#creationist — Public Fediverse posts

#SciFi #AlexisGililand 's #Rosinante series include an upheaval in the #NorthAmericanUnion (which did not extend so far as the island of #Venezuela ) including the #assassination of a #Latino #Hispanic #Texan politician using a #CruiseMissile during a #PressConference .
It was not held out as a clever act by the #Creationist #Christians in government

Press conferences may have got more dangerous.

Originally published June 7, 2017

A tenet of geology is that rocks are old. Therefore, objects of human origin embedded in rock suggest that the rock formed after the object was created. However, there are several examples of these anomalies, which, upon first appearance, seem to set the geological timescale and assumptions topsy-turvy. One of these items is the London Hammer.

The story of its discovery goes as follows: Mr. and Mrs. Max Hahn found a nodule with the wood handle sticking out near Red Creek in London, Texas in either 1934 or 1936. Later retelling of the story by others say it was lying loose on a rock ledge when found. The nodule was broken open several years later to reveal the entire embedded iron head.

These type of anomalies are known colloquially as OOPARTs (out-of-place artifacts). Such items also include similar embedded objects like iron nails and gold chains but also alleged human footprints in prehistoric rock. Other OOPARTs assumed by some to be ancient objects created by some mysterious culture are actually natural phenomena that resemble cultural products. I hope to include some more interesting OOPARTs descriptions in future posts.

But let’s take this London hammer artifact and try to determine just how strange it is.

The hammer is of 19th-century origin. We know this because we can find matching hammers used by miners of that time and not before. The wooden handle of the hammer would not preserve much longer intact. Wood would either decompose or mineralize, depending on the conditions. How did it get encased in rock? The clue to this seems to lie in the description of the rock type – “limey”. Calcite precipitates from saturated solutions quickly under the right conditions, weeks to years. Shell beds also accumulate and cement together in a short time. In this case, we can surmise that a miner might have dropped the hammer or it fell into a spot where he was unable to retrieve it, perhaps into some limey clay that eventually hardened around the hammerhead. However, there are some suspicious details about the hammer.

First, it was not found in situ. We have no documentation of exactly where it was found or under what conditions. We just have a story from the Hahns. The strata in this location are Cretaceous in age but do not match the concreted substance. The nodule matrix cannot reliably be associated with a host rock.

But the primary problem is where the artifact is now kept and for what purpose. The item resides in a Creationist museum in Texas and is exhibited as “proof” that a worldwide flood occurred and wiped out most of the earth’s inhabitants, as related in the Biblical tale of Noah. Carl Baugh, the current owner of the artifact, will not allow testing of the wooden handle or the concretion matrix to definitively characterize its origin, though there is an undetailed, uncorroborated report from a supporter of Baugh who claims the handle was dated “from present to 700 years ago”.

Researcher Glen Kuban has an excellent chronology and details of the history of the artifact and its problematic provenance here. He supports the explanation that the hammer is a typical 19th-century miner’s tool that was encased in the limey concretion by natural means. This plausible explanation does not overturn any geological ideas about the age of the earth or of humans’ place in it. The London Hammer is simply the result of unique circumstances that produced a fascinating object.

Unfortunately, those who possess the item now (Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, TX) have no reason to have it analyzed further to help determine how this anomaly formed because of their use of it to support their anti-science narrative of Biblical creation.

Update 25-June-2024

Here is another example of rapid cementation of a recent item – an engine block left in an intertidal zone became incorporated into the rock along with shells and rock.

Young-earth creationists will shift position on these artifacts depending upon what might gain them traction in an argument. As noted above, they will claim that the rock indicates that humans were around long ago at the same time as extinct animals, so evolution must somehow be false or that fossils can form very quickly so the earth does not have to be old. Both arguments have mistaken assumptions and are flawed. Some rock does form quickly. But some types of rock are demonstrably ancient – perhaps even a billion years old for some continental bedrock – as are the creatures whose remains were preserved in them. There are multiple lines of evidence that establishes that the earth is over 4 billion years old and that there are billions of animal species that evolved and lineages that went extinct over time. It wasn’t just a few thousand years and a flood that constitutes the history of earth.

UPDATE 5-Jan-2026 (Revised) So a version of this artifact was sold for $330 at auction in January 2026. It was part of a lot of mineral specimens, fossils, casts, and related items owned by Melvin Weaver. While it seemed really strange to some of us who knew what it was that 1. it was being sold and, 2. that it went for such a low price. Jason Colavito contacted the Creationist museum where it was supposedly housed and found that it’s still there. So this version was a replica. I did not imagine there were replicas made, and there was no accessible info on the auction site that showed that. Sorry for the misinformation.

