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Nov. 16, 2018 - The Matt Walsh Show

40:31

Ep. 145 - Responding To Ken Ham’s Distortions And Misinformation

Recently, Ken Ham responded to my podcast where I explained why I do not hold to a Young Earth Creationist view. His response was misleading and obscurant. He attacked me personally, questioned my faith, and misrepresented my view. Today I’m going to set the record straight. Date: 11-16-2018 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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	Today on the Matt Wall Show, I'm going to dive into the treacherous waters of young earth creationism again.
	I explained on my show a few weeks ago why I don't believe in a young earth.
	Ken Ham, the famed creationist, responded.
	His response was bad and misleading in many ways.
	And so I'm going to offer my rebuttal to it today on the show.
	Please pay no attention to the floral patterned chair that's right behind me.
	I know it's very girly, but for some reason my wife put that thing in my office, and I don't know why, but I've learned that I'm not supposed to move any furniture in this house because it's all been put in a place for a reason.
	I don't know what the reason is, but there is a method behind it, and so I can't interfere with that process.
	All right, let me tell you why I'm doing This podcast, or this episode of the podcast, anyway.
	A few weeks ago, I did a show about young-earth creationism, and I explained why I am not a young-earth creationist.
	I do not believe that the earth is 6,000 years old.
	I believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God.
	I believe that the Bible does teach truth, but I don't believe that the Bible requires us to hold the six-day creationist view.
	I believe that that view is not only scientifically wrong, but I also think it's theologically wrong.
	I think it is a misinterpretation, a misreading, a misunderstanding of the text.
	Now, that's my position.
	It's very important for you to understand that that's what my position is.
	My position is not that the Bible is wrong.
	My position is that if you read the Bible that way, then I think that you're wrong.
	I don't think you're a bad person.
	I don't think you're stupid.
	I don't think you're a bad Christian.
	I just think that, you know, we have a disagreement on that topic.
	So there was a lot of reaction to that episode.
	Some of it was thoughtful and interesting.
	And this was a few weeks, probably almost about a month ago that I did that episode.
	And, you know, the reaction has not, has hardly slowed down.
	And as I said, some of the, you know, I've heard from a lot of people, I've heard from a lot of people that agree with me.
	Some of whom are afraid to say out loud that they agree because they're afraid that they'll be, I don't know, disowned by their families if they come out as an old earth heretic.
	But some of the responses I've gotten, a lot of the responses have been disappointing, to be honest.
	I say disappointing not because people agreed with me—I'm used to that—but disappointing because a great many Christians made it clear that they were simply unwilling to listen to anyone who would dare disagree with the Young Earth view.
	They said, I'm a heretic, I'm a fake Christian, I'm a fraud, I'm an idiot, I'm terrible at theology, I need to stop talking about these things, how dare I, I know nothing about science, I know nothing about anything, so on and so forth.
	Ken Ham over at Answers in Genesis issued a response as well.
	Ken Ham is, if you aren't familiar, Ken Ham, probably the most well-known young Earth creationist in the country.
	He runs the Creation Museum, where you can learn about how dinosaurs and people coexisted and other interesting facts.
	At first, when I read his response, I wasn't going to issue any further rebuttal to it.
	He so mischaracterized my view and he represented it so falsely and he made such a straw man of what I said that on top of my readers and listeners, you know, being ticked off at me for my position on this, I've been getting emails and messages from his followers for weeks accusing me of saying things I never said and taking positions I never took.
	All because Ken Ham told them that's what I said.
	For some reason, a lot of people have come under the impression that Ken Ham is an expert on science and theology, and they trust him implicitly on those subjects, and apparently on every subject.
	Because when he responded to me and blatantly misconstrued my opinions, they just went with it.
	They just assumed... Now, of course, he responded to me.
	He didn't offer a link to what I actually... So that's problem number one, before I get into his response.
	He responded without... I don't think he quoted anything that I said, and he offered no link to it whatsoever.
	He didn't... So it was just his...
	He just expected people to take his word for it.
	He was going to represent what I said, and you're just supposed to take his word for it.
	And a lot of his followers did exactly that.
	And so because Ham has done this, because he attacked my faith, rather than simply rebutting my opinions, he attacked my faith.
	So I have no choice then but to respond and to clarify some things.
