BILL MORGAN'S QUESTION: The Geologist Who Nearly Became an Atheist
by DWise1

Bill's question:

What data caused the geologist to almost become an atheist?

Almost from the very start, I tried repeatedly to warn Bill Morgan about the dangers that creation science poses to faith and to his proselytizing efforts. Both of these effects are embodied in two quotes:

"If the earth is more than 10,000 years old then Scripture has no meaning."
(John Morris of the Institute for Creation Research at the 1986 International Conference on Creationism, as reported by Robert Schadewald)

"Creationism by and large attracts few to the gospel, but it turns many away."
(Gregg Wilkerson, co-founder of Students for Origins Research and former young-earth creationist at the 1990 International Conference on Creationism)

I substantiated my warnings with the story of Glenn R. Morton, practicing petroleum geologist and published creationist, who had hired several geology graduates who had been trained by the ICR at Christian Heritage College [which formerly housed the ICR], and all of whom suffered severe crises of faith when faced with the hard geological facts every petroleum geologist deals with on a daily basis. This is a very important issue that Bill and all other creation science activists must address and deal with, so I repeatedly told Bill Morgan the story of Glenn Morton et al. Later, I amplified it with materials from Glenn Morton's own web site and especially from his series of pages, "Personal Stories of the Creation/Evolution Struggle", which presented the testimonies of people who have either had their faith shaken because of creation science. Glenn Morton testifies that he himself had reached the point of almost becoming an atheist because of the contrary-to-fact claims of creation science; he is the geologist in the question.

It must be noted that Glenn Morton took his pages down for personal reasons he gives here. Other sites have archived and reposted many of his pages, such as the "ERV FAQ for Creationists" Wiki (that link goes straight to his index page for Morton's old articles).

After two years of repeatedly warning Bill Morgan, telling him about the experiences of Glenn Morton and his geologists, presenting him with material from Glenn Morton's site, and urging him to visit Morton's web site and to read my geology web page, I was surprised -- nearly shocked -- when Bill suddenly asked me, "What data caused the geologist to almost become an atheist?" So I pointed him to that data yet again and urged him to write to Glenn Morton himself for the details. To my knowledge, Bill has never visited Glenn Morton, has never emailed him, and has never read my geology web page.

Rather than include that two years of material, I will start here with my message to which Bill responded by asking his question. Most of the previous materials either are presented again or can be found through the URLs provided.

The reference to "the Spanish Inquisition" refers to my then-wife's Hispanic ancestry and the watchful eye she kept on how I spent my time, including her disapproval of wasting it on anything she didn't approve of. It's just that when I saw that Monty Python sketch, their catch-phrase, "Nobody ever expects the Spanish Inquisition!", just seemed to resonate.

Also, please note that the URLs for Morton's pages given in the messages below are out of date. When I had first written this page in 2000, Glenn Morton had moved to a different city in the meantime and had to change ISPs. But then a few years ago Morton suddenly took his pages down, ostensibly because he didn't like how some atheists were using them. However, some of his pages can still be found on archive sites. The links given above are current.

In the following text, I will leave the stale, broken links as bare URLs and I will present the valid ones as live links. Please also note that I have changed the URLs to my web pages to reflect their current location. At the time I wrote those emails I was hosted by AOL, but then they abruptly left the hosting business and I have had to set up my site elsewhere.

In the following text, I am "DWise1" and Bill Morgan is "BillyJack6." Liber8r was a third-party witness to our correspondence.

#########################################################

Subj:   Re: Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-04-29 23:35:28 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

 
###################
Subj:   Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-04-27 00:02:18 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

Hey!  I am helping to organize an Origin of Life Debate at UCI on May 28th
1998.

Will you be able to make it?

Bill

################

How?  You forget the Spanish Inquisition.  I wouldn't be able to sneak
sneaking out past her.  Besides, it looks like my older son's choir has a
concert that night, so you can guess what the plan is.

Who are the debators?  What will the format be?  Will you report on the
debate?  


You still have not replied to my counter-offer of an on-line debate. 

We are also still awaiting your reply to the hypothetical situation I had
posed.  It really is important that you answer the questions.  More important
for you than for me.  Here it is yet again:

### BEGIN ###

Glenn R. Morton, his friend Steve Robertson, and those ICR-trained geology
students are prime examples of this high-risk group.  When they went to work
as geologists, they could not avoid working with those troublesome data that
they had been taught did not exist and could not exist.  It was right there
in front of them, day after day.  The harmonization fell to pieces at their
feet.  They were left with that other lesson that they had been taught over
and over again:  if that troublesome data were true, then Scripture has no
meaning (Liber8r:  in case you do not know it, to a fundamentalist that can
be paramount to saying that there is no God; in short, their entire theology
has lost its basis and starts to unravel).  Since they still believed that
the troublesome data and their faith were mutually exclusive and they could
plainly see that the troublesome data was true, that led them to the logical
conclusion that their religion was wrong (ironically, that realization
probably actually saved their faith, but more on that thought at a later
date).  Morton ended up on the verge of becoming an atheist.  BECAUSE of
creation science.  Robertson didn't quite go that far and I don't know about
the others, except that none of them had suffered a crisis of GEOLOGY.

Bill, you're an ME.  Now, I know from experience that fundamentalists tend to
have a hard time with Gedankenexperimenten and hypothetical situations, but
please bear with me.  Try to imagine what it would be like to have been
taught that, say, there was no such thing as the Moment of Inertia and,
furthermore, if it did exist then Scripture would have no meaning.  You go
through school having been taught this and you believe it.  But then you go
out to work as an ME.  What do you have to deal with several times over in
virtually each and every piece of machinery?  Moments of Inertia!  They're
all over the place!  Given the premises of this Gedankenexperiment, what
effect would this have on you and on your faith?  What conclusions would you
reach?  
                                       
                                       
Think about it!  It's very important!  Especially that last question.
Because that question is not rhetorical.  Because there is a right answer to
it.  An answer that provides the key to solving the entire problem.  An
answer that will lead a harmonization that can withstand any number of
"troublesome data" and keep faith intact.  An answer that is in full accord
with your Calvinistic world-view.  You've seen the answer many times before,
but you have denied that answer because of your paradigm paralysis.

That reference to Calvinism is a hint.  Use it.  We'll talk about that answer
later.

### END ###


#########################################################

Subj:  Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-05-02 00:40:56 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

 I am not a Calvinist...I am a zero point calvinist!

What data caused the geologist to almost become an atheist?

If the Bible taught there was no MOI I would be
devastated. 


#########################################################

Subj:   Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-05-06 01:11:17 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

 
### YOUR MESSAGE ###
Subj:  Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-05-02 00:40:56 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

I am not a Calvinist...I am a zero point calvinist!

What data caused the geologist to almost become an atheist?

If the Bible taught there was no MOI I would be devastated.

### END ### 

>I am not a Calvinist...I am a zero point calvinist!<

Certainly, there are many Calvinist ideas that you reject, such as, I
believe, the ideas of predestination.  I expected no less.  I was not calling
you a Calvinist, but rather refering to some Calvinist ideas that I am sure
are in your world-view, judging from what I had learned in my own
fundamentalist Christian training, care of Chuck Smith's church.

Never mind most of Calvinist theology.  There is one Calvinist idea in
particular to which I was refering (I have also seen references to Martin
Luther having taught the same thing).  It ties in with belief in the inherent
corruption and evil of human nature, the idea that nothing that humans do on
their own can be good.  That is the key to finding the answer to the problem.


>If the Bible taught there was no MOI I would be devastated.< 

"MOI"?  At first, I thought that was an emphasized form of the French first
person singular emphatic pronoun, "moi" (think of what Miss Piggy always
says).  Then I finally realized that it must be an acronym for "moment of
inertia".  OK, now we're on the same page.

You're not making it clear why you would be devastated.  I believe that you
are saying that you would see this situation as proof that the Bible is
wrong, which would destroy your faith.  Utterly, judging by your word choice.
That would be pretty much the same effect as was suffered by Morton and the
other creationist geologists when they encountered the geological evidence
that they had been taught did not exist and could not exist for Scripture to
have any meaning.

However, I must ask you to go back and review the wording of the problem:

"Try to imagine what it would be like to have been taught that, say, there
was no such thing as the Moment of Inertia and, furthermore, if it did exist
then Scripture would have no meaning."

  
You and I are not talking about the same thing there.  You are talking about
what the Bible itself says, whereas I am talking about what somebody had
taught you that it says, somebody's interpretation of what the Bible says.
That is a key difference.

Follow that lead.  Which was it that said that MOIs did not and could not
exist?  When MOIs were found to exist nonetheless, which was that showing to
be wrong?  Which had you been taught would be wrong?  When you believed that
MOIs did not and could not exist, which had you actually believed in, the
Bible or somebody's interpretation of the Bible?

Get back to me with your answers.  You're almost there.


>What data caused the geologist to almost become an atheist?<
                      
Honestly, Bill!  After all this time, you still have not read my geology
page?  Even after you made such a big fuss, demanding that I present you with
my evidence that the earth is ancient.  I had hoped for so much more.  I
guess it really would be so much better for me to be pessimistic instead;
that way, most of the time I could be self-satisfied for being right all the
time and occassionally I would be pleasantly surprised.  Much of the
geological data you ask for is described on that page.  Read it this time
[http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/geology.html].

NOTE:  I hope to be able to reorganize my page this weekend.  Try the URL
above first, but if it cannot be found, then try
[http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/geology.html]

That geologist's name is Glenn R. Morton.  His email address is
grmorton@psyberlink.net.  The URL for his web pages is
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm.  He can tell you exactly what that
evidence is and why it was significant, plus answer other questions you may
have.  Do not try to proselytize him; he used to be a young-earth creationist
and knows a lot more about it than you do, more than you would want to know,
but should.

