Is Creation A Viable Model Of Origins In Today’s Modern Scientific Era?

Last night, as pretty much anyone who would read this knows, Ken Ham, the founder of the Creation Museum debated the world-famous Bill Nye the Science Guy to discuss whether or not creation is a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era. Here is a collection of my thoughts after listening to the debate twice and reviewing the posts of friends on facebook as other internet sources.

My collection of notes are on pastebin here!

Let me start by saying I am so glad this wasn’t just a recreation of debate held years back between an atheist organization and Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. I believe there is plenty of credence to give support for the creationist view, but holding up pictures of a “crocaduck”  or “jackalope” and saying that their nonexistence proves evolution is false does nothing but slander the name of Christianity and creationists. The playlist of that debacle is here.

Why I really hate Creation v. Evolution debates:

The entire premise of debating creation v. evolution is flawed. Basically, whenever you debate these two things, you might as well be comparing apples to yaks.

Creation: is a theory that explains how things came into being. It explains the start of the universe. It explains where everything began. It is not explanation of how things came to be the way they are today.

Evolution: is a theory that explains how things have changed over time. It explains how one thing, over long period of times, has become new things, adding in complexity to adapt to environment and enemies.It explains how things came to be the way they are today. It does not explain how things came into being in the first place.

A better argument to have, I think, would be intelligent design vs natural design on the creation aspect. Or, from the evolution aspect, whether the microevolution that is easily observable today can reasonably be extrapolated to the macroevolution in Darwinian thought.

Personally, I think extensive, public debates as this are just spectacles anyway. They are meant to persuade people (like any other debate), but they are unnaturally bad at it. These sorts of debates never change the opinions of other people. They only further solidify the opinions that viewers already have. Those who wish to convert others to their side of the debates would do better to not let a discussion turn into a debate in the first place.

It is unreasonable to try to tackle both topics simultaneously. However, since it has already been done with this debate, I won’t feel bad for using this blog to do the same thing.

Why neither Ham should not have selected himself to debate Nye:

Ken Ham is very personally vested in the outcome of the debate. His stated reasons for taking part in this debate were to promote Jesus Christ and the necessity of teaching children in school the creationist view. I am sure that is part of the reason, however I question the integrity of that being the complete reason. He is the founder and director of the creation museum, where the debate was held. He initiated the debate with Nye. His museum is failing, and has been for the past several years. He tried to make up for it by adding new attractions that are less to do with creationism and more to do with bringing in visitors (read revenue) — case in point being the zipline course. I’ve also heard talk of an amusement park joining to get more visitors.

My second reason is that Ham is an author, not a scientist. He reads the texts that others have written about their research and he reinterprets them for others in his own writings. His career isn’t to expand the body of scientific knowledge. He doesn’t know astronomy, he doesn’t know molecular biology, he doesn’t know radiology. Ham started his presentation by showing clips from creationist scientists. Any of these men that he showed would have been more qualified to debate creation and evolution based on their research in the field and expertise on their topics than Ham was. They would have been formidable opponents to anyone on the evolution team. Yet, Ham chose himself and simply acknowledged their existence.

Bill Nye should equally not have agreed to do the debate. If he wanted the debate to take place, he should have chosen someone more qualified in any topic of research to debate based on their expertise. I grew up watching the Science Guy, just like most people my age, and I am certainly a fan of his, however, he really isn’t an expert in any field of science. He has an incredible knowledge of the basics of all matters of scientific field and thought. However, he’s not an expert in microbiology astronomy that win a debate against a more formidable opponent. He also played right into what Ham needs. A debate with better experts would not bring the attention and visitors that a debate with the world famous Bill Nye would bring. Bill Nye fights hard to promote the education of science and technology (as he sees them) to students as young as possible, and yet he accidentally gave money and attention to a man that undermines everything Nye stands for.

