seriously i feel like part of me dies inside every time i act like theres two competing views on the matter of dinosaurs living alongside man 4000 years ago

find new and creative ways to ‘accidentally’ disconnect your caller right when you’re about to get to the juicy part...

‘Well it has some reference to... *click*’

‘Funny you should ask that. There are... *click*’

can’t you say “based on the questions you’re asking me, i don’t think our show will make you happy at all.”

utterly bonkers, btw

Can you tell them it’s as scientifically accurate as your average Flintstones ep?

is it possible to say something like “This show is just based on science. We don’t get into religion at all.” ? like make it sound like this is the least-offensive + most responsible “choice”?

Ask ’em where in the Bible it says that vegetables talk.

burning bush, dude

Trace, problem is that the kind of people who call about things like this exhibit are trying to revise/deny SCIENTIFIC FACT — saying something is “based on science” would probably offend all of them!

Foiled again.

do u think caller actually had an interest in seeing a dinosaur puppet show, or was she just gaming you somehow?

i’m having visions of creationist hit organizations with phone banks of people combing the newspapers for “dinosaur”

the thing is, none of these people actually mention religion—to them their creationist bullshit is a competing science, not something removed from it

xpost laurel otm

gff these are multiple callers who are mostly teachers at christian schools or parents from the wealthy suburbs of atlanta, i dont think this is a borat style prank

So where’s their protest over A Night at the Museum?

unfortunately i fear some of these people may also give a lot of money to the center

heres the description from our website-

“ROAR! I want to be a DINOSAUR!” sings Francine the cute little blue songbird. Join Francine and her eccentric Auntie Archaeopteryx on a trip back in time where you will come face to face with a T-Rex, Triceratops, Apatosaurs and many, many more awesome swinging, singing dinosaurs. Our stage is almost too small to hold the rollicking giant puppets and rocking songs. And in the end Francine learns a little secret about herself. ROAR! DINOSAURS GALORE!

And in the end Francine learns a little secret about herself.

^^^ UH OH

I didn’t realize creationists believed humans and dinosaurs lived side by side, I guess I just assumed they would deny the existence of dinosaurs altogether (and that skeletons/fossils were considered some sort of prop by the “Scientist” Conspiracy).

xpost oh man I want to see this show

francine is a homo dino?

oh jesus christ, THIS is the source of the controversey?

oh wait, the show has “educator’s guides” and stuff.

I had this picture book as a kid about animals. On the pages with dinosaurs and the pages explaining how whales became water mammals, my dad drew big red x’s on the page and wrote “EVOLUTION. NOT TRUE.”

xpost no i don’t mean like a gag, i mean like a “policy research and advocacy non-profit” kind of thing

Dinosaurs Are Not The Only Reptile—that kind of secret?

Oh, the whole birds->dinosaurs thing. Yep, sounds like evolution to me. The whole “explain that it’s based upon scientific consensus” seems to be the best way out.

Nks, yeah. I remember being told that preserved mudslabs had been found with human and dino tracks side-by-side but that scientists were suppressing the evidence because it supported a Creation timetable. These people are really, totally nuts.

swinging, singing dinosaurs

How can this show NOT be awesome?

i found a great website once that explained that how noah fit all dinosaur species onto the ark was by only allowing BABY dinosaurs on board

haha stence i already thought of the transgender metaphor

Why the fuck did their god create these fucking retards? Man, if I had a gun...

(and then disconnect)

when i was a kid my grandmother donated a video called ‘man and dinosaurs walked together’ to my elementary school

to their credit it was not shown

At sunday school, St Judes, South Shields, I asked our vicar “What about the Dinosaurs” when he said about Adam and Eve being the first living things on the planet. “Oh, they were somewhere else” he said.

So, there it is. It’s confirmed.

All I wanna know is—where are the giant saddles?

when i was a kid my grandmother donated a video called ‘man and dinosaurs walked together’ to my elementary school

to their credit it was not shown

That shit could’ve been off the chain like her mac n cheese, tho!

Have you tried saying “If you like, I could connect you with my manager and s/he could answer your questions”?

Could be worse, tho; there’s weird shit going on in Kenya where they don’t want the national museum to even show hominid bones...

xp: yeah, i go with dan’s answer. let your super come up with responses to these people.

unfortunately my boss went home early today so im alone here til 5

Alternately, you could tell them that some shows will have a secret surprise ending where God smites Francine for her heathen ways and they’ll have to attend multiple times to increase their chances of seeing it.

Why the fuck did their god create these fucking retards?

StanM is on the money. Shit like this is just too depressing.

What about the dinosaurs?

Simply put, they lived concurrent with man down through the thousands of years of our existence, and they appear to have gone mostly extinct prior to our modern era. Remember that the word “dinosaur” is only about 160 years old. Legends of dangerous reptilian creatures (a.k.a. dragons) have been passed down to us from our ancestors across Europe, from China and the rest of Asia, all over the Americas (North, South & Central), and they’re remembered in Africa too. Why should all of these legends/histories (spanning all inhabited continents, mind you!) be trivialized and discounted just to give credence to the temporary theory of evolution? It is important in science to separate the evidence from the interpretation. The evidence is that there have been these large dangerous reptilian creatures. We have bones, recorded history and footprints; we have strong evidence. The interpretation (or belief) that they all died off millions and millions of years ago is in dispute between creationists and evolutionists. And numerous stories in recorded human history of being killed by dragons/dinosaurs and of us banding together to kill them in return (among other important evidence) is clearly on our side ... as creation theory grows stronger each year.

Can you route them thru to the voicemail instead of answering the phone?

Didn’t the dinosaurs go extinct 65 million years ago?

