Mark Maynard | 2005 | May

does anybody really know what time it is?

By Mark | May 24, 2005

Yesterday, I posted something about the popular evangelical delusion that dinosaurs once roamed the earth alongside man, a theory that arose out of desperation when the Biblical literalists among us were confronted with giant reptile bones and the like. In order to reconcile the existence of dinosaur fossils with their belief that the earth is only 6,000 years old, they had to do some creative thinking. (In some cases, they’ve gone so far as to suggest that Noah took two of each dinosaur species with him on the ark.) During the ensuing conversation in the comments section, the following thought on Biblical time keeping was left by a reader in Chicago by the name of Kurt. As it’s more interesting than anything I would have written about tonight (I just got back from an Ypsilanti Township Planning Commission meeting so my mind is swirling with traffic studies and the like), I thought that I’d pass it along.

Seems to me that if God exists in the way people like Ham consider God to exist (ie., as a mighty, bearded white guy in a robe looking down upon us wee, sinning humans, you know, kinda like Zeus or Odin) they might also consider that He existed long before He created the Earth and, as such, His “days” probably last quite a bit longer than 24 puny Earth-hours. Why would he set his personal clock on Earth time? Earth certainly wasn’t the first thing He created and if He’s so enamored of a 24-Earth-hour day then why did He choose days of different lengths for the rest of the planets in our solar system? Hell, if I can’t get all my shit done in 24 puny Earth-hours I’d hate to have God’s “To Do” list.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if Earth is nothing more than God’s version of reality television, something he created just to watch when he’s kickin’ back. 24 Earth-hours might well be the equivalent of a half-hour sitcom for the Big Guy. Of course, I’m sure He’s got a God-style TIVO and can get through an episode in less than a second….

Of course, to accept the possibility that God took longer than six “earth days” to create the planet, in the eyes of many, is just as bad as suggesting that Adam and Eve were protozoa thrown not into a beautiful Garden of Eden, but a dark and ugly primordial soup. Any person who dares to remove a block from this game of “Don’t Break the Ice” known as fundamentalism is perceived as a threat, a blasphemer. I personally would hope that people would be a bit more secure in their faith, but it seems to be the general feeling among evangelicals that to disprove one element is the same as casting the whole book into the rubish bin. I think that’s perposterous. I don’t see why you can’t accept the Bible and science simultaneously, acknowledging that the first reflected as best it could the general understanding of the world in its day. It doesn’t make a divine creator any less likely, or the stories of the Bible any less meaningful… But, for Christ’s sake, don’t suggest to people that Noah incubated T-rex eggs below deck. It’s not helping anyone, and I’m sure that God doesn’t want stupid followers.

(Image from a 1925 text on Creationism.)

Posted in Church and State | 29 Comments

expansion of the patriot act

By Mark | May 24, 2005

I haven’t read the draft of the bill yet, but I just received the following from a reader by the name of Chris L and I thought that you might be interested:

On Thursday, May 26, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will consider in closed session a draft bill that would both renew and expand various USA PATRIOT Act powers. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has obtained a copy of the draft bill, along with the committee’s summary of it, and has made them available to journalists and interested citizens on its website, http://www.eff.org/.

“Even though Congress is still debating whether to renew the broad surveillance authorities granted by the original USA PATRIOT Act, the Justice Department is already lobbying for even more unchecked authority to demand the private records of citizens who are not suspected of any crime,” said Kevin Bankston, EFF attorney and Equal Justice Works/Bruce J. Ennis Fellow. “The Senate’s intelligence committee should focus on adding checks and balances to protect against abuse of already-existing PATRIOT powers, or repealing them altogether, rather than working to expand them behind closed doors.”

And, as you’ll recall from the other day’s post on Rick Santorum, not everyone in the Senate believes that Americans are entitled to right to privacy.

Posted in Civil Liberties | Leave a comment

request for art

By Mark | May 24, 2005

Hey, I have a request for artwork. Can one of you out there with design/illustration skills please make an image of a pterodactyl with an olive branch in its beak? The ark and Noah can be in the image too, but it’s not imperative… I have no idea what I’ll do with this yet, but if anything comes of it, financially speaking, I’ll send you royalties.