Ken Ham’s arguments (according to my notes):

1. Creation is not only a viable model of origins today, but it is THE only viable model of origins.
2. Science can be divided into 2 parts and must be separated if you are to look into the past:
   1. Observational science (the scientific method) which all scientists agree upon.
   2. Historical science is a second form of science that mainstream science doesn’t agree with him upon, which he argues needs to be separated from observational science. He defines historical science as being based on the Biblical account of origins — basically, if it disagrees with what the Bible says, it must be wrong. You need to find a new theory and when it matches the historical text in the Bible, you know you will be able to prove it using observational science today.
3. Currently science has been hijacked and is being used to indoctrinate children into the religion of Naturalism. Naturalism is a religion that teaches that all thing came to be through natural processes with no credence given to the supernatural.
4. The creation v evolution debate is really a conflict between two philosophical worldviews based on differing accounts of historical science.
5. Children should look to creation scientists as heroes and role models. There is an overarching opinion in the scientific community that creationists and scientists are mutually exclusive; that you cannot be both. However, Ham asserts there are creationist scientists and they have made extraordinary discoveries by looking at science through that worldview.
6. Mainstream science borrows ideas from creationist science — ideas like the laws of logic and natural laws cannot exist without a God to create them. Molecules do not develop into logic by themselves.
7. You cannot directly observe the past. We cannot observe creation, we cannot observe Adam and Eve. We cannot see the flood. Therefore, you can not use observational science (previously acknowledged as the agreed upon scientific method) to study these.
   1. The only way to study these are through historical science — the Bible.
   2. We can observe that things happen they way the do today. That is why we use observational science for things like technology. However, since we cannot observe that things happen today the way they did 4,000 or 6,000 years ago, we cannot use the scientific method to study them.
   3. I believe his argument is that you extrapolate past data from present data. Something along the lines of correlation doesn’t equal causation.
8. Again, Ham reminds that the difference between viewpoints is philosophical. “We believe the Bible is the authority on the evidence’s interpretation. It’s a difference of starting points.”
9. If the Bible’s account of human origins is true we should be able to make predictions that we can test.
   1. intelligence produced life
   2. evidence confirming after their kind
   3. confirming global flood
   4. confirming 1 race of humans
   5. confirming the tower of Babel
   6. evidence of a young universe
   7. The one thing I noticed in his list is that with this viewpoint we can only predict and test past events. It doesn’t offer opportunity to predict future events; what will happen based on what has happened. Perhaps, this means there is a “futuristic science” and that historical, observational, and future science are 3 separate bodies that can’t be used to predict things in each other’s fields? Pure speculation here.
10. Darwin’s finches are more alike than breeds of dogs. However, we group dogs as one species and Darwin’s finches as many species.
11. Creationists agree with observable evolution (such as dogs or finches), but disagree with the unobservable — the evolutionary tree. We cannot see any previous stages of evolution, therefore, we cannot use observable science to say that the evolutionary tree occured.
    1. instead of an evolutionary tree, creationists believe in an evolutionary orchard. There are several kinds of animals and we can watch them change. Therefore we can say this animal was made after its own kind using observational science.
    2. Creationists have determined that kind is NOT species. Kind refers to family (if you look at the scientific naming of things). Things never switch families (and presumably no new families are ever created) though they may become different species within the same family over time.
12. The 7 C’s: Starting with Christ, they are God correcting the C that correlates to the same theme of the C on the other side of Confusion.
    1. creation
    2. corruption
    3. catastrophy
    4. confusion
    5. christ
    6. cross
    7. consumation
13. science arbitrarily defines science as naturalism and outlaws the supernatural.
14. You can go into space and observe that the earth is a sphere. Therefore observational science can be used to prove that the earth is a sphere. However, you cannot observe the age of the earth, therefore, you cannot use observational science to prove the age of the earth.
15.  Christians who believe in an old earth have a fundamental problem. They are Christian, that’s all dependant on the work of Jesus Christ, not on their belief of evolution. The first death occurred in the Garden of Eden when God killed a lamb. When you look at fossils, you’re looking at death. The Bible says man was around when the first death occurred. If you place these fossils before the coming of man, than death wasn’t the result of sin — and you disagree with the Bible about sin and death. If fossils of animals eating other animals are older than the flood, then you disagree with the Bible about the origin of carnivorism.

