Forwarded from a friend of mine, Tod Montgomery:
I arrived at UNCA with my copies of two of Johnson's books hoping for some
autographs (I figured that in my future run-ins with Christians who push
Johnson's books on me would be more fun if I could not only pull out my
copies, but SIGNED copies, although to me the autographs actually lower the
value of the books--but that's another story.)
As I walked into Lipinsky Auditorium I was overwhelmed by the number of
people there. I (somewhat pessimistically) hoped that some of the people
there would be non-Christians like me. There may have been a few, but the
majority of the people there were obviously there to support Johnson. They
probably heard about it in church. I perused the very large selection of
books available for sale, and not one jot or tittle of skeptical or
critical
literature was to be found. (Veritas Forum my ass, I thought). Suddenly I
felt like the mythical Daniel in the lion's den. It took all I had not to
simply walk out, but I felt that at least one dissenting person should be
there, and hey, maybe I could even say a few things, who knows? I was
about
to inquire as to whether they had a copy of the Age of Reason or the Origin
of Species, when it was time to go inside and see the circus.
Johnson's presentation was typical, with the ad-hominem, post hoc, straw
man, fallacies abounding. And the audience seemed to swallow the whole
thing hook line and sinker. It's quite a strange and profoundly sad
feeling
when you are in a room with 1200 people the majority of whom have not done
the first thing to educate themselves about the issues at hand beyond
reading Christian propaganda.
During Philip Johnson's talk, I took a few notes, and chuckled and sighed a
lot. I also made sure the couple sitting next to me could see what I was
writing. My first page was sketchy and consisted of trying to encapsulate
a
few boners he committed, but Christ, I can only write so fast. Among those
things, he put forth the proposition that what is true is what is good. I
thought "If you only would explore that and take it to its logical
conclusion, we could all go home", but no such luck. He quoted Thomas
Jefferson (I don't remember the quote now--damn it), but forgot to point
out
that Jefferson was a Deist and would seem simply like an atheist when
compared to virtually anyone on the room. Johnson said that he hoped that
his talk would speak to the HEARTS of those present first and to their
MINDS
second--a surprisingly candid statement not lost on me, to be sure. He
went
on to debunk some of the myths about the Scopes Trial (and in this he
basically did a good job) but focused on debunking Inherit the Wind, which
is the only source most of these people had ever encountered. Of course if
they had read the intro, they would realize that the play and (therefore
the
movie) were admitted by the writers to be works of fiction and that Inherit
the Wind has little or nothing to do with the facts or influence of the
Scopes case. Of course he went on to say that the liberal media and
whatnot
have "held on to this lie" for some time, as if that had any bearing on the
scientific merit of evolution, (or creationism for that matter). He even
made the egregious error that scientists believe we are descended from
monkeys. I leaned over to my companions and whispered "no scientist
believes that". I got no reaction. He called evolution a pseudoscience
and
claimed the fossil record did not support evolution. He got into
irreducible complexity and Behe's book. He ridiculed the finch beak
variation studies from the Galapagos. However, the main thrust of his talk
was that science is blind to the wonders of creation because it simply
assumes that there is no supernatural and goes from there. He went on and
on and on about this, telling many half-truths and many more outright lies
and I spent the rest of the time writing down some questions of my own, as
we were going to get a chance at the end to ask some. Here are some of
those that came to me during the presentation.
Here are some of them: (note-I'm fleshing these out as if I actually had
picked each one to ask. My notes are more sketchy--more on this later)
here goes...
Dr. Johnson, why do you believe that supernatural explanations are better
than natural ones. After all, we had supernatural explanations for
thousands of years for countless natural phenomena, including lightning,
volcanoes, reproduction, growth, fire, stars, planets, earthquakes,
diseases
etc. Why are you so sure that your supernatural explanations of the world
around us are any more credible than those of the ancients who knew nothing
about these things? Furthermore, if naturalism is so faulty, why has so
much been successfully explained by it, not to mention the eradication of
smallpox, cholera, polio and many other diseases and the deep understanding
of fundamental principles of the universe Also why do so many different
disciplines point to the veracity of evolution, including molecular
biology,
comparative anatomy, genetics, embryology, anthropology, among many others.