	Now, Just to review my basic contention, to summarize it very briefly before getting into Ham's response, I agree with the vast majority of scientists, Christian and secular scientists alike, who say that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old, the universe is around 14 billion years old.
	I think an honest evaluation of the geological data, the cosmological data, astronomical data, anthropological, archaeological, mathematical data, all of that supports this view.
	The young earth view can only cherry pick a few bits of data from each of these disciplines while rejecting most of the rest of it.
	And that just isn't how you do science.
	In other words, you can't reject almost everything that, say, archaeologists and anthropologists have discovered while hanging your hat on a cave painting of a dinosaur in Utah.
	Which is, you know, that's not a strawman.
	That's a lot of people sending me this stuff about cave paintings of dinosaurs.
	They think that this is really good evidence of a young Earth.
	The problem is, first of all, these dinosaur cave paintings are not actually dinosaurs.
	And that's really clear when you look at an undoctored photo of them.
	And for some of these photos people were sending me, I had to go look it up myself because the photos they were sending had been enhanced.
	Not by the person.
	I think the person sending it didn't realize that these were doctored, enhanced photos.
	But when you go and look at the real image, the dinosaur outline isn't nearly as clear.
	The main point is, how can you latch on to that while rejecting every single artifact, all of the thousands of artifacts discovered which have been dated back well over 10,000 years?
	You see, it doesn't make sense.
	I mentioned in the first video, I did.
	I mean, there are many examples of human artifacts that have been dated back well over 10,000 years.
	Just one example, one type of example, are these Venus sculptures.
	Sculptures of usually rather plump women with exaggerated features, and it's believed that these were represented fertility cults in ancient times.
	Many of these Venus sculptures have been dated back tens of thousands of years.
	So the problem is when archaeologists discover Those kinds of things.
	It doesn't make sense to go, no, that's not real.
	No, that's not real.
	No, you're wrong about that.
	You're wrong about that.
	No, archaeologists, you're wrong on that.
	You're wrong on that.
	No, no, no, no.
	Oh, yes, yes, that, that, yes, yes.
	You're right on that one.
	That one right there.
	Yes, the cave painting.
	Yes, that, that you're right on.
	No, all of that you're wrong.
	But yes, that you're right about, because that proves my preconceived notions.
	That's not an intellectually honest way of doing things.
	Especially because with the cave paintings, let's say I agree that it's a cave painting of a dinosaur, but then let's say I argue that, okay, it's a cave painting of a dinosaur, but you know what?
	I think that someone drew it 50 years ago, after dinosaur bones have been discovered.
	And then you say, no, well, that's a painting that dates back 2,000 years before dinosaurs had been discovered, which must mean that dinosaurs existed and were walking around back then.
	Well, how do you know that it dates back 2,000 years?
	Because you're trusting the dating of scientists.
	But then you dismiss their dating on almost everything else.
	So they don't know how to date anything except the one thing that proves your theory?
	I mean, do you see the problem with that approach?
	I think there's a problem with that approach.
	I'm not saying that we have to accept everything that scientists tell us, but if we're combing through the scientific data furiously and then accepting implicitly as dogma only the little bits of things that support what we already thought ahead of time, that's just not an intellectually honest way of going about it.
	Now, As far as the theological premise, as far as the theology of this whole thing, I argued a few things.
	I just want to restate what I argued.
	Number one, nobody takes the whole Bible literally.
	I'm going to get more into that a little bit later.
	We'll dog ear that one and come back to it.
	Number two, A person can read the Genesis story as non-literal without throwing out the whole Bible, and while still affirming the inerrant truth of the Bible.
	In other words, yes, we could say Genesis is true in what it says, but then the question is, what does it say?
	So that's the debate.
	The debate is not whether or not it's true.
	The debate is, what is it trying to actually convey?
	And that's where the discussion lies.
	The third theological thing.
	The 24-hour Creation Day interpretation—well, this isn't even really theological, this is back to scientific.
	The 24-hour Creation Day interpretation isn't the most literal interpretation.
	A day, literally, is when the Earth makes one full rotation on its axis.
	As I argued, there is nothing—nothing—in the text which suggests, at least through the first three days of creation, That the Earth was rotating on a 24-hour schedule.
	There is no reason to think that.
	In fact, on the first day of creation, we're told that the Earth is shapeless.
	Well, where is the axis on a shapeless thing?
	And even if the shapeless void does have an axis somehow, there's no reason to assume that it's rotating on our current schedule.
