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Creationism Museum To Open Next Summer
Aloriel writes to point out a story in the Guardian (UK) about the opening next year of
the first Creationism museum in Kentucky, just over the Ohio border. From the article: "The Creation Museum — motto: 'Prepare to Believe!' — will be the first institution in the world whose contents, with the exception of a few turtles swimming in an artificial pond, are entirely fake. It is dedicated to the proposition that the account of the creation of the world in the Book of Genesis is completely correct... The museum is costing $25 million and all but $3 million has already been raised from private donations." A lot of that money is going into the animatronic dinosaurs, which are pictured as coexisting with modern humans before the Fall. According to the article, up to 50 million Americans believe this. The museum has a Web presence in the Answersingenesis.org site.
"Aloriel writes to point out a story in the Guardian (UK) about the opening next year of the first Creationism museum in Kentucky, just over the Ohio border."
I am writing abou the closing next year of the first Creationism museum in Kentucky, just over the Ohio border.
Does first post count as a 'scoop'?
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
From the linked site it sounds like it's a great place to go for a laugh.
This wouldn't even fool my 3rd level Magic User.
And he'll pretty much believe anything I tell him.
Don't you dare disregard my beliefs. Indeed the world *was* created 5 minutes ago by a spaghetti monster!!!!!
-- A good compromise leaves everyone mad. --Calvin and Hobbes
And a lot of the women looked like Raquel Welch.
"You ever notice how people who believe in creationism look really unevolved?" - Bill Hicks
Plus you know those 9-11 terrorists. Totally motivated by atheism. *snort*
Philosophy.
When I first saw this, I thought: "Great! Creationism is declining so rapidly that we need a museum to teach about this primitive superstition." No such luck.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you'll just follow me.
This first exhibit shows god with his little bag of mysteries. He is shown placing dinosaur bones in the rocks because even god likes a good laugh.
And further on we have another aspect of God. This is god in his aspect of 'having to make all the animals himself because he is too stupid to create a universe that can do this shit on its own'.
Now we have a stuffed monkey. You will see that the monkey, while superficially similar is not at all related to man. This is proved by the fact that the monkey is holding a placard stating that god made him as part of a batch job, 4103 years ago, on a tuesday. Further you will see that the stuffed Man we have next to him is also holding a placard, and this states definatelly that god made him the previous wednesday as part of an entirely different batch of wonders. This disparity, proved by our scientifically validated placards, is all the proof any sensible person should need.
Lastly we have the flood exhibit. This exhibit houses a model earth, three feet in diameter, and shows what it would look like covered in water. As you can see only the tip of mount arrarat is visible, even though it isn't the highest peak in the world. This is because it was a very curvy mysterious flood. If you look closely you will see one tiny wooden boat near arrarat which contains a pair of every species on the planet, their diverse ecological requirements and foods, all neatly seperated to stop them eating each other. Next to this model you will see the explanation of where the water went, and how, when the entire world was engulfed in a flood of sufficient depth to kill everything living, a boat made of wood was able to survive. As you can clearly see, that notice says 'shut up and go away, heretical unbeleiver'.
This concludes the tour, please give us loads of money as you leave.
First they made the Sex museum and now there's going to be a Creationist museum? When will they finally make one we nerds can identify with? I can only visit the Smithsonian Apple exhibit so many times. :sigh:
But these non-believers are per definition sinners and not innocents, so that's alright!
I love the religious logic.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
That was a tofu monster, you heathen! I challenge you to a war!
Property is theft.
Where is the foot icon in this article?!?
... they could have been deformed, diseased or something. I've seen people like that running round the streets of New York.'"
"Stephen Bates is given a sneak preview and asks: was there really a tyrannosaurus in the Bible?"
"[The museum] will be the first institution in the world whose contents, with the exception of a few turtles swimming in an artificial pond, are entirely fake."
"...tableaux and a strangely Disneyfied version of the Bible story."
