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When Adam and Eve roamed among the dinosaurs

Jill

How I wish I was joking.

For natural history museums, the awesome dinosaur is a star attraction for drawing wide-eyed children and their families. It’s surprising, though, to be welcomed at the gate of the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky by two stegosauruses. After all, this brand-new museum is designed to disprove evolution, including the millions of years that science says dinosaurs walked the earth.

For Bible-defending “creationists,” God created Earth and all its creatures between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. But they know a drawing card when they see one, and this museum has more than its share of animatronic (moving, teeth-baring, roaring) specimens. In fact, dinosaurs play a big role in this “biblical history”: They live not 65 million years ago, but with humans — in the Garden of Eden and on Noah’s Ark.

“Dinosaurs are one of the icons of evolution, but we believe they lived at the same time as people,” says Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis (AiG), the fundamentalist Christian ministry that built the facility. “The Bible talks about dragons. We believe dragon legends had a basis in truth.”

The $27 million museum set on 50 acres opens on Memorial Day, and AiG hopes for 250,000 visitors a year. Mr. Ham, a former science teacher in Australia, is direct about the museum’s purpose: to restore the Bible to its “rightful authority” in society.

For many scientists, however, it’s distressing. Some 700 scientists at educational institutions in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana have signed a statement deploring the “scientifically inaccurate” exhibits and warning that students who accept them are “unlikely to succeed in science courses.”

The whole article is fascinating. But this is my favorite part:

In a bid to clarify this, the American Association for the Advancement of Science has published “The Evolution Dialogues,” which explores evolution and Christianity’s response. It discusses those who see science and religion as compatible but dealing with different spheres, and others working out a theology that takes evolution into account.

The museum scorns such an approach. One exhibit shows a pastor preaching it’s OK not to believe in a literal Genesis. Then it depicts “the consequences” in one family: A young boy looks at porn on the Internet while his sister calls Planned Parenthood.

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73 thoughts on When Adam and Eve roamed among the dinosaurs

  1. “The Bible talks about dragons. We believe dragon legends had a basis in truth.”

    So dragons are “a legend” but that 6000-year-old-earth thing rings true?

    Who decides this stuff?

  2. Indeed. If the Bible talked about dragons, then we need to get cracking on adopting all of Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books into that museum.

    Those last two paragraphs that were quoted had me laughing for a while.

  3. “The Bible talks about dragons.”

    Wrongo, Ken. The Bible talks about tannîn and tannîm (in the original Hebrew), and it isn’t at all clear what the hell excatly that word refers to.

    Tannîm howl (Isaiah 13:22, Micah 1:8); they live in the desert (Mallachi 1:3); they make their home in lairs (Jeremiah 9:11, 10:22, 49:33, 51: 37). They are among the “beasts of the field” (Isaiah 43:20) and are associated with other crying animals (Hyenas[?], Isaiah 13:22).

    Source.

    Pharyngula edited an anti-Creation Muesum carnival, if anybody’s interested.

  4. I am sooo ashamed of living in Kentucky. My bf wants to go to this with me wearing flying spagetti monster shirts to poke fun at it. I really want to just avoid the damned thing.

  5. One exhibit shows a pastor preaching it’s OK not to believe in a literal Genesis. Then it depicts “the consequences” in one family: A young boy looks at porn on the Internet while his sister calls Planned Parenthood.

    Ha! Ooooh, scary. If you don’t teach Genesis as the literal truth, your kids will discover S-E-X!!! Heaven forbid!

  6. Lindsay, definitely go if it doesn’t charge admission. I’d love to see pictures of the “consequences” display.

  7. That flies directly in the face of other fundamentalist theory that was told to me back in the day by a Texas A & M graduate, of all people: “Dinosaur bones were put on this Earth to test our faith.”

    Or maybe Jurassic Park was a documentary, and it was filmed in real-time. Or was that Highlander?