Dr. Johnson, why do you strive to debase science while at the same time
courting scientific credibility by using scientific sounding arguments to
make your point? What explanatory power does ID have, other than to say
"POOF, GOD DID IT" and nothing more?
Dr. Johnson, if William Paley, whom you quoted, was right in that
complexity
requires a designer, how do you reconcile this with the infinitely complex
mind of a creator? In other words, who or what designed God's infinitely
complex mind?
Dr. Johnson, if evolutionary biology can be so easily dismissed by a lawyer
with no training in the biological sciences, how is it that scientists have
not seen the error or their ways, and why are your views so ridiculed by
reputable scientists. Did God set you up to be the butt of a grand, cosmic
joke?
Why does your "evidence" always consist of tearing down the evidence in
favor on evolution? Shouldn't your evidence be positive and stand on its
own merit?
There were several more of these, but you get the picture. I also spent
some time trying to word the question that we had discussed previously in
such a way that it wouldn't go over the heads of the audience.
As PJ finished the chairman of the Philosophy Department gave a short talk
that was supposed to be a rebuttal, but turned out to be insipid, and not
at
all incisive. I honestly don't remember what he said, because it didn't
make any sense. I suspected that Johnson had met with him before the show
and gave his OK. If not, he might as well have. I thought "where the f---
is the chair of the Biology department? Christ, I could have done a
better
job than the Philosophy guy did."
Then things started to go downhill from there. Johnson called for
questions
from the audience so I thought "here's my chance". Unfortunately, I had to
make a decision. Should I just go in with the viral DNA question and seem
to be dodging the issues he raised in his talk, or should I go with
another?
I decided to go with both (a terrible mistake as it turns out) and chose
the
one at the top of my list above. As I stepped up to the mike I got a
little
nervous, and rambled on about 20 seconds too long, so that before I got to
my second question, Johnson had made some funny faces, making me feel like
a
rambling fool. So I DIDN'T GET TO THE VIRAL DNA QUESTION! DAMN!
I was so frustrated that I could hardly stand up and I didn't follow a
thing of what he said in response (believe me I tried, but he was just too
opaque). To this day, I have no idea what the heck he was talking about,
and I felt pretty bad about the whole thing for a long time.
During his answer to another person's question Johnson said that Carl Sagan
was an atheist before, but his opinion is quite different now and
insinuated
that he's not very happy in his final resting place. That was more than I
could take, and after the whole thing was over, I took my books up to be
signed. And do you know what, the weasel didn't even stop talking to this
other guy while he signed my books. Didn't even look at me except a
passing
glance. At that point I said (rather loudly) that I thought his remark
about Dr. Sagan had been flip, unkind, uncalled for, and less than should
be
expected of someone who claims to be of such high caliber. I added "I
suppose I should have expected it from someone who writes to a tenth grade
level and understands science about as well." He didn't like that at all.
He said "well I could take some lessons from you about being unkind,
couldn't I?" By this time several people took note and I said "You just
can't take criticism from people who disagree with you. He was walking
away
very quickly and I was left to deal with the people around me, most of whom
had not heard the entire exchange. One guy pointed out to me in a somewhat
condescending tone that Johnson's arguments were impeccable and that he'd
really done a good job on the faulty foundations of science and that
atheists like me had a lot to lose if we were wrong. I said "how can you
be
so sure that I'm an atheist, anyway? Isn't it a bit presumptuous of you to
make any assumptions about someone's religious belief that you've never
met?
He apologized (a bit sheepishly--no pun intended). I said that I wasn't
about to get into it with him at that moment (my adrenaline was way too
high
at that moment for any reasonable semblance of a discussion). But I did
say
that I thought it was sad that countless generations of people have cut
each
other's throats because they couldn't agree on what was to become of them
after their throats were cut, and that about summed up Christianity for me.
He was taken aback and I headed for the door and a quick smoke before
returning home.
So I managed not to spend any money and had an interesting time, to say the
least. Wish I'd thought quicker on my feet, but what the hell.
Take care,
Todd Montgomery haleyandtodd@worldnet.att.net
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