Re: Coal /YEC - Gastaldo Critique I

Ed Brayton (cynic@net-link.net)
Wed, 29 Apr 1998 09:27:44 -0400

Glenn R. Morton wrote:
> What I see
> is the same argument continued for years after it has been disproven and/or
> pointed out to the individual. In my opinion, that is not only sloppy
> research, it is morally incorrect to continue to repeat the argument after
> it has been shown to be erroneous.
>
> Example: solar shrinking (disproven in 1981/82) continues to be published.
> see:
> ~Dennis R. Peterson, Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation, (South
> Lake Tahoe:Creation Resource Foundation, 1990)p. 43
>
> Paul Ackerman, Its a Young World After All, (Grand Rapids: Baker
> Book House, 1986) p. 55
>
> Henry M. Morris, Creation and the
> Modern Christian, (El Cajon, California: Master Book Publishers,
> 1985), p. 227
> glenn

Glenn, have you seen the material put out by Bill's friend, Kent Hovind?
He cites dozens of "proofs" of a young earth and universe, including the
shrinking sun argument. He even includes arguments like the lunar dust
story, which has been debunked even by his fellow YECs. He adds a new
spin to that story that I've never heard anyone else use. He claims that
right after Neil Armstrong uttered the famous "small step for man" line,
he exclaimed, "It's solid!" because he was so surprised that he didn't
sink into a hundred feet of dust. That just baffles me. The transcript
and tape of Armstrong's words when he stepped onto the moon are
available in any public library and can even be downloaded on the web.
Why make up a story that can be so easily disproven? Dave Matson has
done a great job of debunking his young earth proofs in a file that is
available in the talk.origins archive and on the Internet Infidels page.
I was asked to write an article about some of Hovind's other claims for
American Atheists, but turned it down because I don't wish to be
associated with that organization. Some of it is just crazy, like
claiming that AIDS was invented in a lab in Maryland by the government
to reduce the world's population, or that the Smithsonian has the
skeletons of 33,000 people they murdered "to prove their evolution
theory", or that UFOs are "Satanically owned and operated", or the
Egyptian pyramids were either built by Noah and Shem or Adam and Enoch.
There are lots of others like these on his tapes and in his seminars.
You sit and read his material or watch his tapes in utter disbelief that
anyone could shovel out such drivel and still look himself in the
mirror. And one has to wonder, does he think that God is well served by
such nonsense?

Ed