Know Yer Nuts #5! C.A.R.E. Ministries, more Instant Magic Earth Poofists!

Fifth in my series on annoying Canadian creationists and religiously rightwing party-poopers is

C. A. R. E. (Christian Apologetics Research & Evangelism) Ministries

Based in Winnipeg, this the first out of province purveyor of anti-intellectualism to be so honoured!

First of all a hat tip to my Facebook friend, Graham Microraptor, and his great post there on geology vs. creationist-rocks-in-the-brain and his good buddy  Erik who picked up on a few choice words G. M. used and coined a new label for Young Earth Creationists.

Instant Magic Earth Poofists™!

moar funny pictures

Now, the CARE I.M.E.F.s are dedicated to Defending the Faith against “[e]volution, empiricism, atheism, agnosticism, post-modernism, other religious worldviews, cults and the occult”.

Their “faith” they say, includes the idea that a “short time after the creation week, our first human parents willingly rebelled (sinned) against their creator and the consequence was death and decay.”

Lots more whatever this is after the break!

Now, most of the site is the standard apologetic rubbish, but that hasn’t stopped us at the Thinking Shop from having a bit fun before! Now, the neat thing about our CARE-bears, is that they also have a Creation Museum! HORRAY!

The museum is housed at the Oxford Bible Church at 621 Oxford Street in Winnipeg. It seems as if you have to book a tour through the museum, so don’t just show up and expect it to be open and serving brontosaurs burgers.

They also have a kids’ “Dinosaur Discovery Zone” but that part of the website isn’t up and running yet.

At the kiddies’ meeting, “[a]long with the singing, games and crafts, there will be a creation science lesson along with a spiritual message. Our intent is to let the kids know what the Bible says, and to give them plenty of good reasons to believe it.” WOW!

But what is in it? Try this: there is ”absolutely astounding verification of the Bible’s historic claims, particularly its claims regarding special creation in the relatively recent past ( < 10,000 years ago ) and a global deluge some 4,500 years ago”.

So, lets look some of their “evidence”, shall we?

Their museum site has an ark-load of connected photos and Scientifical Explanations™
“proving” that Darwin was a poo-poo head.

There are the usual suspects, each categorized into different “galleries”.

Falsifying the Geologic Column

According to evolutionists, the layers of the earth represent billions of years of geological history … What many don’t realize is that this column is actually a mental abstract THAT EXISTS NOWHERE IN THE REAL WORLD. There are many examples of fossils and artifacts being found in rock layers where they really don’t belong (according to evolution). Regardless, the geological column remains the evolutionist’s bible, and he is quite prepared to bend the data in order to harmonize with his “bible.”

So here we find the Paluxy River dinosaur and “human” footprints, instant fossilized stuff, and the like. Of course, what is lacking is any kind of real discussion of the science behind their production or proper handling of the likelihood that some are outright forgeries.

For a really serious look at the Paluxy River track, visit G. J. Kuban’s site (click on the pic above) and especially this article Taylor Site ‘Man tracks’ (originally published in Origins Research, Vol. 9, No. 1, Spring/Summer 1986, pp. 2-10.).

The next gallery is Dinosaurs and Man. They boast of having six casts of the so-called Ica Stones from Peru. The casts were made by “ paleontologist Joe Taylor from the Mt Blanco Fossil Museum, and Creation Science Evangelism’s casting expert John Gusti”.

They allegedly depict dinosaurs and humans together (or people and space aliens). The stones actually number in the thousands and some may represent pre-contact Peruvian art. but very many, however, are  forgeries made for tourists, especially after the 1970s fascination with ancient alien contacts.

These two thumbnails say it all click ‘em to go to the originals on the museum’s site.   The one on the left is an “Ica stone”, a copy of one in the collection of world-famous tax evader/creationist Kent Hovind. On the right is a photo of fossilized dinosaur skin taken at the Royal Tyrrell Museum by the curator of the CARE museum. Here is what the photo’s caption says:

I photographed this fossilized dinosaur skin in the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta. Notice the large circle patterns throughout the specimen. Don’t they bear a striking resemblance to the circles on the Ica stone creatures?

