That Big Apologetics Conference

Posted by jrosenhouse on November 14, 2008
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Remember that big apologetics conference in North Carolina to which I made jeering reference a while back? Well, I didn’t go.

Happily, Timothy Yedder did, and to judge from his account it doesn’t sound like I missed anything:

We arrived to a scene of total chaos, scores of people trying to park and find their way into the monstrosity that is the church. We waited in a ‘line’ which was actually just a room full of people facing all directions, and we registered. We were given a wristband (the thought of anyone trying to sneak into this thing made me laugh openly), a bag full of glossy pamphlets from different organizations responsible for the conference in some way, and even a couple of paperback books.

There were two ‘stages’ with different speakers, and we opted for Hank Hanegraaf who was supposed to tell us “Why the Church Needs Apologetics”. Fortunately we were late- it turned out to be a sermon. Off to a bad start. There were bible verses and long dramatic pauses and appeals to fear and ignorance, then finally a prayer and a call to commitment. I began to worry again. If the whole conference follows this trajectory I won’t make it past the third hour. I told my father, if this represents the state of apologetics, it’s doomed.

No doubt you recognize Hanegraaf as the author of the creationist masterpiece, The F.A.C.E. That Demonstrates the F.A.R.C.E. of Evolution. Acronyms in the title of a science book is always a good sign, wouldn’t you say? (In case you were wondering, F.A.C.E. stands for Fossil Follies, Ape-Men Fiction, Fraud, Chance and Empitical Science. The R is then a recapitulation of the perils of evolution. Get the idea?)

Go read the rest of Yaddow’s account.

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Comments

  1. #1 386sx
    November 14, 2008

    In case you were wondering, F.A.C.E. stands for Fossil Follies, Ape-Men Fiction, Fraud, Chance and Empitical Science. The R is then a recapitulation of the perils of evolution. Get the idea?

    No, not quite! Sounds pretty catchy though. (Not!)

  2. #2 386sx
    November 14, 2008

    Yay more acronyms…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfa4OqMSawk

    He thinks there’s “no difference in manuscripts”. What a clown.

    Even if there was “no difference in manuscripts”, big freakin deal. Still no God.

  3. #3 386sx
    November 14, 2008

    This is pretty much the way your typical “apologetics” goes:

    There is no differences in manuscripts. Except for the differences. Otherwise, there are no differences. Except for the differences, no differences.

  4. #4 anon1234
    November 15, 2008

    Hanegraaf is also famous (in some circles) for having memorized the Bible, presumably in the divinely-dictated King James Version, all the way from Credulous to Hallucinations.

  5. #5 snafu
    November 15, 2008

    On a similar note, this chap is attending an entire alpha course, blogging as he goes. It’s hilarious and well worth reading from the start.

    http://alphacoursereview.wordpress.com/

  6. #6 Bayesian Bouffant, FCD
    November 16, 2008

    OK, so you missed the big apologetics conference. You can make it up to us by filing a field investigation report of this.

  7. #7 Peter Henderson
    November 16, 2008

    This was a gold mine of creationism

    I assume AiG was there in force ? I haven’t noticed anything on ham’s blog about this but I’ll have another look just in case I missed it.

    I’m surprised he only lasted 10 minutes through Josh McDowell though. I heard McDowell preach in a church in Belfast about 25 years ago and thought he was very good (as speakers go). But then I was only in my early twenties then and McDowells delivery might have been more appealing. McDowell has been back in belfast recently and addressed the Presbyterian Church in Ireland’s general assembly a couple of years ago. I’m very disappointed that McDowell has declared himself firmly in the YEC camp and a keen suporter of Ham’s little museum. I can’t take YEC speakers seriously at all now so anything he (McDowell) might have said would have been wasted on me.

  8. #8 JimV
    November 17, 2008

    Re: snafu | November 15, 2008 9:59 AM

    Thanks, I enjoyed reading that. I would like to recommend it to my religious friends and relatives, as an exercise is seeing themselves as some others see them, but it would require some sort of opening which will probably not occur.

  9. #9 Chris
    December 5, 2008

    Darwin did not have the blessing of having electron microscopes that we have today. Darwin himself said “if it can be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possible have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down”. (Origin of Species) 1872 p. 154.
    What you see above is the nail in the coffin for the Darwinian evolutionary theory. A recent email from an evolutionist said ” I am asking you to not look around at all the different species now present, but for the fun of it go back to a time when a simple cell miscodes and starts a new direction.” There is a problem with this, you cannot back to when the cell was simple that time does not exist!! The cell from the very start has been complex and there simply is no evidence that ever shows a time when the cell was anything but complex!
    Life in all aspects of it, when properly studied reveals that there is simply nothing simple about life. From the tiniest cell (which by the way you are made up of billions of) to the complex galaxy and even further the universe in which we exist is absolutely, mind blowing, unfathomably complex!! How does this level of complexity arise by chance and left to itself. This the evolutionist simply do not have an answer for.

    http://www.icr.org/wisdom-of-God/

    Check out this website and realize that we are fearfully and wonderfully made… Psalm 139

  10. #10 tyaddow
    December 11, 2008

    Chris: “this the evolutionist simply do not have an answer for.” In other words you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. None whatsoever. Be honest and admit that you are wholly unfamiliar with any evolutionary science, and that your views are entirely (mis)informed by groups like ICR. You are free to reject science in favor of dogma, and to reject evidence-based belief in favor of faith, but you are not free to insist that evidence-based belief supports your faith when it clearly does not. What you’re asserting amounts to essentially the greatest conspiracy theory ever conceived of- namely that virtually every scientist across every nation and culture for the last 150 years has manipulated a process designed to minimize error so that it has produced literally hundreds of thousands of false confirmations of a false theory. And with delusions of inerrancy to boot. This the creationist simply does not have an answer for.