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In a glaringly stupid blog post, intellectual lightweight and Answers in Genesis non-mastermind Ken Ham calls out NASA for spending money on space exploration:

I’m shocked at the countless hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent over the years in the desperate and fruitless search for extraterrestrial life. Even Bill Nye “the Science Guy,” in our recent debate, happily gloated about tax dollars being spent toward this effort. And now, secular scientists are at it again.

His reasoning? The Bible clearly says the Earth is special and God made it that way:

Secularists cannot allow earth to be special or unique—that’s a biblical idea (Isaiah 45:18). If life evolved here, it simply must have evolved elsewhere they believe. The Bible, in sharp contrast to the secular worldview, teaches that earth was specially created, that it is unique and the focus of God’s attention (Isaiah 66:1 and Psalm 115:16).

Unfortunately for Ken, the Bible doesn’t say that. The Hebrew in Isaiah 45:18, Isaiah 66:1, and Psalm 115:16 does not explicitly say that God made our planet uniquely special. In all three of those verses, the Hebrew word used is ארץ, which simply means “ground.” Setting aside the fact that this stuff was written before modern astronomy, “ground” doesn’t necessarily mean “only Earth.” Even if עולם, which often means “world,” was used, he’d still be wrong, since that word can also mean “universe.”

The thing that frustrates me most about religion is when its loudest advocates often don’t have any idea what they’re talking about.

<h/t: Raw Story, Huffington Post, Gawker>