One thing that is clear is that it is not a single datum point nor a small
collection of data that was the problem.  Almost everywhere you look, the
geological data contradicts a young earth (literalist Christians' main
problem with geology from the very start) and Flood Geology, the ICR teaching
(and an integral part of creation science) that most of the geological
formations were formed within a single year by massive hydraulic effects, id
est, a powerful world-wide flood.  If you had read my GEOLOGY.HTML page, you
would have read the following, drawn from Robert Schadewald's report from the
1986 International Conference on Creationism (ICC), where Morton had
delivered a paper, which mentions someof that data:

### BEGIN EXERPT ###
    Since his report was on the ICC itself, Robert Schadewald did not go into
great depth on this single subject.  However, he did have conversations (and
breakfast) with Glenn R. Morton, a practicing petroleum geologist (area
geophysicist for Arco Exploration Co.) and a staunch creationist who "want[s]
an earth as young as [he] can get it," but who realizes that it is much older
than mere thousands of years.  Morton has published numerous articles
critical of Flood Geology in the _Creation Research Society Quarterly_.  His
paper, "Geological Challenges to a Young Earth," is a devastating rebuttal to
Flood Geology.  On the day before Morton's presentation, Schadewald was
trying to explain some of the geological evidence against Flood Geology to a
creationist physicist (who, like most conference attendees, had no
understanding of the scientific ideas that he has rejecting) when he asked
Morton to help out.  Morton obliged with a capsule version of his
presentation -- this "capsule" took an hour.  Schadewald writes:

"As conventional geologists know, the evidence against Flood Geology comes
from everywhere.  Morton cited the Green River shale, which has bird tracks
in many of its millions of layers.  There are too many fossils; microscopic
fossils of diatoms are found in beds up to three kilometers thick.  Many
limestones look just like shallow-water deposits being laid down today,
burrows and all.  Seismic data shows ranges of mesas like we see in the west
today -- buried in sedimentary rock.  Using oil well drilling logs,
geologists can map ancient rivers -- channeled deltas, sand crescents, and so
forth -- now deeply buried in sedimentary rock.  Pollen grains found in salt
deposits prove they are evaporites, in clear contradiction to Henry Morris'
claims.  And so on, for an hour.  Morton's job gives him access to a
tremendous library of seismic profiles and well logs, and he used these and
other graphics to illustrate his points."

### END EXERPT ###

Morton's friend, Steve Robertson, went through much the same things as Morton
did, though he did not come as close to losing his faith.  Steve obtained his
bachelor's degree from Christian Heritage College, the former educational arm
of the Institute for Creation Research and wrote a master's thesis which
became an ICR Technical Monograph entitled, "The Age of the Solar System: A
Study of  the Poynting-Robertson Effect and Extinction of Interplanetary
Dust". 

Steve's letters on the subject, which I have quoted from in the past and am
about to quote from again, can be found linked to Morton's home page given
above.  Quoted incompletely to save space:

### BEGIN QUOTES ###
"[The teachers at CHC] did tell us of the data that they didn't believe in
when they were able to hold it up as an example of the intellectual
bankrupcy or moral corruption of uniformitarian geology. The further I have
gone I my experience from CHC, the more I have seen of their propensity to
ignore the facts that don't fit their pet models. That is not acceptable to
me. Raising problems for the evolutionists will never convince honest
scientists unless accompanied by vigorous efforts to explain the full
spectrum of geologic data, with a replacement for the present 4 billion year
model."
 
 
Wrote Morton:  "In preparing this page, Steve wants it clearly known that at
no time did he come as close to leaving the faith as I did, but the
intellectual problems presented by what he learned in school and what he saw
with his own eyes at work, caused trememdous stress. He writes in an e-mail
dated 2/14/98"
 
 
"My greatest beef with ICR is their polarization of the creation/evolution
issue. If you are not entirely in their camp, by their own declarations
you are entirely out of the camp of those who accept the Bible as a
completely true and literal account of God's interaction with time, space and
matter.  There is no leeway for any other interpretation of the Biblical text
since Henry Morris studied it and figured out what it really means. Now that
he as found out exactly what God meant, all observations must fit within his
(Morris') explanation of Genesis because God would not lie. It is not at all
illogical to throw out interpretations/explanations of observed natural
phenomena (biological, geological, astronmical, or what have you) even though
there is no suffucient or reasonable alternative offered from their group.
Petrified sand dunes in Utah CANNOT be subaerial, even though they show a
complete set of characteristics that match present day subaerial dunes and
the evaporite deposits in the lows between them demand a subaerial
environment of formation, because they HAD to have been deposited in the
flood and God doesn't lie. Varves CANNOT be annual features because they HAD
to have been deposited in one year and God doesn't lie. Your example of the
meander through carbonate rock CANNOT have been produced by eroding solid
carbonate because it HAD to happen subaqueously and within minutes, hours or
a day at most since the Bible clearly says that all geological formations
except the basement rock and a thin upper veneer were laid down during the
year of the flood. God doesn't lie!"

[DWISE1:  Creation science is Henry Morris' and the ICR's INTERPRETATION of
Genesis.  Last we checked, wasn't Morris and the staff and members of the ICR
mere humans?]

"In ICR's logic, to ignore or deny problematic natural observations is not to
be decietful. (A perfect example of this is John Morris' statement that he
has never seen a geological fact that did not fit equally as well or better
in the flood model than any other model.) At worst, in thier view, it would
be glossing over what remains to be explained properly, and WOULD be expained
properly if more scientists did creationist research. The problem, from ICR's
viewpoint, is the vast, hidden conspiracy to interpret the world around us in
a way to discredit the Bible, not that any of the data from the world around
us is contrary to their explanation of what the Bible means in Genesis."

"This inflexible, dogmatic, self-blinding position is my bone of contention
regarding ICR. Until a person begins to understand where they [the
scientists--GRM] are coming from, and the rules of their game, he is
incapable of realizing that he could question their dogma and still be a
Bible believing Christian."
 

"I do not consider myself to have undergone a "severe crisis of faith" in the
sense of struggling with whether to be a Christian or not. The struggle for
me was to come to the point where I could accept that a Christian could
disagree with Morris' interpretation and still believe in the literal truth
of Genesis."

"For me, that crisis never wandered from within a Christian worldview. If it
was a crisis, and I guess it would be fair to call it one, I look back now
and believe it was a false one created by my naive acceptance of ICR's
dogmatic presentation of their view as the only allowable Christian view."

### END QUOTES ###

When you write to Glenn Morton, please CC me and share his reply with me.

#########################################################

Subj:  Geology Follow-up
Date:   98-06-03 23:32:02 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com


Follow-up time, Bill:

### YOUR MESSAGE ###
Subj:  Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-05-02 00:40:56 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

I am not a Calvinist...I am a zero point calvinist!

What data caused the geologist to almost become an atheist?

If the Bible taught there was no MOI I would be devastated.

### END ### 


### ME ###
Subj:   Re: Spontaneous Generation??
Date:   98-05-06 01:11:17 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

[snipped]

>What data caused the geologist to almost become an atheist?<

Honestly, Bill!  After all this time, you still have not read my geology
page?  Even after you made such a big fuss, demanding that I present you with
my evidence that the earth is ancient.  ... 

[snipped]

...  Much of the geological data you ask for is described on that page.  Read
it this time [http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/geology.html] [NOTE:  new
address!]

[snipped]

That geologist's name is Glenn R. Morton.  His email address is
grmorton@psyberlink.net.  The URL for his web pages is
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm.  He can tell you exactly what that
evidence is and why it was significant, plus answer other questions you may
have.  Do not try to proselytize him; he used to be a young-earth creationist
and knows a lot more about it than you do, more than you would want to know,
but should.

[snipped]

When you write to Glenn Morton, please CC me and share his reply with me.

### END ###

Well, Bill, I did not get CC'd, so I must assume that you never did follow
through in getting the answer to your question.  Did you finally read my
geology page?   Did you visit Glenn Morton's page?  Did you write to Glenn
Morton?  What did you ask him?  What was his response?

An entire month has transpired.  If you have not read my geology page, nor
visit Glenn Morton's page, nor write to Glenn Morton, then why not?  


                     
########################################################

Subj:  Re: Geology Follow-up
Date:   98-06-04 01:44:31 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

Too busy!  But trying to catch up!  I spoke to 9 high schools
about Creation vs Evolution the past two weeks and it keeps me busy opening
their eyes to truth!

Bill


########################################################

Subj:  Newsletter Notes
Date:   98-06-05 22:34:19 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

Excuse me a moment, Bill.

Liber8r, since I am about to talk with Bill about what he had written in his
latest newsletter (Jun 98), I felt I should include that article, in its
entirety, in order to let you know what we are talking about and to preserve
context.

At the end of the newsletter, Bill offers to email the newsletter to anyone
who asks.  I'll take him up on that offer in order to lower his overhead. 

OK, Bill, first a little business.  Please switch to emailing the newsletter
to me here at dwise1@aol.com.  As little as it will save you in postage, at
least it's something and every little bit helps.


### BEGIN ARTICLE ###
### FROM Creation Science Association of Orange County newsletter, Jun 98 ###
### written by Bill Morgan (billyjack6@aol.com) ###
### HTML tags added for italics and underlining ###

WARNING!  CHRISTIAN COLLEGES MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR CHILD'S
SPIRITUAL HEALTH!!!!

Several years ago a co-worker was excited to inform me his son was accepted
to Wheaton College.  Shortly after this wonderful news, his son attended a
Ken Ham Creation seminar and he had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Ham.
He told Mr. Ham he was going to attend Wheaton and he was startled when Ham
told him: "Be careful, it might ruin your faith."

