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A Field Trip To the Creation Museum
Lillith writes "The anti-evolution Creation Museum opened last weekend and Ars took a field trip there and took lots of pictures. 'There were posters explaining just how coal could be formed in a few weeks as opposed to over millions of years, and how rapidly the biblical flood would cover the earth, drowning all but a handful of living creatures. The flood plays a big part in the museum's attempt to explain away what we see as millions of years of natural processes. There was also an explanation as to why, with only one progenitor family, it wasn't considered incest for Adam and Eve's children to marry each other.' (Myself, I liked the picture of the velociraptor grazing peacefully next to Eve, who is wearing some kind of dirndl, in the Garden of Eden.)" The reporter posted more photos from the museum on Flickr.
I've been thinking a lot about this ever since I first heard about the Creation Museum, and I find myself powerfully troubled and conflicted -- not over its content, which I know exactly where I stand on -- but over my intense desire to decry this "museum" as an utter abomination. I have always tried to endorse tolerance and understanding, and I've always let people believe whatever they want.
But I have a big, big problem when it comes to the public actions of those believers. How many thousands of children and impressionable adults will never even have the chance to learn basic tenets of logic, reason and science after being indoctrinated by a "museum" like this and the cooing, gentle voice of its proponents, telling children stories about dinosaurs living next to adam and eve and jesus?
I don't know what to do. I fully believe in Voltaire's classic quotation on freedom of speech and belief. But in this instance, I find myself thoroughly unwilling to defend the "Creation Museum's" right to make up whatever crazy "facts" they want. It's the first time I find myself wanting to "think of the children" who may very well grow up into the willfully ignorant bible beaters that are founding this "museum."
And yet there I am, suddenly the intolerant monster I have never been able to stand. Yet I tremble to imagine a future dark ages in America, where real science -- the search for the evidence of the reality of the universe -- is stoned in the streets and systematically rubbed out.
Please: before you mod me into oblivion, I want to hear everyone's thoughts on this subject.
Limina.Log
Speaking as a Frenchman, that such a museum has been conceived and built is mind-boggling, in a bad way. It reflects poorly on the american educational system. It shows how far fundamentalists can go to counter Reason in a way that hasn't been seen in France for centuries.
~~~ Paf. Le chien.
As such, they need a natural/unnatural dissater that affects the entire world.
Hence they calim that Noah's flood moved tons of dirt, buring lots and lots of bones much deaper than happens normally.
This is supposedly why we find animals buried with millions and millions years worth of dirt on top of them, instead of just the 40,000 thosand years of dirt that one would think.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I notice they're not closed for Jewish holidays. As a jewish person, I always find that interesting.
... That I went to a strict Catholic school, had Jesuits as science teachers, and Creation was relegated to Religion hour? In class, it was Darwin or bust, the Earth was some 5 billions years old, and nobody questioned evolution. Ever. And those who taught were priests.
I once asked my biology teacher (Jesuit) about the Bible's recount of the Creation. Answer: "The Bible was written by men, and inspired by God. Do you think He could have gone to some Bronze Age guys and told them about atoms, mass-energy equivalence, aminoacids and DNA? That was Abraham and company He was talking to, not Mr Spock."
You folks need some of these Jesuits types, methinks.
At the core of a creationist argument is that all of the Bible's stories are literally true.
:)
The whole point of creationism and other philosophies like them is that they are a response to, and not a discovery of, new knowledge. The bible says that the flood happened. Therefore, when investigating the 'origins of life', that HAS TO BE accounted for. No option of how history happened can exclude that information. The entire museum takes all of the information in the bible and then attempts to map that information to a model which would allow the bible to be true. The bible is the yardstick to which all other information is measured.
Science, on the other hand, is progressing by asking questions, proposing models and ideas, and advancing those models and ideas through objective testing. If the model or idea is invalidated by the testing results, they are modified. The yardstick in this case is objective reality. If an idea is good enough, we can test its validity in the world.