	The Bible speaks of evening and morning, before there's even a sun.
	And I know people say, well, it says evening, morning, case closed, 24 hours.
	How is that case closed?
	There wasn't a sun for the first three mornings.
	Do you know what a morning without a sun looks like?
	Do you?
	Can you draw me a picture of it?
	Because I have no idea what a morning before a sun even looks like or what that consists of.
	So what that tells us is that this is obvious.
	When it says evening and morning, this is a different kind of evening and morning.
	It's not the evening and morning you're thinking of, because that evening and morning is dependent entirely on the sun.
	So it's a different kind of evening and morning, which I think would show us that it's also a different sort of day that we're talking about.
	So the point is that 24 hours is not the literal meaning of a day.
	The literal meaning of a day is one full rotation on the axis.
	There is no reason to think that the Earth was on that schedule before outer space and the solar system and the galaxy even existed.
	Now, I don't take a literal interpretation of the creation story, but if you do, I think you're taking the wrong literal interpretation.
	I think young-earth creationism fails on its own premise, because it has the wrong idea of what a literal day is.
	Fourth theological point.
	Young earthers say that—and this is very important—young earthers say that, well, the earth could not be so old, because that would mean that plants and animals and You know, plants and animals were living and dying for millions of years before the Fall, but the Bible says that death came with the Fall.
	Well, that's not what the Bible says.
	The Bible says that death came to humans from the Fall.
	Romans 5, 12.
	Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all people because all sinned.
	So it is perfectly theologically consistent to have dying animals and dying plants before the Fall.
	Now, I do admit, okay, I do admit that it raises a question about why God would let this very violent process of life and death go on for millions of years.
	It is strange to think about all these animal species living and dying and many going extinct long before humans walked the earth.
	It's a weird thing to think about in theological terms.
	But just because I don't understand that, Just because I can't wrap my head around it doesn't mean it isn't true.
	And besides, the Young Earth view raises an even tougher theological question about, you know, if you're saying that animals didn't die before the Fall, and now they do die because of the Fall, well, why would the sin of Adam mean that dogs and lions and elephants and cats have to suffer and starve and die?
	Why would God punish animals for the sins of human beings?
	So you don't really escape the theological difficulty by going Young Earth.
	I think, in fact, you end up with a greater theological difficulty.
	All right.
	Now, Ken Ham.
	I'm going to be as thorough as I can, so I will read Ham's post that he wrote in response to mine, and I will interject with a counter-argument wherever I see a need for one.
	Okay.
	The post titled, Matt Walsh and a Young Earth.
	Recently, the popular Catholic political blogger, Matt Walsh, made a fairly lengthy video explaining why he was not a Young Earth creationist and why he thinks Young Earth creationists are a stumbling block to the faith of many people.
	The video was filled with strawman fallacies, misunderstandings, and mischaracterizations of what creationists actually believe.
	After watching the video, I was left wondering if he had even read any of our literature discussing the age of the Earth.
	Let's stop right there.
	He was wondering if I had even read his literature.
	Well, I have, and I'll get to that in a minute, but why should I have read his literature?
	He is a person with, I believe, an incorrect theological view, and he has taken it upon himself to spend his time advancing that view as the only correct view.
	That doesn't make him an expert.
	Just because someone stands up there, or they make a website and they call it Answers in Genesis, that does not make them an expert on theological interpretations or on science!
	So it doesn't, I don't have to consult with him before making my, before forming my opinions.
	But what I found is that an awful lot of Christians really do think that Ken Ham is the expert on this.
	So when I, you know, when I was, you know, giving my opinion on it, I mean, probably, I don't think it's exaggerated, hundreds of people were saying, well, you got, well, what about the, you have to go to the creation museum.
	Well, you haven't even looked at answers in Genesis.
	Well, listen to Ken Ham on this.
	Ken Ham will tell you.
	Now, as it happens, I have read his literature, and frankly, I find it to be extremely misleading.
	And I want to give you just one example, and this is important, because a lot of people think that, you know, a lot of people, as I said, trust Ken Ham and his organization.
	They trust it implicitly, and I think they should have a little bit more skepticism.
	I want to give you just one example to show you, you know, to show you the problem with the way that Answers in Genesis goes about things.
	There's an article on the site, on Ken Ham's site, dealing with the problem of population.
