I would like to present for your delectation one of creationism’s biggest problems and let me assure you, it is very big. It also comes fully equipped with a tree-trunk tail, a scaly body, a bad attitude and an enormous, slavering mouth full of jagged teeth. The existence of dinosaurs and dinosaur fossils tends to leave creationists a trifle flummoxed. One of the more notorious examples of this dates back to the Victorian period with the publication of Philip Henry Gosse’s ‘Omphalos’, a book that basically contended that God had planted the fossils in the earth as a means of fabricating an imaginary time before creation. Mind you, even at the time, everyone thought this was pretty far-fetched. As much as people prefer not to contemplate their uncanny resemblance to baboons, they also don’t like to think that their deity of choice is a sneaky motherfucker who hides dino femurs in rocks like toys in a Kinder Surprise. In this rousing tradition of nutbar speculation, contemporary creationists have striven to give us credible explanations of fossil evidence. And where Gosse failed, modern creationists have failed harder, with less Greek and far more amusing graphics! Like the brave municipal sanitation worker, I waded through the raw sewage of the Internet in search of only most stanky theological turds. What I found was a delightful creationist mythology, equal parts Hanna-Barbara and Middle fucking Earth. I shall try to recount it to the best of my understanding and with substantially fewer spelling errors. Stop me when things start sounding kind of, oh, I don’t know, crazy or something.
Once upon a time there were these two people who had no belly-buttons. Their names were Adam and Eve. Like Prince, they did not require last names. Adam and Eve lived in a hot piece of real estate called the Garden of Eden, co-existing peacefully with all kinds of animals, including gigantic, vicious reptiles. It was sort of like a Flintstones rerun, complete with foot-propelled stone convertibles and dinosaurs being used as can-openers. Adam and Eve were very happy indeed, until they violated the terms of their lease and God evicted them, condemning our darling honeymooners to unspeakable pain, death, no central vac, etc., etc. Adam and Eve proceeded to frolic about in fig-leaf Fruit of the Looms, popping out little sinners and when necessary, hunting dinosaurs for meat and lizard-skin pants. Flash forward to Noah, who was asked to build a great big cruise ship so that he, his family and two of every animal could escape a plumbing problem caused by vengeful landlord God to drown all the evil-doers. So Noah loaded on the lions, the zebras, the flamingos and oh yeah, a fine assortment of T-rexes, veloci-raptors and brontosauri, which he kept in wooden pens beside the sheep, the cattle and the pigs. La famille Noah all guzzled pina coladas on the ship deck while everything else died in horrible agony and then they pranced off the ark into a fresh, new minty-smelling world laden with rainbows and covenants. All through the Bible, dinos continued to pop up in funny places with kooky Hebrew names like Leviathan and Behemoth but the descriptions made them sound suspiciously like whales and water buffalo. Finally, in the Middle Ages, knights killed many, many dinosaurs as a means of scoring hot princess babes, until all of the dinos went extinct, into hiding or became children’s entertainers. Everyone lived happily ever after, in spite of the fact no one managed to figure out how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.
Once upon a time there were these two people who had no belly-buttons. Their names were Adam and Eve. Like Prince, they did not require last names. Adam and Eve lived in a hot piece of real estate called the Garden of Eden, co-existing peacefully with all kinds of animals, including gigantic, vicious reptiles. It was sort of like a Flintstones rerun, complete with foot-propelled stone convertibles and dinosaurs being used as can-openers. Adam and Eve were very happy indeed, until they violated the terms of their lease and God evicted them, condemning our darling honeymooners to unspeakable pain, death, no central vac, etc., etc. Adam and Eve proceeded to frolic about in fig-leaf Fruit of the Looms, popping out little sinners and when necessary, hunting dinosaurs for meat and lizard-skin pants. Flash forward to Noah, who was asked to build a great big cruise ship so that he, his family and two of every animal could escape a plumbing problem caused by vengeful landlord God to drown all the evil-doers. So Noah loaded on the lions, the zebras, the flamingos and oh yeah, a fine assortment of T-rexes, veloci-raptors and brontosauri, which he kept in wooden pens beside the sheep, the cattle and the pigs. La famille Noah all guzzled pina coladas on the ship deck while everything else died in horrible agony and then they pranced off the ark into a fresh, new minty-smelling world laden with rainbows and covenants. All through the Bible, dinos continued to pop up in funny places with kooky Hebrew names like Leviathan and Behemoth but the descriptions made them sound suspiciously like whales and water buffalo. Finally, in the Middle Ages, knights killed many, many dinosaurs as a means of scoring hot princess babes, until all of the dinos went extinct, into hiding or became children’s entertainers. Everyone lived happily ever after, in spite of the fact no one managed to figure out how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.
THE END
Okay, why didn’t you stop me at, say, the third sentence? Apparently Christian fundamentalists are under the impression that dinosaurs used to give people pony rides. That right there is a choice cut of crazy. It is also notable for sucking all the fun of dinosaurs, which derives principally from them being huge ferocious creatures whose heart’s fondest wish was to rip your throat out. Of course, even more fun is the fact that they now can do no such thing because they stumbled into tar pits and we use their remains to drive our Honda Civics to the Mall of the Americas. I have nothing against faith but if you’re going to believe something so eye-bleedingly absurd as hard-core creationism, I think you’d better be sure to make it the most astonishing, entertaining belief system ever. In that case, you should have Darwin and dinos and God and maybe even a dino God that chomps Darwin’s head off in one bite and then spits it into a bucket. Toss in some unicorns, hippogriffs and monkey men too, while you’re at it. Why the hell not? I mean, if you aren’t the least interested in piffling details like scientific evidence, empirical reasoning or reality, you can imagine pretty much whatever you like and then maybe you can even teach it to third graders! Personally, I’d like to believe that millions of years ago (or last Monday, by creationist estimates) dinosaurs were chasing Jerry Falwell and his crew of hate-mongering fundamentalist zealots through the primordial rainforests of Pangea. I flatter myself that it is a rather plausible alternative to Intelligent Design.
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