Ken Ham goes of the deep end . . . again

Over on WorldNetDaily, which is an fairly entertaining website to me, they had an interesting article "Why are Young People Leaving the Church?" Now this has been an ongoing question in just about all denominations for decades. The Catholic diocese I went to school at recently closed down due to not enough parishioners or children attending the school. I remember a horde of kids, literally hundreds when I attended. But no more.

So who is asking the question now? Why none other than Ken Ham, the purveyor of pseudo-science himself. If you know of little kennie then you know he runs AIG and the Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky. I've blogged about him before. (Turnabout is fair play, Supporting Evolution - and other Sciences, Ken Ham: I am not a Moron, and Science 1: Creation Museum 0) So here is a twist, Kennie commissioning a study to determine why young folks are leaving the church. Of course he has the answer: to quit teaching that the Earth is more than 6,000 years old. According to kennie, the exodus from the Church started back in the 19th century when we stopped teaching that the Earth was only 6 to 10,000 years old.

Does he really believe this is the answer to people, especially young people, leaving the various churches in droves? Let's stop teaching the Earth is older than Bishop Ussher's 'calculation' which puts the Earth at 6 thousand years of age. We stop teaching that and people will what? Come back to Church? Is he for real?

Yes, I am afraid so. He thinks that if all religions turned into his narrow-view religion, the young people wouldn't have a reason to leave the Church. Yes, narrow! How many religions support the idea of a Young Earth? Damn few! Mainly Ken's version of Evangelical Christianity. The Catholics, Methodists, Baptists . . to name a few of the much more populated Christian religions, disagree with him.

So in essence, he wants everyone to believe what he believes. Now a show of hands, how many people are surprised by his 'answer'? Does anyone think he waited until he saw the results of his 'study' before determining his 'answer'? Anyone, anyone, Bueller, Bueller . . well maybe Ben Stein will back him up, but the rest of us have learned better.

So why are people leaving the church? All the churches, not just kennie's excuse for one.

One of the reasons, in my opinion, are people like Kennie himself. Think about it. On the one hand you have thousands of scientists with thousands of pieces of evidence supporting an Old Earth (about 4.5 billion years). The evidence is pretty overwhelming. On the other side you have strident voices like Kennie telling you that all the scientists are wrong because God speaks through him. He offers no evidence and completely ignores the evidence that disagrees with his belief. Gee, there is a reason not to go to church, particularly Kennie's.

Many people feel the Church is out of touch with reality. Gee, can't get more out of touch than kennie. This is a man who thinks the Flintstones was a documentary (joke borrowed from Lewis Black, I promise I will return it someday, but it fits all too well to stop using. I know, I am getting oit all wrinkled. I promise I will iron it before returning.) This is a man who thinks Dinosaurs and man lived together in perfect harmony. And he spent $27 million dollars of other peoples' money to convince folks of this. This is not a man you want educating or setting education policy!

So how does he bring people back into the church? Rather than change, he wants to return the educational system back to the 19th century and earlier. He wants biology abandoned, he wants Astronomy to only look for God -- if it is a subject at all. He wants geology to only offer answers that fall into his 6-10 thousand year range. He wants to re-write physics so radiometric dating agrees with him. He wants to deny the existence of genetics and the support it gives Evolution. He wants to make Charles Darwin a cousin of Adolph Hitler. . . you get my drift! This is not a man to be trusted with anyones' education!

Does anyone in the world think this will bring people back to the Church? I believe one of the key reasons people leave any Church is the church no longer fills a particular need of theirs. Whatever the need is, when a church no longer fills it, they leave. Maybe to find a different belief system. But you do not address this by asking people to toss out their education. You don't ask people to go back to the 19th century. You do not ask people to voluntarily be lobotomized. That is what Kennie is asking. Suspend intelligence, suspend disbelief, suspend reality. Your world will be better off if you think the world is 6-10,000 years old. Your world will be better off if we stop using biology to develop food sources and medicines. Your world will be better off if you think a world-wide flood happened and that explains geology, fossils, oil, and even continental drift. You can become a carbon copy of little kennie, and all will be right in the world . . . well at least his world. SOunds like a Twilight Zone episode.

I do wonder what little kennie would say if we re-set the clock on education to say about 1848 and people didn't flock back to his Church. I guess he'll just come up with another excuse rather than face the reality that he is one of the ones driving people away. He is a key reason people turn away from religion. He and people like him who are convinced they know what is best for us, all we have to do is believe as they do . . . oh yea, and send them money, lots of money!