Jesus Needs New PR, Part Deux
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
From The Atlantic Wire, Unicorns, Dinosaurs and Dragons were aboard Noah's Ark.
The $150 million Creationist Museum in Kentucky (of which roughly $40 million is in taxpayer-funded tax breaks, according to one angry blogger...not me...) will suggest that indeed, as supported in the bible, unicorns and dinos walked aboard the Ark.
From the article:
The Ark Encounter, will allow visitors to explore a literal interpretation of the Bible's story of Noah and the ark. But pseudonymous liberal Kentucky blogger Media Czech raises two important questions about that interpretation and how it will be manifest in theme park form. First, were there dinosaurs on the original ark? Second, what about unicorns?Click the link. Their reasons are priceless.
Answers In Genesis, the official blog of the group behind The Ark Encounter...says "yes," to both, which implies that their creationist theme park will include dinosaurs and unicorns on the Ark. Here's Answers In Genesis explaining why dinosaurs were on the Ark, although the group prefers to call them "dragons":
Oh, but I just have to show you their unicorn reason.
The biblical unicorn was a real animal, not an imaginary creature. ...To think of the biblical unicorn as a fantasy animal is to demean God’s Word, which is true in every detail.I am gonna laugh about this for a long time.
The punchline to the whole article makes me smile:
Kentucky will now be known as the state whose governor endorsed and gave $40 million in tax breaks to people who want to tell children that science and history explain that a 600 year old man herded dinosaurs, fire-breathing dragons and unicorns onto a big boat 4,000 years ago.
See?? Perfect! Unicorns and Rainbows!
6 comments:
See, here is the distinction I was shooting for in the last thread. Is a Creationist Museum stupid or anti-intellectual? I don't think it represents stupidity. I think it represents a willful lack of respect for or interest in observable data, expert analysis, and established theories about the origin of the planet and its inhabitants.
Stupid I can accept. Stupid can be addressed and fixed. Anti-intellectualism, however, is tougher to address and, to me, more worrisome, particularly when it is exhibited by people in power (e.g. the Governor and a majority of the legislature of Kentucky).
It is seriously funny, though. I'm not sure it's $40 million worth of funny, but it is funny.
I think when I dismissively say "stupid," I am referring exactly to what you talked about, Jay: anti-intellectualism. It takes willful, effort-laden ignorance to believe that the unequivocal end of the universe is this May, or that there were unicorns on the Ark (or that there was an Ark...but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for now). One would have to close their eyes and try really really hard to ignore the world around them, and to be proud of that ignorance to achieve the level of anti-intellectualism it takes to open a $150 million creation museum.
I,too, am worried about *willful* ignorance. It is one thing when a cult leader convinces the gullible to drive in RVs covered in apocalyptic symbology. That is a minority of a
minority of believers. But it is quite another thing when those same cult *followers* get elected and press voting buttons in Congress. Now...their ignorance carries weight.
The $150 million Creationist Museum in Kentucky...Kentucky
My Burger King comment applies to this, too.
The tax break thing doesn't irk me all that much if this monument to stupidity brings in revenue. States give tax breaks to shitty sports teams and other similar things, after all.
From now on, when we need to consider the person saying or doing the stupid, I am just going to call out: "Burger King".
Example:
"According to the NY Times, Sarah Palin today said..." Burger King!
Ya, I think we found a new tag for our posts. I am adding it forthwith.
I should note that I have nothing against BK. I just don't go there expecting a really great meal.
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