There is good evidence that the Earth is only thousands of years old. In BOOKS, see Dr. Ackerman’s It’s a Young World After All. The “65 million years” is a recent mental invention. Evolution provides a mental hiding place from our powerful Creator. Evolution claims (theologically) that our God is weak or non-existent. Right? Think about what evolution claims about our origins. Dragons (per the previous FAQ answer) were seen and sometimes fought by our ancestors on all inhabited continents. Our ancestors were honest in recording sightings of large dangerous reptilian creatures. They lived concurrent with man. Humans saw dinosaurs. Sure, stories later became embellished, but the germ of truth that humans and dinosaurs (dragons) lived at the same time remains accurate. They lived in different places ... but at the same time—until the dinosaurs were mostly driven to extinction. (There are still a few living dinos out there, by the way.)

Remember that the word “dinosaur” is only about 160 years old.

gosh, you know, he’s right! someone get the OED on the phone!

tears

(in a good way)(not in a good way)

i’ve never seen anything like that before. like, the logic of creationism means that now there was a extra-biblical D&D dragonhunter phase of human history! awesome!

(There are still a few living dinos out there, by the way.)

Wait, they just say this and then move on?

I love how matter-of-factly they say “Dragons (per the previous FAQ answer)”.

See, I told you in the previous FAQ there were dragons, there is no way that cannot have convinced you!

holy shit

I keep having to remind myself that all this massive face-on-Mars style self-delusion isn’t just a random batshit conspiracy theory but is focused on preserving the specific belief that the events described in every book of the Bible are physical, material truth. I wonder if other cultures have as much trouble with the concepts of mythology and allegory as fundamentalist Christians do.

Fundamentalist anything usually creates problems.

How could Noah’s Ark have possibly held all of the species of big animals in the world!

The largest dragon (i.e. dinosaur) eggs that we’ve found to date are about the size of a football. One could fit, for example, a dozen brachiosaurus eggs in the trunk of a car, with room to spare! This also means that recently hatched dragons were not very large. Noah’s mission was to preserve each kind of animal. You don’t need to find the biggest of each kind. And you don’t need each sub-divided species either. Did you know that most modern dog breeds are less than 100 years old? 2 healthy young mutts could preserve the genome of the entire “dog kind” of animals. The Bible uses the word “kind” for the different types of life forms. Horses and zebras can (and have) physically mated producing viable offspring; so have tigers and lions, indicating that they (according to creation theory) probably respectively diverged from the same original stock. Dogs and wolves (though considered quite different by humans today) probably originated from their same “kind” too. There are a few large animals (when fully grown) of course: giraffes, elephants, and T-rexes among them. But the average animal size is about sheep size, i.e. the 3-story Ark was plenty large enough to handle the variety of animal kinds plus lots of food for them. Speciation could descend again from original healthy “mutt” stock to start with. Thinking scientifically about this, it shows incredible variable design, huh?

About Dinosaur Adventure Land

Dinosaur Adventure Land started as a dream of Dr. Kent Hovind’s. Tired of the constant propaganda being spread about evolution through nearly all public state-funded science centers and museums, as though it is a fact, Dr. Hovind decided that it was time to start a Creation Museum, Science Center, and Theme Park that glorified God. Dinosaur Adventure Land opened its doors in October of 2001 bringing in over 4,000 visitors that year. The next year the number of visitors grew to over 10,000 visitors, and then 13,000, and finally in 2004 there were over 17,000 visitors that had toured the park. Dinosaur Adventure Land offers over 80 Activities with both scientific and spiritual lessons.

Our goal is for your visit to leave you tired, smarter and closer to the Lord. There are activities for all ages from 2 to 92. There is a 3 story hands-on Science center in the middle of the park with tons of activities that will keep you busy all day long. The Creation Museum has hundreds of amazing artifacts, that show evidence for creation. Such as, the Ica stones from Peru, showing pictures of men and dinosaurs on them. As well as, a fossilized pickle, charcoal, coconut, and crayon proving that it does not take millions of years to form fossils. About 250 people have their birthdays at Dinosaur Adventure Land each year. You can schedule your next birthday party at Dinosaur Adventure Land, by contacting the bookstore.

Visit Dinosaur Adventure Land online to learn more about our amazing Science Center, Museum, and Theme Park. Play games online and view our gallery of images!

ah memories

You never even looked in the bottom of that Ark! Have you looked down there? No? Who’s gonna clean up that mess down there? That’s me! I tell you I’ve had enough of this stuff. I tell you what I’m gonna do: I’m letting all these animals out, and I’m gonna burn down this Ark, and I’m going to Florida somewhere...

xp: didn’t Dinosaur Adventure Land lose its funding or something? One of those fundie young earth creationist parks went under, i think.

Ian Riese-Moraine: tired, smarter and closer to the Lord!

Tracer, about other cultures & religions: I don’t have any reference materials here to back this up (ie Karen Armstrong) but she suggests that most other world religions are founded on a different understanding of the place of ritual and mythology in their belief systems/experience of spirituality. Fundy Christian beliefs are, I think, unique in requiring physical, historical truthiness. Something to do with the Age of Reason and etc etc division of physical world from myth & story.

hovind went to jail for tax fund

fun fact: ‘dr’ dino got his phd in christian science from a non-accredited christian university

uh monotheism as a whole gets a bad grade on this but the world-wide curve is not exactly competitive

XP to myself: “Fundy Christian” should really be “Western Christianity”, I guess, but at this point the Fundies & the Catholic hierarchy are the modern faces of the divide.

