Didn’t think there were young earth creationists here in Northern Alberta? Well think again!
Looks like Ken Ham, along with his younger brother Steve, are doing a whistle stop tour to the Capital City in April, giving presentations at two Edmonton Churches. Ken will be presenting at West Meadows Baptist Church on April 4-6th, and then Meadowlands Baptist Church on the 6th in the evening. The topics he’ll be discussing are : Is Genesis Relevant in 2014? ; Genetics and the Origin of the ”Races”; Six Days and the Authority of Scripture ; How to communicate the gospel in our secular community; and Evolution, Scoffers and the Last Days. Hopefully he puts some of his newfound knowledge from the debate with Bill Nye into these presentations……but I suspect not.
I know that Creation Ministries were here in Spruce Grove last year and it was interesting that the two day event saw a decrease in attendance on the second day, almost as if the church congregation weren’t buying it. What do you think will happen when Ken Ham visits though? Is he a big enough name to fill the seats regardless?
Uhhhhh wow…
one of the benefits of believing i guess
, the Ham brings its own cheese.
evolvefish has a I “bowtie pic” Nye t shirt for sale, they might just be able to deliver it by these events.
I ordered one, but i have a couple appropriate t’s from dawkins to wear for my removal from the talks.
Just a thought….. If the believers(Christians) are wrong
and there is no God, what do they loose when they die?
I think “nothing”!
But if the “non believers” are wrong and there IS a God, what will they loose when they die? Eternal life! And spend eternety in hell.
A good question to think about!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gods mercy is still there for everyone who is willing to repent and to turn from their sins and to follow Jesus Christ!!
@ KL
I shall wager you, or someone you know has been reading about Pascal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager
the question is how do you force yourself to believe something that you do not believe to be true. and can you do it with the sincerity to fool a god that is supposedly all knowing.
now if Dante’s map o’ hell is correct, blasphemers do better then hypocrites, ending up a full 2 circles ahead of those that fake belief.
so, we are still better off not believing with honesty and integrity, then faking a belief we can not honestly hold.
KL, Your point is known as Pascal’s wager. It is indeed something worth thinking about…on many levels. On the surface, it seems like a safe bet, but the truth can easily be seen when we bisect it and apply critical thinking and reason:
1. If the believers are wrong and there is no “god”, what do they loose when they die?
To this you answered you think nothing…but think again on this a little more. Have they really lost nothing? Has Ken Ham, who has spent his entire life in pursuit of destroying the very science that has led to so much medical advancements, lost nothing? Surely you would agree he has…and it needn’t apply only to extreme fundamentalists. If a religious person spends their entire life in pursuit of a false truth, living by a false truth, and denouncing many of the joys of this life, in order to prepare for another life, that turns out to be false…then indeed they have something to loose: this life! The only life they have. Furthermore, they are influencing the policy that is put in place in the world, that affects the lives of everyone around them. Have these people not lost something as well? Believe it or not, there are churches in the US that are pushing to remove their constitution in favour of Old Testament law. Kansas passed laws allowing parents to beat their children 10 times, to the point of leaving marks, based on this belief system. Still think they have nothing to loose? You don’t even have to go into the US. Archaeology sites in BC have been plagued by vandalism and destruction by people trying to destroy the evidence of dinosaurs because it conflicts with their preconceived notions. How much of a waste is this life, if it is not enjoyed as the limited mortal one it is?
2. If the non-believer is wrong and there is a “god”, what will they loose when they die?
No more than 99% of religious people, who happened to worship the wrong “god”. In fact, I think it would be less insulting to accept the logical position of not believing at all when there is no evidence, then to twist his existence, and promote a false belief, claiming he is something other than he is. Surely if there is a god, he would find it more humbling to be honest and accept we don’t know enough to make the call, than to claim to know he is something he is not.
Furthermore, wouldn’t it be more insulting to this god to fake believing in him, in order to win a bet, than to honestly accept not knowing? What sort of a god would rather someone pretend to believe out of this wager, than be true to themselves?
The fact is, whether there is a god or not, we have a brain that is capable of concluding reality based on reason, logic and intelligence. Would it not be more insulting to a god to not use what he allegedly gave us, and instead blindly follow a hunch? As Galileo Galilei once said: “I do not think it necessary to believe that the same god who has given us our senses, reason and intelligence, wished us to abandon their use, giving us by some other means the information that we could gain through them.”
(I know that Creation Ministries were here in Spruce Grove last year and it was interesting that the two day event saw a decrease in attendance on the second day, almost as if the church congregation weren’t buying it. What do you think will happen when Ken Ham visits though? Is he a big enough name to fill the seats regardless?)
That is the problem . Churches are raising the name of speakers higher than the name of the risin savior JESUS CHRIST !! What a shame !!
2 Timothy 4 :3 kjv for the time will come when they will not endure sound Doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers , having itching ears !!