Summary: Science is an all encompassing word but should be divided into observation and historical science. When things cannot be observed today so we have to make assumptions that they were the same before we observe them, which is not allowed in science. You cannot make assumptions about how natural laws used to act. You must be able to observe that natural laws 4,000 years ago or 6,000 years were the same as they are today before you can say that they are the same. They may be the same, but they may not be the same, and it is impossible to prove or disprove. As a result, you can not use observational science in any way when it comes to earth and human origins. Since this cannot be done, you must use historical science. Since God is the only witness to the event, we must take him at his word and consider it fact, knowing that the true answers of science will line up with God’s word.

Bill Nye’s arguments (according to my notes):

1. Ken Ham’s model of creation isn’t viable. It doesn’t hold up when put to scientific rigor.
2. All it would take to change the world of science and disprove everything that Bill Nye believes is for someone to find evidence of 1 animal buried where science hasn’t predicted it to be. An animal that we know from fossils we found to be buried after an animal that we know to have come after it. Just 1 example, anywhere in the world, would change science.
   1. Whoever finds this piece will be considered a hero in the world of science. They would win a Nobel Prize and revolutionize all scientific thought by finding just 1 example. Nye believes it will never be done, but if someone can do it he challenges them to do it, get their paper written, and change the world.
3. What makes the US a world superpower and leader is that the United States has a history of being on the front lines of innovation. If we askew science, by teaching children models of science that do not hold up against the scientific method, then the United States will lose it’s spot as world leader in technology and innovation.
4. The fossil record is evidence of evolution. Kentucky (where the debate was held) is on top of layer after layer of limestone with coral fossils that lived their entire lives there. A flood 4000 years ago would not have been enough time for these to live out their whole lives, as evidence suggests they did, and become buried in thousands of layers of rock. There just isn’t enough time.
5. In Greenland and Antarctica they’ve bored holes into ice and found ice that’s 680,000 layers deep. It takes a full winter-summer cycle in order for a new layer to form. It would take 170 winter-summer cycles every year for the last 4,000 years to produce that many layers of ice.
6. There are trees that are 6,000 or even 9,500 years old. A flood 4,000 years ago would have killed those trees. It is impossible for them to survive submerged under water for a full year and survive.
7. The Grand Canyon is filled with layers of ancient rocks. For them to have been formed by a flood 4,000 years ago there would have had to be charring and boiling and settling at a rate that just isn’t possible. It takes sand far too long to turn to stone for something like the grand canyon to be built in less than 4,000 years. And if a flood created it, there would have been Grand Canyons on every continent. It’s much more likely that over millions of years the Colorado River cut through the rock to expose it like we see today.
8. Fossils of specific animals are always found in the same layer. They are never intermixed with fossils from a different layer. If a flood had occurred 4000 years ago to create them, there would mixing all over the place.
9. If Noah put 7,000 kinds of animals on the ark that turned into the 15 million species we know today, it would require 11 new species coming into existence on a daily basis for the past 4,000 years.
10. The best boat builders in the world with modern technology can’t build a boat as big as the Ark. How is it possible that an unskilled man and his family could 6,000 years ago. How was the knowledge of that ability lost?
11. The key to science is the ability to predict. Science is just observations if you can’t use those observations to predict. We can predict how much space an elephant needs because of science. We can predict that a creature that has characteristics of a lizard and a fish would be found in a specific marsh. The creationist viewpoint doesn’t have the ability to make predictions — it’s not science.
12. Science builds off itself. Hubble discovered stars are moving away from each other, Hoyle suggested it was a big bang. Wilson found the radio evidence that science predicted would be left behind if a big bang occurred. Science can make those predictions, creation can’t.
13. You have to ask yourself, would a reasonable man believe this? Is it reasonable to assume there are trees older than the flood, rocks older than the earth, starlight that has travelled for longer periods than creation? Nye says these aren’t reasonable.
14. The US constitution specifically states in article 1 to promote the progress of science and useful arts. Voters and taxpayers need to vote to keep science in schools to keep the United states’ place in the world. Convincing children to ignore all scientific reason in favor of creationism develops generations of children who will not be able innovate because they won’t even understand how science works.
15. Bill nye can’t see anyway for Ham and himself to agree if Ham insists that natural laws have changed in the last 4,000 years without evidence.
16. All things we observe are in the past, even things we observe now are simply remnants that happened, if even moments earlier. To say you have to throw out all observational science in order to look at the past is to say you have to throw out all science.
17. Nye finds no reason to accept Ham’s interpretation of the Bible in English today, after 3000 years of being constantly translated and assume that his interpretation has more authority and objectively more correct than what we can observe today. It’s unsettling for Nye to think that people can follow that logic.

