Ken Ham, the young-Earth creationist minister who had his ass gently-but-firmly handed to him in a debate with Bill Nye earlier this year, has had it with "the desperate and fruitless search for extraterrestrial life." Aliens can't be real, because the Bible says Earth is special. And if they are real, they're all going to hell.

Ham was set off by NASA astronomer Kevin Hand, who said last week, "I think in the next 20 years we will find out we are not alone in the universe."

Creationists of Ham's stripe reject that possibility, and decry the discovery of new life forms and habitable planets as a waste of money, because they believe God made humans literally the center of the universe, with a moon and Sun that exist to serve us.

"I do believe there can't be other intelligent beings in outer space because of the meaning of the gospel," Ham wrote on his Answers in Genesis blog, "You see, the Bible makes it clear that Adam's sin affected the whole universe. This means that any aliens would also be affected by Adam's sin, but because they are not Adam's descendants, they can't have salvation."

When we finish trashing our own planet and have to turn to other possible Earths, "Nice to meet you. You're going to burn eternally" will probably work just as well as "We come in peace," right?

Bill Nye has already addressed the issue of bullshit anti-science creationism with Ham, but since the message apparently didn't connect, here it is again:

"If we continue to eschew science... we are not going to move forward. We will not embrace natural laws. We will not make discoveries. We will not invent and innovate and stay ahead."



[H/T HuffPo, Photo: Answers in Genesis]