Confession of a long-time cult pastor pretending to be a former evolutionist

[Richard Amiel McGough]

CWH has made quite a reputation for himself on this forum by posting lying creationist crap and never answering any criticisms that prove he posted lying creationist crap. Back in July CWH posted (http://www.biblewheel.com/forum/showthread.php?3217-The-Simplest-Cell&p=47458#post47458) the supposed Confession of a Former Evolutionist (http://www.dawntoduskpublications.com/html/Confession.htm) which was written by a Rod McQueen, a long-time pastor in Herbert Armstrong's hyper-fundamentalist cult called the Worldwide Church of God. In his "confession" he said he "was raised on the milk of evolutionary theory. In year twelve at high school, our biology class required an in-depth study of the theory of evolution. I was zealous for what was taught. I swallowed the supportive evidence as if it were proof. Not mindlessly, mind you; I really felt it was quite compelling." OK - so in HIGH SCHOOL he was a convinced "evolutionist." What happened after that? He went straight from High School to study Theology at Ambassador College, founded by cult leader Herbert W. Armstrong! Here is what Rod says about his history on his own website (http://www.dawntoduskpublications.com/html/about_rod_mcqueen.htm):


ROD WAS BORN in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, in 1950 and grew up in Melbourne, Australia. After graduating from Scotch College, he spent two years at Melbourne University studying Russian, Indonesian, Middle Eastern Studies, History and Philosophy of Science, and Biology before going to England to study theology at Ambassador College.

Martha was born in San Francisco in 1952, and grew up in nearby San Anselmo. Upon graduating from High School, she attended Ambassador College in Pasadena, CA, for one year before transferring to spend the next three years studying at its sister campus in Brickett Wood, England, where she and Rod met and fell in love.

Rod and Martha married in 1974, shortly after graduation, and launched into twenty three years of pastoral service in a number of Church of God congregations in England, Australia and the USA.



As a minister, Rod developed a great love of teaching, as well as the communication skills necessary to explain complex topics in interesting, understandable terms. At the same time he became more and more amazed at the scope of God's glory as clearly manifested in all aspects of the creation. Concerned about the lack of readable material about God's majesty, in 1997 Rod left the paid ministry and founded Dawn to Dusk in order to produce and distribute readable written material focused on the insights provided into the mind of God by the marvels of creation. To maintain hands-on experience with the wonders of creation, Rod and Martha joined the Central North Field Naturalists Club of Tasmania in 1990, in which he served as president for a couple of terms.



Rod and Martha McQueen also write on topics straight out of the Bible. As Rod puts it, "God has given us three windows into His mind—the creation, Jesus Christ, and the Bible. To gain a balanced view of God's glory, we cannot afford to pull the blind down on any one of them".


"Former evolutionist" my ass. He was a HIGH SCHOOL KID who went straight into theology at a cult's own school! What a load of crap.

So how is it possible that CWH would post this piece of crap without checking the facts? Well, the answer is all too obvious. CWH doesn't care about the facts at all. He doesn't care if he posts lies so long as they support his anti-evolution position. For some strange reason, he seems to think that all he needs to do is copy and paste anything from the internet that makes claims against evolution as if that proved it false. :doh:

And I doubt that he will even try to answer this post. He just doesn't care. But I care when people are keeping other people in darkness, so I will continue to shine the light upon the creationist crap that is deceiving millions of people.

[Richard Amiel McGough]

So what do folks think about lying creationists pretending to be "former evolutionists"?

:pop2:

[interloper]

In the context of the site in which that article was posted, I see no pretence. "Evolutionist" simply means "person who believes in evolution", after all. So it is entirely accurate for a person who used to believe in evolution, then stopped, to call themselves a "former evolutionist." Also, you have selectively ignored the part of the quote - which you have nevertheless pasted here - showing he studied two years at Melbourne University (no backwater university - it has long ranked in the top 30s worldwide) and gone on to say: "He was a HIGH SCHOOL KID who went straight into theology at a cult's own school! What a load of crap." - so who is being dishonest?