  8. [i]”We believe dragon legends had a basis in truth.”[/i]

    Sure, if by “basis in truth” you mean that ancient peoples occasionally found gigantic fossilized bones and made up stories about where they came from.

  9. I say make the boy call Planned Parenthood for his sister so she can look at the porn for a while. Fair’s fair.

  10. Kentucky has given the world some great music, bourbon, and literature. We have also given you the creation museum and Mitch McConnell. Sorry about those two.

  11. The best freaking site ever to make fun of whackos like this: http://www.fstdt.com/
    Okay, actually, maybe this one is better: http://www.venganza.org/
    But this, hands down, the best site to actually refute them with facts, if you dare try to reason with ’em:
    http://www.talkorigins.org/

    Basically, wheneer they say something crazy, go to that last link and look for their “Index To Creationist Claims.” Every creationist claim there ever was, totally rebutted.

  13. Ha! Ooooh, scary. If you don’t teach Genesis as the literal truth, your kids will discover S-E-X!!! Heaven forbid!

    It’s been a while since I read Genesis, but if memory serves, the question is begged: How does one teach Genesis as the literal truth without talking about S-E-X?

  14. I was trying to remember if Ken Ham was the one who went to jail for tax evasion while building his little creationist museum, but it was Kent Hovind.

  15. Well you see LS, it goes like this: The Bible is Word of God and if you are a real Christian you believe in the literal reading of the Bible. If you don’t, you are not a real Christian and it follows Satanic or at best a hard-hearted and confused soul, otherwise susceptible to the evils of worldliness. See the above mentioned porn and pre-marital sex and teen pregnancy and abortion.

    So you really need to believe that Adam and Eve were somewhat like those people in “One Million BC” to avoid slipping into liberalism and unfortunately being damned to hell.

    That clear things up for ya?

  16. You know, I’m STILL trying to wrap my brain around the concept, and then I get this:

    The museum scorns such an approach. One exhibit shows a pastor preaching it’s OK not to believe in a literal Genesis. Then it depicts “the consequences” in one family: A young boy looks at porn on the Internet while his sister calls Planned Parenthood.

    Uh…huh… to this is the “scientific” (word used loosely) Hell House?

  18. “The museum scorns such an approach. One exhibit shows a pastor preaching it’s OK not to believe in a literal Genesis. Then it depicts “the consequences” in one family: A young boy looks at porn on the Internet while his sister calls Planned Parenthood.”

    So following a literal translation of the Bible stops normal(not so sure about teh porns but whatever) sexual developement in teens? Damn, if it was a pill doing that we’d take it off the market! I love how the ulimate traumatic reproduction event these losers can come up with isn’t a too early unintented pregnancy that mess up a child’s body and future, but just birth control.

    BTW, Can we have Lesle Unruh put in this museum?

  19. I just find this sad. Last year I went with one of my friends to the American Museum of Natural History and he was so thrilled to see his dinosaurs–because his mom was a fundie, he was never allowed to visit museums because she didn’t believe in dinosaurs.

    Last week I met a similar mother who homeschooled her children and only taught them ID. Because she approached me at work, I wasn’t able to call her completely insane or enlighten her to my own Flying Spaghetti Monster creation story and show her it’s just as valid as her creation myth. I seriously wanted to furtively teach her children evolution because they’re going to be pretty shocked if they get to college and discover not everyone makes up stories with no factual basis and calls it science.

  20. “Everyone’s entitled to their beliefs, Lister. I never agreed with my parent’s religion, but I wouldn’t dream of knocking it.

    They were Seventh Day Advent Hoppists. They believed that every Sunday should be spent hopping. They would hop to church, hop through the service, then hop back home again.

    You see, they took the Bible literally. Adam and Eve, the snake and the apple–took it word for word. Unfortunately their version had a misprint.

    It was all based on 1 Corinthians 13, where it says, “Faith, Hop, and Charity, and the greatest of these is Hop.” So that’s what they did, every seventh day.