Hovind summarizes his highly controversial version of the argument for Creationism into the self titled “Hovind Theory.“ He acknowledges many contributors to his theory, but claims that if it be proven false then he will personally take the blame. The theory includes a literal reading of the Biblical acount of Noah: Noah’s family and two of every animal (including dinosaurs) safely boarded the Ark before a minus 300° Fahrenheit (~-184°C) ice meteor came flying toward the Earth and broke up in space. Some of the meteor fragments became rings and others caused the impact craters on the moon and some of the planets. The remaining ice fragments fell to the North and South Poles of the earth.

The resulting ”super-cold snow“ fell near the poles, burying the Mammoths standing up. Ice on the North and South pole cracked the crust of the earth releasing the fountains of the deep, which in turn caused certain ice age effects, namely the glacier effects. Also this made ”the earth wobble around for a few thousand years“ and it made the canopy collapse that used to protect the earth and opened up the fountains of the deep.

During the first few months of the flood, the dead animals and plants got buried, and became coal if they were plants and oil if they were animals. The last few months of the flood included geological instability, when the plates shifted. This period saw the formation of both ocean basins and mountain ranges and the resulting water run-off caused incredible erosion — Hovind claims that the Grand Canyon was formed in a couple of weeks during this time. After a few hundred years, the ice caps slowly melted back retreating to their current size and the ocean levels increased, creating the continental shelves. The deeper oceans absorbed much of the carbon dioxide in earth’s atmosphere and thus allowed greater amounts of radiation to reach the earth’s surface. As a result, human lifespans were shortened considerably in the days of Peleg.

hmmm:

There are scenes of natives adorned with robes and high crowns, similar to the Incas, performing medical procedures on patients. Several depict heart and brain transplants.

The stones are clearly carved depicting people riding dinosaurs and flying reptiles.

There are stones with genetic codes, and the prolongation of life. Blood vessels are shown being reconnected via re-absorption tubes utilizing the natural regeneration of cells.

There are carvings of a cesarean section with acupuncture as a form of anesthesia.

There are telescopes and ancient maps and star maps.

There is a series of four stones show the hemispheres of Earth pointing to the existence of unknown continent’s that today remains a part of our collective myth.

dragon (i.e. dinosaur)

Yeah Laurel that’s exactly what I was wondering. I mean, do fundamentalist Muslims believe that the events described in the Koran are historically true? W/fundamentalist Christians there’s this bizarre intersection of lunk-headed, literal-minded enlightenment rationality in which things are either materially real or they are not, with truly fantastical Dragonlance fantasies about Jesus returning on a white horse and the blood of his enemies reaching up past the saddle.

Thinking scientifically about this, it shows incredible variable design, huh?

God Doesn’t Believe In Atheists

Author: Dr. Kent Hovind

God does not believe in atheists

His presence from creation is quite clear

God does not believe in atheists

It takes a fool to tell him he’s not here

God believes atheists can get born again

And become a new creation,

But they’d best admit the world around them first

And ask for their salvation

But to only cry, “Recycle!” is the worst

God believes atheists do have certain rights

To seek and search the scriptures

It says, “Come now, let us reason” that’s for them

But it doesn’t give them reason to

Make up what God is saying

Until it’s no true benefit to them

Blee dop, sklee dop, sklee dilly dilly

Bah donna bee on a Saturday night

If that sounded like nonsense to you too,

Those schools have got some books for you

Tracer, I have this fight, I mean, uh, discussion with my mother about every six months. Originally she defended her position that her faith required the literal, historical truth of biblical events, but just a couple of months ago we had a convo in which it was agreed that those who fight over the literal truth of the Creation are asking all the wrong questions (ie, “WHAT DOES GENESIS MEAN BY ‘A DAY’” instead of “hey, what does this story tell us about God’s nature/earthly role/love for humankind?”). BABY STEPS.

Whales have a vestigal PENIS (was what I first thought it said)!

I guess the non-bald Chick dude considers cancer an evolutionary advancement?

Here’s a bit of Armstrong on the subject:

http://jaiarjun.blogspot.com/2006/01/myth-making-in-age-of-reason.html

(sorry, getting off topic)

IIRC, it wasn’t too long ago that the story was that dinosaurs never existed at all. This must be a strange time for xtians. Baby steps indeed.

He preached that Jesus was gay?

more fundie poems need scatting

Horses and zebras can (and have) physically mated producing viable offspring; so have tigers and lions, indicating that they (according to creation theory) probably respectively diverged from the same original stock. Dogs and wolves (though considered quite different by humans today) probably originated from their same “kind” too.

This is such terrific reading, for, well, two main reasons: (a) unlike illiterate 16th-century farmers, the scientific visionaries who put this together seriously don’t know that equine hybrids are always sterile; plus (b) their grand theory to replace evolution winds up arguing that ... seemingly different species could “respectively diverge from the same original stock?” I mean, seriously:

Dogs humans and wolves apes (though considered quite different by humans today) probably originated from their same “kind” too.

(Also funny: they evidently reject everything science has allowed us to figure out about dinosaur bones except that they were reptilian? I mean, hell, once you’re throwing everything else out the window, who’s to say they didn’t have feathers? Which: Francine is a bird who wants to be a dinosaur and then learns a little secret about herself: I could totally imagine an ugly-duckling kind of thing where someone’s like “hey, you’re more highly evolved and your species will be around longer, don’t sweat it.”)

Francine is a bird who wants to be a dinosaur and then learns a little secret about Jesus.

The really fun and/or dangerous part is that these folks have been raised into such a froth that they’re attacking puppet shows now, for the love of Yahweh.

Ethan, have any of the callers gone on about “indoctrination”?