	Okay, so it seeks to answer the objection that if the Earth is only 6,000 years old, how did we reach 7 billion people already, right?
	Now, I actually don't think that that's a very compelling argument against the young Earth.
	view because population rates vary so much and they're so dependent on other factors.
	So really, who knows how many people we would have or should have if the Earth was 6,000 years old.
	But I was curious as to how AIG answers this problem.
	And so I found an article on the subject titled, Billions of People in Thousands of Years.
	Now let me read the first few sentences of this article.
	It says creationists are often asked, how is it possible for the Earth's population to reach 6.5 billion people if the world is only about 6,000 years old and if there were just two humans in the beginning?
	Here is what a little bit of simple arithmetic shows us.
	Let us start in the beginning with one male and one female.
	Now let us assume that they marry and have children and that their children marry and have children and so on.
	Here's the important part.
	Here's what it says.
	Let us assume that the population doubles every 150 years.
	Therefore, after 150 years, there will be four people.
	After another 150 years, there will be eight.
	After another 150 years, there will be 16 people, and so on and so forth, and so on.
	It should be noted that this growth rate is actually very conservative.
	In reality, even with disease, famines, and natural disasters, the world population currently doubles every 40 years or so.
	After 32 doublings, which is only 4,800 years, the world population would have reached almost 8.6 billion.
	Okay.
	Now, this is what Ken Ham insists.
	We need to read his literature before we form our opinions.
	Okay.
	Do you see the problem here?
	Let's assume the population doubles every 150 years.
	Why are we assuming that?
	Where did you get that figure?
	Ken Ham, I mean, this figure is on your website.
	Where did you get it from?
	Tell me where you got it from.
	Well, I know where you got it from.
	You just made it up.
	It's just a made up figure.
	You made it up so that the math would work.
	I mean, it's so dishonest.
	This is not an honest way of making your point.
	You're starting from a completely invented premise, which was engineered so that it would lead to the conclusion you were looking for.
	And there's a lot of that kind of thing in Answers in Genesis, which is why I don't trust it as a resource.
	Arguments that are built on false premises.
	Arguments that start with an assumption that was born from the original assertion.
	So they solve the population problem by saying, well, there's 7 billion people now.
	We believe there were only 2 people 6,000 years ago.
	So how does the math need to work in order to get us to our current population number?
	And then they say, oh, well, there needs to be a doubling every 150 years.
	And so there was a doubling every 150 years.
	That's not how math works.
	That's not how any of this works.
	That's not evidence.
	That's just a bald assertion that is being put forward as an actual fact.
	So yes, Ken, I've read your literature.
	I find it very problematic.
	Ken goes on.
	Walsh's main points were that the days in Genesis could not be 24 hours, and that science has proved that the Earth is billions of years old.
	Stop.
	That's not true.
	I didn't say that the days could not be 24 hours.
	I said that they need not be, and they probably weren't.
	This is important because I'm not claiming that God couldn't have made the earth in six days.
	I'm just saying that in all likelihood, looking at the science and reading the text, it seems like God didn't make the earth in six days.
	He could have made it in any amount of time he wanted to.
	The question is, what did he do?
	Not what could he do?
	Ken goes on.
	We have repeatedly addressed these claims on our website, again making me wonder if he did any research before making his video.
	Stop.
	There he goes again, putting forth his organization as an authority on the subject.
	I did plenty of research, Ken.
	I just don't trust the information you provide for reasons I've already explained.
	And by the way, what credentials do you have?
	You claim to be an expert on apparently dozens of areas of science.
	I mean, you must be an expert on those areas if you can claim that the scientific consensus in all of those areas is wrong.
	I mean, to make a statement like that, you must really, really know your stuff.
	You must be credentialed and everything.
	And also, you keep insisting that we use you as a reference.
	So you must be an expert.
	But how so?
	I mean, I looked up Ken's bio.
	It says he has a bachelor's in applied science and a diploma in education.
	He runs the Creation Museum.
	He goes on speaking tours.
	He writes books.
	But I'm just looking for the part that makes him an authority on any scientific subject or theological subject whatsoever.
	Now, here's the thing.
	I admit that I am no expert.
	I admit that.
	I've said that all along.
	I also admit That I could be wrong about the age of the earth and the age of the universe.
	I admit that.
	It's Ken Ham who puts himself forward as a reference.