    I tell you, Sunday lunchtimes were a nightmare. Hopping around the table serving soup…we all had to wear sou’esters and asbestos underpants.”

    Thats what I always think of when I hear about nut jobs taking the Bible literally.

  21. I went to Texas A&M, and when the professor of my World History before 1500 class decided to teach about pre-humans (bad idea), he asked if anyone in the class had any theories on why our ancestors beat out the Neanderthals for survival, even though Neanderthals were generally larger. I swear, one boy said, “The scientists created the jaw fragments. There weren’t any humans before us.” And the class agreed!!! And in high school, when there was report of an asteroid that came to earth that may have signs of life on other planets, one girl said, “God sent that to test our faith.” And the class agreed! My word.

  22. The thing is, there’s lots of sex in Genesis…the thing with the two daughters getting drunk and having sex with their dad, that’s in Genesis, right? So which is worse: daugher calling Planned Parenthood or daughter getting dad drunk so he’ll impregnate her?? I’ll go with Planned Parenthood, thanks.

  23. I want to go see the exhibit for all of Genesis 4 especially where Eve had Cain and Abel and then had Seth at the same time as her great-great-great-great grandson was busy begetting. I want the scene with the really old people still doing it. If Adam was 130 when he had Seth then how old did Cain, Enoch, Irad, Mehujal, Methushael and Lamech have to be when they started all their begetting. Mind you Noah was a bit of a slacker, he didn’t even start until he was 500 years old. Talk about self-control.

  24. “The thing is, there’s lots of sex in Genesis…the thing with the two daughters getting drunk and having sex with their dad, that’s in Genesis, right?”

    Lot’s daughters, after the smiting of Sodom and Gomorrah. The thing about Genesis is that they were all a pack of absolutely amoral bastards. They can’t go more than a few non-begetting verses without having screwed-up sex, ripping somebody off, trying to or actually killing somebody they shouldn’t, lying through their teeth, etc. It’s really quite dysfunctional.

  25. Oh, and to be fair to Lot, the narrative says they got him blind drunk after deciding, while stone-cold sober, that having children by their dad was a Good Idea. He fairs a little better in his story than good old No-Pants Noah.

  26. And in high school, when there was report of an asteroid that came to earth that may have signs of life on other planets, one girl said, “God sent that to test our faith.” And the class agreed! My word.

    This reminds me of a conversation I had with a member or two of a fundamentalist Christian student group on my campus (a major state university). I remember bringing up geological evidence for the age of the earth such as radioisotope dating (of various kinds, since the half-lives of these isotopes vary). The response of the man I was talking to was, “Well, God can do whatever he wants with the atoms and molecules.”

    So God would trick us? I found out that the man was a computer engineering major and I was tempted to ask him if God ever intervened to alter the behavior of his integrated circuits apart from what electrodynamic principles would predict.

  27. “The Bible talks about dragons.”

    It also talks about unicorns. But that dosen’t make them real, does it?

  28. Kentucky has given the world some great music, bourbon, and literature. We have also given you the creation museum and Mitch McConnell. Sorry about those two.

    Don’t forget Ernie “I’m gonna clean up Frankfort with cronyism” Fletcher!

    Yeah… sometimes I wonder why I stay here and then I remember… I have a job and a mortgage…. sigh.

  29. I say make the boy call Planned Parenthood for his sister so she can look at the porn for a while. Fair’s fair.

    Calling PP isn’t a full time job, she’ll have plenty of time to look for her own porn. But the boy should call PP anyways to get STD tests and free condoms. 🙂

  30. It also talks about unicorns. But that doesn’t make them real, does it?

    YES!! YES IT DOES, YOU HEATHEN!!! WHY DON’T YOU JUST GO CALLED PLANNED PARENTHOOD NOW?? Because according to “Answers in Genesis,” the organization behind the Creation Museum, you have to believe that every damned word in the Bible is actually true, no matter how much other evidence seems to refute it. In fact, you have to sign about three different statements of faith even to get a job as a barista at the museum.

