Re: Adam, Eve and T. Rex

[don ohmes <d_ohmes@yahoo.com>]

Quite by chance I debated the creation issue with a
person who identified himself as Kent Hovind on the
phone one night 4 or 5 years ago. 

These points gave him (it seemed to me) pause:
1. It states in Genesis (King James version) that man
and animal were created with the same substance,
"dust".
2. It states in Revelations that the word "day" is not
to be taken literally ("a day is as a thousand years"
if I recall correctly).
3. Nowhere does the Bible specifically state that
there was only _one_ flood; further, the Bible implies
that there were survivors of the Flood unconnected to
the Ark in that they suddenly appear in the post-flood
story without explanation. This is a fundamental point
relative to YE.
4. Scientists may arguably be guilty of hubris, but
creationists are equally vulnerable to the charge of
false pride; I can't find any mention of specific
methods of creation in the King James version. In
fact, God tells Job "my understanding is not your
understanding". 

My point is that the creationist argument (and the
professional practioners of it) are even more
vulnerable from a scriptural perspective than from a
scientific one, and the political battle should be
waged _by scientists_ on that front. The body of
knowledge obtained by correct use of the scientific
method can/must by definition defend itself. 

The words of the Bible, and the threads of wisdom that
run through it, are firmly on the side of common
sense... 

Don

PS-- I close by offering a new religion I just
invented in honor of the late Cesare Emiliani.
1. There is only one correct religion.
2. No human knows what it is.
3. Even if you do know, no way can you communicate it.
4. Everybody, please shut up.

--- Neal Romanek <nromanek@earthlink.net> wrote:

