Ken Ham Fires Back at Pat Robertson Over Young Earth Creationism; Calls him 'Misinformed and Deceived'
Creation Museum CEO and President Ken Ham fired back at "The 700 Club" host Pat Robertson who blasted Ham's young earth views, calling the controversial televangelist "misinformed and deceived."
"Sad that so many will believe him (who is neither a scientist, nor a Bible scholar) rather than open their Bibles and see that evolution and millions of years are totally incompatible with the first 11 chapters of Genesis and rather than think for themselves and check out creationist web sites like Answers in Genesis," Ham wrote on Thursday in a Facebook post.
On Wednesday, Robertson talked about the much-publicized debate that took place Tuesday night at the Creation Museum in Kentucky between Ham and evolutionist Bill Nye "The Science Guy," and accused the creationist of making a mockery of Christians with his young earth views.
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"Anyone who is in the oil business knows he's drilling down, 2 miles, 3 miles underground, you're coming into all these layers that were laid down by the dinosaurs," Robertson said. "And we have skeletons of dinosaurs that go back like 65 million years. And to say that it all came around 6,000 years ago is nonsense."
He added that belief in scientific concepts like the Big Bang do not undermine faith in God.
"So there was a Big Bang. So? That doesn't mean it came spontaneously. Nobody knows what caused it, the Big Bang. But I say God did it. God caused all of this. He is the author of all life," he continued.
"I don't believe in so-called evolution as non-theistic. I believe that God started it all and He's in charge of all of it. The fact that you have progressive evolution under His control, that doesn't hurt my faith at all."
Tuesday's debate at the Creation Museum focused on the question "Is creation a viable model of origins in today's modern scientific era?" It was covered by over 70 media outlets, with estimates saying close to 3 million people watched a live stream of the event, and has prompted several reactions from people with various opinions on the issue.
Ham and Robertson clashed on the same topic in November 2012, with "The 700 Club" host insisting that the Bible does not claim that the earth is 6,000 years old.
"I know people will probably lynch me for this, but Bishop [James] Ussher, God bless him, wasn't inspired by the Lord when he said it all took 6,000 years. It just didn't," Robertson said at the time, referring to the 17th century Irish clergyman who first argued that the earth was created in 4004 B.C. The televangelist made the same comments this week.
Ham, however, said in his Facebook post that Ussher was a "brilliant Bible scholar and incredible student of history and ancient writing."
"Oh, that God would convict and open the eyes of Christian leaders and Christian college and seminary professors, so many of whom are as uninformed and deceived as Pat Robertson. God have mercy," The Creation Museum CEO concluded.
Protestant pastors are split on the age of the earth. A LifeWay Research survey conducted in 2011 found that 43 percent don't believe the earth is approximately 6,000 years old while 46 percent believe it is.