    As you can tell, I’ve been poking around on their websites, and I was dismayed (but not shocked) to discover that I actually know one of the museum’s “science consultants.” He’s married to an old friend of mine, and he’s a darling of the creationist movement because he has real science degrees and was a real professor at a real university. But, like the rest of them, he is an incredible logical contortionist when it comes to “explaining” the conundrums and contradictions in the creationist viewpoint. (For example: God didn’t create the sun until the third day, so how did they know when the first two days started and stopped? Answer: God created an alternate source of light as a timekeeping aid on days 1 and 2, and as a reminder that the sun, once created, was not the only game in town and thus should not be worshiped. For reals.)

  31. TheBends – I always think of that entertaining misprint, lo these many years ago, wherein one of the commandments was rendered “Thou shalt commite adultery.”

    So much for God’s oversight of the printing process, eh?

  32. Because according to “Answers in Genesis,” the organization behind the Creation Museum, you have to believe that every damned word in the Bible is actually true, no matter how much other evidence seems to refute it.

    These are the same people who, if you try to tell them that the Bible was not written in English, will look at you like you’re the idiot.

  33. I’d just like to know where the $27 million to build this thing came from. I sure hope most of it came from some fool, or several fools, with more money than brains. It’s very sad to think that families who can’t afford it would contribute to something like this.

  34. Speaking of Lot’s daughters, why not add the scene where Lot offers them up to be gang raped by an unruly mob? And then there can be another scene after that where Lot is praised (by angels no less) as the holiest man in all the land. There’s an important moral lesson in that for all the little kiddies.

  35. “The Bible talks about dragons.”

    It also says that snakes began existence with wings and legs and could talk.

    you have to believe that every damned word in the Bible is actually true

    No no, as slacktivist has explained, you have to believe the right parts of the bible are absolutely true, and then you have to go eat a ham and prawn sammich before praying to The Lord, Harold Be His Name, in thanks because that you haven’t fucked someone of the same gender recently or been listening to punk rock, which the bible states is totally wrong as long as you take this section of hte bible literally and then metaphor yourself silly with this other bit.

    So much for God’s oversight of the printing process, eh?

    Well god is obviously illiterate, otherwise he could have noticed them changing “poisoner” to “witches” in KJV just because King James (a wig and tights wearing, makeup loving, ESL speaking frenchman) found witches to be absolutely fascinating.

    The Archangel Gabriel was definately literate or at least could dictate and embue people with amazing secretarial powers, but God itself hasn’t shown a great deal of interest in clerical skills.

  36. Will this museum also talk about other biblical scientific facts like
    the mountain where you can see all the nations of the Earth or the 4 corners where angels will blow their trumpets on dooms day.

  37. So, I’m guessing dinosaurs went extinct because they wouldn’t fit on the Noah’s ark?

    Riiiiiiiiiiight.

  38. I liked the explanation on the “dragons” somebody else posted above. There is no end to my delight when people who insist on taking their translation of the Bible literally run into people who actually study and translate the original texts.

    There’s so much by way of symbolism and metaphor in there, so many things that were saying, “Nah, your god didn’t do that, ours did!”

    Don’t get me wrong; like fairy tales, I think there are some valuable stories in the Bible and it does have significance. But literally true? It boggles my mind that people can be so ignorant about their own sacred texts as to believe that.

  39. I’m sure that everyone here makes a distinction between nutsy fundamentalists and the many perfectly sane Christians in the this world.

    Right?

  41. Since I am a moderately sane and totally irreverent Christian, I like to think that I differentiate between the two.

  44. I used to work at a real natural history museum just across the Ohio River from Answers in Genesis’ headquarters, and we’d receive “visits” from their staff and supporters all the time. They handed out flyers about creationism in our lobby and exhibits– including the paleontology lab– and harassed my coworkers, including telling several that they were going to hell. I know paying admission to the Creation Museum will support them, but all the same, I’m tempted to visit sometime just to hand out evolution flyers and talk about the “hell” of intellectual incompetence. Turnabout is fair play, right?

