Slashdot Mirror
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.
Stalinism, Nazism, and Mao's Communism were religions. They were religions centred on the worship of a perfect God-like figure: Stalin, Hitler, Chairman Mao. Why do I think this?
- Absolute belief in the leader was required for all subjects (like a theocracy)
- The punishment for thoughtcrime (heresy) involved torture, imprisonment and death (like the Spanish Inquisition).
- A promised land of plenty (a workers paradise, lebensraum, or heaven) was just around the corner for the people that did what the leader wanted.
- Any failure to reach this promised land was the fault of the people, not the leader (just as continued suffering in the world is due to our continuing to sin).
These regimes were not atheistic. They were more like the later days of the Roman Empire, in which the emperor deified himself, or like Egypt, where the pharoah was believed to be a god.Religion achieves many good things, but total conviction can be very dangerous. It can drive good people to true evil.
Ok, so let me get this straight. A bunch of Bible-thumpers raises private money to build a museum to depict scenes out of the Flintstones, and everyone here is bitching about how these people should be shut up. The 1st Amendment separates church and state, but it also protects freedom of speech. These people aren't directly inciting violence or rebellion They're not spouting libelous falsehoods. Let them be.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
Yah, and atheists are such saints:
Religious Persecution in Soviet Russia
The Killing Fields of Cambodia
People can be motivated to kill by just about any ideology, religious or otherwise.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
Don't link to them. Don't give them the oxygen of publicity, of recognition.
This is what they are trying to do to science and evolution theory.
Instead of trying to censor them, how about widely publicizing them and doing an unbiased (as much as possible hehe) critique of what they are trying to convince people is the world.
Would you rather be naturally immune to an illness, or live in a plastic bubble protecting yourself from it. It's the age of information. The bubble can't survive, so you should.
I think the real reason these stories come up so often is because it's just a cheap way for the editors to generate page views. Most people here have an irrationally strong hatred of Creationists, and there's nothing more satisfying then reaffirming one's beliefs on a regular basis, ergo the rehashing arguments. The smug feeling people get here reading this rehash is no different then the smug feeling Creationists get when they tell you that you are wrong for believing evolution and not accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
The American version is "Pie in the Sky":
The Preacher and the Slave
Long haired preachers come out every night
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right
But when asked how 'bout something to eat
They reply in voices so sweet
CHORUS:
You will eat, by and by
In that glorious land in the sky
Work and pray, live on hay
You'll get pie in the sky, when you die.
Chorus:
Oh the Stravation Army they play
And they sing and they clap and they pray
Till they get all your coin on the drum
Then they tell you when you're on the bum
Chorus:
Holy Rollers and jumpers come out,
They holler, they jump and they shout.
Give your money to Jesus they say,
He will cure all diseases today.
Chorus:
If you fight hard for children and wife
Try to get something good in this life
You're a sinner and bad man, they tell
When you die you will sure go to hell.
Chorus:
Workingmen of all countries, unite,
Side by side we for freedom will fight;
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain
FINAL CHORUS:
You will eat, bye and bye,
When you've learned how to cook and to fry.
Chop some wood, 'twill do you good,
And you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye.
-Joe Hill
KFG
Somehow I cannot find this funny. The last 200 years we've come an amazingly long way in understanding the world around us, and that understanding may be the single most precious thing we have! Yet someone says 1/5th of the Americans, from country that gets the most television time in the world, convert to or cling to the old childish illusions. It scares the life out of me. I simply refuse to laugh.
Theism has been around a long time, so it's up to you to dethrone it.
Hold on there just a minute. You can't generalise. There have been thousands of mutually contradictory types of theism around for a long time, and even 'religions' which aren't even theist (such as some forms of Buddhism). You can't take combine Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and many, many others and try and call them one thing that needs to be 'dethroned' - they try and dethrone each other! All you might be left with is some vague feeling that 'there is something out there'. Is that what you want to defend? If not, what is your 'model' of theism you do want to defend? Monotheism? Polytheism?
As Dawkins so eloquently puts it, almost all theists are atheists about everyone else's religions. Do you believe in the Norse Gods? Those of Olympus? If you don't, what is stopping you from taking that one step further?
In the past couple hundred years, a few uppity atheists like yourself suddenly come along and demand proof of the existence of these beings.
The parent is an obvious troll, but what the hell.
Yes. Way back when the world was full of "mysteries", when the most someone ever traveled was less than a hundred miles or so, when men had no way to predict what was going to happen when their child was sick, and when the King or whoever the local Lord was could press you into his service to die suddenly on a foreign shore, it made a lot of sense to believe in God. How else could the world be explained rationally? It's God's will that you die here in France, my son. It's also God's will that your child die of tuberculosis. It's all part of the Plan. Be miserable. Suffer. For it is your lot. After you are dead you'll get a reward. Heh, how convenient for the King.