Originally published June 7, 2017

A tenet of geology is that rocks are old. Therefore, objects of human origin embedded in rock suggest that the rock formed after the object was created. However, there are several examples of these anomalies, which, upon first appearance, seem to set the geological timescale and assumptions topsy-turvy. One of these items is the London Hammer.

The story of its discovery goes as follows: Mr. and Mrs. Max Hahn found a nodule with the wood handle sticking out near Red Creek in London, Texas in either 1934 or 1936. Later retelling of the story by others say it was lying loose on a rock ledge when found. The nodule was broken open several years later to reveal the entire embedded iron head.

These type of anomalies are known colloquially as OOPARTs (out-of-place artifacts). Such items also include similar embedded objects like iron nails and gold chains but also alleged human footprints in prehistoric rock. Other OOPARTs assumed by some to be ancient objects created by some mysterious culture are actually natural phenomena that resemble cultural products. I hope to include some more interesting OOPARTs descriptions in future posts.

But let’s take this London hammer artifact and try to determine just how strange it is.

The hammer is of 19th-century origin. We know this because we can find matching hammers used by miners of that time and not before. The wooden handle of the hammer would not preserve much longer intact. Wood would either decompose or mineralize, depending on the conditions. How did it get encased in rock? The clue to this seems to lie in the description of the rock type – “limey”. Calcite precipitates from saturated solutions quickly under the right conditions, weeks to years. Shell beds also accumulate and cement together in a short time. In this case, we can surmise that a miner might have dropped the hammer or it fell into a spot where he was unable to retrieve it, perhaps into some limey clay that eventually hardened around the hammerhead. However, there are some suspicious details about the hammer.

First, it was not found in situ. We have no documentation of exactly where it was found or under what conditions. We just have a story from the Hahns. The strata in this location are Cretaceous in age but do not match the concreted substance. The nodule matrix cannot reliably be associated with a host rock.

But the primary problem is where the artifact is now kept and for what purpose. The item resides in a Creationist museum in Texas and is exhibited as “proof” that a worldwide flood occurred and wiped out most of the earth’s inhabitants, as related in the Biblical tale of Noah. Carl Baugh, the current owner of the artifact, will not allow testing of the wooden handle or the concretion matrix to definitively characterize its origin, though there is an undetailed, uncorroborated report from a supporter of Baugh who claims the handle was dated “from present to 700 years ago”.

Researcher Glen Kuban has an excellent chronology and details of the history of the artifact and its problematic provenance here. He supports the explanation that the hammer is a typical 19th-century miner’s tool that was encased in the limey concretion by natural means. This plausible explanation does not overturn any geological ideas about the age of the earth or of humans’ place in it. The London Hammer is simply the result of unique circumstances that produced a fascinating object.

Unfortunately, those who possess the item now (Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, TX) have no reason to have it analyzed further to help determine how this anomaly formed because of their use of it to support their anti-science narrative of Biblical creation.

Update 25-June-2024

Here is another example of rapid cementation of a recent item – an engine block left in an intertidal zone became incorporated into the rock along with shells and rock.

Young-earth creationists will shift position on these artifacts depending upon what might gain them traction in an argument. As noted above, they will claim that the rock indicates that humans were around long ago at the same time as extinct animals, so evolution must somehow be false or that fossils can form very quickly so the earth does not have to be old. Both arguments have mistaken assumptions and are flawed. Some rock does form quickly. But some types of rock are demonstrably ancient – perhaps even a billion years old for some continental bedrock – as are the creatures whose remains were preserved in them. There are multiple lines of evidence that establishes that the earth is over 4 billion years old and that there are billions of animal species that evolved and lineages that went extinct over time. It wasn’t just a few thousand years and a flood that constitutes the history of earth.

UPDATE 5-Jan-2026 (Revised) So a version of this artifact was sold for $330 at auction in January 2026. It was part of a lot of mineral specimens, fossils, casts, and related items owned by Melvin Weaver. While it seemed really strange to some of us who knew what it was that 1. it was being sold and, 2. that it went for such a low price. Jason Colavito contacted the Creationist museum where it was supposedly housed and found that it’s still there. So this version was a replica. I did not imagine there were replicas made, and there was no accessible info on the auction site that showed that. Sorry for the misinformation.

Originally published June 7, 2017

A tenet of geology is that rocks are old. Therefore, objects of human origin embedded in rock suggest that the rock formed after the object was created. However, there are several examples of these anomalies, which, upon first appearance, seem to set the geological timescale and assumptions topsy-turvy. One of these items is the London Hammer.

The story of its discovery goes as follows: Mr. and Mrs. Max Hahn found a nodule with the wood handle sticking out near Red Creek in London, Texas in either 1934 or 1936. Later retelling of the story by others say it was lying loose on a rock ledge when found. The nodule was broken open several years later to reveal the entire embedded iron head.

