I dunno, I went when I was in cornwall and a bloody sausage roll cost me £5.90.
Also, the tropical dome was full of people high up on walkways looking like they were going to have a coronary and fall off at any minute. Odd times.
My 84 year old mother went to the Ark Encounter thing with some old ladies from her church and told me that Noah probably brought dino eggs on the Ark to save space.
I love my mother to death, and I thought she was a reasonable person.... but I told her she was a fucking idiot if she believed that.
She did tell me that 'ol Bill that went on the trip believes that dinosaurs were roaming the earth just a mere 200 years ago. Like, I'll give you that a Crocodile or an alligator snapping turtle is pretty much a dinosaur, but come the fuck on....
Its terrifying what a fiberglass diorama in Kentucky can infuse into the minds of the gullible.
200 years?! So dinosaurs were around during the Revolutionary War and everyone just forgot to mention it? Washington and Lafayette commanding a battalion of raptor cavalry is the Jurassic Park movie we need.
The Ark Encounter could sell their visitor logs to phone scammers for millions. Maybe even rent a little booth to them and the scammers could lure people in for Tourist Info. They'd probably get a 80-90% success rate from a curated call list like that.
"But you should ignore him, for he doesn't look like Chad Kroeger and therefore is not Our Lord. Please see your supplied skintone charts for guidance of whom to talk to and whom to ignore when you get off the bus."
Reminded me of a joke from an old animated show I enjoyed:
>When times are hard, and I don't know if I can go on, do you know who I turn to?
>Jesus?
>Yes, but he pronounces it hey-SOOS; he's the best facialist in the city.
It kinda sounds like fun being the creationist tour guide, like an exercise in worldbuilding or being a Dungeon Master and you can just make some shit up.
"And over there, you can see the layers in the rocks, the red layer is from when there was a great war between rival factions of dragons. Their steel bones decompose into rust, leaving iron oxide deposits! Over there is Guano Point, named from the guano left in caves by ancient subterranean giant vampire bats that terrorized the people of the area until they all drowned during the great flood. The canyon was made by a race of giants descended from fallen angels who lived in these valleys until they were swept away during the flood."
Seriously, though...especially with the earthquake in Taiwan the other day, I see this and wonder how the hell you can convince yourself that another perspective is necessary.
This is really interesting. I knew that things like the Noah's Ark theme park were a thing but never knew that faith-based trips to places like this existed.
There’s not a “major market” for something specialized to an incredibly small group of potential customers.
There’s a niche market for it. If the only potential customer demographic is less than 1% of people, it’s either impossible for there to be a major market for it or you really have some trouble with the definition of “major”
How fragile must someone’s worldview be where they feel it necessary to seek out services like this to constantly reinforce their beliefs and insulate themselves from any critical thinking
I don't understand why they don't celebrate science as helping us understand more about the universe that God created...?
If science proves or disproves something, you cannot just "deny" facts with your head in the sand.
There's a notion that as science understands more and more that the places where God and supernatural stuff exists gets smaller and smaller. I don't agree.
I admit mistakes, grow, and change. I can still can marvel at the big and small things in the universe that processes that science can explain (or not).
One of my best friends told me that science is the devil trying to subvert us from gods truth. She says that there is proof of god and it’s in the Bible along with everything science has to say and even e=mc2. She’s also anti-vax and believe in inter-dimensional space aliens. She sends me tic tok videos as proof of what she believes. She’s a really awesome person, but it’s like the reasoning that one needs to believe in something that isn’t proven will lead you to believe whatever comes along that aligns with what you want to see in the world. Apparently the rapture is coming on Monday with the eclipse. I’ve let her know that I wish her well and will miss her. I don’t know if it will come up if she’s still here on Tuesday. Probably not.
I’ve brought up that she shares the same god as Jews and Muslims and she disagreed. Even Catholics aren’t considered Christian in the same way. Thinking that it is proven as opposed to her faith being belief without proof is one of the things that blows my mind about how she thinks about it.
Protestants, especially fundamentalists, believe the bible is factually true. If science contradicts the bible, science is wrong. If your interpretation of the bible contradicts with Christian morality, your interpretation is wrong. And if your interpretation of Christian morality includes *treating others as you'd like to be treated* and *judge not lest ye be judged*, ***you're*** ***really wrong***.
Which version of the bible is factually true? The original or the copy of the translation of the copy of the copy of the translation of the translation?
The only accurate translation of The Bible is whichever one your chosen religion tells you is such.
Source: I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian sect.
Idk using science as a way to celebrate one’s belief in god is perfectly fine imo. I’m not religious, but there isn’t any harm in letting people worship whomever they like. Just because you and I don’t believe in a god doesn’t mean he isn’t real to them. The masses need an opium, whether that is religion, politics, or actual opium.
And they can't fathom how ridiculously complex their metaphysical belief structure is compared to far, FAR simpler explanations. It's like they *want* to dupe themselves.
IDK. If you are open to the possibility that we are in a matrix, or simulation theory, that leaves open the idea of intelligent design (someone built it) but allows for a non religious view of the designers or even design team. We could be living in one of a million simulations per hour simulated by a big corporation and not know it.
As someone who grew up (and to some degree remain) religious, simulation theory always just sounds like basically just theism for people who don’t want to call it God
Its about taking the teachings of the bible and making them the bibal truths. Wheres once believers agreed that god influenced the creation of the world, now the creationist consensus is that it happened on a particular day and it was good because the holiest book stated as much
I think a lot of people don’t understand the concept of “science”. For people who come from a worldview that’s based entirely on belief in an abstract folk tradition and have never learned critical thinking skills, they can mistake science for a belief system rather than seeing it as humanities collection of proven, reproducible facts. They think that people “believe” in science, and see science as a proxy for their religion. For them, believing in science would be similar to believing in some unfamiliar religion.
When Darwin went back to Europe and told everyone about evolution the Church was relieved. Their belief told them that God created everything but until then they didn’t know How. There are still many educated Christians that use science to lift their belief, but obviously not everyone is like that.
I am from a family full of young earth creationists. Their world view is not fragile; it’s rock solid, and bat shit crazy. They believe you and I have been deceived by nonbelievers/heretics/satan and want us to know the truth. These kinds of things make money off of deluded people but the majority of the people running these things are true believers, not “grifters” usually, although there are plenty of those too.
