Aggravating Fundamentalists

There’s this person on YouTube that is eminently aggravating. He goes by the name VenomFangX, and armed with his webcam and a lousy attempt at a moustache, tries to convert viewers to his brand of Biblical Inerrancy Young Earth Creationism Fundamentalism using “rational” and “logical” “arguments” that would “force” any rational person to accept them. My problem with this kid, who’s real name is Shawn, is not with the way he believes, or even his proselytizing. I’ve gotten used to people believing some crazy ass shit, and I generally don’t mind for the most part as long as it doesn’t cause them to harm anybody besides themselves. My problem with him is a combination of his pomposity, his crazy as fuck beliefs, and most importantly, his dishonesty. I hate propaganda of any variety, and what he does could be drawn from the playbook of any professional propagandist. He censors the comments that people can place on his videos so that only those professing saccharine adoration of him will have theirs displayed. The most dishonest thing he does is artificially inflates the ratings that his videos receive. Going through them all, almost every single one has five votes of five stars each, and is then locked to guarantee a permanent rating of the highest order. He rates each of his videos himself, and prevents other people from critiquing them. That is absolutely dishonest, and this little douche-bag, Kirk Cameron wannabe deserves to have the shit kicked out of him. (Figuratively, violence of any kind is usually wrong)

Below the video is my quick response to most of the points he tries to argue. I have no idea if the little repressed fruit will read the email I sent him of what follows, but if he does, I’ll post his reply.

It’s all quite easy to explain really. Isaiah 40:22 “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth”. Notice the absence of a particular word. Can you find it? The word sphere isn’t mentioned anywhere. Maybe you got confused between a sphere and a circle, they are similar. I’ll help you out a little bit. A circle is a curved line surrounding a center point, with every point on the line equidistant from that center. An important thing to bear in mind is that a circle exists in two dimensions, and thus is flat. Now here’s where things get a little tricky, a sphere is defined as a three-dimensional closed surface consisting of all points that are a given distance from a center. Circle=Flat, Sphere=Three-Dimensional. Do you see now how that point disappears? The Bible was saying that the world was circular, i.e. flat, which is entirely compatible with the scientific knowledge of the time. A cynic might believe that you already knew the difference between a circle and a sphere, and chose to replace circle with sphere in that quote because you knew that saying circle wouldn’t guarantee you made your point. Either you were mistaken, or you intentionally misrepresented scripture.

As for your contention that Noah’s Ark is located in eastern Turkey, the man whom you seem to be relying on for your interpretation of what it is (presumably because you like that that specific interpretation validates your beliefs) is a guy named Ron Wyatt. He was trained as a nurse-anesthetist, and lacked any training in basic geological science or biblical history. People who are actually trained in the relevant fields have examined the formation that you believe to be the Ark, and found it to be a natural geological structure. The “anchor stones” that you point out where of a variety of rock unknown in Mesopotamia, the place where Noah supposedly constructed his Ark, but of course, with god on your side, bringing in stones from hundreds of miles away wouldn’t be much of a problem. If you are so inclined (I doubt you are), you can look at something that isn’t completely pseudoscience at http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/bogus.html

About Sodom and Gomorrah, ancient cities have been completely buried by volcanoes before you know; have you ever heard of Pompeii and Herculaneum? Moreover, the examples of architecture on the website you so helpfully suggested, look, to my untrained eye, much like natural formations that I have seen myself throughout the Southwestern US. The presence of Gypsum crystals is hardly conclusive proof of fire and brimstone reacting with limestone, yet alone proof that the locations in question are those two cities.

Do you have any idea how many black mountains there are? They aren’t particularly rare, especially in places with a history of volcanism.

Ah, the field of Biblical Prophecy. Would it be fair to assume that you believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of god? Now, if we are examining the question of whether the Bible is the inerrant word of god, or it isn’t, to prove that it isn’t, all you would need to do is find one place where it gets it wrong. God in all his perfection couldn’t make one mistake or otherwise he wouldn’t be perfect. Likewise, for the Bible to be a perfect book, it always has to be right. Am I right about this? So take a look at Matthew 16:28 “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” That is prophecy, and in it, Jesus is saying that some of the people that he is talking to at that specific moment in time will live to see the second coming. Everyone present to hear Jesus speak those words has been dead for more than 1,900 years, but Jesus still hasn’t showed. What gives?