The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science (3 page)

‘Brisbane Grammar was private,’ he explains. ‘So you have a lot of freedom. You can innovate all sorts of education programmes that would take reams of paperwork to get approved elsewhere. I said to my colleagues, “I’ve found a way to teach creation.” They said, “You can’t do that.” I said, “Yes I can.”’

Mackay formulated a lesson that he called ‘How do we know what we know in the first place?’, the official purpose of which was to explore the methods we use to separate fact from fantasy. The example he used was creation versus evolution and he used it to help the children answer his favourite question ever: If creation is true, what would the evidence be?

Word of Mackay’s unit spread, and he was invited to teach it at church groups. He was a hit. He circulated class notes to like-minded colleagues and impressed many, but most portentously an ambitious young teacher called Ken Ham.

I am surprised to hear mention of Ham in all this. He is a Queensland-born scientist who is now a resident of the US, where he has become famous for his creationism museum and his daily radio show
Answers … with Ken Ham
, which is syndicated nationally to over a thousand stations. I am interested in Ken Ham because he and Mackay co-founded the Creation Science Foundation in 1979
only for Mackay to be kicked out
after making some unusually bracing allegations about a senior member.

‘I wasn’t actually
kicked out
of the CSF,’ Mackay corrects me, when I mention it. ‘But it was getting to that stage.’

‘I heard you accused someone of witchcraft.’

‘I did accuse a lady of being a “divisive Jezebel,”’ he says, carefully. ‘Jezebel was a lady full of rebellion and the Bible says rebellion is the sin of witchcraft.’

‘And did you also accuse her of necrophilia?’

‘That wording comes from somebody else,’ he says.

‘But did you—’

‘Yes,’ he says, reluctantly. ‘I did communicate that as well.’

‘And was it true?’ I ask.

‘I couldn’t say,’ he says while wiping some drizzle out of his beard. ‘I mean, how could you know?’

We pause to check upon the progress that has been made with the water pump. We are here to see a set of fossilised conifers which apparently contain crucial evidence for creationism. As we make our way through the sticky mud towards the gradually emerging treasure, John explains how the petrified remains of dinosaurs challenge the basic tenets of evolution.

‘The first dinosaurs look like dinosaurs,’ he says. ‘The last ones look like dinosaurs too. So within that timeframe – even if you did put it at millions of years – they produce their own kind, just as Genesis says.’

‘But hang on,’ I say. ‘If humans have been here since day one, that means we must have existed at the same time as dinosaurs.’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘When you look at so-called mythical stories of dragons, they’re real. St George really did fight a dragon.’

‘But there are no dragons in the Bible.’

‘There are quite a few dragons in the Bible. Go to Job 41:14. It talks about a creature with huge teeth and a terrible mouth that breathed fire.’

‘Does that mean that Noah had dragons on the ark?’

‘Obviously.’

By now, enough water has been sucked out of the pit that working geologist Liam Fromyhr can use the scene to tell me why he is convinced that the majority of his colleagues are mistaken in their belief that layers of earth or ‘strata’ are laid down over millions of years. For creationists, of course, these trees and the strata that they lie in will probably be around six thousand years old.

Liam points to a fossilised tree, a beautiful coppery piece of rock in which it’s still possible to make out individual rings in the ancient wood.

‘This is a polystrate fossil,’ he says, ‘which means it sticks through several strata at once. This means the layers must’ve been laid quickly enough to cover the tree completely before it decomposed. We’ve got three metres of strata here. So conventional thinking would assume they were laid over three hundred thousand years. But as you can see, we’ve
got a log sticking right through them.’ Liam gives me a long, steady look. ‘Now, logs don’t hang around for three hundred thousand years.’

I turn to John.

‘So if these fossils are six thousand years old, this must mean they’re actual trees from the garden of Eden?’

He considers for a moment.

‘Well, this is a tree which, due to some circumstances, has been catastrophically pulverised into sections. You can see another one over there that has gigantic cobbles up against it. The size of the cobbles tells you that the water has been going pretty fast.’

‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘Are you telling me these trees were knocked over during Noah’s flood?’

‘Basically.’

I bend down again to look at them. These old conifers, I can’t help but notice, are normal sized and not – as they should be, according John’s theory – gigantic trees, grown to an awesome monstrous splendour in a nutritionally, atmospherically and environmentally perfect Eden.

