While I disagree ideologically with Luke of Common Sense Atheism on the problem of evil, he does raise some good points on that post that I probably should address at some point. Specifically, he points out an interesting double standard that Christians have for God’s plan:

In a world so obviously indifferent to our pain or pleasure, Christians must embrace an incredible double standard to believe a God of the universe is perfectly good. They must say that many good things happen because they understand God’s ways and he wanted those things to happen, but they must also say that all bad things happen for reasons we can’t know because we don’t understand God’s ways.

It’s pretty late here, so I’m not going to try to think through Luke’s proposed quandary tonight. Instead, I wanted to agree with Luke on this post about Kent Hovind. Hovind represents the worst of creationist arguments. Even other creationists agree with that. And any academic institution that accepts a Ph.D dissertation with the opening sentence of “Hello, my name is Kent Hovind” should not only be shut down, but burned to the ground.