Everybody knows who Richard Dawkins is. It won’t surprise you that Ken Ham (ol’ Hambo) disagrees with Dawkins. Ol’ Hambo is the Australian entrepreneur who has become the ayatollah of Appalachia. He’s the world’s holiest man who knows more about religion and science than everyone else, famed for his creationist ministry, Answers in Genesis (AIG) and other creationist enterprises.
Hambo has criticized Dawkins before — see Ken Ham, Richard Dawkins, and God, but his latest blog article at the AIG website is Richard Dawkins: Religion a Force “For Evil”. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us, and Hambo’s scripture references omitted:
In a recent interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), atheist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins talked about religion and his recent stroke. While we’re thankful to hear that he has recovered, we are saddened that he still refuses to consider that there is life beyond this world and that one day, sooner or later, he will indeed stand before his Creator.
Hambo is saddened. Then he discusses the recent interview, which we haven’t seen so we can’t verify his quotes. He says:
The interviewer asked Dawkins if his stroke caused him to consider “what lies beyond.” He replied, “Nothing lies beyond.” And when the interviewer questioned, “That never changed?” he said, “Well of course not. Why ever should it? I consider mortality from time to time myself, I expect we all do, but certainly nothing lies beyond.”
Hambo’s response to that:
Now, if nothing lies beyond this life, and Richard ceases to exist as he believes, then what’s the ultimate purpose of him preaching his atheistic religion to the masses? What’s the ultimate point? None! Dawkins may be certain that nothing lies beyond the grave, but he’s certainly wrong! God’s Word says that we will all spend eternity somewhere, either separated from God in hell or rejoicing in His presence in Heaven [scripture references]. Someday Dawkins will know this reality.
Yes, Dawkins will realize his error — too late! — when he finds himself in the Lake of Fire. In this next excerpt, the bracketed material is in Hambo’s original:
During the interview Dawkins was asked, “Do you think religion now is a force for good or for evil?” He replied, “For evil.” He appealed to the violent actions of various religious groups around the world and said that “appalling things [are] going on in the name of religion.” Actually, the wrong religion (i.e., Dawkins’ religion of atheism) is a force for evil! His religion is not only one of ultimate hopelessness and meaninglessness, but it is also leading people against the truth of the saving gospel that people need to hear and respond to.
Aha — it’s Dawkins who is evil! Hambo continues:
Now Dawkins is free to believe that religion is a force of evil. But by what standard does he call it “evil”? It certainly isn’t from a biblical standard. …. So by what standard does he think terrorism, oppression, and persecution are evil? It is ultimately nothing more than his personal opinion. Without a foundation for morality, he has no authority to say that any of these things are evil. His moral code is just opinion — it’s all subjective. Christianity, however, has a moral code based on the absolute authority of God’s Word!
Powerful rebuttal! It’s not surprising that Dawkins has never been foolish enough to actually debate with Hambo. Here’s more:
As a Bible-believing Christian I can condemn terrorism, oppression, and persecution as evil. I have a standard — God’s Word — by which to do so.
Right. Drowning almost everything that lived on land in the Flood, which Hambo celebrates with his Ark Encounter tourist attraction, shows how much the bible opposes terrorism. Let’s read on:
Now, it is true that some people have done horrible things supposedly justifying them on the basis of Christianity — but certainly not true Christianity in accord with a correct understanding of God’s Word.
Ah, all those evil deeds don’t represent true Christianity, i.e., Hambo’s version. Moving along:
But religion is not the ultimate cause of these evils or any other evils. The problem isn’t religion — the problem is sin.
All the bad stuff that happens is the Devil’s fault. Another excerpt:
Getting rid of religion won’t make the world a peaceful, harmonic place — that didn’t (and doesn’t) work so well in Communist countries that outlawed religion. All they did was replace religion with their religion of atheism, resulting in all kinds of horrible evils (e.g., Stalin’s Soviet Union).
[*Groan*] Stalin is presented as an example of what Dawkins advocates. But witch trials and the Inquisition aren’t counter-examples, because that wasn’t true Christianity. Hey — did you notice that Hambo was clever enough to leave Hitler out of his atheism rant? Hitler wasn’t an atheist, but he wasn’t a true Christian either. And now we come to the end:
The problem isn’t religion. The problem of every single person living on this sin-cursed planet is the sin nature that condemns us before a Holy God. Everyone needs the mercy that the gospel of Jesus Christ offers — Richard Dawkins included.
Dawkins should listen to Hambo before it’s too late. Everyone should.
Copyright © 2016. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
Better keep Hambo’s latest piece from Dawkins. If he sees it he may laugh so hard he has another stroke . . .
“Christianity, however, has a moral code based on the absolute authority of God’s Word!”
A close reading of the bible shows clearly that christianity is ruled by a vicious, vindictive deity who has no qualms about killing here and there, or telling his followers to act in the same fashion. Ham’s own masterpiece, his ark, is an straight-on example of his deity’s handiwork in slaughtering people, but Ham doesn’t have any displays explaining that in his ark. Indeed, it’s fine and dandy with Ham to get rid of all those evil men, women, and children, even those in uteri.
