Just when you think you\u2019ve heard it all.<\/p>\n
I want everyone reading this to take a moment to compose yourself. \u00a0This is going to be an extremely serious discussion topic. \u00a0Because the Fundamentalists have seized the Loch Ness Monster.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re all familiar with this photo of Nessie, right?<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
Here she is in all of her glory. \u00a0Totally not fake. \u00a0Totally not a piece of\u00a0plastic wood attached to a toy submarine.<\/a> \u2026<\/p>\n
So sure, it\u2019s pretty darn unlikely that there is a monster living in Loch Ness.<\/p>\n
But Accelerated\u00a0Christian Education<\/a> (ACE<\/a>) doesn\u2019t let a little thing like \u201cno good evidence\u201d stop them! \u00a0ACE is a fundamentalist Christian\u00a0curriculum used in private and home schools. \u00a0And (surprise!) they are a bit dubious about evolution.<\/p>\n
Read with me\u00a0this excerpt from their \u201cbiology\u201d textbook<\/a>:<\/p>\n
Are dinosaurs alive today?\u00a0Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence.<\/strong> Have you heard of the \u2018Loch Ness Monster\u2019 in Scotland? \u2018Nessie\u2019 for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others.\u00a0Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.<\/strong><\/p>\n
So when scientists all agree that the most likely and widely supported explanation for the diversity of life on Earth is evolution by natural selection, the fundies are all \u201cAHHH! Conspiracy! \u00a0You are repressing my\u00a0ability to pray with all of your science mumbo jumbo!\u201d\u2026\u00a0but when a couple of people wander off the beaten path and hypothesize that maybe it\u2019s not outside of the\u00a0realm\u00a0of possibilities that some kind of water-dwelling creature could be residing in Loch Ness, they just jump all over that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So yes, The Friendly Atheist is shocked. But for me growing up, well, talking about how the Loch Ness Monster was actually a dinosaur, and how the existence of dinosaurs today disproves evolution, was as normal as going to grandma\u2019s house or mom making chocolate chip cookies.<\/p>\n
And it wasn\u2019t just Nessie. We heard stories of dinosaur sightings in the Congo and the Amazon. And then there was that whale carcass pulled from the water in Japan a few years ago that initially looked like a dead pleiosaur rather than simply a very rotted whale. We grabbed onto those stories and put credit by them. There were still dinosaurs in the world. <\/em><\/p>\n
Now you may think this was sort of an odd thing to believe. How did this fit with everything else, you ask? Nicely, actually.<\/p>\n
See, we believed that every species living or extinct today was represented on the Ark, including dinosaurs. Then, after the flood there was a (short) ice age. It lasted about two hundred years. During this period many species, including most of the dinosaurs, went extinct. After all, the climate changed after the flood (including the makeup of the air itself), the vegetation, the temperature, etc., and this meant that many species of dinosaurs simply weren\u2019t equipped to survive. But some did.<\/p>\n
You know the story of St. George and the dragon? Well, we were taught that these stories of dragons were based on a simple reality \u2013 even during the Middle Ages humans still fought the\u00a0occasional\u00a0left over dinosaur. So all those dragon stories? Yeah, those were about humans fighting dinosaurs. And like I said \u2013 the Amazon, the Congo, Loch Ness \u2013 we believed that some of those dinosaurs still existed.<\/p>\n
Why, you ask? Well, it\u2019s important to remember that we saw this as a strike against evolution. After all, dinosaurs were supposed to have died out millions of years ago, at least if the theory of evolution has it right. Therefore if we found a dinosaur alive today, we believed, an actual real dinosaur, that would thus prove evolution wrong and prove that the earth was young.<\/p>\n
The Friendly Atheist may be surprised, but I\u2019m not. Growing up, the idea that dinosaurs lived alongside human beings was as normal as apple pie. (And yes, through the use of vouchers, the ACE curriculum he quotes from is now being paid for with taxpayer dollars in some states.)<\/p>\n
Here<\/a> are<\/a> some<\/a> links<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Friendly Atheist is shocked that some creationists use Nessie as proof of creationism. Just when you think you\u2019ve heard it all. I want everyone reading this to take a moment to compose yourself. \u00a0This is going to be an extremely serious discussion topic. \u00a0Because the Fundamentalists have seized the Loch Ness Monster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[147,22,157],"class_list":["post-5564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism","tag-answers-in-genesis","tag-bible","tag-creationism"],"yoast_head":"\n
