Ham skeptical of intelligent design movement
By Allen Palmeri
Staff Writer
March 30, 2004
JEFFERSON CITY – By sponsoring a bill introducing the concept of intelligent design to Missouri’s public school system, Rep. Wayne Cooper, R-Camdenton, is doing the state a service, according to Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis.
Cooper’s bill, which would promote intelligent design as the belief that certain biological lines of evidence are proof of a designer as opposed to blind naturalistic processes, has been read two times in the state House of Representatives. It seems unlikely that the bill will move any further this session.
The value in introducing Cooper’s bill to Missouri lawmakers, however, is that it reminds people that evolution is not making a lot of sense these days, Ham said following a March 21-22 seminar at Concord Baptist Church, Jefferson City.
“Anything, in a way, that brings this debate into the public and shows you that people are questioning evolution, showing the bias of the evolutionary humanists and the education system, I think has to have some worthwhile aspects, even if they lose," Ham said.
“Battles where you’re changing an entire way of thinking have got to start somewhere. So you see all of these little battles happening across the states, and even though most of them are losing, I think in a way it’s sort of part of the death throes of Darwinian evolution."
Evolutionists believe in an earth that is “millions of years" old, Ham said. Most intelligent design scientists have no problem with that. Therefore, Ham questions whether the intelligent design movement, which refuses to specify at its very foundation that the God of the Bible is the designer, will turn out to be a viable alternative to the status quo.
“Basically, the intelligent design movement still accepts evolutionary geology, evolutionary astronomy and even evolutionary biology," Ham said.
“Materialistic, mechanistic evolution is being questioned, and more and more scientists are realizing it doesn’t work, so they need an intelligent source to make it work. They don’t want the God of the Bible, so why not adopt the Muslim God? Why not a New Age-type God? And I think that’s what will happen.
“The intelligent design movement, in the long run, will lead people into the New Age Movement or the Muslim faith, something like that, because you’re not starting with God’s Word. So you replace a materialistic philosophy with one that adds in some supernatural, but it’s supernatural with what man decides. And you know what man’s heart is, if you understand Scripture. So in the long run it’s extremely dangerous. It’s got the wrong foundation."
Ham believes in a young earth that was created in six literal, 24-hour days by YHWH (the holy covenant name of God). He is calling for a revolution in scientific thinking that would turn the foundation of “millions of years" teaching upside down. Intelligent design bills like the one before Missouri’s legislators only scratch the surface of what Ham is advocating.
“If you’re going to change a whole way of thinking in the public education system, you’ve got to change it from the foundation up," he said. “In essence, the only way to do that is to really understand what public education is. Even though there are some missionaries in the system, it is an anti-God system. I believe the only way to solve the problem is to start a new system with the right foundation.
“Remember, the Scripture does not give the state any right to educate our kids. The state was given the role of keeping law and order. Education was given to the parents."
In the end, we are faced with two choices, Ham said. Either God determines truth or man determines truth. Right now what we see in the American public school system is man’s wisdom ruling.
“The only way to change that worldview is to get back to God’s Word, as a culture, and for the church first of all to get back to God’s Word," Ham said. “You can’t fight the battle by dealing with symptoms."