Letters to the Editor
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OMG
If I ever commit a crime and go on trial, I want these wackos as my jurors. They'll believe anything. I don't even understand how these people get food up to their mouth to survive. This goes a long way to explaining several cultural phenomenon (like American Idol and a second term for the "decider").
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So? Russia's a nuclear power too
Nuclear proliferation is scary on its own, but if America goes down that dark and dirty road you imagined, it's scarier still. We're Goliath, not David, lest anybody overlook that.
Russia hasn't managed to accidentally on purpose nuke anyone, yet. And everyone's darling, Iran will be a nuclear power in 20-30 months or so and many people are actually rather proud and happy about that. India and Pakistan are two not entirely rich not entirely stable countries and they have nukes too. No I think the looming specter of a less-than-exceptional nuclear armed USA is a little overblown. It takes a great deal of money to maintain that arsenal. Money which we might not have for very long.
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So that's an inevitability and you're going to sit around and wait for it?
Sure, until it's time to leave. I can recommend any number of other countries less insane and cheaper to live. Uruguay tops my list right now. 2nd highest standard of living in South America. In 20 years that will be an improvement over much of the US.
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Could be the second greatest museum in America
What I love about the Creation Museum is its large-scale, gutsy appropriation of the voice of institutional authority. Scientists don't have much to worry about here, but I hope museum curators, museum directors, museum board members, museum workers and museum visitors around the world get the joke: the credibility of the institution of "museum" — with all of its attendant ritual — is something that ought to be continuously, vigilantly examined: How important is truth in the operation of your institution? How important is transparency? Who really benefits from the exhibition and ownership of particular art objects or artifacts? How skilled are you at spotting publicity masquerading as education? And so forth.
Among museum professionals and professional museum-goers, the very best museum in America is perhaps The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, California. Its exquisite intermingling of natural history with lyrical poetics with creative taxidermy with utter nonsense is completely aesthetically satisfying. To accomplish its goals, it too employs a burlesque of the language of museums: dramatic lighting, pompous text labels, pedantic dioramas, and the like. David Wilson may not have the budget for catalogues, audio tours, security staff and velvet ropes but it would all certainly be as useful to him as it is to art museums and presidential libraries.
If nothing else, the Creaton Museum is a nice reminder that it is up to us to always and forever disentangle the voice of authority from the power of its body. Something to think about when you're getting out your wallet in a church or at a museum ticket counter.
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Those of you who told the joke in your letter about Adam & Eve "riding dinosaurs to church"
Stole that line from Saturday Night Live. You know it and I know it. None of you are funny enough to have come up with that one on your own. I'm watching you! You can't get anything past me.
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This thing is catching
We've had a creation "museum" just open here in Alberta too, not 100 miles from the Royal Tyrrell Museum of paleontology. It was only made with about 1% of the budget of the Kentucky museum, just a bungalow, but it's nice to have somewhere to take the kids on days it's too rainy to burn witches.
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50 yard line
Well, Alex I'll talk with you. And I won't characterize you as 'insulting' or any other names, as you did atheists.
Dialectics doesn't result in a permanent scrum at the 50 yard line. It can for awhile, of course. It is not like mixing red and white paint to get pink. You actually eventually end up playing a better (or worse sometimes) game, on a new field. That's because one side eventually gets an advantage over the other. Kind of like intellectual Darwinism, except based on the conditions of society.
Ideas can be like living organisms in a way ... memes. What memes survive? What don't? What memes allow us as a society to survive? What don't? Perhaps church /state separation is the only way to get people to be able to live together without killing each other, which will mean a loss in the ultimate status of religion. Just a thought!
Do we know scientists who are also believers? Of course. I don't think those are the same people who put up this museum, or tried to outlaw evolutionary teaching in several states, or flew a plane into buildings to find 'allah.' Science on! Believe what you want! That is really not what this is all about. Look at the real world and you will see ... there's a war out there. And someday you might have to pick a side.
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Bottom line
And what the whole Creation Nauseum represents is this: America can't afford to be stupid. And Young Earth Creationism is stupid; the fundamentalist movement is stupid.
Sure, Russia hasn't nuked anybody (noted your "yet"; I think they're likely just to "lose" a few to the black market versus actually launching any) -- but Russia doesn't have the broad arsenal of nukes we do (and seems less interested in developing tactical nukes, one of Bush's pet projects), doesn't have a well-financed religious fundamentalist and apocalyptically nationalistic movement we do, and doesn't have the sense of entitlement we do (I'm reminded of Madeleine Albright's scary quote):
If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.
I think the American fundamentalist movement would absolutely agree with that sentiment.
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Getting out while the getting is good?
You say there are any number of other countries to go to when things in the US get to bad.
I am going to make a few assumptions here, 1) your white 2) your educated 3) you are relatively affluent.
If even one of these is not true you can expect to get the door slammed in your face you no good immigrant looking to steal jobs from hard working Swedes or what have you.
At the moment, where you are born in this world, is where you are likely to die. Open and fluid immigration is a gift America provides to the world, the world does not reciprocate.
The lurching towards fanaticism you fear is about as likely as a nuclear armed reconstructed Soviet Union plotting our downfall. Sure it's a possibility but it makes better fantasy than reality. In the end people tire of tyranny when there is no immediate benefit to themselves. Remember when Bush was popular and could do no wrong in his people's eyes? Well that didn't really last, and the vast majority of the country has tired of his Tyranny.
America, because of its open immigration, dynamic economy, and agnostic individualistic culture will rise and rise again despite its occasional follies.
Embracing of Creationism is not a rejection of science (you can't reject that which you do not know) it is a rejection of authority. Americans inherent distrust and disgust at authority is what will lead this country back from any precipice it wanders onto.
Be glad for it.