This is part of a series of posts where I subscribe and respond to a widely advertised theistic educational course.
Unfortunately, the final day of the theistic educational course turns out to be nothing more than a link to download an audio recording of a talk given by Hugh Ross, a shameless Young Earth Creationist who ignores any evidence that contradicts his teachings, no matter how infallible. Now I’m no biologist, so don’t take my word for any of this. Actually, you don’t have to take my word for it all. Biologist P Z Myers has already responded to Ross’ work so I don’t have to, and you don’t have to listen to me ramble on about evidence, proof and selective application of scientific rules. P Z Myers is, of course, an atheist and a very vocal one at that, but it’s difficult not to look at his dismantling of Ross’ points as being convincing.
If you’d like to experience (there’s no other word, really) this course, you can sign up at cosmicfingerprints.com.
Reflections
This rather disappointing email completed the five day course. When i signed up, I was hoping to be challenged. The claims made right at the outset were bold and used scientific teminology. I wanted facts and proof, not the same arguments paraded out again in a slightly different dress. In may ways, this course and the many like it are hindering the course of debate rather than furthering it. By making the same arguments over and over again, with little rethought and no acceptance of counter points, they are preventing serious debate points from being taken seriously.
If the aim of this course was to make theists appear out of date and unimaginative, then it’s succeeded.
As an aside, the topics covered by this “course” are the sort of topics I would imagine an Alpha course would cover. Can someone with experience of an Alpha course confirm / deny this?
Alpha is more for ppl who already believe there is a god and maybe aren’t into the whold “jesus” thing yet but are wondering.
you go to a church, eat dinner (which everyone likes, atheists and theists alike), hang out an talk, then go watch a movie of this nicky guy who is a pastor at some church in england.
then you look at things from a logical, not scientific perspective. like if jesus was a fictional character or if he didn’t rise from the dead, why would each of the twelve disciples stake their lives to claim the opposite? thats just one example. but im not sure if you course was anything like that.
I’m just writing to let you know that, while there are certainly more young earth creationists around than you can shake a stick at, Hugh Ross is not one of them. He is a creationist, but he is what is termed an “old earth creationist”. He is anti-evolution, but he accepts the fact that the earth and the universe have been around for billions of years.