These type of anomalies are known colloquially as OOPARTs (out-of-place artifacts). Such items also include similar embedded objects like iron nails and gold chains but also alleged human footprints in prehistoric rock. Other OOPARTs assumed by some to be ancient objects created by some mysterious culture are actually natural phenomena that resemble cultural products. I hope to include some more interesting OOPARTs descriptions in future posts.

But let’s take this London hammer artifact and try to determine just how strange it is.

The hammer is of 19th-century origin. We know this because we can find matching hammers used by miners of that time and not before. The wooden handle of the hammer would not preserve much longer intact. Wood would either decompose or mineralize, depending on the conditions. How did it get encased in rock? The clue to this seems to lie in the description of the rock type – “limey”. Calcite precipitates from saturated solutions quickly under the right conditions, weeks to years. Shell beds also accumulate and cement together in a short time. In this case, we can surmise that a miner might have dropped the hammer or it fell into a spot where he was unable to retrieve it, perhaps into some limey clay that eventually hardened around the hammerhead. However, there are some suspicious details about the hammer.

First, it was not found in situ. We have no documentation of exactly where it was found or under what conditions. We just have a story from the Hahns. The strata in this location are Cretaceous in age but do not match the concreted substance. The nodule matrix cannot reliably be associated with a host rock.

But the primary problem is where the artifact is now kept and for what purpose. The item resides in a Creationist museum in Texas and is exhibited as “proof” that a worldwide flood occurred and wiped out most of the earth’s inhabitants, as related in the Biblical tale of Noah. Carl Baugh, the current owner of the artifact, will not allow testing of the wooden handle or the concretion matrix to definitively characterize its origin, though there is an undetailed, uncorroborated report from a supporter of Baugh who claims the handle was dated “from present to 700 years ago”.

Researcher Glen Kuban has an excellent chronology and details of the history of the artifact and its problematic provenance here. He supports the explanation that the hammer is a typical 19th-century miner’s tool that was encased in the limey concretion by natural means. This plausible explanation does not overturn any geological ideas about the age of the earth or of humans’ place in it. The London Hammer is simply the result of unique circumstances that produced a fascinating object.

Unfortunately, those who possess the item now (Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, TX) have no reason to have it analyzed further to help determine how this anomaly formed because of their use of it to support their anti-science narrative of Biblical creation.

Update 25-June-2024

Here is another example of rapid cementation of a recent item – an engine block left in an intertidal zone became incorporated into the rock along with shells and rock.

Young-earth creationists will shift position on these artifacts depending upon what might gain them traction in an argument. As noted above, they will claim that the rock indicates that humans were around long ago at the same time as extinct animals, so evolution must somehow be false or that fossils can form very quickly so the earth does not have to be old. Both arguments have mistaken assumptions and are flawed. Some rock does form quickly. But some types of rock are demonstrably ancient – perhaps even a billion years old for some continental bedrock – as are the creatures whose remains were preserved in them. There are multiple lines of evidence that establishes that the earth is over 4 billion years old and that there are billions of animal species that evolved and lineages that went extinct over time. It wasn’t just a few thousand years and a flood that constitutes the history of earth.

UPDATE 5-Jan-2026 (Revised) So a version of this artifact was sold for $330 at auction in January 2026. It was part of a lot of mineral specimens, fossils, casts, and related items owned by Melvin Weaver. While it seemed really strange to some of us who knew what it was that 1. it was being sold and, 2. that it went for such a low price. Jason Colavito contacted the Creationist museum where it was supposedly housed and found that it’s still there. So this version was a replica. I did not imagine there were replicas made, and there was no accessible info on the auction site that showed that. Sorry for the misinformation.

When #Satire Exposes #AntiScience Arguments: #SachaBaronCohen vs #KentHovind

#AtheistHumor #ScienceSatire #EvolutionDebate

In this classic clip, Sacha Baron Cohen's character #AliG masterfully exposes the flaws in #creationist arguments through satire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMsTVdE69Q4

The Worst #Christian on #YouTube is... A #Puppet?

Today we're challenging a rude yet intellectually lacking #creationist Christian #contentcreator. He doesn't #respect the burden of proof, doesn't respect women and worst of all... he's hiding his horrible arguments behind a puppet. Oh, Hell no.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNBe76rUV9M

#sundayschool #atheist #atheism #emathorne

#Kibitzing a bad #creationist #debate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDUDWzOJCkM
PZ Myers

The Twin Cities #CreationScience Association sponsored a debate between #BrianLauer, creationist, and #MarkReid, sensible normal human being. Reid was fine, but Lauer's arguments, or lack thereof, compelled me to criticize him.

#science #creationism #ID #evolution #badscience

#Creationist Takes on #Scientific Legend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk40V_r4kAI
#carlsagan #kenthovind #science

#Missionary #Lizards!

How many ignorant claims can a #creationist pack into a short clip?

