Blog

by Steve Risner

[This blog post is part of a series. The previous post is here, and the next post is here.]

The thing is, I don't really like 3D movies. Seriously. They exhaust me and make my eyes hurt. And for what? A couple of pieces of shrapnel or a flying vehicle of some sort appearing to be coming right at me? And for extra money I can enjoy this? I'm good with 2D. Why do I bring this up? As you know, I've been answering the theological issues a theistic evolutionist has written about that he claims Biblical creationists can't answer. I originally set out to simply answer his “10 theological questions no young-earth creationist can answer” blog post. However, it has snowballed into much more. In the introduction to the “10 questions” blog post, Tyler Francke has included a series of links to what he says are examples of the terrible theological issues Biblical creationism has (what he terms young-earth creationism). This week we'll take a look at the second to last link (I am very excited to move from these!) which is found by clicking on “incredibly” in the links paragraph. This blog post is called “Creation Today and Answers in Genesis get the gospel wrong (in three dimensions)” and is a criticism of Creation Today (the Hovinds’ ministry) and Answers in Genesis for their efforts to make a film that supports the Genesis account of creation—Genesis 3D. It's really remarkable how anti-biblical Tyler is and how much he dislikes Ken Ham. If you are concerned that perhaps Tyler is not “anti-biblical” you can read his blog posts at your leisure, but he has stated (as I've quoted him previously) that he rejects parts of the Bible simply because “that doesn't sound like God to me.” So we find that the Bible is up for cherry picking whatever we like and discarding whatever we find undesirable.

We see here to begin with that Tyler is angry that someone would spend money making a movie that is in line with the Bible. He doesn't say it like that, but the movie, from the trailers, does not seem to depict anything that cannot be surmised from Genesis (hence the name of the movie). He claims it is unbiblical, which he offers no support for and is obviously preposterous. He moves on to insulting Ray Comfort, who is only interested in helping people find Jesus Christ.

Ray Comfort may not have everything right, but his mission is to make disciples for Jesus Christ. I try not to get into too many of the links found in these blog posts because it would mean everything I write would be 10 parts or more, but I look at them. His link for Ray concerning Ray's movie “Evolution vs God” is noteworthy. As a side note: Tyler insinuates repeatedly that Biblical creationist organizations like AiG and CMI just want your money. If you follow the link to “Evolution vs God” you'll see the movie is free to anyone who wants to watch it. That doesn't seem like a money making scheme to me.

Following the link for Ray Comfort, we see Tyler trying to sell very bad science and very poor logic. His claim about Ray is that Ray is essentially stupid and dishonest. Tyler points out that P.Z. Myers informs Mr. Comfort that the Lenski experiment or that sticklebacks somehow support universal common descent. I provided 2 links (a pro and con) for you there for each. Tyler says, “...a real scientist analyzes the results of an experiment or a finding in the field to see what conclusions may be drawn from it.” This is unfortunate. He's totally sold on the idea that if a scientist interprets the data a particular way (the way he has already decided is true—it must conform to Darwinian evolution) that the case is closed. However, other scientists with equal credentials may interpret the data differently. How is this possible? How can you interpret things differently? This is such basic stuff that I really can't believe very few if anyone in the evolutionist crowd gets it. Your presuppositions will dictate your interpretation. That's a fact. There is no way around this. It's exactly the same way two different fans have different interpretations of how the Steelers/Bengals game went in the first playoff round. Were the calls good or bad? Were the weather conditions good or bad? Were there illegal shenanigans that caused someone to be injured or not? Should players be fined and/or punished or not? Was it a good game or a bad game? All these answers depend on the same information. But the answer you give will be different than someone else who has a different presupposition. I recently saw the term “brute fact” in relation to this topic. There is no such thing as a fact that speaks for itself—a brute fact. We all have the same facts—every single one. We all have the same evidence to look at. We have varying ways of interpreting those evidences based on our presuppositions or our worldviews. Can you argue against this?

What Tyler is not getting here is that a mutational or epigenetic change in a gene sequence is NOT what we are debating. It never has been. It's about universal common descent (the belief that all living things can trace their ancestry back to a single, original living thing). They say “evolution” and mean a miniscule change for whatever reason and then say, “Therefore, evolution from a single common ancestor is true.” Do you see how the two are not necessarily linked at all? Bacteria to human beings evolution is nothing at all like a bird with a thicker beak or a fish without a particular fin or whatever other example of evolution they will throw at you. Don't be fooled or more likely deceived.

He goes further in attacking Ray Comfort's efforts by suggesting Ray and his type are anti-science. This is such a tired argument. I have written extensively on the Christian heritage modern science has. This is one link but I have talked about this, unfortunately, many times in response to erroneous claims that science and Christianity are somehow opposed to each other. In short, science exists because Christianity birthed it.

Tyler then moves on to attack another group who has been working to advance the Kingdom for many years. The Hovinds have worked (and possibly even suffered ferociously) for being about the work of making disciples. Kent Hovind was imprisoned for a variety of charges that aren't worth getting into. He's a good guy who messed up in regards to paying taxes. You can investigate his views on that yourself. But Tyler feels taking a shot at a man like this is cool. It really isn't. I wonder how much time Tyler has spent praying for the Hovinds or for Ken Ham. Kent has been released after an extremely severe sentence. While away, his son Eric took over Kent's ministry. The Hovinds have done a great deal of work for very little pay over the decades that they've been around. My first (and really only) experience with the Hovinds’ Dr. Dino video was the video series I watched about 15-20 years ago. He made the claim in the video that you were free to buy them, record them, and send them back for a refund. You could make all the copies you wanted and distribute them as much as you liked. I thought that meant he was certainly not in this for the financial gain. This is contrary to Tyler's earlier suggestions that these ministries were only in if for the money.

Continuing with his attack on AiG and the Hovinds, he says it's odd that AiG is supporting Kent Hovind's son, and he provides a Wikipedia link. He goes so far as to mock them saying, “I certainly hope this collaboration isn’t a sign that AiG is ‘compromising’ on its beliefs.” If he had read the information in the link, he'd find that AiG USA had no issues with Kent Hovind ever AND we're not talking about Kent Hovind; we're talking about Eric Hovind. The article he links to also explains that as early as 2009, CMI (AiG Australia) removed their content critical of Kent Hovind because Creation Science Evangelism had removed the content CMI disagreed with. I only bring this up to expose another example of the lack of logic and thinking things through we find with theistic evolutionists.

Here we are at the end of this blog post and I've only gotten about half way through explaining why this is another example of why theistic evolutionists' criticism is not coherent, logical, or truthful. Next week we will, once again, make the creation-salvation connection and finish up this blog post by godofevolution.com. This also means we will be one link away from getting to the “10 theological questions no young-earth creationist can answer.” I'm excited.

Let me take a moment to ask you to pray for the theistic evolutionists you know personally. Pray for Tyler Francke. These people may be well-intentioned, but they are teaching destructive beliefs that are clearly not in line with the Biblical accounts. They need your prayers to find the truth and to reject humanism.

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