>  From the L.A. Times, not The Onion.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > Adam, Eve and T. Rex
> 
> > Giant roadside dinosaur attractions are used by a
> new breed of 
> > creationists as pulpits to spread their version of
> Earth's origins.
> 
> >  By Ashley Powers
> >  Times Staff Writer
> >
> >  August 27, 2005
> >
> >  CABAZON, Calif. ? Dinny the roadside dinosaur has
> found religion.
> >
> >  The 45-foot-high concrete apatosaurus has towered
> over Interstate 10 
> > near Palm Springs for nearly three decades as a
> kitschy prehistoric 
> > pit stop for tourists.
> >
> >  Now he is the star of a renovated attraction that
> disputes the fact 
> > that dinosaurs died off millions of years before
> humans first walked 
> > the planet.
> >
> >  Dinny's new owners, pointing to the Book of
> Genesis, contend that 
> > most dinosaurs arrived on Earth the same day as
> Adam and Eve, some 
> > 6,000 years ago, and later marched two by two onto
> Noah's Ark. The 
> > gift shop at the attraction, called the Cabazon
> Dinosaurs, sells toy 
> > dinosaurs whose labels warn, "Don't swallow it!
> The fossil record does 
> > not support evolution."
> >
> >  The Cabazon Dinosaurs join at least half a dozen
> other roadside 
> > attractions nationwide that use the giant
> reptiles' popularity in 
> > seeking to win converts to creationism. And more
> are on the way.
> >
> >  "We're putting evolutionists on notice: We're
> taking the dinosaurs 
> > back," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in
> Genesis, a Christian 
> > group building a $25-million creationist museum in
> Petersburg, Ky., 
> > that's already overrun with model sauropods and
> velociraptors.
> >
> >  "They're used to teach people that there's no
> God, and they're used 
> > to brainwash people," he said. "Evolutionists get
> very upset when we 
> > use dinosaurs. That's their star."
> >
> >  The nation's top paleontologists find the
> creation theory 
> > preposterous and say children are being misled by
> dinosaur exhibits 
> > that take the Jurassic out of "Jurassic Park."
> >
> >  "Dinosaurs lived in the Garden of Eden, and
> Noah's Ark? Give me a 
> > break," said Kevin Padian, curator at the
> University of California 
> > Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley and president
> of National Center 
> > for Science Education, an Oakland group that
> supports teaching 
> > evolution. "For them, 'The Flintstones' is a
> documentary."
> >
> > Tyrannosaurus rex and his gigantic brethren find
> themselves on both 
> > sides of the nation's renewed debate over the
> Earth's origins and the 
> > continuing fight over whether Charles Darwin's
> "The Origin of Species" 
> > or Genesis best explains the development of life.
> >
> >  Science holds that dinosaurs were the Earth's
> royalty for about 160 
> > million years. Their reign ended abruptly,
> possibly after a meteorite 
> > smacked into the planet, but they're considered
> the forebears of 
> > birds.
> >
> >  Unearthing dinosaur bones that are millions of
> years old "doesn't 
> > prove evolution, but it shows the Genesis account
> doesn't work," said 
> > Nick Matzke, a spokesman for the National Center
> for Science 
> > Education.
> >
> >  Drivers who pull off Interstate 10 in Pensacola,
> Fla., are told a far 
> > different story at Dinosaur Adventure Land. Its
> slogan: "Where 
> > Dinosaurs and the Bible meet!"
> >
> >  The nearly 7-acre museum, low-tech theme park and
> science center 
> > embodies its founder's belief that God created the
> world in six days. 
> > The dinosaurs, even super carnivores such as T.
> rex, dined as 
> > vegetarians in the Garden of Eden until Adam and
> Eve sinned ? and only 
> > then did they feast on other creatures, according
> to the 
> > Christian-based young-Earth theory.
> >
> >  About 4,500 years after Adam and Eve arrived, the
> theory goes, pairs 
> > of baby dinosaurs huddled in Noah's Ark, and a
> colossal flood drowned 
> > the rest and scattered their fossils. The
> ark-borne animals 
> > repopulated the planet ? meaning that folk tales
> about fire-breathing 
> > beasts are accounts of humans battling dinosaurs,
> who still roamed the 
> > planet.
> >
> >  Kids romping through the $1.5-million Florida
> theme park can bounce 
> > on a "Long Neck Liftasaurus" swing seat; launch
> water balloons at a T. 
> > rex and a stegosaurus, and smooth their own
> sandbox-size Grand 
> > Canyons, whose formation is credited to the flood.
> A "fossilized" 
> > pickle purports to show that dinosaur bones could
> have hardened 
> > quickly. Got an upcoming birthday? Dinosaur
> Adventure Land does pizza 
> > parties.
> >
> >  "Go to Disneyland, they teach evolution. It's
> subtle; signs that say, 
> > 'Millions of years ago' " said evangelist Kent
> Hovind, the park's 
> > founder. "This is a golden opportunity to get our
> point across."
> >
> >  Carl Baugh opened his Creation Evidence Museum in
> the 1980s near 
> > Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas,
> where some people said 
> > fossilized dinosaur tracks and human footprints
> crisscrossed 
> > contemporaneously. The Texas museum sponsors a
> continuing hunt for 
> > living pterodactyls in Papua New Guinea. Baugh
> said five colleagues 
> > have spotted the flying dinosaurs, "but all the
> sightings were made 
> > after dark, and we were not able to capture the
> creatures."
> >
> >  Organizers at Creation Research of the North
> Coast in Humboldt 
> > County, Calif., dream of building their own
> reptile park but lack 
> > funding and acreage. So do leaders at Project
> Creation in Mount 
> > Juliet, Tenn., who would need to raise about $1
> million to assemble 30 
> > to 50 pterodactyl and brachiosaur replicas to
> mingle with live 
> > chickens and goats.
> >
> >  At the Institute for Creation Research museum in
> Santee, a San Diego 
> > suburb, officials plan to enlarge its
> paleontological offerings.
> >
> >  "We like to think of [dinosaurs] as creation
> lizards, or missionary 
> > lizards," said Frank Sherwin, a museum researcher
> and author.
> >
> >  A 50,000-square-foot Answers in Genesis museum
> and headquarters is 
> > under construction near the Ohio-Kentucky border,
> where the group 
> > hired a full-time dinosaur sculptor. When the
> facility 
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