Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Genesis was a Band, not a Truth

Scary: Answers in Genesis Creation Museum

They call it a "walk through history." They say that evolution is only possible with UFO's an aliens, and say that that's what "scientists" are pushing on people.

One of the exhibits has people and dinosaurs coexisting together, walking around like it actually happened. In fact, some of the dinusaurs have SADDLES ON THEM so they can be ridden by their HUMAN MASTERS.

I learned about this off of Convulsive space: The Creation Museum, a blog written by a scientist (one of those people who acutally had to go to school to learn what natural selection was, rather than taking it from someone on the news who didn't have to go to school at all). I quote from that blog here:
There is a new museum being built called "The Creation Museum," and one of the exhibits shows people side-by-side with dinosaurs (in Eden). According to News Hour, one of the dinosaurs even has a saddle on it.

Come on people!!! It's one thing to say that:

(the Intelligent Design view) "Life must have been designed because it is too complex to be accounted for by natural selection,"
or

(the Creationist view) that "God designed all life as it is today and that fossils and carbon dating are tricks by the devil or tests of faith by God."

Both of these views are sincere and true-hearted attempts to reconcile the apparent randomness of evolutionary biology with the order that one believes God brings to the universe.

But it's another thing altogether to go around constructing total fiction at a MUSEUM. People and dinosours co-existing? There's no evidence for that in the Bible, and there is certainly loads of scientific evidence AGAINST it.

Again, I blame this on Dr. Tom DeLay, the idiot captain.
 

3 comments:

Ted Pavlic said...

I'm not a big fan of making fun of these other Creation myths. Does that seem hypocritical? I don't think so.

You see, these other myths had a purpose. They served a function. I think the Genesis myth may have once served a function, or perhaps serves a function that is going to drive humanity toward extinction.

So I really make fun of the people who strictly follow the creation myth despite the way our culture depends on science. Myths are supposed to encapsulate the values of the society. These Genesis-style myths are parasitic in *our* culture.

Ted Pavlic said...

You still don't understand what I'm saying, and you're taking this too personally.

For one thing, these sorts of issues don't deserve this much time, breath, or precious energy. There are better things to be concerned about.

The reason I'm not making fun of the Egyption creation myth is that it probably fit with the Egyption culture well. It carried some underlying meaning that helped them deal with their everyday lives.

Tribal peoples who are not separated by language barriers from other tribal peoples don't view their myths as being superior to the myths of the surrounding tribes. They say, "Our god does this" and "Their god does crazy things"... When they're talking about "god" here they are using it as a proximate for their own culture. There isn't one god that transcends all cultures ("the transcendent"); there are lots of gods that each transcend a particular culture ("a transcendent").

Our creation myth does not transcend our culture, and we would be much better off if we had a myth that does. People believe literally in myths that do not incorporate our everyday cultural experiences. These myths are not helping us deal with our new scientific findings; they're just slowing us down.

The Abrahamic myths (and I do point at "Genesis" at being a big part of this) represent a culture of expansion. To quote Ann Coulter, who was proud of this:

"The ethic of conservation is the explicit abnegation of man's dominion over the Earth. The lower species are here for our use. God said so: Go forth, be fruitful, multiply, and rape the planet -- it's yours. That's our job: drilling, mining and stripping. Sweaters are the anti-Biblical view. Big gas-guzzling cars with phones and CD players and wet bars -- that's the Biblical view."

(that was from her "Oil good; Democrats bad." column)

I criticize Genesis not because it's silly. I criticize the followers of Genesis for not understanding that a creation myth is supposed to be more than just a silly story. It's supposed to encapsulate a culture, and the culture that that myth encapsulates is not only incompatible with a sustainable society, but is also far out of touch with what our actual culture views as reality. This ENTIRE POST proves that. The fact that we can criticize EGYPTION myths shows that. The fact that you can't use "because Adam and Eve were naked" in court shows that.

Eeek! I'm going to be late...

Ted Pavlic said...

Who says serfdom is a bad thing? Yes, Egyptian myths may have had a lot to do with power, but they deceived the ones in power just as much as the ones being ruled... And who says that was bad for either of them?

I can make fun of these people because I live in the same culture of them. I don't live with ancient Egyptians.