"As for the Grand Canyon - no problem: that was, of course, created in a few months by Noah's Flood."
"But what, I ask wonderingly, about those fossilised remains of early man-like creatures? Marsh knows all about that: 'There are no such things. Humans are basically as you see them today. Those skeletons they've found, what's the word?
"[The workers], too, know they are doing the Lord's Work, and each has signed a contract saying they believe in the Seven Days of Creation theory."
"'[Adam] is appropriately positioned, so he can be modest. There will be a lamb or something there next to him. We are very careful about that: some of our donors are scared to death about nudity.'"
"The museum's planetarium is his pride and joy. Lisle writes the commentary. 'Amazing! God has a name for each star,' it says, and: 'The sun's distance from earth did not happen by chance.' There is much more in this vein, but not what God thought he was doing when he made Pluto, or why." (what has happened to the heliocentric belief?)
About Ken Ham, the museum's director and is inspiration: "Ham is an Australian, a former science teacher - though not, he is at pains to say, a scientist - and he has been working on the project for much of the past 20 years since moving to the US. 'You'd never find something like this in Australia,' he says. 'If you want to get the message out, it has to be here.'"
"Poodles are degenerate mutants of dogs. I say that in my lectures and people present them to me as gifts." (I've always knew that poodles couldn't be real dogs!)
"It is full of books with titles such as Infallible Proofs, The Lie, The Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved and even a DVD entitled Arguments Creationists Should Not Use."
So say we all
To be frank, I'm not that happy about them getting the oxygen of oxygen![*]
[* Many thanks to Linda Smith for that joke.]
The real question is, if Jesus were to drop on by, would he approve of $25M being spent on religious idolism?
No, the real question would be how a dark-skinned, bearded religious fundamentalist from the Middle East got into the country without Homeland Security knowing about it.
Let me start by saying I am an athiest. Now, about this. I have read The Bible several times and do not remember hearing anything about our ancestors playing around with dinosaurs?
This kookfest was on the UK's Channel 4 News in the summer. They had one of the museum's 'scientists' standing next to Adam and Eve's animatronic pet baby T-Rex and explaining that there was no problem with the exhibit since dinosaurs didn't eat meat before the Fall of Man.
Presumably the knife-edged teeth were for particularly tough mango skins.
Yes but they are execising their freedom of speech in the wrong way. You should only exercise freedom of speech if you are right. Sheesh, is that so hard to understand?
meh
Bah. I much preferred Richard Hawkings' book on the subject, "A Brief History of God"
It's a Power engine of the highest order. Its proponents begin by asking you to suspend logic and assume an anti-entropic premise. From there, the orthodox doctrine is One of Many interpretations. It gets worse. For the newbie, they can either listen to glorious affirmations, or face the grinding universe. It's like a mathematical proof with a division by zero in it. It's an "illegal operation" for a reason. If that step is allowed, quite literally anything can be pseudo-proved. The fun part is the computer era has contributed a whole new slew of reasons to show it all up.
"God hasn't answered my prayers."
"He is Busy."
"No he's not, he's God."
"Oh. Well, then you're too puny to understand Him."
"Hmm. Then can I talk to the cool souls of dead people? Like Edward Gibbon?"
"No. The Other World is removed from this one."
"That's no fun. Can I send an email?"
"No."
"What?? God has no IT staff?? Where did all the Slashdotters go?"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Um.
Adam being naked with his Tingling Naughty Bits hanging out is too much for their more conservative donors to handle, but Adam squatting naked behind a sheep is okay?
I guess that doesn't surprise me.
Tyrannosaurs on a boat? Hey, I just had a great idea for a Hollywood blockbuster. Get me my agent...
Man, I had to get a slashdot login just to get the "50 million Americans believe in creationism" sig... Will edit my sig now...
50 million Americans believe in creationism..
Ah, thats you're problem. You're trying to use logic against a religion. It doesn't work like that.
a) If evil happens, it's due to the fallibility of Humans, or the interfrence and corruption by a "bad" power.
b) If good happens it's due to God.
