Ken Ham, CEO of Answers in Genesis, the Creation Museum, and Ark Encounter is ever on the watchtower looking for a conspiracy he can gin up to rouse the faithful. Several years ago, Ham wrote that public school students were being taught to worship the sun. Here’s what he said:
Imagine if public school students in their science classes were encouraged to worship the sun. And yet this is happening! But how do they get away with it? Well, they just call worshipping the sun “science,” and then claim they can teach this “science” in the public schools!
You see, the following statement is allowed to be made (and is being made in a number of instances) to public school science students:
Our ancestors worshipped the sun. They were far from foolish. It makes good sense to revere the sun and stars because we are their children. The silicon in the rocks, the oxygen in the air, the carbon in our DNA, the iron in our skyscrapers, the silver in our jewelry—were all made in stars, billions of years ago. Our planet, our society, and we ourselves are stardust.
This statement was made by Neil deGrasse Tyson in the new Cosmos series. Evolutionists are encouraging teachers to use this series in public school classrooms.
Evidently, Ham doesn’t know what the word revere means. While the word “worship” can be thought of as reverence, it is almost always used in a religious sense. Neil deGrasse Tyson is NOT using the word “revere” in a religious sense. Of course, Ham denies this because he believes atheism/humanism/secularism is a religion. Ham needs to buy himself a dictionary so he can learn what words such as “worship” and “revere” actually mean. Will he do so? Of course not. The coffers at Ham’s monuments to ignorance are running low. He needs to attract people to his creationist amusement park to keep his “ministry” afloat. Scaring Evangelicals is a surefire way to get them to Kentucky to get their fears allayed. For $44.99 a person, Christians can learn the “truth” about sun worship, and every other lie Ham peddles from atop of his creationist empire.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Hi Bruce,
“worship the sun”.
Ken Ham is deluding himself if he thinks that government schools are teaching students to worship the sun in their science classrooms. Why do the “creation science” ( er that should be creation non-science or creation nonsense) fanatical followers keep falling for this nonsense and agree with Ken’s assertions without asking him to provide solid empirical evidence for them?
Answer: The bible tells them so and pope Ken has spoken.
Shalom,
John Arthur
You sum it up nicely, John. Nice to see your comment.
It’s a bit unsettling then to learn that Ken was a school teacher. A science teacher to be precise. Granted it was in Queensland (sort of like Australia’s Texas) in the 1970s, but a science teacher nontheless.
He doesn’t understand the word revere and nor does he understand the word science.
The quote from Cosmos obviously isn’t a call to worship the sun. Neil deGrasse Tyson starts with sun worship and successfully reinterprets and modernizes that with reverence.
As for sun worship it actually is still a Christian rite. Last Easter during the weather forecast the local meteorologist gave temperature and conditions for several times during the next day’s Easter. One thing mentioned was the sun rise service. This piqued my interest, what are the origins of that? I found, with a little research, that the Easter sun rise service was a vestige of sun worship in which the sacred day to the sun, Sunday was performed right at sun rise to welcome the new week. Many Christians still do this recast of sun worship without even knowing why or how the rite originated.
As for showing Cosmos in schools. Is that the best Ham has against it?
It was obvious when I read it what he meant. I respect people and other things but I don’t worship them. He needs more than a dictionary. I can’t believe he was a science teacher. This is worrying.
Even if one did worship the sun, there’s something more definite to it than some invisible god. The sun is there always, you can see it and feel it, it doesn’t care what you do, it doesn’t need a building to worship it, it doesn’t need your money to do what it does, it doesn’t put rules on you, it doesn’t care if women wear shorts or skirts, it makes no promises, it doesn’t care if you have sex before you’re married or if you are a homosexual, etc. As it said in the Black Sabbath song, “Might as well worship the sun”!
Monty, your comment sound very close to George Carlin’s comment about worshiping the sun but praying to Joe Pesci.
I have seen a video of Ken at his Christian “museum” telling at least 800 children that if science tells you one thing and god says another…who do you believe? The kids all scream out “God”. He asks “Did evolution happen?” the kids scream “No”. He asks what do you say to someone who says evolution happened, the kids scream out “The Bible says God made the earth and everything in 7 days.”
This amounts to brainwashing our children. That makes me mad. Good thing my 17 year old daughter took my logic in this area.
In school, 2 weeks ago, she had to do a speech on a philosophy and a philosopher. The choices were theism, atheism, pragmatism, theistic existentialism, atheistic existentialism, and pragmatic existentialism. She went to the teacher and BEGGED for atheism. When asked why…she said “My dad is a straight up atheist and he and I talk about this all the time. Please do not give me theism or my report will not be good. I will end up talking about how false and stupid it is and I will get a bad grade because I don’t believe it. Please give me atheism.”
My daughter continually amazes me. The teacher gave her atheism and the philosopher was Karl Marx. She didn’t have to worry about the communism part…just the atheism part. So, over our daddy/daughter dinner night, I got an education from my “much smarter than me” daughter about Karl. The quotes that she referenced became the subject of a 2 hour dinner.
I’m a lucky man!
Humans still believe in magic and do rituals and chant to try to control what they can’t control. But now certain slick people found a way to encourage people to give them money and influence for doing “magic” rituals and chants.
I got one better for Ham. All our constituent materials are present in rocks, and were originally extracted from non-organic material (some early in the development of our planet, some from the earth that part of yesterday’s dinner grew in). Because I know this, according to Ham’s logic I worship the rock samples in my dining room cabinet.* Really?
*Other people have china in their china cabinets. My household has rock samples in ours, and it isn’t entirely all my fault.
Re: rock samples. That made me smile, Karen. My 2 sibling g/kids, 12yo and 14yo have a fossil cabinet in the lounge with their finds in too. They live near the ‘Jurassic Coast’ in the UK and a perfect day out is to go fossil hunting there. Docents, retired geologists, are on the beach to help identify finds, it’s fascinating. Aged 5yo and 7yo, they were allowed their own ‘grown ups’ hammers, just for that purpose and still like taking them to that beach. . My other 2 sibling g/kids, 6yo and 8yo, their cousins, have a fundy g/dad who is one of the UK’s leading YECs, so must disapprove a lot when they report back to him they’ve seen their cousins’ great fossil cabinet. (I know he disapproves of the dinosaur toys these two have, so this heathen granny has been known to choose to buy dinosaur themed- toys for them for xmas and birthdays!!!!)
Ignoramuses to the right of me, ignoramuses to the left of me, yet into the Valley of Stupidity we ride …
I had to re-read the original.C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre
On the old Patheos Non-Religious blogs, folk made the comment quite regularly that Ham began his PhD thesis with the words ‘Hello, my name is Ken Ham.’ One witty person ended a comment about the absurdity of Ham’s utterances with the joke, ‘Gotta go now and find my crayons, I’ve got a thesis to colour in today.’
I think that was Kent Hovind who started his thesis that way, not Ham.
Correct ❤️
It’s interesting how religious people assume that everyone worships something. Spoiler alert, Kenny, some of us don’t worship anyone or anything.