HENRY MORRIS AND CREATION SCIENCE
The Bible though it claims to have been written by men inspired by God contradicts geography, geology, chemistry, medicine, psychiatry and biology. And also anthropology and even meteorology. Undaunted, Christians argue the opposite. A Bible with errors in it ceases to be different from any other book. You can write a better Bible.
THE MAD MORRIS DANCE
In San Diego, California, there is a scientist’s group called the Institute for
Creation Research. Scientists can be bigoted and obscurantist so nobody need
worry about an organisation of renegade scientists who claim to be Bible
believers and that science can prove their Bible to be true. There is a lot of
praise and money for their work and they are big attractions. They could entice
any scientist to betray their profession. But it is still a drop in the
bucket of bad science.
The Institute routinely accuses the real and professional scientists of a
materialistic and evolutionary dogmatism which ignores the basic laws of
science. If scientists are that terrible then they must be hellbent on
avoiding God! They are making huge accusations against them of dishonesty
and incompetence. The accusations are too big to be credible.
In the book, Reason and Belief we learn that in the mid seventies nearly three
quarters of top American scientists had no religion and the number from Catholic
families was not even 5% (page 72). And the fact that the religious ones would
not know much about their religion so that their commitment to it could not be
taken as an indicator that their religion is probably true is important.
The president of Creation Research is the mental or lying or both, Henry Morris.
His little book, Science and the Bible, lies about something that Abraham was
told. It starts with a lie and that is how it goes on.
Abraham was informed by God that he would have more descendants than there are
stars in Heaven by God (Genesis 15). Fundamentalists are amazed that Abraham was
told that there were countless stars, a fact that was only recently discovered
by science. This does look startling … until one goes to the context in which
God said it. God told Abraham to look up at the sky and try to count the stars
if he could and wanted to meaning that there would be a lot and Abraham would
have as many and more descendants. God never said that there were more stars
than the visible ones. God was just giving Abraham a metaphor for he knew
Abraham wasn’t going to try and count the stars nor did God expect him to! Mad
literalist Morris and his fundamentalists are trying to hoodwink us. God made
the mistake of forgetting to try to count the stars visible to the naked eye
before he spoke for they can be counted.
Even if we could count the stars it would be impossible because the earth moves
and you would never be able to tell what stars you have already counted.
Morris finds it remarkable that the Bible teaches that all things deteriorate in
Psalm 102:25-27 and Romans 8 (Science and the Bible, page 19). All things do not
deteriorate for energy, from which all things are made doesn’t. These verses are
merely referring to the decay and disintegration we all see in the world and are
not about science.
Job 36:27-29 supposedly evinces Elihu’s miraculous knowledge when it speaks of
the hydrologic cycle. Water evaporates and goes up to the sky and then comes
back as rain. There is nothing amazing about this for the clouds look like steam
and steam rises and turns to water when it touches something and anybody can see
the rain comes from the clouds. (This is why it took no miracle for the author
of Ecclesiastes (1:6,7) to know that rain comes from the sea and that it is
supplied by rain.) Elihu said this. Elihu was not an inspired prophet and the
scripture does not declare him to be one. If Elihu said something that was found
to be true centuries later then that has nothing to do with trying to show that
the Bible taught things that only God could have known.
Morris imagines that when Paul wrote that one star differs from another in glory
(1 Corinthians 15:41) that God had revealed to him that the stars were different
sizes and of different strengths in light for Paul could not have known this for
it is a later discovery. But Paul did not intend to reveal things ahead of his
time. He gazed up at the clear night sky and noticed that some stars were dimmer
or brighter than others like the rest of us have done.
Morris said lays down an astonishing interpretation of Psalm 19:6 which says
that the sun goes from the end of Heaven and circles around Heaven. This might
mean that the sun circles the earth. But Morris says, though he cannot prove it,
that it is saying that the sun goes round in a circle in the milky way and that
the galaxy to which our sun belongs is in motion! The verse says that the sun
comes from one end of Heaven and circles to the end of it and then that there is
nothing hid from the heat of this motion. It may mean that the sun rises in the
east and sets in the west in a round way. It may just be saying that the sun
moves across the sky in a circular way. The bit about the heat strongly suggests
that this is the true interpretation for only the earth can feel the heat and
not the parts of Heaven. Morris like a bad scientist completely ignores the rule
of Occam to take the simplest meaning.
Morris raves that he sees a reference to the earth being round at Proverbs 8:27
because it says that God set a compass on the surface of the ocean and set the
firmament on it. It was commonly believed at the time that the sky because it
looks like a dish was a big round dish. God may have just been marking the area
for the dish and not working out what size to make the sphere he was planning to
make.
Morris reckons that when the Bible says that the blood causes life (Leviticus
17:11) that it revealed something that was not known until William Harvey
discovered it in 1616. (The verse may say that the blood is the life which is
not meant literally for dead people have blood.) That revelation is alleged to
have been that the blood circulates around the body and keeps it alive by
supplying food, oxygen and water. That is rubbish. Many people have always
believed that blood gives life for they saw what happened to people who bled to
death though they did think that dead men do bleed so they knew that too little
blood kills. There is a difference between saying that this and knowing how the
blood does it. Only a Christian could twist a verse that only spoke of the
impossibility of life without blood into a revelation about its circulation.
If the Bible said that the life of flesh is in the breath the fundamentalists
would be arguing that it knew about the fact that breath takes in oxygen and
expels bad gases and that keeps you alive. They make no sense.
