Source: Verum Serum

Comments: Scott picks up from Part I of his series examining ‘watch doggies’ (or ‘watch bloggies’), this time examining the psyche, methods and dubious sourcing often used.  He uses “Reverend” Ken Silva as an example, though he not the only one employing such methods, and does an incerdibly thorough job analyzing the inbred sourcing of ‘watch bloggies’.

Memorable Quotes:

SUMMARY: Using just one article as a primary source/starting point, I tracked back the embedded links three levels deep. As one moves from the primary to the secondary and the tertiary, the results are clear. Within the three levels of interwoven confusion, the “Reverend” Ken used a grand total of 394 embedded links to support his contentions. Of these 394 links, 264 of them were references to articles written by his own hand.

CONCLUSION: By a 2 to 1 margin, “Reverend Ken” is his own best proof and support! Why bother to try and prove or support anything using scripture and logic and reason when you can just write another article that can become the proof of the first one, while the first article can be the proof for the second.

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I remember the first time I ever heard Duane Gish speak. I was a young, eager college student. I was excited to hear this man “prove” creation and disprove “evolution.” I even bought some of the most boring books I have ever read on the subject. I was so excited to share this “completely logical, has to be believed argument” to my pre-Christian friends. I was sure the superior arguments that Dr. Gish and his contemporaries provided me would sway my friends view of origins. But….then…..it ….didn’t. He just looked at me and said, “I’ve heard of Gish and his nutjob place. You believe that crap? No wonder you and I can’t talk.” Now, I know that this guy was way out of line in what he said. I also know that he showed he really didn’t want to talk about the issues. He simply felt he was right, and didn’t want to be bothered by the facts. I was still crushed. I discovered that cool arguments very rarely work, in fact I found that a lot of Christianity on its face seems to be illogical–I’ll be writing more about this over the next few days. Then a few years later I found this verse:

Hebrews 11:3 “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

Did you catch it? We believe God spoke everything into existence, by “FAITH.” Now, we can spend all of our time attempting to prove the Genesis account. In fact, I’m thankful for people who can intelligently debate the topic of origins. But, if someone believes in evolution, that is not the biggest issue in thier life. There comes a point where we simply have to point people back to Jesus. With dogged determination, force them to answer the question of what do they do with Jesus? We need to live out being Jesus to the people. It is so easy to get wrapped up in issues. Whatever the issue. People do not need us to convince them of the reality of creation. What they need is Jesus. My relationship with Him is the only thing that really changed my life. There was a time in my life where I lived purely for myself. There was two people, my wife (she was just an annoying girl then) and Ted Boykin who God used to make real lasting change in my life. They simply lived God to me. They never tried to prove to me the futility of my arguments, they simply loved me. They prayed for me. They didn’t give me free passes but they let God’s love show through them. It was life changing. I believe in creation, I believe that God spoke everything into existence but, If I am honest, I have to admit the I believe in Creation because of faith. I think, I’m in good company, seeing the author of Hebrews agrees with me.

Up next, does it make sense to build an ark when you’ve never seen rain?