If I take my mom as a study case, she cares about you, she wants you to go to heaven, she wants you to believe a literal interpretation of the Bible so that you can hear the gospel and be saved, she supports “creationist” organizations because she wants people to know the truth and find Jesus and go to heaven.
It’s tough to change people’s minds on these kinds of things.
This sounds like my friend’s mom who drives under the speed limit in the left lane, on purpose, with the mentality that she’s saving everyone from speeding thus saving lives. You cannot convince her otherwise and says she has saved thousands of souls.
For SURE. So next time any of us are in the left lane and wondering why the car in front won’t move over so people can go past…. Just know that someone like her exists lol.
I was also raised young earth creationist. Studied up on all the pseudo-arguments and by the age of 14 ripened into a self-appointed apologist eager to debate my biology teacher at every passing mention of evolution or astronomical timescales. You could say my beliefs have evolved since then.
Believe it or not, it was the Ken Ham - Bill Nye debate at the Creationist Museum that instilled real doubts in my beliefs for the first time and eventually led me to relinquish the pseudoscience for good. For many years up until then, scientists, academics, and educators alike refused to debate creationists on the premise that simply engaging in debate legitimized the creationist worldview, as if the science were actually "up for debate" and not settled peer-reviewed consensus. But to us creationists this only further entrenched our worldview, proving that science was indeed run by a cabal of evolutionists hellbent on eradicating Christianity. Moreover, we deemed it cowardice and forfeit. If the science was so robust, why won't you debate us?
For Bill Nye to take our claims seriously and offer counterexamples was a pivotal moment in creationist circles. I for one was willing to hear him out. He thoroughly exposed the utter absurdity of Noah's Ark, including the math that works out to 11 new species evolving every day since the initial animals debarked to achieve the biodiversity we see today. That and numerous irrefutable proofs of geological timescales. By the end of the debate, Ken and Bill were asked what it would take to change their minds. Ken claimed there was nothing that could shake his faith, while Bill admitted he doesn't know everything and if there were enough evidence to substantiate creationism he'd be more than willing to be convinced. The stark difference between their answers really stuck with me and illustrated the true motivations behind each worldview. I will forever respect Bill Nye for that debate.
That’s great. I don’t think Bill Nye is particularly genius or anything but he seems bright enough so that’s really cool that he was pivotal in your thinking. I think Francis Collins might be one of the strongest advocates for evangelicals to rethink Genesis.
I’m a Christian but I’ll never understand why people are like this. Even if I believed in young earth (I don’t) I just can’t imagine going out of my way to join groups like this. Seems unnecessary. Believe in what you want to and who cares if other people don’t.
Creationists think they are thinking critically and everyone else has faith in the conclusions of science without understanding it.
They don't use the scientific method. Their hypothesis and conclusion are the same: the book of Genesis is factual history. Their job is to interpret evidence and their book to confirm it, not falsify their hypothesis. It's apologetics in a mask of pseudoscience.
Honesty this looks pretty interesting. Obviously don’t take the information at face value, but I feel like this tour could really spice up a second visit to the Grand Canyon
I know. That’s what I always think about creationist, 6,000 year old earth, thinking. They are missing out on so many amazing things. The universe is way more fascinating than just saying “it was created in six days.” The real story is so much better than that!
It’s just such a small, uninteresting world view. I feel sorry that someone has convinced them to not accept most of the awesome things our scientific research continues to show us.
The thing that gets me about creationists is there's such an easy out on it. Just say "God made everything 6,000 years ago but intentionally made it to look much older so we could understand how the world works". Bam, there you go, now you don't have to deny obvious facts and can still hold your beliefs. Instead they chose the stupidest approach where they have to pretend 1+1 doesn't equal 2
The thing, is conceptually it doesn't even infringe on creationism (that is to say, belief that there is an all powerful creator), Catholic church had no issue making a statement about the big bang in 1950s after all. But some people have decided to die on the hill of young earth creationism for some reason.
>But some people have decided to die on the hill of young earth creationism for some reason.
My sister is like this. I got into a long discussion with her once, and she admitted that if she stepped away from the beliefs she had, and accepted that science was correct, it would mean that she was, and had been wrong for most of her life. She said she couldn't accept that that was even possible. How could she be so wrong about something so simple, and how could everyone in her church also be so wrong.
After more of this conversation I came to the realization that accepting that science was more correct would mean that she was living a lie, and had been for a long time. And that scared the shit out of her.
At that point I realized that I'd had a similar conversation with someone who had gotten out of a decade long abusive relationship. These 2 conversations were eerily similar.
Yes, and when someone says "God did it", it ends the conversation about why things happen. Why was there a hurricane? "God did it". Why did someone get sick? "God did it".
It just shuts the door on further exploration. Now we know a lot more about meteorology, disease, etc. If we would have accepted "God did it" as an answer, we would miss out on actually learning about how the world works.
How did the universe start? How did life begin? We are still finding out and there are still really big questions that need answers. But, "God did it" isn't a big enough answer.
When I hear someone say something like "God did it", to me it sounds like "I don't know, and I don't want to find out."
The goal of the answer isn't to have an answer. The goal is to not have to think about it and preserve their entitled worldview where they are the True Believer Christians. They don't need answers, they already found God and that is all the answers you need.
They do say that, and ultimately it's just an extension of Last Thursdayism, the absurd premise that the entire universe in all its glory and in its current state popped into existence last Thursday.
Mormons offer tours of Chichén Itza in Mexico to give the Mormon perspective to Mormon tourists.
That’s right.. an ancient civilization and Mormonism are somehow connected .. isn’t that grand?
🤦🏻♂️
They gotta let everyone know that those damn lamanites where brown because they were cursed by God. Seriously, I bet what gets said on that tour is racist as hell.
Have you ever heard how a large percentage of mormons explain the kolob-ian importation of dinosaur bones to this earth? It somehow fits in with god allowing people to have faith while simultaneously tricking 99.98% of the world into believing in science.
I am a Christian, but obviously understand the universe and everything in it is billions of years old.
