Carson for his rejection of evolution. (Incidentally, Peter Enns has just written a post about his concerns with Ben Carson’s take on the Bible–worth the read). Now, I am not a fan of Richard Dawkins. I find him to be an arrogant propagandist who is masking his atheism in scientific language, and who consequently actually adds to people’s ignorance of both science and religion. So when Dawkins lambasts Ben Carson as some sort of uneducated idiot because he doesn’t “believe evolution,” I want to tell Dawkins to shut up.
And for that matter, even though I think Ben Carson is a tremendous man, I think he’s wrong on his take about evolution, and I’m not going to vote for him (not just because of that). That being said, if all you read was Ken Ham’s post, and how he champions Carson for being a “real scientist” because he rejects evolution, you’d never know that Carson would be what we call an “Old Earth Creationist.” Yes, he objects to the idea that life came about through random processes without there being a God (in fact the reason why he called evolution “evil” was because in his opinion it failed to acknowledge a creator), but Ben Carson is not a young earth creationist. He does not believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old. He has said, “If God wanted to create an earth that is billions of years old, he could do it.”
I find this incredibly ironic and completely hypocritical on Ken Ham’s part because Ken Ham himself has routinely judged and condemned fellow Christians who are Old Earth creationists.
Simply put, if Dawkins had not criticized Carson, there would be a very good chance that Ken Ham would have eventually written a post condemning Carson for being a “compromised Christian.” But why doesn’t Ken Ham do that? Because given Dawkins’ comments, this gives Ham an opportunity to intentionally inflame and anger non-Christians. And sure enough, as his Twitter feed shows, there are a number of comments accusing “Christians” (not just Ken Ham) of being ignorant.
If you read his post, the arrogance and snarkiness just seethes throughout the whole thing. Now, I do not like Richard Dawkins, but after reading Ham’s post, I almost want to defend the man! Ironically, right after Ham says things like, “Dawkins surpresses the truth; Dawkins is without excuse; Dawkins is very foolish,” Ham then says the following: “In some ways, however, Richard Dawkins and I are alike.”
That might be the most truthful and honest thing Ken Ham has ever said. In fact, that’s one of the points I am making in my book. Of course, the way he thinks they are alike, and the way I think they are alike are no doubt going to be different. For now, I’ll just state the three most obvious similarities:
- Both Dawkins and Ham are Enlightenment thinkers–they both share the same fundamental worldview that believes in order for something to be “true,” it must be “science.” Obviously, the two work out their same worldview in radically different ways, but both are children of the Enlightenment, first and foremost.
- Both Dawkins and Ham misrepresent and high jack science and evolutionary theory in order to try to justify their philosophical presuppositions. Both, quite simply, misrepresent both science and the Bible.
- Finally, both are biblical literalists. Yes, Dawkins is an atheist, but he reads Genesis 1-11 in the exact same way Ken Ham does: they both assume that Genesis 1-11 is doing science and history. It isn’t.
If you want to know why there is such a controversy surrounding evolution and Genesis 1-11, just look to both Dawkins and Ham. They are each other’s doppleganger. My biggest frustration, of course, is with Ken Ham, because he’s claiming he’s representing Christianity, when in reality he’s a disciple of the Enlightenment.
Two observations (I agree about how Ham would have probably had a go at Carson had he not seen a better target):
– in the Dawkins interview, flagged by Ham, Dawkins said that when he met Carson he ‘liked’ him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj7MojaHUEc
– I think Sensuous Curmudgeon was thinking about blogging about the Ham blog – see the exchange here:
https://sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com/2015/10/30/creationism-the-incredible-shrinking-cult/
Both Dawkins and Ham misrepresent and high jack science and evolutionary theory in order to try to justify their philosophical presuppositions.
I don’t think you can sensibly accuse Dawkins of misrepresenting science and evolutionary theory. We can argue about whether he’s highjacked them, but misrepresented? No.