‘They’re not particularly massive, are they?’ I say.

‘Oh, these are just fragments,’ says John. ‘Is this a small tree trunk or a branch from a big tree? You just can’t tell.’

‘You do expect to find some gigantic trees, then?’ I ask, vaguely. ‘At some point?’

His eyes scan happily over the trunks.

‘Eventually.’

*

‘I’m going to say some things that might stretch your little brains today,’ John says from his lectern in front of the altar. It is Sunday morning and he has invited me to watch him preach at the Gympie Community Church. ‘I’m going to be talking about homosexuals. Open your Bibles at Leviticus chapter 20 verse 13. “If a man lies with the male as with a woman, both men have committed an abomination, they shall surely be put to …? Death.”’

Behind either side of John’s head are large banners, painted in happy colours by the neighbourhood’s children. One says ‘Love’. The other, ‘Joy’.

‘Isn’t it true that today we have gay bishops?’ he says. ‘Isn’t it true that we have lesbian preachers? But in the Bible it says homosexual bishops, lesbian preachers, thieves, extortioners, adulterers, murderers and revilers will end up where?’

On an adjacent wall are their companions, ‘Gentleness’ and ‘Kindness’.

‘Hell.’

The woman in front of me highlights the relevant Bible chapter in pink ink.

‘Do you know what’s going to happen to our moral basis?’ he continues. ‘There will be a shift. If homosexuality used to be wrong and now it’s right, why not paedophilia? You watch. That’s what you’ll see.’

I look around at the congregation of young families, elderly couples and children. I am expecting expressions of outrage; at the very least surprise. But everyone appears benignly accepting, as if they are watching clouds drifting over sunny meadows. Their Bibles have special weatherproof jackets with pockets and zips and pen holders.

‘You ask what gives God the right to determine what’s moral or immoral? He made the world. No argument applicable after that point. God is an absolute ruler and he’s not interested in your opinions. There might be a non-Christian here …’

Mackay looks out over the congregation. His eyes seem to lock on to mine. My heart gives a single, powerful thud.

‘Do you realise the Bible is emphatic that you’re going to hell?’

Today, he even looks different. The sun has reddened his skin and the two clumps of hair on the side of his balding head give a regrettable horn-like impression. As he finishes, his voice deepens and rings with fiery portent. ‘When a homosexual bishop meets up with a lesbian preacher in hell and they’re asking why they’re there, the demons will laugh and say, “We didn’t obey …
and neither did you
.”’

The congregation murmurs their approval and John is replaced at the lectern by the pastor.

‘Just a reminder that Charlie and Beryl and celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary this week, they’d love you to join them for tea and cakes in the meeting hall.’

*

After the service I canvas the Gympie faithful for their opinion of John’s sermon, hoping that perhaps, after all, John Mackay will turn out to be on the fringes of an otherwise pleasant and accepting country community.

‘It was good,’ says a kindly-looking father. ‘I believe what he was saying, as controversial as that is in the world today.’

‘But I’m thinking most people around here wouldn’t agree with it?’

He looks confused.

‘Oh, yes,’ he says. ‘Yes they would.’

‘I expect
you
didn’t agree with what he was saying,’ I say, smilingly, to a nearby eighteen-year-old named Levi.

‘I agree very much with what he said,’ he replies. ‘It comes straight from the Bible.’

‘But you probably have lots of friends who wouldn’t agree?’

His companion Charlotte interrupts primly, and with raised eyebrows.

‘Most of our friends would be just as against gay people.’

I give up.

Later, I find Mackay enjoying a cup of tea and some cake down at Charlie and Beryl’s do in the canteen. I decide to take the opportunity to get the entry conditions of hell straight, because he seemed to be saying that it is only unbelievers who end up in the abyss. So wouldn’t this mean that lesbian nuns go to heaven?

‘No,’ he says. ‘Because lesbian nuns are living in public disobedience to their creator.’

‘So it’s the fact that the lesbian nuns are refusing to repent by being straight that’s sending them to hell?’

‘That’s what’s sending them to hell,’ he nods.

‘So a lesbian nun who repents a week before she died would be okay?’

