Henry Morris and ICR - part 1

http://creationwiki.org/File:Morris.jpg (originally taken from http://www.icr.org/article/2717/), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49978484

 Welcome once again to We Talk, a project I attempted to start about a year ago. Recovery from my 4^th stroke has been hell on wheels and it has taken me this long to even attempt the process. I would love to say all is good, but I am really struggling as my paralysis has become worse and physically I am not doing great. But I am not here to whine about me as I take one day at a time. And I do apologize if I do get whiney.

I hope y'all are doing well!!

So a brief reminder of the premise behind WT. Basically a topic tickles my funny bone and from a layman's POV I look into it. While topic specific, I do try and rely on academic type material. IOWs you will not find Graham Hancock, David Childress, or Georgio as source material – unless warranted. There will be YT video of various type serving various purposes.

So …

In the years that I have been following Young Earth Creationism (YEC) – and yes, I used to be one just not as hardcore as some - one name continuously appears as the founder of the modern movement. That name would be Henry Madison Morris who in 1961, co-authored The Genesis Flood with John C Whitcomb. As one of the co-founders/ founders of the Creation Research Society (1963) and the Institute for Creation Research (1972), Morris adhered to both biblical literalism and inerrancy. (It has been said that The Genesis Flood “was largely a restatement of George McCready Price's book The New Geology (1923).”)

While I don't plan on delving too deeply into Morris' religious beliefs, unless necessary, it is important to note Morris helped create the modern school of thought, scientific creationism (SC), based on his aforementioned beliefs. SC opposes mainstream science regarding the history of the earth and the universe. You can get a good dose of that type of thinking if you pay attention to Paulogia's work concerning AiG.

What I find dis-heartening, many of Morris' past and present supporters find his impact in scientific creationism as comparable to Charles Darwin. This in support of a man who decided that evolution was scientifically untenable and referred to “the satanic origins of evolution.” (The Twilight of Evolution (1970)) IOWs, Morris believed “the Earth was less than 10,000 years old and was made in six 24-hour days, with mammals and human beings created on the sixth day. He maintained that fossils were animals that died during the biblical flood or were placed in rocks to give the appearance of age.”

Like Ken Ham, Morris believed that treating Genesis as allegorical or mythical led down a slippery slope to a point where “every man becomes his own God.” Or as Ham noted in 2002, “What I am saying is that the more a culture abandons God’s Word as the absolute authority, and the more a culture accepts an evolutionary philosophy, then the way people think, and their attitudes, will also change.”

It is a point that Ham reiterated again in 2014, “There’s a slippery slope in regard to authority,” Ham replied. “If you say that the history in Genesis is not true, then you can just take man’s ideas as true.”

It is this point that causes me not to take YECs of the Christian bent seriously. The flood narrative, as stated by Ham, has one objective,,, establish biblical (church) authority over man. Translation, Ham et al(s) interpretation and understanding rules the day. IOWs, whatever the church states as truth, is true – wanna get gay married,,,forget it. Catch my drift?

And just a note before continuing,,, while Kent Hovind is a YEC, I will not be including him or his views (dissertation). Plain and simple, I find the man a repulsive liar (beyond the lying fer Jeebus BS) and his conduct very cult like. Numerous YTers have been covering his antics, adding my voice would just be more noise.

To dispute uniformitarianism Morris referred to what he called Biblical catastrophism (BC), a framework that resulted in the wholesale rejection of everything geologists thought they knew about geology. His reliance on BC forced Morris to knowingly suspend natural law and replace said laws with supernatural events.

While this is just a few of Morris' notions, it is fascinating to see that 60 years later the same arguments are being put forth. In my lifetime, nothing has been suggested by YECs to supplant the TOE.

What I do find extremely absorbing,,, how YECs deal with fossils. To Morris, the fossil record was produced entirely during the 300 or so days of Noah’s Flood via a form of hydrological sorting. “[T]he flood sorted corpses of animals into strata, as some species struggled more effectively than others to stay above the rising waters.”

