Park Service Sticks With Biblical Explanation For Grand Canyon

[DuctapeFatwa]

The Bush Administration has decided that it will stand by its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, according to internal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Despite telling members of Congress and the public that the legality and appropriateness of the National Park Service offering a creationist book for sale at Grand Canyon museums and bookstores was “under review at the national level by several offices,” no such review took place, according to materials obtained by PEER under the Freedom of Information Act. Instead, the real agency position was expressed by NPS spokesperson Elaine Sevy as quoted in the Baptist Press News:

“Now that the book has become quite popular, we don’t want to remove it.”

http://www.peer.org/press/524.html

[DrWeird]

1. Shit, let's just blow up statues of the Buddha.

nt

[Forkboy]

2. Dont give them any ideas

[Toots]

34. Can we grow some opium also?

:+

[sweetheart]

39. What a zen idea!

:-) Boom! :-)

[Steelangel]

3. Er..

'The Bush Administration has decided that it will stand by its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, according to internal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).'

ROFL, ROFL ROFLR OFLROFOOR ROFL!

[DuctapeFatwa]

17. Almost as good as US Demands Ukraine Stop Campaign Abuse

you really cant make this stuff up.

Here's link to Ukraine one

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=905005

[Lithos]

4. *sigh*

At least the Grand Canyon makes a good symbol of the credibility gap (and a few other gaps) in the Bush Administration.

L-

[FlemingsGhost]

5. Ah, yes ... building that bridge to the 14th Century.

Wonder how that book from NASA is coming along. You know, the one that proves, without a doubt, the earth is flat.

[davidinalameda]

6. now which day was the Grand Canyon created

morans

[xray s]

7. what size box of crayons comes with that book?

16 or 24?

[HereSince1628]

12. Eight. Eight big fat crayolas.

This _IS_ Bush's legacy. 15-20 years from now the children of current high school and college students will ask incredulously, "People actually voted for this idiot?"

Of course, they will do that while wiping down their blackmarket AK-47s, just prior to marching before parents and administrators as part of presenting themselves for inspection prior to entering middle school.

[Occulus]

47. maybe they'll instead be wiping them down so that noone prevents them

from getting the education they feel they deserve. Hmmmm.

[intheflow]

8. Thanks for posting

I go to a liberal seminary, concentrating on peace, justice & the environment, and this one slipped under my radar screen. Really appreciate this post.
:thumbsup:

[SoCalDem]

9. GOOD GRIEF, these people are DENSE..

:(

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. What a waste of tax-payer's money.

Those who will believe the Grand Canyon was the result of the Noah floods will believe it on faith. So why bother wasting time on studies? Just privatize the book sales to some children's book publisher that prints pretty picture books.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. Yikes. What next?

[Ediacara]

13. You know what the #1 reason to vote for Kerry is?

Seriously. You need to tell this to every single non-religious-nutjob Republican you know:

KERRY IS NOT A CREATIONIST.

BUSH IS A CREATIONIST.

Bush has an apocolyptic fundimentalist worldview that makes him: 1) reject science, 2) believe he was chosen by God Himself, and 3) act to hasten the rapture.

There is simply no way I can see for any sane person, even a conservative person, to support someone so clearly deluded.

Urge your friends to vote for Kerry to return sanity to government NOW, and then in 2008 feel free to support a candidate who is NOT a religious nutjob, such as McCain or Hagel.

Back to the subject of this thread.... this book is clearly illegal, and under any SANE administration would have never been in the bookstore in the first place.

[KT2000]

14. American Taliban is here!

Bush IS the American Taliban

[Malva Zebrina]

15. Right and there is a big tent over the earth and that is where the god

lives.

Is that next?

[Ediacara]

16. So THAT'S why...

The Gop calls itself the "big tent party"...

[lightbulb]

18. "Noah's Flood"? I seem to recall it being

God's flood. And I seem to recall the intent of the flood was to annihilate every man, woman and child on earth because He didn't like how they were behaving. If these lunatics want the Grand Canyon to be a grand testament to the largest genocide in the history of humanity, that's great. Not very good PR for their God though.

[snippy]

19. How very republican. n/t

[GoddessOfGuinness]

20. Anybody know any Native American stories

which explain the creation of the Grand Canyon?

If the NPS is going to start selling fables, they should at least offer the ones that are interesting and poetic.

[Lisa]

24. apparently the fundies have cited NPS references to aboriginal mythology

... an accepted part of nature interpretation going back many decades ... to argue that the Creationist view should have equal standing! (Given that using "Traditional Ecological Knowledge" is a way to share aboriginal cultural values and encourage modern people to treat nature with respect, I don't think that squares with the beliefs of certain fundamentalists, e.g. James Watt, that "Jesus will be angry if He comes back and we haven't used all the resources up".)

http://magazine.audubon.org/fieldnotes/fieldnotes0405.html


(Somehow I don't think they're they're saying it's okay to treat the Christian religion as "folklore", as we do the beliefs of earlier societies!)