Summary: Bill Nye says that geological, biological, and astronomical evidence proves that the earth must be older than 6,000 years. To separate science into 2 categories, the scientific method and the Biblical account and saying you cannot use the scientific method to study the past hurts America and the field of science. The creationist view is not science, it’s religious. There is tons of evidence to support an old earth and nothing but the idea that you can’t assume the evidence to be true because you didn’t observe it to argue against him. The most important part of this debate for Nye is that voters and taxpayers realize how much their votes are necessary to ensure that children learn real science and that children know that the world needs them to understand science so that the US can maintain it’s position in the world.

Some final thoughts:

This debate was not so much a scientific debate as it was a rhetoric debate. Ken Ham did a huge disservice to his side by saying that science needed to be split into the scientific method and the Biblical account, and that when studying anything not directly observable we have to unquestionably accept the Biblical account as fact. In the Q&A he said there is no piece of evidence that could ever convince him that evolution is true. Any piece of evidence that contradicts the Bible must be false and therefore can be ignored without investigation. He set himself up for failure with the intro, and guaranteed it when he answered that question. The absolute worst way to win any debate with an atheist is to give them Bible verses and say they are true because they are true and anything that says otherwise is false because you already determined the Bible to be true. You can’t win a debate by saying that you won’t even investigate claims that you already disagree with.

Now to the creationist viewpoint, Bill Nye said that it would only take 1 piece of evidence to change his viewpoints about science. That one fossil that swam up to a higher layer. Proof that stars only appear to be far away but are actually much closer. Proof that the earth can’t be billions of years old. Proof that the Big Bang theory is wrong. So anyone on the creationist side who wants to be the guy that proves Bill Nye wrong, that’s all he requires. 1 piece of evidence that discredits what science already says. He would consider you a hero, you would revolutionize the world and science, and to top it off, you’d win a nobel prize!

Now Bill Nye also got something deeply wrong. He acknowledged that there are many scientists who are devotedly religious. But he misunderstands the Biblical context of an Old and New Testament. He assumes they are mutually exclusive — that by having to create a New Testament, that the Old Testament was somehow flawed, which he joked about towards the end of the debate. It’s not flawed, nor is the New Testament an “improvement” to the old one. They tell two different parts of the same narrative. The first covenant (which is made in the early chapters of Genesis) and then articulated through the rest of Pentateuch. The second covenant was the one made by Jesus at the start of the New Testament and later shown through the early church (acts and epistles) and promised to be the covenant that would endure forever.

There seems to be a misunderstanding when it comes to the Old Testament, that I think escapes Bill, but Ken understands. It’s that not every portion of the Bible was written to us today. The laws of Israel were abolished for the gentiles in the book of Acts, so the common arguments of Levitical law, don’t apply to Christians today. One of the questions during Q&A brought this to mind for me, and I think it’s a concept many Christians don’t actually understand. The Law according to Moses doesn’t always apply to us today the same as it applied to Israel during the founding of the nation. The only Law that Christians must follow is the Law of Jesus.

