Like I said before, I really feel sorry for whoever works at the People For the American Way whose job it is to watch and listen to all those hours and hours of Christian broadcasting to try to find the oasis of awesomeness in the middle of the desert of praisin’ the loard.
This time we’ve got Mark Looy on a Christian television show. Looy’s a cofounder of Answers in Genesis, who built the Creationist “Museum” in Petersburg, KY. They’re also building a replica of Noah’s Ark, down to the last cubit and “kind,” with taxpayer funding. The host of the show asked Looy what’s next, and he said they were thinking of re-creating Solomon’s Temple. He added:
“but it’s not going to be some kind of secular temple where all sorts of weird religious ceremonies are held.”
That word, secular, I don’t think it means what Looy thinks it means. But if that’s not where they plan to hold their weird religious ceremonies, then where will Answers in Genesis have their weird religious ceremonies? Having been there, I’d have to say that just walking through the Creationist “Museum” seemed a lot like a weird religious ceremony.
But that’s not all! They also plan on building a replica of the Tower of Babel. This on its own is awesome if you know the story of it, but if you don’t, here it is: Back in the day, people wanted to make their own stairway to heaven, so they decided to build a huge tower. It was basically the space elevator of the Bronze Age. This made God real mad because as you know if you’ve read the Old Testament, God has serious insecurity issues and doesn’t want to share his position with anybody. So he fucked with everybody’s minds and made them all speak different languages. Unable to communicate, they were not able to finish building the tower.
If that’s too crass of a way to put it for you, I’ll put the King James version of the story here:
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
The lesson I derive from this story as a secular humanist is that we all ought to start learning as many languages as we can. That way we re-build this thing and send a few guys with names like Igor the Unreasonable up the elevator in the Babel Tower (which is what it would be called nowadays) up to heaven so they can teach this God character a lesson he won’t soon forget. We have to show this God person he can’t keep pushing us around with earthquakes and tsunamis and stuff like that.
But as Christians, the lesson the AIG people should learn is that we shouldn’t want anything like a Tower of Babel built ever again because it would offend God. We should be fighting each other so we don’t threaten God’s power. There’s another problem for God’s omnipotence, but it’s not really dealt with very well in the Bible. And Answers in Genesis definitely won’t be exploring that question very deeply in any of their new theme park rides.
Tags: Answers in Genesis, Christianity, creationism, Mark Looy, Solomon's Temple, Tower of Babel
June 11, 2012 at 15:44 |
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