Comments on: The Creationist Clown Show Marches On

By: Benjamin Chapman

Benjamin Chapman — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 00:51:38 +0000

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By: Nayre

Nayre — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 14:03:18 +0000

hehehe – please…. (wiping a tear…) – please stop! – - my sides are splitting! hehe – wow – can’t – stop – laughing – so – hard – - (deep breath) – (bursts out laughing again…) – please! – have mercy – hehehe

By: D. Eric Harmn

D. Eric Harmn — Tue, 10 May 2005 21:50:22 +0000

I don’t have a problem believing that the universe was probably “created” by something–something some call the creator or god or gods (whatever it is, many ancient philosophers descibe this as an unknowable mystery that we can not comprehend via our limited form of consciousness). So if biology teachers taught the theory of evolution, admitted that it has some holes (ala, the missing link) and allowed that philosophically there are aspects of our existence that even science can not or has not fully explained, I’d be okay. What I’m not okay with is taking ANY creation myth and offering it as science. Instead, I think they should be taught in the context of what a lot of these stories are–just intricate myths–lining them all up, including the one in the bible, should show students that they are all just that–a story people tell themselves because they can’t answer the big question of the “mystery” of creation…when I read a whole bunch of creation stories in a row as a young teen, I tossed the genesis story into the hat of mythology where (in my opinion) it righfully belongs…the fact that genesis chapters 1 and 2 offer totally different and separate creation stories should be the first clue…also, if you are ever so unlucky to get into a debate with a creationist, ask them this–where did Cain get his wife, and where did all the people in the land of Nod come from? By any careful (or sloppy) reader’s account, when Cain kills Abel, that leaves only 3 people left on the planet…adam, eve, and the sibling killing Cain…yet he flees east of eden and gets a wife who lives in a land where there are a whole bunch of heretofore unaccounted for individuals…it’s the same reaction I felt when reading greek mythology, and reading about the origin of Hermes/Mercury…there is a story of him being a trickster as a very young child/god and tricking his half brother Apollo out of some cattle…yet, in another story, a fully grown Hermes is present whent the world is being made by the gods, and he contributes some gifts to the earth–yet in another story he is born on earth as a baby–Almost all creation stories have these anachronisms and inconistencies…we would be better served if we studied them as stories that show us more about the people who created Gods, not the other way around…of course, the problem with creationists is their refusal to accept that THEIR version of creation is just another myth like everyone else’s…

By: BriMan

BriMan — Tue, 10 May 2005 10:42:32 +0000

So Sunday school just doesnt cut the mustard anymore!
Let’s see – Jesus was a rich white man from the Middle East who advocated servitude for women, tax cuts for the merchants and preisthood, foreign wars, and debtors prisons (read bankruptcy issues). Oh wait – that was W’s great-great-great…
Let’s all loudly proclaim how ignorant we are and go home! Yay!

By: Cynthia

Cynthia — Tue, 10 May 2005 09:22:40 +0000

My brother married a woman from Kansas and then they moved there. He became a creationist and loves Roy Moore and his 10 Commandments stone. We don’t talk much since our Moore “debate”…

By: Itlejinent Disiner

Itlejinent Disiner — Tue, 10 May 2005 01:33:14 +0000

“Do these two geniuses know anything about tree ring dating or ice core dating?”

It’s not bad enough you sodomize puppies, now you want us to date trees?!!? And what’s Ice Core dating? Something to do with those figure skaters? We know all about them….

By: D. Sidhe

D. Sidhe — Tue, 10 May 2005 00:53:10 +0000

Oooh! AlterNet is Peek-ing at you.
http://www.alternet.org/peek/

By: Les Wynin

Les Wynin — Tue, 10 May 2005 00:46:50 +0000

(By the way, I was raised in Kansas, and now live in Hiroshima. Some of us do get out, and then we get WAY out.)

The fact that some people find living in one of the two cities in history to ever have been nuked preferable to living in Kansas is, to my mind, noteworthy.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 10 May 2005 00:25:23 +0000

I grew up in Kansas too, although i lived in a part of Kansas that was further east and we called it “Indiana”. That the ID/creationist folks haven’t bothered to read the opposing viewpoints isn’t exactly surprising; theirs is not an argument based on evaluation of the evidence. What i’ve never understood is *why* they want their beliefs to be accepted as science. Clearly their philosophy is that faith must trump reason, no matter how outlandishly contrary to reason their beliefs may be. It would be more consistent for them to advocate teaching of religion.

