A Faith Big on Divine Wrath, Judgment, Punishment and Death

Answers in Genesis Ark promotion film: This still from the film shows a mother and child just before their execution by a huge tsunami which can be seen through the window bearing down on them ; no problems to Ken Ham: It's all about well deserved judgment!

In this post entitled "Odious Christianity" abrasive evangelical atheist PZ Myers publishes some tweets he had seen from fundamentalist Ken Ham. In the light of AiG's Ark promotion film (See screen capture above) the content of these tweets is true to type:

Taken from PZ Myers blog: Ken Ham's take on sin and physical death *

As we know Ken Ham's version of the Christian faith majors in the subjects of divine vengeance, wrath, judgement, mega death and the condemnation of Christian "heretics" (= those who don't agree with Ham). I have plenty of examples of that: See, here, here, here, here, here and here. In Ken's mind a person's salvation is at best  questionable and at worst invalidated if that person doesn't accept the divine authority of Ken's opinions (which, of course, he claims are from the Bible - as the Jehovah's witnesses claim about their opinions). As far as Ham is concerned that "good news" he speaks of above, the good news of the gospel, is in danger of being null and void if you don't believe what he claims the Bible teaches about the age of the cosmos.  

Here's PZ's reaction to the above, with my comments interleaved:

Hate is a strong word, but not strong enough for my feelings. Ken Ham might be a decent human being if he weren’t so thoroughly poisoned by this toxic faith he professes, and insists on infecting others. Christianity is the rot that corrupts minds.

MY COMMENT:  Whether or not Christianity is the rot that corrupts minds seems to be a function of the minds that receive it: The Bible has been abused to justify all sorts of atrocities, from the burning of heretics, through the persecution of homosexuals, to the oppression of reasonable evangelicals. But then look at the way evolutionary theory has been abused to justify social Darwinism. A lot seems to depend on the personalities (and their world view) who are doing the interpretation, whether it's of Christianity or atheism. 

 I reject his notion of sin — the idea that there is some kind of divine law against which we can transgress — but humanists do not deny that we can do wrong and we can do harm. We think we should do better, not to appease some vengeful deity, but because it improves our lives and helps make those around us happier and better able to live up to their potential. 

MY COMMENT: I can't disagree with that! But it sounds to me as if Myers actually does accept the "notion of sin" in its most general sense; that is, if it is simply understood as wrong doing and failure to make all due allowance for the feelings of those around us (which for Christians presumably includes God).  I know it's an old fashioned word with bad puritanical connotations but as I frequently say "Sin is the word with the 'I' in middle" and that quip sums up much (but not all) about the human predicament that is problematical. Hell is a place where the 'I' rules and has taken over completely 

Clearly PZ is getting the impression  from Ken Ham's Christian Witness that God is some vengeful deity who majors in the punishment of human beings for inscrutable and arbitrary reasons. I can hardly blame PZ for that impression given Ken's wrath centred Christian Witness. Thank you very much Ken you're obviously doing a grand job of it. 

We certainly do accept that death is inevitable, but not because we are wicked — the wicked often seem to flourish while the good may die young. Are we to measure the virtue of human beings by their longevity? Charles Manson is 82, and surely destined to join the saints in heaven, while every infant death must open a chute directly to hell for its wicked soul.

What enrages me most is the implicit condemnation of every human being who had the effrontery to die, which by the Christian doctrine so clearly stated by Ham is every goddamned human being ever.

So my father, a good man, died quietly in his sleep on Christmas years ago — of heart disease. But in Ken Ham’s filthy mind, his death was the bite of an angry god against whom he’d transgressed.

My sister, a good woman, died suffering in a hospital bed of a massive systemic infection, leaving behind two young children. To Ken Ham, she deserved her death because she’d transgressed in some unknowing way against his mighty, vengeful god.

We all have people we’ve loved and lost to accident, to disease, to old age. To a Christian, their god willed this loss, and to Christians like Ken Ham, those deaths were a punishment for “sin”.

Some day, Ken Ham will die, and remember — it will be because he is struck down by his capricious god for his wickedness, and every moment of his dying, if it be long and agonizing, will be deserved. At least, that’s what he should believe.

MY COMMENT: Well I can't speak for Ken Ham's "filthy mind"; he'll have to speak for himself. But Perhaps Myers ought to read Denis Alexander's book "Evolution or Creation; Do we have ti choose?". Now, I don't expect Myers to have anything other than contempt for Alexander's Christian faith and theology. but what the book would tell him is that for people like Alexander belief in Christianity doesn't necessarily imply a belief that death is a punishment for sin; In his book Alexander sketches out his idea that there are two kinds of death, spiritual death as well as physical death, where Alexander sees physical death as part of the natural order of things and intimately bound up with evolution as a means of creation.  I'm not going to comment here on whether Alexander's views are right or wrong - that would take a lot of consideration as Alexander is a sophisticated thinker (I wish to God that Ken Ham was as well!). Suffice to say here that it follows that Ham's views about physical death and sin (Except in Ham's mind, of course) aren't a necessary interpretation of Christianity; others, like Alexander, think differently. 

 ***

I know of Christians who, although they believe the cosmos to be 6000 years old, haven't, unlike Ken Ham, turned the question into a faith quality test and therefore they don't get uptight with those Christians who disagree with them. Alas, the polarization of the creation question, particularly in North America, does not encourage this kind of respectful disagreement. If fundamentalists like Ken Ham and John Mackay succeed in exporting their epistemic arrogance to the UK where the question is not such a divisive contention, it won't be long before Christians here will be at one another throats - as some professing Christians are in the States; e.g. Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton.**

Footnotes

* To be fair on Ham it is just possible to interpret his meanings more along the lines that death is less a punishment for sin than it is a ramification of sin: e.g. If someone is killed in a terrorist attack such a death is caused by sin (of the terrorist) but it is not as such a punishment for the murdered person's own sin. However, as I find Ken Ham's authoritarian behavior generally unacceptable I'm in no mood to give him the benefit of the doubt. 

