Friday, January 25, 2008

By Faith, not by Reason: Cabazon Dinosaurs

If you've ever driven to Palm Springs during daylight hours, chances are you've seen the World's Biggest Dinosaurs at a little truck stop called Cabazon.

But have you been recently? You know, since it was appropriated in 2005 by the Institute for Creation Research and turned into an intelligent design propoganda farm?

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[Reggie in the mouth of a creationist T Rex]

It sneaks up on you. First, there's a suspicious sign outside asking "is evolution true?" Then, you walk into the gift shop, and notice the Jesus books among the dino lit. Then, you realize all the children's t-shirts bear the motto "By Design, Not by Chance." *Shudder*

Further investigation reveals that the gift shop is constructed around the following ideological framework:

1. Dinosaurs are simply too fucking awesome to have been generated by some chance event like natural selection; thus, they must have been designed by God

2. This one fossil of a so-called "early human" was made up; thus, all fossils of so-called "early humans" might also be made up

3. The ever-popular "God said he created every living thing in the Bible, duh, and the Bible is true because God wrote it."

Yes, and you can read it all on their website. I present, for your consideration, a passage from their online reading materials:

"The story we have all heard from movies, television, newspapers, and most magazines and textbooks is that dinosaurs “ruled the Earth” for 140 million years, died out 65 million years ago, and therefore weren’t around when Noah and company set sail on the Ark around 4,300 years ago.

However, the Bible gives a completely different view of Earth (and therefore, dinosaur) history. As God’s written Word to us, we can trust it to tell the truth about the past. (For more information about the reliability of Scripture, see Q&A: Bible.)

The Bible records the genealogies from Adam to Christ. From the ages given in these lists (and accepting that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to Earth around 2,000 years ago), we can conclude that the universe is only a few thousand years old (perhaps just 6,000), and not millions of years old (see also The earth: how old does it look? especially under Jesus and the age of the world). Thus, dinosaurs lived within the past few thousand years."

Good God in Heaven!

If only the processes of natural selection hadn't been documented. (Finches, anyone? Antibiotic-resistant bacteria?)

To conclude: The mailing address listed on the website is a P.O. Box. Creepy.

4 comments:

Zachary Knoles said...

Caaalifoooooornia...

Unknown said...

Good work. The Links page on the Dino site are pretty telling....

"For Futher Origins & Dinosaur Research:

Institute for Creation Research

Dr. Dino

Answers in Genesis

Other:

Considering Homeschooling?"

The Frustrated Dinosaur said...

Don't forget that it used to be a legit science museum, which had busts of the evolution of man. Hilariously, the new ownership declined to take down said busts from the walls, electing to put their anti-evolutionary propaganda signs between each step in man's evolution, creating a simply bizarre effect.
My favorite argument from the new museum was the sign that said "and how do we know evolution doesn't exist? Because we can't see the process with our own eyes." Except on the wall of your anti-evolution museum.
Don't believe what you read in books, kids. Unless the book is the bible.
The dinosaurs are still fucking cool though.

Anonymous said...

oh man. easily one of the most bizarre "museums" around...but where else ya gonna go to buy your toy sheep these days?