After the shock wore off he asked for an explanation and Ham told him that
Wheaton had many instructors who did not trust Genesis to be literal; that
some believed the Genesis days to be millions or billions of years long, and
some believed that God used evolution to create.  My co-worker's son thought
he was an extremist.

All I have to say is I knew this young man before he went to Wheaton and
after he graduated from Wheaton and his faith may  not be ruined, but it sure
is not where it used to be.  Maybe it was a result of some of his
instructors, maybe not, but there was a big change never the less.  He now
strongly argues that it is ridiculous to believe Genesis is literal.  No
longer do I hear any exciting spiritual news originating from his life.

NOTE:  I am not saying all instructors at Wheaton are liberal, but enough
were to change this young man's opinion on the Bible.

It would be a disaster for well meaning Christian parents to spend a large
amount of money to finance their child's education so that they may attend a
private Christian college, only to find out it killed their trust of the
Bible.

A few years ago there was a debate at UCI.  A professor from Fuller Seminary
was debating that Jesus did not rise from the dead, but that it was more
likely he had an identical twin who was crucified in his place.

I told a 9-year-old home schooled girl about this debate and her answer was
immediate and powerful.  She was puzzled for about two seconds and then
quickly replied that the Bible said Mary was with child, not with
children.  I would rather learn scripture from her than the Fuller prof.

Note:  Again, I am not accusing all Fuller Professors of being Bible twisters
instead of Bible trusters, but this gentleman sure was.

Ken Ham's July 1997 newsletter addressed Christian Colleges and their opinion
on Creation.  A reader wrote to 87 colleges and asked them if their science
department took a stand on whether God used evolution to create and how old
the earth was.  Some schools did not reply, some sent a form letter without
answering the questions, but many answered the question specifically.
Houghton College in New York said most of their faculty was old earth;
Erskine College in South Carolina said, "Christianity and evolution are not
mutually exclusive;"  These were typical responses.  Obtain the newsletter
for more details (call 606-727-2222 to receive it).

Of the schools in Southern California that replied, Ken Ham said only
Master's College and Christian Heritage College took a stand to trust Genesis
(I am sure Southern California College in Costa Mesa would pass this test
too).  Parents, be very careful and check out where you are sending your
precious children.

Want to get the newsletter via email?  Inform us at BILLYJACK6@aol.com.

### END ARTICLE ###


Frankly, Bill, I was shocked to read this month's newsletter. YOU KNOW
BETTER!

The headline, "WARNING!  CHRISTIAN COLLEGES MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR
CHILD'S SPIRITUAL HEALTH!!!!" is certainly true, but then you go on to
promote PRECISELY the ones that do the most damage, the ones that KNOWINGLY
teach their students a very false description of the world and then teach
them that their faith depends on that false description being true!  

You know what happens when those students subsequently discover that they had
been lied to!  That is what had happened to Glenn Morton.  That is what
happened to the Christian Heritage College (CHC) geology students who went to
work for him.  You remember them, the ones who suffered SEVERE  CRISES OF
FAITH when faced day after day with HARD GEOLOGIC FACTS that CHC had taught
them did not exist and could not exist if Scripture were to have any meaning.
YOU KNOW THAT!  How could you then recommend CHC as PRESERVING its students
faith, when you know for a fact that the EXACT OPPOSITE is true??

I said that CHC does this knowingly.  I base that on Steve Robertson's
testimony, particularly where he says:
"They did tell us of the data that they didn't believe in when they were able
to hold it up as an example of the intellectual bankrupcy or moral corruption
of uniformitarian geology. The further I have gone [in] my experience from
CHC, the more I have seen of their propensity to ignore the facts that don't
fit their pet models."

Here is that testimony, from Glenn Morton's page, "Steve Robertson's Story: A
Graduate of  Christian Heritage College who works in Geology"
[http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/robertso.htm] (normally, I should be able
to trust someone to go read the page in question, but I suspect that you
would not do so, having never seen any evidence that you have;  hence I must
repeat everything for you in the email):

### BEGIN EXERPT (HTML tags removed) ###

Steve Robertson Story: a Case History of What Happens
to a Young-earth Advocate who works in Geology

This page is published with the full permission of a friend of mine, Steve
Robertson who obtained his bachelor's degree from Christian Heritage College,
the former educational arm of the Institute for Creation Research.  Steve
Robertson wrote a master's thesis which became an ICR Technical Monograph
entitled, The Age of the Solar System: A Study of the
Poynting-Robertson Effect and Extinction of Interplanetary Dust. This
monograph was designed to show that the solar system was young because
interstellar dust still remained. After school, Steve went to work as a
geophysicist in the oil industry where he, like me, became intimately
familiar with the geologic data that contradicted the young earth position. I
have only seen Steve in person once in my life but we have communcated via
phone often over the past 12 years and have become friends. Like me, Steve
has anguished about the discrepancy between what he was taught and what he
saw for years.  This is because the ICR/young-earth approach makes a person
feel that rejecting a young earth is equivalent to rejecting the efficacy of
the blood of Jesus.  Steve has graciously allowed me to quote from an old
letter he sent me
nearly 11 years ago in 1987.

Steve Robertson wrote:

"It is sad to say that I am one of those CHC/ICR graduates wh has had a
severe crisis of faith as a result of their ministry." 
Letter, Steve Robertson to Glenn Morton Dated Feb 22, 1987.

Steve further explains in the same letter,

"Of course, I should not fail to mention that you are correct in pointing out
that we were not given all the data in our coursework at CHC.  But they
didn't do that maliciously; they simply were ignoring the data they didn't
believe in themselves, and so would have no reason to think we needed to know
these things. As I'm typing this I realize that this is not entirely true.
They did tell us of the data that they didn't believe in when they were able
to hold it up as an example of the intellectual bankrupcy or moral corruption
of uniformitarian geology. The further I have gone I my experience from CHC,
the more I have seen of their propensity to ignore the facts that don't fit
their pet models. That is not acceptable to me. Raising problems for the
evolutionists will never convince honest scientists unless accompanied by
vigorous efforts to explain the full spectrum of geologic data, with a
replacement for the present 4 billion year model.  Even though I don't know
what to think about resorting to different laws of nature in the past, I feel
much better about that than to simply ignore pesky geologic problems!"
Letter: Steve Robertson to Glenn Morton dated Feb 22, 1987.

I have kept this letter for over 10 years because Steve's statement and
others I will not publish was one of the saddest letters I ever received.  It
moved me greatly.

In preparing this page, Steve wants it clearly known that at no time did he
come as close to leaving the faith as I did, but the intellectual problems
presented by what he learned in school and what he saw with his own eyes at
work, caused trememdous stress. He writes in an e-mail dated 2/14/98

"My greatest beef with ICR is their polarization of the creation/evolution
issue. If you are not entirely in their camp, by their own declarations you
are entirely out of the camp of those who accept the Bible as a completely
true and literal account of God's interaction with time, space and matter.
There is no leeway for any other interpretation of the Biblical text since
Henry Morris studied it and figured out what it really means. Now that he as
found out exactly what God meant, all observations must fit within his
(Morris') explanation of Genesis because God would not lie. It is not at all
illogical to throw out interpretations/explanations of observed natural
phenomena (biological, geological, astronmical, or what have you) even though
there is no suffucient or reasonable alternative offered from their group.
Petrified sand dunes in Utah CANNOT be subaerial, even though they show a
complete set of characteristics that match present day subaerial dunes and
the evaporite deposits in the lows between them demand a subaerial
environment of formation, because they HAD to have been deposited in the
flood and God doesn't lie. Varves CANNOT be annual features because they HAD
to have been deposited in one year and God doesn't lie. Your example of the
meander through carbonate rock CANNOT have been produced by eroding solid
carbonate because it HAD to happen subaqueously and within minutes, hours or
a day at most since the Bible clearly says that all geological formations
except the basement rock and a thin upper veneer were laid down during the
year of the flood. God doesn't lie! In ICR's logic, to ignore or deny
problematic natural observations is not to be decietful. (A perfect example
of this is John Morris' statement that he has never seen a geological fact
that did not fit equally as well or better in the flood model than any other
model.) At worst, in thier view, it would be glossing over what remains to be
explained properly, and WOULD be expained properly if more scientists did
creationist research. The problem, from ICR's viewpoint, is the vast, hidden
conspiracy to interpret the world around us in a way to discredit the Bible,
not that any of the data from the world around us is contrary to their
explanation of what the Bible means in Genesis. This inflexible, dogmatic,
self-blinding position is my bone of contention regarding ICR. Until a person
begins to understand where they [the scientists--GRM] [I believe that Steve
meant the ICR -- dwise1] are coming from, and the rules of their game, he is
incapable of realizing that he could question their dogma and still be a
Bible believing Christian."

He further wants to add:

"I do not consider myself to have undergone a "severe crisis of faith" in the
sense of struggling with whether to be a Christian or not. The struggle for
me was to come to the point where I could accept that a Christian could
disagree with Morris' interpretation and still believe in the literal truth
of Genesis. For me, that crisis never wandered from within a Christian
worldview. If it was a crisis, and I guess it would be fair to call it one, I
look back now and believe it was a false one created by my naive acceptance
of ICR's dogmatic presentation of their view as the only allowable Christian
view. The result of this crisis was that I stopped actively participating in
this debate and still consider myself to be mainly a passive bystander."

### END EXERPT ###


Yes, I agree that certain Christian colleges may be hazardous to one's
spiritual health, but you have it all twisted around.  You claim that the
colleges protecting their students' faith are those  who dogmatically adhere
to young-earth creationism and teach their students lies about science and
about the physical world, when in reality those are the ones that endanger
their students' faith.  We have both seen that happen, so you know that is
true.