Lions and tigers diverging from a common ancestor in the few hundred years between the flood and, say, Samson seeing that dead lion: SCIENTIFIC FACT

Humans and apes diverging from a common ancestor over millions and millions and millions of years: RIDICULOUS, DO I LOOK LIKE A MONKEY?

“You’re giving me beef about dinosaurs when we’ve got a talking bird in our show?”

do fundamentalist Muslims believe that the events described in the Koran are historically true?

yes, except for when it serves their purposes to think that they aren’t. fundamentalism as a freaked-out response to (some aspects of) modernity that is completely enabled by and dependent on (other aspects of) modernity is very very similar across the Christian/Muslim divide. I think there just are many similarites between Christianity and Islam anyway, but in response to Karen Armstrong’s read on world religions, I think many of them, even if they are available to metaphorical readings, could become fundamentalized, given the state of the world. There are Christians who read the Bible metaphorically, after all.

I’m really sorry you’re dealing with this, and what, but we’re all going to have to deal with it eventually.

sorry, that sounded bitchy. I mean it: it must be really hard to take these calls, but the situation where people who believe these things exist but never come into contact with people who don’t can’t maintain forever.

To veer wildly off-topic: I’m really interested in the possible self-doubt/-hatred at the bottom of this literal insistence — I’d bet that some of the totally rabid defense is due to people’s judgement of their own worth depending solely (or at least way too much) on the unconditional, sacrificial love of God. If you start downplaying Jesus’ divinity or the literally cataloged powers of God the Father, you threaten the authority, the potency of the only pillar holding up their self-acceptance.

Is that a ginormous “DUH”? Obviously, yes, the line for the pains and pressures of the real world forms to the right, please take your places. But when you’ve staked your life or sanity on it, well...that’s big.

Laurel totally OTM.

i can’t believe that there are enough people calling you about this that it’s actually a problem! i mean, a few would be LOL, but actually enough to be irritating? the mind reels

xp yeah, laurel

haha dont worry im not like in tears cuz i have to talk to creationists—i grew up in south carolina for fucks sake—but usually i can tell them to go fuck themselves so gettig paid to be nice to them is a new thing for me

W/fundamentalist Christians there’s this bizarre intersection of lunk-headed, literal-minded enlightenment rationality in which things are either materially real or they are not, with truly fantastical Dragonlance fantasies about Jesus returning on a white horse and the blood of his enemies reaching up past the saddle.

EWWW! Dragonlance, how tacky! But considering how many ex-fundies I knew from college who’d point to all manner of things with some kinda loose connection to swords ’n’ sorcery (sci-fi/D&D/ren fest/creative anachronisms/Norse and Celtic mythology/prog rock) as the stuff that kinda put them on the path to a vision more secular, I think the D&Dishness of this stuff carries within it — maybe — something potentially transformative and redeeming.

On the other hand, I’ve also noticed that Norse & Celtic mythology is really popular with amongst the bathsit racist set, so I may be indulging in wishful thinking.

plz rememer that about half of these ppl are from cobb county

I’m really interested in the possible self-doubt/-hatred at the bottom of this literal insistence

I always think of it as: if religion is there to shore us up against the idea that the universe is a cold, value-neutral place, then science seems very threatening. Deeply frightening, even. Because the universe is a cold, value-neutral place. This tug of war has always been going on in one way or another. Galileo, etc.

Things “bathsit” is liable to be a typo of:

* Batshit (likely)

* Bathist (unlikely but fascinating!)

* Bathist (literal reading, ie “partial to baths”)

There are Christians who read the Bible metaphorically, after all.

right, and this board has more than a few of ’em.

This seems really obvious to say, but it seems that a lot of emphasis needs to be on the psychology of these folks. There’s a certain mindset that so cannot handle ambivalence of any sort, or any questioning, or any insecurity, that all things must be literal and straightforward. This shit is scary to some folks, so they have to cling to something. We’ve talked about this on other threads, too, like the one i did about authoritarian societies. The Bible must be read as literally true, even if it’s been (mis)translated over the course of several languages, even if the first and second chapters of Genesis has differing versions of Creation, etc etc etc.

I suspect that somebody like Tep has a fair amount to say on this, but he tends to avoid these threads.

So EP, are you guys aren’t being targeted in some kind of loosely orchestrated campaign, with people spreading the word via e-mail, fax machine, a mailer, that kind of thing?

(I wonder how the Museum of Natural History deals with this sort of thing — bet they have a script all laid out already for callers.)

okay. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the “right” response is in these situations. like, the magical one that will manage not to offend people so that they might, at some later date, think further about...well, science, I guess. but yeah, in the situation, I usually get so mad I just offend people.

xpost.

Some knowledgable commentary here, via my fave source.

Yeah, Kenan, but all kinds of mythology are a defense against the cold vastness of the unknown, and plenty of them don’t absolutely require that ritual/spiritual framing be taken as historically literal!

all kinds of mythology are a defense against the cold vastness of the unknown, and plenty of them don’t absolutely require that ritual/spiritual framing be taken as historically literal

Right, but I don’t know that it requires a particular sort of self-loathing to get to that point.

If you start downplaying Jesus’ divinity or the literally cataloged powers of God the Father, you threaten the authority, the potency of the only pillar holding up their self-acceptance.

Replace “self-acceptance” with “overall sense of meaning in their lives,” and I think it still works.

how can i basically tell these people to fuck off without losing my job? everyone i work with thinks theyre stupid too

I guess yelling “READ ONE BOOK” wouldn’t be polite, would it?

xpost But I know what you mean. The historically literal requirement is odd and unique, and I also wonder how it came to that. Not being able to handle any kind of ambiguity is OTM.

(a) Michael probably meant “Baathist.” Chemical Ali had Woden tattooes.

