The Satisfaction of Beating the Village Idiot

[bobbarker]

I hate to tell this to everyone in the middle of high fiving one another, but Ken Ham, the owner of the Creation Museum in Kentucky, is a fringe guy.  He’s the village idiot of the Christian community…. Yes, we have them.  Everyone does.  He is so fringe that he is denounced by Pat Robertson.  How far out do you have to be to have that happen and

Comments

[saber_rider]

According to Gallup polls, amongst those that don't go to church regularly, 25% believe that god created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years. Amongst those who go weekly, that number jumps to 67%. It's kinda hard to think of at least 25% or more to be a "fringe" part of Christianity. Accounting for demographics, that's something like one of eight people in the US believe in a literal creation, or more. I give a lot of credit to people of faith who make it clear that their common faith with radicals doesn't stop them from denouncing their radical ideas. If the majority of people of faith were willing to draw a line regarding such ideas, I'd have a much better view of religion. However, there's plenty of people who even if they don't agree with the ideas believe they should be given respect, simply because they are religious in nature. This makes religion at the very least complicit in the spreading of misinformation. Nobody really cares about what the village idiot is saying, but nobody should support his ideas as valuable contributions.

The telling part of Ham's dialog is that nothing would convince him otherwise. It's his faith. But from the outside view, he happens to believe one part of the bible more than other, non-fringe Christians do. When asked a similar question, many people of faith will respond the same way. Nothing will convince them their faith is wrong, because it's their faith. You're certainly right that there's plenty of misrepresentation going on. But in this case a lot of it is to point out how faith quickly leads to absurdity. I've met plenty of people of faith who believe that religion is a matter that's really only between them and their god, and perhaps those that hold similar beliefs. But when a person's expect their faith to be relevant to anybody else, it doesn't matter if it's a fringe belief like creationism or a mainstream belief like (for example) the divinity of christ. They're all equally unsupported, irrational beliefs.