No, frankly they do not. They look very different. Here is one from Creationwiki.

An Ica Stone dude holding a telescope (!), from Creationwiki

Gee, C.A.R.E., thanks for all the science!

The next gallery is on human evolution and it has a few pictures of replica fossils. A cast of Lucy’s skull is there and it is said to have a striking resemblance to a modern chimpanzee’s skull. Not a word on the evidence from Lucy’s preserved knee, which indicates she was bipedal: very un-chimp like. And this human evolution gallery has some pictures of a giant stone axehead, again with the input of Dr. Dino Hovind. Well, that really is a testimony to its proper interpretation.

There is a gallery devoted to each of the Old and New Testaments. The latter just has a bit of blither about Pilate and how the Church Fathers had the same New Testament that we have today. Somehow that refutes something scientific. Not sure what. The former has even less, with assurances that the Old Testament is reliable history. It suggests that  Pharaoh Akhenaton was running Egypt during the Conquest of Canaan. Take that, Darwin!

“The Creation Model” is probably the most interesting gallery and it blithers about how evolution requires the creation of “brand new [genetic] information”, something that cannot happen in nature. Yeah, that proves it.

I liked the photos on the giraffe circulatory system. First, giraffes need a good heart to get the blood up to the head. And then they need some system to keep a flood of blood from rushing to their brains when they lower their heads to get a drink of water. And then when they lift up their head to run from a formerly vegetarian lion, they need a lot of blood to the brain instantly. Of course, no evolutionary answer could solve the puzzle of how the giraffe got all that plumbing to work properly all at once. The CARE folk simply can’t explain it evolutionarily. So evolution is wrong. There. Case closed…

Not being a biologist, I perhaps make a mistake and turn to wikipedia, but there one reads that the “rete mirabile” (a web of veins and arteries) are found in a number of vertebrates. Fish have one functioning as their swim bladder, mammals have them around their kidneys to help them pee. Other mammals have such masses of veins in their limbs to control temperature or to help them preserve oxogen in limbs used for climbing trees. And giraffes have them to help control blood pressure to the brain. Sounds pretty evolvable to me.

Giraffes also have to control air pressure too. This one probably has to take oxygen pills every morning.

There is another interesting thing about giraffe necks. Or at least the nerves in them. Indeed, they are one of God’s Greatest Mistakes.

The nerve ‘wiring’ of the mammalian larynx is also bizarre. Nerve signals for bodily operations travel from the brain down the spine, then branch off. Fair enough. The larynx is in the neck, so one might expect that the relevant nerve would come off the spine at the neck. And, it does: the recurrent laryngeal nerve originates from the spinal cord in the neck, as a branch of the vagus nerve. But then, bizarrely, rather than taking a direct route across the neck, it instead passes down the neck and into the chest, loops under the posterior side of the aorta by the heart, then travels right back up again to the larynx. Which is a waste of materials by anyone’s standard, but in the case of the giraffe, it implies a Creator so set on the mammalian Bauplan that an extra 10 to 15 feet of nerve is needed.

