echidna

Shit a brick Prax, don't let knowledge slow ya down. Never stopped me making a galah of myself.

Kuu

Welcome. Not only a Tasmanian but a Hobartian too, just like me

The only other Tasmanian I know on line is from Lonnie.

I often forget to look at Catalyst. I am another person who liked Quantum more.

Besides my son's TV is broken so he keeps borrowing mine to play his Playstation on.

Camaban

This is the second time I've actually (personally)heard creationism's existance acknowleged on Australian television

(the other time was about 12 years ago, and one of those bogus noah's ark discoveries)

Please, PLEASE don't let this be the start of what I've come to dub "The American disease" (You all have my deepest, deepest sympathies, BTW)

Praxiteles

Ouch!

Well, it's only one reason that I don't usually post. Another major one is time constraint.

I too hadn't heard about creationism until I accidentally discovered the subject whilst surfing the net 4 years ago. Since I've been sensitive to the topic I have seen evidence (although very little) of creationist activity here. I've even met one! That particular fellow was more honest than most, though. He admitted that he wasn't interested in scientific evidence. He believed in YECism because he wanted to.

Praxiteles

Yeah, we do seem to be reasonably rare, but I suppose that with the plethora of sites that people visit, the odds of 2 Taswegians bumping into each other would be reasonably slender.

I had never seen anything on telly (produced in Oz) that addressed the creationist twaddle. I'm really looking forward to it. I hope they add just the correct levels of mockage when referring to Gish and his fellow fantasy followers.

echidna

Oh they’re definitely around, but few & far between, and being impossibly outnumbered they tend to keep to themselves. In fact fundamentalism here is so isolated it hardly even gets lampooned anymore.

I have an incredibly intelligent half-sister in Brisbane studying a doctorate in molecular biology who somehow contorts her schooling to be compatible with her YEC views.

More often down here I come across various Evangelist denominations which reject all computer technology as part of the great Satanic conspiracy. But again, they keep to themselves and are mostly only visible by the way they remove their stereo systems from their cars (which needless to say generally have computer-controlled engine management systems). You meet them from time to time and providing one doesn’t enter into the religious conversation, they’re really very good people IMO.

But most commonly of all, are the New Age nutjobs of which we have a-plenty. Stick around here for long enough and you may even be treated to a visit from Melbourne’s own Thiaooba who will tell you of the Earth’s imminent explosion due to the Greenhouse Effect, or how coloured t-shirts will enhance your bio-resonance.

Now, ask me if I would prefer a world entirely populated by scientists, or one punctuated with loony fringe wakkos, & I’d reply that laughter’s good for the soul.

Camaban

Once I had a woman come round basically praising salt...

On one hand, it was disturbing, on the other hand, at least someone out there is being original.

MOJO-JOJO

Hey intelligent Aussies, I hope you don't mind me butting in here. Are you folks familiar with the creationist John McKay and his dribble? He is the infamous Aussie creationist with a PhD in Geology.

He speaks about once a year at the church I USED to attend, where my wife still drags my kids to, and takes little flocks of believers to "digs" in Middle and East Tennessee, during whichtime he is afforded the opportunity to expound on his creationist mumbo jumbo and the "lies" of evolution to well-indoctrinated (er...brain-washed) christians. He then gets to sell his wares of silly books and videos, and people actually scarf this shit up hungrily.

