How Can Answers in Genesis Deny They Indoctrinate Children?

John Stear

Answers in Genesis' (AiG's) "Prayer News" for July-September 2004 contains an article titled "Creationize (not evolutionize) your kids".  In the article it's claimed that a "Mike G." wrote to them concerning his his 5 year old son who watched a Ken Ham video series containing information about dinosaurs.  "Mike G." wrote:

... I was not real sure if my son was grasping any of the information ... . Well, tonight at bedtime I realized that he has been getting a healthy dose of the truth... . He asked me why the scientists want to deceive people by telling lies about creation and dinosaurs.  When I explained that if they admitted to the fact of God creating everything that [sic] they would have to face their own sin, my son thought about it for a second and then said, "Daddy I know what I am going to do when I get older and can read by myself ... I am going to go to the library and get all of the science books and erase all the lies in them."  Needless to say I wept and thanked God for my son. ...

If we take into consideration that young Earth creationists (YECs) have problems with the truth, then the first reaction to AiG's correspondent "Mike G." and his extremely precocious five year old son is one of disbelief.  However, simply dismissing AiG's correspondent as a figment of their imagination isn't addressing the most important aspect of AiG's little story.  Though there obviously are some unbalanced parents out there who, because of their own indoctrination with the teachings of ignorant pastors and scientifically bankrupt YECs, are prepared to allow their children's minds to be polluted with unscientific garbage, I find it difficult to imagine a parent who would be proud of having nurtured a child of any age who sees the defacing of books as a worthy pursuit in life.  But we must remember that AiG's goal is to subvert the minds of children and the calibre of parent that Christian fundamentalists pander to assists AiG in their efforts to do this.

Regardless of whether AiG's correspondent and his son are real or not, the fact that AiG can gain such pleasure from the notion that a little boy who is too young to read but can, with such conviction, parrot the creationists' anti science rubbish, is disturbing indeed.