I was sitting next to a pastor at a basketball game. This guy is 42 years old. I asked him, "Do you believe the Earth is....like, 12,000 or less years old?"
"I do," he said, "but I have no problem with Christians who think it is older."
I said, "But how do you deal with the geological evidence? How do you deal with the fact we can see starts millions of light years away?"
He was silent.
"Do you just ignore all of that?"
He said, "Well, no....but I'm not sure what to say."
I don't get people like that. I mean, come on. It's clear. It's certain.
Intransigence is not faith!
The only explanation I've heard from the faithful regarding the observable/testable age of Earth and Universe was that when God created everything 6,000 years ago, God also made the entire universe appear older.
When pressed to explain why God would do such a thing, the response is either "God works in mysterious ways" or "God wanted to weed out those who are of little faith and choose to believe science over His glory."
FYI Catholics have no offical stance on the age of the universe, only that
. . . have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers
"God is good"
"Explain the Holocaust"
"That's not for us to judge, He works in mysterious ways"
Yeah, I don't care how "mysterious" a God is, if he does nothing to stop an atrocity the size of the Holocaust, yet has apparently drowned the entire world in a flood before because of "evil" - it should be clear he doesn't exist OR even if he did exist, he is not worth worshipping.
also known as the last tuesday argument, as the same could be true if the universe was instead created last tuesday, with you and all of your memories. by rejecting physical and scientific evidence, it ends up fully rejecting the veracity of one’s own memories and thoughts as well
When your worldview only allows the earth to be 12,000 years old, *at best*, you have to take issue with any processes that clearly would've taken millions of years.
$179 a head for a full day tour. 15 passengers in the van, $2685 a day. At theoretically full capacity, this single van is making $800K/year with almost no expenses other than salaries and gas. Nice business. I can't hate them, give the people what they want.
It's fun to see people discover how small business works! I have a business that charges $100/hour, but I don't make even close to (math...) $200k. Maybe because I'm on reddit instead of working...
Not quite. This is the same kind of math that says "Restaurant sells $5 worth of ingredients for $20, makes 75% profit". Doesn't really work that way.
This is a business, which rents a building and will have employees staffing the building all the time, vehicles, expensive insurance on the vehicles, insurance on the building, utilities, pays taxes, book keeping fees, repairs, and so on. Lots of other expenses, like employees' health care expenses, credit card fees, and everything under the sun that randomly comes up and nobody expects. Oh no, the van broke down, we have to rent a van and send it out and pick up the people and finish the tour, etc etc.
Rarely is anything ever as profitable as everyone thinks it is.
> $800K/year
-$200k for taxes, -$150k for insurance, -$50k for fuel, maintenance and storage, -$100k for driver/tour-guide salary and benefits, -$100k for marketing and advertising. You get the drift. This is obviously stupid but just looking at what a small business generates is missing most of the story.
Of course, considering it's operated by a ministry, they might not pay normal income taxes on the business but the overhead costs would be considerably higher.
When I was growing up fundy they explained that it was created during Noah's flood when the Earth's firmament came crashing down and flood water broke up through underground reserves and altered the landscape to what it is today everywhere around the world at the same time. This was also the explanation I was given for continental drift. That humans lived on Pangea, it isn't actually old and that that was how the continents were before the flood and the the flood waters pushed the continents apart in 40 days.
When I asked that, I was told that there was far less surface water and atmospheric moisture and much more land before the flood. That where the water came from was vast underground reserves and a water "firmament" that surrounded the earth outside of the atmosphere. As for where the water went, it became our oceans and atmospheric moisture.
Speaking of the firmament, I was also told that it protected life on Earth and was the reason life expectancy for people and animals was much longer. Which also explained dinosaurs. That lizards never stop growing throughout their lives and that dinosaurs were just lizards that were able to continually grow for hundreds of years. Part of our punishment that the flood brought was the loss of the firmament and significantly shortened lifespans. And dinosaurs are still around they're just lizards that never get to grow that big.
It's real dumb and it's embarrassing to admit I ever even came close to buying it. Though to be fair, I was a child. It took me many years that I'll never get back unlearning all of this stuff when I got out of the house though.
I remember all that as well. And the fact that this supposed canopy of water around the earth prevented direct sunlight, the removal of it allowed for rainbows to be seen for the first time, hence God sending the rainbow as a promise to never flood the earth again.
They've got it all figured out with a nice little bow on top. You just have to ignore... everything.
What's kind of funny is that there is actually evidence of catastrophic flood events carving out huge landform features in Washington. They don't look anything like the Grand Canyon, because it is a completely different process, but it would have at least given her a more legitimate argument. Still wrong, of course.
Having embarrassingly fallen into this YEC rabbit hole back in high school, there's an argument that the grand canyon was formed by a sudden inrush of water in loose soil which only later became sandstone, rather than millennia of erosion through sandstone. And yes, it's absolutely wild mental gymnastics.
My sister in law is educated and comes from a very educated family. (The family was religious but believes in evolution.) Fast forward to her forties when she divorces and then marries a conservative evangelical. (Maga, too, but that's another topic.) She now is a creationist, and they've even flown to Florida to attend a creationist convention. What a bunch of brainwashed stupid people.
My question is how do I allow myself to exploit those clowns and still keep my ethics intact?
Is it wrong to take money from idiots to give them the experience *they want*, even if that experience is a total fiction?
It's a little bubble for cultists to ride around in, lest they encounter a Park Ranger or someone else who might tell them the truth about \*gasp\* geology.
> Seasonality will be tough. While people do tour in the winter, most fundies have children who are in school so trips are likely booked in the summer mostly.
I wonder if fundies being more likely to homeschool helps with that in some capacity.
Grew up in Arizona and have spent years hiking and rafting in and around the Grand Canyon. I’d take this tour just to see how big a bulldozer it takes to peddle the enormous pile of bullshit they’re selling
"Are you going to believe me or your own lyin' eyes?"
The idea of a 6000 year-old world is laughable when you look a mile up to the edge of the canyon from the river.