[Richard Amiel McGough]

In the context of the site in which that article was posted, I see no pretence. "Evolutionist" simply means "person who believes in evolution", after all. So it is entirely accurate for a person who used to believe in evolution, then stopped, to call themselves a "former evolutionist." Also, you have selectively ignored the part of the quote - which you have nevertheless pasted here - showing he studied two years at Melbourne University (no backwater university - it has long ranked in the top 30s worldwide) and gone on to say: "He was a HIGH SCHOOL KID who went straight into theology at a cult's own school! What a load of crap." - so who is being dishonest?

Good catch! There was a slight inaccuracy in my comment, but it was a simple oversight. There was obviously no "dishonesty" since I myself posted the evidence you cited. Now let's look at the evidence. Rod lists five subjects he studied during his mere two years at Melbourne University: Russian, Indonesian, Middle Eastern Studies, History and Philosophy of Science, and Biology. That's a lot of topics to cram into your first two years of college. And all those topics were presumably introductory undergraduate classes. So there is not much difference between a "High School kid" and a "kid with two years of introductory college classes under his belt." This is certainly not sufficient to make his claim to be a "former evolutionist" credible. And the ridiculous credulity he says he had for evolution suggests that he was the type of kid that simply believed what he was told without thinking for himself. This makes perfect sense given that he spent the rest of his life in a CULT FOR BRAIN-DEAD BELIEVERS who believe whatever they are told. Do you know anything about Herbert Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God cult? If not, you should probably inform yourself before commenting on it.

And then there are all those anti-evolution articles on his site. They contain nothing that would suggest he had or has any real understanding of the science of evolution. If you can find a serious challenge to evolution on his site, please share it so we can review it.

So that's three strikes. My judgement that he is a deliberately deceptive cult-type Christian seems well justified. I am open to correction if you can find any error in my judgement.

Now there is an error in your post. You said:
"Evolutionist" simply means "person who believes in evolution", after all.

That is not correct. First, it's not accurate to speak of "believing" in evolution as if it were anything like a religious dogma. Would you say that a mathematician "believes" in calculus or that a that a car mechanic "believes" in torque? Of course not. Science is not a matter of "belief" like religion. Second, an uninformed evolutionist with only two years of college biology (at best) who converted to a fundamentalist anti-evolutionary cult is not accurately called a "former evolutionist" in any sense relevant to the debate between science and religion. That's why Rod's claim is fundamentally deceptive. This is why I posted my commentary on Rod's supposed "confession of a former evolutionist." It was copied and pasted by a member of this forum (CWH) who asked why "many evolutionists turn creationists." Here was our exchange:





1. If the theory of evolution is so good, why do many evolutionists turn creationists?

Your question is based on a false assumption. There are not "many evolutionists" who "turn creationists." Indeed, I don't know if there is even one!

I will answer your question if you can find five evolutionary scientists who have been published in peer reviewed journals and who later converted to creationism. That should be very easy if there are "many evolutionists" who have converted since there are thousands upon thousands of evolutionary scientists.

And please be true to your word. Don't list someone who started off as a creationist. You must list evolutionary scientists who were NOT creationist and then converted.

Happy hunting!