Of course, you have also seen cases of the other Christian colleges "ruining"
the faith of its young-earth students.  But rather that is the fault of the
theology that they had been taught  before going to college.  Because it
requires its followers to believe things about the physical world that are
contrary to fact, that theology, which you and Ken Ham promulgate, endangers
the faith of its followers.  After having been raised on lies, a person faced
with the truth must either learn to accept the truth or reject it, the latter
having to be implemented through self-deception.  Of course, their beliefs
will have changed, but that need not result in their faith having been
"ruined", though certain their faith in creation science would have been
ruined.

"Any faith that cannot live in the world as it is, is defective, and not to
be considered by a rational thinker, on pain of self-contradiction."
(John Wilkins, Head of Communication Services, Walter and Eliza Hall
Institute of Medical Research, quoted by Glenn Morton in "The Effect of
Scientific Error in Christian Apologetics"
[http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/whocares.htm])


But wait, you say.  Students come out of CHC with their faith visibly
strengthened while students come out of Wheaton visibly changed, even before
they graduate.  True, but you are only seeing  the immediate effects.  With
the colleges that  teach the truth, the young-earth students immediately see
the conflict between the facts and their prior, naive beliefs and realize
that they need to work things out.  Yet, having had to do that, they should
be able to weather future crises better; in reality their faith itself had
been strengthened.  However, in the colleges that perpetuate lies, the
young-earth students are lulled into a sense of false security; it is only
after they have graduated and are brought face-to-face with reality that they
suddenly must cope, with devastating results, as we have seen.  Some are able
to avoid reality for the rest of their lives, but not all are that lucky.
They are all left with a brittle and fragile faith and little or no
experience in dealing with spiritual crises.
                                       
One of the main problems with the truthful colleges, eg Wheaton, is that they
may not realize what is really happening with their young-earth students.
Since they already realize that the earth is ancient and that Christianity
and evolution really are not mutually exclusive, they may not realize the
radical departure those simple facts would be for a young-earther.  In
addition to learning the truth about the world, those young-earthers also
need to learn how to harmonize the truth with their belief systems.  They
need to replace their old, scientifically false harmonization with a new,
scientifically accurate one*.  To the extent that the truthful colleges do
not recognize and act to meet this need in the soon-to-be-former
young-earther segment of their student body, to that extent do they fail
their students.  Not only do they need to present the truth, but they also
need to help their students deal with the truth.


[FOOTNOTE: 
* Morton examines the need for a scientifically accurate harmonization of
Genesis in "The Effect of Scientific Error in Christian Apologetics"
[http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/whocares.htm] and offers one in his book,
"Foundation, Fall and Flood",the synopsis of which is at "Theory For
Creationists" [http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/synop.htm]).


>Several years ago a co-worker was excited to inform me his son was accepted
to Wheaton College.  ... All I have to say is I knew this young man before he
went to Wheaton and after he graduated from Wheaton and his faith may not be
ruined, but it sure is not where it used to be.  Maybe it was a result of
some of his instructors, maybe not, but there was a big change never the
less.  He now strongly argues that it is ridiculous to believe Genesis is
literal.  No longer do I hear any exciting spiritual news originating from
his life.<

Have you discussed this with him?  What reasons does he give for arguing that
"it is ridiculous to believe Genesis is literal"?  Have you listened to those
reasons and checked them out?  Have you asked him what experience(s) had led
him to his current position AND LISTENED to him?  What "exciting spiritual
news originating from his life" did you hear before college and what
"spiritual news originating from his life" have you heard after college?  Is
your current low opinion of his current spiritual life colored solely by it
not being based on young-earth creationism?  What was his major and what (is
he doing)/(has he done) with it?


>It would be a disaster for well meaning Christian parents to spend a large
amount of money to finance their child's education so that they may attend a
private Christian college, only to find out it killed their trust of the
Bible.<

But in reality, you are talking about the child's trust in a FALLIBLE human's
INTERPRETATION of what the Bible must mean.  Indeed, that interpretation is
what teaches the child that his trust in the Bible must be killed if he
should ever learn that that interpretation is not true.  Doesn't your
theology give lip service to the inherent depravity of man and of his
efforts?  How then can you worship as infallible a human's interpretation?




That phrase, "well meaning Christian parents", triggered an association in my
mind.  In the mid-1980's, as we watched the rise of the Radical Religious
Right, Orson Scott Card developed and presented his "Secular Humanist Revival
Meeting".  Although a Mormon, he presented it in archetypical Baptist
fire-and-brimstone fashion, which he undoubtedly has seen and heard practiced
in earnest most of his life in and around his hometown of Greensboro, North
Carolina.

After presenting creation science and a local creationist program for the
schools, "God's World", he continues [quoted here from memory]:

"They say that they are upholding the Truth of Genesis, but I say that the
Truth NEVER needs to be upheld by a lie!

[cries of "Amen" and "Hallelujah" from the audience]

"But my heart goes out to those well-meaning mamas and papas who send their
children to the "God's World" class.  Now the stupid children are safe
enough; they will just laugh at evolution and be happy fools for the rest of
their days.  But the parents of the smart children live in dread of the day
that they know will come, when their child comes home and says:  'Today I
learned what evolution really is and YOU LIED TO ME!  What else did you lie
to me about?  Did you lie about the Resurrection?  About Sin and Redemption?
About loving my neighbor?  Was it all just lies?  How could I ever believe
you again?'

"To those well-meaning mamas and papas, I say:  This book, this book is full
of lies.  And if you can only support what you believe with lies, then you
stop right there.  Your children will not follow you.  You are the last
generation."
...
...

Sorry, I got choked up there.  It's a moving presentation, thought-provoking
and full of humor and truth.  He's not merely doing a parody, but rather
carrying a message of freedoms endangered  that must be defended.  His
leitmotif of "Can you hear me?  Am I talking loud enough?" sounds like
nothing but filler, until it leads to the heart of his message.

I would be happy and proud to send you a copy of that tape.  The offer is
extended to you too, Liber8r.


>I told a 9-year-old home schooled girl about this debate and her answer was
immediate and powerful.  She was puzzled for about two seconds and then
quickly replied that the Bible said Mary was with child, not with
children.  I would rather learn scripture from her than the Fuller prof.<

Gee, Bill, this one almost comes in second after the "how did food evolve?"
8bit from a few years ago (I don't know if that one was yours, too). 

The Bible, or any English-language publication adhering to standard English,
would not use the phrase "with children" to indicate "pregnant with multiple
embryos/feti".  Such a phrase is not part of standard English.  The phrase
"with child" indicates only that a woman is pregnant and says nothing of the
number of embryos/feti she is carrying; even the expectant mother of
septuplets would be "with child", but not "with children." 

If you believe that Scripture study should depend on twisting torturously
that which is written, even though you claim to believe that it is literally
true, then your theology is in a lot worse shape than I thought it was.
Besides which, twisting and distorting the ENGLISH phrasing should not reveal
any new truths, since the New Testament was NOT written in ENGLISH, but
rather in KOINE, a form of ancient GREEK, and was TRANSLATED into English,
sometimes via an intermediate translation into Latin.  All that analysis of
the English translation would reveal would be how the translater, a fallible
HUMAN, had INTERPRETED that passage in order to RETELL/REWORD it.  If, as
Thomas Paine had described it, an interpretation and retelling of Revelation
is to be considered hear-say, then interpreting that hear-say is piling
hear-say upon hear-say; it is NOT Revelation.  You should have gone back to
the original GREEK to see what IT said (assuming you can figure out which
variation of that passage is the "right" one).

FWIW, I have no idea where that Fuller prof got his "identical twin" idea
from.  What did he  present to support his claim?  Or was he just presenting
plausible explanations?


--------------------------------

"The Truth NEVER needs to be upheld by a lie!"  
("The Secular Humanist Revival Meeting", Brother Orson Scott Card speaking
specifically about creation science)

The Koine New Testament expression for "being with child" is "exw en gastri" ("ekho en gastri") which means "to have in belly." Which raises the 9-year-old's "the Bible said Mary was with child, not with children." from howler to a double howler.

########################################################

Subj:   Re: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
Date:   98-06-08 09:44:47 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

In a message dated 98-06-06 12:02:06 EDT, you write:

<< Subj:    Re: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E 
 Date:  98-06-06 12:02:06 EDT
 From:  BillyJack6
 To:    DWise1
 
 I guess you can call me a man who loves truth! 
 
 :) >>

Then why do you ignore the truth and propagate false claims?

Remember the effect that creation science's lies about geology and the age of
the earth had on practicing geologists.  If those claims had been true in any
way, then those practicing geologists would not have gone through their
crises of faith.

Have you talked with Glenn R. Morton yet?  Or visited his page?  Or read my
geology page?  If not, they why not?





#########################################################

Subj:  Re: Geology Follow-up
Date:   98-06-14 23:19:19 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com

To keep Liber8r in the loop:

### BEGIN ###
Subj:   Re: Geology Follow-up
Date:   98-06-04 01:44:31 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

Too busy!  But trying to catch up!  I spoke to 9 high schools about Creation
vs Evolution the past two weeks and it keeps me busy opening their eyes to
truth!

Bill
### END ###

>Too busy!  But trying to catch up!<
 
Gee, what is this problem that creationists keep having with context?

I assume, since you give no indication, that this is in answer to my
question:

"An entire month has transpired.  If you have not read my geology page, nor
visit Glenn Morton's page, nor write to Glenn Morton, then why not?"

Am I correct?  I will have to assume that I am, since your past conduct
indicates that you will never answer that simple question either.  When you
answer in monosyllables, could you please repeat part of my question so that
we can tell what you are grunting "yes" or "no" to?  If you need to be told
what the Clipboard is and how to use it, PLEASE ASK!  It's so extremely
simple that even MacIntosh people can use it.


