Ken Ham and Asteroids

Leave it to Ken Ham to take a science excursion into the “what if?” and ruin it. The Inquisitr is reporting on Ham’s response to a new documentary, made by the Discovery Channel, in which they address the question of what would happen if a bolide were to hit the planet. These events happen regularly (in geologic time, anyway) but most are not of any size to create large-scale problems. The Winslow crater was created around 50k years ago but the last really biggie was the Yucatan bolide that ended the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago. Nonetheless, it is incumbent on astrophysicists to do studies about whether or not another one will strike and when.  The significance of this seems to have escaped Ken Ham, who thinks that this kind of search is stuff and nonsense.  He writes:

What you believe about the Earth’s past doesn’t just influence how you view it—your belief also determines how you view the future! Because of their beliefs about the past, many evolutionists are concerned that somehow mankind will be catastrophically wiped out and life as we know it will end on Earth. One of the most popular versions of this apocalyptic tale is that a massive asteroid, or several asteroids, will strike Earth and obliterate life. The Discovery Channel even recently made a video simulating what it would look like if a 500-kilometer (310-mile) asteroid smashed into the Pacific Ocean. According to their simulation, such an impact would destroy Earth and vaporize life.

Why is it that evolutionists are so concerned that humanity will someday be catastrophically destroyed? Well, according to man’s ideas about the past, life arose naturalistically and the universe is governed completely by the merciless laws of physics. According to their worldview, evolutionists contend there isn’t anyone upholding or sustaining the universe. We are simply at the mercy of naturalistic processes. Also, according to one evolutionary idea about the supposed dinosaur extinction event, a massive asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago. If such an event happened once before, what’s to stop it from happening again and wiping out humanity this time?

This is a bit like the congresswoman from Montana, I think it was, that argued against the need for addressing global warming because the earth had only been around for six thousand years so it was not possible for humans to have affected it that much, anyway.  He continues:

The Bible has already told us how things will end—with judgment from God when Jesus Christ returns to Earth (2 Peter 3:10; Revelation 20:11–15). Those of us who have trusted in Christ as Savior have no fear of this coming judgment because our penalty for sin has already been paid by Jesus. But instead of fearing some hypothetical asteroid apocalypse, those who refuse to acknowledge Christ as Lord should fear this coming judgment, and it should bring them to repent and put their faith in Christ.

Given that he has so badly garbled the beginning of the Bible, I am not entirely convinced he has gotten the end of it right, either. I have done little in the way of study of millenialism, so I won’t wade into it here.  Is it true that our ultimate salvation is of paramount importance?  Yes, it is.  Should we have a good personal relationship with Jesus?  Yes we should.

Having said that, a Ham is spilling a lot of ink over an exercise in astrophysics to scare people about fire and brimstone.  What a completely humorless response.

I think I might watch the program.