I Believed That Dinosaurs Still Existed...<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Friendly Atheist is shocked that some creationists use Nessie as proof of creationism. Just when you think you\u2019ve heard it all. I want everyone\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/07\/i-believed-that-dinosaurs-still-existed.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Believed That Dinosaurs Still Existed...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Friendly Atheist is shocked that some creationists use Nessie as proof of creationism. Just when you think you\u2019ve heard it all. I want everyone\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/07\/i-believed-that-dinosaurs-still-existed.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Love, Joy, Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-07-02T09:45:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-08-07T18:56:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/friendlyatheist\/files\/2012\/06\/Nessie.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/07\/i-believed-that-dinosaurs-still-existed.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/07\/i-believed-that-dinosaurs-still-existed.html\",\"name\":\"I Believed That Dinosaurs Still Existed...\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-07-02T09:45:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-08-07T18:56:36+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\"},\"description\":\"The Friendly Atheist is shocked that some creationists use Nessie as proof of creationism. Just when you think you\u2019ve heard it all. I want everyone\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/07\/i-believed-that-dinosaurs-still-existed.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/07\/i-believed-that-dinosaurs-still-existed.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/07\/i-believed-that-dinosaurs-still-existed.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"I Believed That Dinosaurs Still Existed…\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/\",\"name\":\"Love, Joy, Feminism\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\",\"name\":\"Libby Anne\",\"description\":\"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. College turned her world upside down, and she is today an atheist, a feminist, and a progressive. She blogs about leaving religion, her experience with the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements, the detrimental effects of the \\\"purity culture,\\\" the contradictions of conservative politics, and the importance of feminism.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/author\/libby\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"I Believed That Dinosaurs Still Existed...","description":"The Friendly Atheist is shocked that some creationists use Nessie as proof of creationism. Just when you think you\u2019ve heard it all. I want everyone","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/07\/i-believed-that-dinosaurs-still-existed.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"I Believed That Dinosaurs Still Existed...","og_description":"The Friendly Atheist is shocked that some creationists use Nessie as proof of creationism. Just when you think you\u2019ve heard it all. I want everyone","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/07\/i-believed-that-dinosaurs-still-existed.html","og_site_name":"Love, Joy, Feminism","article_published_time":"2012-07-02T09:45:30+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-08-07T18:56:36+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/friendlyatheist\/files\/2012\/06\/Nessie.jpg"}],"author":"Libby Anne","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Libby Anne","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/07\/i-believed-that-dinosaurs-still-existed.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/07\/i-believed-that-dinosaurs-still-existed.html","name":"I Believed That Dinosaurs Still Existed...","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-07-02T09:45:30+00:00","dateModified":"2012-08-07T18:56:36+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2"},"description":"The Friendly Atheist is shocked that some creationists use Nessie as proof of creationism. Just when you think you\u2019ve heard it all. I want everyone","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/07\/i-believed-that-dinosaurs-still-existed.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/07\/i-believed-that-dinosaurs-still-existed.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/07\/i-believed-that-dinosaurs-still-existed.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"I Believed That Dinosaurs Still Existed…"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/","name":"Love, Joy, Feminism","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2","name":"Libby Anne","description":"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. College turned her world upside down, and she is today an atheist, a feminist, and a progressive. She blogs about leaving religion, her experience with the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements, the detrimental effects of the \"purity culture,\" the contradictions of conservative politics, and the importance of feminism.","sameAs":["http:\/\/patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/author\/libby"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/845"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}