A few years ago I attemped dialog with a Fundamentalist Christian minister known as "SpinRon" on the HOLYSMOKE FidoNet "echo," and Rev. Ron Stringfellow in real life (one may find his church via GOOGLE search with his name). Other than making some very funny claims (such as scientists hiding fossils in the "stratosphere"), he was also known for his insane beliefs regarding evolution, evolutionary theory, and assorted other sciences.

One day I asked him why he believed the "Noah's Flood" myth as found in Gensis One and Genesis Two was "the word of god," when it is known that the authors of Genesis 1 and 2 merely borrowed the myth from much earlier religions. His answer was, to paraphrase, "Satan knew the Bible would relate the story about the *REAL* flood, so Satan caused earlier Babylonian / Assyrian cultures to write the same story only lying about the gods involved and the time frame." In other words, the Christian god Satan did an end-run around Biblical "history," as an act of "poisioning the well."

I thanked him for this astonishing information, and took a day or so to think about this and plan my next question. I then asked him (anticipating the answer) why the majority of the myths about Jesus in the Christian Testament were originally applied to much earlier gods, almost word-for-word in some Vedic places, and almost event-for-event in other myths. Yeah, you guessed it: Satan knew Jesus would be born as well as the events around that birth, so Satan caused earlier and identicle myths to be written about in other cultures.

This kind of "thinking" was once considered by the Christian church as "blasphemy." Satan, it was believed, was not capable of creating anything: only the other Christian gods were creators. This belief (that Satan cannot create) may have been abandoned in part due to the start of when fossils were being uncovered in increasing numbers (perhaps starting around the +1,700s): Satan created all of those fossils, and cleverly placed them. Contemporarily, Fundamentalist Christians tend to insist that their Satan god, is a clever and prolific creator, rather much like the tribal desert war god YHWH and the schizophrenic sun god Jesus.

I've found nothing Biblical about Satan being able to create anything. In Job we find the god Satan doing the bidding of the god YHWH in what can only be accurately described as "a drunken bar bet."

Which brings me, finally, to my point: IF CREATIONISTS REALLY BELIEVE THAT THE BIBLICAL FLOOD HAPPENED AND THAT A GOD CAUSED IT TO HAPPEN, THEN THOSE CREATIONISTS ARE WORSHIPING THE WRONG GOD. The myths found in the Hebrew Testament about "Noah's" flood are redacted from earlier myths regarding other cultures and other gods. Claiming the god Satan created the earlier myths just to confuse people is (or was) historically an act of blasphemy.

Rev. Hovind, Rev. Morris, Rev. Gish, et al, if they were intellectually and spiritually honest, should be proclaiming the Truth for the ever-lasting glory and praise of Ea and assorted other Assyrian gods.

-- "To the bat tank!" --- Tank Girl

Asking a Creationist for scientific evidence is like asking a hippo to ride a unicycle.