I personally side with science/reality. I mean, I don't have much choice. Reality will continue to be what it is regardless of what I want to believe.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
intolerance is evil
intolerance of intolerance is actually good
in fact, to meet a fundamentalist, and for them to call you intolerant, as in, hypocritically intolerant, is actually a badge of achievement
because you are not hypocritically intolerant if you are intolerant of them
because what they don't understand is that fundamentalism is true intolerance, and therefore to be intolerant of that is actually to strive in the direction of more tolerance
intolerant: "because you are not a true christian/ true muslim, i am better than you" =evil
intolerance of intolerance: "because you consider yourself better than me based on your religious bigotry, i am intolerant of you" =good
intolerance can be predicated on a number of characteristics of a person that is not intolerant in and of themselves: race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.
intolerance can also be predicated on someone else's intolerance: not tolerating their intolerance of someone because of race, religion, seuxla orientation, etc.
so you can judge any tolerance in question as to what it is opposed to. and if it is opposed to some inherently nonintolerant feature of a person, it is true intolerance. but if it is opposed to an intolerant feature of the person themselves, it is not intolerance, it is a form of tolerance, because it directed against real intolerance
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Actually the whole plot smells of a setup if you ask me:
Before eating from the tree of knowledge A&E had no knowledge of right and wrong (it was the tree who gave knowledge of good and evil, right?). And is if that wasn't enough Eve was led to her 'crime' by the snake (put there by guess who). Both these factors would in many civilised societys have led to a drop of charges (the last fact may only lead to a lighter sentence in many cases, but anyway) but not here. Oh no. Not only were A&E punished (for doing something, as said, they could not know was wrong or evil), all of their descendents for thousands of years to come were to be punished too.
Totally psychotich behaviour IMO.
I'm definitely not a creationist, but don't think for a minute that psuedo- and anti-science is limited to religious zealots.
Look at all the things that people buy into today, particularly in Europe, such as homeopathy, reflexology, chiropractics, magnet therapy, colonics, yadda yadda. How many people believe that irradiated strawberries are radioactive? How many people sit around worrying about the "toxins" in the body? How many people belive that Feng Shui increases the positive "energy" in a room?
Just because someone hurt your feelings by attacking your precious religion, you don't need to come around appealing to people's emotions by crying that someone is "attacking your freedom". How lame is that?
I don't smack people around for believing in god, and I don't smack them around for smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day. I do, however, think both are without reason and terribly stupid things to do. I will probably spend the rest of my days criticizing both behaviors (my freedom, as it were), and doubt I will ever be bothered in the least about you crying into your pillow at night.
Religions promote falsehoods in that they foster environments of non-scientific thought, or more precisely, they foster lack of thought. This lack of thought is the antithesis of all human progress as we know it and we'd probably still sitting in our own shit if it prevailed. The same science that invented everything around you is the same science that shows the earth to be 4b years old, the universe to be upwards of 13+b years old, and so on. The foundations of the medicine you and your children take, the cancer treatments your mother takes, the emergency treatment given to your father when he got into an accident when he was 17, are of the science that show the bible to be wrong on many accounts.
Of course, the worst part is that now many people are starting to move from "literal" interpretations of the bible to more "story" based, or metaphorically based. This is the only thing that _could_ happen when underlying texts of a religion start failing, because had it not happened the religion would have vanished. (Sort of like the anthropic principle for religions?).
Nope. That whole tree thing is mostly cribbed from Mesopotamian traditions, and in those men were naked to demonstrate their state of bestial ignorance; savage naked man acquired knowledge of right and wrong later from the gods when he became their servant and was taught the "Arts of Civilization" including how to spin wool and weave it and how to process plant fibers into cloth. An intriguing echo of this is in Ecclesiastes 3:16-21 (RSV):
"Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness...I said in my heart with regard to the sons of men that God is testing them TO SHOW THEM THAT THEY ARE BUT BEASTS..."
So it's not that man was doing evil, it's that man was a beast. By eating of the tree of knowledge, they become enlightened enough to be shamed by their evidence of bestiality and wish to become clothed, thus taking on a godly aspect. And God found this a threat, because God is a jealous little bitch. (Note that the First Commandment is not "Don't murder" or "Be Nice" or anything like that; no, it's "Me, God, I'm a jealous bitch, and you better not step out!" But I digress.) The Serpent in the Garden is man's benefactor, cluing in Eve that God is a liar -- God couldn't care less if she and Adam died, rather God's concern was that they would become like him, which just wouldn't do. Genesis 3:4-5:
"But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil..."
