Creationist Wisdom #788: A New Theory

Today’s letter-to-the-editor appears in the National Catholic Register, which describes itself as “America’s most complete and faithful Catholic news source.” The title is De Novo Creation. It’s the first of three letters at that link. They have a comments section, but you have to register to see them.

Because the writer isn’t a politician, preacher, or other public figure, we won’t embarrass or promote him by using his full name. His first name is Bruce. The Register‘s website says that copying their material is ”strictly prohibited.” We wouldn’t want to bring their wrath down upon us, so we shall comply. Instead of giving you excerpts from Bruce’s letter, we’ll merely describe what he says — enhanced with our Curmudgeonly commentary, of course. Here we go!

He begins by boldly proposing a theory to support the de novo creation of Adam and Eve. We’re always interested in new theories, so let’s gather ’round and see what Bruce has to tell us.

His theory is that just as Jesus was supernaturally incarnated in his mother’s womb, so too were Adam and Eve supernaturally created in the Garden of Eden. Hey — that’s quite a theory!

Not only that, but the Garden of Eden was a supernatural place, as was Mary’s virginal womb. Bruce says that his theory explains the de novo creation of Adam and Eve outside the normal laws and operations of biology. In both cases (Adam & Eve and also Jesus), they were 100% created by God.

Wowie — Bruce’s theory explains so much! We regret that we can’t actually quote any of Bruce’s letter, but if you click over to the Register to read it for yourself, you’ll see that his theory explains a couple of other things too. We’re very impressed.

It won’t be long before we’ll be seeing demands that Bruce’s theory should be taught in school along with Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin’s theory is totally inadequate to explain the things that Bruce’s theory does, so we can’t imagine that there will be any objections.

Copyright © 2017. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Ken Ham Defends David Coppedge

Many of you remember the David Coppedge litigation. Coppedge is the creationist who claims he was wrongfully demoted and later fired by his employer because he was promoting intelligent design on the job. He used to work as a computer technician for Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), part of Caltech. We wrote about his case dozens of times back in 2010-2013.

There wasn’t any appeal after Coppedge lost in court, so our last substantive post about the case was David Coppedge Trial: Final Order Issued. The Discoveroids were strident champions of Coppedge, and they wrote several posts about their outrage that his case was lost. The last time we bothered to report about their wailing was The Coppedge Case — Alternate History, Part 3.

Now it appears that Coppedge has another champion — it’s Ken Ham (ol’ Hambo), the ayatollah of Appalachia, the world’s holiest man who knows more about religion and science than everyone else. His latest post is NASA Scientist “Reality Is an Elaborate Hologram Creation by an Alien Race”. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis:

Is everything in our world just some kind of computer program? A recent article [link omitted] claims that Dr. Rich Terrile, the director of the Center for Evolutionary Computation and Automated Design at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, believes “that our reality is an elaborate hologram created by an alien race.” Dr. Terrile reportedly said, “We can all be the creation of a cosmic computer programmer as opposed to a God.”

That idea has been floating around for years, but we’ve never taken it seriously. PhysOrg has an article about it — see Is the universe a hologram? What does ol’ Hambo have to say about it, and how does it relate to the Coppedge case? Stay with us, dear reader. Hambo says:

According to reports, Dr. Terrile has been sharing these views — which are not grounded in any kind of scientific observations — since at least 2010. Now this is interesting because, as we reported in 2010 in Answers magazine [link omitted], in 2009 David Coppedge, a computer systems specialist who also worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was demoted for sharing science-based Intelligent Design DVDs with his colleagues. Apparently he was being disruptive for supposedly promoting religion. He was later fired from NASA.

Aha — Hambo is going to contrast the Coppedge creationism case with Dr. Terrile’s advocacy of the holigram theory. He tells us:

So NASA tolerates a top-level scientist espousing the very unscientific idea that aliens (for which there is not a scrap of observational evidence) have created an elaborate hologram, of which we are part. But they have no use for someone who believes the incredible — and observable! — design we see throughout creation points toward a Designer?

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! The hologram universe is okay, but not creationism. It’s so unfair! Hambo gives us his keen analysis of the situation:

This shows that the battle is not about the evidence. It’s a worldview battle — God’s Word vs. naturalism (or in this case, an arbitrary supernatural superbeing is somehow ok), which is often treated as if it’s the only acceptable religion for scientists. Men don’t reject the Creator because of a lack of evidence. The evidence is all around us so much so that men “are without excuse” [scripture reference], yet some will still devise another elusive and indifferent off-world being to give credit to. They reject the revealed Creator because of the darkness of their hearts [scripture reference].

This is the last of it, except for a big bible quote:

People are willing to believe anything — as long as it’s not what God’s Word teaches, because if there’s a Creator we are accountable to him and cannot live however we choose. That’s ultimately what it boils down to.

Yes, dear reader, Hambo understands the situation very well. The godless folks at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory fired Coppedge, but they keep Dr. Terrile. Why? Because they want live in sin, unaccountable to their creator.

