...for the love of heaven.
Why does the crazy always have to happen close to home?
The Creation Museum has opened in Petersburg, KY - about 20 mi southwest of Cincinnati. I used to live in Florence, about 10 miles south of Cinti. The multi-million "Genesis really happened, but look! We totally have dinosaurs covered!" facility built to force ignorance down the throats of generations to come, and it has to be right there.
Look. I don't know that I consider myself a Christian. The term Christian at least to me has developed a meaning of bible-thumping true-believers who steadfastly go out of their way to completely miss the point of pretty much everything God was trying to get across. The majority of Christians I know, grew up and attended church with (until high school when I could no longer stand the hypocrisy) judged everyone who wasn't like them, gossiped about whoever was sitting three pews in front of them, and most were complete assholes during the week but made certain they looked shiny and clean every Sunday morning to wave 'hi' to all the other people who also spent the week being just generally mean and backstabbing. I couldn't ignore the real nature of the people I attended church with, and when I saw that the church actually catered to these people because of how much they gave each week, I just quit going. I figured I could just ...try being a good person without "clocking in" at 9.00 am every Sunday morning to watch a bunch of people be proud of how fake they are.
Granted, that was back in like... 1992.
Seeing how far the bible-belt has spread with all the hate-mongering, judgmental nay-sayers condemning everything from Harry Potter to gay marriage, the level of accepted stupidity ignorance has just become mind-boggling. That there is a large number of people who take the bible so literally that they both fund and build something like the Creation Museum because they absolutely refuse to acknowledge absolute given fact and evidence to something that both happened and is continuing to happen as I type this is astounding. Evolution is not the work of the devil. It's not something made up to test your faith. To acknowledge evolution as a fact-of-existence does not make you a non-believer or traitor to your religion. It makes you a person who has an idea of how this world literally came to be. That's all.
I believe in God. I would like to consider myself a very spiritual person. I do not, however, take the bible literally. Why? Because I know a little about how the Bible happened. I know how it was pieced together over centuries and how the books of the New Testament began appearing 50 years after the crucifixion and wasn't even put together as a "whole" until around 325, when the books and writings were poured over and filtered thru by First Council of Nicaea. Some books were left in, others taken out, some changed, some removed for political reasons. This isn't even going anywhere near where the bible as a whole has been often misinterpreted across the languages in which it was first appearing. Interpreters were hired to keep up with demand, people who might not necessarily have been qualified for the job. There are several instances where a word in Aramaic had different possible interpretations in Greek, or Latin, or whatnot. My point is, if you're looking for a nice guidebook on how to not live like a bastard, the Bible has been, is, and can be a really good reference point to go by. It does not mean, however, that you absolutely should take for canon that KJV that you picked up in Wal-Mart when you need to clutch something while being assimilated by Fox News.
I don't have a problem with people, I really don't. I don't care if you're white, black, gay, straight, bi; I don't care what you believe, if and or that you believe, if you're a good person in general, you're cool with me. My problem is the lemming mentality that people maintain to accept what they're told at face value. I mean, the story of Noah was basically lifted from several deluge myths from all over and were much, much older than the story of the Ark. Genesis has bits and pieces from several different creation myths. I know this and it doesn't lessen my belief in a greater power. You can know that dinosaurs happened and still believe in God. You can have faith in one thing and knowledge in another.
I dunno. I'm really not looking to make anyone mad. It's just that any blatant disregard for intelligence just bugs me. And this is just phenomenal.
Gah. Anyway. Going back to work.
The Creation Museum has opened in Petersburg, KY - about 20 mi southwest of Cincinnati. I used to live in Florence, about 10 miles south of Cinti. The multi-million "Genesis really happened, but look! We totally have dinosaurs covered!" facility built to force ignorance down the throats of generations to come, and it has to be right there.
Look. I don't know that I consider myself a Christian. The term Christian at least to me has developed a meaning of bible-thumping true-believers who steadfastly go out of their way to completely miss the point of pretty much everything God was trying to get across. The majority of Christians I know, grew up and attended church with (until high school when I could no longer stand the hypocrisy) judged everyone who wasn't like them, gossiped about whoever was sitting three pews in front of them, and most were complete assholes during the week but made certain they looked shiny and clean every Sunday morning to wave 'hi' to all the other people who also spent the week being just generally mean and backstabbing. I couldn't ignore the real nature of the people I attended church with, and when I saw that the church actually catered to these people because of how much they gave each week, I just quit going. I figured I could just ...try being a good person without "clocking in" at 9.00 am every Sunday morning to watch a bunch of people be proud of how fake they are.
Granted, that was back in like... 1992.
Seeing how far the bible-belt has spread with all the hate-mongering, judgmental nay-sayers condemning everything from Harry Potter to gay marriage, the level of accepted stupidity ignorance has just become mind-boggling. That there is a large number of people who take the bible so literally that they both fund and build something like the Creation Museum because they absolutely refuse to acknowledge absolute given fact and evidence to something that both happened and is continuing to happen as I type this is astounding. Evolution is not the work of the devil. It's not something made up to test your faith. To acknowledge evolution as a fact-of-existence does not make you a non-believer or traitor to your religion. It makes you a person who has an idea of how this world literally came to be. That's all.
I believe in God. I would like to consider myself a very spiritual person. I do not, however, take the bible literally. Why? Because I know a little about how the Bible happened. I know how it was pieced together over centuries and how the books of the New Testament began appearing 50 years after the crucifixion and wasn't even put together as a "whole" until around 325, when the books and writings were poured over and filtered thru by First Council of Nicaea. Some books were left in, others taken out, some changed, some removed for political reasons. This isn't even going anywhere near where the bible as a whole has been often misinterpreted across the languages in which it was first appearing. Interpreters were hired to keep up with demand, people who might not necessarily have been qualified for the job. There are several instances where a word in Aramaic had different possible interpretations in Greek, or Latin, or whatnot. My point is, if you're looking for a nice guidebook on how to not live like a bastard, the Bible has been, is, and can be a really good reference point to go by. It does not mean, however, that you absolutely should take for canon that KJV that you picked up in Wal-Mart when you need to clutch something while being assimilated by Fox News.
I don't have a problem with people, I really don't. I don't care if you're white, black, gay, straight, bi; I don't care what you believe, if and or that you believe, if you're a good person in general, you're cool with me. My problem is the lemming mentality that people maintain to accept what they're told at face value. I mean, the story of Noah was basically lifted from several deluge myths from all over and were much, much older than the story of the Ark. Genesis has bits and pieces from several different creation myths. I know this and it doesn't lessen my belief in a greater power. You can know that dinosaurs happened and still believe in God. You can have faith in one thing and knowledge in another.
I dunno. I'm really not looking to make anyone mad. It's just that any blatant disregard for intelligence just bugs me. And this is just phenomenal.
Gah. Anyway. Going back to work.