When asked, he said that the greatest commandment was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. The second was to love your neighbor as yourself. So what about the other laws? Do we just get rid of them? I say no. In Matthew, Jesus said he didn’t come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. Therefore, we don’t do away with the Pentateuch, but we embrace it as the embodiment of what we can’t fulfill, but what Jesus has already fulfilled for us.

So where does this leave me?

This is a very difficult question for me to answer. As far as this debate goes, Bill Nye came in firing facts and evidence while Ken Ham only came in saying that since you can’t go back and observe it, you can’t use science to say what happened in the past, even 4,000 years ago — at a time when we all already agree that man was around and at least somewhat sophisticated.  The winner of the debate was without a doubt Bill Nye.

As for my beliefs on evolution (which didn’t change, just like everyone else after watching the debate) is that some evolution has without a doubt occurred, Even as recently as 50 years ago, the best scientific evidence wasn’t really all that convincing. But hundreds of fossils from all over the world discovered by people looking for evidence of evolution and people looking to discredit it have made the argument that no evolution has occurred irrational. Even Ham admits that evolution has occurred, which is how we’ve gone from a few thousand kinds of animals to the millions we know to exist today. I believe in an earth that is more than a few thousand years old, because all evidence suggests there is. I do not agree much with Ham’s position, because I interpret Genesis differently than he does. I can accept that we didn’t all originate from a single cell organism. But I can’t buy that millions of species have evolved over just a couple thousand years from just a few kinds of animals and now have seemingly all simultaneously stopped evolving.

I think there is a misunderstanding of the Genesis phrase “day,” Having personally talked to an ancient Hebrew scholar, I am convinced that the word originally was a period of time and over centuries of translation has become the word day in english. So I don’t think it took just 144 hours to make all creation. I believe God could have done it that way, but that he didn’t. Why, I don’t know.

I feel like it puts a great hinderance on God’s powers to say that he couldn’t have used evolution as a means of creation; as if God were incapable of correctly picking out which alleles and which mutations should be passed from one generation to the next to reach the point where we are. The Bible is very clear that when it came to making man, he stepped in and changed things. He made man in his image with the breath of life; he made man a truly living being with a soul like his own. When man sinned and death entered the world, couldn’t God have been talking about spiritual death — a separation of his soul from ours? Clearly, God didn’t mean a physical death otherwise Adam and Eve would have died when they ate the apple, not gone on to live a full (ridiculously long) life with many children.

But what if I’m wrong?

Well, that’s ok. If Bill Nye is right, then I am still in the clear — no harm, no foul. If Ken Ham is right, then I’m still in the clear. Like he said, if he’s right about a literal 6 day creation and I am wrong about an old-earth creation it doesn’t affect my salvation. The only thing that affects that is my belief in Jesus. If he is right, then I’ve misunderstood scripture, but I haven’t committed the unforgivable sin. If I’m right, then I’m obviously still in the clear.

I think there is a sect of Christianity, a very vocal sect in fact, that believes that Christians must all believe the exact same thing. Coincidentally, they believe they have infallibly got it correct themselves, which is a huge miracle since Christianity has differed in opinion since before they first stopped calling themselves a sect of Judaism. New theories have been made, and even some (like the old Team Calvin and Team Arminius problem) have become some vocalized that Christians accuse each other of not being Christian at all because opinions that didn’t even exist during the days of the apostles.

There are only a few things that you must believe to be Christian. Apart from those things, there’s wiggle room. Evolution falls in the wiggle room.

Al Sharpton Is Responsible For Zimmerman’s Acquittal

Over the past months, the United States has been rocked by the murder trial of George Zimmerman. By now we all know the basic facts, Zimmerman followed Trayvon Martin because he was unfamiliar in the gated community where Zimmerman lived following a string of recent burglaries. A fight broke out between the two men, and in the end Martin was shot once in the heart and killed.

