Like Humpty Dumpty, the morality of Western World seems always about to drop off the wall and shatter into a million pieces. Scott G gathers some information about a fiction-based museum and asks an eyebrow-raising question about religious tax exemptions.
Self-described as “a valuable, unprecedented resource for information and education,” the Creation Museum (sic) opened in Kentucky at the end of May with a view to proving the literal truth of the Bible and such ideas as the world being less than ten thousand years old.
In one portion of the 60,000 sq. ft. facility, visitors can “smell the freshly-cut timbers in the busy work site of Noah’s Ark. Delve into the belly of the Ark and imagine the stalls full of animals, in close quarters.” Nice of them to let you smell the timbers yet only imagine the animal pens.
Another of their exhibits depicts humans and dinosaurs living together despite the millions of years that separate them in actual history. It’s all very silly, of course, but this cartoon fever dream would help explain a lot of things. . . Stonehenge built with the help of brontosaurus power. The pyramids constructed using pterodactyls. The Grand Canyon dug by herds of stegosaurus. Perhaps The Flintstones were consultants for the creation of the Creation Museum.
As a $25,000,000 theme park for home school fanatics, this creationist’s dream is backed by a tax-exempt organization called Answers in Genesis, which calls itself “an apologetics (i.e., Christianity-defending) ministry.” Is it only members of the Christian groups that do things like this, or are there also wacky Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist amusement parks?
The world is full of brouhaha from those who claim to be “of faith” and lately the noise seems to be coming primarily from fundamentalist Muslims and fundamentalist Christians. Do people in either of these two groups notice the similarity in their messages? They each claim to represent the true god and the true path. Each condemns non-believers to death or a fate worse than death.
Whenever religion is used for spiritual growth, sharing, charitable giving and helping others, I wholeheartedly support it. In that regard, religion could be a tremendous tool in the hands of humanity. But when religion embraces pseudo-science, intolerance, and hatred of any kind, it is counter productive at best and a disservice to humanity at worst.
Since many religious people rely so much on use of the non sequitur, allow me to conclude with one: we’re fast approaching the time when we can begin serious discussions about canceling the tax-exempt status of all religions.
Hmmm, perhaps that’s not such a non sequitur after all.
[tags]Creation Museum, waste of tax dollars, denial of history, end church tax exemption, Gman, Scott G[/tags]
