CREATION MAGAZINE HOLDS SEMINAR IN MARIETTA
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from: Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Atlanta Chapter

Answers in Genesis, publisher of Creation magazine, the periodical bully
forcing its way into public libraries, held a creationism seminar/sermon in
Marietta on September 15th and 16th at the Roswell Baptist Church. Several
AU/Atlanta members attended. Here is our report:

The main chapel of the Roswell Baptist Church was near capacity for Ken Ham,
Director of Answers in Genesis.  Surprisingly, the lecture was extremely
short on science and very long on scripture. Maybe it's because I haven't
been to one of these shindigs before, but I just assumed that a movement
that calls itself "creation science" would have some science to it. Or
perhaps it's because Mr. Ham was preaching to the faithful he knew he
wouldn't need much evidence for his claims. But perhaps another factor was
that when he did present some bit of scientific material to make his point
he was always sure to precede it with statements like, "bear with me, this
won't take long."  This seemed to indicate that to this audience even
pseudo-science was a bit too much like a trip to the dentist for them.

Mr. Ham first began by demonstrating how scientists who asserted that
Tyrannosaurus rex was a carnivore had to be wrong. His evidence? A slide
showing the fearsome chompers of T. rex was whisked off the display and
replaced with a verse from Genesis, 1:30, "And to every beast of the of the
earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon
the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat..."

Therefore, all animals at the time of creation were vegetarians according to
Mr. Ham, including Tyrannosaurus rex. Meat eating did not occur until after
the flood and was a result of sin.

His presentation was decorated with colorful cartoon slides to emphasis key
points. When discussing Adam and Eve's fall in the garden, as they held up
the forbidden fruit not only the serpent watched, but a friendly
brontosaurus looked on as well.

Much of Mr. Ham's presentation was more concerned with imploring his
listeners not to give in to the temptation to surrender genesis to science.
He proclaimed, "We must desecularize, de-evolutionize our thinking... If you
can't defend genesis you can't defend Christianity." This statement was
followed by a healthy dose of criticism for churches not adhering to his own
literalist doctrine.

More of Mr. Ham's evidence for creation as opposed to "random, undirected
processes" was attributed to Mount Rushmore. This one, incidentally, is
straight out of the latest issue of Creation magazine. His reasoning went
something like this. First he proposed that Mount Rushmore was not actually
created, but occurred by accident. Wind and storm erosion over many years
caused, by pure chance, the likeness of the Presidents to appear on the
rocks. After sufficient chuckles from the audience he then went on to
conclude that since it was impossible for Mount Rushmore to have happened by
chance, so too then, was it impossible for something as complex as life to
have happened by "random, undirected processes". Ironically of course, this
has nothing to do with evolution since evolution does not say that life
occurred by "random, undirected processes", but these small points seem lost
on Mr. Ham, and tragically, his audiences as well.

Incidentally, the whole of Mr. Ham's lecture was lost on the woman next to
me, because she slept through the entire thing. She would only wake
occasionally when one of Mr. Ham's comments got a laugh out of her husband
and his chortling disturbed her slumber. She would open her eyes and stir
with her head making a clumsy rotating motion, look around the room a bit
confused, and then rest her head back down on her chest and return to her
nap. I found myself wishing that every one in the room would do the same
thing to avoid this onslaught of misinformation and prejudice.

Perhaps the most disturbing element of Mr. Ham's presentation was the
absolute disdain he held for the people who had made careers and indeed
lives out of the pursuit of scientific truth. His simplistic and insulting
remarks smacked with such blatant religious intolerance that when they
prompted "amens" from the audience I felt truly afraid. Even NASA was not
above his contempt. The recent discovery of the rock from Mars, perhaps
containing evidence of bacterial life on the red planet in the past, was
nothing more than a publicity stunt to get NASA in the news and get more
money for their programs. Mr. Ham shook his head with disgust as the
audience voiced their disapproval. I thought of the astronauts and even
friends I have known who have worked for our space program and thought, "Is
this what they deserve?"

Some of his remarks were straight from the Religious Right handbook, such as
"America is no longer a Christian nation; it is a pagan nation." However, I
did laugh right along with the audience at one of his remarks. When Mr. Ham
asserted, "The atheists understand Christianity better than the Christians,"
I broke into honest laughter and shared a smile  with the pleasant, well
dressed woman across the aisle.

I have to admit some of his statements were simply lost on me.  What
possible sense can one make out of a statement like, "natural selection is
the opposite of evolution."

The recent rejection of his Creation magazine by the Athens Regional Library
System was played for all it was worth to promote his magazine and show that
libraries are hostile to Christianity. At the end of the lecture when he
solicited the audience for subscriptions to the publication he exclaimed,
"It's better than National Geographic!"

The final part of the lecture was a call to action, a call to arms, against
the Godless,  anti-Christian evolutionists who had vowed to destroy
Christianity and everything it stood for. To make his point he had another
cartoon slide, one of two castle towers with cannons on top of each. The
bottom of one tower was labeled EVOLUTION, the other CREATION. Rising up
from the word EVOLUTION, pasted on the tower's side were the words ABORTION,
PORNOGRAPHY, HOMOSEXUALITY and LAWLESSNESS. Rising up from CREATION were
FAMILY, MARRIAGE, GOD and TRUTH.

The cannon on the evolution tower was firing deadly shots at the base of the
creation tower so that the word was in danger of becoming illegible and the
tower was beginning to lean precariously. The cannons on the creation tower
were shooting at harmless balloons above the evolution tower and harmlessly
off into the air in the opposite direction. This slide represented the way
things are, according to Mr. Ham.

The next slide showed the two towers again. But this time the creation tower
was pristine and undamaged and the evolution tower was blasted  at the base.
A creationist marksman at the top of the creation tower had fired a shot
that had just struck an evolutionist at the top of his tower square in the
head. According to Mr. Ham, this is the way things should be. I stared at
the picture of the man shot in the head and wondered just how literally Mr.
Ham's followers were taking his ideas.

At the conclusion Mr. Ham explained that the cartoons used in the
presentation were from the Answers in Genesis publication "A is for Adam", a
children's book. 

Mr. Ham referred constantly to the public school system and would go on to
assert all the social ills its inclusion in curriculum is responsible for. I
think it will be very important to watch for any fallout, if any, these
presentations have in the public school system in our area.

This lecture was the first of three to be presented over the course of two
nights. There was to be another one following this one in thirty minutes,
and then a third the following night. I had intended to go to all three, to
learn all I could. But I had seen enough. Quite frankly, I just couldn't
take anymore.

Skip Evans, Acting President
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Atlanta Chapter
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Contact AU/Atlanta at:
PO Box 79174
Atlanta GA 30357
404-607-0660
tallulah@mindspring.com
web site: http://www.mindpsring.com/~tallulah/au/
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