So, even though you know that there is a serious problem with creation
science claims being contrary to fact and that this problem is so great that
it has actually caused DEVOUT creationists, even ones far more devout than
you are, to have severe crises of faith, you have gone to NINE HIGH SCHOOLS
and presented these claims that you know to be false and that you know can
cause those kids to LOSE THEIR FAITH!?  

WHY!??  What is wrong with you?  Like Gish, are you doing the Devil's work?
What did the Devil promise you?  Is it worth what you are trying to do to
these kids?

In order to redeem yourself, did you at least point those students to my
geology web page or to Glenn Morton's site?  At least in that case they could
have a chance to see for themselves what the truth is.  As it is, if all you
told them was the standard contrary-to-fact creation science lies, then you
have done them no service.  You have definitely NOT "open[ed] their eyes to
truth", but rather you have damned them to the Darkness.




You are saying that in over a YEAR you have NOT read my geology page?  What
are you afraid of?  Why are you afraid of the truth?  Why does your faith
demand that you live in fear and darkness?  Why does your faith demand that
you drag everybody else down with you?


Learn the truth, Bill.  There are none so blind as refuse to see.


#########################################################

Subj:    Re: Geology Follow-up
Date:   98-06-15 15:10:05 EDT
From:   unknownsender@unknown.domain
To: DWise1@aol.com, BillyJack6@aol.com

Gentlemen:

BillyJack6 wrote: "Too busy!  But trying to catch up!  I spoke to 9 high
schools about Creation
vs Evolution the past two weeks and it keeps me busy opening their eyes to
truth!"

DWise1 wrote: "So, even though you know that there is a serious problem
with creation science
claims being contrary to fact and that this problem is so great that it has
actually caused DEVOUT creationists, even ones far more devout than you
are,
to have severe crises of faith, you have gone to NINE HIGH SCHOOLS and
presented these claims that you know to be false and that you know can
cause
those kids to LOSE THEIR FAITH!?"

"...What is wrong with you?  Like Gish, are you doing the Devil's work?
What did the Devil promise you?  Is it worth what you are trying to do to
these kids?"

"In order to redeem yourself, did you at least point those students to my
geology web page or to Glenn Morton's site?  At least in that case they
could
have a chance to see for themselves what the truth is.  As it is, if all
you
told them was the standard contrary-to-fact creation science lies, then you
have done them no service.  You have definitely NOT "open[ed] their eyes to
truth", but rather you have damned them to the Darkness."
                                                                           
  
I must agree with DWise1 here.  I too teach high school students, but not
as a lecturer.  I am a classroom teacher.  It's very easy to get in the
routine of feeding people slanted information.  I am probably guilty of
doing it myself.  Instead, try to do something bigger--teach the flaws and
benefits of both worldviews and allow those students to make up their own
minds.

Much like the media, teachers and lecturers can get trapped into presenting
biased information.  Unfortunately that type of behavior does a disservice
to all parties.  We need people who know how to reason and ask intelligent
questions in order to have a truly educated citizenship if we want to solve
our growing local, national, and global problems.

Churches tend to churn out automatons and school systems can be accused of
the same error.  If let to their own devices without change, these
institutions will keep the status quo enforced.  All of us know what the
status quo is and we should be ashamed of it.

Keep doing; keep thinking; keep improving.

                    The Liber8r

The Liber8r can be reached by e-mail, and web site respectively:
liber8r@mcs.com
http://www.mcs.net/~liber8r/

----------------------- Headers --------------------------------
#########################################################

Subj:   You can help
Date:   98-06-16 01:10:20 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

Why don't you follow God (and truth) and help people like this
woman has been helped...here is a memo she sent to me!


I said I'd give you a daily report.... well
here it is:

I just wrote down on a piece of paper stuff to pray about.... forgiveness,
praises, requests, worship... and I prayed.  Like ACTUAL praying.  Usually
when I pray I say "Thank you God for this day, and thank you for my family
and friends.  Please watch over everyone and help everyone blah blah blah."
But THIS time... I prayed TOTALLY differently... I spent like 15 minutes
actually TALKING to God....like how I talk to my friends.  I let Him know how
I feel, what's going on in my life, how I need to change, etc etc... and it
was great!!!!  Now I'm getting ready to start reading John.... I'll keep you
posted on that too.  :o)

-Jenny


                     
#########################################################

Subj:  "God of Truth"?
Date:   98-06-25 01:22:09 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

### BEGIN ###
Subj:   You can help
Date:   98-06-16 01:10:20 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

Why don't you follow God (and truth) and help people like this
woman has been helped...here is a memo she sent to me!


I said I'd give you a daily report.... well
here it is:

I just wrote down on a piece of paper stuff to pray about.... forgiveness,
praises, requests, worship... and I prayed.  Like ACTUAL praying.  Usually
when I pray I say "Thank you God for this day, and thank you for my family
and friends.  Please watch over everyone and help everyone blah blah blah."
But THIS time... I prayed TOTALLY differently... I spent like 15 minutes
actually TALKING to God....like how I talk to my friends.  I let Him know how
I feel, what's going on in my life, how I need to change, etc etc... and it
was great!!!!  Now I'm getting ready to start reading John.... I'll keep you
posted on that too.  :o)

-Jenny


### END ###

>Why don't you follow God (and truth) ...<

But one cannot follow both your god AND the truth, since you and other
creationists have demonstrated repeatedly that your god has nothing to do
with the truth.  Instead of the truth, you follow creation science, which is
about as far from the truth as you can get.  Since you serve your god through
falsehood, how could that god possibly be the "God of Truth"?  Remember Rev.
Lucas' admonition.  The question still stands:  Since when did the Truth ever
need to be upheld by lies?  

On 98-01-17, I had shared with Bill something that I had found on the Web, a page about Henry Morris' moon dust claim in general, "Footprints in the Dust" (link provided to Bill, but is now broken; essay apparently no longer on-line), written by a Revd. Dr. Ernest Lucas, Tutor in Biblical Studies at Bristol Baptist College. He was very critical of the creationists' dogged determination to ignore inconvenient findings and to use only much older and outdated sources to support their false claims and chides the creationist authors for not following the basic rules of good scientific work and thus "risk[ing] basing [their] conclusions on out-of-date evidence or disproven arguments" and states "It is amazing to find people associated with what is called The Institute for Creation Research falling into this basic trap. It undermines confidence in the quality of their science and their research."

I pointed out to Bill that I am not the only one concerned about the disasterous side-effects of proselytizing with creation science and offered what Rev Lucas says in conclusion:

"Does the failure of these authors to be up to date really matter ? Yes, for several reasons. First of all, Christians should be concerned about the truth. The God we are committed to is the God of truth (John 15:26). Of all people, Christians should be most punctilious about using only those arguments that are based on sound methods of scholarship and the best evidence available. This is a matter of obedient Christian discipleship, not simply a desire to look good in the eyes of other scholars. Secondly, following from this, it is dishonouring to God when Christian scholars are found to be using sloppy arguments based on out-of-date evidence - and I know secular scholars who have little respect for Christianity because of this.

"Finally, it is a matter of considerable pastoral and evangelistic importance. Christian scholars who wrongly claim to be presenting sound 'scientific' arguments are misleading their fellow Christians who read their books. Most of these readers do not have either the opportunity or the inclination to check up on the reliability of the arguments used and evidence presented. Some of those readers may in time be stumbled in their faith because of their misplaced confidence in what they have read. Christian students who, with more zeal than wisdom, confidently confront lecturers with arguments culled from books like Scientific Creationism have sometimes been made to look foolish when the lecturer has been able to show that the argument does not stand up to the evidence, even the evidence available when it was first put forward. That has not only shaken the faith of the Christians, but Undermined their witness to their fellow students. Perhaps publishers of books on 'scientific creationism', and the managers of bookshops which sell them, ought to consider putting a spiritual health warning on them."

Now to return from this digression:

At this point, we could start going back and forth over whether creation
science really is a pack of lies or not.  Well, we could, if you didn't
always avoid defending creation science (smart choice on your part).  There
could also be discussion over the issue of whether you and other creationists
realize that creation science is full of false statements; your extreme
reluctance to discuss creation science claims and to present any of your
"evidence" indicates that you are aware that your claims have some very
serious problems, hence you want to present them only to the unwary for the
purpose of converting them.  Such discussion could start to get messy.

Rather, let us concentrate on the question of whether creation science claims
are truthful or false.  We both know that creation science claims about
geology and geological timescales are false, because they are contrary to
fact.  We both know that they are contrary to fact because of what had
happened to Glenn Morton, Steve Robertson, and the other creationist
geologists who suffered severe crises of faith when they repeatedly
encountered direct conflicts between what they had been taught as
creationists and what they found in the real world.  Those conflicts were not
caused by "anti-creationism" geology professors teaching them the prevailing
scientific views in school, but rather by working directly with the actual,
hard, physical evidence.  They had been taught the CREATIONIST VIEW, BY
CREATIONISTS, many of them at CHRISTIAN HERITAGE COLLEGE (which you had
commended so highly for "strengthening" the faith of their students, when in
reality it had planted time bombs and booby traps to destroy that faith).
That creationist view conflicted directly with the real-world facts of
nature.  That creationist view was contrary-to-fact.  That creationist view
was false.  If that creationist view had not been false, then they would have
found no conflict; the real-world findings would have supported what they had
been taught by their creationist teachers.  That did not happen.  The exact
opposite happened.  That these creation-science-trained,
Bible-literalism-believing young geologists looked at the raw geological data
from a devoutly creationist perspective and repeatedly found the opposite of
what they were expecting to find, indicates most strongly that the creation
science views of geology are contrary-to-fact and hence false.