We all know that already, this is the story of how Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, NAACP, and every other protester unwittingly caused George Zimmerman to be acquitted of murder. It goes like this:

Following the police investigation, Zimmerman was released from custody without being charged. The lead detective simply couldn’t find any evidence to suggest that Zimmerman’s account of what lead him to shoot Martin was inaccurate. He’s acknowledged that after receiving all the evidence, he believed Zimmerman’s account — that Trayvon attacked him for following him, pinned him to the ground, expressed that he was going to kill Zimmerman, and pounded his head into the pavement when Zimmerman fatally shot Martin. If Zimmerman’s account of events is true, he acted in self-defense.

Because physical evidence and eyewitness affidavits corroborated Zimmerman’s story, the police determined they should not charge him at that time.

This is where Sharpton et al. get involved. They have no facts, they have not seen the evidence, they have not read the affidavits. All they know, and all they understand, is that a black 17 year old was killed by a “white” guy (who wasn’t), and didn’t get charged with murder. They felt that this would make a perfect opportunity to turn the event into a civil rights issue, and would force the state’s hand into charging Zimmerman.

They organized protests, they bombarded the media with false reports, and the media rolled with it. Before any facts were publicly known, the media already convicted Zimmerman of murder. They convinced celebrities to make speeches and join the propaganda to spill racism into the event. Even president Obama, of whom those who know me know that I adore, said that if he had a son, he would look like Trayvon, before anything about Trayvon was known.

They got the media to post childhood pictures of Trayvon along with mugshot-esque photos of Zimmerman to make it look like a thug killed an innocent child. Zimmerman was stupid, but no thug, and Trayvon wasn’t the innocent child that America initially believed him to be.

So what happened? Protests. Mass protests calling for the arrest and trial of Zimmerman. Political pressure was too great, and the state had to cave in. They knew the public wouldn’t be satisfied with a voluntary manslaughter charge (which they may have been able to get at a later date), so they charged him with murder in the second degree — a charge they knew couldn’t stick to appease the general public.

As the facts of the trial came out, it was obvious that Zimmerman couldn’t be found guilty of murder two. Our legal system doesn’t work that way. Our legal system is designed on the Blackstone formulation: “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” This is how we come up with beyond a reasonable doubt. Basically it means that if there is doubt that a charged person doesn’t meet the requirements of the crime for which he is charged, he has to be found not guilty of the crime. It doesn’t mean they are innocent. It doesn’t mean they are more likely innocent than guilty. The jury believed that Zimmerman’s story of self-defense matches the physical evidence and the witness testimony, so they had to accept that it was reasonable doubt to the murder charge. It may or may not be true, but it casts reasonable doubt. Once the jury determined tha thtey believed self-defense, the lesser charge (added last minute) of manslaughter wasn’t an option. If they bought self-defense for the larger charge, they had to accept self-defense for the lesser one. They had to acquit him.

This could have been avoided. The police may have in the future decided to charge Zimmerman on their own. Without the media attention and public outrage, the state would have had the option to give Zimmerman a plea bargain. The public outrage prevented that — it wouldn’t satiate the public’s bloodlust if Zimmerman got a deal, and they knew that. Murder 2 wasn’t an option, but without a trial to determine self-defense, voluntary manslaughter would have been an option. It would have been the smarter move, and likely would have been the move that would have convinced Zimmerman to plead guilty instead of force a murder trial.

There was also the possibility that if Zimmerman intended to kill Martin that night that down the road he would have confided that to someone. Then the state would have had him on murder — but that time never came because the media-fueled public outrage didn’t give him the opportunity.

Zimmerman may be in jail right now if it weren’t for the attention that Sharpton et al. put on the case. Their desire to turn it into a civil rights issue and give the nation a bloodlust let a man who was likely guilty go free.

I hope that made sense.

Now a few details about the case that I keep seeing on facebook, twitter, and news blogs reported incorrectly.

