Saturday, November 26, 2005
"Intelligent Design" a Trojan Horse, Admits Creationist
smh.com.au
KEN Ham should be on the same side of the street as proponents of intelligent design. After all, he's in opposition to the atheistic view of science as an explanation for the world we see. He, like many people in the intelligent design movement, is a Christian.
But intelligent design advocates probably won't thank Australian-born Mr Ham for articulating what many of them try to avoid saying. That is: for some, the intelligent design movement is essentially a stalking horse for religion and, in the US, a way of getting around the separation of church and state to get into schools and influence children's education.
He says some Christian intelligent design people believe that, if they "can get students to begin to question atheism", that may be a way to get them to listen to the Bible.
Because of rulings of the US Supreme Court "their hands are tied".
"If you mention the Bible, they are going to say that contravenes the separation of church and state.
"Therefore some people are trying to find a way around that."
Mr Ham is one of the leading proponents of creationism in the US.
He arrived from Australia in 1976 and established the Answers in Genesis ministry in 1994. It is devoted to propagating the idea that the Bible, and in particular its first book Genesis, is literally true, right from the first line: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
Answers in Genesis, which has been promoting Christian rallies in Canberra and Geelong this weekend, is building a $25 million museum in Cincinnati which tells history as it occurred in the Bible, adding dinosaurs and a few other things along the way. As the museum's website says: "Adam and apes share the same birthday. The first man walked with dinosaurs and named them all."
Mr Ham says much of the scientific evidence of evolution comes from the assumptions that scientists make, but if you come to the evidence with different assumptions, you get quite different answers.
He says many Christians are now grabbing on to the intelligent design argument "thinking that solves the issue of the separation of church and state to get things into schools".
"If those people get themselves on school boards, fine.
"We don't oppose them. Simply because, for me, and for us in the biblical creation movement, we say, well let them fight the evolutionists, the atheists, and keep fighting issues of naturalism and so on, that's fine."
KEN Ham should be on the same side of the street as proponents of intelligent design. After all, he's in opposition to the atheistic view of science as an explanation for the world we see. He, like many people in the intelligent design movement, is a Christian.
But intelligent design advocates probably won't thank Australian-born Mr Ham for articulating what many of them try to avoid saying. That is: for some, the intelligent design movement is essentially a stalking horse for religion and, in the US, a way of getting around the separation of church and state to get into schools and influence children's education.
He says some Christian intelligent design people believe that, if they "can get students to begin to question atheism", that may be a way to get them to listen to the Bible.
Because of rulings of the US Supreme Court "their hands are tied".
"If you mention the Bible, they are going to say that contravenes the separation of church and state.
"Therefore some people are trying to find a way around that."
Mr Ham is one of the leading proponents of creationism in the US.
He arrived from Australia in 1976 and established the Answers in Genesis ministry in 1994. It is devoted to propagating the idea that the Bible, and in particular its first book Genesis, is literally true, right from the first line: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
Answers in Genesis, which has been promoting Christian rallies in Canberra and Geelong this weekend, is building a $25 million museum in Cincinnati which tells history as it occurred in the Bible, adding dinosaurs and a few other things along the way. As the museum's website says: "Adam and apes share the same birthday. The first man walked with dinosaurs and named them all."
Mr Ham says much of the scientific evidence of evolution comes from the assumptions that scientists make, but if you come to the evidence with different assumptions, you get quite different answers.
He says many Christians are now grabbing on to the intelligent design argument "thinking that solves the issue of the separation of church and state to get things into schools".
"If those people get themselves on school boards, fine.
"We don't oppose them. Simply because, for me, and for us in the biblical creation movement, we say, well let them fight the evolutionists, the atheists, and keep fighting issues of naturalism and so on, that's fine."
