"Kevin -- what you are doing here is asserting that the motives of the YEC
leadership people are evil."
That depends upon how you define evil. I believe most of the leadership are
self-serving, and since I view evil as being primarily selfishness, I would
probably agree with you.
"To the extent that I know some of these personally, Gish for instance, I
must emphatically assert otherwise. Confused? Perhaps. Wrong? I think so.
Sincere? I am convinced that Gish, at the very least, is; very probably also
Henry Morris. I have no opinion on those I have not broken bread with."
That's part of the problem; evil often wears a pleasing face. These people
can be perfectly nice as long as they think you are on their side, but
challenge them and they tend to turn vicious. I know Gish also, to my
sorrow. I naively believed his lies about being for science, so I pointed
out an error to him in his bombardier beetle apologetic. He was nice enough
at first, but he gave a response that indicated to me he was trying to snow
me; that is, he knew it was an error, but he wanted to promote it anyway,
because to correct it would also mean having to admit that the bombardier
beetle was no problem for evolution. When I pressed him, he tried to bluff
his way out and then he finally began to insult and revile me. After that
he refused to answer any more of my letters. I've encountered the same
pattern with every major creationist leader I've contacted save one. I
cannot believe it is a coincidence.
Kevin L. O'Brien