  45. Once I was in a hotel/convention center for some trade show. Also there was a bunch of tables where some doofuses were handing out anti-evolution literature. A colleague who had had one too many margaritas started saying in a very loud voice, “Boy, that Charles Darwin was a hell of a scientist, wasn’t he!” until I grabbed his arm and yanked him out of there.

  46. I’m sure that everyone here makes a distinction between nutsy fundamentalists and the many perfectly sane Christians in the this world.

    Right?

    It depends — are you under the impression that the Christians flocking to a creationist “museum” are perfectly sane?

    Personally, as a (fallen-away) Catholic, I wouldn’t be caught dead there. The Pope said 50 years ago that evolution happened, and that’s good enough for me. Of course, there are a whole lot of Christians who claim that Catholics aren’t “real” Christians, so take that with a grain of salt.

  47. TinaH, I believe the official position is that dinosaurs did in fact get a place on the Ark, but that conditions after the Flood weren’t ‘suitable’ for them and they died out.

    Seriously. Even when they’re decrying evolution they use its logic to make their points.

  48. “I believe the official position is that dinosaurs did in fact get a place on the Ark”

    BLASPHEMY!!! Everybody knows they were eliminated IN the flood because they were twisted and degenerate violations of God’s perfect plan for creation…

    Besides, they were too slow to get on… 🙂

  49. I just feel sorry for the guy aboard the ark who had to clean up the dinosaur shit.

  50. BLASPHEMY!!! Everybody knows they were eliminated IN the flood because they were twisted and degenerate violations of God’s perfect plan for creation…

    Indeed. They were created in the image of his brother Ted.

  51. I didn’t realize god’s brother Ted was cool like that. I may have to re-think my stance against religion… 🙂

  52. I think that Noah in the Bible is not given enough credit. After all, with millions of species in existence then and now, Noah needs to be given credit as a world-class brontosaurus-tamer, bee-keeper, snake-handler, penguin and yak and monkey and rhino and velociraptor catcher and an unbelievable harvester of hundreds of thousands of beetle species- two of each! I mean, where did he get the equipment? The nets? How did he get the cobras not to kill the entire boat? Plexiglass?

    Oh wait – the Creation Museum will explain it!

  53. It depends — are you under the impression that the Christians flocking to a creationist “museum” are perfectly sane?

    Personally, as a (fallen-away) Catholic, I wouldn’t be caught dead there. The Pope said 50 years ago that evolution happened, and that’s good enough for me. Of course, there are a whole lot of Christians who claim that Catholics aren’t “real” Christians, so take that with a grain of salt.

    Ok, let me try to get this out right. Hear me out folks before you jump on me.

    Mnemosyne, I am basically on the same page as you are, with the twist that I’m a Protestant who gets called “not Christian enough” because I don’t buy fundamentalist beliefs like this creationist stuff. I think having a creationist “museum”–which rightly belongs in quotes–is a horrible idea, especially seeing as the American public tends to trust museums to present the truth. If this were presented as a cultural or religious institute, fine, but obviously there’s a problem with the idea that it’s supposed to be a science museum. We all agree on that.

    The thing that concerns me is that I don’t see what good it does to make fun of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament itself for no clear purpose. It doesn’t offend me personally, but I don’t think it’s a particularly sentitive thing to do with a religious text in a public space, no matter how silly you think it is.

    I freely admit that I poke fun at the inconsistencies in the Bible all the time as I’m trying to make sense of it. And I will argue with fundies until the cows come home about their interpretation of the book. Most of these posts are doing the same thing, but some border on just making fun of the religion, which I don’t think is constructive, even if you think Christianity (or Judaism, as we’re talking about a lot of the same texts) is whacko.