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/05/06/missionary-lizards/

Is this a Christian equivalent of "flatearthers from around the globe..."?

#MiniDinos #Christian #Bible #Creationist #Evolution

Genesis is historical... (!?!) It is!

The Bible explains how Adam's sin-nature is passed on to us. Sin corrupts our bodies and our world by dividing us from good and uniting us to evil. Scripture shows how we can overcome sin through unity with God and godly people.

The first thing that clued me in on the truth of Genesis, was Jesus' use of the text as literal facts. (Matthew 19:3-9) We inherit sin from Adam, because we are all part of him. We are also part of the classroom of life, in whatever condition it is handed down to us by our predecessors. (Exodus 20:5)

God was Adam's Father. The earth was Adam's mother. (Genesis 2:7, Isaiah 51:1-2, Romans 8:22) Eden was man's first classroom. The goal of this classroom was to teach us how to love. God's flawless, delightful love is what makes Him eternal.

From Adam, God made Eve. She was one with Adam and given back to Adam in a more helpful capacity. They were still one. This is the ultimate goal of our eternal lessons; they teach us how to remain one with God and one another.

The thing that destroys unity is sin. Sin doesn't cause God to abandon us, Sin is an act of abandoning unity with God and man in favor of oneself. Once sin was in the world, Adam and Eve began covering themselves from one another, and hiding from God. (Genesis 3:8-10) Division from God, who is love, results in death. (1 John 4:7-8, Romans 6:23, Jeremiah 3:19)

Sin added new lessons to our classroom. We were no longer fit for Eden. We learned about the problems we'd given God with our sin. Adam's lesson required more of his labor to make the earth produce good things. This gave humanity God's perspective. Our deviation from unity made it hard for God to make us produce good behavior. Eve's lesson required her to experience more pain to bear children. This reflects how we made God's work to deliver us from spiritual darkness more painful for Him. Our offenses against God and the earth change our environment to fit our need. Our lessons give us wisdom to see why sinful behavior cannot be part of eternity. Proverbs 30:17. Any logic we hold that does not promote eternal life is unsustainable, and therefore sin.

According to ancient Hebrew wisdom, you and I are living in the last age. We live in a world where our classroom has changed so much that Eden is hardly imaginable. A world without death is imaginable, but only for the elite. Even if we could live forever by the power of technology, without love, it wouldn't be worth the effort.

Thankfully, our heavenly Father is still teaching us. We still begin life helpless. This connects us to our parents through our conscience. This is how God implants in every person the value of compassion for the weak. We each know, deep down that we owe our lives to a helpful higher power. If we are thankful, we want to emulate our helpful higher power while we can. We can ask God for His Holy Spirit of truth and love. (Luke 11:9-13) Then we nurture His Spirit within us by a steady diet of His good logic in the Bible. (1Peter 2:2) This gives our heavenly Father influence in our lives, so He can empower us to help others. (Acts 10:44) In this way, we will overcome the lies of the enemy, and the world. (1John 4:4)

To overcome sin, we need only to reunite with God and one another. Compassionate love is the answer to our struggle against sin. We can ask for God's compassionate love to free us from temptation. We can also pay that love forward by helping the weak and needy. When we do these things, Eden is reborn in our hearts.

Closing thoughts -

1 Corinthians 10:13

"No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. With the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, so that you may be able to bear it."

"When I don't have an ounce of strength left in me to withstand a temptation, I remember this simple prayer; "Lord, Your word promises there is a way out of this, but I don't see it. Please show me the way." Our merciful Father has never failed to deliver on this promise. Our God is a God of miracle-working power.

John 17:21
"I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me."

It's so easy to accidentally give the world and the flesh more air-time than God and family. Setting aside time for God is the healthiest thing a person can do for their life. Reconnecting with our spiritual family is our second priority. So much of what we are tempted with, is only troubling us because we forget what's real and what matters. A spiritual diet that is high in truth and love will keep you satisfied. That way spiritual junk food doesn't have as much appeal.

May truth and love light our way!

#Christianity #Family #Homeschool #Jesus #JesusChrist #Creationist #Christian

"The Word" is a free Windows app I use on Linux through "Wine" to show me all the scripture references in real time. SELECT, then COPY, to activate the pop-up. https://www.theword.net

15/20 Alan Gratz: Amy und die geheime Bibliothek. Übersetzt aus dem Englischen von Meritxell Janina Piel

Alan Gratz: Ban this book

#Books #Libraries #ArtistsFreedom #Censorship #Culture #Emancipation #Creationist #Evangelical #Democracy #ReadingAsEntertainment #ReadingAsPoliticisingExperience #ComingOfAge #YoungReaders #10YearsOldPlus #PowerInSchool #Librarian #BookBan #BanThisBook #AlanGratz

Book Challenge: 20 books that have had an impact on who you are. One book a day for 20 days. No (or only very short) explanations, no reviews, just the title and the book covers. Don't forget the alt text.
#20books #20books20days #20Bücher #BooksThatInfluencedYou #Books #20booksMupan #BookChallengeMupan #MediaMupan
@lesekreis @[email protected] @[email protected] @buchstodon @democracy @books @biodiversity

📢New Publication Alert!