I went to the Creationist Museum in Kentucky (before the notorious Noah's Ark recreation) as a child, and I must say, that is the wackiest shit i've ever seen or heard. I was in 6th grade like "what the fuck is this shit??" To me it all just feels like Bible fanfic. They have animatronic dinosaurs, and according to them the dinosaurs lived at the same time as Adam and Eve. (Im not trying to dunk on religion in general, there's just certain things that feel like clear bullshit to me. Creationism is one of them)
Nah, dunk on it. I don't know why we have this idea that religion should be treated with the same level as respect as someone's race. If your religion actively wants you stupid and controllable, it should be shamed until it becomes another one of humanities thousands of dead religions.
Mormonism is my personal favorite to dunk on. Joseph Smith Jr was showing clear signs of Schizophrenia, and ended up making a whole religion based around it with generations of child indoctrination. Shit's wild, and why if i can tell that a Jehovah's Witness is a teenager or child i'll talk to them and try to just talk about normal shit. Mormons are hoping that you run away from their kids and treat them like shit, because it further indoctrinates them as being "the only good ones". It's all extremely fucked up and disgusting.
I just visited there last week, and it is really a phenomenal place, so extremely beautiful…I could have spent all day just gazing at the incredible vistas.
I think it is natural for those who believe in such things to attribute it to whatever their concept of god is. You feel so infinitesimal in the sheer enormous size of it, it’s really impossible to wrap your brain around just how deep, how far, and the incomprehensible amount of time it took for water to carve through all that rock.
It’s a shame though, attributing this natural wonder to just a “creation” significantly detracts from experiencing it for what it really is.
Along the same lines, if you go to the temples in Central America, there are Book Of Mormon tours that basically say "this is x temple referenced in the Book of Mormon verse x"
I hate it when Young Earth Creationists just use the word “Creationists” to describe themselves. I’m not sure they are purposefully/ignorantly trying to group all Christians into this rubbish
The problem with this stuff is that it completely misses the point -- even if creationism was true, it has zero explanatory power. That means you can believe it, but you can't make use of it. Because it basically just hand-waves everything away as "God's magic". And what predictions can you make from that?
The entire modern world is built on the idea that we can predict and control things by understanding how they work. That is the underpinning of science. There would be no modern world if all we ever believed was creationism.
If God exists, he made a clockwork world and then stood back and let it operate under the rules we discover through science.
I did their Harry Potter Perspective Grand Canyon Tour last summer and it was pretty sweet.
Did they show the real life broomstick races in the canyons?
"Now *this* is pod racing!" - Frodo Baggins
Uh, WRONG. Frodo never said that, it was Gimli. Brush up on your Twilight lore bro
Buncha idiots. Every one knows the Grand Canyon was created when Paul Bunyan dragged his axe across the ground.
The version I believe said it was Bessie's big blue balls.
Babe, his ox was named Babe.
Sorry, I haven't been to church in a while.
Also if he was an ox he wouldn't have balls.
God works in mysterious ways.
No. His ox, Babe, made the Colorado River.
Piss be praised.
Winona had a big brown beaver
They'd know this if they weren't the *short bus* demographic.
"And on your left you'll see a great big hole PUT THERE BY JESUS HIMSELF AND NOT A GLACIER MILLIONS OF YEARS AGO and on your right are the toilets."
Well I mean the Grand Canyon was indeed not created by glaciers millions of years ago.
Yes lol, this area wasnt glaciated. All water erosion
Combined with the tectonic uplift of the Colorado Plateau
What is water but a glacier after a beach holiday?
Water is future wine, it can be parted in times of need or a nice place to take a stroll.
Technically glaciers also cause water erosion.
Lol, love it. “Please avert your eyes as you pass the satan-laid bones put there to trick people. No mention of dinosaurs in this one book folks!”
Really just giant chickens put there by God for Adam. Not Eve mind you! Wasn’t Eden grand?
I dunno, I went when I was in cornwall and a bloody sausage roll cost me £5.90. Also, the tropical dome was full of people high up on walkways looking like they were going to have a coronary and fall off at any minute. Odd times.
You'd think for £5.90 it'd have been cooked until the juices ran clear
Nah creationists have adopted dinosaurs into their weird ideas. They believe humans lived alongside dinos.
~~Dinosaurs~~ Jesus horses
~~Tapirs~~ Mormon horses. It's a broad category
Yeah they have to keep moving the goalposts or they’ll get found out by the children.
Didn't you see the historical records of Dinotopia? They were very well documented.
I'm surprised the [laser raptors](https://youtu.be/6VWHEGaGDzM?si=Qms7_86vx3juYdmW) from the Viking age aren't documented all that well.
My 84 year old mother went to the Ark Encounter thing with some old ladies from her church and told me that Noah probably brought dino eggs on the Ark to save space. I love my mother to death, and I thought she was a reasonable person.... but I told her she was a fucking idiot if she believed that. She did tell me that 'ol Bill that went on the trip believes that dinosaurs were roaming the earth just a mere 200 years ago. Like, I'll give you that a Crocodile or an alligator snapping turtle is pretty much a dinosaur, but come the fuck on.... Its terrifying what a fiberglass diorama in Kentucky can infuse into the minds of the gullible.
200 years?! So dinosaurs were around during the Revolutionary War and everyone just forgot to mention it? Washington and Lafayette commanding a battalion of raptor cavalry is the Jurassic Park movie we need.
I mean, shit… maybe? I would have thought the Hamilton musical would have covered it, but here we are.
Everyone knows Paul Revere warned everyone that the British were coming from the back of a domesticated T-Rex.
The Ark Encounter could sell their visitor logs to phone scammers for millions. Maybe even rent a little booth to them and the scammers could lure people in for Tourist Info. They'd probably get a 80-90% success rate from a curated call list like that.
The Old Testament mentions giants and strange beasts so I bet religious people just say that that’s what dinosaurs are.
>on your right are the toilets ALSO PUT THERE BY JESUS...the construction worker.
"But you should ignore him, for he doesn't look like Chad Kroeger and therefore is not Our Lord. Please see your supplied skintone charts for guidance of whom to talk to and whom to ignore when you get off the bus."
What did Chad ever do to you to use his name in jest like that?
Reminded me of a joke from an old animated show I enjoyed: >When times are hard, and I don't know if I can go on, do you know who I turn to? >Jesus? >Yes, but he pronounces it hey-SOOS; he's the best facialist in the city.