    My $.02.

  54. To be fair, there are significant numbers of completely sane, rational, compassionate, loving Christian folks out there, including a good dose of them in my own family. Unfortunately, sane, rational, loving, compassionate people saying sane, rational, even thoughtful things doesn’t win elections. Heck, it doesn’t even make headlines!

    And the idea of Noah or one of his flunkies shoveling dinosaur droppings made me snort chai all over the keyboard.

  55. “The thing that concerns me is that I don’t see what good it does to make fun of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament itself for no clear purpose. It doesn’t offend me personally, but I don’t think it’s a particularly sentitive thing to do with a religious text in a public space, no matter how silly you think it is.”

    Have you read the Old Testament? I mean, I get the cultural narrative bit. Considered with any other old text about the heroes of yore, it fits right in. When you start taking it as the literal truth in everything and arguing that we ought to have the death penalty for homosexuality based on something it said, “silly” doesn’t quite cover it.

    I’m not even really talking about the bits with people living to 900, either. We’re talking about seriously dysfunctional, homicidal, amoral people who are nonetheless held up as God’s favorite dude, more or less because they worship Him while all the other dysfunctional, homicidal, amoral people are worshiping other gods. New Testament lore tends to involve protagonists who are at least trying to be what we’d think of as good, moral, kind, or loving people. The Old Testament? You couldn’t ask for a more ridiculously willing bunch of crazy people.

    This is before you get to the willingness of people to believe that something happened literally as written but the unwillingness of the same people to consider the logistics of that something happening literally as written, or believing that their translation is the One True Word and trumps that other guy over there’s translation, which he thinks is the One True Word. Morality as we understand it already precludes imitating the behavior of something like 90% of the Old Testament’s holy rollers.

  56. Sigh.

    Have you read the Old Testament?

    Good chunks of it, yes, in religious circumstances and in class. (If you’ve read all of it, I salute your stamina.) I have a decently sophisticated grasp on the Hebrew Bible and New Testament.

    When you start taking it as the literal truth in everything and arguing that we ought to have the death penalty for homosexuality based on something it said, “silly” doesn’t quite cover it.

    Please re-read my original post. I didn’t make any argument supporting a supposed “literal” reading of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, or supporting a fundamentalist interpretation of it. Interpretations of the Bible which claim to be literal are ahistorical and misinformed, and when these interpretations start to affect society or public policy, that’s “silly.”

    The book itself, however, isn’t silly in my opinion, and I think it’s insensitive to Christians and Jews–while it may be an accurate expression for you–to term it as such. Again, this was the point in my original post.

    What I’m arguing is that there’s a different between criticizing the theology behind certain religious practices and how that theology affects society, on one hand, and ridiculing a religion and its texts because you think they’re silly, on the other. I don’t agree with parts of the Qur’an, and I don’t think some modern interpretations of it follow from the text as I understand it, but I don’t think it’s sensitive or constructive to make fun of the text or the religion itself. I don’t believe the religious myths of the Xhosa people in South Africa either, but I wouldn’t term them “silly.” It’s a matter of having respect for something deeply important to people, even while feeling free to criticize constructively how religious beliefs may negatively affect society.

  57. What I’m arguing is that there’s a different between criticizing the theology behind certain religious practices and how that theology affects society, on one hand, and ridiculing a religion and its texts because you think they’re silly, on the other.

    Callie, have you missed the part where we have fundamentalists trying to block the teaching of science in our PUBLIC schools because the facts of science conflict with their literal reading of the Bible?

    If fundamentalists were merely teaching what they believe in their own churches and schools, they wouldn’t be up for mockery. But by coming into the public square and insisting that their myths not only be valorized above those of any other culture or religion, but that those myths be taught as facts IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, they leave themselves open to having their myths picked to pieces.

    Because myths are not facts. It’s not our fault that misguided people get upset when we point out that they’re not presenting facts, only myths.

