I posted about Larry Dye “The Creation Guy” and his Creation Discovery Centre in Bow Island Alberta a few weeks ago as the third in my Know Yer Nuts series on Canadian anti-educationalism outfits. I noticed on his website that he said he had some training in the dramatic arts and wrote a few plays, but he didn’t give much information so I never passed it on. Well, one of his productions is apparently scheduled for well off Broadway release in November!
Genesis Theatre Group Presents:
A Night at the Museum Escape from the Mythonian
I did NOT find this picture at random on the internet. It is Larry's promo pic for the play. It might even be Larry.
What does Neanderthal Man, Egyptian Queen Tiaa, and Pocahontas have in common? They all want to escape from the museum that houses lies. Will George, the museum worker, cooperate with their plan to reveal the truth about them and other exhibits? Will Phaoraoh prevent their escape?
The play runs Nov. 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, with 2 Saturday matinees. Tickets are $10.00 and are not available at the usual outlets.
Now, I’m not much of an art critic, but it is nice to see that someone with training at the Citadel Theatre isn’t about to write derivative works! Completely original, is Night at the Museum! As the site says, Larry offers his audiences a ”unique blend of creativity and humour, using scripture as a foundation”. Hell, you’re paying a ten-spot to go. You don’t expect anything less than that! Some of Larry’s other plays: Catastrophic Park and Storm Chaser.
I couldn’t find a list of the cast. Larry’s Genesis Theatre group should not be confused with the troupe of the same name in Ireland that worked with Roger Waters on a stage production of Pink Floyd’s The Wall.
So, who could be in Night at the Museum, escape from the mythonian?
Who would play Egyptian Queen Tiaa? What about the evil Pharoah?
Perhaps the Nelsons of Creation Truth Ministries of Red Deer (Know Yer Nuts #1).
Korelei and Vance Nelson of Creation Truth Ministries. Photo stolen from Creationwiki.
George? Hmmm, perhaps John Mackay, the screwball the Nelsons thought I should debate.
John Mackay from CreationWiki
John Mackay from CreationWiki
Mackay would be a good security guard.
He’s already used to wearing hats.
And as for Pocahontas? Who do we know from the creationists circles in Alberta who could be a convincing little girl? Would Harry Nibourg from the Big Valley Creation Science Museum fit the bill?
Harry Nibourg, from Profiles West.
See a sample of Nibourg’s audition here.
And of course, any Night at the Museum play needs a freaking T.Rex! C’mon, Larry, where is the T. Rex?
SO LETS HAVE SOME MUSIC! THE MISSING T. REX!
~~~~~~~~ On a related note~~~~~~~~
They are also running Home Schooling Creation Museum Tour in a few days (Oct. 8), and as far as I’m concerned that is damn despicable. Texts used for real schools have to be vetted and approved. I think other educational materials etc. should also be vetted by the relevant educational authorities before they are allowed to be marketed to schools, whether those schools are proper ones with trained teachers or home schools with uneducated parents making sure the kids are insulated from the real world.
That was an editorial, by the way…
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October 11, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Hi Jimmy,
You know, there’s NOT much thinking going on in your “Thinking Shop”…If you didn’t know anything about Ad Hominem “arguments” all of you pages would be blank! The museum is open any time you want to see evidence.
I’m disappointed you and Dan didn’t phone in when John Mackay and I were LIVE on the Miracle Channel. I suggested to the host to contact you and Dan to debate us live on Television.
It amazes me that you guys spout off on your little blog but don’t have enough knowledge and guts to have a real debate.
Have a nice day guys. WOW, your “Thinking Shop” is a real waste of time.
October 11, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Sorry, although any scientist would of course love to spend time talking to people who think dinosaurs were wrangled onto Noah’s Ark, and that fossils show trilobites squashed by sandals, on that particular day I had to talk to the people who think the earth is actually only 5 minutes old. They are even harder to refute than the 6,000-year-earth club. At least the 5-minute people have a theory.