	It's Ken Ham who claims to know better than the vast majority of scientists in every field.
	It's Ken Ham who claims that he absolutely could not be wrong.
	It's Ken Ham who says that his interpretation of the Bible is the only correct interpretation.
	So I ask, on what basis Where did you gain this authority?
	What are your credentials?
	It seems that his credentials are not much better than mine, yet only one of us insists that we should be a reference on these subjects.
	Ken Ham continues, however, the fundamental point that Mr. Walsh is making is that he is more willing to rely on man's fallible word than to trust God's infallible word.
	Let's stop again.
	I mean, I can't even make a sentence without him blatantly mischaracterizing.
	And again, remember, he does this without providing a link to what I actually said.
	Now, what he just said there is simply a lie.
	I said no such thing.
	I said no such thing.
	And it is this line, it's that sentence I think in particular, that has misled a lot of people about my point.
	And it's caused people to assume that I reject the Bible and that I don't think that the Bible is infallible.
	This is what I've been hearing from people.
	People think that I said that the Bible is not infallible.
	I did not say that.
	But that's the way Ken Ham presented it.
	I'm calling on Ken to do the honorable thing and apologize.
	For what he knows to be a mischaracterization.
	That is the honorable and Christian thing, Ken.
	You need to apologize and put something on your website admitting that you mischaracterized me.
	I never once made the fundamental point that we shouldn't trust God's word.
	I trust God's words entirely.
	I just don't trust your interpretation of that word, Ken.
	It is you I disagree with, not God.
	Are you God?
	Let me ask you, are you God?
	Because if you're not, then stop saying that I disagree with God because I disagree with you.
	The arrogance of such a statement is mind-boggling.
	I mean, it's dizzying to me.
	I disagree with your interpretation of God's Word.
	I do not disagree with God's Word.
	I disagree with your interpretation of God's Word.
	Have I said it clear enough now?
	Ken goes on, he repeatedly cites science as the reason the earth cannot be young, yet when observational science is performed, there are mountains of evidence from geology, astronomy, physics, archaeology, and so on, that the earth is indeed young.
	Now he asserts that there are mountains of evidence, he provides no evidence, so we'll just move on.
	Ken says, by accepting the dogma of secular science, Walsh completely ignores the context of God's infallible word.
	No, Ken.
	I completely ignore your bad science.
	I don't ignore God's Word.
	And the old earth view is not secular science.
	That's not secular science.
	There are a great many Christians, and Christian scientists, who reject the young earth view.
	Ken goes on, his claim that the day in Genesis cannot be 24 hours, because a day is defined by the earth revolving around the sun and spinning on its axis, reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what a day is.
	Though he's correct to say that the sun, according to scripture, wasn't there until the fourth day, the length of the day has nothing to do with the sun.
	It is entirely dependent on the rotation of the earth.
	That's my point, Ken.
	And people will be able to see that if you link to what I actually said.
	I'm saying that a day is the Earth's rotation.
	I'm saying that.
	That's my point.
	You have no proof and no reason to believe that the Earth was rotating on a 24-hour schedule at the beginning of creation.
	That's my point.
	That's the point I am making.
	Did you even listen to the podcast before you responded to it?
	I mean, you obviously don't want your followers to listen to it before they read your response, but did you even listen to it?
	Also, to say that a day has nothing to do with the sun whatsoever is obviously ridiculous.
	I mean, the parameters of a day are not completely dependent on the sun, but clearly if you lived on a planet that was careening through space and not revolving around any star at all, how would you know when a day begins?
	You wouldn't.
	So obviously the concept of a day cannot be completely divorced from the sun.
	Ken goes on, by accepting secular interpretations of the past, Walsh completely ignores what a day means in scripture.
	Well, there he goes again.
	He keeps doing this.
	It's not honest.
	It's not right.
	He's telling his followers that any scientific theory that contradicts his own must be secular, as in godless, as in contrary to the word.
	He knows this isn't true.
	He knows it.
	He knows that a great many Christian, God-fearing people, to include scientists, do not accept the young earth position.
	There are Christians on both sides of this issue.
	Good Christians.
	Okay?
	I admit that.
	I've said that from the beginning.
	I was very clear about that.
	That I am not questioning the faith of anyone who disagrees with me on this at all.
	I'm not questioning their sincerity.
	I'm not questioning their honesty.