By: Ken Houghton

Ken Houghton — Mon, 09 May 2005 23:47:25 +0000

“Two said they believe the earth could be as young as 5,000 years old.”

Memory serving, Bishop Ussher dated the word, based on the Bible, as having started on 3 September 4004 BCE. (I may be off by a week, but I’m fairly certain on month and year.)

4004+2005 = 6,009

Not only do they rely on faith, but they cannot add based on that faith.

Good thing the Chinese and Indians don’t have to teach to such standards.

By: Wha?

Wha? — Mon, 09 May 2005 23:19:57 +0000

Kansas – making Mississippi look better every day!

By: RJ

RJ — Mon, 09 May 2005 23:12:34 +0000

When I took some law classes, one of the maxims I learned was that “you can’t legislate against stupidity.” It looks like Kansas is trying to legislate against intelligence. Remind me never to visit there. I’d be arrested for thinking.

By: Yosef

Yosef — Mon, 09 May 2005 22:58:41 +0000

“…a bit from Job where the sun is described as racing from sunset to resume its sunrise position.”

I thought that was a Pink Floyd song.

By: Sean M

Sean M — Mon, 09 May 2005 13:56:53 +0000

Half Sigma, you might be thinking of the Copernicus/Galileo stuff. In that case, the church actually did have a couple of passages to cite – the bit from Joshua where the sun stands still so that the Israelites can butcher some Canaanites and a bit from Job where the sun is described as racing from sunset to resume its sunrise position.

Not that either of those have the remotest thing to do with science, but the church didn’t oppose heliocentrism strictly out of pique.

By: raj

raj — Mon, 09 May 2005 13:51:33 +0000

If PZ is waiting for a creationism issue to arise in Boston prior to visiting there, he’ll be waiting for a long time. (We live in a suburb of Boston.)

Recalling Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, who noted that, after encountering the tornado, she wasn’t in Kansas any more, considering this silliness going on in Kansas, she might have thought seriously about staying in Oz.

By: Jimbo

Jimbo — Mon, 09 May 2005 11:55:33 +0000

We’re doomed.

Sorry.

By: Half Sigma

Half Sigma — Mon, 09 May 2005 10:52:02 +0000

“We’re obviously going to need some Flat-Earth Geography… just show me in the Bible where it says the earth is round!”

I don’t think the Bible addresses the issue at all, it was something the Catholic Church made up later.

The Mormon religion is much more modern, making the existence of other solar systems with intelligent life part of the dogma.

By: Eric Pyle

Eric Pyle — Mon, 09 May 2005 07:06:08 +0000

Somebody should tell nice Mrs. Martin that “scan” means to read thoroughly and carefully, which is exactly what she hasn’t done. “Skim” means to read quickly, which she doesn’t have to do because God has already told her what to say.

It isn’t just science in which these people are illiterate.

(By the way, I was raised in Kansas, and now live in Hiroshima. Some of us do get out, and then we get WAY out.)

By: Robert

Robert — Mon, 09 May 2005 05:33:40 +0000

Kansas is neither backwards nor illiterate-like Cobb county in GA (one of the wealthies and whitest “W” counties in the nation) these anti-evolutionists are not country bumpkins. What HAS happened there, and here (Cobb county) is a unopposed minority more conservative than the “thanks for the tax cut” republicans that voted them in has hijacked the process. Interestingly, in 2000, when the Kansas schoolboard proposed similar standards, all the evangelical republicans involved lost to more moderate republicans in primaries. Don’t think these are innocent ramblings of an ignorant few-even scarier, these are super-funded, well thought out, multimedia initiatives that are framed to make rational approaches and science look silly and hostile.

By: Available Light

Available Light — Mon, 09 May 2005 00:25:21 +0000

We Don’t Need No Education

Now here’s a sound way to set education policy: Just don’t read any arguments except the ones you already agree with! That makes it all so simple….