(b) if religion is there to shore us up against the idea that the universe is a cold, value-neutral place — somewhere inside of this is a subissue, which is the usual belief among fundamentalists that the absence of religion means the absence of values, and a necessary descent into nihilism and greed and depravity. There’s no faith that human beings could adopt positive values just on a rational basis, just at face value. (And this is something that plenty of strains of Christianity make a big deal of reinforcing, stressing that we are all stained and evil and fallen without God — possibly even that you can’t be a decent person without God, ten thousand Biblical exceptions aside.)

I always balk at the thought that evolution is less awe-inspiring than creation.

It’s not that my theory doesn’t still read as accurate with those substitutions, Kenan, just that there’s this gigantic, crucial element of Christianity, which is to say, God’s perfect or perfected love that sees and encompasses everyone, no matter how undeserving. Are there other religions that are so profoundly dependent on the same idea?

XP: Whoops, forgot that extra “a”! Curse no mod powers on sandbox.

Yeah, that’s part of it. There’s a sense that all authority and all systems of ethics have to come from God, and any questioning of authority is verboten b/c it questions how God set things up, i.e. the Natural Order is the Moral Order, as Lakoff described it.

Nietzsche comes into play here, too, along with the massive historical misreadings given to him.

Siberian huskies, not Alaskan ones. Apparently Alaskans will vocalize LOTS if they’re in proximity to other dogs. Siberians apparently yowl and “talk”, but that doesn’t carry as far as the kind of barking that makes the neighbors want to slip a little strychnine treat under the door while you’re at work.

Sorry, Laurel, but I guess I prefer “feeling like a fat medieval duke gorging on mutton while sloppy hounds drool next to the fireplace” to “feeling like a character in a Jack London book.”

Yeah, I like having a wolf or two around the house. Just for kicks.

Also, drooling? Never a compelling argument for anything. Well, anything good.

anyway back to creation

don’t forget shiba inus, the smiley japanese wolf hound doggo:

(there’s a disturbing amount of cosplay results when you do a GIS for ’em)

shiba is hugely cute

omg @ shiba inu furries on GIS

WOULD SMASH ALL THESE CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS

so glad i clicked on this thread

omg xpost SHIBA INUS OMGDSLKHDSG

the two on the ends have hitler ‘staches lol

want

WGFAM*

*would give frankincense and myrrh

“Now, what I mean by ‘sex with the lord...’”

*PUNCH*

up in the twin cities, there’s a new group who’ve been putting up a series of billboards.

Brilliant. Everyone has an opinion. Every tenant of modern biology is just your opinion.

tenet

/pedant

pedet

/tenant

tynan

/delong

What I meant was, those who live in and pay rent to modern biology.

Well, it IS just a “theory,” after all. Ain’t no theory controllin’ my life, i tell ya

bbbut it DOES! it controls their argument! look at the site, the “this is the word of god” argument is totally occluded behind “oh looky scientists disagree.” which is what scientists do, and how science works. they’ve given up the game, and they have to.

i’m actually pretty optimistic on the darwin vs jesus fite. all the history of science suggests that theologians and religious authorities spend whole lifetimes on arguments about the nature of thought, matter, time, etc, only to have empiricism slash whole realms of their debate away from them, leaving the next generation to reframe their debates in the smaller space left.

of course at the popular level, the I AM NOT A MONKEY meme won’t be going away quietly (cf women calling up theaters asking if the dinosaur puppets are darwin or jesus-friendly), but no religious outfit asking for your ear can credibly claim that science doesn’t know what its talking about re genetics, cell biology, etc (in short—LIFE), just that “they don’t know everything.” yeah, not yet!

update

today i was discussing with my co-worker what to do when kids start crying at the end of velveteen rabbit (‘but he loves that lil bunny...’ ‘no. it will only make him sick again. burn it with the rest’) a early 30something mom sidled up & said

‘you know that movie HAPPY FEET? from the commercials you think its just about penguins dancing and having fun but i heard from a lot of people that its really making kids cry because its scary and all full of adult and GAY THEMES and stuff like global warming’

i asked her who she heard all this from & she admitted it was her husband and the tv show ‘fox & friends’

oh man, see if you can get the next one to enumerate the oppressive gay themes in the movie, and if it’s more gay or less gay than Spongebob.

I heard that Happy Feet was just plain WEIRD.

Like, environmentalism blahblahblah and VEEERY little to do with the original marketing(or the kids book that a 7 year old student of mine read to me before the movie’s release...).

We need truth in advertising.

“Take your kids to this movie. Because it’s never too early to start indoctrinating hippies.”

In any case, “Who do you think you are?”

Um...extremely genetically similar to that monkey right there?

I wasn’t born in Ireland, but that doesn’t mean a few Irish people aren’t related to me on some level.

Note: I’m only part Irish. Small relationship on a genetic level relative to the rest of my heritage.