When the hydrological sorting method doesn't sway critics, the argument then becomes,,, ALL dating methods are wrong. As NCSE notes, “Radiometric dating of rocks and minerals using naturally occurring, long-lived radioactive isotopes is troublesome for young-earth creationists because the techniques have provided overwhelming evidence of the antiquity of the earth and life. Some so-called creation scientists have attempted to show that radiometric dating does not work on theoretical grounds,,, but such attempts invariably have fatal flaws,,, Other creationists have focused on instances in which radiometric dating seems to yield incorrect results. In most instances, these efforts are flawed because the authors have misunderstood or misrepresented the data they attempt to analyze,,, Only rarely does a creationist actually find an incorrect radiometric result,,, that has not already been revealed and discussed in the scientific literature.”

Initially I had the view that Morris was not a vitriolic prig like the current batch of professional liars fer Jeebus. I was wrong. While I can't say with 100% certainty but the false idea that evolution is a religion began with this man. At any rate, it became a frequent talking point and still is.

AronRa in his video series Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism offers this rebuttal.

A religion is not just any ol’ thing you happen to believe, and its not just anything you believe strongly either.  Every belief-system which is commonly accepted as a religion by both its adherents and its critics -is a doctrine of ritual traditions, ceremonies, mythology, and the associated dogma of faith-based belief systems which all include the idea that some element of ‘self’ (be it a soul or portion of consciousness, or memories, etc.) may, in some sense, continue beyond the death of the physical being.  This applies to every religion and only to religion, but doesn’t apply to evolution or atheists either, unless they happen to be Druids or Shaman or one of those other religions which don’t happen to include gods. 

So with that in mind,,, what you will find in listening to Morris, is a whole host of now current PRATTs. In fact, so rife with mis-information concerning the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics, NCSE had this response. Simply put, evolving systems are not isolated! A point that Morris et al ignore.

Note:: I determined after recording and whist editing, the NCSE quote was quite longish and I was having difficulties with pronunciation. There will be a link provided instead.

Continuing,,,

While this trope is more prevalent with the likes of Ken Ham, the observational v historical science canard can be heard in Morris' presentations.

During his debate with Bill Nye, Ham stated this,

 

The issue, the distinction is not real. “,,,[A]ll scientific hypotheses — whether observational or historical — are evaluated by their fit with what we observe. Scientists test out the implications of some hypothesis, and it's accepted, revised, or rejected accordingly.” It is not, as Ham likes to ask – a where you there scenario. Morris' verbiage may be not as precise, but if you listen closely it is there.

Evolution is a world view, or as Morris states every subject is taught from the framework of evolution (paraphrase).

No, no it's not!

I am so sick of this stupid notion. Evolution, just like the theory of gravity, is a scientific theory not a philosophy. You rarely hear about a "gravitational worldview,” but converse with a YEC – it is daily.

There are things that evolutionary theory does not do, however, because of its nature as a scientific theory. It does not state anything about the existence or non-existence of a god or gods, despite creationists' claims that it is inherently atheistic. While this claim is partially true, in that science itself is a study of the natural world and the proposition of naturalistic explanations for its functioning and existence, science actually makes no claims about the existence of a deity. Science works through observation of the natural world. Science cannot prove the existence or non-existence of a god, since, being super-natural, it is outside the realm of nature and cannot be observed, measured, or quantified.

As you can see by just these few examples Morris is no better than what we got.

Eugenics, racism, and Hitler - really any perceived difference based upon “survival of the fittest” or social Darwinism. Nothing will raise my BP faster than these topics – racial Darwinism as I have heard AronRa call it.

So I have done an inordinate amount of reading concerning this issue but I have never attempted to organize my thoughts. As I discovered it is a massive subject but I do agree with the conclusion of RG Price in his piece titled The Mis-portrayal of Darwin as a Racist.

Yes, the language of some of Darwin's work on race is crude by today's standard, but it was revolutionary in its opposition to the established ideas of the day, which held that the "savages" were inferior and had no hope of ever living in a state of equality with whites.

Instead of being criticized as a racist, Darwin should rightfully be honored as one of the leaders of opposition to racism, who showed through his careful study, and through his theory of evolution, that we are indeed all related and that the key to social success as a species lies in extending our cooperation, sympathy, and assistance to people of all races and all nations. If Darwin had any social message, that, certainly, was it.