October 11, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Hey Vance,
As I said in my email to you when you first proposed that silly debate, you creationists have failed to convince a significant portion of your fellow Christians that the world is only 6000 years old.
Your debate with science and history was lost over 100 years ago.
And why should anyone debate you? Your own website says:
“By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record. Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information.”
What the heck is left to do but to mock folk like you who think that T. rexs were originally designed to eat melons? And you get tax exempt status to spew it and market it to schools while real educational institutions are strapped for cash.
As for ad hominem arguments, creationists dish it out all the time, spewing crap about scientific conspiracy theories, Darwin and eugenics, evolution and teenage pregnancy, and so forth. Your buddy in Big Valley tends to argue online in all caps and insult, and your “research” partner Mackay is on record in Australia denouncing someone who worked with him for being a ‘witch’.
When you start studying towards an honest education and letting the data determine your conclusions without vetting them according to idiosyncratic interpretations of a 2000 year old collection of mythology and nationalistic ideology perhaps you will find people in universities more willing to talk to you than about you.
As it is, you don’t even have a particularly reasonable way of reading the Bible. How do you rationalize the “priestly” creation narrative with the Yahwistic one? How do these relate to the creation references in Isaiah in which God wrestles with Leviathan? What about Proverbs 8, the closing chapters of Job and the Psalms? Can these really be the SAME story? Can you take them ALL literally without contradiction?
Just for starters, offer and defend your own translation of the Hebrew of Genesis 1:1-3. What does it say? Does it necessarily imply creation from nothing or merely that the deity had some pre-existing matter to work with? G’wan, tell me about the Hebrew.
October 11, 2009 at 9:00 pm
What Channel? Is that one where the head calls himself “Dr.” even though he never earned a doctorate or MD or dentistry degree, so that he has more authori-tay? Unless I have it confused with another similar site.
But, I forgot. You can even claim fake science degrees (ahem), but if someone asks about it, “ad hominem, ad hominem”.
No, it’s called honesty and integrity, when you claim and imply no more than you actually earned.
October 11, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Hi Jim & Dan,
Nice try guys…LIVE debate was the key phrase…
I don’t have any more time to waste here on your little blog…
Quick question…What evidence would you be willing to accept for God’s existence?
Ah, it is nice to have charitable status…Tax deduction…Oh well, its too bad you can’t get such for your blog.
Talk to ya…
October 11, 2009 at 9:15 pm
I get to ask a question, and I’m sorry but it isn’t about 6,000-year-earth or stars being holes in the sky:
why don’t bees go to heaven, anyway?
October 11, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Danny & Jimmy, Danny I see your still wearing those ridiculosly stupid looking set of horn and still to Chicken for a Live Debate. I don’t blame ya even your poster girl Dick Dawkins doesn’t have the evidence either. I feel sorry for you guys you’re so pathetic. You’re so worried about one little museum. Gee I must have hit an evolutionary nerve. You would think I killed evolutionism’s holy cow. lol
October 11, 2009 at 10:04 pm
May I then conclude you have no rational answer to the Old Testament’s multiple creation myths? Can you even read the language they are written in?
Proof of god? For proof of that, no pseudophilosophical rhetoric or “science” will do. A miracle, on the other hand would do the trick. Elijah’s little stunt would convince me: fire from heaven consuming a sacrificed cow (purchased at your expense, not mine) That’s biblical.
Or how about irrefutable proof that a deity has restored a missing limb to an amputee?
October 11, 2009 at 10:14 pm
HARRY! You came back!
How’s life and laughs out at Big Valley? Doing any research lately? Publish any findings?
Hey, how come Vance can’t answer some simple questions about the Bible? Maybe you can. Here they are again:
How do you rationalize the “priestly” creation narrative with the Yahwistic one? How do these relate to the creation references in Isaiah in which God wrestles with Leviathan? What about Proverbs 8, the closing chapters of Job and the Psalms? Can these really be the SAME story? Can you take them ALL literally without contradiction?
