Looking at the second photo, Austin could not get enough students to cover all of the fractures. In any event, the blurry picture in all of that sunlight makes it suspect i.e was it intentionally blurry?
The new article has great examples of speaking the truth in love in it:
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They were at the site, right next to the rocks. They couldn’t have missed the cracks.
Outside of BioLogos. More generally I talking about an approach to be taken by everyone who isn’t YEC which includes people of all faiths, plus agnostics and atheists. We all have good reason to reduce the numbers and influence of YEC and its paranoid, anti-science non-sense. We are all stakeholders. So as Churchill said “We shall fight them in the hills and in the valleys, we shall fight them in the streets, we shall fight them on the beaches, etc”
Since you posted this, I have taken more time to review the history, and I now see that the YEC folks have indeed a long history here, and have been treated in a range of ways.
You initially urged myself and others to avoid allegations of motive and so forth. Then there were comments from you and others that I have advocated some sort of aggressive assault, involving bullying and yelling which is of course not what I suggested at all. I admitted to guilt on the first charge, but denied the second. I have maintained that once you push your views into a public forum, and those views are indefensible and belligerent, then your motivations and rationale should be just as subject to speculation and criticism as the content of your argument. This is the only place that I differ from the general dialog here at BioLogos. It is not to suggest that YECs have not encountered pushback at this site, but it is to say that tackling them on the ‘why’ is in my view warranted whereas in your view it is not.
That is clear now.
I don’t think anyone has disagreed with you that it’s fine to question motivations, and ask people to defend their actions and statements with answers to “why” questions.
The very specific line we ask people not to cross saying pejorative assertions that go along the lines of “You think X because…” “You believe X because…” “You want…” “You need…” “You are afraid of…” “You aren’t even a real Christian because…” Those kind of assertions usually lack the nuance to be summaries the subject would find fair, and they often come across as accusations and dismissals not invitations to reflect or good faith attempts to understand. They are silencing moves.
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What you presented convinced me that Austin is a liar. The blurry photo was the clincher: with all that light and even late film photography a in focus, good depth of field photograph should be easy to get. With electronic images, one can check quality on site. Ergo the blurriness was intentional and cannot be attributed to any delusion.
Since Snelling seems to have used the image and he should have known that it was a substandard image, delusion cannot be the invoked. So he too is a liar. Besides is there no folded exposed strata in Australia?
Their lies cover just about every branch of thought and epistemology (how we know things). In their materials theology is warped, the entire historic study of the natural world is twisted, logic is tortured, and Christians are condemned as heretics for seeking an honest understanding of their world.
I am not a scientist, although I have a sturdy background in the natural sciences and psychology, that were part of the broad, beautiful world of a liberal arts education. I don’t disbelieve AIG’s claims because I can refute their detailed “scientific” claims, but because the circular logic they employ doesn’t make sense. When I read articles on their site where they come as close as they can to making belief in 6-literal-day-creation a doctrinal essential, I see them not only as dishonest but distructive and dangerous. They drive honest, serious thinkers away from Christ, particularly those who aren’t crusty enough or mature enough in their faith to say, “Just because I can’t answer all your questions, doesn’t mean I’m wrong. It doesn’t mean I don’t have true, saving faith. It doesn’t mean you’re right. I’d rather live prayfully in the tension of being a scientific novice, who is learning, than throw out my faith and a rational understanding of the world.”
They set themselves up as gatekeepers of the faith (and therefore salvation) and drive away anyone with a strong scientic background, who might have an interest in Christ. Serious scientific thinkers are not going to jetison what they know and have observed and tested. AIG claims to be an apologetic organization, but they only provide anti-apologetic.
Ken Ham attempts to make AIG’s views essentials of the faith
YEC not essential to salvation, but to the authority of Scripture
I agree 
Hi James,
I love your site, and I totally agree that the scientists who lie and distort for AiG are the lowest of the low. This is reprehensible.
My position is that at least some of these people are guilty of financial gain by deception - knowingly - this is the legal definition. They are not accidentally doing it.
Next though is the band of self-styled apologists who are out there repeating this rubbish for whatever reason. I have the same issue with people pushing homeopathy or other woo-woo nonsense which, if followed, is not only anti-science but dangerous to your health. In normal life, we should all take responsibility to check our facts and know our stuff before spouting it in public and seeking to influence minds. I advocate that this is a duty we have to each other as citizens of this planet, as human beings. The perversity in all this is that these people use the very fact that are not themselves scientists, to get away with saying uninformed, anti-scientific, illogical nonsense.
In other words, AiG/YEC scientists use their credentials as a sword to get away with lying, and AiG/YEC non-scientists use their lack of scientific credentials as a shield to get away with repeating those lies.