Hambone is either a highly delusional pusher of evil, or knows his target audience well enough to push evil. Cuz Dawkins is right– religion or more generally DOGMA is the main source of evil. Striving for wealth & power is 2nd place.
Ham is thinking that “I’m SOOOO done with Bill Nye that Evil Science Guy”. He’s now got his sights set on Dawkins. My bet is that he’s trying to drum up publicity for himself and the Ark Park by trying to con(vince) Dawkins into visiting.
Ham is, of course, lying. I think probably he knows, somewhere in the conflicting stew of irreconcilable attitudes that constitutes his mind, that atheism is not a religion, that the Bible is not a reliable guide to conduct, that there is no consistent moral code to be found within it, that whole swathes of its text have to be discarded as intolerable, that any principle taken from it has to be selected, and above all that it never says anywhere that it is to be read literally. In fact, the more literally you read it, the less authority you can claim for it.
But Ham makes a very nice living, thank you, from telling lies to the contrary. He’s not about to stop doing it.
Ham calls the Bible the Word of God, which is a sort of shibboleth, a formula recited so as to claim membership of a group. The most the texts ever claim is that scripture, whatever that might have meant to Paul, is “breathed out” by God, ie, inspired. Sometimes it quotes God speaking, but in many places the text states specifically that it was composed and written by a human being.
But Ham knows he can rely completely on the ignorance and prejudice of his followers. What do they know of the original texts, their origin and provenance, the intractable problems of their translation, the languages, the context in which they arose, the referents and meanings they intended? The answer is nothing at all, nor do they care. They know what they’ve been told – or more often, absorbed by a kind of osmosis, starting in their cradles. That’s all they know, and all they want to know.
Add to that a pristine-perfect museum-quality example of a No True Scotsman, and you have this effusion.
Kenneth the Sanctimonious tells us:
And as an agnostic bordering on atheism I also have a standard: empathy, the ability to ask myself how I’d feel if I were experiencing what someone else is. Beyond that, I can ask what’s likely to happen in the long run to a society in which “terrorism, oppression, and persecution” prevail.
Apparently Ham isn’t capable of such introspection, and so needs to have his actions dictated to him by the Bible, which he takes for granted as “God’s Word.”
Hey, Eric, as a complete atheist I worked out some decades ago that killing, oppressing and persecuting people is wrong. It’s not just you fancy-schmancy “agnostic[s] bordering on atheism” or the Hammitic fundagelicals who’ve reached this stage.
I tease, of course. Forgive me.
@Dave Luckett
As you say, there are parts of the Bible where it cites non-divine warrant for what is written.
Among the interesting passages, there is 1 Corinthians chapter 7, where Paul explicitly says of some of what he is writing is his own opinion, and is not to be taken as bearing divine authority.
TomS:
“Among the interesting passages, there is 1 Corinthians…”
Or as The Donald would say, “One Corinthians”. Maybe his running mate Fundagelical Pence will help him get that straight.
“So by what standard does he think terrorism, oppression, and persecution are evil?”
Happiness. Something Ol’ Hambo doesn’t care for, except his own.
Eugh. One of my least favourite people is going after one of the people who’s on the least favourite list, but used to be on the favourite list. I think I have to sit this one out.
Ham ejaculates: “Now, if nothing lies beyond this life… What’s the ultimate point? None!”
Religious folk like Ham who claim that life is meaningless without SUPER DUPER COSMIC ETERNAL DIVINE ULTIMATE AWESOME FOREVER purpose are like a whiny toddler in a toy store crying and throwing down the toy he is allowed to get because he can’t have ALL THE TOYS.
Gosh, atheism is a force for evil? This is from a proponent of a religion in which all of us destined for Hell have already been identified. Nothing can be changed. God knows all. He knows who believes and will believe already. So, why is ol’ Hambo so exercised? Evil doesn’t get you into Heaven, not does it keep you out of Heaven (only non belief will), so why is he so against it? And just how does atheism help out evil? what is the mechanism by which this happens? Is he just going to answer “God did it?” but if he does, that won’t be so flattering to Gd, now will it?
This is all so confusing.
Hambo is so afraid of death, he is wasting the one life he’s got. Hambo, we don’t go on forever, but we don’t have to. We are part of a community called humanity. We are not isolated links, but links in a long, elaborate, ever changing chain. Like Cheshire cats, we may disappear but our smile remains.
So Stalin was an atheist (like Dawkins). Trump calls himself a Christian (like Ham).
It has probably happened in history, but in general it’s hard to imagine an atheist killing someone else solely because they are religious.
However, religious people kill other people solely because they are of the wrong religion, the wrong sect of the same religion, not religious enough, are considered to have defamed one’s religion, and an almost endless number of other religious reasons. This happens every day in some regions of the world. The more fundamentalist a religious person is the more likely they are to feel justified in killing others who do not share their specific beliefs.
Ham should ponder this as he promotes his brand of religious fundamentalism.
@Ed: Is there any evidence that Hambone ever pondered anything?