[Hat tip to my good friend Hiro for sending me the link to the Beliefnet article that inspired me to write this post.] Dr. Steve McSwain looks like a nice guy with a friendly smile, if the picture I procured from his website serves as any indication. Professor of communications at the University of Kentucky, Dr. McSwain is promoted as a former Baptist preacher, a spiritual teacher and motivational speaker with "respect [for] all spiritual traditions" at his website. That courtesy has apparently not been extended to certain members of his own religion, in particular Ken Hamm and those Christians who advocate Young Earth Creationism, often referred to as YEC. To be fair, I'm not particularly keen on Mr. Hamm's apparent position that YEC beliefs are mandatory to be considered a "true" Christian. But Dr. McSwain doesn't even pretend to hide his scorn and disdain for these creationists. He writes of "religious quackery" taught in Sunday School by "misinformed Christian zealots" blithering about like "a bunch of intellectually-bankrupt nitwits." Dr. McSwain is so embarrassed by the very idea of creationism that he wrote, That there are still Christians promoting Creationism is actually more unbelievable than the illogical nonsense in Creationism they wish everyone would just believe. I am reminded of the famous plea from Rodney King who asked, "Why can't we all just get along?" In the spirit of full disclosure, I should mention before going any further that I believe a form of supernatural intelligence called God is directly responsible for my … [Read more...]