KIDS MOVIE IN PRO-ENVIRONMENT PRO-“ITS OK TO BE DIFFERENT” SENTIMENT SHOCKAH

The Onion liked it, and the RT/MC scores both have it at 75%+

Feel free to peruse the user comments, tho, including the following:

JC L gave it a2:

The movie’s agenda squashes the fun out of this film- Message: Anglo, religious, Southern, father authority=BAD. Latin, ethnic, U.N., rebellious children= GOOD. Scottish (Anglo) and Southern accents were given to the villains and failed father. Latin and ethnic accents given to the enlightened and fun characters. Unfortunately, I was in a theater full of kids and none of them were having fun or laughing. Graphics were great and kept this from being a total loss.

bran h. gave it a3:

I’d give this movie an 8 for ambition, but a 3 for execution. The film has 2 agendas, one of which reviewers and audience members alike seem to have totally missed. The first is the well-recognized eco-agenda that shows up in the last 30 minutes of the movie (practically out of the blue) and which, though creatively and compellingly handled initially, is ridiculously resolved in the closure of the film. The second, which is both the one that is missed and the one that drives the film’s plot, is Mumble’s personal storyline—which is a very thinly veiled metaphor about the experience of coming out and seeking community acceptance as a gay man. Mumble is “different” from birth, he’s inherently happy (read: gay) about who he is and doesn’t mind his difference at all, he is rejected by his community and his father particularly, and finds a new community with sassy, brassy, carefree, dancing, party animals who appear to lack serious convictions about major life issues (a metaphor for the gay bar scene). I like that the gay agenda is presented in such honest and matter-of-fact terms and think that the movie could’ve been a wonderful one had the filmmakers simplified their presentation around that, but the rest of the movie is just so confused and sloppy—once the eco-agenda is added in to the picture, and issues of madness and depression are thrown in, as well as various religious/metaphystical issues... Well, the movie just gets totally confused, loses its momentum, and, as a result, can’t support it’s story nor it’s twin agendas very effectively.

Ray H. gave it a2:

I saw this with all of my cousins. The youngest is four and the oldest was thirteen. The other adults in my family also came with. We saw this movie thinking it would be at least somewhat funny. My four year old cousin and my six year old cousin, the audience the film was aimed at, FELL ASLEEP!!! The script was awful, the plot was pointless, and came from a definite tree- hugger. The only somewhat funny parts in the movie were Robbin williams’ character and his friends. Overall I thought this movie was terrible and a waste of five bucks!!!

M D gave it a2:

Well, I thought it was going to be a cute happy little kids’ flick, but little did I know that I was going to have preachy political messages crammed down my throat. It isn’t that I necessarily disagree with all of the messages that the movie is trying to preach to us, in fact, I agree with the majority of them. The problem is HOW they did it. How they did it was actually rather offensive and heavy-handed. I felt like they were forcing ideas on me and overtly trying to manipulate me into thinking a certain way. As well, they used strange stereotyping that seemed unnecessary and just wrong somehow. Like, why were some of the penguins Mexican? Weird. And how come the leader of the penguins had a strong Irish brogue and all of the rigid penguin leaders seemed kind of like they were penguin Catholic priests? What point were they trying to make by using stereotypes in this way? That religion is bad? That people who are accepting are latino? Strange. And did you need to use these specific stereotypes to make the point you were trying to make? I felt like I was watching one of the newer Star Wars movies, and expected Jar Jar Binks to show up in one of the scenes... And, frankly, all of these stereotypes and political messages changed the movie from being a movie into being a diatribe. The movie stopped being a cute kids movie about a penguin with special tap-dancing skills who wants to be accepted, and started being a vehicle for the movie-maker’s political propaganda. Tell a story OR share your opinion—when you try to pretend like you are telling a story when really you are shoving your views on others, it is dishonest and irritating. And, for a children’s movie, it was awfully sexual. Yes, I know, much of the movie revolves around mating, but really, some of this stuff was just too adult for children. And just for the record, I am politically pretty liberal, but when watching this movie, I felt like I was being bashed with a liberal propaganda stick so hard that it almost made me want to say, fish all you want, you eco-destroying trawlers! When you push your views so hard that people already on your side want to get away from you, I don’t think you have relayed your messages in the best way possible, eh?

“ethnic”

that last one seems pretty right on. fuck robin williams.

that movie sounds pretty awesome

this new generation of “relentlessly repeat the message from base camp with few or no variations” internet jockeys is one of the more bizarre phenomena of the age

works so well on tv, so why not do it online

C on

s

[17:42] HELLA LIKE DYING: guh it makes me want to german suplex the world

[17:43] Harry Lime ARL: just look at this dog and u will be free of suplex-related urges http://www.puppyfind.com/breed/shiba_inu/m_659098.jpg

[17:43] HELLA LIKE DYING: omg i love those little chink dogs

Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, here’s hhow the Ministry of Education is handling it

Actual conversation I had at work today:

ME: So, I was at this crazy website last night, this creationist guy who thinks humans existed at the same time as dinosaurs, and tries to prove it...it’s bizarre, you have to see it.

HER: ...Yeah, but what about Africa?

ME: ..What ABOUT Africa?

HER: Well, you know, what’s it called, pangaea? You know, so the dinosaurs were actually in Africa at the same time that humans were.

ME: Um, no, dinosaurs went extinct a really really long time before we evolved into humans.

HER: *rolls her eyes and gives coworkers the “Zach is dumb” look*

THE US PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM HAS FAILED US ALL

pangaea? 300 million years ago? I thought the earth was only... oh, forget it.

HER: Well, you know, what’s it called, pangaea? You know, so the dinosaurs were actually in Africa at the same time that humans were.

wtf?

Either creationists are teaching people that the continents were once stuck together and drifted apart VERY quickly in the last 6000 years, or she’s misunderstanding what the word means, or both, or, or, or.

I think Curtis summed it up, actually. wtf.

I’m not sure if she’s a creationist or not. I think she watched too much TV when she was a kid and got the idea that dinosaurs and humans were both around at the same time.

I’m guessing her rationale is something like “well dinosaurs on every continent = proof that dinosaurs existed on Pangaea, so humans on every continent = proof that humans existed on Pangaea alongside dinosaurs.”

Or something. It’s obviously wrong, but that’s the only thing I can think of since she obviously has a fundamental misunderstanding of (a) dinosaurs, (b) humans, and (c) Pangaea.

