Creationists: Darwin Was Wrong And Unicorns Are Real

Delaware Gov. Jack Markell has declared Charles Darwin's birthday, Feb. 12, to be "Charles Darwin Day," and a bill has been introduced in the U.S. Congressto do the same. Not that the current House would pass it. But hilarious wingnut creationist Ken Ham will not let these official recognitions of The Enemy go unanswered, so he's declared Feb. 12 to be "Darwin Was Wrong Day." Presumably he'll celebrate by going to the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History and shouting "Nyeah, Nyeah, Nyeah! Were you THERE?" all day.

Ham is the Australian blumpkin who's best known for "debating" Bill Nye and running Kentucky's Creation Museum and foundering "Ark Park." 

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Ham takes real exception to both of the attempts by Big Government to indoctrinate young people with Science. Shockingly, the proposed bill before Congress would recognize Charles Darwin "as a worthy symbol on which to focus and around which to build a global celebration of science and humanity intended to promote a common bond among all of Earth's peoples," which sounds vaguely socialist, as does Delaware's invitation for people to "celebrate, reflect, and act on the principles of intellectual bravery, perpetual curiosity, scientific thinking, and hunger for truth as embodied in the life of Charles Darwin." Neither declaration suggests that people read the Book of Genesis instead.

Ham's website, Answers in Genesis, warns that "those who promote Charles Darwin Day are really promoting an anti-God religion. The evolutionary worldview is an attempt to explain the universe and life without God." Oh noes! In a special statement to his own damn website, Ham explains:

Secularists are becoming increasingly aggressive and intolerant in promoting their anti-God philosophy. Evolutionary ideas provide the foundation for this worldview because they seemingly allow mankind the ability to explain the existence of life and the universe without God. As Christians, we need to be bold in proclaiming the truth of God’s Word to a hurting (groaning, Romans 8: 22 ) world. This year, on February 12, instead of celebrating Darwin’s anti-God religion, we can take this opportunity to show the world that Darwin’s ideas about our supposed evolutionary origins were wrong, and that God’s Word is true, from the very beginning. Let’s make February 12 Darwin Was Wrong Day and point people to the truth of God’s Word.

Oh, hey, there's going to be groaning? Count us in! There's a bunch of other "evolution is impossible" crap on the page declaring that Darwin Was Wrong, but honestly, it's the same pile of Apatosaurus poo you've seen before, and not worth rebutting.

On the other hand, Answers in Genesis does have a pretty nifty plea for the scientific recognition that Unicorns are, or at least were, real creatures, and not to be dismissed as mythical beasts as some cranky wife in a James Thurber story might. You see, there are unicorns mentioned in the Bible, and this means that they are real. In short, says the piece by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell, "To think of the biblical unicorn as a fantasy animal is to demean God’s Word, which is true in every detail."

After all, says Mitchell, there are lots of animals that existed in the past but do not exist today!

The absence of a unicorn in the modern world should not cause us to doubt its past existence. (Think of the dodo bird. It does not exist today, but we do not doubt that it existed in the past.) Eighteenth century reports from southern Africa described rock drawings and eyewitness accounts of fierce, single-horned, equine-like animals.

Yes, and even earlier reports by travelers to faraway lands spoke of men with no heads, and with faces in their chests! But since these accounts are not verified by the Bible, we can discount them as mythical. Unicorns, on the other hand, have to have been real, otherwise why would they be in the Bible, which is literally true in every single word? That's just logic, people. Dr. Mitchell looks at several possible candidates for Unicornhood, including the aurochs, a huge extinct bovine that definitely had two horns, but she gets around that little problem by explaining that maybe the suggestion that the "uni" in unicorn is nothing but a modern translation problem, not that the Bible is talking about a mythical critter:

The importance of the biblical unicorn is not so much its specific identity -- much as we would like to know -- but its reality. The Bible is clearly describing a real animal. The unicorn mentioned in the Bible was a powerful animal possessing one or two strong horns—not the fantasy animal that has been popularized in movies and books. Whatever it was, it is now likely extinct like many other animals. To think of the biblical unicorn as a fantasy animal is to demean God’s Word, which is true in every detail.

We prefer to take our information on unicorns from other, more entertaining fictions, such as My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and of course from The Simpsons:  

As for Dr. Mitchell's scholarship, we can only say that the unicorn is a mythical beast, and that she belongs in the booby hatch.

[ Answers in Genesis / Answers in Genesis via RawStory ; horn tip to alert Wonker "wwroda"]