🔖'Reign of the Beast' by Adrian Desmond is out now!

🔎In the 1830s, decades before #Darwin published the 'Origin of Species', a museum of evolution flourished in #London. 'Reign of the Beast' pieces together the extraordinary story of this lost working-man's institution and its enigmatic owner, the wine merchant #WDSaull. Saull outraged polite #society by putting humanity’s #ape #ancestry on display.

He weaponized his #museum #fossils & empowered #artisans with knowledge of deep #geological time that undermined the #Creationist base of the #Anglican state. His geology museum called the biggest in Britain, housed over 20,000 fossils, including famous dinosaurs.

Now multi-award-winning author Adrian Desmond undertakes a thorough reading of #HomeOffice spy reports and subversive street prints to re-establish Saull's pivotal place at the intersection of the history of #geology, #atheism, #socialism, & #working-class #radicalism.

Access https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0393

Recently I wrote, and then copy-and-pasted to a variety of places, about how #creationist and other #antiscience #propaganda is often “horrible effective.” That was supposed to be “horribly effective,” of course. On #Facebook and #Quora I can edit it, but on #Mastodon I can’t.

So I think I’ll just leave it in place. It has the ring of a missing couplet from #Kipling’s #Tommy: “Ken ‘Am’s lies is bloomin’ everywhere / An’ ‘orrible effective too!” Seems like it fits my life.

@fatsam Thanks for the boost!

I’ve received a lot of comments on this post, in various locations, to the effect of “don’t bother, you’re never going to convince these people anyway.” So this is a copy-and-paste reply. My apologies for the impersonality, and please don’t take this as a lack of interest in discussing the finer points of the issue.

Absolutely, there are many people who will never be convinced. I think there are, more or less, three types of people who hold #antivax / #creationist / etc. positions, and two of them are hopeless cases. But the third is a different story.

1. Hardcore believers. For #creationism, this usually boils down to “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” The others are more complicated, although there’s often a religious element there too: e.g. “we’re made in the image of God so #vaccines are blasphemy” (they never seem to object to wearing glasses, though) or “the Earth is a divine creation and we mere humans could never change the #climate.” Once they make their beliefs clear, the best thing to do is walk away. No one in that debate is going to change anyone else’s mind.

2. Propagandists. They may or may not believe what they’re claiming, but they think they can gain some political advantage by doing so. “If you don’t want #woke #liberals telling your kids they come from #monkeys, elect me to the school board!” That kind of thing. You’re not going to change their minds either—especially since the #propaganda is often horrible effective—but it may be worth countering it to try to persuade the people they’re trying to recruit.

3. People who just don’t know any better. Members of the first two groups, particularly #2, are much more sophisticated than they used to be, and a lot of their propaganda is very slick and superficially convincing. So a lot of people with little #scientific #education (or bad science education: that’s a separate post or ten) fall for it. The longer they believe it, the more resistant they get to alternatives—they can slide into #1 very easily. But if you can catch them at a critical moment, you can sometimes bring them around.

I know this is possible, because I’ve done it. Not often, and less often lately, with the hardening of political identities and the ever-stronger association of profoundly anti-scientific views with one political identity in particular. But it still happens now and then.

Of course if you assume everyone is in group #3, you’ll waste a lot of time and energy on 1s and 2s. It’s really dispiriting to put effort into a clear, simple explanation presented with tolerance and good humor, only to be met with dismissal or mockery or baffled rage. Telling the difference is a survival skill, and a tough one to learn.

No one should feel obligated to tackle every case they encounter, or even most cases. That’s a game for the very young, and if you play too much of it you’ll get old before your time. (Trust me on this.) But when you can … well, sometimes you win. Those small victories feel pretty good. I have to believe they still matter.

I’ve received a lot of comments on this post, in various locations, to the effect of “don’t bother, you’re never going to convince these people anyway.” So this is a copy-and-paste reply. My apologies for the impersonality, and please don’t take this as a lack of interest in discussing the finer points of the issue.

Absolutely, there are many people who will never be convinced. I think there are, more or less, three types of people who hold #antivax / #creationist / etc. positions, and two of them are hopeless cases. But the third is a different story.

1. Hardcore believers. For #creationism, this usually boils down to “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” The others are more complicated, although there’s often a religious element there too: e.g. “we’re made in the image of God so #vaccines are blasphemy” (they never seem to object to wearing glasses, though) or “the Earth is a divine creation and we mere humans could never change the #climate.” Once they make their beliefs clear, the best thing to do is walk away. No one in that debate is going to change anyone else’s mind.