So, if you have a car crash with a drunk driver that paralysis you and kills your family, thats a human problem.
If you help an old person across the road, that's god at work and he should get the credit.
Sooo, anything Good = God, anything Bad = nothing to do with God. Except if you're a bad perosn and are being punished.
try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die
To me, advocating atheism to adults is a little like telling little kids there is no Santa Claus. People follow organized religion mostly because they would fear death without it and there isn't much to lose claiming affiliation with a religion. I do however believe atheists are within their right to draw the line at protecting their own freedom of religion.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
IAA (i am an atheist). i do not have any evidence against the existence of many things that i still do not believe in: unicorns, fairies.......and even the flying spaghetti monster. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Mons ter
It's one thing to ask us not to believe the creationism myth, but now you want us to believe that there is intelligent life in Kentucky?!?!
Let me start by saying I am an athiest. Now, about this. I have read The Bible several times and do not remember hearing anything about our ancestors playing around with dinosaurs?
The serpent in the garden of eden, no doubt. 'Serpent' was just a non-specific term for velociraptor.
I'm catholic. They're insane.
Try Ubuntu GNU/Linux, it's great!!!
Its proponents begin by asking you to suspend logic and assume an anti-entropic premise.
This is a canard--actually the reverse is true. It is the Christian faith alone that can account for logic, reason, and rationality.
Why should anyone be rational if the Christian God does not exist? Why are men under any obligation to be rational in a materialistic universe?
As a Christian Theist, I believe all men should be rational. I believe people should believe things on good evidence. I think we are under obligation to use our intellectual tools to glorify God, and to learn about this world--we should be consistent. I believe that becasse God requires all men to be rational. I can make sense of the obligation to be rational.
If this world is sound and fury signifying nothing, why must men be rational? Why don't I just live moment by moment and be inconsistent: thinking on thing one time and another thing another time, caring nothing for logic? After all, logic has no place in the material universe--it is an abstract, non-material set of laws. How can laws of logic actually exist in an atheistic universe?
The odd thing about the materialist is this: the materialist who wants to be rational has already departed from his materialism.
If you are a materialist, you have a naturalistic explanation for everything we say and do. What's going on in this gray matter in my cranium is controlled by the laws of physics and chemistry and biology. I don't really think, I'm really like a weed that's growing. Weeds don't think, and neither do I, we're all subject to the laws of physics, I'm just at a more complicated/complex level.
If naturalism is true, there's no such thing as rationality, there's just whatever people end up thinking and doing. Why call men to be rational then?
However, the Christian God calls men to be consistent and rational. For the Christian Theist, I can expect all men to be obligated to be rational. Not so for those who reject the Christian God.
Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
That one is easy to explain. He rolled a 20.
Yes, but the Christian Bible says that if you reject it, your reasoning is reduced to foolishness. Which, when you examine the presuppositions of those who reject the Christian God, is as plain as the nose on your face.
Anyone can make claims--you can have some guy walk in off the street and say he's God.
However, saying that rejecting the Christian God will result in the undermining of all human knowledge, morality, dignity, and science--that's extraordinary proof for an extraordinary claim.
You see, once you assume laws of logic exist, and you obligate other men to adhere to them--you assume the Christian God exists. Your engaging in debate becomes your own refutation.
Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff.
Oh yes! Christians are soooo repressed and vilified in this country! Just the other day I was saying to a friend how nice it was that we got Beltane off as a nationally recognized holiday. And I was signing up for one of the weekly Bible burnings we hold in each city. And of course, thinking of the upcoming day of thanks to Brahma for all the good in our lives, I was so happy that we had elected so many atheists to national office.
Tell me, does that persecution complex of yours get old after a while?
That is all.
I am thinking of starting the Flat Earth Museum. Ticket payers suddenly fall into an abyss (after they pay, of course).
Table-ized A.I.