And just to hammer the point home, the narrator has God repeat back the Serpent's words in verse 22, thus confirming the Serpent's shrewd and penetrating analysis:
"Then the Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil..."
Anyhoo, all snickering at God's insecurities aside, the point here is that if you want to make any sense whatsoever out of Genesis, you need a firm grounding in Mesopotamian theology.
One of the reasons that [most] scientists (those who believe in the scientific method as the surest method to get as close as possible to truth) find certain religious people insufferable is that they attempt to assign their own meanings to words which already have plenty of meanings, thank you.
I understand that what you mean is "I believe that God exists", just as a scientist would say "I believe that quantum entanglement exists". But that's not what you're saying. And as long as you say what you don't mean, then you will be alienating those who do.
Others have said similar things to you, so this comment is somewhat redundant. But none of the other comments explain what the root problem is, and most of them are quite rude - which is fun, but not conducive to communication.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Not really. As someone else mentioned, it was built by an Australian, but all it proves is that any individual or group of people (no matter how small) with enough money can build anything they want. Having been through the school system, I can assure you that the vast majority of American schools teach Evolution with a fervor that nearly assigns it as actual history (rather than theory), and if the Judeo-Christian concept of Creation is taught at all, it is presented as mythology alongside Roman, Greek, Chaldean and other creation mythology. What people choose to believe despite this education is not really in any way related to success or failure on the part of the schools. It is not the school's responsibility to form your opinions for you. It's their responsibility to provide you with information that allows you to form your own opinions and understand differing opinions of others. Surely you don't think that schools should punish children who refuse to acknowledge the authority of Evolution, do you? Yes, I know that there are a few schools who have been dabbling in "Intelligent Design", but despite the media attention this has received, it's not very widespread in the public school system.
Now, on a separate note, there _are_ serious problems with the American education system, but they are more related to attempts to "dumb down" material (New Math anyone?) and the inability to recognize how children learn best and work with their natural proclivities. They don't do a good job of teaching logic and critical thinking. They wait until the children are too old to start teaching foreign languages. They have replaced much of the classical literature with more modern trash. They no longer discipline unruly students properly, instead allowing them to become a distraction to students who are are interested in learning. But most of all, out of fear of a lawsuit from the parents, they allow students to matriculate without a satisfactory understanding of the basic prerequisites for the next grade.
GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
And if they out breed us, eventually the majority of society will enforce those values on the rest.
Kind of like in Idiocracy. Whoever breeds the most becomes the most successful.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Also, God rested on the seventh day and established His sabbath for mankind (Mark 2:27).
But... "Now Open 7 days a week"
A great museum, but they have a blind spot on this point.
Cafeteria Christianity is a pejorative term, used in general to describe individual Christians or Christian churches who selectively follow or believe in the doctrines of their religion, particularly what the Bible states as being the word or will of God. The use of the term suggests that the believers being so described are not as legitimate as other Christians. As cafeteria style means to pick-and-choose, as in choosing what food to purchase from a cafeteria line, the implication of the term "Cafeteria Christianity" is that the individual's professed religious belief is actually a proxy for their personal opinions rather than a genuine interpretation of or spiritual relationship with Christian doctrine or the teachings of Jesus. The selectivity implied may relate to the acceptance of Christian doctrines (such as creationism and the virgin birth of Jesus) or Biblical morality and ethical prohibitions (e.g. a rejection of homosexual acts and dietary laws) and is often associated with discussions concerning the applicability of Old Testament laws to Christians and the Sermon on the Mount.
The label "Cafeteria Christianity" has been used both to encourage more conformity with Biblical teachings and to advocate for less. When used by Conservative Christians, it is often an expression of a preference for a more literal and uniform approach to the Bible, rather than the carefree do-what-you-want theology preferred (as some see it) by Liberal Christians. The term in this sense thus expresses contempt for those viewed as lax in their Christianity.