The number of times I have heard “I am not a scientist, but…” followed by total unscientific nonsense, is too many to count. Why do we not react to this in the same way that we might when we hear people start their sentences with “I am not a racist, but…” It seems that we are all conditioned in polite discourse to allow these sorts of disclaimers to pass unchallenged particularly in social settings. Thus, we allow people the latitude to prevent the obvious criticism they know they should get when they start talking.
For these people, credibility with other Christians is first gained by claiming their Christian faith, next by claiming it is more pure because it is ‘faithful to scripture’, and then they claim this false piety by ‘confessing’ their lack of scientific qualifications via these disclaimers. This is a false authenticity because everything that follows out of their mouth from there are lies. I say they are lies because, as I have argued elsewhere, public broadcasting implies that you are asking people to trust that you have checked your facts and your know what you are talking about. If you put yourself in a position of implied trust, your failure to take the trouble to know your subject from both sides, and to know if your criticisms about your opponents are fair and true, is a form of lying by omission and constitutes a conscious and deliberate deception and betrayal of trust. However motivated they may be by their beliefs, the fact is that they are placing themselves in this position and must therefore have their motives not just questioned, but be prepared to wear the accusations that will come. Accusations of motive, of deception, of lying as in my view reasonable, given this situation.
While I agree that scientists in AiG are the worst, they are a very small band of liars. For me the greater problem is that masses of dishonest apologists who make a career out of deceiving others and hiding behind their lack of scientific training as a form of credibility. We should, before they get started, cut them off and say “Oh, well if you are not a scientist, then please confine your comments to theological matters. If I want to know the scientific facts I will speak to an actual scientists”.
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Hi Scott,
thanks for your supportive comments, and valuable insights.
This reminds me of the Clergy Project which I believe now has over 1,000 members. https://clergyproject.org/ These are Clergy of various denominations - mostly in the USA - that have lost their faith completely but most of them keep doing their job as preachers because its their livelihood, and they might get shunned by their community and even their family and friends. Anyway, the point is that once they start to question things, they do research and then find out more information that then leads them further from their faith and so on. I raise this only to say that you could argue that clergy are only motivated to, or can be expected to, check their facts after they already have doubts. From this you might argue that we ought to accept that those clergy (including youth pastors) that are firm believers should not be expected to check their facts. I disagree strongly.
Regardless of how devout a spiritual leader is, they are a leader. Leadership carries a burden. This is the trust that such a revered position affords them. They call these people reverend for a reason. The responsibility they carry is to precisely NOT to be a sheep. They are the shepherds, they watch out for the flock. The people look to them for information. I don’t care how far down the rabbit hole they have gone, they are adults, they are leaders, and they have no excuse for parroting nonsense when we all have Google. We can all access scientific journals, we can speak to scientists, we can watch youtube video presentations of evolution by actual scientists, we can buy science books, we can go to the library, we can all find the AiG debunking sites, and go and do a University course on evolution, or geology and so forth. I don’t feel sorry for them, not one bit.
I am not expert on this, but this does sound like you have a good argument here.
To me, he is lying and he knows it. This is not open to conjecture.
Whereas the motives of the rank and file YEC are to try to be good, albeit ignorant, Christians. Its the one’s in between, the proselytizers, the YEC apologists that are my main target. The producers of AiG are the kingpins in the drug cartel, and these folk are the distributors. These are the ones on the street corners selling drugs of ignorance and dependence to our children. I know this is not an exact analogy (as there is no such thing), but the point is that we should not be so forgiving of these people. They can access the correct information if they want, but they choose not to, and that is their crime.
Thanks for those comments about racism, however I think you have taken this in a slightly different direction. To make it clearer, let’s assume that we were dealing with a non-Christian who was spouting racist stuff. All I am saying is that we ought to treat YEC pushers the same as racists. This is not at all suggesting for a moment that they are, simply that the way we would respond to racists is how we should respond to YEC pushers.
My moral clarity may not be perfect, but it is certainly good enough to see that YEC pushers are on the wrong side of this debate.
Snelling even acknowledges that there are cracks, even though his article on AiG says the lack of cracks are evidence of folding while wet. When I asked AiG about it, I got a canned response from Snelling that the cracks occurred after the folding while wet.
You may be referring to what I wrote. My concern is that the “apologetics” taught by AiG is carried over to any topic one does not want to accept. MANY people are NOT doing this about racism. But many are. You could apply this to anything in science like climate change, which affects everyone. Since it affects the most vulnerable most acutely as well as the planet, and it’s doing so right now, these poor arguments need a healthy counter. I mention racism to show the jump from biological science to social science.
To me, it looks like a power struggle involving poor theology when it comes to the Body of Christ. There is power in building a tower (of YEC ministry perhaps), there is power in telling other members in Christ’s body that they should be mouths too. And if we’re unaware of the social sciences and how they play out in our lives, our experiences and affirmations as one part of the body of Christ may cause us to conflate that with being the One Entire Way that’s Only through Jesus.