It’s the part where she rolled her eyes at me that bugged the hell out of me. I was proud of myself for holding back, though. I feel like a few years ago, I would have spent too much time looking up proof on the internet to show her how wrong she was, making myself look pathetic to everyone I work with in the process.

These days, I just let people believe that humans had to watch out for dinosaurs when they left their caves during the day. Especially the fire-breathing Dragonasaur!

Maybe she watched Dinotopia and thought it was a documentary.

Africa? Pangea? WHAT?

People weren’t on Pangea, to my knowledge.

She’ seems to be having difficulty seperating physical space and time.

Pong came before the Genesis. Just because both were sold at Sears doesn’t mean they were there at the same time.

Preachin’ to the choir.

Happy Feet sucked though. The environmental message was that if penguins want us to save their ass they had better DANCE.

so, same moral as _Footloose_ then?

Everyone knows that dancing saves. Parliament always preached that you have to shoot endangered species with your bop gun.

Pong came before the Genesis.

Genesis was first dude, it’s right there in the Bible :-P

might as well post this link here

so, same moral as _Footloose_ then?

Same plot as Footloose definitely. It was probably in all seriousness pitched as Footloose meets March of the Penguins.

Everyone knows that dancing saves. Parliament always preached that you have to shoot endangered species with your bop gun.

Aquaboogie would have been the perfect soundtrack to the big underwater synchronized swimming scene. Although “Lets Do I Again” in that scene was one of the few good bits of music in the whole thing.

Uh, “Lets Do It Again” being a Beach Boys thing, not the theme song to the Cosby/Poitier movie which might have also been an improvement.

also, for more late friday lolz, check the imdb board for the movie.

ha, more like “Crappy Feet”

It was probably in all seriousness pitched as Footloose meets March of the Penguins.

So it’s essential U&K viewing, then?

March of the Penguins sucked though. I’m after more of a Microcosmos / Dirty Dancing fusion.

“I’ve Had The Time Of My Life” packs so much more punch when your lifespan is a week.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/12/14/014.html

An AP history in Kearney, N.J. started the school year with this:

Shortly after school began in September, the teacher told his sixth-period students at Kearny High School that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah’s ark, and that only Christians had a place in heaven, according to audio recordings made by a student whose family is now considering a lawsuit claiming Mr. Paszkiewicz broke the church-state boundary.

“If you reject his gift of salvation, then you know where you belong,µ Mr. Paszkiewicz was recorded saying of Jesus. “He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered your pains for you, and he’s saying, ‘Please, accept me, believe.’ If you reject that, you belong in hell.µ

Of course, the kid who recorded him is now being attacked, even receiving a death threat.

The article touches on something else:

Greice Coelho, who took Mr. Paszkiewicz’s class and is a member of his youth group, said in a letter to The Observer, the local weekly newspaper, that Matthew was “ignoring the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gives every citizen the freedom of religion.µ Some anonymous posters on the town’s electronic bulletin board, Kearnyontheweb.com, called for Matthew’s suspension.

which is something that’s been popping up more & more in fundie political circles, that “freedom of religion” translates to “freedom to annoy your class/office-mates with tone-deaf evangelizing.”

So it adds another bit to the rightwinger perception of persecution( and resulting self-righteousness), ‘coz the evil secular libruls are taking away their freedoms, etc.

Shortly after school began in September, the teacher told his sixth-period students at Kearny High School that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah’s ark, and that only Christians had a place in heaven

this was par for the course at my high school...my biology teacher flat-out said he didn’t believe in evolution and wasn’t going to teach it.

nobody gave a shit

Did the Dinosaurs show get picketed, or has it happened yet?

Also, what better way to settle the debate than with a friendly board game?

Evangelistic, educational, entertaining.

At last, a board game that reveals the insanity of perhaps the greatest hoax of our times — the unscientific “theory of evolution.”

“Intelligent Design vs Evolution” is unique in that the playing pieces are small rubber brains and each team plays for “brain” cards. Each player uses his or her brains to get more brains, and the team with the most brains wins. It has been designed to make people think . . . and that’s exactly what it does.

“Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron are doing much more than revealing the bankruptcy of molecules-to-man evolution. They have a greater purpose: proclaiming biblical authority and reaching the lost with the precious gospel message. Enjoy this wonderful family game as you also become better equipped to defend our precious Christian faith.” — Ken Ham, President, Answers in Genesis.

“unscientific”?

and for only $30!

Should compete for hearts instead of brains, obv.

dawkins board game plz

checking here, http://www.educationallearninggames.com/

we get plenty of candidates. I’m wondering how well this one would go over with the same crowd:

This new game is sure to become a family favorite! Learn about your body and have fun at the same time! Get ready, flick the spinner, and grab your piece! The first player to build their body wins. You can choose between nerves, skeleton, organs, and muscles. Some of the body pieces may even have to be swapped or donated to the body bank-just like in real life!

Get ready, flick the spinner, and grab your piece!

ROFFLE!

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=801

Grand Canyon guides aren’t allowed to say how old the monument is, because that would upset creationist retards.

I really do have healthy distaste foe christianz

“fuck a creationist”

taken as a recommendation, it does narrow one’s options of fuckatableness rather drastically :(

You clearly haven’t read upthread.

hahaha

the playing pieces are small rubber brains and each team plays for “brain” cards. Each player uses his or her brains to get more brains, and the team with the most brains wins.