Bill, you have avoided looking at the geological facts, using the excuse that
you have been far too busy spreading the falsehoods of creation science to
impressionable young minds (though not in those exact words, but that is what
you were doing).  By analogy, let us say that someone is in the business of
going to all the youth groups to distribute a product.  Then research finds
conclusively that that product not only does not work as advertised, but use
of that product can result in disasterous effects several years down the
road.  This individual is informed of this research and urged strongly to
learn what was found.  Instead, this individual refuses to, saying that he is
too busy distributing the product in question.  Ethically, is that
businessman acting correctly? (yes, I know, ethical reasoning is foreign to
"true Christians", but give it a try, anyway)  Should that businessman be
held liable for the damage he wroughts by distributing dangerous materials
with the knowledge that those materials had been found to be dangerous?
Would you buy his trying to squirm out of accepting responsibility for his
actions by appealling to the Nürnberg defense that his boss bears all the
responsibility? (ie, as you would cop the same defense by saying that you
were following God's orders, hence God bears all the responsibility)

Bill, you are distributing information which has been demonstrated to be
false and contrary-to-fact and which has been demonstrated to result in
severe damage to and even loss or near-loss of faith.  You have been notified
of those facts and you have even asked for further information about the
geological facts in question ("What data caused the geologist to almost
become an atheist?", 98-05-02 00:40:56 EDT), to which I have pointed you.
And yet you refuse to review the data that you had requested and continue to
spread these false and potentially very damaging claims to impressionable
young minds.  I remember how some of those minds work.  You get them fired up
with indignation at the "lies" that scientists are telling them and some of
them will study geology and become geologists in order to conclusively prove
to those godless scientists the error of their ways.  Well, guess what?  You
have inspired them to have their faith destroyed.  Some of them will learn in
college that their religious leaders had lied to them (you know the form of
atheism that revelation usually leads to), but others will have to wait until
they start working in the field before they start to learn the truth.  As we
have observed before, the stupid ones will be safe enough, content to accept
your false claims and think no further about it, but the smart ones will dig
deeper, learn the truth, and end up having their faith destroyed when they
discover that you had lied to them.  Remember, the leitmotiv found in the
majority of cases of Christians becoming atheists is the realization that
their religious leaders had lied to them.  Maybe the ICR can get you a
discount at the quarry when you go there to be fitted for your mill-stone.


Bill, what does your high school presentation consist of?  Tell us PRECISELY
what you tell those kids.  Then tell us PRECISELY why you refuse to review
the facts.  Or don't you think that you have any responsibility to those
kids?

I follow truth, Bill.  You have made it clear that your god has nothing to do
with truth.  So why should I follow your god?


> ... and help people like this woman has been helped...<

Help, yes.  Deceive, no.  Nor set them up for a big fall later on.

I don't know if you remember the TV show, "The Rogues", from the early to mid
60's.  It was about three branches of a family of confidence artists
represented by Gig Young in New York, David Niven [I think] in London, and
Charles Boyer in Paris, with Gladys Cooper and another British actor in
London.  In just about the only episode I remember anything about, the London
branch had a wealthy guest whom they robbed blind of his ill-gotten gains.
At the end they bid each other adieu and he, not knowing what they had done
to him, responds to their "Glad to have had you" with "Glad to have been
had."

The point is that, immediately upon having been victimized by deception, most
victims will thank their deceiver; it isn't until later, sometimes much
later, that the evil, whose seeds had been sowed, finally sprouts and takes
its toll (Liber8r, I hope you are not an English teacher being driven crazy
by my mixed metaphors).  They thank you now, but what will they say when
creation science has destroyed their faith?

Similarly, you are only seeing short-term, immediate effects, not the
long-term end-results of your actions.  A former member of Pat Robertson's
staff wrote about witnessing Robertson perform a healing.  The man was
wheelchair-bound with a deathly palor.  Robertson laid his hand upon the man
and prayed, and the color returned to the man's face and his spirits were
noticably much higher than when he had been brought in.  But then the staff
member did what nobody else had done; he followed up.  A few days later, he
called the man's family to see how he was doing.  The man had died the next
day.  Short-term results: very impressive.  Long-term results (and not very
long this time): dead.

[NOTE:  That book was "Salvation For Sale".  When I was looking for it, I
asked the clerk at a local Crown bookstore, "Do you have 'Salvation For
Sale'?", he answered, "No, but there is a church two blocks away in that
direction." ]

You are going before students who may be starting to have doubts, or at least
difficulties reconciling a naive literalist view with the real world (meaning
that there are non-naive literalist views).  Your presentation reinforces
their naive literalist beliefs and misinforms them that the facts of the real
world that they think are conflicting with their beliefs do not really exist.
We both know (or at least you should know) that is not true.  Furthermore, if
you are following the pattern, you have also taught and/or reenforced the
naive literalist belief that creation science must be true if Scripture is to
be true and that if those "non-existent" conflicting facts were to actually
exist, then Scripture would have no meaning, hence your and their religion
would have no basis.  The immediate effect that you see, which reenforces
your own beliefs and zeal to proselytize through creation science, is their
relief at the false idea that the facts of the real world actually support
their naive literalist beliefs.  What you do not see is what happens a few
months, or years, or decades down the road when they discover that those
"non-existent" conflicting facts DO actually exist, that Scripture therefore
has no meaning and their religion has no basis.  Just as you and their
ministers had taught them.

As I told you before, we want to see people give up theism because they had
grown out of a need for theism.  NOT because they had been driven away by
stupidity.  That latter kind of atheist tends to cause everybody trouble,
especially because they continue to follow the stupid things their ministers
had taught them about atheism.


> ... and help people like this woman has been helped...<

There is nothing here to indicate what the connection is between this note
and your creation science presentations to the high school kids.  Nor your
creation science presentations to any other group, for that matter.  She
indicates that she has changed her approach to prayer for the better
(personally, I have a problem with people who just go through the motions and
put in their pew time) and that she was supposed to report back to you, but
there is nothing to tell us what your connection with her is.  

What's the story behind Jenny's "daily report"?  If her change was due to
religious counseling that you provided outside the context of creationism,
then why include it?  If her change was due to your creationist presentation,
why did it reach her when nothing else could?  If it was creation science
that did it, then what effect would it have on her should she learn that her
faith was now dependent on claims that are contrary-to-fact?  Remember saying
how devastated you would be should you believe that the Bible had told you
that moments of inertia did not exist?  Well, for those who accept your
creation science presentations, that is no mere hypothetical situation.  From
your newsletter articles, I have read that you believe that a Christian must
believe in the teachings of creation science.  That means that they must
believe things about the natural world that are contrary-to-fact.  When those
whom you have converted to creation science discover the truth about the
natural world, then the results can be devastating, as you should be starting
to be able to realize through the MOI exercise.


When I asked you last year what your success rate was and how many of those
you converted remained converted, I realized (and I believe I said as much)
that it can be very difficult to answer those kinds of follow-up questions
because you usually will never see that person again.  I am in that same
position regarding my efforts to help Christians free their faith of
dependence on creation science.  However, I do have at least one verified
case of my having helped someone.  Seven years after we had lost contact, I
bumped into Charles Lang at Santa Ana College (we were both taking some night
classes).  I told you about him in my "why" file, which I had originally
written for him ["How I got started and why I oppose 'creation science'" at
http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/warum.html].  When we had met at Ford
Aerospace, he was a die-hard creationist whose hero was Duane Gish (in an
earlier email, I had mistakenly written "idol"; I apologize for that).  He
was the first creationist with whom I had ever engaged in conversation over
creation/evolution.  I asked him many of the questions I had about creation
science and he became increasingly amazed at the errors and misinformation in
creation science.  When we went to the Gish&Morris vs Awbrey&Thwaites debate
in Long Beach (see my "why" file), he felt that his heroes would vindicate
creation science.  Instead, he could not understand why Morris and Gish would
not present any of the evidence that Charles was so sure they had.  When we
talked years later at Santa Ana College, he said that he was thoroughly
disgusted with the ICR and that he wanted nothing to do with them ever again.
He was still a fundamentalist Christian, but he was glad that he didn't have
to believe in the ICR's nonsense anymore.  I do not remember if he had
actually thanked me, but he at least acknowledged that I had helped him see
through the nonsense.

BTW, over the years friends and acquaintences have actively sought me out for
peer counseling on religious matters, even when they knew that I was an
atheist.  Each time, I helped them through their problem as well as I could
and as conscientiously as I could.  Each time, I tried as best as I could to
help them find the solution within their own religious tradition, even though
it may be very different from my own.  Could you say the same?  If a Jew, a
Catholic, or a Mormon came to you seeking religious advice, could you
withstand the temptation to try to convert them to your own religion?  Be
honest, now.

                     
###########################################

Subj:  Re: Look at the happiness you could spread!
Date:   98-07-09 02:04:36 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1

### BEGIN ###
Subj:  Look at the happiness you could spread!
Date:   98-06-27 00:02:22 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

Bill;

On behalf of Boeing, I want to thank you for an excellent presentation
yesterday at our facility in Long Beach.  It was one of the best I've heard
and clearly should cause people to think.  But more than the material, I
would like to thank you for showing me how such a sensitive subject can be
presented in a loving and caring manner.  That indeed was the highlight of
the lecture.

I've been discussing this issue with my family and many of my friends
recently.  Being a new Christian, I find that the way a message is put
forward is as critical (most of the time) as the message itself.  You
certainly have developed, with the Lords help, a manner that is pleasing yet
it still shows the firmness of your conviction.

