Can creationists get any stupider or more pathetic?
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/arts/24crea.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=3fce574910e89398&ex= 1180152000&pagewanted=all
Creation Museum opening up in Kentucky.
dinosaurs cavort near "ancient man" in displays. Universe is just 6000 years old according to the museum.
The U S of A is sliding quickly down a chasm from which there is no quick return.
the new dark ages will be upon us. Willful ignorance is the flavor of the day.

the earth is flat I tells ya, FLAT!!

don't even give this shit the time of day, it only fuels the fire.

The only reason Creationists still argue their point is because their is someone that will listen and give them a rebuttle.

that may be so jonathan but to allow anyone to spout off nonsense, and claim it is fact, defeats onesself. One MUST stand up and shout it in their face that they are WRONG. fight.

my father-in-law with his sage-like wisdom has two rules that guide him.

1) you can't fix stupid.
2) you can't fix crazy.

*also of note is: stupid / crazy people marry stupid / crazy people and have stupid / crazy kids.

Blah, blah, blah.

They're not hurting anybody but themselves. Leave them to it.

When they demand legitimacy and "equal time" in schools and the like, the damage spreads beyond their own bubble.

yes.

I think when we die we ascend to a higher plane where we each have our own 70ft giraffe, and we have to climb the scarf that hangs from their necks, and the creationists, they never get their own girraffe, because they dont believe theyre descended from apes so they CANT CLIMB

faith cannot be argued with

Just like you cant reason with a crocodile

The Crocodile: An Extraordinary Incident, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, trans. by Constance Black Garnett (text at English Server)

...A foreigner arrives in the capital bringing with him a crocodile which he begins exhibiting in the Arcade. We immediately hasten to welcome a new branch of useful industry such as our powerful and varied fatherland stands in great need of. Suddenly, yesterday at four o'clock in the afternoon, a gentleman of exceptional stoutness enters the foreigner's shop in an intoxicated condition, pays his entrance money, and immediately without any warning, leaps into the jaws of the crocodile, who was forced, of course, to swallow him, if only from an instinct of self-preservation, to avoid being crushed. Tumbling into the inside of the crocodile, the stranger at once dropped asleep. Neither the shouts of the foreign proprietor, nor the lamentations of his terrified family, nor threats to send for the police made the slightest impression. Within the crocodile was heard nothing but laughter and a promise to filet him, though the poor reptile, compelled to swallow such a mass, was vainly shedding tears. An uninvited guest is worse than a Tartar...:)
...The recklessness of the Russian temperament has found a fresh outlet. It may be asked what was the object of the uninvited visitor? A warm and comfortable abode? But there are many excellent houses in the capital with very cheap and comfortable lodgings, with the Neva water laid on, and a staircase lighted by gas, frequently with a hall-porter maintained by the proprietor. We would call our readers' attention to the barbarous treatment of domestic animals: it is difficult, of course, for the crocodile to digest such a mass all at once, and now he lies swollen out to the size of a mountain, awaiting death in insufferable agonies. In Europe, persons guilty of inhumanity towards domestic animals have long been punished by law. But in spite of our European enlightenment, in spite of our European pavements, in spite of the European architecture of our houses, we are still far from shaking off our time-honoured traditions.

Hey Rob, guess what?
Texas, Kansas, or Oklahoma will be next to have such ridiculous museums.

correct me if i'm wrong, but there are no mentions of dinosaurs in the bible...right?

the literalists make my head spin....

Its a wonder that Kansas wasn't the first.

No, but I guess now they are including dinosaurs as creatures God created because they realized it was too silly to refute their existence as they drove to Wal-Mart after church powering their combustion engine vehicles on gasoline derived from crude oil.

In the Moral Majority heyday, all the preachers taught their congregations that dinosaur bones were put here by Satan to fool Man.

And Einstein, who refined Newton's Laws, also believed in God. But, it's also easy to infer that both, as men of science, intelligently rejected literalist fundamentalist agendas.

Holy fuck... Everything I want to say's been said, but that is so friggin' absurd.

Yeah, oh & South Dakota...think that's perhaps a fucked situation over there too.

earth is here because of a big series of coincidences. i can imagine that's a bit hard to live with, people always try to make things more special and spectacular.

i don't believe in any divine intervention though. halelujah for coincidence.

Yeah, I was going to mention that bit in Job. It doesn't explicitly mention dinosaurs but the description of the beast, Behemoth I believe, could easily pass for a dinosaur.

And yes, I think creationists could potentially get more pathetic and stupid if they tried really, really hard.

That's the giant snake of Gehenna, as quoted in the Book of Dubya.

who wouldn't?

sorry to bump this, but over the past year I've gotten to know a few christians who are rather intelligent people and not the fundamentalist idiots I usually make them out to be.

Could it be that the Fallwells/Grahams/700 Club's of the world ruin it for everyone else?
Don't Catholics believe in science? It just makes me sick that anybody who is considered religious is automatically forced into a category with small minded nutjobs that we all despise. Granted, I only know a FEW religious folk who are pro gay rights and pro choice, but certainly there's more out there than we think?

//sorry to be off topic a bit but i've had like 70 glasses of wine and i found this thread again

lol @ Americans

Well, the stupid ones anyway.