2. Propagandists. They may or may not believe what they’re claiming, but they think they can gain some political advantage by doing so. “If you don’t want #woke #liberals telling your kids they come from #monkeys, elect me to the school board!” That kind of thing. You’re not going to change their minds either—especially since the #propaganda is often horrible effective—but it may be worth countering it to try to persuade the people they’re trying to recruit.

3. People who just don’t know any better. Members of the first two groups, particularly #2, are much more sophisticated than they used to be, and a lot of their propaganda is very slick and superficially convincing. So a lot of people with little #scientific #education (or bad science education: that’s a separate post or ten) fall for it. The longer they believe it, the more resistant they get to alternatives—they can slide into #1 very easily. But if you can catch them at a critical moment, you can sometimes bring them around.

I know this is possible, because I’ve done it. Not often, and less often lately, with the hardening of political identities and the ever-stronger association of profoundly anti-scientific views with one political identity in particular. But it still happens now and then.

Of course if you assume everyone is in group #3, you’ll waste a lot of time and energy on 1s and 2s. It’s really dispiriting to put effort into a clear, simple explanation presented with tolerance and good humor, only to be met with dismissal or mockery or baffled rage. Telling the difference is a survival skill, and a tough one to learn.

No one should feel obligated to tackle every case they encounter, or even most cases. That’s a game for the very young, and if you play too much of it you’ll get old before your time. (Trust me on this.) But when you can … well, sometimes you win. Those small victories feel pretty good. I have to believe they still matter.

Revealed: House speaker did little to fight #toxic ‘#burnpit’ his father campaigned against
#MikeJohnson’s #creationist beliefs clash with #environmental realities in a district where many residents hold deep concerns about #pollution
A terse back and forth followed between #SpeakerJohnson and his father, his stepmother said. “He just wasn’t interested,” she said. “He had other things to do. He was never interested in environmental things.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/13/mike-johnson-creationist-beliefs-clash-with-climate-facts

Earlier in the sermon, #House #Speaker #MikeJohnson discussed the necessity of a #creationist view of life. “If [#evolution] is true, there really probably isn’t a God anyway, right? There really isn’t a *creator,” (*see his first speech as speaker yesterday) #Johnson said. “So remember when the founders said ‘God’s up here & he’s transcendent & all men are down here.’ Well [academics] just erased God from the equation entirely.”

#Dinosaur denier #AllieBethStuckey interviewed dinosaur liar #KenHam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNTpi2bhP6s
#creationist #conservative #crazy

For some who's beliefs are truly #flatearth and #creationist - maybe they should re-think using tech that doesn't conform to their cosmology.

B/C the physics that makes iPhones "go" says that the #cosmos is very old.

I can't believe I answer this question every so often. (Post below.)

#exvangelical #orphangelical #church

https://exvangelical.substack.com/p/the-power-of-political-self-justification

#WND (originally an initialism for #WorldNetDaily, or as it was affectionately known to its fans as WingNutDaily or WhirledNutDaily) is a far-right webshite founded by the impressively mustachioed Joseph Farah in 1997 as a project of his "Western Center for Journalism". The site espouses a #fundamentalist, #Christian, #creationist worldview with a healthy dose of #jingoism, and its coverage provides multiple sides of issues: the very #conservative viewpoint and the ultra-conservative viewpoint. Basically, it makes Fox News look positively moonbatty in comparison.

While they present themselves as news, WND is basically a tabloid for radical right-wingers. Their publishing standards are rock-bottom, and they have run stories from extremely questionable sources on many, many occasions. It's also one of the earliest and longest-running publishers of Ann Coulter's insipid columns…

#RationalWiki #josephfarah
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/WND

#WND (originally an initialism for #WorldNetDaily, or as it was affectionately known to its fans as WingNutDaily or WhirledNutDaily) is a far-right webshite founded by the impressively mustachioed Joseph Farah in 1997 as a project of his "Western Center for Journalism". The site espouses a #fundamentalist, #Christian, #creationist worldview with a healthy dose of #jingoism, and its coverage provides multiple sides of issues: the very #conservative viewpoint and the ultra-conservative viewpoint. Basically, it makes Fox News look positively moonbatty in comparison.

While they present themselves as news, WND is basically a tabloid for radical right-wingers. Their publishing standards are rock-bottom, and they have run stories from extremely questionable sources on many, many occasions. It's also one of the earliest and longest-running publishers of Ann Coulter's insipid columns…

#RationalWiki #josephfarah
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/WND

Watching my son come up with all these elaborate theories about how the tooth fairy can walk through walls but isn't a ghost, but also how garden fairies aren't real but the tooth fairy is... really puts me in mind of myself when I was a young earth #creationist.