"Across the mountains the Two Brothers cut channels. Water rushed through the channels, and wore their courses deeper and deeper. Thus the great canyons and valleys of the world were formed. The waters have kept on flowing and flowing for ages. The world has grown drier, and continues to grow drier and drier."

"Only a small number of people were able to climb up from their secret hiding places and emerge into the Fourth World. Legends reveal the Grand Canyon is where these people emerged. From there they began their search for the homes the Two Brothers intended for them.

These few were the Hopi Indians that now live on the Three Mesas of northeastern Arizona."




http://www.merceronline.com/Native/native06.htm

[GoddessOfGuinness]

25. But who's responsible for their creationist crap?

New World references are not in their bible.

If this is ok, then anybody can make up a story and have it sold there.

Let's hear the Satanic version of the Grand Canyon creation. How about the Wall Street version? Don't forget Poland!

Jeeeeeeze!

By the way, those are beautiful references you cited. What a pity the creationist view does nothing to promote the preservation of nature.

[Lisa]

26. I imagine that some of the New World sects might have sacred landmarks

The Mormons, for example? But you're right -- most of the times they are located in the "Old World", like the Middle East (Jerusalem, Bethlehem) or Africa (Ethiopia, for Rastafarians).

Actually I'm teaching a course right now that looks at the ways in which different religions view the environment -- in terms of "sacred spaces", etc. -- interesting to note that some of the pilgrimage sites from the Middle Ages use places from much earlier traditions. Sacred trees, springs, and hills are common -- but later, stricter types of Christianity frowned on this as "pagan". The material world (the surrounding environment, except for the moon and stars) was held to be "contaminated" and "sinful" -- even made by the Devil! Until fairly recently a lot of clergy would even refuse to perform outdoor weddings, on the grounds that you had to be inside "the house of God", i.e. a church -- making a human construction more sacred than the landscape outside.

I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that people who have been raised to think this way may find it difficult to accept the views of some aboriginal groups -- that large areas of the land and water (as opposed to specific historic sites) are "sacred" and must not be interfered with.

Thanks for bringing this up! This gives me a whole new idea for what to present in class later this month. Some fundamentalist Christians have spent lots of money looking for biblical locations such as the Garden of Eden, and the kingdoms of Prester John and King Solomon (among others) -- and yet they didn't see anything inherently wrong in bombing the Biblical city of Ur (in present-day Iraq), birthplace of the patriarch Abraham.


To be fair and balanced (!) there actually are Christian groups that don't agree with the exploitation of nature -- the Evangelical Environmental Network, for example.


Here's a very interesting page with links to all kinds of religion and ancient mythology sites:
http://www.mythinglinks.org/home.html

The Native American page (still being developed):
http://www.mythinglinks.org/ip~northamerica~SW.html

[GoddessOfGuinness]

42. Thanks for the links!

I'm fascinated by mythology and religion (in spite of my ranting about the fundy perspective)! I wish I could take your course.

I haven't heard of the Evangelical Environmental Network before. If their label at all reflects their belief, more power to them; but I hope they don't think a republican is going to help their agenda...

[hatrack]

45. Shit, let's attribute it to Paul Bunyan's pickaxe while we're at it!

I mean, we wouldn't want to offend anybody from Wisconsin or Michigan, would we? :puke:

[moondoggie]

21. Freepin' morons.

N/T

[ninkasi]

22. We must really provide a spectacle

to the civilized countries of this world. They don't know whether to be pissed, shocked, or just laugh their asses off. I guess the pukes don't realize it, but actions like this are a surefire way for the rest of the world to conclude that America as a super power, a country sometimes feared, but often respected, has passed the peak of it's powers.

This all comes at the hand of the radical right. I am appalled.

[daleo]

23. If the waters covered the earth above the mountain tops

(I believe Genesis mentions this), why would a flood have particularly caused a huge canyon in the U.S. southwest and not thousands of other places around the globe. Indeed, isn't this like claiming the mid-Atlantic trench was caused by all the water above it?

[FlemingsGhost]

28. Why do you hate Jesus?

Stop using that elitist logic, and liberally-biased "science" stuff, okay?

Stop thinking, and start believing.

[VegasWolf]

38. Unfortunately, the biblical "authors" didn't know about Hydrology n/t

New Information Shows Bush Indecisive, Paranoid, Delusional

[yellowcanine]

27. Who cares? It is one book in a bookstore. Let the fundies buy it if they

want to throw their money away.

