Since I just started publishing a series of cartoons mocking the hokey Big Valley Creation Science Museum in Alberta, I thought it would be worth taking a look at some of the misinformation that these types of museums promote. Here are a couple of videos that are about the AIG creation museum in Kentucky, instead of its cheesier cousin in Alberta.

First up is an excellent video by YouTube user cdk007. This video also ties in with my last article about Noah’s Ark. The video is called “The Creation Museum Teaches Super Evolution”. Like all of cdk007’s videos, there is a lot of reading involved, but it is worth it. (If you’re reading this vis RSS, you won’t see the embedded video, so you should go directly to the YouTube page.)

This next video is about a year and a half old. It’s made by a British news organization. YouTube has a bunch of news reports about the museum, but this is one of the better ones. (YouTube page is here.)

I just found a great article over at Skeptic Friends Network: “Fundamentalists Hate Noah’s Ark”. The article is written by Phil Gillette. He goes into great detail all of the things that are wrong with the Flood story.

There are a lot of impossible things in the Bible, but the Flood myth is probably the worst of the bunch; it’s impossible on so many levels. That story, more than any other, demonstrates just how completely wrong a literal interpretation of the Bible is.

Go on over to SFN and read the article. It’s long (5000 words!), but it’s worth plowing through. Bookmark it, so you can return to look up facts the next time you have to argue with a fundie.

The Big Valley Creation Science Museum in Alberta has a bunch of pictures of the place on their web site. Bad idea! That allowed me to swoop in and snag them. I have improved a dozen of them with word balloons. I’ll be publishing these improved photographs over the next couple of weeks. Be sure to come back often!

If you’re new to this web site, I have a couple of earlier articles about BVCSM, which will bring you up to speed on what this ridiculous museum is all about. The first article is my favorite:

Big Valley Creation Science Museum—The Video

If you enjoy that, give the second article a look. It has one of my favorite BoF Toons in it:

Big Valley Creation Science Museum—The Press Page

Both articles (especially the second one) have some excellent reader comments. Be sure to check those out too.

What’s so great about BVCSM is how cheap and amateurish it looks. The creationist museum in Kentucky cost a buttload of money to build, so it looks good. That makes it harder to make fun of. But Big Valley looks rinky-dink. Without all of the glitz and glamour, the underlying creationist fables are exposed for the pathetic lies that they are.

Enjoy the first of many photographs of the Big Valley Creation Science Museum.

A couple of recent comments over on my AIG Research Paper Winner article were about Bible prophecy. I thought it would be a good idea to expand that a bit into its own article.

Reader Tara states:

One thing that bewilders the human mind is the ability to foretell the future. God has that ability. I would strongly suggest studying Bible prophecy. This subject is not something many like to hear about because the fact is, IT IS PROOF that God exists.

I responded to her assertion with:

No. It is merely proof that somebody can go into the Bible after the fact and data mine for sentences that they like and twist and conform the “evidence” into whatever shape they want.

Most people who believe in Bible prophecy do not believe in the prophecies of Nostradamus, but they are effectively identical. In both cases, supporters take ambiguous statements and pair them with ambiguous historical events and say it’s a match.

If you disbelieve Nostradamus, you must disbelieve Bible prophecy for the exact same reason!

Tara’s only response to this was:

As far as Nastradamus [sic] is concerned; he was proven to be a hoax long ago. Actually, he took some prophecies from the Bible and claimed they were from him.

To be fair, the exchange was mostly about other issues raised in the article. The Bible prophecy stuff was more of a side argument. She was probably more interested in the main debate, which is why she didn’t address my prophecy points too thoroughly.

Let’s look at the one point she did mention. I had said:

If you disbelieve Nostradamus, you must disbelieve Bible prophecy for the exact same reason!

To which she replied:

As far as Nastradamus [sic] is concerned; he was proven to be a hoax long ago.

I guess she’s saying that she rejects my premise. OK. But why? The only difference that I can see is that the Bible is a “holy book” and “the word of God”, whereas Nostradamus was just a charlatan.

But what facts are there that the Bible is a “holy book” and “the word of God”?

None.

Now that we’ve established that, let’s compare Bible prophecy with Nostradamus’ prophecies. Their credibility and accuracy are identical (Credibility: none. Accuracy: poor). As I said above, the only way either book looks accurate is because their supporters went in after the fact and bent historical events around vague statements.