CWH never presented even one "evolutionary scientist who had been published in peer reviewed journals" let alone five. But he did post the ludicrous article written by Rod McQueen, a life-long cult pastor with at most two years of college biology pretending to be a "former evolutionist." So he spreads his bullshit and other gullible and ignorant fundamentalist Christians pick it up and spread it around, deceiving more and more people. This is typical of Biblical fundamentalists. They tend to spew lies and falsehoods and never provide evidence when their lies are challenged. CWH has been doing this for years on this forum. He typically calls evolutionary scientists liars, frauds, and deceivers. After a while, such perversion in the name of truth gets under your skin. Here is a prime example of the kind of crap CWH has been posting on this forum:


RAM call Creationists liars, but actually Evolutionists were the real liars and fraudsters. So far no one can prove concretely Creationist are liars and fraudsters. It's pathetic to see them resort to these scams.,,,Archaeoraptor, Piltdown Man, Pekin Man.... Why did so if Evolution is true? This is an embarrassment to Evolutionists:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1RUhkgqjug&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1RUhkgqjug&feature=related


May God forgive them and us.:pray:

Watch the video. It is called PROVEN! Lies, Fraud and Deceit - The Dilemma of Evolution Teaching.

Here is my response:


That video contains lies and misrepresentations. It is a perfect example of corrupt creationists. At 1:10 and again at 2:00 the narrator falsely asserts that no transitional forms have ever been found. THEY LIED. There are many transitional forms and anyone interested in the truth knows this because the information is freely available on the web. It is pathetic that this lie is found on the lips of countless Christians who have been deceived by the creationists.

Another deliberate deception in the video is their presentation of the "archeoraptor scandal" (2:50). In 1999 some Chinese people put together a fake fossil that was supposed to be a transitional form between reptiles and birds. The National Geographic was duped by those liars and published a report. Then SCIENCE came to the rescue and proved it was fake and so it was rejected. This is a perfect example of how science is supposed to work. No one can stop liars from lying, but science has a method that exposes lies and errors and so science ever advances towards the truth. Creationism is the opposite. The video presented the archeoraptor scandal as if it were proof that evolutionary scientists make a habit of deliberately falsifying the fossil record! That is not what happened. CREATIONISTS ARE LIARS! And they continue to spread their lies and they rarely if ever correct themselves. The continue to spread the same lies long after they have been exposed.

The proof is overwhelming. The whole creationist movement is utterly corrupt and filled with people willingly and knowingly lie.

There is a great irony here. The creationists who made the video claim to be Christians who worship the TRUTH in the person of Jesus Christ. But by their actions they show that they hate the truth. They have a contempt for the truth. And just as they claim to worship the TRUTH when they LIE, so they accuse evolutionist of LYING when they are in fact telling the truth. The creationists confirm that NO ONE should ever become a Christian or a Muslim or any other religion that corrupts the hearts and minds of believers. Creationists are the final nail in the coffin of religion. The lying freak Ergun Caner - who lied for ten years about being a former terrorist to make money off 9/11 - really helped free me from the confines of traditional Christianity. The fact that major Christian apologists like John Ankerberg and Norm Geisler colluded with Caner to cover the lies convinced me more. And when the leadership of Liberty U and the leadership f the Southern Baptist Convention and many hyper-fundamentalist Christian Ministries joined the ORGY OF LIES I knew it was time to quit Christianity altogether. I HATE LIARS in general, but there's nothing quite as disgusting as LIARS masquerading as those who "worship the truth" even as the LIE THROUGH THEIR TEETH.

ETA: At 7:00 the narrator equates "spontaneous generation" with "abiogensis"! Those are totally different concepts! The producers of the video are not only LIARS, they are also IGNORANT FREAKS that make UTTER FOOLS out of anyone who listens to them. They are a primary source of the mental corruption that we see in Christians all around the world. It is very interesting that this video contained this misrepresentation since it was the first point I refuted in the previous post about the "Law of Biogenesis" which creationists say contradicts evolution. I can't believe how these ludicrous absurdities have been spread into so many Christian minds. Creationism manifests the power of corruption that is innate within dogmatic religions like Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. The fact that the members of the religions have no way to clean up their own corruption makes a mockery of their claim that there religion is the only way to get "cleansed" by God.

It would be great if you would like to try to defend creationism here on this forum. I can always use more grist for my mill. Every creationist lie exposed is one less lie polluting this world and corrupting simple minded believers.

All the best,

Richard