Posted in Mark's Life | 4 Comments

adam, eve, and pterodactyls

By Mark | May 24, 2005

A few moths ago, I mentioned that there were plans underway to build a giant, $25 million Creationist museum in northern Kentucky, near to where my parents live. Well, the fellow behind the endeavor to popularize the myth that the earth is only 6,000 years old (based on his literal reading of the Bible), Ken Ham, is in the news again – this time for saying that he’s planning to invite student groups from public schools to experience (and be “saved” in) his pseudo-science “museum.” Here’s what he says in response to the question of public school involvement:

“We’ll try. Maybe we’ll invite some of the superintendents, and say, ‘We just want to show you what’s here. And you guys decide if there’s any way you can use it.’ It’s possible (administrators) might tell their students, ‘Don’t believe what they tell you, but let’s go see the dinosaurs.’ And we don’t mind that.”

So, there’s the plan — lure them in with the cool dinosaurs, and then, when you’ve got their attention, try to plant the seed that human beings and t-rexes walked the earth at the same time. It’s perfect timing too, as school budgets are being slashed, and such subsidized opportunities for outings would be welcomed… Here’s a longer clip from the article, in which Ham brings us up to speed on his project, and compares it to Disney World:

Soon, visitors to Ham’s still-unfinished Creation Museum will experience his view: that God created the world in six, 24-hour days on a planet just 6,000 years old. This literal interpretation of the Bible runs counter to accepted scientific theory, which says Earth and its life forms evolved over billions of years.

Undaunted by considerable opponents, Ham’s Answers in Genesis ministry is building a $25 million monument to creationism. The largest museum of its kind in the world, it hopes to draw 600,000 people from the Midwest and beyond in its first year.

“When that museum is finished, it’s going to be Cincinnati’s No. 1 tourist attraction,” says the Rev. Jerry Falwell, nationally known Baptist evangelist and chancellor of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.

“It’s going to be a mini-Disney World.”

Ham sees the museum as a way of reaching more people – along with the Answers in Genesis Web site, which claims to get 10 million page views per month, and his “Answers … with Ken Ham” radio show, carried by more than 725 stations worldwide. That’s in addition to his talks around the country, the sales of books and DVD’s, newsletters e-mailed to 120,000 people and Creation magazine, which has 25,000 U.S. subscribers.

“People will get saved here,” Ham says of the museum. “It’s going to fire people up. If nothing else, it’s going to get them to question their own position of what they believe.”

Primed to Fight

He walks briskly through the privately funded museum, pausing at a life-size model of a 40-foot-long, 14-foot-tall Tyrannosaurus rex.

Ham, 53, appears far less ferocious – there’s a resemblance to Abraham Lincoln – but he is primed to fight, too.

“It’s a foundational battle,” he says, his Australian accent unmistakable. “You’ve got to get people believing the right history – and believing that you can trust the Bible.”

Ham’s views of history and science are based on a literal reading of Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament. Among other things, he believes that:

Earth is about 6,000 years old, a figure arrived at by tracing the biblical genealogies, and not 4.5 billion years, as mainstream scientists say.

Soon, visitors to Ham’s still-unfinished Creation Museum will experience his view: that God created the world in six, 24-hour days on a planet just 6,000 years old. This literal interpretation of the Bible runs counter to accepted scientific theory, which says Earth and its life forms evolved over billions of years.

And, not that anyone here really cares what we’re thought of across the pond, but here’s a clip from the UK Guardian aboutone of Ham’s competitors, the Museum of Earth History:

The razor-toothed Tyrannosaurus rex, jaws agape, loomed ominously over the gentle Thescelosaurus, looking for plants to eat. Admiring the museum diorama were old and young visitors, listening on headphones to a stentorian voice describing the primeval scene.

But the Museum of Earth History is a museum with a controversial difference. To one side, peering through the bushes, are Adam and Eve. The display is not an image of the Cretaceous. It is Paradise. ‘They lived together without fear, for there was no death yet,’ the voice intoned about Man and Dinosaur….