So the player uses their brain to respond to environmental stimuli in the form of questions and develops a bigger and better brain as a result? Sounds a bit like that scientific theory I can’t quite recall right now.

personally i think this literalist creationism is more of a danger to christianity than straight up atheist evolution.

how many kids raised in a strict literalist tradition with little coverage in high school of the factual, experimentally-proven aspects of evolution go to college and have their minds blown?

i knew several. once you have the educational background to read about or even reproduce some of the science proving selection and mutation and so on, it’s a little impossible to argue against. throw in some bad life experiences (“why would a love God do this to me?”), some hypocrisy (“but that guy told me hot man sex was evil!”), etc etc and whallah, it’s really easy to lose faith. it happened to several christian friends i had as a kid.

dawkins’s brood and the literalist christians pit creation as the full on opposite of evolution. accept one or the other.

in that game, dawkins wins.

unfortunately for his religious movement, literalist creationism will probably go away except for fringe groups. more and more future christians will get the mutation.

to quote one of our 4th century church fathers, St. Augustine:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.

i know it’s infuriating that our own president could legislate his religious beliefs, but given who we’re talking about, is it shocking?

m.

Personally, I at first found organised christianity to be....stupid for many reasons, but these are the main ones:

There are like 24 commandments, but the first ten are OBVIOUSLY more important, because...BECAUSE!!!

There’s no devli in the bible, no ‘fall,’ barely anything similar to hell.

The 4 gospels are vastly different in parts, but they’re all true and all the word of god, just like all kinds of letters Jesus’ friends wrote each other.

There’s nothing in the book that says there are no other Gods, just that the Jews weren’t allowed to worship them.

The book of revelations was written by a man whom, as I recall, was exiled to an island alone for 20 years. If you DON’T see flying scorpions with lions teeth and human faces after 20 years alone you’re fucked up.

After the new covenant those ‘ten’ commandments are irrelevant. There are 2. But you should follow those other ‘ten’ anyway.....BECAUSE!

So for years I was a kind of outside-the-box- christian.

Then I realised many fundamental beleifs of xhristianity that AREN’T contradicted in other parts of the book(why is Song of Solomon in there? it’s a porno!) contradicted mine to a great deal.

So I quit it.

For the longest time I was pro christianity, but not for me.

Then I figured out that the majority of the book doesn’t sit well with me as a basis of one’s life. On top of that, it’s hard for me to meet a christian without their beliefs interfering with me conversing comfortably(alot of my friends are athiests, gay, Japanese and so religious but not christian). Well, one of us ends up uncomfortable.

There are exceptions to that last bit.

meanwhile, down in Texas...

A Republican member of the Texas House wants to ban the teaching of evolution, claiming that the Big Bang Theory is actually from the Pharisee Religion, and they really shouldn’t be teaching religion in school.

Oh yeah, and Einstein and Carl Sagan were Kabbalists. Really.

“You ought to teach creation as well as the fact of evolution,” Mr. Chisum said, though he said “all of those kinds of sciences have holes in them. ... But I’m not about teaching religion in schools.”

oh yeah, and the webite they cite:

http://fixedearth.com/

The non-moving Earth

& anti-evolution web page of

The Fair Education Foundation, Inc.

Exposing the False Science Idol of Evolutionism,
and Proving the Truthfulness of the Bible from Creation to Heaven...

- since 1973 -

Marshall Hall, Pres.

***

EXTRA! EXTRA!

Read all about the Copernican and Darwinian Myths

(and their many ramifications going all the way to Kabbala-based Big Bangism!)

IN OVER NINETY LINKS BELOW....

Attacking Darwin is pretty standard for these people, but going after Copernicus is a new one. I do hope they target the 2nd law of thermodynamics next.

The layout and writing style of that page reminds me of a Victorian music hall poster.

You’d think that’d make it cooler, though....

When I am a member of the Texas House I am going to propose that we only teach Time Cube.

(Marshall Hall, BS. MA + 2 years:...Advanced International Studies Ph.D. Program)

What would that BS stand for?

The supporting quotes for the book are terrific.

‘Yvonne Anderson, High School Sophomore: “I have read the book which has totally and without a doubt disproved the theory of evolution for me.”’

Gosh, you’d think it would be more well known.

I like that her response seems extremely sarcastic.

meanwhile, down in Kansas...

oh wait! they did good. it’s not all bad news here, people. sometimes the way people write about these things makes it seem like there’s this inexorable encroaching tide of ignorance sweeping all in its path before it, but creationists have actually been handed a string of defeats over the past year.

Kansas education board repeals science guidelines questioning evolution

Good. good for them. Cute that the article actually mentions the Daily Show, too.

fun with textbook disclaimer stickers

i really hate the wording on the cobb county textbooks—everything in ANY textbook should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered, but these medieval book-burners are just using it as an acceptable stand-in for ‘aint true!!!’

It’s just a theory! it’s not proven!

i guess it does expose the fact that these idiots think theres stuff (LIKE BIBLES LOL) that shouldnt ever be approached with an open mind or critically considered

Looking a bit more into the Texas State Rep who submitted that loony geocentric/creationist legislation. Turns out his campaign manager is actually married to the fixedearth guy. Oh, and here’s the original memo submitted, the one that the State Rep didn’t actually read before passing it on. The fun bits start about the 2nd paragraph, and you can always tell serious political writing when it involved italics, in bold, underlining, and exclamation marks.

And what happens when the fixedearth guys gets into an argument with the creationist folks over a book review. It contains such lines as:

Christian Creationism is controlled by those who are doctrinally wedded to Zionist Dispensational goals. This marriage has blinded the Creationist leadership to the fact that both the Zionist and the Dispensational concepts come from that same 13th century anti-Christ Kabbalist source as did Relativism, Big Bangism, and the Expanding Universe concepts. Add it up!

and accompanying abuses of html.

Bumper sticker wanted: “Honk if you’re a Big Bangist too”

thankyou for introducing me to fixedearth.com. bleh.