Here is a copy of a web page I found discussing one of his lectures. It's pretty funny.

~~~~
Creationism is the belief that the universe and all that it contains was created by a god or gods at some point in the past. In Australia, the creationist movement is dominated by fundamentalist Christians who hold that the creation story of Genesis is the literal truth of the origin of the universe (in other societies various other religions – Judaism, Islam, Hindu etc, - may hold creationist teachings based on their interpretation of various religious texts).

While science cannot offer comment on religious and spiritual texts, when a religious belief system is put forward as a scientific hypothesis, then it is open to examination and testing. This is the case with creationism; once proponents claim that the account in Genesis is the literal truth of the origin of the universe, the claim can be tested by science. When this occurs, the creationist hypothesis is found wanting and rejected as false.

Unfortunately, creationists in Australia are reluctant to talk to the media so for this episode of the Correx Files, I talked with Dr Alex Ritchie, a palaeontologist from the Australian Museum who has had extensive contact with creationists. He explains the tenets of their belief and why it does not conform to science. I also talked with people as they left a meeting held by one of Australia's leading Creationists, John Mackay, and asked them what they thought of his presentation.

TRANSCRIPT

(PHILIP ADAMS READS FROM BIBLE) "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was moving over them . . ."

(PAUL) For most of the last 2,000 years,Christians accepted the biblical account of the creation of earth. But advances in geology and biology in the 18th and 19th centuries, demonstrated that this account of creation could not be taken literally. However, the creationist movement still accepts that Genesis is an accurate account of the origin of the universe.

(ALEX RITCHIE) "The creationists believe that the world was created in six literal, 24-hour days, and that this happened something like 6,000 years ago, and sometime later, around about 2400BC, the whole world surface was destroyed by a flood that killed everybody before that, except those in the ark, and everything took off after that - all the animals today are descended from things on the ark."

(PAUL) Alex Ritchie, palaeontologist at the Australian Museum.

(PAUL) Is creationism science?

(ALEX RITCHIE) "It can use the language of science, but they don't obey the rules of science. In fact, I usually prefer to describe them as missionaries masquerading as scientists. They're trying to fudge the issue and blur the boundary between religion and science. But it's quite effective for people who don't know anything about science."

(PAUL) What is so unscientific about creationism?

(ALEX RITCHIE) "For a start, their stuff isn't testable, questionable, because they have to accept the bible as absolute and literal truth. Whereas science, no matter how much we like a theory or a hypothesis, we have to be prepared to throw it overboard and reconsider it if new evidence comes out that shows it was wrong."

(PHILIP ADAMS READS FROM BIBLE) " . . . I have given every green plant for food. And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made. And behold, it was very good."

(PAUL) Is there any proof that creationists are permanently attached to their beliefs?

(ALEX RITCHIE) "They have a statement of faith. It starts off, the bible is absolutely and literally true in all its original autographs. And I know somebody who once asked a creationist where he could find the original autographs, and he said, 'Well, we don't actually have them'. How can you swear a belief in the absolute, literal truth of something you don't have access to?

(PAUL) I went along to a meeting held by one of Australia's leading creationists, John McKay. Curiously, the meeting was not advertised as a creationist meeting, but as a lecture on evolution. Not only was I refused permission to record proceedings of the meeting, I was also refused a taped interview. So, I sat and quietly listened to one and a half hours of codswallop. Then I waited outside and asked people what they thought of the presentation.

(WOMAN) "I didn't think it gave any evidence at all to support the statements that he made."

(MAN) "Somebody said there's nothing more frightening than ignorance in action, and I think this is a good example of it."

(ANOTHER MAN) "This was not an evolution meeting. This was a thinly disguised discussion of creationism, and I as a scientist and as a religious person as well, am very opposed to presenting creationism as a counter-proposal to evolution."

(ANOTHER MAN) "I thought it was the greatest load of bullshit I've ever heard in one place."

(ANOTHER MAN) "I guess it made you think - is there any evidence for evolution? You know, did we all creep out of the sea?"

(PAUL) "Do you mind if I ask your daughter how she felt about this evening?"

(VERY YOUNG GIRL) "I thought it was dumb."
~~~~~~
<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> One of the smartest statements made all evening.

Anway, when I'm dragged to his lectures, I sit there fuming the entire time. My tongue ends up bleeding from my biting it so hard. What REALLY gets me agitated though, is being forced to watch people nodding their heads and listening to them say "that's right" or "amen". Not to metion all the little slack-jawed children listening to him attentively. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> (I'm thinking....a whole generation of future dum-dums)

He even held up a fossilized Raptor claw once, started flaking off pieces of it and said, "look how brittle this claw is....they weren't such fierce beasts." <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Anyway, my wife has gone on one of his "digs", where he gets to show everyone "evidences" of rapid fossilization and layers of sediment laid down by a world-wide flood. Fortunately, I had to work that day. But next time I would really like to go and be a thorn in his side with lots of good anti-creationist questions. Of course, any suggestions would be helpful.

Here is the web-link to the above transcript.

<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/science/correx/archives/create.htm" target="_blank">Stupid is as Stupid does</a>

[ October 02, 2002: Message edited by: MOJO-JOJO ]</p>

echidna

Don’t know John McKay, but Phillip Adams is a well-known atheistic journalist and satirist here.

Really to me Creationism here being so off-beat reflects another element of anti-establishmentism, almost a strange kind of neo-conservative anarchy, another reflection on how some people feel marginalised by the modern world’s technology and morals. Creationism ? How quaint.

But I think symptomatic of a larger issue of the confusion which emerges when society’s thinking changes so violently (metaphorically speaking) as it has over the last century. Essentially the crackpotism of Creationists and New Agers reflects a lot of underlying common thinking.

Praxiteles

Nope, I've not heard of this fellow. I hadn't heard of creationism itself until the advent of the internet, and that's where I get pretty much all of my information on the subject.

Obviously, there *are* Australian creationists, but they aren't particularly vocal - not in Australia, anyway. It seems to me (based on what I've heard of McKay and Ham) that they do a lot of their propaganda in the US. Perhaps the soil is more fertile in America given the strength of Christian fundamentalism there in comparison to Oz. It seems we export our loonies to you. Sorry 'bout that.

On a personal level, though, I'm quite happy for them all to go "somewhere else"!