As Dawkins points out in The Greatest Show on Earth, this is easy to explain as the result of evolution working on a pre-existing species.

~~~~~~~

The neatest thing about the CAREful Instant Magic Earth Poofists’s museum is their attention to the idea that in the garden of Eden, every critter was a herbivore. Of course, that is a perfect explanation for why some animals are so well adapted to catching and eating other animals.

Now, what would have happened to turn some lovely, friendly happy vegan tigers and hyenas into savage predators? You guessed it, Eve ate an apple!

moar funny pictures

That’s right! HUMAN SIN caused the tummies of lions, crocodiles frogs, robins, mantises, seals, wolves, stoats, snakes, gila monsters, tyrannosaurs, and hedgehogs to instantly change from an exclusive vegetarian to a carnivorous diet. Yeah, that’s cause God hates human sin SO MUCH he decided to make matters worse and make all  sorts of non-involved innocent creatures lunch for all sorts of other critters.

Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? Actually, it makes about as much sense as bobbing for crocodiles.

Now, let’s be clear on this. We are talking NO PREDATION before the “Fall of Man”. That means bunny eating cows are OUR FAULT! How does that make you feel? Just think, the Easter Bunny gets his milk for Easter chocolate from the cow. The cow then eats the bunny. It is YOUR DAMN FAULT if you don’t get any chocolate eggs next Easter. I hope you are happy, heathen!

One of the ways our care-taking Instant Magic Earth Poofists demonstrate this is pretty mdental.

First, they show some pictures of Sabre Toothed Tigers. Here is a photo I took at the Royal Tyrrell of such a little wee kitty cat.

Some more of my R. T. M. pictures are posted here and here.

Anyway, the gist of the CARE-bears’ claim is that one should not deduce from those evil looking fangs that this animal is a natural born killer. Before the fall, it was a herbivore, but what was it doing with those damn teeth?

The answer is to be avoided by referring to the Chinese Water Deer, an itsy bitsy little beastie that likes a nice salad but has giant teeth, too. Here is picture of one (they  were imported into Britain and now a mess live as feral sabre toothed bambis).

Nasty looking little begger, isn’t he? The caption on the CARE site’s deer skull photo says:

Beside our saber toothed Tiger skull we have placed the skull of the Chinese water deer for comparison. This deer lives today and as you can see, also sports a pair of huge fangs, yet this creature is completely herbivorous. This is just another example of how impossible it is to tell what an animal’s diet was or is by looking at its teeth alone. Other examples of vegetarian creatures with carnivorous-looking teeth are the fruit bat and the panda bear. Yes, even a dinosaur with sharp teeth like the Albertosaurus was once a peaceful vegetarian!

Yeah, right. Now, what is interesting about Chinese Water Deer is that the big teeth on the females are not nearly as big as the ones on the males. Is this a sexual selection thing? Sounds like evolution to me. And besides, what self-respecting biologist would determine diet of any species based solely on TWO teeth and not all the teeth available for inspection? And besides, the inspection would be careful and detailed, not C.A.R.E.fully superficial. Basically CARE has no argument.

The same Telegraph article I pinched the above photo from also has this:

This is dog. It lost a fight with a Chinese Water Deer. Yes, the whole thing was YOUR FAULT YOU DIRTY ROTTEN SINNERS! The poor pooch would not have been chasing the little deer and the little deer would not have been forced to bite the dog if humans hadn’t sinned. Feel like repenting, yet?

All of this raises an interesting point alluded to above. Why did all the now predatory animals in the Garden have all the biological hardware to hunt, track, run down, ambush, maul, kill and eat other animals – and to avoid being eaten  - in the garden? Why were were armadillos given their protective armour? Why did porcupines have quills, or tigers just happen to  have teeth well suited to their eventual career as predators?

For an unholy good mess of creationist cartoons, just click the pic

And what the hell do fruit bats prove? A little wee fruit bat I can see having pointy teeth. Some fruit could be tough for a little animal (has Ray Comfort ever contemplated pineapple?).  Surely there was no fruit in the garden that required those kind of teeth of an animal the size of a tiger (let alone an Albertosaurus). But why for Pete’s sake why are there POISONOUS animals? Did their poison instantly develop (along with their instincts for using it) the minute Adam and Eve got the boot? And did all the kitties’, and wolves’ and crocodiles’ digestive systems instantly change, too?  The whole lame theory is predicated on superficial observation of animals, a ridiculous (and fuzzy) notion of animals not changing their “kind” (based primarily on appearance), and a whole lot of ignorance.

Anyway, while we are on the subject of teeth, some people do find them sexy (told you it was a sex thing). I know, it is kind of batty.

Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter!

Holy Crap (pun intended)! Lets have some more!

AND NOW, LET’S HAVE SOME MUSIC!

They Might be Giants!

Here are the links to the rest of the Know Yet Nuts Series.

1. Creation Truth Ministries / Alberta Dinosaur Museum

2. Big Valley Creation Science Museum.

3. Creation Discovery Centre

3. (addendum) Larry Dye the Troglodyte Shakespeare Guy!

4.   Holy Prancing Pachyderms: Concerned Christians Canada

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