Now we've explored the entire world, and seen it from space. There are no dragons hiding in dark corners of the map anymore. We've unlocked almost all of the great mysteries of life - to the point of understanding how our world works, and how our bodies work. The youngest child in our world can now wield a power that would have amazed people thousands of years ago - in the flick of a light switch, or with opening a tap to issue hot water. The world has changed.
And yet people like yourself hang on to the same irrational arguments to try to sway people to "belief" in something abstract. You claim that because people believed these things for so long, they must be true. And you claim to have "personal experiences with God". Then you claim that we have to disprove your imaginary God. I say that it's up to you to disprove the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Oh, you laugh. But you can't disprove it. I say he exists. Lots of people believe in him.
The tangible position to argue from is that your God is retreating behind our knowledge. Before - he used to live in the sky, behind the thunderstorms. But now that we have mastered the sky, we know he doesn't live in the clouds. He must be in space. But now that we explore space, we know for certain he is not in our solar system. He must be hanging around a nearby star system. Or is he in the sun - shall we go back to sun-god worship? Oh, I know where he is - in your HEAD! Had you been born in China, in all likelyhood you would not believe in this God. Had you been born in Iran, in all likelyhood you would believe in Mohammed and not Jesus. Therefore your faith is related to that chance accident which is your place of birth. Strange, how there can be so many books, about so many gods. And all of them claim to be the one true book.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The only thing worse than a christian fundamentalist is an atheist fundamentalist.
As an atheist - I more or less agree with this. I have a problem with fundamentalists of any stripe.
Why the hell do you people want to convert everyone?
And then you go and say something like that. "You people"? I understand if your passions is inflamed - but don't do that.
With every belief system, there's a bell curve of evangelisation. Some are content to live according to their system, others to "live as an example". Some answer when asked, some preach, some confront, and some harass.
That's true of every group - so there's no sense in getting your knickers in a twist over atheists, unless you've got a particular axe to grind. But then the issue is with you, and not them.
Jesus said we should be kind to one another and forgive and not judge. If theis message makes someone a better person, couldn't you say that person was saved by Jesus?
Is it wrong to appreciate life in all its forms? Is it wrong to think that life is something special in the Universe? "God loves you" is just another way of saying that.
On these statements - you and I can agree, and using religion as a metaphor for appreciating nature and trying to live in harmony with your fellow man...hey - I'm all for that.
Unfortunately, there are as many on "your side" that would disagree with us as on "my side". So that leaves us in a pickle.
I used to be an atheist. But the problem with atheism is that it limits you. Science can answer the "How?" questions but not the "Why?" questions. Why are we here? Big bang, evolution, yada yada yada. That tells us how, but not why.
With respect, that's not a limit of atheism. That's a limit of science, and to a certain extent, that betrays a limit of your own imagination.
To start with, you should realise this equation ( atheism == scientific belief ) is not true. Science deals with how, not why - that's not a flaw, that's just what it is. Personally, I think we'd be better off if religion stuck to the why, and stopped trying to decide the how - but that's for another day.
Atheism doesn't "limit" you any more than it frees you - again, same as religion...
Someone who lives in fear of an invisible man, and attempts to abide by a codified rule set lest they face an eternity of torture and punishment is not free.
Someone who marvels at the fact that we are the only known piece of the universe that is aware of itself, and trying to figure itself out - who sees the universe as a conscious entity, through us - is not limited.
I present that contrast, not to attempt to characterise your beliefs, but to point out that it is we who limit ourselves or free ourselves. Religion can be a way to do either, depending on how it is used, but it is not the only option.
Atheism is not fundamentally flawed because it tells us no one will supply a "why" for us. It is not limiting because it requires the individual to set their own purpose, and chart their own beliefs. There is beauty. There is mystery. There is inspiration.
I'm sorry you could not find it. I genuinely hope that you have found it in Christianity. Either way - I don't think you serve yourself or us by relating your experience as anything more than your experience.
Judge not.
Cheers.
Running Windows^H^H^H^H^H^H^H OSX and Linux in the home. (I don't have time for Solitaire any more.)
In that respect he is much like Jesus.
Nice guy, rotten followers.
>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,
Your conclusion does not follow from your premise. Everything going on in your head could be entirely chemical and biological, and can still be considered thought. There is no violation of physical laws going on when you think.
>If naturalism is true, there's no such thing as rationality, there's just whatever people end up thinking and doing.
Once again, an unfounded logical leap. What is your evidence that rationality is anything more than 'whatever people end up thinking and doing'?
>However, the Christian God calls men to be consistent and rational.
No, he does not. The very premise of the religion, that man is born in sin because of the acts of the original man and woman, is illogical. If Adam and Eve had no knowledge of good and evil before they ate of the tree, they had no idea it was evil to disobey god. "When you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." If you don't know that an act is evil, how can you (and all your children for all eternity) justifiably be punished for it?
Your religion is no more rational than any other. Get used to it.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!