** The August 2016 edition of Premier Christianity magazine carries a news item on page 13 entitled "Trump has made a commitment to Christ, says Dr James Dobson". The article reports that Dobson  claims televangelist Paula White had 'personally led him (Trump) to Christ'. Dobson is a right-wing Christian who, according to the article, sits on Trump's evangelical advisory board. Let us now turn to the November 2016 edition of Premier Christianity magazine. This edition contains an interview with Tony Campolo a "red-letter" evangelical who supports Hilary Clinton. and says "She (Clinton) wanted to use politics to do what her Christian faith had led her to do". Campolo, as an evangelical who accepts gay marriage, would likely be considered as at best a very substandard Christian by the Christian right who have more tolerance towards Trump's sleaziness than they do to the conscientious acceptance of gays. As a rule the Christian conservative right is far less accepting of the authenticity of  the faith of the 'Christian left' (such as Campolo) than vice versa. 

However the point under scrutiny here, as I've implied in the main text, is that both Clinton and Trump identify as Christians. In short the Trump vs. Clinton presidential campaigns were effectively a Christian-on-Christian celebrity 'death match'. The Christian conservative right are likely to attempt to solve the paradox that this introduces by claiming that Clinton isn't a Christian - they may even claim she's demonically inspired! (See video below).

POSTSCRIPT 
The Fundamentalist Response to Myers' Post

Below I publish Ken Ham's Facebook response to PZ Myers' blog post on "Odious Christianity". Actually the response is largely that of Ken's friend and fellow fundamentalist, Ray Comfort, whom Ken publishes. As we read this response we bear in mind that Myers is reacting to the version of Christianity as presented by Ham and Comfort; after all, PZ certainly wouldn't claim to know God and therefore what he knows of the God of Christianity is by and large via the likes of Ham and Comfort.  So when Ham claims that Myers' post is a  "hateful rant against God" we remember that this is the God as perceived by Ham which Myers is ranting against. 

Comfort, as is the wont of fundamentalists, claims to know what is really going on inside Myers mind, namely "enmity against God", "hatred of the law of God", "anger primarily at God", "loves the darkness hates the light". The epistemic certainty of Fundamentalists means that they believe they have authoritative scriptural insight into the minds of detractors. As I have often remarked fundamentalists take it for granted that those who disagree with them, Christian and atheist alike, do so with malign motives and in bad conscience - I've seen that in action many times among fundamentalists. Hence this character defamation of PZ Myers by Comfort is no surprise to me. But I take it with a pinch of salt; whatever, the motives of Myers (and we don't  know those, of course), the fact is that the behavior of Ham and Comfort is not exactly an attractive feature and could well explain Myers abrasive reaction.  But of course Ham and Comfort are likely to read a slight against themselves as a slight against the Almighty and therefore worthy of the utmost censor. 

Ken Ham shared Ray Comfort's post.

Ray Comfort from Living Waters -- a great personal friend and friend of the ministry -- posted a response to PZ Myers' recent hateful rant against God:

 Ray Comfort

Professor PZ Myers hates Christianity. Nor is he a big fan of my good friend, Ken Ham.

In writing about his hatred, PZ unwittingly showed his hand when he said,

"I reject his notion of sin — the idea that there is some kind of divine law against which we can transgress — but humanists do not deny that we can do wrong and we can do harm. We think we should do better, not to appease some vengeful deity, but because it improves our lives and helps make those around us happier and better able to live up to their potential. We certainly do accept that death is inevitable, but not because we are wicked — the wicked often seem to flourish while the good may die young. Are we to measure the virtue of human beings by their longevity? Charles Manson is 82, and surely destined to join the saints in heaven, while every infant death must open a chute directly to hell for its wicked soul."

His hatred is perfectly in line with the Bible:

"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be" (Romans 8:7).

PZ is unashamedly godless (a state the Bible refers to as "carnal"), and so his mind is at "enmity" against God. That means he is in a continual state of hostility towards his Creator. That certainly is true. Even though he doesn't believe that He exists, but he contemptuously hates the very thought of "a god."

But look at the pinpoint accuracy of the Scriptures:

"...for it [our carnal mind] is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be."

His hatred is directed at the "law of God,"--the moral Law (the Ten Commandments).

PZ is like a criminal who hates the police, not because of who they are individually, but because of what they represent. They stand for the law--that which is right and good, and that is offensive to someone who loves and lives for crime.

PZ's railings about his loved ones dying is tragic, but peripheral. They are not the main reason why he is angry.

His anger is primarily at God and His Law, because he doesn't like being told what to do. Like you and I before we came to Christ, he loves his sin, and he who loves the darkness hates the light.

I'm not sure why PZ called Charles Manson "wicked," when his atheistic worldview doesn't allow for anyone to be "wicked."

Or could it simply be that Manson transgressed the moral Law, which says "You shall not kill," and PZ intuitively knows that, because of his God-given knowledge of right and wrong (see Romans 2:15).

It's actually heartening to see him using his moral compass. If he would put down his weapons and study how God's moral compass is infinitely higher, he may rethink his rejection of "The soul who sins, shall die."

This is because every death is sobering evidence of the truth of that verse.

You can see PZ in action in our movie "Evolution vs God" (over 2 million views) at www.FullyFreeFilms.com

P.S. PZ hates the movie.