THOSE WHACKY CHRISTIANS JUST WON'T STOP

Two days ago, we posted a link to the attack ads being run by the absurd Tim James who seems to think that you have to believe the nonsense below in order to serve as Governor of Alabama. The whole thing would be laughable except politicians who profess these primitive beliefs expect to hold positions of power in the hierarchy of a nuclear superpower, and also, if it suits their purpose, become the willing shills of big insurance or big oil to the total detriment of those who elected them. How, I ask myself, do they manage to exist in the same universe as Stephen Hawking, the Hubble telescope, or the works of Albert Einstein? How do they reconcile themselves with concepts like dark matter, black holes, the speed of light, and the curvature of space – or even the mathematical underpinnings of the very computers on which they create their idiotic web posts.

“The question of the age of the earth has produced heated discussions on Internet debate boards, TV, radio, in classrooms, and in many churches, Christian colleges, and seminaries. The primary sides are Young-earth proponents (biblical age of the earth and universe of about 6,000 years.) Old-earth proponents (secular age of the earth of about 4.5 billion years and a universe about 14 billion years old.) The difference is immense! Let’s give a little history of where these two basic calculations came from and which worldview is more reasonable. Where Did a Young-earth Worldview Come From? Simply put, it came from the Bible. Of course, the Bible doesn’t say explicitly anywhere, “The earth is 6,000 years old.” Good thing it doesn’t; otherwise it would be out of date the following year. But we wouldn’t expect an all-knowing God to make that kind of a mistake. God gave us something better. In essence, He gave us a “birth certificate.” For example, using a personal birth certificate, a person can calculate how old he is at any point. It is similar with the earth. Genesis 1 says that the earth was created on the first day of creation (Genesis 1:1–5). From there, we can begin to calculate the age of the earth. Let’s do a rough calculation to show how this works. The age of the earth can be estimated by taking the first five days of creation (from earth’s creation to Adam), then following the genealogies from Adam to Abraham in Genesis 5 and 11, then adding in the time from Abraham to today.”

I might treat these fools with marginally more sympathy if they stuck to their geneology and magical thinking and didn’t try to back up The Bible with all this absurd pseudo-science.

“If the items were really millions of years old, then they shouldn’t have any traces of 14C. Coal and diamonds, which are found in or sandwiched between rock layers allegedly millions of years old, have been shown to have 14C ages of only tens of thousands of years. So which date, if any, is correct? The diamonds or coal can’t be millions of years old if they have any traces of 14C still in them. This shows that these dating methods are completely unreliable and indicates that the presumed assumptions in the methods are erroneous.” (Click here if you really need to read more.)

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The secret word is Impossible