Creationism at the Keswick Convention
Every year in July, the Keswick Convention takes place in my hometown. It’s a meet up of Christian evangelicals known around the world, and regularly floods the town with visitors. My Christian stepdad, who attends events each year, estimated around 12,000 people are there this year.
This afternoon, out for a walk, I noticed one church building held a banner which read CHRISTIAN RESOURCES EXHIBITION. Then I saw this sign in front of me.
Given I had my iPhone on me, I decided to check it out. Things only got better when I saw this on my way in.
Creation Ministries International had mounted a stall…
…and as promised, there was a scale model of Noah’s ark, complete with details of its structure.
In case you had any doubts – yes, they think the world flood in Genesis actually happened.
In case you were wondering, ‘How could Noah fit all the animals on the ark?’ – they even provided some information. (The original article is here.)
What’s more, they don’t think this happened very long ago. ‘Geological time is imaginary’, according to them, and this planet’s not really billions of years old, like all those geologists seem to agree. (And physicists. And geneticists. And astronomers.)
They threw in a handy Psalm to explain how it formed.
They said how fossils were creatures killed by God’s flood. Fish, for example.
Oh, and about human variation – Adam and Eve had lighter- and darker-skinned children. (Then they all had an argument, presumably, and went to live on separate continents for thousands of years according to skin tone.)
To summarise: in the midst of the internationally known convention for which my town is famous – one of very few famous things about it – a group has an audience of many thousands who think that:
(a) Adam and Eve actually existed;
(b) Noah and his ark actually existed, and the flood actually took place;
(c) the earth isn’t actually four to five billion years old;
(d) was, on the contrary, created in six days by God, and
(e) evolution by natural selection doesn’t actually occur.
I’m not a scientist. (If you are, please share your thoughts on the images above in the comments section – or alternatively, contact the designer of this material, who was present and kind enough to give me his address.) But I am embarrassed that this is happening where I live, and outraged that these claims are still being peddled.
Update: on contacting Keswick Congregational Church, who invited CMI to use their chapel, I was informed the group are ‘not an official part of the Keswick Convention’, but that the church invites various organisations to do this kind of outreach during its run. I’d like to know how those who organise the convention feel about this.
I enjoyed this very much. With so many options, it’s hard to pick a high point, but I was particularly entertained by the dinosaur argument.
YEAH BUD, WE JUST PICKED THE BABIES!
And amidst all the fallacies, the most glaring one was the absence of food/drinkingwater supplies being factored into the ark’s capacity. Hohoho.
Fantastic. I feel that I know so much more now. For instance, according to the linked article, fish do not breath air. Well, blow me down with a Gourami…
Keswick? Actual Keswick? There are creationists in Keswick?
Now I *know* you have scythes and pitchforks, don’t you know how to use them to run idiots out of town?
‘…for which my home town is famous’. The word you are looking for is ‘infamous’
As an American, I think I can fully appreciate the embarrassment you must be feeling. I wish I could offer advice, but everything we’ve tried has failed.
At least they picked the right font.
‘How could Noah fit all the animals on the ark”.
I would like to find this article hilarious but I can’t. I find it sad – a shame to see that the author, like many people, doesn’t use that fantastic faculty of ours named thinking, available for free. Or maybe they are afraid to open their minds too much, for fear that their brains will fall out.
I must say ‘baby dinosaurs’ was an amusing explanation.
Have a nice weekend!
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to make any headway criticizing these beliefs. Pointing out the absurdity of it all just gets you labeled as a “mocker” or relying on your “carnal mind” in place of God. And any objection can be met with the statement that “nothing is too difficult for God.” Just like that, God becomes a stage magician, waving his wand and poofing absurdity into reality for the sole purpose of conforming it to the words of an ancient text that can’t even get its stories straight. (Seven pairs of ritually clean animals, or one? Forty days of flooding, or 150?)
The best takedown I’ve read of the whole crazy story is “101 Reasons Why Noah’s Story Doesn’t Float” by Jason Long. Well worth a quick Google search to find it.
The explanation of how we have different “races” is
A) racist. It should be why we have different skin tones – if all humanity came from a single couple, shouldn’t every one have the same skin color as that couple?
B) Hilariously bad. They forget that most genetic variations go more than “skin-deep”. No way all those endemic mutations could have occured in only six thousand years. The rate of mutations would have to be enormously high.