	I'm questioning Ken Ham's honesty because of the dishonesty that he is engaging in here, which I've already shown you.
	But Ken Ham is the one who says that only his position is Christian, and any position other than his own is secular.
	This is arrogance in the extreme.
	He goes on.
	Walsh is right that the word day in the Bible has multiple meanings, but not when it is combined with evening, morning, and a number, as it is in Genesis.
	Every single time it is used with those words, it means a literal 24-hour day, something he completely ignores.
	Every time the word day is used in the same sentence with evening, morning, and a number, it means 24 hours?
	Who says who?
	Where do you get that from?
	Ken, that's just an assertion.
	You're just restating your premise.
	That's not evidence.
	Where did you get that from?
	He goes on, It is very ironic that Walsh regularly defends biblical
	positions such as biblical marriage, human life made in God's image, beginning of fertilization,
	two created genders, and so on, but rejects the foundation for those beliefs.
	Without appealing to Genesis, there is no foundation for marriage.
	Abortion becomes perfectly acceptable if we aren't made in the image of God.
	Get rid of spare cats or spare kids.
	What's the difference?
	Why should we have two genders if God did not make them male and female in the beginning?
	Genesis provides the answers to those questions.
	Here we have more blatant mischaracterizations from Ken Ham.
	Hopefully now you understand why I needed to respond to this.
	How in the world am I forfeiting the sanctity of life and of marriage by arguing that the
	earth is not 6,000 years old?
	How are those things even related?
	So if the earth is really 4.5 billion years old, life isn't sacred?
	What?
	What are you talking about?
	When did I ever say that God didn't make them male and female?
	I never said that.
	That is not a position I took.
	And Ken Ham knows that.
	When did I say that God didn't make man in his image?
	I didn't say that.
	And Ken Ham knows that I didn't say that.
	Again, my point is that he is wrong about his interpretation of day in Genesis.
	that has no bearing on anything else that he just mentioned.
	He says, Walsh did not mention it, but I wonder what he makes of how Jesus affirmed that Genesis was the beginning
	in Mark 10.6.
	Or how he feels about Exodus 20.11, which tells us everything was made in six literal days.
	See, this is the problem with trying to fit billions of years into Genesis.
	It always ends up compromising the Bible in places outside of Genesis 2.
	So either we accept the whole Bible naturally as it is written, or we reject the whole thing.
	Trying to fit the Bible with the secular timeline just does not work.
	Here at Answers in Genesis, we are committed to answering the questions posed by secularists and compromised Christians about what the Bible says.
	We have a lot of articles on these topics, some of which are listed below.
	So I am a compromised Christian, according to Ken Ham.
	No, Ken, you are lying.
	And you know it.
	And again, you need to apologize.
	Because to misrepresent one of your brothers in Christ, so, you know, For your own selfish reasons, is shameful.
	Now, going to the points that he made there, he says that Jesus, you know, we need to accept the six-day creation idea because of what Jesus says in Mark.
	Well, in Mark, Jesus simply restates that God made them male and female, which again, I don't dispute.
	So that's got nothing to do with anything.
	In Exodus, we just get a restating of six days.
	So, it does not specify six literal days.
	It just restates what it said in Genesis.
	So once again, Ken Ham is misleading us.
	Those verses do nothing at all to enhance his point.
	Nothing.
	Ken says the whole Bible must be taken naturally as it is written.
	Well, I agree.
	But the dispute over what naturally, as it is written, means.
	That's the dispute.
	The dispute is, how was it written?
	What is it trying to convey?
	What is the natural interpretation of this verse?
	That's the whole point here.
	That's the discussion.
	Was Genesis written as a literal documentation, or as a more metaphorical and theological work?
	I say the latter.
	And I think that that is the natural interpretation, and I think that Ken Ham has the unnatural interpretation.
	I think that he is infusing an unnatural interpretation into the text.
	But, if Ken believes that the whole Bible must be taken literally, then I've got some verses for him.
	1 Chronicles 1630.
	He has fixed the earth firm, immovable, Well, we know that the Earth moves in every sense.
	The plates move, the surface moves, the Earth itself moves, orbits, rotates.
	Does Ken take that verse literally?
	If he doesn't, why is it okay for him to take that metaphorically, but I can't take day metaphorically?
	How did he determine that it's okay to take that metaphorically, but not this metaphorically?
	Psalm 104.5, Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it can never be shaken.