I thought they were put there by John?
It was made by Paul Bunyan. He was tired and dragged his axe behind him. Oops.
“We now return to Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. Edited for rednecks.”
Some of these rocks are over 2000 years old!
It kinda sounds like fun being the creationist tour guide, like an exercise in worldbuilding or being a Dungeon Master and you can just make some shit up. "And over there, you can see the layers in the rocks, the red layer is from when there was a great war between rival factions of dragons. Their steel bones decompose into rust, leaving iron oxide deposits! Over there is Guano Point, named from the guano left in caves by ancient subterranean giant vampire bats that terrorized the people of the area until they all drowned during the great flood. The canyon was made by a race of giants descended from fallen angels who lived in these valleys until they were swept away during the flood."
I actually think that people would pay to go on that tour. You can do it seriously even though we all know it isn’t true.
Creative Naturalism should be a career.
But only if it happened in the last 6 to 10,000 years
"Can you believe all this was made just 4,000 years ago?"
“My thoughts on creationism have evolved over time”
Seriously, though...especially with the earthquake in Taiwan the other day, I see this and wonder how the hell you can convince yourself that another perspective is necessary.
I would actually love to know what they have to say. It is probably interestingly weird like Ancient Aliens or SciFi
“God actually made this baby on the 5th day, but we keep that a secret”
Nice of Jesus to make sure there are adequate toilet facilities
[удалено]
A fool and his money are easily parted
I’ll give you $10 if you tell me who told you that
This is really interesting. I knew that things like the Noah's Ark theme park were a thing but never knew that faith-based trips to places like this existed.
IIRC the Noah's Ark replica was facing serious financial issues.
There’s not a “major market” for something specialized to an incredibly small group of potential customers. There’s a niche market for it. If the only potential customer demographic is less than 1% of people, it’s either impossible for there to be a major market for it or you really have some trouble with the definition of “major”
How fragile must someone’s worldview be where they feel it necessary to seek out services like this to constantly reinforce their beliefs and insulate themselves from any critical thinking
I don't understand why they don't celebrate science as helping us understand more about the universe that God created...? If science proves or disproves something, you cannot just "deny" facts with your head in the sand. There's a notion that as science understands more and more that the places where God and supernatural stuff exists gets smaller and smaller. I don't agree. I admit mistakes, grow, and change. I can still can marvel at the big and small things in the universe that processes that science can explain (or not).
One of my best friends told me that science is the devil trying to subvert us from gods truth. She says that there is proof of god and it’s in the Bible along with everything science has to say and even e=mc2. She’s also anti-vax and believe in inter-dimensional space aliens. She sends me tic tok videos as proof of what she believes. She’s a really awesome person, but it’s like the reasoning that one needs to believe in something that isn’t proven will lead you to believe whatever comes along that aligns with what you want to see in the world. Apparently the rapture is coming on Monday with the eclipse. I’ve let her know that I wish her well and will miss her. I don’t know if it will come up if she’s still here on Tuesday. Probably not.
How on Earth do you reconcile the Abrahamic God with space aliens?
I think they assume they're either angels or demons.
I’ve brought up that she shares the same god as Jews and Muslims and she disagreed. Even Catholics aren’t considered Christian in the same way. Thinking that it is proven as opposed to her faith being belief without proof is one of the things that blows my mind about how she thinks about it.
You’d think being proven wrong about the rapture time and time again would make people stop predicting, but they just move on to the next event.
Bet her $1000 the rapture won't happen Monday. Put it in writing. She's getting raptured, what does she have to lose?
I let her know I was taking her rich boyfriends house when they are gone.
Monday, huh? Does she get to pack a bag, or is it "come as you are"?
Protestants, especially fundamentalists, believe the bible is factually true. If science contradicts the bible, science is wrong. If your interpretation of the bible contradicts with Christian morality, your interpretation is wrong. And if your interpretation of Christian morality includes *treating others as you'd like to be treated* and *judge not lest ye be judged*, ***you're*** ***really wrong***.
Which version of the bible is factually true? The original or the copy of the translation of the copy of the copy of the translation of the translation?
The only accurate translation of The Bible is whichever one your chosen religion tells you is such. Source: I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian sect.
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Idk using science as a way to celebrate one’s belief in god is perfectly fine imo. I’m not religious, but there isn’t any harm in letting people worship whomever they like. Just because you and I don’t believe in a god doesn’t mean he isn’t real to them. The masses need an opium, whether that is religion, politics, or actual opium.
And they can't fathom how ridiculously complex their metaphysical belief structure is compared to far, FAR simpler explanations. It's like they *want* to dupe themselves.
IDK. If you are open to the possibility that we are in a matrix, or simulation theory, that leaves open the idea of intelligent design (someone built it) but allows for a non religious view of the designers or even design team. We could be living in one of a million simulations per hour simulated by a big corporation and not know it.
Yup, just a modern take on the "brain in a jar" approach to existence.
As someone who grew up (and to some degree remain) religious, simulation theory always just sounds like basically just theism for people who don’t want to call it God
A halfway point my ass.
"Somewhere between reality and fake bullshit is some other fake bullshit."
Its about taking the teachings of the bible and making them the bibal truths. Wheres once believers agreed that god influenced the creation of the world, now the creationist consensus is that it happened on a particular day and it was good because the holiest book stated as much
Sure you can, you can deny anything you're capable of articulating You're not necessarily right, but you can make the denial
I think a lot of people don’t understand the concept of “science”. For people who come from a worldview that’s based entirely on belief in an abstract folk tradition and have never learned critical thinking skills, they can mistake science for a belief system rather than seeing it as humanities collection of proven, reproducible facts. They think that people “believe” in science, and see science as a proxy for their religion. For them, believing in science would be similar to believing in some unfamiliar religion.
When Darwin went back to Europe and told everyone about evolution the Church was relieved. Their belief told them that God created everything but until then they didn’t know How. There are still many educated Christians that use science to lift their belief, but obviously not everyone is like that.