When we’re a part of something bigger, we have to care about a whole host of different parts that don’t look like us. We lose a following. I don’t need to be afraid of Christian social justice reformers or scientists or stay at home parents- I can trust that God has called and is leading them and is working out their salvation, and my interest can be to lift them up instead of undermining them. I think that whatever our ministry or calling is, we need to have a clear caveat that says “I don’t speak for everyone and I can’t speak to every situation, but I’m trying to share Christ through this. And you’re welcome to change and build my perspective.”
This is maybe getting a little off point again, but the correlation I’m making is that the maintenance of a YEC worldview involves fracturing the Body of Christ as well as neglecting God’s Creation in many ways.
But looking through this discussion, it gives us a lot to work with: In addition to living what we say we believe, does the situation at hand necessitate us to address errors in theology? Evidence? Cognitive distortions? Etc.
I don’t understand how there are any layers to be folded if they’re all wet sediments. Or that rocks and minerals underwent sedimentation that quickly. Shouldn’t that have blended them?
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Just some of the many questions YEC does not answer. Regarding the sedimentation, it always amazes me how they ignore how long it would take to grind up granite and basalt to sand before it was deposited, when you can measure the erosion of those rocks today with constantly flowing water in mere millimeters per century. And once submerged in the depths of a flood, water flow would greatly diminish at the bottom.
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Good point to share if it ever comes up 
Or better yet, how did it bend and stretch the fossils in those layers?
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00288306.1990.10425690
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Besides the fact that the AIG article flat-out lies in their article about there not being cracks when in reality there are, the biggest problem with their wet deformation hypothesis, cracks or not, is the size of the formation concerned. The one in the article is about thirty metres high and must weigh millions of tons, and to believe that a formation that large could deform while wet and unconsolidated in that way stretches credulity to the limit. It’s like trying to build a cathedral out of play-doh.
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No thread on YEC misinformation would be complete without mentioning the Golden Oldie:
There were people who yelled out “Bullfrog” during some of Gish’s later presentations, or made “ribbit” sounds. That one is always good for a chuckle.
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I wasn’t, but happy to discuss your thoughts. If you are referring to the techniques they use in their brand of “apologetics” being used elsewhere, then I agree that this is a concern. One of the delicious ironies is hearing Ken Sham denouncing the flat earthers for their bad arguments and lack of evidence! To the rest of us of course, the flat earthers sound just like they do.
The same is true of the climate change deniers. Really, wherever you have science denial, the patterns are the same. The ingredients will always include - denounce the science, claim that there is a conspiracy, denounce individual scientists, cherry pick and quote mine, twist and distort the science and the data, tell everyone that there is no evidence, use circular and badly constructed arguments, play on the ignorance of their followers, and lie constantly and repeatedly over and over.
I only mentioned race as an example of something that we would not find acceptable regardless of our faith position, and would push back pretty hard as I am advocating we do with YEC pushers. Although I have come across some elements of the above bad arguments, I mostly find that run of the mill racists just like to blame and hate and usually are not attempting to hide behind pseudo-science (although the extremists do).
As with any large organisation, narcissists are often found at the top. Narcissists crave attention, can never ever ever be wrong no matter what, will constantly exaggerate and boast about their achievements, will always blame others for their failings, will habitually lie even if the lies are totally and obviously ridiculous and contradictory, will fabricate evidence, and use and manipulate people for their personal aggrandizement, and wherever possible, seek to build power and personal financial gain through lying and controlling other people. The behavior of both Ken Ham and Kent Hovind fits this profile very well.
Thus, you will find narcissists at the helm of Flat Earth groups, Climate Change denial groups, basically anywhere where the nutters have gathered and become organised.
People who are driven by self-interest can never hide it completely, and while they fool their flock and a lot of other people, they don’t fool me, not even for a moment. I know I am likely to get picked up here for impugning motives, but I do think it is about time we called a spade a spade. At some point, as a society, we need to be able to identify the narcissists and get rid of them - or learn to ignore them - and not let them get power and ruin things for everyone else.
However strong your theological case may be, it will never shift the views espoused by the kingpins of AiG because it is not in their self-interest, but I hope it wins over some of their followers.
As I have said above, I advocate a direct approach that only really applies if they are going after evolution. I say that you should refuse to discuss evolution with someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about, and tell them that once they know the real science and evidence, come back and have a chat. The theology seems to me to be secondary and fraught with problems. Yes, you can show that translations have changed the meaning of many words and phrases in the old testament, such that we cannot rely on a specific literal interpretation, and that your interpretation of scripture is better than theirs, but this will just lead to arguments and that is what I am trying to avoid.
Anyway, thanks for your thoughts Paige.
Happy Christmas!
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Thanks for you thoughts too. Even if I don’t feel called to take your approach, I find it vitally important for people to take focused roles and strong positions, and to share those ideas to help others think and consider if our approaches need to be changed. Some of us are made to influence the leaders, some are more effective at influencing the layperson. We’re helping each other have a stronger sense of our positions 
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