Hey all, it's been a little quiet around here so I decided to post a link to a story about an anti-evolution museum that some Christian Fundies are building in Kentucky.
http://www.kentucky.com/158/story/26286.html
If the link doesn't work, just google "anti-evolution museum, kentucky" It should show up.
Due to all of our religious backgrounds, I think this story is worth a read. It's not Fremont related, but the main content of the story could hit home with archaeologists/other scientists with religious convictions.
I think that we should be quick to point out pseudo-science like this museum. I know that I have dealt with many a Mormon Fundie who has told me that dinosaur bones were put on the earth by Satan to deceive men, that C-14 is a flawed method, and that the age of Earth is in the 4-5000s.
6 comments:
Good times... I was teaching the Indian Lore merit badge to my scout troop and I had to tell a kid that not all Native Americans were descended from Lehi.
I'm waiting for the angry call from his parents.
freakin frackin...mumble mumble mumble. One the one hand you've got to say, "well people are free to believe whatever they want." On the other you say "come on people, are you serious?!" It's frustrating though. My brother-in-law is a nice guy, college educated, and a devote mormon. But we occasionally get into it because he doesn't buy any part of evolution, thinks radiocarbon and all other dating methods are crap, believes the world is only 5 or 6 thousand years old, and what's worse, feels that these are the standard doctrines of the church. And no amount of talking on my side has changed his views. That's probably the thing that bugs me the most, is that so many devout latter-day-saints think that the church teaches that evolution is false etc. etc. etc. I always get in trouble in sunday school when some one starts spouting this crap off and I have to speak up. If you want to believe it, fine, but get your facts straight first. It's been my experience most folks don't even have a descent understanding of the basic principles of evolution, geology, dating methods, etc.
Somebody should write a book or an article to this extent. There are only a few things that the Church has concretely said about this stuff, the most important of which is the 1st Presidency Statement on the Evolution of Man:
which basically only says that man was not "a development from lower orders of the animal creation".
I blame the seminary teachers. Stick to your manuals!!
This Sunday, I spoke to the second counselor in my Bishopric. Had just returned from Mexico where he and his family took a little vacation. While there, they took a mormon tour of Chitzen Itza. He expressed amazement at the prospect of the "White Bearded God" and the feeling he got when he saw architecture similar to that of the "Christ in Americas" painting(I've forgotten how to make the HTML links, you can find it on google).
I had to cringe a little, but could not deny his underlying conviction that Christ did visit the Americas.
Basically, I have a bunch of random thoughts about this:
I couldn't help but think of the Simpson's "Lisa vs God" episode. If you haven't seen it, you should (esp. b/c Rod prays to a stork).
When I taught Indian Lore a few weeks ago, the student leader of the BYU Multicultural Center (a Navajo) help me teach and he was darn sure his ancestors came from the south and from Lehi. I'm not saying he has no Lehi blood in him (proabbly 1/18, right Aaron?), but it's quite the thing to be spreading to scouts when you're supposed to be an "expert" about something.
I used to think I'd be fun to teach Sunday school, but not since I realized how many crazies there are either in the Church or who visit the Church! Our teacher has to politely remind people every Sunday that their comment (usually a crazy pet idea they've come to love so much that they base their testimony on it) my be true, but there is no doctrinal statement one way or the other.
I am sad that I no longer can afford to fly Delta, b/c my stop used to always be the Cin/N.Ken Airport...I could have learnt so very much!
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