Teach your children well?
I’m really frustrated by creationists. Not only are they lying to their children, they’re taking so much of the joy of the natural world away from kids right when they should be reveling in it. Watch this video and try not to get absolutely irate.
Fossils are boring? Fossils are boring?! I remember when I was a little kid, going to the natural history museum with my class and having the opportunity to hold a trilobite fossil. I thought it was absolutely the coolest thing in the whole world, not only this rock with the pretty designs in it, but the fact that I was holding a rock that had, 50 million years ago, been alive. When I was in Ireland, I went to Belfast and visited the natural science museum. They had a lot of incredibly cool things, including a skeleton of a Giant Irish Deer, which lived about 400,000 years ago.
This picture doesn’t do this gigantic beast justice–it was HUGE. And TERRIFYING. You hear ‘deer’ you think timid little forest creature, right? Bambi’s mom, nuzzling her baby with her velvet-soft muzzle. Not this deer.
In appearance, the Giant Deer was a magnificent animal. He stood at almost 2 metres high at the shoulders and is estimated to have weighed from 800 to 1000 lbs (364-454 kg) although it may well have been in excess of this. The most striking feature of this animal was his huge antlers which measured up to 4 metres along the curvature which are the largest antlers of any known deer, living or extinct.
This incredible animal was extinct in Ireland 4,500 years before young earth creationists believe that the earth came into being.
I have a lot of problems with religion, but I think this is my biggest pet peeve. Believe what you want. Let me believe (or not) as I want. But don’t lie. Don’t lie to your kids. Isn’t that one of your commandments?
Published March 25, 2008 . Filed under: Uncategorized
This is my biggest irritation with the religious folk as well. You need something outside of yourself to believe in because you’re scared? You can’t cope with the idea of death? That’s fine, invent God and Heaven. I can understand that, but don’t go mucking around in things that have legitimate explanations.
To that end, Ben Stein has had a stroke or something. He was on CNN last night raving about gravity and evolution and how atheists lack morals and ethics. (WTF? I didn’t watch this, a friend and I were discussing it later.) Our lack of morals is why you always hear about atheist compounds being raided for under-age polygamy and killing people that are different than us.
Have you been following the Expelled movie? That’s a truly amusing saga, and hopefully people are seeing the absurdity of both the movie and the beliefs.
Check out Pharyngula’s blog, he was interviewed for the movie under false pretenses and has been keeping close tabs on it. It just gets more and more unbelievable.
I’ve been watching this mess on and off, even though it makes my brain hurt. I saw that he had brought Dawkins along for the lulz, but didn’t know about his interview with them. That is really disturbing.
The people who will go see this movie in earnest are the kind not to do the research or question what they see on the screen. I’m sort of amazed at the wide distribution it’s gotten, at least in San Diego. I want to rent it when it comes out on video, but I also don’t want to have a brain embolism.