Copyright © 2017. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Creative Challenge #43: Benefit of Religion

This is an expanded version of a contest we presented a year ago: Creative Challenge #29: Name One Thing. There we asked “What benefits have we enjoyed from young-Earth creationism?” There wasn’t much, so today we’re going beyond that limited question.

This time, we ask you to consider all the world’s religions, and all their priests, prophets, preachers, swamis, monks, seers, sermonizers, etc., throughout all of human history. Our question today is: What have we learned from all of them combined — compared, say, to one Galileo, or one Newton?

We don’t doubt that religions have done some good. They encourage charity. They comfort the sick and the bereaved. They promote morality — although the morals preached by some are often different from others, and our own. They also provide a feeling of belonging to a community — at least among their followers. But they’re not the only people who do such things, so those benefits can’t be considered unique to religion.

They’ve also led some ghastly attacks on those who don’t share their beliefs. We won’t even try to total up all those who died in religious wars, or who were murdered because they were accused of witchcraft, blasphemy, or some other spiritual crime. But we want to be fair, so we’re not asking for something so wonderful that it compensates for the evil that religion has done. All we’re looking for is something that any religion has done for us that is: (1) unique to religion; and (2) unquestionably good, like the way our lives today are enhanced in countless ways by science.

The form of today’s challenge is that you must tell us, with reasonable brevity:

What tangible benefits have we enjoyed from and are unique to religion?

You know the rules: You may enter the contest as many times as you wish, but you must avoid profanity, vulgarity, childish anatomical analogies, etc. Also, avoid slanderous statements about individuals. Feel free to comment on the entries submitted by others — with praise, criticism, or whatever — but you must do so tastefully.

There may not be a winner of this contest, but if there is, your Curmudgeon will decide, and whenever we get around to it we’ll announce who the winner is. There is no tangible prize — as always in life’s great challenges, the accomplishment is its own reward. We now throw open the comments section, dear reader. Go for it!

Copyright © 2017. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Hambo May Lose $18 Million Sales Tax Kickback

This is good! As we reported in Ken Ham’s Latest Tax Maneuver, in an effort to evade the safety tax of fifty cents imposed by the city of Williamstown for every admission ticket sold by Ark Encounter, Hambo’s biblical tourist attraction, the company sold its main parcel of land — the one with the life-size Noah’s Ark — for $10 to their non-profit affiliate, Crosswater Canyon.

On the surface, it was a clever move — the city’s safety tax doesn’t apply to non-profit entities. But it may have catastrophic repercussions for Ken Ham (ol’ Hambo), the ayatollah of Appalachia, the world’s holiest man who knows more about religion and science than everyone else.

The latest news is in the Lexington Herald-Leader of Lexington, Kentucky, the second-largest city in the state. Their headline is Tourism officials suspend $18 million incentive for Noah’s Ark site over property transfer. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis:

The Kentucky Tourism Arts and Heritage Cabinet has suspended an incentive agreement worth up to $18 million with a Noah’s Ark-themed attraction in Grant County because the park transferred its main property to a non-profit affiliate.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! We suspected something like this might happen. In Hambo’s Ticket Tax Battle Continues, we said:

Hambo wants it both ways — Ark Encounter is a for-profit corporation (so they could qualify for the sales tax kick-back), yet he wants to be exempt from the safety tax because … well, because he’s such a holy guy that everything he does should be exempt from taxes he doesn’t want to pay.

Hambo fought hard for that sales-tax kick-back, and it had to be a factor that encouraged the sale of bonds to finance the ark. Now the whole thing is in danger of collapsing. The Lexington Herald-Leader says:

The July 18 cabinet letter to Ark Encounter attorney James Parsons said the ark park’s recent actions put it in breach of the agreement with the state to refund a portion of sales tax collected at the site, which opened last July with a large-scale replica of Noah’s Ark.

[…]

Answers in Genesis, the group behind the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum, disputed that the transfer of the property “created a default.” But [Answers in] Genesis co-founder Mark Looy pledged Friday in his prepared statement to “comply with concerns that the Tourism Department may have related to the transfer.”

That will be difficult. The newspaper tells us:

The letter from Tourism’s general counsel B. Leigh Powers said the ark had several violations of the state agreement, including a failure to tell the agency of any change in ownership or get prior written consent to transfer assets. In addition, the agreement stipulated that the tax incentive, approved by the Tourism Development Finance Authority, was made for Ark Encounter. Non-profits can qualify for the tax incentive, but in this case, the agreement was with Ark Encounter, not its non-profit affiliate, Crosswater Canyon.

This next excerpt is fantastic:

The tourism letter also cites a statement on the Ark Encounter website that says: “The for-profit LLC structure also allows the Ark Encounter to be eligible for various economic development incentives that would not have been available with a non-profit structure.”

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! One last excerpt:

The letter asks Ark Encounter to comply with the existing agreement in 30 days, or request an extension in order to qualify again for the rebate. State officials said the sales tax rebate accrued before June 28 would depend on what the Ark does in response to the state’s concerns.

So there you are, dear reader. It’s not over yet. In fact, we think the fun has just begun. But don’t feel bad for ol’ Hambo. However things turn out, he’ll always have the rainbow.

Copyright © 2017. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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