One of my New Year’s resolutions is to pay more attention to my blog, so let’s kick off the year by considering what showed up in my mailbox today.
Though I have recently been less active on the creationism beat than I have been in the past, I am still on a handful of creationist mailing lists. As a result, I periodically receive the newsletter of Creation Ministries International, a young-Earth group. Each issue invariably contains a testimonial or two, and this one contained a real corker. Two people identified simply as “Bernhard and Louise K.” wrote it to say this:
We want to thank the Creation Ministries speakers, scientists and volunteers for all the work you do to promote the Truth of God’s Creation of the world, mankind, and the worldwide flood of Noah. We began screening different scientific CMI DVSs on Sunday nights…The most exciting outcome of these CMI Sunday evening screenings has been the commitment to Jesus Christ and baptism of a young…local man.
His testimony is that he was taught evolution at school–which he says made him believe that there was no God and no heaven. Therefore he was able to live his life without a conscience and do things that were wrong…He filled his life with drugs and the life that goes with this. They gave him comfort and purpose. After watching the CMI DVD about creationism, he realized evolution was a lie and had led him into a miserable, meaningless life. He says that God gives him comfort, purpose, and fullness. His life has been transformed after he learnt about creationism which allowed him to discard evolution…This is his story and he has been an enormous encouragement to us and we hope to you at CMI.
That’s verbatim how it appears in the newsletter, including the ellipses.
I got a kick out of this. I have no idea if Bernhard and Louise K are real people, or if they were just created by some intern at CMI. But I do know that whoever wrote this was reading from a script. This story is way too perfect to be credible. Absolutely no one fundamentally changes his life after receiving a perfunctory lesson on evolution in school. This young man seems awfully impressionable. One biology class in school and he spirals down into drug use and despair. Reflecting on his own misery was insufficient for him to change his ways, but watching a DVD did the trick. That must have been one powerful DVD! It’s reminiscent of that video from The Ring.
Anyway, I have no big point to make about this. I just think it’s funny that creationists never get tired of endlessly repeating the same talking points. Every issue of the newsletter opens with an editorial lamenting the harm that is caused by “compromising scripture,” followed by some testimonials (always along the lines of the one above) and home news (turns out CMI is renovating their offices), followed by many, many pages of advertisements.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1S2USaZ
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to pay more attention to my blog, so let’s kick off the year by considering what showed up in my mailbox today.
Though I have recently been less active on the creationism beat than I have been in the past, I am still on a handful of creationist mailing lists. As a result, I periodically receive the newsletter of Creation Ministries International, a young-Earth group. Each issue invariably contains a testimonial or two, and this one contained a real corker. Two people identified simply as “Bernhard and Louise K.” wrote it to say this:
We want to thank the Creation Ministries speakers, scientists and volunteers for all the work you do to promote the Truth of God’s Creation of the world, mankind, and the worldwide flood of Noah. We began screening different scientific CMI DVSs on Sunday nights…The most exciting outcome of these CMI Sunday evening screenings has been the commitment to Jesus Christ and baptism of a young…local man.
His testimony is that he was taught evolution at school–which he says made him believe that there was no God and no heaven. Therefore he was able to live his life without a conscience and do things that were wrong…He filled his life with drugs and the life that goes with this. They gave him comfort and purpose. After watching the CMI DVD about creationism, he realized evolution was a lie and had led him into a miserable, meaningless life. He says that God gives him comfort, purpose, and fullness. His life has been transformed after he learnt about creationism which allowed him to discard evolution…This is his story and he has been an enormous encouragement to us and we hope to you at CMI.
That’s verbatim how it appears in the newsletter, including the ellipses.
I got a kick out of this. I have no idea if Bernhard and Louise K are real people, or if they were just created by some intern at CMI. But I do know that whoever wrote this was reading from a script. This story is way too perfect to be credible. Absolutely no one fundamentally changes his life after receiving a perfunctory lesson on evolution in school. This young man seems awfully impressionable. One biology class in school and he spirals down into drug use and despair. Reflecting on his own misery was insufficient for him to change his ways, but watching a DVD did the trick. That must have been one powerful DVD! It’s reminiscent of that video from The Ring.
Anyway, I have no big point to make about this. I just think it’s funny that creationists never get tired of endlessly repeating the same talking points. Every issue of the newsletter opens with an editorial lamenting the harm that is caused by “compromising scripture,” followed by some testimonials (always along the lines of the one above) and home news (turns out CMI is renovating their offices), followed by many, many pages of advertisements.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1S2USaZ
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