	Again, is that literal?
	The earth shakes all the time.
	If Ken doesn't take that literally, why do I have to take day literally?
	Matthew 16, and I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
	I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
	Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.
	Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
	Does Ken take any of that literally?
	Was Peter an actual rock?
	Was he given a physical key that would open literal doors to heaven?
	John 6.54, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
	Luke 22, and he took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, This is my body given for you.
	Do this in remembrance of me.
	Now, I know that Ken is not Catholic.
	But here Jesus says, This is my body.
	Straightforward statement.
	What does the word is mean?
	That was Bill Clinton's question.
	It depends on what the definition of is is.
	Well, we know what the definition of is is, don't we?
	This is my body.
	Whoever eats my flesh has eternal life.
	Do this in remembrance of me.
	These are the direct words of Christ.
	But Ken takes them metaphorically.
	How does he justify that?
	I mean, that doesn't seem to me to be the natural interpretation of the text.
	That is not interpreting the text as it is written.
	Jesus does not say, this is like my body.
	He says, this is my body.
	That's what he says.
	It's just what he says, right?
	So, how can Ken take these words metaphorically while telling me that I can't take day metaphorically?
	Matthew 24, 34.
	After talking about the end times, Jesus says, Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away
	until all of these things have happened.
	What is the naturally as it is written interpretation of that verse?
	Generation is a very simple word, isn't it?
	It would seem anyway.
	I mean, generation is a simple, straightforward word.
	So why get all fancy with interpreting it?
	Generation means all of the people that were born at a particular time, right?
	So when someone says to a group, these things will happen during this generation, he means soon, as in you folks are going to see it go down, right?
	And that's the interpretation that the very early Christians had.
	If you know anything about the first century of the Church, you know that a great many Christians thought that the world was going to end imminently in their lifetimes.
	But of course it didn't.
	So we now understand that this generation must be understood differently.
	A simple word like generation becomes not so simple anymore, right?
	And so there's been a debate for centuries about what generation means in this context.
	Does Ken Ham insist on the most literal and strictest interpretation of that word, generation?
	If not, then why does he insist on it for day?
	I mean, you know, it really starts to seem like Ken doesn't take the Bible literally at all.
	But he only takes certain parts of it literally.
	And then he insists that everyone must take those parts literally, too, or else they haven't forfeited the entire faith.
	You know, it really seems like Ken Ham has, on his own authority, gone through the Bible and found certain statements that would appear to be literal statements and said, no, not literal.
	And then other statements that would appear to be literal and say, yes, that must be literal, it cannot be anything else.
	And he has declared that his determination is now gospel truth.
	Well, again, I ask Ken, who told you that?
	Where are you getting this from?
	Did God tell you?
	Did you have some kind of special revelation from God?
	Because if not, then how dare you suggest That anyone who disagrees with you is a compromised Christian?
	No, Ken, I think you're the compromised one.
	Engaging in this kind of dishonesty and this level of arrogance.
	I remind everyone again that I never questioned the faith of those who disagree with me.
	I did say that I think the Young Earth view, when it is advanced, puts an obstacle in the way of non-believers, an unnecessary obstacle.
	And I think that's just simply the case.
	I mean, talk to them, and one of the first things they'll tell you is, look, I just can't.
	I know that the Earth is more than 6,000 years old.
	If you're telling me that I have to believe that in order to be a Christian, then I can't be a Christian.
	So I do think that's the case, but I don't question the integrity, the sincerity, the good-heartedness, anything.
	I don't question anything about the people that hold that view.
	I think this is a discussion that we can have.
	And I also don't pretend to know exactly how old the universe or the Earth is.
	I don't know that.
	I mean, that question is way above my pay grade.
	Ken Ham thinks it's not above his.
	He knows everything, but I don't know everything, and I admit that.
	But I'm just not going to have someone misrepresent me in that way.
	And I think that if you're a follower of Ken Ham, you should know that this is how he operates.
	And then you should decide how seriously you're going to take him from then on out.
	It's really disappointing.
	It's a sad thing that I had to address this publicly.
	I even waited a month hoping that he would maybe have a change of heart and backtrack and admit that he miscarried.
	But he didn't.
	So here we are.
	All right.
	We'll leave it there.
	Thanks everybody for listening.
	Thanks for watching.
	It is Friday right now, so have a great weekend.

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