  58. Mnemosyne.

    Did you “miss the part” when I explicitly said that I supported “criticizing the theology behind certain religious practices and how that theology affects society”

    and when I said “when these interpretations start to affect society or public policy, that’s “silly.””

    ?

    I think it is absolutely acceptable and indeed necessary to criticize religious fundamentalists who try to force their version of a religion onto other people. But criticizing religious fundamentalists is not all that’s happened in this thread, and that, again, is my point.

    You said:

    If fundamentalists were merely teaching what they believe in their own churches and schools, they wouldn’t be up for mockery.

    But you’re not just mocking them, and that, for the third time, is my argument. You’re mocking the text (the first books of the Hebrew Bible) that is the basis for three world religions, and most people who practice these religions are not fundamentalist idiots who want to push religion into schools and museums.

    It’s an insensitive thing to do; it’s a disrespectful thing to do. Furthermore, strategically it’s just dumb, because it isolates the people you might want to get on your side when you’re trying to win battles against, say, the creationist museum. When you ridicule the Noah story in the public sphere, I guarantee you that you alienate more sensitive but not fundamental Christians, Jews, and Muslims who find the story/myth sacred, though not factual. The kind of Christians, Jews, and Muslims who otherwise would be on your side in an argument against fundamentalists.

  59. When you ridicule the Noah story in the public sphere, I guarantee you that you alienate more sensitive but not fundamental Christians, Jews, and Muslims who find the story/myth sacred, though not factual. The kind of Christians, Jews, and Muslims who otherwise would be on your side in an argument against fundamentalists.

    So, let me get this straight:

    Fundamentalists argue that the Noah story is factually true and build museums to claim that it is.

    Non-fundamentalists like us point out that the story is not factually true by poking holes in the logical errors.

    Other Christians, Jews and Muslims get mad at the non-fundamentalists who are so mean as to point out the logical errors in the Noah story, and not at the fundamentalists who have put this story out into public where it can be ridiculed.

    And this makes sense to you? We should all shut up about how stupid it is to present the Noah story as a set of true facts because it might upset other people who don’t believe it’s a set of true facts to begin with?

    Now, if we were all riffing off of, say, the Noah’s Ark at the Skirball Cultural Center, you might have a point, because in that case the ark is being presented as a powerful myth that informs our culture today. But we’re not. We’re pointing out that the story of Noah is not factual, no matter how much money Ken Ham pours into his little ego-trip to try and “prove” that it is.

  60. Eh, forget it Mnemosyne. You don’t give an inch to see another person’s point of you, and it makes discussion pointless.

  62. Eh, forget it Mnemosyne. You don’t give an inch to see another person’s point of you, and it makes discussion pointless.

    Hi, I’m the kettle! Who are you?

    The funniest part is, I’m not even an atheist. I just think that people who claim that Bible stories are factually true need to be challenged, not coddled.

  63. The thing that concerns me is that I don’t see what good it does to make fun of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament itself for no clear purpose. It doesn’t offend me personally, but I don’t think it’s a particularly sentitive thing to do with a religious text in a public space, no matter how silly you think it is.

    Who did that?

    Callie, before you get all concern-trollish about offending Christians (who are so, so oppressed, what with making up some huge percentage of the country) by making fun of the Old Testament, perhaps you could actually provide some examples of what you’re accusing people of?

    And, seriously, the “You shouldn’t make fun of the Bible because you’ll offend someone’s sincerely-held beliefs!” thing is so tired. Sincerely-held beliefs can be wrong, or silly, or plain dangerous. And it’s a safe bet that the people who get offended by mockery of the Bible don’t have a problem mocking, say, Wiccans or New Agers, whose beliefs are no less substantiated than their own — and are probably also sincerely-held.

    In any event, which “Bible” are we talking about here, anyway?

  64. Though I will go so far as to say that I appreciate the point Callie is making, I would say that, as a Christian, I am pretty sure that the shoe being talked about here doesn’t fit my foot so I am not going to try and put it on.

