The return of the snark-o-saurus!

So, when I was a small child, I wanted nothing more than to be an archaeologist. I drove my mother up wall bringing home books from the library with incredibly long and unpronounceable names. Carbon dating. Layers. Depressions in the earth. How to read signs from crops that a wall might be buried under that field. Oh yeah. I was growing up surrounded by a family with a scientific bent, stacks of National Geographics from my grandparents longstanding subscription, and the Discover magazines that my dad never through out. My adopted grandfather, Bracey, had cable and taped me all of a six hour or longer mini-series about dinosaurs. And, better yet, since Tennessee was once under the sea there were tons of little sea creature fossils just waiting in the back pastures for me to dig them up and tote them back home with me. And arrowheads and other fun things. The foundations remaining from the houses of early European settlers in the 'Shire. Ah, these were happy times.

And at some point, I realized that the Bible didn't mention any dinosaurs. (How I loved my menagerie of plastic dinos!) And the first chapter of Genesis disagreed with my science for kids book. So, I did what I normally did when I came across a situation like that -- I asked my dad. Who patiently explained to me the concept of a metaphor and how "day" in Genesis one doesn't have to be read as a literal day, simply as an unspecified unit of time. So, it wasn't that either book was wrong -- there were just just two different ways of describing how the earth as we know it today came to be. So, basically, I've never quite understood the push to believe the earth was created in six, literal, 24 hour days. I also have never quite grasped why the idea of evolution should be seen as hostile to concept of a god. And I will flat out state that Intelligent Design, as currently formulated by the big boys of the Religious Right, is bad theology.

So, I've been watching the reaction to the "Creation Museum" in Kentucky with great fascination. I stumbled upon a post with many a great detail in the blog BlueGrassRoots from a link in Theology and Geometry. Oh my. Incest was okay for Cain and the other youngins back in the day because their weren't as many harmful mutations in the human gene pool? And this is nitpicky, but I have trouble believing any organization who thinks that 1 in 3 equals 30%. Yes, I understand that 33.3 repeating is a bit awkward, but rounding there should be done to 33% thank you very much. They can't do basic math and they expect people to believe their "science." Okay, so I'm a little hesitant to agree with the labeling of creation science as abusive to children -- I do think more malicious intent needs to be there before we bring out the label abusive. But how on earth does this get so far with so many people? I'm not a biology major and I can comprehend the logic holes in this stuff! And then some of the just wrong statements on displays -- since when did all Greek philosophers not believe in the afterlife?

Oh, wait, I'm not supposed to think: Just listen, and believe. Sorry, my bad. Bad brain, bad bad brain, go sit in the corner!