Just for starters, offer and defend your own translation of the Hebrew of Genesis 1:1-3. What does it say? Does it necessarily imply creation from nothing or merely that the deity had some pre-existing matter to work with? G’wan, tell me about the Hebrew.
October 11, 2009 at 10:47 pm
That’s awesome that Harry can spell “you’re” now. I feel that some of the credit is mine.
October 11, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Yeah, and quit evading the question: why don’t bees go to heaven?
October 12, 2009 at 11:05 am
Dan Your Genesis chronological hypothesis has been blown out of the water for fifty years. I don’t need to Hebrew to know your degree was a waste of time. Jimbo keep using your skeptic bible and you’ll find out how bogus it really is if every have the balls for a Live Debate. You sound like a crazy old lady with house full of rats.
October 12, 2009 at 11:17 am
Hey Clowngirls, Can you pick out the mistakes. I made them so ya had something, since you don’t have any evidence. LOL
October 12, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Vance,
You may make the argument that he is wasting his time if you wish, but you take the cake on that account. The true waste of time is the devotion of one’s life to a man who was most likely just a cult leader (a.k.a prophet) of a by-gone era, believing, like other Jews, in a terrible and unjust God that actually did not exist anyway. To dedicate your life to ensuring that as many as possible young children do the same only magnifies the time wasted by orders of magnitude. If there were such a god, and there undoubtedly is not, I would hope that he or she would not give preferential treatment to those who worship him/her. If so, we shouldn’t be praying to him or her even if he or she exists. Why not open up your mind, free yourself of this drivel, marvel at the natural beauty of the universe and chill out?
October 12, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Sorry for the double-posting. I’m on a slow link. As you can see, this even allowed me to correct an error. By the way, there was no Mohammed either.
October 12, 2009 at 2:20 pm
The earliest ‘evidence’ of any Jesus I can find online is from a statement from 150 AD. Does anyone have anything earlier than this? I bet he didn’t exist. There is probably a big debate on this in Biblical Studies. Forgive me for my ignorance, but is his existence generally assumed to have been thought up, or only the wacky claims of his magical powers?
October 12, 2009 at 2:26 pm
There are some who claim that there was no “historical Jesus”, but I’m not sure that that really solves much. Typically, the composition dates of the gospels and epistles begin in the 60s CE, if I’m not mistaken. There are a lot of parallels between the gospels and the myths of other religions from the time, but I think it is much easier to say that a historical figure — some kind of radicalized apocalyptic Jewish preacher–got himself topped by the Romans and then attracted a lot of mythic elements when his biographers started writing about it, perhaps based on oral tradition.
Moses, however, is another story. No exodus, no invasion of Canaan. King David is a bit iffy. Abraham is right out of it.
October 12, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Hey Harry,
How come you don’t want to talk about the Bible? I’m not reading a “skeptic bible”, but the same one that is used to produce the bibles you read in your church!
I think you are the coward, Harry! G’wan, you are the one who thinks the Bible is divinely inspired. Show that it is consistent with itself, and stop harping on about some stupid “live” debate as if that is the only format for discussion.
And what the heck is with all the feminizing name calling? Are you secretly a Harriet?
October 12, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Thanks for the reply, Jim. Your summary does, indeed, sound plausible – likely even.
October 12, 2009 at 3:10 pm
No Abraham? You mean he didn’t really father a child at 99 years of age, and his wife didn’t really live to be 127? Speaking of which, how do modern day religious prudes reconcile the whole Hagar aldultery thingy?
October 12, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Sorry, and don’t even get me started on the historical Methuselah!