I'm still an atheist, thank God.

http://www.answersincreation.org/job4041a.htm

this search took me 0.13 seconds...i dont necessarily agree with the author, but well, its funny the question went this long unanswered...

don't get too excited, there's quite a number of evangelicals in australia too...

this thread looks oddly familar hmmmm

edit: http://sonicyouth.com/gossip/showthread.php?t=13630&

Tough to say. To me, the mere adoption of a religious creed suggests a narrowed perspective. If you claim to subscribe to a faith-based ideology (for the sake of this argument, "religious" or idol-worshipping), you're agreeing to abide by and lending credence to all tenets of its philosophy. Therefore, altering your observance of those rules to accommodate your own principles, or injecting what you feel to be logic (e.g. rejecting more extreme Catholic views on sacredness of marriage, what have you), is hypocritical, self-serving, and presumptuous.

In a way, I respect religious "fundamentalists" more, because their "faith" doesn't waiver, and they've adopted the attitude that if you're going to sign up for something, you're not going to do it half-assed, you're going to respect the ideology in its original authorship, and you're not going to alter your mentality or behavior with the temptations of modernity or moral convenience. They may be utterly insane and completely illogical, but they're stickin' to their guns, man!

Anyway, what this means in short is, yes, I blanketly judge the religious, because I'm an ass like that.

i understand that logic, i mean the most strict are the most faithful to the gospel, but many of their leaders be it pastors or government officials break any commandment they want when it suits them, especially adultery which seems to be the most popular broken commandment of the religious right

it's interesting to look at my parents are proclaimed catholics, but they very lapsed catholics who never go to church unless it's for a wedding or a funeral (which for my dad is becoming common place considering many firefighters don't have long life spans), and also while they don't like abortion, they do believe in the right for a woman to choose, and they respect my own personal views on religion but still have a strong faith, and doesn't seem to waiver.

it's a very unique outlook, but but while their is a certain honesty in sticking to the word of the gospel, i have much more respect to those who are able to see past many of the tenants of something that written some two millennium ago and look to morality based on human rights which more often then not that people who preach to the book have certainly ignored when it suited their needs

I agree with that re: fundamentalists, which is why I personally can't take a very consistent stance on the issue. But, and no offense to your parents intended, while I may respect their morality and principles, I simply don't see the point in labeling oneself as a member of a religious faction if he/she observes its rituals in an "obligatory" fashion.

The most generic thing I can say is, the human factor will make any facet of "religion" inconsistent and contradictory. I'm not sure if I find someone who retains logical moral tenets of a religion while discarding more extreme and less sensible aspects respectable, or deluded. I'm genuinely curious as to how someone benefits by adopting the label, without following its rules.

I apologize for going off-topic in this thread.

Perhaps I can explain a small amount from a Christian point of view.

At its centre, Christianity should be about the teachings and actions of Jesus - nothing else is as important. If we take that idea as true, then it is essential to say that The New Testament contains, mainly via the writings of Paul, elements that go against the teachings of Jesus. (Paul was described by Thomas Jefferson as the 'first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus', and CG Jung expressed things admirably when he said that 'Paul hardy ever allows the real Jesus of Nazereth to get a word in')

'Christian Fundamentalism' (which I suppose I would class myself a part of) is all about love, tolerance and what I might awkwardly term 'non-aggresive appropriate evangelism'. The people who get labelled as 'Christian fundamentalists' are in fact ususally exactly the opposite - they are often people who abandon the teachings of Jesus at every opportunity.

There is a real split developing within the Christian world, and the cause is that many Christians make a two-fold error; firstly using the teachings of Paul as a rod to beat everyone else, and secondly insisting on the nonsensical (and un-CHristian) idea that the Bible is inerrable.

That's not to say that other writings cannot add to our understanding of Jesus (for example, there is some wondeful stuff to be found in the apocryphal Gospels and Acts, the Nag Hammadi scrolls or in people like Mother Julian of Norwich), but if something appears to alter or modify Jesus' word, then it should be treated with extreme caution.



There is much in the New Testament, especially the writings of Paul, that is influencd by personal and cultural experience of the time. It is not only desirable, but essential that this is realised.





So basically, I was trying to say that the whole teachings of a religion should indeed be followed properly or not at all, but people should be careful that they know what those teachings really are.

Once again, the voice of wisdom speaks, and Hip Priest clarified everything. Excellent points.

well it has to do with taking a certain solace in a higher state of being. regardless of any modern thought, there is a comfort in times of grief, it's even been pr oven in surveys that those that identify themselves as religious are much happier and less grief-stricken then those who don't see themselves as religious,

i have talked to my parents about this subject, and it's more the fact that my parents can find contentment and even clarity when a loved one passes or when times become otherwise unbearable to handle

Fair enough, if it works for them. I just can't personally identify with it. As SC alluded to, the problem arises when someone attempts to hoist their beliefs on others, or effect policy in relation to them.

supposedly there's a book out there titled '1000 Ways the Bible is meant for you to be a capitalist' (it could be 100 Ways...i may have the title off a bit)

Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I've tried googling w/no luck...

I totally agree, but it's funny how some people read into verses differently than others. And in my experience, they read into the bible what is more convenient for them

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, then having the two as close together as possible.