‘As a nun, she cannot plead ignorance of the Bible.’

‘So lesbian nuns are doomed?’

‘Basically, yes.’ He takes a nibble of his fruit cake. ‘It’s like treason.’

The conversation moves further into morality. John tells me 9/11
was a ‘classic case’ of God punishing a sinful nation, a comment which brings to mind a personal calamity that John and his wife suffered a few years ago.

‘What about your miscarriage?’ I ask him. ‘By the same logic, could that be a punishment for your sins?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘Because you and I reap the results of the things that went before us that are sometimes beyond our control.’

‘Is gluttony a sin?’ I ask.

‘Yes,’ says John.

I point to his belly, which rises into view from beneath his shirt like a mountain summoned by God.

‘You’ve got some repenting to do, then.’

He replies slowly, ‘I’ve got a thyroid problem.’

I close my eyes and try to absorb the irritation.

‘Come on, John,’ I say. ‘Isn’t this all just … just …
stupid
?’

He looks baffled. He crosses his legs. I go on.

‘What I mean is, you claim there is a legitimate scientific theory that says there’s a magic superhero who has created a planet full of people to tell him he’s great and who get tortured by demons if they’re naughty.’

‘I don’t think it’s stupid,’ he says. ‘You have to have penalties for those who do injustice.’

‘It’s not just the hell bit,’ I say. ‘It’s also the egotistical superhero.’

‘Stop there,’ he says, crossly. ‘You’re attributing your human nature to God. There’s no reason to accuse him of being egotistical.’

‘What’s his motive, then?’

‘Why does he need a motive?’

I have a sudden and overwhelming urge to whimper. What can you do when common sense doesn’t work? When reason’s bullets turn out to be made of smoke?

‘When I sat there listening to you today going on about gay people,’ I tell him, ‘I thought you were evil.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ he says. ‘It was tough stuff.’

‘But can’t you see, the people you’re attacking – the pro-equality lobby – sincerely want to make the world a kinder place? If everyone
decided you were right, there’d be a genocide against gay people.’

‘Okay then,’ he says. ‘Let me make a prediction too, based on creation. The end result of all this will be an
increase
in turbulence. Homosexuals will get into a position where they’ll start to impose their values.’

‘We’ll be forced to be gay by gays?’ I say.

‘Yep,’ he replies. ‘That’s where it will go.’

‘And do you seriously believe that acceptance of homosexuality will lead to an acceptance of paedophilia and necrophilia?’

‘Even in the churches.’

‘Priests having sex with dead people?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But, John,’ I say, ‘the view that homosexuality is a sin is illogical, because it’s not a choice. It’s a state of being that you’re born into. You can’t be tempted to be a homosexual. I’ve been tempted to steal, I’ve been tempted to lie, but I’ve never been tempted to kiss a man.’

‘They have made a choice, whether it’s paedophilia or homosexuality or necrophilia. They are all in a rainbow of that which is an incorrect choice about sex.’

I tell John that I am completely convinced that he is wrong. Apparently, though, I only believe this because I have been fooled by Satan. ‘The Bible warns that the Devil is a liar and is out to trick us,’ he explains. ‘When God says something’s wrong, the Devil’s out to do anything to convince us it’s right.’

‘But if you follow that logic,’ I say, ‘any thought we have that goes against the Bible is the Devil. So we’re not allowed to think for ourselves.’

‘We are allowed to think for ourselves,’ he says. ‘Your first step is thinking that God’s wiser than me so I will accept what he says, even if I don’t understand it.’

This, it seems to me, is a remarkable admission for a man who considers himself to be a scientist.

‘So that’s all the thinking for yourself you’re allowed?’ I say. ‘The decision to believe everything God says?’

‘Yes.’

*

Two weeks later, I discover that the only thing I know for sure about evolution is completely wrong. I find this out in a back office at Sydney’s Australian Museum, the place I have come to for the end of my story. Playing the white knight, the truth teller, the good guy is Nathan Lo, a thirty-five-year-old doctor of molecular evolution. Lo is going to assess Mackay’s assertions and offer a counter-creationist perspective on who built the gympie-gympie tree. We talk at a bare wooden table, beneath a framed picture of an aphid and behind a sink full of bottles marked ‘glycerol’ and ‘H
₂
O’.