    See, I get that this mockery is venting about the people who “believe the Old Testament and New Testament are factually true” as opposed to the people like me, who have “sincerely held religious beliefs”, that are based in what is written in the Bible (obviously, being a Christian I pick the New Testament as my favorite), but have enough sense to know that religion and reason need not be mutually exclusive, though you couldn’t tell that from looking.

    I think we have to vent in order to deal with all the craziness surrounding us right now. And out of a desire to increase the mental health of the country, I say, we not take that venting personally.

    But that is just me. 😀

  65. Zuzu, I provided an example (the Noah story getting made fun of), I explained what book I was talking about (the first books of the Hebrew Bible that folks were referencing), and I made it explicitly clear that I would never mock anyone’s beliefs (that was where I was coming from in saying it wasn’t cool to mock a religious text). I have never mocked Wiccans or what they think is holy, for example, and wouldn’t–nor would I with any religious group, because I think it’s wrong to mock people’s spiritual beliefs. So you can disagree with me on other terms, but please don’t claim that there are ideas in my posts that aren’t there.

    Zuzu, I have to say I’m kind of hurt that you’d call me “trollish.” I really think that’s unfair, and it makes me feel unwelcome to express an unpopular opinion.

  66. Callie, this is soo not the problem. I personally refuse to go back to a time when the books of the Bible had to be taken as read, literally or as interpreted by the priest. The books were translated and published in the way back time to free the ideas and to free the believers to have ideas. If we cannot discuss them or poke fun at them or pick them apart then what is left?
    A museum that literally interprets the Bible by stuffing everything that we have learned into a 6000 period is deserving of mockery to the nth degree and I have a problem calling anyone a Christian who doesn’t get that.

  67. I have to say I’m kind of hurt that you’d call me “trollish.” I really think that’s unfair, and it makes me feel unwelcome to express an unpopular opinion.

    She said you were being concern-trollish. And given that you argued that the argument was wrong because it might be alienating to various groups of Christians is known as concern trolling around these parts.

    Frankly, I take far less issue with someone’s creation myths of choice than I do with the idea that Noah was out herding brontosaurses along with the goats. T. Rexes on a boat is damned silly, and I don’t think any allies are lost over it.

  68. I love how they say dinosaurs walked with humans because the Bible says so (as ‘dragons’).

    Um, wouldn’t the HUNDREDS OF OTHER CULTURES across the world mentioned them too? There are many rock paintings of various animals, and you’d think that, y’know, dinosaurs would get a definate mention SOMEWHERE in ancient human history. Especially in ancient cultures that worshipped animal spirits.

  69. I have to say I’m kind of hurt that you’d call me “trollish.” I really think that’s unfair, and it makes me feel unwelcome to express an unpopular opinion.

    Like evil fizz said, I said “concern-trollish.”

    I don’t see the point in privileging religious texts above all others and shielding them from criticism, ridicule or challenge. Particularly because they’re so often used as justification for racist and misogynist public policy — But it’s a sin! We can’t allow that! The Bible says so!

    And, frankly, I’m not interested in coddling people whose whims are already catered to quite well by our elected officials. Just once, I’d like to see an elected official state categorically that Biblical notions have no place in lawmaking. Especially when the KJV has well-known translation errors and substitutions, and contradicts itself left and right.

  70. T. Rexes on a boat is damned silly, and I don’t think any allies are lost over it.

    T. Rexes shouldn’t be a problem – they were scavengers. Velociraptors, now, those would be a problem.

  71. With the size limitation of the Ark, I would have thought that a pair of brontosaurus (i?) would pose a bit of a problem.

  72. Oh, but they brought babies, Hawise!

    Of course, if they only brought two of each species, what did they feed the carnivores?

  73. They prechewed and regurgitated? Of course with the snakes and reptiles they could have fed them a REALLY big meal before the storm started and just let them digest for a month.

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