1. The jury wasn’t a jury of his peers — the law doesn’t require it. That’s a phrase from the movies. It was an impartial jury, which is what the 6th Amendment to the Constitution requires.
2. The prosecution and defense selected the jurors out of a huge pool of potential jurors and together and BOTH sides agreed to it. The fact that it was 6 women (with a man and woman on reserve in case others proved to not be impartial later) is coincidence. The judge also approved of each member of the jury.
3. Police did NOT order Zimmerman not to follow Martin. A dispatcher said that they didn’t need him to continue to follow Martin. That’s not an order not to, and even so, a dispatcher’s opinions (or orders) do not hold the legal weight of those from a sworn officer. The dispatcher is not a sworn officer and does not have the training that police officers have.
4. The facts leading up to the fight do not negate Zimmerman’s Constitutional rights to defend his life once the fight escalated to a life or death situation.
5. Stand Your Ground was not an issue in this case. Zimmerman’s attorney refused this defense, and it was not brought up in trial. You can stop attacking this law based on Zimmerman’s acquittal. It played no role whatsoever in the case. Stand Your Ground (see Supreme Court Cases Beard vs US 1895 and Brown vs US 1921) says that when your life is in clear, immediate danger, but you have the opportunity to flee that you have NO obligation to flee before using force. That isn’t what happened in the case, and that isn’t what Zimmerman used as his defense. What it does have in common to his defense is that both are affirmative defenses (they would acknowledge that he killed him, but that it was justifiable).
6. Zimmerman’s claim was simply self-defense. He claimed that his life was in immediate danger and that he did not have the possibility fleeing. His claim was that when Martin expressed his intentions to kill Zimmerman and that when Martin had Zimmerman pinned to the ground and was pounding his head into the pavement that he was incapable of fleeing and that if he didn’t take immediate action he would be killed.
7. Justice was served. Just because no one was sent to jail doesn’t mean justice wasn’t served. He was tried in court, an impartial jury found that his affirmative defense was more likely true than not (in an affirmative defense the defendant has to prove a “preponderance of the evidence”, not the same “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the prosecution has to prove, that the defense is true). Again, our legal system believes it’s better for the guilty to go unpunished than for the innocent to go punished for a crime they didn’t commit. That’s what happened here. Justice was served.
8. Mob justice isn’t the answer. Violent protests such as those in L.A. following the verdict or the Black Panther $10,000 reward for the capture of Zimmerman prior to his arrest does nothing but hurt our justice system and collapse a free nation.

I can totally agree that some laws may need to change. That’s why it’s important for you to vote at every election. You can change the laws by voting directly on the ones up for vote and indirectly by replacing politicians you disagree with for ones with whom you do agree.

I can totally agree that Zimmerman is more likely guilty than he is innocent. That doesn’t mean our justice system is flawed. If I ever get falsely accused of a crime, I will be ecstatic that we’ve decided that our justice system requires beyond a reasonable doubt before punishing me rather than just punishing me because it might be true. I suspect in the same situation, any of my readers would feel the same way.

Please people, watch the trial if you want accurate facts about what happened — do not look to the media. Remember, media outlets look for headlines and stories that will give them the most viewers/readers and the highest ratings, they do not care about making sure the information is factually accurate. They don’t have the legal obligation that courts do to review facts and wait for evidence before pronouncing a person guilty. This case exemplifies that.

Finally, do not let the likes of Al Sharpton, the NAACP, or their cohorts trick you into thinking every situation where two people of opposing races is a civil rights issue. There is a reason that it has been said of Al Sharpton that he would show up to a car accident if one of the vehicles was black. His bias goes to an extreme and he stands to make significant financial gains and personal attention every time he convinces people that non-racially motivated circumstances are civil rights issues.

A Life Without Hope

Let me start by saying that this isn’t a post about gun control, but it is about a school shooting. So, while  there may be little bits of my opinion in there, please don’t think it’s the take home message I am trying to leave you with.