Since both texts are equally bogus, you must reject both as oracles.

As further proof that both books are bogus, answer this question:
Why have there been no accurate and specific predictions derived from either book before the fact?

There is a cottage industry of people making claims that the Bible says that XYZ will happen on a certain date. Remember Y2K? Some of those were Biblical predictions. Nothing happened. Numerous Christian sects are based on Bible prophecy, such as the 7th Day Adventists and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Both organizations made very specific predictions about when the world would end. When it didn’t, they both made new predictions. When those didn’t happen, they tried again, etc.

If the Bible is so prophetic, then why can’t it be used as prophecy? I’ll tell you: It’s because people are going in after the fact, cherry picking data, and molding it around vague, ambiguous Biblical statements.

Internet Infidels

I did a quick Google search, and I came across a good thread at the Internet Infidels Discussion Board. A reader wants to know how to assess a claim of Biblical prophecy. Another reader writes:

There are several criteria for claiming prophecy fulfillment. Farrell Till has outlined them numerous times before. Here are five of them:

1. It must be shown that the event predicted actually occurred.

2. It must be shown that the prophecy was made prior to the event predicted.

3. The event must be far enough in advance to eliminate guesswork. I could predict we will send a manned mission to Mars, but such an educated guess would hardly be prophetic.

4. The prophecy must be specific. If claiming prophecy fulfillment requires “correct interpretation” of vague statements, it isn’t prophecy fulfillment.

5. The prophecy cannot be easily self-fulfilled.

That same reader added this in a later post:

I thought of the 6th criteria: The prophecy can’t be overly general or about things that occur all of the time. E.g., general predictions about earthquakes, famine, and pestilence fall into this category of non-prophecies.

So there you have it. Six excellent criteria for assessing any prediction, no matter the source.

Farrell Till and Biblical Inerrancy

This Farrell Till fellow seems quite astute, so I went in search of his website. He publishes The Skeptical Review. It has a FAQ (Frequently Asinine Questions). Here are a few excerpts:

Who is Farrell Till?

Farrell Till is a well-known voice in the battle against the absurd doctrine of biblical inerrancy. A Church of Christ minister and evangelist and now an atheist, Till’s speciality is disproving that any prophecy in the Bible has ever been fulfilled in all of its details. In other words, Till holds and proves that the Judeo-Christian Bible contains 100% false prophecy. [emphasis added]

What the hell is “inerrancy,” anyway?

It’s the belief that the Judeo-Christian Bible is free of all errors or contradictions in matters of science, geology, theology, cosmology, or anything else you’d care to name. Yeah, we know what you’re thinking: “How pathetic.” But it’s hard to maintain power and control over “the faithful” if the pastor concedes that the Bible is shot full of errors (which it is), and that’s what the inerrancy doctrine is all about: power and control.

Some “inerrantists” believe that the as-is Bible — the one that you bought at Wal-Mart this morning — is 100% free of any errors whatsoever. There are other inerrantists who hold that the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is 100% free of errors, but not any other versions of the Bible. And then there’s a THIRD crowd of “inerrantists” who believe that the inerrancy doctrine applies to only the “original autographs” (manuscripts) of the Bible’s books, but it doesn’t necessarily apply to any contemporary copy of the Bible. Since there is no such thing as an “original autograph” of any of the Bible’s books, this third group of inerrantists is little more than a bunch of weasels. The have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too crowd, if you will.

Logical Fallacies

The best part of the FAQ deals with three of the most common logical fallacies:

Each time that a Christian or Jew comes along and joins this email list, they almost always engage in at least three of the many dozens of logical fallacies, namely:
• special pleading,
• question begging, and
• arguing by assertion.

SPECIAL PLEADING
My playing field needs to be superior to yours

You insist that we accord to the Bible a special status as the “inspired Word of God,” thus granting it an exemption from logic, reason, human experience, history, contrary evidence, textual analysis, and every other tool that humans use to separate fact from fiction. If the Bible claims that Jesus rose from the dead, then, by George, we’re obligated to accept that as a historical fact.