[Zomby Woof]

29. no end to stupidity

These are the same people who call the train that runs to the Canyon and asks if it goes down into the Canyon, or around the Canyon, etc.

[DemBones DemBones]

30. I don't know whether this distresses me most because I am

a Christian or because I am a scientist. :shrug:

It is just so very distressing for the government to stand behind this. Some poor public school science teachers will have students bringing this book to school as "proof" of their beliefs. I can tell you from experience that it is very difficult to teach science to kids who have been raised to be anti-science. They are taught by church and parents that science says there is no God, that evolution says men evolved from monkeys but that can't be true because monkeys still exist, etc.

[Maestro]

32. I know what you mean.

I am a teacher. It just really irks me when people start imposing one religious belief on another. I am a very liberal Christian and this just makes me so mad or is it frustrated or both? It just opens up all sorts of dilemmas. Now we need to include all beliefs, which is unrealistic, in order to not seem discriminatory. Really, through science we can discover so much, even parts more than we want but it is the only fair and just way of presenting certain known concepts of the universe.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

50. It distresses me more that there is even any kind of serious

consideration of this BS.

Why couldn't Paul Bunyon and Babe the Blue Ox have made it with a plow?

[Maestro]

31. I remember when this first came out.

Just preposterous!

[PartyPooper]

33. Well, I gotta tell ya, I just returned from the Grand Canyon and I saw

no such book! And, I perused all gift shops!

Besides, most of the folks visiting the Grand Canyon (as well as other National Parks in the US) are International visitors and PROGRESSIVES from the US...and around the world! They love geology, archaelogy, and nature.

I spoke with several. And, they ALL HATE BUSH!

:bounce:

[Disturbed]

35. Irony!!!

The most environmentaly unfriendly Admin. in recent history defending this pure crap!!!

God kills all but Noha's family and all the animals except two pairs of them and all of those are on a boat. What sort of God is that?

Dinasours didn't exist because there is no mention of them in this book that this God directed be written.

God created man in his own image therefore man could not have evolved from monkeys.

I could go on but it is plain lunacy that anyone believes that the bible is the word of God and everything in is fact.

[FlemingsGhost]

37. See post #28, ya Commie.

:hi:

[Spiffarino]

44. Went to GCNP in June

And several other NPS sites in the Southwest. The folks who work there - almost to the last person - told me things have been going steadily downhill since 2001. Maintenance is screwed up, the pay is horrible, there's no money for even the most basic things, etc., etc.

There were a few who seemed not to care, but they were the exception. The rest really hate this misAdministration for how it has mismanaged the NPS.

[VegasWolf]

36. "I understand that some people believe in dinosaurs, but you

know what, nobody has ever really seen one." George W. Bush.

When you believe the god created the world a few thousand
years ago, then you don't need to worry about the environment
or anything. god can just fix it up again, probably only
take two days this time.

Dangerous as fuck thinking!!


But I've heard President Bush describe his record. His record doesn't match his record. Jon Stewart

New Information Shows Bush Indecisive, Paranoid, Delusional

[Thor_MN]

40. I understand that there are people that believe * can touch something

without fucking it up, but no one has actually seen this happen....

[schultzee]

41. There is not much difference between Baptists and Taliban as

far as I am concerned. Both applaud ignorance.

[Seabiscuit]

49. You got that right. And W's therefore indistinguishable from the Taliban

[Spiffarino]

43. BFD

It's one book, one opinion. There are lots of opinions and nobody's need be left out even if it seems idiotic. Let them sell whatever book they want to the Fundies. If somebody wants a book that says the Grand Canyon is the Earth's buttcrack, sell it too. Who the fuck cares?

1st Amendment? It's a good thing.

[illuminaughty]

46. Let's see, the Grand Canyon is 2000 million years old

Biblical scholars suggest that the flood happened in 2744 B.C., I've even seen a suggested date of May 17th. Uh huh. Of course, Noah was 600 years old and it took 120 years to build the ark.

Is someone counting in dog year's or what? I'm sorry. I should just have faith. It's just that once in awhile I like for things to make sense.

And how many civilizations tell the story of a catastrophic flood and the boat etc? I know there was one written on the tablets at Ur but oops, we let those get away in the looting of the museum. We might have been able to research this more if we hadn't BLOWN UP Mesopotamia.

[Seabiscuit]

48. What the.......??????

:wtf:

[Seabiscuit]

51. If this doesn't violate the separation of church and state clause

I don't know what does. This is the state (an agency of the federal government) officially endorsing a particular religious view (one which is utterly insane) in violation of the Constitution.

Have they no decency left?

Do they have to utterly pollute every aspect of our lives????

Fuckin' traitors!