It is also used by some Christians and skeptics to undermine the advocacy of particular Christian precepts by pointing out the supposed inconsistency of the advocate's position. The logic of such a usage is that someone who has rejected one supposed command of God has little room to argue that another such command should be followed. Thus these individuals observe that some Christians are more than willing to condemn certain behavior on Biblical grounds and yet do not themselves adhere to the Bible in its totality, i.e. a charge of hypocrisy. For an example, see An Atheist argument on Cafeteria Christianity. The counter argument is usually that, according to the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 (as well as some Paul's letters), Gentile Christians are not obliged to keep the entire Old Testament Law.
The term Cafeteria Catholic (also à la carte Catholic or CINO = "Catholic In Name Only") is a pejorative or an insulting characterization and is used to describe people who dissent from certain teachings of the Roman Catholic Church while maintaining an identity as Catholics. These people are said to view the Church much like a "cafeteria", where one picks and chooses only those items that appeal to them. The term is typically applied to those who blatently dissent from selected Catholic moral teaching on issues such as abortion, contraception, premarital sex, and homosexuality. The term is less frequently applied to those who dissent from other Catholic moral teaching on issues such as social justice, capital punishment, or just war. Groups labeled as such include Call to Action, FutureChurch, DignityUSA, and Catholics for a Free Choice. Some of those who employ the term in their vocabulary accuse those who view the term pejoratively of believing dissent from the constant teaching of the Church to be a form of devoutness.
It should be noted that the this epithet is not created, used, or endorsed by official church teaching. However, the practice of selective adherence to the magisterium of the church has been repeatedly condemned through the teaching of the Popes:
* In a homily delivered on April 18, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI clarified the relation of dissent to faith:
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Modern Biblical scholarship indicates that the first of the Gospels was written 70 years after the death of Jesus; therefore if Christianity started with Jesus and his immediate followers, there was at least 70 years where the religion pre-dated the book. The Jewish Bible was already written by that time, however there were significant debates in the first centuries of the Church regarding to what extent the Jewish Bible would be authoritative. (For example, see the discussions on whether or not to require circumcision for converts which occur in Paul's letters to the Galatians.) So at the beginning, at least, the New Testament was a collection of unwritten stories (along with others which were subsequently edited out) and the status of the Old Testament within the new religion was in doubt.
Sources of authority in the Roman Catholic Church have long included, in addition to scripture, what they called Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium (the authority of the church's hierarchy, headed by the Pope.) Martin Luther spearheaded the Protestant Reformation with the slogan "sola scriptura" ("by scripture alone") as a revolt against the structure and authority of the Catholic Church, and to some extent that slogan still resonates with some Protestant sects today, however, many mainstream Protestant denominations hold out other sources - for example, Anglicans state that their religion is based on "Scripture, Reason, and Tradition," a trio with which the great Medieval Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas would agree. Methodists get their Christianity from "Scripture, Reason, Tradition, and Experience."
Metaphoric interpretations of the Bible are at least necessary in parts (was there literally a Good Samaritan or a Prodigal Son, or was Jesus just telling stories to illustrate his points?) Literal interpretation of the Bible is impossible in some areas (Did humans come about before or after the other animals? In the first creation story in Genesis 1, animals were made, then on day 6, man was made; in Genesis 2, man was made first, then the animals were made to keep him company. These are not both literally possible.) Throughout the history of the church, metaphorical interpretation of scripture has been used for various parts of the Bible. The only question is where is it appropriate to take this approach, and where is it appropriate to take the writings at face value? Just as the early members of the church had to decide which parts of Jewish tradition to keep, modern churches have to decide which parts of the Bible to take metaphorically, and which parts to take as a culturally-bound piece of history which has no bearing on today's society.
An example of rejecting parts of the Bible as culture-bound is the fact that Jesus was firmly opposed to divorce, but divorce had a very different social context in the first century as compared with today, leading many (but not all) modern denominations to approve of divorce in the right circumstances. The diversity of different Christian churches active today shows that there are a many judgment calls to be made, and that the Bible is not a simple book which can support only one interpretation.
Finally, and most importantly, there is more than one way for a story to be "true." There is literal truth, and there is metaphoric truth. There is undoubtedly at least some literal truth in the Bible. There isn't much question that there was a rabbi named Jesus who was executed for treason by the Roman army, for example. But in my to a large extent it's the metaphoric truth that makes the Bible significant to readers, not these historical details.
My truck is like a series of tubes.