QUESTION BEGGING
Let’s reason in circles

You insist that the Bible is the “inspired Word of God,” and you know this because the Bible says of itself that it’s the “inspired Word of God,” and you know the statement is true because “God never lies,” and you know “God never lies” because he says of himself in the Bible that he “never lies,” and you know that God must have ACTUALLY SAID THIS because the Bible is the “inspired Word of God,” and you know this because the Bible says of itself that it’s the “inspired Word of God,” and…

ARGUING BY ASSERTION
It’s true because I say so

You claim that the Bible is the “inspired Word of God,” and you insist that we accept this because you said it.

Now tell me that the fundies don’t use all three of these (usually simultaneously!).

Thanks to loyal reader Ericsan for tipping me off to this one. The Smoking Gun tells us:

Dead Reverend’s Rubber Fetish

Autopsy: Pastor found in wet suits after autoerotic mishap

OCTOBER 8—An Alabama minister who died in June of “accidental mechanical asphyxia” was found hogtied and wearing two complete wet suits, including a face mask, diving gloves and slippers, rubberized underwear, and a head mask, according to an autopsy report.

Investigators determined that Rev. Gary Aldridge’s death was not caused by foul play and that the 51-year-old pastor of Montgomery’s Thorington Road Baptist Church was alone in his home at the time he died (while apparently in the midst of some autoerotic undertaking).

While the Montgomery Advertiser, which first obtained the autopsy records, reported on Aldridge’s two wet suits, the family newspaper chose not to mention what police discovered inside the minister’s rubber briefs.

At this point, they link to the five-page autopsy report. Page 2 of the report contains the prurient parts. After going into great detail on how the body was attired in two wetsuits and numerous straps and cords restraining the wrists and ankles, the autopsy report adds:

There is one dildo in the anus covered with a condom.

Well at least he was practicing safe sex!

Now I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but it appears that Rev. Aldridge also broke the law. In the state of Alabama, it is illegal to purchase a dildo. Criminal!

OK, so there are a lot of fetishists out there. Who are we to judge? Ordinarily, I wouldn’t, but look who we’re talking about here. As Cliff Schecter reports:

Aldridge had been a senior pastor at Thorington Road Baptist Church for 15 years.

and

Gary Aldridge graduated from Liberty University and later worked for the late Jerry Falwell.

In other words, he was a dedicated fundie who no doubt spent countless hours telling other people how to live their sex lives.

If they can’t stick to their own rules, they have no business foisting them upon us.

I wasn’t planning to vote for Hillary Clinton. I don’t like her. A lot of people on the right dislike her for irrational reasons that I’ve never completely figured out. I dislike her, because she is one of the slimier politicians. She’s extremely opportunistic, determining her position based on whichever wind looks like it’s blowing the strongest. How can I support someone who I can’t trust and whose positions I don’t really know?

Well, at least she has finally done something to begin to change my opinion of her. She has released a statement regarding her stance on important science issues. It’s titled “Ending the War on Science”.

The Bush mis-administration has been one of the worst in history, in regards to science. They have interfered with and manipulated the conclusions from government-funded research, and they have created government policy based on bad science, no science, and superstition.

Here are some highlights of how Hillary claims she will be different (this quote is from her press release):

Hillary will restore the federal government’s commitment to science by:
• Rescinding the ban on ethical embryonic stem cell research
• Banning political appointees from unduly interfering with scientific conclusions and publications
• Directing department and agency heads to safeguard against political pressure that threatens scientific integrity and to promote transparency in decision-making
• Appointing an Assistant to the President for Science and Technology Policy and strengthening the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
• Reviving and enhancing the national assessment on climate change
• Enhancing American leadership in space through investments in exploration, earth sciences, and aeronautics research
• Pursuing a comprehensive innovation agenda, including establishing a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund

The other candidates need to release similar statements telling us exactly where they stand on important scientific matters.

If any of you are experiencing technical issues with this website, please leave a comment on this post.

I just tested this site on a Windows 2000 machine with Internet Explorer 6, and none of the media shows up. I used to have access to a different Win2000/IE 6 machine, and everything showed up fine.

This site complies with the W3C XHTML 1.0 Transitional standard. Your best bet is to use a browser that’s actually standards compliant, such as Firefox. I know some of you read this site at work (maybe not such a good idea!), so you don’t have control over which browser is on your machine. If there’s something obvious I can fix, I’ll do so, but I’m not going to break the site for the people who follow the rules just so I can accommodate Microsoft.