I admit it, I'm a #creationist. Or maybe that's reverse creationist. I believe that man created #god.

I met a #creationist who claimed to be a medical doctor. He said cancer was caused by chemicals and nuclear power plants made by humans, and when I asked him if there was cancer before modern technology, he answered "I don't know, I wasn't there to see it".

“If evolution is true, the church is false” Joseph Fielding Smith, Mormon Church Historian and Prophet and Church President

Find the full article and more quotes at: https://wasmormon.org/if-evolution-is-true-the-church-is-false/ #exmormon
#mormon #lds #ldschurch #josephfieldingsmith #wasmormon #evolution #church #creationist #faithcrisis #ldsprophet

Kent E. Hovind (or, to use his full former academic title Kent E. Hovind, inmate #06452-017) (1953–) is a young Earth #creationist, promoter of imminent millennialism, con man, professional liar, and convicted felon.

Hovind promotes Young Earth creationist and #Christian #dominionist views in lectures and videos sold or publicized through his Creation Science Evangelism organization (despite having no legitimate degree).

Hovind created The Hovind "Theory" to explain how the global flood got all the water — namely, a comet did it. Hovind then proceeded to ignore all scientific evidence on dinosaurs gathered this side of 1960. Not satisfied with this record of failure, in 2001, Hovind started Dinosaur Adventure Land, an amusement park in his backyard.

#RationalWiki #kenthovind #youngearth #taxfraud #SovereignCitizen #dinosauradventureland
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Kent_Hovind #mailfraud #DomesticViolence #IndependentBaptist

@UnlikelyWorlds
Ah, I wish I were still in contact with my old original #creationist interlocutor (back circa 1999) so he could comment. Is the ICR still going?

There is claim that repeatedly pops up in #creationist writing about how the “French Academy of Science” in 1861 published a list of 51 scientific facts that disproved the Bible. The claim continues that all 51 of those facts have now been debunked. This claim never includes any citation or list of what those 51 facts supposedly were.

The most recent creationist to make this claim is Paul Batura at #FocusOnTheFamily, as reported by the Sensuous Curmudgeon (https://sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com/2022/12/28/the-james-webb-space-telescope-proves-the-bible/).

(Con'd…)

Originally published June 7, 2017

A tenet of geology is that rocks are old. Therefore, objects of human origin embedded in rock suggest that the rock formed after the object was created. However, there are several examples of these anomalies, which, upon first appearance, seem to set the geological timescale and assumptions topsy-turvy. One of these items is the London Hammer.

The story of its discovery goes as follows: Mr. and Mrs. Max Hahn found a nodule with the wood handle sticking out near Red Creek in London, Texas in either 1934 or 1936. Later retelling of the story by others say it was lying loose on a rock ledge when found. The nodule was broken open several years later to reveal the entire embedded iron head.

These type of anomalies are known colloquially as OOPARTs (out-of-place artifacts). Such items also include similar embedded objects like iron nails and gold chains but also alleged human footprints in prehistoric rock. Other OOPARTs assumed by some to be ancient objects created by some mysterious culture are actually natural phenomena that resemble cultural products. I hope to include some more interesting OOPARTs descriptions in future posts.

But let’s take this London hammer artifact and try to determine just how strange it is.

The hammer is of 19th-century origin. We know this because we can find matching hammers used by miners of that time and not before. The wooden handle of the hammer would not preserve much longer intact. Wood would either decompose or mineralize, depending on the conditions. How did it get encased in rock? The clue to this seems to lie in the description of the rock type – “limey”. Calcite precipitates from saturated solutions quickly under the right conditions, weeks to years. Shell beds also accumulate and cement together in a short time. In this case, we can surmise that a miner might have dropped the hammer or it fell into a spot where he was unable to retrieve it, perhaps into some limey clay that eventually hardened around the hammerhead. However, there are some suspicious details about the hammer.

First, it was not found in situ. We have no documentation of exactly where it was found or under what conditions. We just have a story from the Hahns. The strata in this location are Cretaceous in age but do not match the concreted substance. The nodule matrix cannot reliably be associated with a host rock.

But the primary problem is where the artifact is now kept and for what purpose. The item resides in a Creationist museum in Texas and is exhibited as “proof” that a worldwide flood occurred and wiped out most of the earth’s inhabitants, as related in the Biblical tale of Noah. Carl Baugh, the current owner of the artifact, will not allow testing of the wooden handle or the concretion matrix to definitively characterize its origin, though there is an undetailed, uncorroborated report from a supporter of Baugh who claims the handle was dated “from present to 700 years ago”.

