I recently posted about how the Houston Atheists were planning to protest outside this weekend’s Texas Home School Coalition convention, which features speaker Ken Ham and his brand of Creationist nonsense. The following day, the atheists will host an “Answers in Science” event at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

Now, a local preacher has found out about the protest and he’s flipping out, complaining about how these atheists are so opposed to science! I mean, just look at their offensive signs!

Because God is a necessary precondition for rationiality, rejecting God equates with rejecting reason.… Of course, Aron [Ra] and all atheists use reason to understand and evaluate anything, which exposes the fact that they know God exists. … It is un-American [for the Houston Museum of Natural Science] to support such religious intolerance and false claims that Christians are “anti-science”. Christians are not anti-chemistry, anti-physics, anti-biology, etc! I am sure that we would all make a lot more headway in scientific things if atheists showed a lot more tolerance for historical interpretations that differ from theirs, and focus on advancing testable, repeatable science instead.

That’s right. A Creationist just berated atheists for not promoting “testable, repeatable science.”

I’ll give you a moment while your head stops spinning.

The preacher, Dr. David Shormann, also conducted a bit of weird “activism,” where he asked a museum official if he would rent out space to a totally-similar group:

I asked Brad [from the museum] that if, for example, a group asked to have an “Answers in Science” meeting, and it turned out their meeting was to discuss “scientific” findings that Jewish people were inferior and Hitler was right about wanting to kill them all, would HMNS support that? Brad immediately answered “no”. Brad is Jewish, so it was obvious to him a meeting like that would be about religious intolerance coupled with unscientific claims. But it is also obvious that the atheists “Answers in Science” meeting is about the same things, religious intolerance coupled with irrational claims that Christians are “anti-science”!

It’s not “intolerant” to point out that Creationists are just factually wrong, because that’s where the evidence leads. This isn’t a subjective, offensive idea. It’s also not irrational to point out how science actually works or that some Christians just don’t understand it. (Shormann is just one example.)

A spokesperson from the museum even commented on his post:

While the viewpoints expressed may not synchronize with your personal beliefs, we do not find these sentiments “anti-Christian”…

Shormann, by the way, attempted to point out errors in a Biology textbook the Texas State Board of Education was considering adopting back in 2011… and got his ass handed to him on a silver platter (PDF).

The protest and rebuttal event are going on this weekend, so if you’d like to join the Houston Atheists, you can find more details here.