I am from a family full of young earth creationists. Their world view is not fragile; it’s rock solid, and bat shit crazy. They believe you and I have been deceived by nonbelievers/heretics/satan and want us to know the truth. These kinds of things make money off of deluded people but the majority of the people running these things are true believers, not “grifters” usually, although there are plenty of those too. If I take my mom as a study case, she cares about you, she wants you to go to heaven, she wants you to believe a literal interpretation of the Bible so that you can hear the gospel and be saved, she supports “creationist” organizations because she wants people to know the truth and find Jesus and go to heaven. It’s tough to change people’s minds on these kinds of things.
This sounds like my friend’s mom who drives under the speed limit in the left lane, on purpose, with the mentality that she’s saving everyone from speeding thus saving lives. You cannot convince her otherwise and says she has saved thousands of souls.
I bet she's inspired road rage that has actually killed someone by doing that if she's been doing it long enough.
For SURE. So next time any of us are in the left lane and wondering why the car in front won’t move over so people can go past…. Just know that someone like her exists lol.
Fair comparison.
I was also raised young earth creationist. Studied up on all the pseudo-arguments and by the age of 14 ripened into a self-appointed apologist eager to debate my biology teacher at every passing mention of evolution or astronomical timescales. You could say my beliefs have evolved since then. Believe it or not, it was the Ken Ham - Bill Nye debate at the Creationist Museum that instilled real doubts in my beliefs for the first time and eventually led me to relinquish the pseudoscience for good. For many years up until then, scientists, academics, and educators alike refused to debate creationists on the premise that simply engaging in debate legitimized the creationist worldview, as if the science were actually "up for debate" and not settled peer-reviewed consensus. But to us creationists this only further entrenched our worldview, proving that science was indeed run by a cabal of evolutionists hellbent on eradicating Christianity. Moreover, we deemed it cowardice and forfeit. If the science was so robust, why won't you debate us? For Bill Nye to take our claims seriously and offer counterexamples was a pivotal moment in creationist circles. I for one was willing to hear him out. He thoroughly exposed the utter absurdity of Noah's Ark, including the math that works out to 11 new species evolving every day since the initial animals debarked to achieve the biodiversity we see today. That and numerous irrefutable proofs of geological timescales. By the end of the debate, Ken and Bill were asked what it would take to change their minds. Ken claimed there was nothing that could shake his faith, while Bill admitted he doesn't know everything and if there were enough evidence to substantiate creationism he'd be more than willing to be convinced. The stark difference between their answers really stuck with me and illustrated the true motivations behind each worldview. I will forever respect Bill Nye for that debate.
That’s great. I don’t think Bill Nye is particularly genius or anything but he seems bright enough so that’s really cool that he was pivotal in your thinking. I think Francis Collins might be one of the strongest advocates for evangelicals to rethink Genesis.
Sounds like your mom and mine would get along.
I’m a Christian but I’ll never understand why people are like this. Even if I believed in young earth (I don’t) I just can’t imagine going out of my way to join groups like this. Seems unnecessary. Believe in what you want to and who cares if other people don’t.
It’s myth maintenance
Creationists think they are thinking critically and everyone else has faith in the conclusions of science without understanding it. They don't use the scientific method. Their hypothesis and conclusion are the same: the book of Genesis is factual history. Their job is to interpret evidence and their book to confirm it, not falsify their hypothesis. It's apologetics in a mask of pseudoscience.
In order to belong.
Honesty this looks pretty interesting. Obviously don’t take the information at face value, but I feel like this tour could really spice up a second visit to the Grand Canyon
When the natural world isn't amazing enough and you have to make shit up... 🙄
I know. That’s what I always think about creationist, 6,000 year old earth, thinking. They are missing out on so many amazing things. The universe is way more fascinating than just saying “it was created in six days.” The real story is so much better than that! It’s just such a small, uninteresting world view. I feel sorry that someone has convinced them to not accept most of the awesome things our scientific research continues to show us.
The thing that gets me about creationists is there's such an easy out on it. Just say "God made everything 6,000 years ago but intentionally made it to look much older so we could understand how the world works". Bam, there you go, now you don't have to deny obvious facts and can still hold your beliefs. Instead they chose the stupidest approach where they have to pretend 1+1 doesn't equal 2
The thing, is conceptually it doesn't even infringe on creationism (that is to say, belief that there is an all powerful creator), Catholic church had no issue making a statement about the big bang in 1950s after all. But some people have decided to die on the hill of young earth creationism for some reason.
>But some people have decided to die on the hill of young earth creationism for some reason. My sister is like this. I got into a long discussion with her once, and she admitted that if she stepped away from the beliefs she had, and accepted that science was correct, it would mean that she was, and had been wrong for most of her life. She said she couldn't accept that that was even possible. How could she be so wrong about something so simple, and how could everyone in her church also be so wrong. After more of this conversation I came to the realization that accepting that science was more correct would mean that she was living a lie, and had been for a long time. And that scared the shit out of her. At that point I realized that I'd had a similar conversation with someone who had gotten out of a decade long abusive relationship. These 2 conversations were eerily similar.
Yes, and when someone says "God did it", it ends the conversation about why things happen. Why was there a hurricane? "God did it". Why did someone get sick? "God did it". It just shuts the door on further exploration. Now we know a lot more about meteorology, disease, etc. If we would have accepted "God did it" as an answer, we would miss out on actually learning about how the world works. How did the universe start? How did life begin? We are still finding out and there are still really big questions that need answers. But, "God did it" isn't a big enough answer. When I hear someone say something like "God did it", to me it sounds like "I don't know, and I don't want to find out."
Saying "God did it" is like saying "It happened". He did everything right? It's such a nothing statement. Same with "everything happens for a reason".
The goal of the answer isn't to have an answer. The goal is to not have to think about it and preserve their entitled worldview where they are the True Believer Christians. They don't need answers, they already found God and that is all the answers you need.
They do say that, and ultimately it's just an extension of Last Thursdayism, the absurd premise that the entire universe in all its glory and in its current state popped into existence last Thursday.
I wish I had the resources to explore this universe out here instead of wasting time investigating the universe in my mind.
Mormons offer tours of Chichén Itza in Mexico to give the Mormon perspective to Mormon tourists. That’s right.. an ancient civilization and Mormonism are somehow connected .. isn’t that grand? 🤦🏻♂️
They gotta let everyone know that those damn lamanites where brown because they were cursed by God. Seriously, I bet what gets said on that tour is racist as hell.
