There are people who believe that dinosaurs and men lived together, that they roamed the Earth at the same time. There are museums that children go to, in which they build dioramas to show them this. And what this is, purely and simply, is a clinical psychotic reaction. They are crazy. They are stone-cold-fucknuts. I can't be kind about this, because these people are watching The Flintstones as if it were a documentary. –Lewis Black, Red, White and Screwed (2006)
Fred Flintstone literally made "history," according to some fellow-Americans.
I realize that Lewis Black’s presentation might sound unkind. In fact, I’ve known people like those who literally believe dinosaurs and humans co-existed, not just some branch of the Hominidae family tree, but homo sapiens, Adam and Eve, Cain, Abel, even using domesticated dinosaurs as transportation and pack animals, if Ken Ham were to be believed. How seriously should one take such "true" believers? I'm not sure. One can find them in U.S. communities everywhere. They might be members of your own family. To see a true believer's blog, they seem like "nice" enough people.
Here is an Active Duty Marine and his family, all smiles, seemingly happy and healthy. In one of the blogger's self-revelations, we find that he even questions those who would maintain an anti-abortion stance while still supporting war. Their trip to the Creation Museum would seem harmless enough, except that it's not just creepy--it reveals an extremely irresponsible approach toward educating their children. It suggests that because one feels threatened by science or philosophical notions, one's children should be shielded from them as well. I'm not sure exactly what the threat is, but these people genuinely feel something dire is going on in areas of science that they cannot otherwise take for granted and use for their convenience. Perhaps more disturbing is
this blogger who boasts of taking her "eight grade" class for a visit to the Creation Museum for an educational outing. Elsewhere, she decries the fact that
[w]e get so blasted by evolution that there is a need for a place that helps to solidify our view of a six literal day creation.
One hopes that she is not a science teacher.
Perhaps it’s true that irony’s death quickly accelerated in the U.S. as of 1980, when a large portion of the U.S. celebrated the presidential election of a fake cowboy who dodged combat and lied about helping to liberate the Nazi death camp at Buchenwald while serving in the Army, though he never left the mainland U.S. during WWII.
Before canonization, St. Ronnie forged a place in history as a cowboy, football star, war hero, and general man of God.
If that is so, then a stake got driven through irony’s heart when 20 years later, what was left of that group and its ideological progeny danced for joy at the appointment of yet another phony cowboy who transformed what should have been a dishonorable, Vietnam-dodging enlistment into triumph at his “Mission Accomplished” landing, just as the debacle he helped engineer began to truly unravel. Yes, only in America could irony receive a double-dose of killing, at the hands of more irony.
Conservatives who have supported these rather bizarre candidates to serve as U.S. president are also those who go beyond denying the reality of the chaos left in the wake of their rule but go further to deify them after they leave office (to seemingly be raptured into heaven). Now, it is St. Ronnie the Conqueror who once walked on water with Her Holiness Nancy the Virgin Queen, ruling from God's right hand in that Great Oval Office in the sky.
St. Ronnie and the Queen Mother photographed on a water-walk when they thought no one was looking.
St. Ronnie never really died and now projects spiritual messages to the faithful from the "Great Oval Office in the Sky."
It seems, therefore, necessary that in the midst of its brief, 15 decades of fame, evolution must once again be defended amid great fanfare, against an apparently continually evolving adversary, creationism, though it is, ironically, creationism’s “defender(s)” who present themselves as under siege, as the underdog. That the “debate,” as it were, should resemble a World Wrestling Federation Smackdown or Reality TV drama simply suits the age. Even if the
19th Century debates between Thomas Henry Huxley and Samuel Wilberforce over human origins and the claim for the operation of natural selection or divine intervention should have provided ample drama, it is almost certain that most Americans neither know nor care that they took place. More theater, then, is necessary.
Thanks to Christian Dem in NC and SC damn yankee for posting diaries here and here, to alert the community of the Main Event (I guess a WWF allusion here is not actually too absurd). "In this corner, weighing in at 185 pounds of divinely inspired wisdom, representing the epicenter of American Culture, Petersburg, KY, Ken "Bam-Bam" Ham. And the challenger, at 160 pounds soaking wet, from such sin-cities as Washington, DC, and Los Angeles, Bill "Nerdy" Nye.
Woe unto thee, Bill Nye for venturing into Ham's sanctuary, to engage in this battle. And is this battle really necessary? Actually, considering creationism's ongoing presence, let alone its impact on national discussions on everything from education to climate change, perhaps it is. Perhaps it is even time to stop treating "true believers" in literal biblical translations of "history" with such compassion or kindness, at least over notions that affect legislation, education and the lives of their fellow-citizens who choose not to share their beliefs. I will still maintain hope for the true believers' children, who may one day rebel after they find out they were lied to about history via their religious training. I know I rebelled after my Catholic upbringing. Want alternative versions for history? There are many that are not only equally entertaining (or more so) but just as plausible.
Dear Mr. Ham: Keep your picture book version of Adam and Eve interacting with raptors and docile T-Rexes. I have discovered an even more plausible version of history thanks to this guy:
Mr. Peabody was so evolved that he had his own boy.
Also, I know that you or your supporters engage in a literal search for Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat, which even inspired
Greenpeace to build a replica, hoping to appeal to all the major world religions to take climate change seriously. However, most true, literalist bible believers and the political leaders whom they choose to represent them continue to deny human impacts on Global Climate Change. So I propose an alternate "theory" for the "Flood" story. First, fundamentalists are looking in the wrong geographic location for the Ark. The "real" Ark landed somewhere near
Frostbite Falls, MN and rather than looking like this:
Ark re-creation on Mt. Ararat was designed to unite believers to take responsibility for the planet.
it looked more like this:
Actual Ark found encased in ice near Frostbite Falls, MN.
How do I know this, because a little known detail about human inhabitants of the ark beyond Noah, his wife, Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, and their wives, was a detail concerning the appearance of this man Peteram Peachfuzzeth, who actually piloted the ark when Noah nipped a bit too much at the fermented fruit bins:
Peteram Peachfuzzeth (as described in a salutatory song fragment among the Psalms unearthed among the Dead Sea Scrolls).
And let's just put that "Satan planted fossilized dinosaur remains to baffle humans" notion to rest right now. As has been thoroughly proven by now, the Devil devours human flesh, not dinosaur meat, so why would he be littering the earth with that brand of bone? The real culprits are the infamous Devil Dogs (alluded to in non-canonical versions of Revelation). A couple of actual examples have been captured using special cameras. (Yes, perhaps it appears hypocritical to use scientifically engineered devices, created by believers in evolution, to further our goals, just as it sound contradictory to drive our fossil fuel burning vehicles to our fossil fuel powered Creation Museum for further edification, but sometimes we must use implements developed by Satan's handmaids to do sacred work, right?) Anyway, here are the Devil Dogs:
Beware of Devil Dogs. They can be mean.
Devil Dog caught in the act of burying a fake dinosaur bone.
Well, have a great debate, Praise St. Ronnie (genuflect). I'm glad you true believers are out there, helping keep the world safe from all those mean, old evolutionists. If the gloves do come off in February, I hope bad, bad Bill Nye isn't too hard on poor Ken Ham. I'd hate for the event to threaten his wingnutty cash cow in any way. Meanwhile, I think I'll have a little breakfast.
Bon Appetite.
Deviled eggs, anyone?