Hi Realthog…thanks for your comment. Let me try to clarify. My point of contention with Dawkins isn’t his explanation of evolutionary theory itself. It’s with how he uses that to justify his atheism. By saying things like, “Evolution makes it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist,” he purposefully gives the impression that evolution somehow disproves religion/faith. Evolution is evolution–it is solely a description of things we see in the natural world. I think he misrepresents it by the fact he is saying evolution does more than it does.
On that point, that’s why I think both Dawkins and Ham are ironically in bed together. Dawkins essentially says, “Evolution is anti-God, therefore since evolution is true, you have to be a fool to believe in God.” Ham essentially says, “Evolution is anti-God, therefore, I’m going to make up my own category of ‘historical science,’ and I’m going to claim evolution is blind belief atheism.” Therefore, by virtue of both men’s over-heated and misleading rhetoric, people have a lot of false ideas regarding both evolution and the Bible/Christianity. And I think we can all agree that both men have profited off their misleading rhetoric.
Does that make more sense? I realize my previous one-sentence statement could be a bit of a broad brush.
So I left you a long and complicated response and Firefox obliterated it. Oh, wonderful. So here’s the short version:
In my terminology, you’re still only making an argument (with which I happen to disagree) that Dawkins has hijacked evolutionary science in the service of his cause. I don’t think you have, still, made any sort of case that he’s misrepresented evolutionary science. That a conclusion to be drawn from the identification of natural selection as the driver of evolution is that there’s no God is not an outlandish statement — we all know about the misery Darwin went through when he realized this. Whether the conclusion is or is not the correct one is irrelevant to your accusation that Dawkins is misrepresenting science.
I think Dawkins (as with the New Atheist movement in general) has falsely pitted evolution and faith against each other. But that’s a whole other issue. Darwin, by the way, was not an atheist. He renounced his Christianity because he couldn’t reconcile the idea of a loving God with the reality of suffering in the world. As for his theory of evolution, he stated he thought it was completely possible to believe evolutionary theory and still have a belief in God. Many of the early Fundamentalists like BB Warfield (ironically) accepted evolutionary theory as a description of God’s creative work.
Unfortunately, Dawkins’ anti-religious rhetoric has given the impression that evolution contradicts faith, and that Christianity has always denied it. In reality, the Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, and most Protestants accept evolutionary theory. It is just a small segment of guys like Ken Ham who get all the press, partly because Dawkins (I believe) tell people that ALL Christians are like Ken Ham. Both Dawkins and Ham tell people evolution and Christianity are at war–they’re not. That’s my big complaint about both of them.
Perhaps you meant that Dawkins misuses (real) science rather than misrepresents (like Ham) what it has discovered or what it ever could discover (ie the dogmatic claim that real science could never ever contradict scripture).
Fair enough. My complaint with Dawkins is that he tries to make evolutionary theory justify his atheism. It doesn’t, just as it doesn’t disprove his atheism, or justify/disprove belief in God. In that respect, both he and Ham put forth a false narrative that modern science and evolutionary theory are at war with faith/the Bible. And in that respect, both men read Genesis 1-11 wrongly: both assume that the ancient writer was trying to give a modern scientific account of the world. In that respect, both men are biblical literalists (or more precisely, Genesis 1-11 literalists).
The way in which Ham and co misrepresent science is much worse than Dawkins. Pseudo-science sometimes. Or claiming that ‘science’ confirms the Bible ie the fossil record ‘must’ be a record of Noah’s Flood (the hypothesis simply cannot work). SOME real science MAY point to eg fine-tuning of the universe for life (well on one planet at least). But YECs have tried to hi-jack science (what they consider to be ‘true’ science which rejects all the ‘historical’ stuff and which ‘starts’ with Genesis rather than physical evidence) to ‘confirm’ a literal reading of Genesis and persuade Christians that creation science is more valid than evolutionary science.
I have now twice tried to reply to you, and Firefox/WordPress won’t let me. I give up.
Oh, golly, my second attempt has now suddenly appeared! My first has probably been whisked away to the Kardashians’ Facebook page, where it will cause befuddlement to millions . . .
Haha…it wouldn’t be that hard to befuddle any Kardashian!