Creation no longer takes place as in something appearing out of nowhere and
Morris asserts that the author of Hebrews knew this miraculously before it was
proven by science (4:3). The verse he has in mind says that the wicked will not
receive God’s reward through his works have been finished from the foundation of
the world. Now the cessation of creative work has nothing to do with not getting
a reward. The author is just saying that though God has prepared rewards from
the time he finished creation for all people not all will get them and he knows
before it happens what will happen so it is all settled since the dawn of time.
This comes out clearly in the Amplified Bible. Hebrews is not on about finished
creation at all. Morris’ failure to understand or want to understand this is the
reason why he tells us that this verse speaks of the discovery of science about
the conservation of energy, the first law of thermodynamics. Christians believe
that God is creating now for he has to keep holding things in existence though
it is not as obvious as it was the first time he created when things popped out
of nothing but now nothing can see things coming from nothing. Also Morris
believes that God is creating souls now. How an he know that God isn’t creating
matter still maybe at the remote corners of the universe or in some other
universe?
Morris quotes Genesis 2:1,2 where it is written that God finished his work of
making the Heavens and the earth as a standby. But God finishing the Heavens and
the earth does not mean that he won’t create any more.
Morris thinks that the trinity, three separate persons being one God, is
possible for space consists of height, length and breadth and is still one. So
he would regard the trinity doctrine, which is thinks is scriptural, as a
miracle – miraculous knowledge of the scientific doctrine that three can be one.
But any mathematically minded person would know that space has three dimensions
and is still one. It is not three kinds of space making up one space so it is
only superficially like the trinity. It is no more a mystery than the one
shamrock having three leaves. And the Bible does not actually say it means there
are three distinct persons in God. It could be argued that since the Bible says
there is one God that anything that seems to mean that there are two or more
persons in God means it symbolically. It never proves it means it literally.
Christians say that persons is the nearest they can get to describing the
threefold being of God. It is not an exact description. Those who believe in the
Bible alone like Morris cannot believe in three “persons” in one God if the
Bible does not know of this loose use of the word person and would have to say
there are three persons in God. The Bible makes no distinction between person
and being so it would mean there were three gods in one God for that is all it
could understand a trinity to mean. If space or anything else can be three in
one, God might be different for he is not like space and space is not like him.
Morris dishonestly claims that the Bible was scientifically accurate when it
says the world was once flooded for there is enough water on earth and in the
sky to do that. But if there had been a flood it would have happened close
enough to our time to leave its mark all over the world. There would be fish
bones all over the Sahara desert. But the real reason I said Morris was
dishonest was because the Bible presents the flood as the result of rain and as
a miracle. But he is trying to give it a scientific foundation. The Catholic,
Radio Replies (Vol 3, Question 133), sees the flood as a miracle.
In the Genesis story of the flood, Noah sends out a raven to see if the waters have receded for if dry land is not appearing it will have no recourse but to return to the ark for food or because there was no place to abide. That is stupid for ravens eat dead bodies and they should have something to land on. Surely there was a lot of debris floating about? It must have had plenty of bodies to choose from. The story is full of lies and holes. Then Noah sends out a dove and knows dry land is back when it returns to him with an olive leaf.
God is not going to promise never to kill the human race again by flooding
unless it means by a worldwide flood. People have always drowned in
floods. The text is clear that he made that promise.
Morris claimed in 1993 that the Devil used psychic powers to trick Eve so that
she would take the forbidden fruit. This shows his mentality because even the
Bible does not go that far. It does not bother him that the Bible says in
Genesis 1 that water existed before God made the land though it is clear from
science that the land existed before water did.
It does not bother him that God made the stars in Genesis 1:16 on Day Four of
the Creation whereas modern astronomy sees stars being made today. Morris will
say that this does not prove that that was the only time stars would be made.
But it is obvious that the purpose of Genesis is to show that the designing took
place in stages and that was the end when the stage was finished. The fact that
Exodus 20:11 which says that God made the earth in six days and uses the word
asah which means renovating is further proof (page 14, Proof the Bible is True).
It is odd that Genesis has a God who makes the earth without form and void
instead of making it right in the first place. This may imply an evolving God
who is not almighty or that God just found these materials and started to work
on them. The latter would deny that God made all things from nothing. Genesis
uses a word called bereshit for making which is supposed to refer to making out
of nothing. But the Hebrews like all ancient peoples often meant what you could
not see or touch by nothing which made it nothing to them but was not
necessarily nothing.
There are some Christian fundamentalist books which reject the rubbish in
Morris’ book. He is not worth thinking about. For the likes of him to try and
make Christianity as provable as two and two being four is dangerous indeed for
we are better off without it and don’t need it. When he is president of the
Creation Research Institute what does that say about the others in the
Institute?
The best book against the lies and the twisting of facts and wilful ignorance
about what science really says and the continual taking of other people’s
writings out of context that Morris indulges in is the fundamentalist book,
Creation and Evolution, by Dr Alan Hayward. This book is superb and refutes the
evidences that Creation Science offers that the earth is at most 10,000 years
old and the other absurd statements it makes.
Creation science is fraud.
THE WWW
Creationism
This shows that the prime creationist apologist Duane Gish has been corrected
many times for his errors and misunderstandings of his subject and has still
repeated the same errors afterwards to make his case look good. He is perverting
the evidence purposely. He has been known to make up quotations for the
authorities he cites as evidence. He lies to prove that the skeleton Lucy which
shows a transition between animal to man was just a monkey and could not walk
upright. Both of his claims are false.
http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/gish.html
Science in the Bible? Dr M Magee
www.askwhy.co.uk/truth/440BibleScience.html
Why It’s a Load of Old Cobblers, Adrian Barnett
www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/noahs_ark.html
Exposes the utter absurdity of the Noah’s Ark story in the Bible
The Bible as History Flunks New Archaeological Tests
www.10.nytimes.com/library/arts/072900david-bible.html
