Creationists are at it again...
Nov. 23rd, 2004 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenSo, an ABC News brief popped up about people who want to leave the US because it's not the country of freedom any more (people from mild-mannered college professors to a woman managing a gay/lesbian wedding planning/vendor site who's received so many threats she's already moved twice). This was great...then I saw what's really ticked me off: an article titled "Conservatives Demand Changes at Nation's Parks."
At first, it's irksome, but, I think, fair, that Reverend I'msuchagoodperson wants there to be footage from pro-life, anti-gay marriage protests shown in with other protests that have been held at the Lincoln Memorial Plaza...if there were any. The Park Service grumbles about changing the video, but, in the spirit of fairness, if...and this is a pretty big if...if there were such protests, they ought to be included. There will be no left-wing revisionist histories at public places any more than there will be right-wing histories. However, if that Holier-than-thou idiot insists and WINS the right to remove footage from the tape shown at the memorial because it shows pro-gay marriage, pro-choice marches, I'll scream. He wants one scene in particular removed: the one of a gay man holding a sign saying "The Lord is my Shephed and knows I'm gay." I can see why that might upset his carefully constructed gays=the antiChrist stance, but fair's fair, and that guy definitely was at the Memorial. When Mr. Preacherman can bring up the dead baby proof, he can have some time, too. It's just that the Lincoln Memorial has historically attracted the oppressed--you know, like the Jews were under the Pharoah in the O.T.? Or like the draftees in Vietnam? Or gays?
What really, really pissed me off was the inclusion of "The Grand Canyon: A Different View" at the bookstore associated with that national park. This is written by an author who's declared himself born again and says that there's no way the geological record can possibly be right because the Grand Canyon--in fitting the the Biblical timeline--is only a few thousand years old. He prefers to believe that the Grand Canyon was caused by the Biblical flood, the one with Noah and the ark and all that, which he believes because he met the Lord...those are his words, too.
The Park Service, to their credit, are bristling, as the stated purpose in their mission is "to promote the use of sound science in all of its programs, including public education." This isn't the freakin Galapagos Islands. Hell, this isn't even Hawaii with its convergently evolved spiders and their similar webs. This isn't supposed to be an evolutionary debate, just a "HOW OLD IS THIS BIG CRACK?" (he he). The fact that someone, despite accepting physics and chemistry, the less 'controversial' sciences, can then sit back and say the findings using applied theories of those disciplines (carbon dating, other forms of radioactive decay, etc etc etc to age rock however they do it) are bullshit....God, it makes me SO mad.
Why? Why is it that the Earth can't be older than the Bible? That one has absolutely ZERO Biblical support. In the beginning, as the story goes, the Earth was a dark planet devoid of life....kinda like rocks. Rocks don't need the breath of God to crack, break up, build up, crumble, or turn into mountains. People can, even from the Creationist viewpoint, still be only 4,000 years old (if they spontaneously pop into being as Adam and Eve and get started from there) even if you admit the Earth is older. The Earth's natural formations could and did occur for millions, even billions of years before lightning zapped primitive molecules into being RNA, then DNA, and so on upwards. Why does it have to be man-made? Or, rather, God-made directly? There's no Biblical evidence that God wanted anything to do with the Earth until Genesis, so therefore nothing could happen? GROWL...
And they're selling this asshole's book next to LEGITIMATE SCIENCE BOOKS. So, someone's going to pick it up expecting "The story of the Grand Canyon dates back the first fissures some 1,000,000 years ago, in the such-and-such period," and get "OMG GOD MADE THE WORLD AND MAN AND EVERYTHING!!! IF YOU BELIEVE OTHERWISE YOUR GOING TO HELL! THE GRAND CANYON CANT BE OLDER BECAUSE GOD MADE IT!!! AND THE BIBLE SAYS ITS NOT THAT OLD!!!!!" (punctuation errors are intentional--I doubt that anyone who can't trust geological time could find the marks on the keyboard--he's probably still writing in manuscript form because the electronic word is the Devil)
At first, it's irksome, but, I think, fair, that Reverend I'msuchagoodperson wants there to be footage from pro-life, anti-gay marriage protests shown in with other protests that have been held at the Lincoln Memorial Plaza...if there were any. The Park Service grumbles about changing the video, but, in the spirit of fairness, if...and this is a pretty big if...if there were such protests, they ought to be included. There will be no left-wing revisionist histories at public places any more than there will be right-wing histories. However, if that Holier-than-thou idiot insists and WINS the right to remove footage from the tape shown at the memorial because it shows pro-gay marriage, pro-choice marches, I'll scream. He wants one scene in particular removed: the one of a gay man holding a sign saying "The Lord is my Shephed and knows I'm gay." I can see why that might upset his carefully constructed gays=the antiChrist stance, but fair's fair, and that guy definitely was at the Memorial. When Mr. Preacherman can bring up the dead baby proof, he can have some time, too. It's just that the Lincoln Memorial has historically attracted the oppressed--you know, like the Jews were under the Pharoah in the O.T.? Or like the draftees in Vietnam? Or gays?