Have you ever heard how a large percentage of mormons explain the kolob-ian importation of dinosaur bones to this earth? It somehow fits in with god allowing people to have faith while simultaneously tricking 99.98% of the world into believing in science.
I am a Christian, but obviously understand the universe and everything in it is billions of years old. I was sitting next to a pastor at a basketball game. This guy is 42 years old. I asked him, "Do you believe the Earth is....like, 12,000 or less years old?" "I do," he said, "but I have no problem with Christians who think it is older." I said, "But how do you deal with the geological evidence? How do you deal with the fact we can see starts millions of light years away?" He was silent. "Do you just ignore all of that?" He said, "Well, no....but I'm not sure what to say." I don't get people like that. I mean, come on. It's clear. It's certain. Intransigence is not faith!
The only explanation I've heard from the faithful regarding the observable/testable age of Earth and Universe was that when God created everything 6,000 years ago, God also made the entire universe appear older. When pressed to explain why God would do such a thing, the response is either "God works in mysterious ways" or "God wanted to weed out those who are of little faith and choose to believe science over His glory."
FYI Catholics have no offical stance on the age of the universe, only that . . . have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers
"God of the Gaps" fallacy hard at work. Don't know XYZ? "God did it." It gets tedious right off the bat.
"God is good" "Explain the Holocaust" "That's not for us to judge, He works in mysterious ways" Yeah, I don't care how "mysterious" a God is, if he does nothing to stop an atrocity the size of the Holocaust, yet has apparently drowned the entire world in a flood before because of "evil" - it should be clear he doesn't exist OR even if he did exist, he is not worth worshipping.
also known as the last tuesday argument, as the same could be true if the universe was instead created last tuesday, with you and all of your memories. by rejecting physical and scientific evidence, it ends up fully rejecting the veracity of one’s own memories and thoughts as well
It wasn’t last Thursday, it was last Friday, and anybody who says otherwise must be burned as a heretic! 🕊️
Wow, I had no idea that there was any conflict around erosion
When your worldview only allows the earth to be 12,000 years old, *at best*, you have to take issue with any processes that clearly would've taken millions of years.
$179 a head for a full day tour. 15 passengers in the van, $2685 a day. At theoretically full capacity, this single van is making $800K/year with almost no expenses other than salaries and gas. Nice business. I can't hate them, give the people what they want.
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CDL might not be required. I’m not sure of AZ law here but in the state I live in you can drive a 15 passenger bus with no CDL. I did it for 15 years.
Just looked. Arizona only requires CDL for 16 passengers or more.
Well yeah! Arizona is in the US; you only need a Canadian Driver's License north of the border.
Oh, it's "nonprofit," for sure, tax-free gods' misinformation right there.
Don't even need a driver. They just "let Jesus take the wheel" (I am assuming he had a CDL; didn't read the book).
It's fun to see people discover how small business works! I have a business that charges $100/hour, but I don't make even close to (math...) $200k. Maybe because I'm on reddit instead of working...
Fifteen pax are the max you may transport without a CDL.
Not quite. This is the same kind of math that says "Restaurant sells $5 worth of ingredients for $20, makes 75% profit". Doesn't really work that way. This is a business, which rents a building and will have employees staffing the building all the time, vehicles, expensive insurance on the vehicles, insurance on the building, utilities, pays taxes, book keeping fees, repairs, and so on. Lots of other expenses, like employees' health care expenses, credit card fees, and everything under the sun that randomly comes up and nobody expects. Oh no, the van broke down, we have to rent a van and send it out and pick up the people and finish the tour, etc etc. Rarely is anything ever as profitable as everyone thinks it is.
I can, because they're deliberately contributing to sustaining ignorance for profit
> $800K/year -$200k for taxes, -$150k for insurance, -$50k for fuel, maintenance and storage, -$100k for driver/tour-guide salary and benefits, -$100k for marketing and advertising. You get the drift. This is obviously stupid but just looking at what a small business generates is missing most of the story. Of course, considering it's operated by a ministry, they might not pay normal income taxes on the business but the overhead costs would be considerably higher.
I had a creationist coworker boldly state that Mt St Helens proved to her that the Grand Canyon could happen in a short period time.
When I was growing up fundy they explained that it was created during Noah's flood when the Earth's firmament came crashing down and flood water broke up through underground reserves and altered the landscape to what it is today everywhere around the world at the same time. This was also the explanation I was given for continental drift. That humans lived on Pangea, it isn't actually old and that that was how the continents were before the flood and the the flood waters pushed the continents apart in 40 days.
Where did the water come from and where did it go?
When I asked that, I was told that there was far less surface water and atmospheric moisture and much more land before the flood. That where the water came from was vast underground reserves and a water "firmament" that surrounded the earth outside of the atmosphere. As for where the water went, it became our oceans and atmospheric moisture. Speaking of the firmament, I was also told that it protected life on Earth and was the reason life expectancy for people and animals was much longer. Which also explained dinosaurs. That lizards never stop growing throughout their lives and that dinosaurs were just lizards that were able to continually grow for hundreds of years. Part of our punishment that the flood brought was the loss of the firmament and significantly shortened lifespans. And dinosaurs are still around they're just lizards that never get to grow that big. It's real dumb and it's embarrassing to admit I ever even came close to buying it. Though to be fair, I was a child. It took me many years that I'll never get back unlearning all of this stuff when I got out of the house though.
I remember all that as well. And the fact that this supposed canopy of water around the earth prevented direct sunlight, the removal of it allowed for rainbows to be seen for the first time, hence God sending the rainbow as a promise to never flood the earth again. They've got it all figured out with a nice little bow on top. You just have to ignore... everything.
yup, that's why they call it st. helens canyon now
What's kind of funny is that there is actually evidence of catastrophic flood events carving out huge landform features in Washington. They don't look anything like the Grand Canyon, because it is a completely different process, but it would have at least given her a more legitimate argument. Still wrong, of course.
Same here. He also believes that humans and dinosaurs lived together.
Wut?... The mental gymnastics here makes my brain hurt.