Researcher Glen Kuban has an excellent chronology and details of the history of the artifact and its problematic provenance here. He supports the explanation that the hammer is a typical 19th-century miner’s tool that was encased in the limey concretion by natural means. This plausible explanation does not overturn any geological ideas about the age of the earth or of humans’ place in it. The London Hammer is simply the result of unique circumstances that produced a fascinating object.

Unfortunately, those who possess the item now (Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, TX) have no reason to have it analyzed further to help determine how this anomaly formed because of their use of it to support their anti-science narrative of Biblical creation.

Update 25-June-2024

Here is another example of rapid cementation of a recent item – an engine block left in an intertidal zone became incorporated into the rock along with shells and rock.

Young-earth creationists will shift position on these artifacts depending upon what might gain them traction in an argument. As noted above, they will claim that the rock indicates that humans were around long ago at the same time as extinct animals, so evolution must somehow be false or that fossils can form very quickly so the earth does not have to be old. Both arguments have mistaken assumptions and are flawed. Some rock does form quickly. But some types of rock are demonstrably ancient – perhaps even a billion years old for some continental bedrock – as are the creatures whose remains were preserved in them. There are multiple lines of evidence that establishes that the earth is over 4 billion years old and that there are billions of animal species that evolved and lineages that went extinct over time. It wasn’t just a few thousand years and a flood that constitutes the history of earth.

UPDATE 5-Jan-2026 (Revised) So a version of this artifact was sold for $330 at auction in January 2026. It was part of a lot of mineral specimens, fossils, casts, and related items owned by Melvin Weaver. While it seemed really strange to some of us who knew what it was that 1. it was being sold and, 2. that it went for such a low price. Jason Colavito contacted the Creationist museum where it was supposedly housed and found that it’s still there. So this version was a replica. I did not imagine there were replicas made, and there was no accessible info on the auction site that showed that. Sorry for the misinformation.

The hammer entombed in rock

A tenet of geology is that rocks are old. Therefore, objects of human origin embedded in rock suggest that the rock formed after the object was created. However, there are several examples of these anomalies, which, upon first appearance, seem to set the geological time scale and assumptions topsy-turvy. One of these items is the London Hammer.

The story of its discovery goes as follows: Mr. and Mrs. Max Hahn found a nodule with the wood handle sticking out near Red Creek in London, Texas in either 1934 or 1936. Later retellings of the story by others say it was lying loose on a rock ledge when found. The nodule was broken open several years later to reveal the entire embedded iron head.

These type of anomalies are known colloquially as OOPARTs (out-of-place artifacts). Such items also include similar embedded objects like iron nails and gold chains but also alleged human footprints in prehistoric rock. Other OOPARTs assumed by some to be ancient objects created by some mysterious culture are actually natural phenomena that resemble cultural products. I hope to include some more interesting OOPARTs descriptions in future posts.

But let’s take this London hammer artifact and try to determine just how strange it is.

The hammer is of 19th-century origin. We know this because we can find matching hammers used by miners of that time and not before. The wooden handle of the hammer would not preserve much longer intact. Wood would either decompose or mineralize, depending on the conditions. How did it get encased in rock? The clue to this seems to lie in the description of the rock type – “limey”. Calcite precipitates from saturated solutions quickly under the right conditions, weeks to years. Shell beds also accumulate and cement together in a short time. In this case, we can surmise that a miner might have dropped the hammer or it fell into a spot where he was unable to retrieve it, perhaps into some limey clay that eventually hardened around the hammerhead. However, there are some suspicious details about the hammer.

First, it was not found in situ. We have no documentation of exactly where it was found or under what conditions. We just have a story from the Hahns. The strata in this location are Cretaceous in age but do not match the concreted substance. The nodule matrix cannot reliably be associated with a host rock.

But the primary problem is where the artifact is now kept and for what purpose. The item resides in a Creationist museum in Texas and is exhibited as “proof” that a worldwide flood occurred and wiped out most of the earth’s inhabitants as related in the Biblical tale of Noah. Carl Baugh, the current owner of the artifact, will not allow testing of the wooden handle or the concretion matrix to definitively characterize its origin, though there is an undetailed, uncorroborated report from a supporter of Baugh who claims the handle was dated “from present to 700 years ago”.

Researcher Glen Kuban has an excellent chronology and details of the history of the artifact and its problematic provenance here. He supports the explanation that the hammer is a typical 19th-century miner’s tool that was encased in the limey concretion by natural means. This plausible explanation does not overturn any geological ideas about the age of the earth or of humans’ place in it. The London Hammer is simply the result of unique circumstances that produced a fascinating object.

Unfortunately, those who possess the item now (Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, TX) have no reason to have it analyzed further to help determine how this anomaly formed because of their use of it to support their anti-science narrative of Biblical creation.

#Anomalies #artifact #concretion #creationism #creationist #LondonHammer #NoahSFlood #OOPARTs

https://sharonahill.com/?p=435