Since my salvation a year and a half ago, I've also been collecting
Creation/evolution information to study and to use as I witness.  I've
attached my Word file (Word 6.0) on this subject for your information.  If
you can use it, God bless.  I'm sure, you have seen most of it before.  


If you have a similar file that you wouldn't mind releasing, I would
certainly like to have it and try to incorporate it in my witnessing.  I have
seven people that I am talking and emailing with and certainly would put your
information to good use.

God bless you in your witness.  I look forward to getting both the video and
audio tapes.  If you need financial assistance in your effort, please let me
know.  God has blessed me and my wife with good jobs and an overabundant
life.

All God's love.

### END ###

Boy, if he only knew what you had just done to him.


"As the shades of night are falling,
Comes the fellow everyone knows.
It's the old dope peddler,
spreading joy wherever he goes."
("The Old Dope Peddler", Tom Lehrer)

Like that of the Old Dope Peddler in the song, the "joy" you spread is
short-lived, is illusionary, and will lead to even greater suffering when it
wears off and reality sets in.  They receive your message joyfully because it
appears to confirm and reinforce their theology, even though at the same time
you are sowing the seeds of their faith's destruction by making their
theology dependant on contrary-to-fact claims.

Glenn Morton and the geologists from Christian Heritage College had also
received your message joyfully.  They believed firmly and fervently in your
creation science and in its claims.  They approached their practice of
geology firmly and devoutly from the creationist perspective.  And still they
could not deny the hard geological facts and evidence that they had been
taught BY CREATION SCIENCE did not exist and could not exist if their
religion and faith were to have any meaning.  They suffered severe crises of
faith precisely because creation science's claims are contrary-to-fact.  IF
creation science's claims were true, then they would have found exactly what
they had been taught to expect to find.  Instead, they found what creation
science had taught them that they would not find.  Creation science's claims
are demonstrably false and have been demonstrated to be false.


Bill, even if you were to post a million letters of appreciation, that would
not change the facts.  All your letters and notes of appreciation say
anything about is the immediate effects, not the long-term effects.  Let's
shift the analogy from drugs to wireheads.  You wire up a lab rat's brain so
that when he presses the bar in his cage, it delivers a jolt of pleasure to
his brain.  In very short time, being the little hedonist that he is, that
rat is pressing that bar as fast as he can.  To the exclusion of everything
else, including eating and drinking.  So the rat dies of starvation and
dehydration right next to more food and water that any rat could possibly
need.  If that rat could write, he would send you letters of appreciation
that would make the others seem lukewarm at best -- that is, if you could pry
him away from that bar long enough to write to you.  Even though in reality
you had sentenced him to a long and lingering death.

In every letter of appreciation that you post, that person had not yet gone
out to test your claims, to discover what the truth really is, to undergo a
crisis of faith solely because of your claims.  You are just avoiding the
issue.  You are just avoiding the fact of what happened to Glenn Morton and
the CHC-trained geologists and why.

Their story clearly shows that the claims of creation science are
contrary-to-fact, that they are lies.  Why must your religion be supported by
lies?  Why can you not understand the effects of supporting your religion
with lies?


Instead of only claiming to be "100%", why not try to BE "100%"?  Then you
can work on being 110%. (in case you have not had the privilege of having
served, there is indeed such a thing as being 110%)


###########################################

Subj:   Weasel Is As Weasel Does, Part 2
Date:   98-08-06 22:52:26 EDT
From:   DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1


### BEGIN ###
Subj:   Re: TMA/ Again with the Mitosis/Meiosis
Date:   98-07-23 23:56:35 EDT
From:   BillyJack6
To: DWise1

In a message dated 98-07-09 02:05:13 EDT, you write:

[snipped]

You're weasling.  I told you the earth is less than 10 k because the Bible
clearly teaches it and science doth not falsify it.

[snipped]
### END ###

>> ... the earth is less than 10 k because the Bible clearly teaches it and
science doth not falsify it.<<

As I said in the first response, this is the first time that I have seen this
statement at all.  I commend you for stating this position more honestly than
any other creationist I have spoken or corresponded with.  Certainly, since
they are so strongly tied to the game of "hide the Bible" in order to sneak
creationism into the public schools, mainstream creation science [an
oxymoron?] cannot make such a statement, nor can they afford to without
giving away their charade.  Remember, they maintain that their claims are
based on and supported by science and have nothing to do with the Bible nor
religion.  They need to do that to try to sneak it past the courts.  Here,
you admit that your young-earth claim is based solely on the Bible (actually,
upon one INTERPRETATION of parts of the Bible) and, instead of claiming
SUPPORT from science, you only claim that science has not disproven a young
earth.

Yet at the same time, you have claimed elsewhere that science supports your
claims and in AOLCREAT.DOC you claimed that you were going to support your
position with science (which you never did, by the way).  Also, in your
question of whether children should be taught about "God", it appears that
you advocate using the public schools to proselytize.  Furthermore, your
interest in creation science seems to focus almost exclusively on its use as
a tool for proselytizing.  Since you give presentations in local high schools
(we still would like some more detailed information about this, including who
[ie, what organizations or what officials] arranges for your presentations)
and have not indicated otherwise, we assume that you advocate having creation
science taught in the public schools.  Therefore, we understand your position
to be the same as that of mainstream creation science, that you want to have
creation science taught in the public schools in order to reach that student
population in order to proselytize them and to convert them to your religion,
without their parents' knowledge and regardless of their parents' wishes.
And we would assume that, despite this assault on the family, you would also
claim to believe in and support family values.

That you do not use the stealth language of mainstream creation science
indicates to me that you are a follower who actually believes in creation
science.  An analogy might be the Party in "1984."  The Party ran on lies,
which were handled and propagated by the Ministry of Truth.  The Inner Party
members would create the lies and the Outer Party members would administer
them.  All Party members were to believe the lies to be true, requiring a
skill known as "doublethink," the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts
and to believe them both to be true.  Because the Inner Party members had to
create the lies and keep them all straight along with the truth, they needed
to be very skilled in doublethink.  The leaders of creation science need to
devise their claims and arguments just so in order to artfully twist the
truth.  They have to know what they are doing in order to word their claims
just so (eg, Walter Brown's rattlesnake-protein claim), while at the same
time believing that their claims are true, requiring considerable skill in
doublethink.  Gish has also demonstrated his skill at doublethink; with a
copy of the title page of a NASA document, complete with the date of 1965,
right in front of him, he still insisted that the document's date was 1976.
Their followers, such as yourself, are not involved in the actual creation of
the false claims and so are freer to naively accept those false claims as
true without having to think about them.  Glenn R. Morton was such a
follower.  He accepted the ICR's claims as true and wrote several creationist
geology articles as well as ghost-writing the creationist geology section of
a Josh McDowell book.  It is because he actually believed those claims to be
true that his faith was shattered when he started working directly with the
hard geological evidence that he had been taught did not exist and could not
exist if Scripture were to have any meaning (have you visited Morton's site
yet?  I didn't think so.).

>> ... the earth is less than 10 k because the Bible clearly teaches it and
science doth not falsify it.<<

Well, I see two main problems with your position:  1) you are automatically
assuming that your position is correct if it cannot be disproven and 2) you
are assuming, quite incorrectly, that your position has not been falsified by
science.

First, your position is not different from countless other mythologies,
including the stories of gremlins (the Book of Phluk) and of the Blue
Fairies.  All those other mythologies clearly teach things that science has
not disproven and cannot disprove.  The one has just as much validity as ALL
the others.  They ALL have equal standing.  Does that make ALL of them true?
No.  If any of them contradict each other, which almost all of them do, then
how are you supposed to pick one of them over all the others?  If you wish to
claim that YOUR mythology is the only true one, then precisely what basis do
you have for making such a claim?  Just what is supposed to be so special
about YOUR mythology that it should be chosen over all the rest?  No
self-referential arguments please (eg, "because the Bible tells me so").

This is indicative of a fundamental weakness in your position.  On 96-05-31
00:44:08 EDT, you wrote to me:  "I have given you all the arguments Ic an.
Indeed there are more issues to share on but I know athat a pearl of wisdom
would make you ever say..hery, thats right there is a God."[sic]  

Well, Bill, which god?  Whose god?  Why do you assume that if I were to come
to such a conclusion that it would be YOUR god whose existence I would
realize?  Why would it not be Brahman-Atman?  Or Bel and Anu (who had given
the Code to Hammurabi, centuries before Moses claimed to have received it
from JHWH)?  Or one of any number of other god-concepts?  You are
unthinkingly making a broad assumption based solely on ethnocentrism, like
just about every other fundamentalist I've talked with (and even most
non-fundamentalist Christians, or most people of any religion, for that
matter).  Ethnocentrism is common among humans, but that does not make claims
based on ethnocentrism logically valid, nor necessarily true.

In everything you say and think about religion, we see you proceeding from
the fundamental premise that YOUR religion, YOUR god, YOUR mythology, YOUR
theology is the only valid one and that it would be the natural choice for
anybody to arrive at.  This premise is clearly false.  Creation science's
Two-Model Approach (TMA) proceeds from that same faulty premise, so its logic
is similarly fallacious.  

Basically, the TMA posits that there are two and only two mutually exclusive
models of origins and that the one, the "creation model," can be proven
solely by disproving the other, the "evolution model."  Now, proof by
contradiction IS a valid form of argument, but only if you can clearly define
a dichotomy.  For example (thinking of an engineer joke a math prof once told
us), if you wanted to use proof by contradiction to prove that not all odd
numbers are prime, you would assume the opposite, that all odd numbers ARE
prime, then find at least one example that disproves that statement, thus
proving that your first statement, that not all odd numbers are prime, is
true.