October 12, 2009 at 4:28 pm
I’m not usually into cutting and pasting from Wikipedia, but…
Name Age
Methuselah 969
Jared 962
Noah 950
Adam 930
Seth 912
Kenan 910
Enos 905
Mahalalel 895
Lamech 777
Shem 600
Eber 464
Cainan 460
Arpachshad 438
Salah 433
Enoch 365
Peleg 239
Reu 239
Serug 230
Job 210
Terah 205
Isaac 180
Abraham 175
Nahor 148
Jacob 147
Esau 147
Ishmael 137
Levi 137
Amram 137
Kohath 133
Laban 130
Deborah 130
Sarah 127
Miriam 125
Aaron 123
Rebecca 120
Moses 120
Joseph 110
Joshua 110
October 12, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Just out of curiosity, what are the odds that 14 out of 38 individuals chosen at random would happen to have a death age ending in a zero? To a lesser extent, death ages ending in 7 and 5 also seem heavily over-represented. Of course, if one (or many) is (are) writing a story, such bias might be expected.
October 12, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Hmm. Ok, wouldn’t this be a binomial problem, as in ‘what is the probability of 14 ending with 0 out of 38 tries, given than the probability of getting one is 10%?’, since there is one 0 and 9 of the non-zero integers that the age at death could end in. If so, then p=.1, q=1-p=.9, n=38, X=14 in the binomial probability function, so, um, P(X)=(n!(p^x)(q^n-x))/(X!(n-X)!), or if you prefer (n choose X) times(p^x)(q^n-x). Since n! and X! are big, you need a calculator.
For 14 exactly, that would be
n!(.1^14)(.9^24)/X!(n-X)!, which when you do the math is about 8 in a million. I’ll do the whole table in Excel below.
First column: how many dead guy’s maximum ages end in 0, out of 38 if they all had a 10% chance of ending in a 0.
Second column: the probability of this row happening (sums to 1.0).
1 0.0770471
2 0.1583746
3 0.2111662
4 0.2053005
5 0.1551159
6 0.0947931
7 0.0481489
8 0.0207308
9 0.0076781
10 0.0024740
11 0.0006997
12 0.0001749
13 0.0000389
14 0.0000077
15 0.0000014
16 0.0000002
17 0.0000000
18 0.0000000
19…
from here on down to 38, the probability is less than a billionth for each row.
October 12, 2009 at 9:52 pm
But, of course, Harry will now say “I coulda told you that, Clowngirls”.
October 12, 2009 at 9:57 pm
…since Harry is an “engineer” according to this interview.
http://www.canadianchristianity.com/nationalupdates/070607creation.html
October 13, 2009 at 12:42 am
PS. If you wanted to actually state it as a hypothesis test (H0:p=0.1 and H1:p0.1), I guess you’d have to sum the probabilities for 14 or less, subtract from 1 (and double if it is a two-tailed test, or not, depending on the exact question); or sum the greater probabilities, same thing. Anyway, there is no point, because the probability of getting 14 or more ending in zero is obviously very small. The most obvious interpretations are (a)the authors rounded the ages because they weren’t sure, years later, (b) the people who died didn’t even know their exact age, (c) someone transcribing it liked round numbers, (d) at the time of death they rounded it up when they recorded the death, or (e) somebody (or a group) made it all up and nobody actually lived that long.
October 13, 2009 at 12:44 am
The blog system removed the less than and greater than signs. I notice that a lot of things are lost in the comments, like spaces. It was meant to say the obvious:
H1: p not equal to 0.1
p = probability of death age ending in a zero
although of course the question one might ask after seeing the skewed (or biased) data would normally be H1: p greater than 0.1
October 13, 2009 at 5:41 am
Jeepers, Harry and Vance don’t want to talk about Hebrew, and Matt and Dan are putting matheematatics on my nice little blog.
I’m feeling all left out!
October 14, 2009 at 10:19 am
Dan… nice work. I choose (e).
Jim… Vance and Harry aren’t back… I guess I converted them to non-lunacy.