Today, T.J. Lane, 18, was sentenced to 3 life sentences plus 25 years with no possibility of parole for the murders of 3 students at their high school (Lane did not attend the high school) as well as 2 counts of attempted murder, and felonious assault. He was 17 at the time of the shooting, and the fact spared him from the death sentence.

I think his life is an extreme example of what happens to a person who has no hope. From what I’ve read about his life, there’s never been the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel” for this kid. As he grew up, he saw his dad go to jail for attempted murder, he had been arrested for violent acts himself multiple times. He attended a behavioral disorder school alternative (for good reason). He had serious mental problems. He had severe depression and hallucinations. I don’t present these facts to justify his actions; just to evidence my thoughts that his entire life, he’s never experienced hope.

His actions the day of the shooting and since further evidence the fact that this kid’s life was hopeless. Typically, school shooters have expressed reasons why the did it; they planned it extensively; shooting people has often been a way to retake control. This wasn’t the case for T.J. He has said multiple times that there was no reason, and that seems to fit the story. He wasn’t bullied, wasn’t well acquainted with the victims, in fact, it seems that he just decided on the fly to open fire while waiting for the bus. The one detail I question, that hasn’t had a real explanation put forward, is why he was carrying a handgun and a knife that day to begin with.

T.J. made sure he was convicted. Ohio law, where he was convicted, says that a child cannot be be charged as an adult if they don’t understand the charges, court procedures, participate in his defense, punishment if convicted, is mentally ill, or has an intellectual or developmental disability. He didn’t allow his lawyer to file the motion for a mental evaluation. In fact, he didn’t allow his lawyers to present any real defense. He plead guilty to all charges without attempting a plea deal.

The last bits of evidence that he lives with no hope occurred today at his sentencing hearing. After entering the court room he took off his outer shirt to reveal that his undershirt read “KILLER” in permanent marker. He was smiling as the judge announced his sentence. In the middle of the court appearance, he swung his chair around to face the victims’ parents, flipped them off, and said, “This hand that pulled the trigger that killed your sons now masturbates to the memory. Fuck all of you.” It seems obvious to me that he wanted to be sure he was in prison until he died. All of his actions, from the shooting until today, suggest that was his goal.

This story has intrigued me since the story first broke last February. School shootings in general have always held an interest to me. Perhaps it has to do with the hit list/safe list that my name was written on in 8th grade. Perhaps it has to do with the kid that I sat next to in Speech class in 10th grade that was removed from class by police because he had a gun in his backpack. Perhaps it’s because I grew up during the “heyday” of school shootings. Perhaps it’s just because I became friends with several people in middle/high school of whose stories he reminds me. Perhaps it’s because there are people I know today of whom he reminds me. Whatever the reason, this case stood out to me.

As I read the news stories this afternoon about his final actions in court, and perhaps joy, that he would be in prison until the day he dies, I couldn’t help but wonder why! Why would anyone want to be jail? Why would anyone work so hard to ensure that they would be? He clearly didn’t want to die, or he would have killed himself… he would be on suicide watch. He wants to live, but he wants to live in prison. Why?

Then it hit me. He has no hope. The world isn’t predictable. Sometimes, it flat out sucks. But jail is different. It’s the same every day… occasionally people change, but that’s it. You don’t have to worry about making decisions. You don’t have to see the light at the end of the tunnel. There doesn’t have to be one. Everything is decided, everything stays the same. It’s a shame that someone can feel that the best, safest place for them is jail — but it seems to be the most reasonable explanation.

I am beyond grateful that I have something more to hope for. I don’t know how anyone can function without hope for more. Hope for something past this world. Hope that good will win. Hope that there is more to life than this; more than the here and now. I take pity this kid. Not because he was treated too harshly, not because he’s just a kid. I take pity on him because he’s got not hope. Except for an act from God,  he will go his entire life without experiencing true hope. Perhaps one day his eyes will be opened and he won’t have to experience hopelessness for eternity.

Anyone else who’s familiar with the case care to give me your input?