Sarfati's verbal behavior and the Bible's

My webmaster told Sarfati: "I found your comments highly insulting,
un-christlike, and exceptionally un-professional."

Sarfati responded: "How exactly are they are un-christlike? It seems
'un-Christ-like' not to believe what He [Christ] did about Genesis!"

Also, in fairness of Sarfati's sharp sarcastic tongue, is his verbal
behavior inconceivably worse than the verbal behaviors of prophets,
psalmists, Jesus and Paul, who employed some serious rhetoric at times?
For instance, when I questioned Sarfati about the way he addresses people
whose beliefs differ from his own, he directed me to an online article by
J. P. Holding, titled, "Is it 'Un-Christian' To Engage in Satire?"

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/madmad.html

So, the problem may lie not only with Sarfati, but perhaps with "Biblical
language" itself. I could of course give examples of some serious
rhetoric from the Bible, far more serious and sarcastic than Sarfati's.

Cheers,
Ed

"Michael Roberts" <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk> writes:
>Absolutely typical of Safarti and AIG. I cannot reconcile their behaviour
>with the teachings of Christ, period.
>
>Michael
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "ed babinski" <ed.babinski@furman.edu>
>To: <asa@calvin.edu>
>Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 1:03 AM
>Subject: Sarfati story, Hind limbs on modern cetaeans & email manners
>
>
>> Hi,
>> I'm new to the list, or rather was on it years ago and just rejoined. I
>> noticed a discussion about the young-earth creationist, Sarfati (or was
>it
>> "Socrates" at tweb? -- are they different people or one and the same?)
>and
>> his email manners, two or three months ago in the ASA forum. I have my
>own
>> story to add concerning Sarfati:
>>
>> About a year ago I read several articles at aig.org (Answers in Genesis
>> website) that attempted to debunk evidence for cetacean evolution, but
>one
>> article in particular attempted to debunk the claim that modern day
>> cetaceans had been found with hind leg rudiments. According to the AiG
>> author he could find no evidence of such things in the scientific
>> literature. All that AiG had been able to find was a photo of a
>diseased
>> pelvis of a Right whale, and the author claimed there was no evidence
>that
>> the diseased bone in question was actually a pelvis, nor any evidence
>that
>> the small protrusions extending from it on either side were rudimentary
>> femurs.
>>
>> So I did some research of my own and obtained a few articles on hind
>limb
>> rudiments that are occaisionally found on modern day cetaceans, and I
>> posted the findings and photos and dissection drawings of a healthy
>Right
>> whale's pelvis, femur and tibia bones, at
>>
>> http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/babinski/whale_evolution.html
>>
>> My webmaster was proud of the page she had put together and emailed
>> Sarfati at AiG and asked him to respond to the evidence since the
>article
>> questioned several AiG articles.
>>
>> Sarfati's "response" to my webmaster included him referring to me as
>> "Blabinski" (instead of "Babinski"). Sarfati wrote, "Blabinski manages
>to
>> miss the point of the [AiG] article," and added, "it's laughable from my
>> perspective as a Ph.D. scientist (earned from a secular university) to
>> hear non-scientists like you and Blabinski try to lecture me on
>> science..." [Ironically, the sources I quoted were scientists who had
>> studied cetaeans far more deeply than Sarfati had, but Sarfati continued
>> to attack my credibiliy, as if that allowed him to reject the evidence
>out
>> of hand. - Ed.] Sarfati wrote, "What qualifications does Babinski
>have?
>> Actually, I know the answer to that -- zip, nada, zilch." [I have a
>> Bachelor's in Biology from Fairleigh Dickenson University in New
>Jersey. -
>> Ed.] Sarfati continued, "He's an affable enough person during emails,
>but
>> his main claim to fame is as an editor of a book of "anti-testimonies"
>by
>> assorted apostates. And he writes other junk... I haven't the slightest
>> confidence that these reports are any more than more of the same wishful
>> thinking... This time-wasting apostate deserves nothing but obscurity."
>He
>> ended with, "I trust that you will also appreciate the immense busyness
>> operating here; we have about 25,000 visitors to our site every day, and
>> I'm finishing a book. So I hope you will understand that we can't
>possibly
>> respond to all claims disseminated by every God-hater inhabiting the
>> darker hovels of the Internet..."
>>
>> I sent Sarfati an invitation to look at the evidence, photos, dissection
>> diagrams for himself. He has not yet said what he makes of the evidence
>> for hind limb rudiements found on modern day whales. In fact, in the
>> dissection of the Right whale at my site, Struthers found the hip bone
>> connected to the leg bone, connected to the shin bone, by ligaments, as
>> exists in ALL modern day Right whales, hidden inside their flesh:
>> "Nothing can be imagined more useless to the animal than rudiments of
>hind
>> legs entirely buried beneath the skin of a whale, so that one is
>inclined
>> to suspect that these structures must admit of some other
>interpretation.
>> Yet, approaching the inquiry with the most skeptical determination, one
>> cannot help being convinced, as the dissection goes on, that these
>> rudiments [in the Right Whale] really are femur and tibia. The synovial
>> capsule representing the knee-joint was too evident to be overlooked. An
>> acetabular cartilage, synovial cavity, and head of femur, together
>> represent the hip-joint. Attached to this femur is an apparatus of
>> constant and strong ligaments, permitting and restraining movements in
>> certain directions; and muscles are present, some passing to the femur
>> from distant parts, some proceeding immediately from the pelvic bone to
>> the femur, by which movements of the thigh-bone are performed; and these
>> ligaments and muscles present abundant instances of exact and
>interesting
>> adaptation. But the movements of the femur are extremely limited, and in
>> two of these whales the hip-joint as firmly anchylosed, in one of them
>on
>> one side, in the other on both sides, without trace of disease, showing
>> that these movements may be dispensed with. The function point of view
>> fails to account for the presence of a femur in addition to processes
>from
>> the pelvic bone. Altogether, these hind legs in this whale present for
>> contemplation a most interesting instance of those significant parts in
>an
>> animal -- rudimentary structures." [Struthers, p. 142-143]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
Received on Tue Oct 5 11:26:26 2004