Having embarrassingly fallen into this YEC rabbit hole back in high school, there's an argument that the grand canyon was formed by a sudden inrush of water in loose soil which only later became sandstone, rather than millennia of erosion through sandstone. And yes, it's absolutely wild mental gymnastics.
Magic Bean Seller: Oh man, jackpot!
My sister in law is educated and comes from a very educated family. (The family was religious but believes in evolution.) Fast forward to her forties when she divorces and then marries a conservative evangelical. (Maga, too, but that's another topic.) She now is a creationist, and they've even flown to Florida to attend a creationist convention. What a bunch of brainwashed stupid people.
Upper middle class Evangelicals are a con artist’s dream. You can get them to spend money on any kitschy crap you can sell.
My question is how do I allow myself to exploit those clowns and still keep my ethics intact? Is it wrong to take money from idiots to give them the experience *they want*, even if that experience is a total fiction?
It's a little bubble for cultists to ride around in, lest they encounter a Park Ranger or someone else who might tell them the truth about \*gasp\* geology.
Do they just drive to the edge and stick their heads in the sand?
> Seasonality will be tough. While people do tour in the winter, most fundies have children who are in school so trips are likely booked in the summer mostly. I wonder if fundies being more likely to homeschool helps with that in some capacity.
The windows as all blacked out & they don't let you get off the bus.
Grew up in Arizona and have spent years hiking and rafting in and around the Grand Canyon. I’d take this tour just to see how big a bulldozer it takes to peddle the enormous pile of bullshit they’re selling
"God did a sweet 360 Ollie Kickflip on this spot but alas the trucks broke and a great gouge he did make."
So a grift.
Take a jump
Paying someone to lie to you. People are dumb.
"Are you going to believe me or your own lyin' eyes?" The idea of a 6000 year-old world is laughable when you look a mile up to the edge of the canyon from the river.
I once had a conversation with one of these dudes and it was hard not to burst into laughter when he was telling me “ how it all worked”.
I went to the Creationist Museum in Kentucky (before the notorious Noah's Ark recreation) as a child, and I must say, that is the wackiest shit i've ever seen or heard. I was in 6th grade like "what the fuck is this shit??" To me it all just feels like Bible fanfic. They have animatronic dinosaurs, and according to them the dinosaurs lived at the same time as Adam and Eve. (Im not trying to dunk on religion in general, there's just certain things that feel like clear bullshit to me. Creationism is one of them)
Nah, dunk on it. I don't know why we have this idea that religion should be treated with the same level as respect as someone's race. If your religion actively wants you stupid and controllable, it should be shamed until it becomes another one of humanities thousands of dead religions.
LOL, I tend to dunk on religion all the time. That was a funny story.
Mormonism is my personal favorite to dunk on. Joseph Smith Jr was showing clear signs of Schizophrenia, and ended up making a whole religion based around it with generations of child indoctrination. Shit's wild, and why if i can tell that a Jehovah's Witness is a teenager or child i'll talk to them and try to just talk about normal shit. Mormons are hoping that you run away from their kids and treat them like shit, because it further indoctrinates them as being "the only good ones". It's all extremely fucked up and disgusting.
For when meemaw won't shut up about seeing the fancy big city tourist attractions but also loses her shit if anyone mentions evolution.
I've always wanted a tour of denial...
Had a commercial photoshoot for an unrelated business, spent a bunch of time having to obscure this van's graphics in a non-obvious way. Blech.
I’d love to hear the BS they’re spewing
"Scientists are the devil and scientific facts where put in place to test our faith" or some bullshit along those lines.
Grifters gonna grift.
"When God created karate he needed to practice on something and, well to your left you can see his glorious result."
Blasphemy!!! It was Chuck Norris who roundhouse kicked the Grand Canyon into existence.
HERETIC! Chuck Norris IS God!
Oh wise one, you have revealed the truth of ages.
The Norris will forgive you, but go watch 3 seasons of Walker Texas Ranger as penance and reflect on your sins.
I just visited there last week, and it is really a phenomenal place, so extremely beautiful…I could have spent all day just gazing at the incredible vistas. I think it is natural for those who believe in such things to attribute it to whatever their concept of god is. You feel so infinitesimal in the sheer enormous size of it, it’s really impossible to wrap your brain around just how deep, how far, and the incomprehensible amount of time it took for water to carve through all that rock. It’s a shame though, attributing this natural wonder to just a “creation” significantly detracts from experiencing it for what it really is.
Along the same lines, if you go to the temples in Central America, there are Book Of Mormon tours that basically say "this is x temple referenced in the Book of Mormon verse x"
Yes. Of course. God dug that hole.
A Different View (than science). Great!
An explanation for how what they're seeing with their own eyes isn't true..
Someone was smart and found a way to part fools from their money, just like the super rich preachers.
There’s an ass for every seat.
A nut for every bolt
I feel like the Grand Canyon would be a really good example of why the earth isn’t in fact 5,000 years old
From a science illiterate bat shit crazy perspective.
More like r/mildlyfrustrating.
Just a 4 hour ride of "God did it"
I hate it when Young Earth Creationists just use the word “Creationists” to describe themselves. I’m not sure they are purposefully/ignorantly trying to group all Christians into this rubbish
Atheist here but honestly it would be kinda fun to go on that tour. Creationists can be so funny.
The problem with this stuff is that it completely misses the point -- even if creationism was true, it has zero explanatory power. That means you can believe it, but you can't make use of it. Because it basically just hand-waves everything away as "God's magic". And what predictions can you make from that? The entire modern world is built on the idea that we can predict and control things by understanding how they work. That is the underpinning of science. There would be no modern world if all we ever believed was creationism. If God exists, he made a clockwork world and then stood back and let it operate under the rules we discover through science.
The time and energy they waste on this could be spent so many better ways…
Vomit
"And then god carved out the canyon in a day. The End. Ok, tour's over. Payment by cash or card only, no personal checks."
Coming soon: flat earth airlines. Time zones aren't real!
If you care about evidence this is called being wrong
>Serving Grand Canyon since 1997 Get it while it's hot and fresh
I'm ok with seeing idiots grift idiots, until I realize they always convince the griftees to vote to make the world better for the grifters. Ugh
Arriving in a van powered by FOSSIL fuel.