The museum forms part of a Bible-based theme park in Eureka Springs; the car park is full of cars and coaches from all over the country. To enter the museum is to explore a surrealistic parallel world. Biblical quotes appear on displays. The first has dinosaurs, alongside Adam and Eve, living in harmony. The ferociously fanged T. rex is likely to be a vegetarian. Then comes the Fall of Man and an ugly world where dinosaurs prey on each other and the first extinctions occur. The destruction of the dinosaurs is explained, not by a comet striking the Earth 65 million years ago, but by the Flood. This, the museum says, wiped out most of the dinosaurs still alive and created the Grand Canyon and huge layers of sedimentary rock seen around the world.

Some dinosaurs survived on Noah’s ark. One poster explains that Noah would have chosen juvenile dinosaurs to save space. An illustration shows two green sauropods in the ark alongside more conventional elephants and lions. The final exhibit depicts the Ice Age, where the last dinosaurs existed with woolly mammoths until the cold and hunting by cavemen caused them to die out.

There you have it. This is what’s become of our country. While other nations around the world are making significant strides with stem cell research, our efforts are being channeled into fantasy museums/evangelical Christian recruitment centers… How many alarm bells do we need to hear before we start taking this threat seriously? Our history is being rewritten right in front of our eyes. The scientific method is being dismantled piece by piece. Our world is being Disneyfied by radicals.

Posted in Observations | 15 Comments

the deal

By Mark | May 23, 2005

A deal has been agreed to, and, at least for now, it doesn’t look as though the Senate’s rules concerning minority rights (i.e. the filibuster) are in danger… In exchange for a promise to vote for cloture on the judicial nominees Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor and Priscilla Owen, the Republicans have agreed not to exercise the “nuclear option” against the Senate’s longstanding rules. Most importantly, that means that Democrats can still filibuster Supreme Court nominees, should they hold views that fall far outside the American mainstream.

From what I can tell, the party faithful on both sides are pissed, so maybe it was a good compromise. I’d like to think that the Democrats could have won, had they stuck to their guns and not given the Republicans a way to back down and save (some) face, but the risk was probably too great. With all things considered, it was probably a good deal. (If you follow that last link, you’ll get lots of vitriol from the religious right, who are absolutely livid that the Republicans accepted a compromise… Dobson and company are looking for blood.)

UPDATE:
The New York Times attributes the deal to Byrd, Warner, and McCain.

UPDATE:
I just received the following note from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid:

There is good news for every American in this agreement. The so-called “nuclear option” is off the table. This is a significant victory for our country, for democracy, and for all Americans. Checks and balances in our government have been preserved.

The integrity of future Supreme Courts has been protected from the undue influences of a vocal, radical faction of the right that is completely out of step with mainstream America. That was the intent of the Republican “nuclear option” from the beginning. Tonight, the Senate has worked its will on behalf of reason, responsibility and the greater good. We have sent President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the radical arm of the Republican base an undeniable message: Abuse of power will not be tolerated, and attempts to trample the Constitution and grab absolute control are over. We are a separate and equal branch of government. That is our founding fathers’ vision, and one we hold dear.

I offered Senator Frist several options similar to this compromise, and while he was not able to agree, I am pleased that some responsible Republicans and my colleagues were able to put aside there differences and work from the center. I do not support several of the judges that have been agreed to because their views and records display judicial activism that jeopardize individual rights and freedoms. But other troublesome nominees have been turned down. And, most importantly, the U.S. Senate retains the checks and balances to ensure all voices are heard in our democracy and the Supreme Court make-up cannot be decided by a simple majority.

I am grateful to my colleagues who brokered this deal. Now, we can move beyond this time-consuming process that has deteriorated the comity of this great institution. I am hopeful that we can quickly turn to work on the people’s business. We need to ensure our troops have the resources they need to fight in Iraq and that Americans are free from terrorism. We need to protect retiree’s pensions and long-term security. We need to expand healthcare opportunities for all families. We need to address rising gasoline prices and energy independence. And we need to restore fiscal responsibility and rebuild our economy so that it lifts all American workers. That is our reform agenda, the people’s reform agenda. Together, we can get the job done.

Posted in Politics | 9 Comments