But what if you cannot clearly define a dichotomy?  You want to prove
creation -- ie, the literal truth of Genesis -- through proof by
contradiction, so you present its opposite, the "evolution model", in order
to disprove that "model."  But although you can clearly define the "creation
model", its "opposite", the so-called "evolution model", is a huge
incongruous self-contradictory messy mish-mash.  It would be something like
defining a dicotomy between Bill Morgan and everything else in the universe.
Even though you bill the exercise as choosing between evolution and creation,
you are really pitting literalist Genesis against ALL other ideas about
origins, including MOST OF THE WORLD'S RELIGIONS, BOTH ANCIENT AND MODERN, as
Henry Morris himself told me in a letter.  You only take a few token swipes
(AKA, "death by a thousand pin-pricks") at a few ideas about evolution,
usually old and discarded ideas or misconceptions -- the better for to
misrepresent scientists as being anti-evolutionary when they say anything
against those ideas -- , and never address the other creation myths that have
been lumped into the "evolution model."  Even if you were to succeed in
proving that a supernatural event had to have occurred, you would still need
to determine whether that event was part of the "creation model" or the
"evolution model."

Look again at how you need to do a proof by contradiction.  You need to be
trying to falsify a statement that can be falsified by mathematical
contradiction or by a single example.  That means that the statement can only
be true if each and every element of it is true; if even one element is
false, then the entire statement is false.  This is called logical ANDing,
expressed in Boolean Algebra as S = A AND B AND C AND D; every single element
must be true or else the statement cannot be true.  If the statement to be
falsified cannot be so expressed, then you do not want to use proof by
contradiction, because you will be reduced to disproving each and every
element and example of that statement.  If the number of elements is of any
appreciable size, then the proof would become increasingly intractable (ie,
possible, but it would take too long to do to be of any practical use).

In the TMA, the "creation model" (CM) is clearly defined as any creation
account with agrees with a literal interpretation of Genesis (are there any
other creation accounts that would qualify?) and the "evolution model" (EM)
is defined as all other ideas dealing with origins, including, but not
restricted to, scientific theories and hypotheses, materialistic ideas,
panspermia, LGMs ("little green men", even though ufologists will often call
one species "grays"), Blue Fairies, gremlins, a multitude of science-fiction
storylines, Hollywood misunderstandings of science, the vast majority of
creation myths that have ever existed, and a multitude of ideas that we have
not yet discovered.  Most of the ideas within the EM do not depend on each
other, so not every idea in the EM needs to be true in order for the EM to be
true.  All that needs to happen to keep you from disproving the EM is for
just one of its ideas to be true.  This is expressed in Boolean Algebra as S
= A OR B OR C OR D; as long as even one element is true, then the entire
statement is true.  To prove the CM by disproving the EM, you will need to
disprove each and every element of the EM, even the ones that we have not
thought of yet.  Just the sheer size of the EM would make this an intractable
task at best.  However, the inclusion of a large number of SUPERNATURAL
elements in the EM promotes the task from intractable to impossible; we
cannot prove nor disprove a supernaturalistic explanation.  Therefore,
proving the CM through disproof of the EM is an impossible task.

Obviously, the TMA's choice of dichotomy is flawed.  A better choice would be
between naturalistic and supernaturalist explanations.  However, that would
leave us with two large collections of OR'd models; hence the task of
disproving the naturalistic models would again be intractable and the task of
disproving the supernaturalistic models would again be impossible.  Even if
one were able to show that all possible naturalistic explanations would fail
and that a supernaturalistic explanation would need to be true, then one
would need to determine WHICH supernaturalistic explanation was true, if any
(remember that due to our very limited abilities to deal with the
supernatural, it is most likely that NONE of our ideas about the supernatural
is true). 

So, Bill, we see that you cannot simply sit back and assume that your
particular mythology is the only alternative, because it isn't.  Nor is it
the one that everybody would naturally turn to, because there are so many
better choices, besides which one's culture would usually have a strong
influence on that choice.  You cannot advocate having your claims to be
taught in the science classroom if you have nothing scientific to offer in
its SUPPORT (claims of lack of falsification, false in themselves, do not
constitute support).  In order for it to be considered, it must be supported.



Second, your claim that science has not falsified the claim that the earth is
less than 10,000 years old is itself false.  The geological evidence clearly
indicates that the earth has had a long and eventful history.  The evidence
that we would expect to find if Flood Geology were true is not to be found
and the evidence that we do find contradicts the claims of Flood Geology.
Several examples of varving represent time spans of several thousands and of
millions of years.  

Bill, HAVE YOU READ MY GEOLOGY PAGE YET?

What does the geological evidence show, Bill?  If the evidence clearly
indicated a young earth, then creationists could present that evidence,
hard-core geologists would try to ignore it, and independent observers should
be able to see it for what it is.  If the evidence clearly indicated an
ancient earth, then geologists could present that evidence, hard-core
creationists would try to ignore it, and independent observers should be able
to see it for what it is.  If the evidence were inconclusive either way, then
both sides could present that evidence and interpret the evidence according
to their own preconceived ideas and independent observers wouldn't know what
to make of it.  I submit that we have a situation in which geologists present
the evidence while creationists try to make weak misrepresentations of what
they consider to be counter-evidence (eg, "poly-strate" fossils and polonium
halos in "basement granite") and most independent observers don't know enough
about geology to understand the evidence.

But, you may say, as they look at the evidence, geologists are biased towards
interpreting that evidence as supporting an ancient earth.  Maybe, but the
creationists most certainly are biased.  Yes, you may say, but at least we
will admit it.  So, is the whole thing a matter of one's training and
perspective determining how he will interpret the data?  Yes, exactly, you
may say.

Then consider the following case.  Glenn R. Morton was a hard-core
creationist who went to work as a geologist.  He entered into that field with
a strongly creationist bias and viewed the evidence he was encountering from
a definitely creationist perspective.  He had also learned Flood Geology and
wrote a number of creationist geology articles for major creationist
periodicals and ghost-wrote on the same subject for Josh McDowell.  But as he
learned more and more from his hands-on work with the hard evidence, he saw
more and more that the hard evidence contradicted what he had been taught and
he began to have his doubts.  He hired several young geologists from
Christian Heritage College, who had been thoroughly schooled in Flood Geology
and who also entered the field with a strongly creationist bias and also
viewed the evidence they were encountering from a definitely creationist
perspective.  He watched as they also began to see that the evidence
contradicted what they had been taught and they started to suffer severe
crises of faith.  He himself ended up on the brink of atheism.  It should be
seen as significant that they had all suffered crises of FAITH, but not of
GEOLOGY.  The facts of geology were all too clear to them.

So, Bill, we have a situation in which the geological evidence for an ancient
earth is so strong that hard-core creationists viewing it could not deny that
evidence.  Nobody had to present an old-earth interpretation to them.  Nobody
had to "indoctrinate" them in the "dogma" of old-earth geology.  They
expected the evidence to support their young-earth beliefs and they WANTED
the evidence to support their young-earth beliefs, in the strongest way
possible.  If there had been any way in which they could have re-interpreted
the evidence to support their young-earth beliefs, then they would have done
that.  Yet the evidence was so strong in and of itself that, despite their
having approached it from the strongest possible creationist perspective and
with the strongest possible creationist bias, they had no choice but to
follow that evidence where it took them, to the realization that the earth is
ancient, that Flood Geology is all wet, and that their religious leaders had
all lied to them.  And down that path lies the destruction of faith, not
because of science, but because of very bad theology, the theology of
creation science.

Bill, you cannot continue to avoid this issue.  You must address it.  At your
request to learn what geological evidence they had encountered, I directed
you to Morton's web site.  To date, indications are that you have never
visited that site.  BILL, WHEN WILL YOU VISIT GLENN MORTON'S SITE?  WHEN WILL
YOU TALK WITH GLENN MORTON?  WHEN WILL YOU STOP HIDING FROM THE FACTS AND THE
TRUTH?  WHEN WILL YOU STOP LEADING OTHERS DOWN THE PATH TO THE DESTRUCTION OF
THEIR FAITH?


###########################################

After this, I received no further messages from Bill. Within two months, he had closed his AOL account without publishing a new address, effectively disappearing from cyber-space.

The following is a message that I had tried to send to Bill in September 1998, whereupon I discovered his disappearance:

###########################################

Sorry for my absense of late.  Besides being away for my two weeks of 
active duty, I have been very busy with work and with the events 
unfolding due to the Boy Scouts of America, Inc, having decided to 
attack our church [visit http://www.uua.org for details].

Bill, in your last newsletter, you wrote:

[DWISE1:  clipped due to lack of relevence]

"We have a free lesson for your youth so they may defend their faith in 
junior high, high school and college.  Call 714 898-8331 and ask for more 
information (adults need this lesson too)."

Could you please share some of that free lesson with us?  You had freely 
offered to present your lesson to me before, which offer I accepted, but 
which you never did deliver on.  "Mr. 100%".  If you protest that none of 
it is written in electronic form, then it is high time that you do commit 
it to disk, since I would think that, since you appear to think so highly 
of your work, you would want to make it widely available on your web page.

Also, could you please tell us what measures you have taken to ensure the 
scientific accuracy of this lesson with which you expect the youth to 
"defend their faith."  Especially considering that you are well aware of 
how creation science's contrary-to-fact teachings about geology and the age 
of the earth has destroyed or nearly destroyed the faith of staunch 
creationists when faced with the truth.  What have you done to ensure that 
your free lesson will indeed perform as advertised?  That it will indeed 
defend their faith and not sow the seeds of its destruction?

BTW, how is the work going on your web page?  When should we expect to see 
it put up?  And how are you doing on your opening statement for our on-line debate?

###########################################

Who wants to bet that Bill Morgan still has not tried to seek the truth?

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First uploaded on 2000 July 02.
Updated on 2015 October 21.

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