What really, really pissed me off was the inclusion of "The Grand Canyon: A Different View" at the bookstore associated with that national park. This is written by an author who's declared himself born again and says that there's no way the geological record can possibly be right because the Grand Canyon--in fitting the the Biblical timeline--is only a few thousand years old. He prefers to believe that the Grand Canyon was caused by the Biblical flood, the one with Noah and the ark and all that, which he believes because he met the Lord...those are his words, too.
The Park Service, to their credit, are bristling, as the stated purpose in their mission is "to promote the use of sound science in all of its programs, including public education." This isn't the freakin Galapagos Islands. Hell, this isn't even Hawaii with its convergently evolved spiders and their similar webs. This isn't supposed to be an evolutionary debate, just a "HOW OLD IS THIS BIG CRACK?" (he he). The fact that someone, despite accepting physics and chemistry, the less 'controversial' sciences, can then sit back and say the findings using applied theories of those disciplines (carbon dating, other forms of radioactive decay, etc etc etc to age rock however they do it) are bullshit....God, it makes me SO mad.
Why? Why is it that the Earth can't be older than the Bible? That one has absolutely ZERO Biblical support. In the beginning, as the story goes, the Earth was a dark planet devoid of life....kinda like rocks. Rocks don't need the breath of God to crack, break up, build up, crumble, or turn into mountains. People can, even from the Creationist viewpoint, still be only 4,000 years old (if they spontaneously pop into being as Adam and Eve and get started from there) even if you admit the Earth is older. The Earth's natural formations could and did occur for millions, even billions of years before lightning zapped primitive molecules into being RNA, then DNA, and so on upwards. Why does it have to be man-made? Or, rather, God-made directly? There's no Biblical evidence that God wanted anything to do with the Earth until Genesis, so therefore nothing could happen? GROWL...
And they're selling this asshole's book next to LEGITIMATE SCIENCE BOOKS. So, someone's going to pick it up expecting "The story of the Grand Canyon dates back the first fissures some 1,000,000 years ago, in the such-and-such period," and get "OMG GOD MADE THE WORLD AND MAN AND EVERYTHING!!! IF YOU BELIEVE OTHERWISE YOUR GOING TO HELL! THE GRAND CANYON CANT BE OLDER BECAUSE GOD MADE IT!!! AND THE BIBLE SAYS ITS NOT THAT OLD!!!!!" (punctuation errors are intentional--I doubt that anyone who can't trust geological time could find the marks on the keyboard--he's probably still writing in manuscript form because the electronic word is the Devil)
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-24 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-24 08:07 am (UTC)...which is the problem in its entirety. People read to interpret, yet somehow they're offended when outsiders suggest that the word of God is metaphorical in many respects. Clearly, the laws of Leviticus, about a woman having to be forced out of her village when she has her period, brother's of deceased men having to marry the widow, having many wives in general, are no longer practical. I wonder, if confronted with these laws, and told "You must choose: all or none," how soon fundamentalists would sign up for those old restrictions.
If the word is perfect, you cannot question any of it. If you choose to question or negate by ommision, that's tantamount to sin. So, either it's all or none, baby.
Interesting thing about the English translation you mentioned above--wasn't there some woman in Texas who said "English was good enough for Jesus, so it should be good enough for them" re: Spanish-speaking immigrants from Mexico?
no subject
Date: 2004-11-25 09:52 pm (UTC)ENGLISH WAS GOOD ENOUGH FOR JESUS!!!!!!!!!!!