men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago

[orleans]

"ANCHORAGE -- Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago -- about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct -- the teacher said.

"After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students in June 1997, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said, he asked the young mayor about her religious beliefs.

"Palin told him that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time," Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said "she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks," recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska.

"The idea of a "young Earth" -- that God created the Earth about 6,000 years ago, and dinosaurs and humans coexisted early on -- is a popular strain of creationism.

"Though in her race for governor she called for faith-based "intelligent design" to be taught along with evolution in Alaska's schools, Gov. Palin has not sought to require it, state educators say.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-palinreligion28-2008sep28,0,3643718.story?track=rss

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you know--like fred & barney, wilma & betty, dino & pebbles

[thenam]

1. Ridiculous even for a creationist

The "young earth" creationists are not even well-liked by other creationists, who at least acknowledge that the planet is OLD. This is really fringe stuff.

[NeedleCast]

5. The scary part is that it's not as fringe as it used to be

The SBC (southern baptist convention) has basically approved of this young earth theory. That's a lot of peeps.

[dkofos]

2. Put down the fruity pebbles and step away from Flinstones cartoon.

[orleans]

3. (lol) n/t

[NeedleCast]

4. This seems like the new fundie favorite

As a person who was raised Southern Baptist and attended said church until I was 18 (we're talking, say, 1980-1994), I NEVER heard this preached at any of three churches my parents and I attended. This topic really didn't start to pop up until about 5-10 years ago, from what I can see, but it's quickly become one of the fundies #1 topics. The scientific disassociation they'll use to "prove" that the earth is 6,000 years old is truly mind boggling in it's silliness. The big piece of evidence they use are some reptilian and humanoid fissile footprints found at about the same depth in some riverbed somewhere (i've yet to see an actual source on this, just "some scientists found..."). They also use the fact that carbon-dating isn't accurate 100% of the time, choosing to say instead that the .1% of the time that carbon dating fails or shows questionable results is more than a match for the 99.9% of the time that it's right.

The preachers at my churches when I was young never mentioned this, but the preacher at my mom's church has recently started down this tract. It's (sort of) funny seeing how conflicted this makes my mom. On one hand, she is a well educated woman with a masters in microbiology. On the other hand she really WANTS to believe the preacher-man. I know which side will ultimately win this argument (preacher).

[niyad]

6. thanks, you just gave me the answer to my question of HOW they could believe anything this

demonstrably stupid. they think "the flintstones" is a documentary!!

[orleans]

9. olbermann just used that line!

something to the effect of: they think "the flintstones" is a documentary or someone should tell them the flintstones is not a documentary!

[niyad]

7. question: do these nutbars have the same kind of influence in the civilized world, or are we the

only ones to be afflicted with them?

[orleans]

8. not sure, but somehow i think we're the "lucky?" ones. n/t