Anti-Evolution Gangs Terrorize Georgia Town

Anti-evolutionist gangs have ratcheted up their campaign against the controversial theory of evolution, turning to traditionalist graffiti to make their case. Their target: anything that claims to be more than 6,000 years old.

Terrorized Georgians want police to enforce anti-evolution gang ordinance

By Deanna Swift

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MARIETTA, GA—It is the traditionalist equivalent of graffiti, stickers that appear under cover of darkness, targeting anything that promotes the theory of evolution, from text books to museum exhibits. Opponents of the so-called "sticker wars" say that creationists have taken their adhesive campaign too far. Proponents say that they'll continue the cause until evolutionists embrace a controversial sticking point: the idea that the Earth is a mere 6,000 years old.

Just a theory
In recent weeks, the "Just a Theory" stickers have been spotted at dozens of venues in suburban Cobb County: on fliers promoting a talk on planetary geology at a local community college, on science books at a Books-a-Million outlet and at a little girl's birthday party at which the guest of honor was a purple dinosaur named Barney.

And while local residents have gotten used to living in a war zone of ideas ever since Cobb County school board members began placing stickers urging students to "critically consider evolution" on the covers of high school biology text books, some say that the sticker skirmishes have gone too far.

Just ask Anita Snell, who rented an eight-foot-tall inflatable Barney doll to entertain her daughter Britney and 12 of her guests at Britney’s sixth birthday party last month. When the party was over and Snell began escorting her young guests out the front door, she noticed that something wasn’t right about Barney.

"Barney was covered with these stickers that said 'Just a Theory.' Just a theory of what? Of how to ruin a little girl's birthday party?" asks Snell. She says that Britney has recovered from the shock of seeing the disfigured doll—and that the party store from which she rented the inflatable Barney took it back, stickers and all. But Snell remains angry nonetheless. "How am I supposed to explain this to Britney?"

The Barney wars
Some people may question what a dispute about the appropriate curricula for high school biology students has to do with everyone’s favorite purple dinosaur. But supporters of the sticker warriors have an easy answer: everything.

Before 2002, students at Cobb County high schools were presented with only one explanation of the evolution of the origin of life. Thanks to the efforts of parents like Marjorie Rogers, who opposes the theory of evolution because it is "atheistic," students are now encouraged to take into account other theories of how we all got here, including the biblical story of creation.

But there's a problem. According to the creationist view, the Earth is only 6,000 years old, meaning that anything that predates those dramatic six days when the Lord created the heavens and the Earth, is open to questioning and could merit a "just a theory" sticker.

Paleontologists, for example, say that Barney's ancestors could date as far back as 120 million years. That's bunk, says Dr. Richard Paley, who teaches theobiology at Fellowship University. Dinosaurs, he writes, "did not live 65 million years ago, as evolutionists claim, since nothing but God existed then. They were created on the sixth day along with the other land animals (plesiosaurs, pterosaurs and others of their kinds are not strictly speaking dinosaurs, and they were created on the fifth day with the other animals of the water and sky.)"

Stick to the facts
A US district court recently ruled that Cobb County cannot use the evolution disclaimer stickers on science texts, a decision that local residents say has further angered the anti-evolution gangs, who are now targeting any subject matter that claims to be more than 6,000 years old.

Employees at the Cobb County Children’s Museum arrived at work last week to find that their Dinosaur Dig, an interactive exhibit that allows kids to uncover the dinosaur bones of a Tyrannosaurus Rex from a "tar pit," was the latest target.

"The 'Just a Theory' stickers were everywhere," says museum docent Millicent Rogers. "They were all over the shovels, even on the little dinosaur bones. It took us forever to get them off." Museum staff members are now updating the exhibit in response to the incident, adding footprints next to the dinosaur bones to show that man and beast once lived side by side. 

Deanna Swift can be reached at [email protected]

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Comments

[nick]

I believe religion has just pushed it. I'm all right with prayers being answered and people who listen to it are rewarded, but when its beliefs are force-advertised, it just stops there. What really offends me is the fact that the museum decided to put footprints next to the dinos just to avoid another incident. Not only is the museum cowardly, but the creationist-graffitists are only harming their cause. If the Bible encourages freedom and happiness, why is it that its vandalizing others' belongings to present their totalitarianist power?? That's not the freedom and salvation I want to believe in. I would've lived as a dinosaur 65 mya. Sure it would not be as safe, with no law, predators, and the land shifts, but at least I wouldn't be involved with this crap!

[Bob]

The truth may not be popular, but it is always right.

"Many ...believe in evolution for the simple reason that they think science has proven it to be a `fact' and, therefore, it must be accepted... In recent years, a great many people...having finally been persuaded to make a real examination of the problem of evolution, have become convinced of its fallacy and are now convinced anti-evolutionists."
-- Henry Morris, former evolutionist.

No matter what you try to do, the truth of Christianity will never go away. Evolutionists just can't grasp the concept of God, so they're trying their hardest to bend and twist ideas into the mold of evolution.

Honestly, I can understand not teaching Intelligent Design in classrooms because it requires that you have some faith and moral. But in that case, you shouldn't allow evolution to be taught either, because you need a lot more faith to believe in evolution.

What does it matter who believes how we got here? Were here, the animals are here, let's learn about the present.

PS: Humans do a lot of stupid things. One can't judge the Creator by what fallible humans do. Just because some Christians do something that you don't agree with, that doesn't discredit Christianity or God. If you are going to judge in this manner, look at Hitler, Trotsky and Stalin. Three monsters intoxicated by Darwinism and the idea that humans can create perfection uses Darwin's theories (Eugenics).

I will pray for you all. God Bless.

[thought]

the story of creationist logicly defeats itself on the seventh day when the almighty god ?gets tired?

these and other fundamentalists are the equvalent of zombies and should be shot in the head asap

[Dale]

That's some good satire. Got a lot of people to believing it's true. Of course, there ARE people who believe the Earth is 6000 years old, or will be that old this October 3. But they don't have any terrorist gangs like that, unless you count those people in the Whitehouse, and some of the ones in the Congress.

[Bcre8ve]

GALLILEO WAS RIGHT !!!

Why can't religion remember to butt out of science - it will eventually lose - every time.

These people must not have heard about the Pope's apology in the Gallileo matter. (Oh - that's right - Catholics are no longer considered Christians by the "hard" right.)

Maybe the hope is that "eventually" means until after they're dead ( or risen, whatever).

[Atlantan]

Out in the rural and suburban hills of Cobb County, it is understandable that these people still believe in creationism, hell, they believe that Iraq had WMDs and was in cahoots with OBL on 9/11.

Fortunately, I live in Atlanta, which is MUCH more enlightened as a whole than the holy rolling outland areas of Georgia.

Advice for the intelligent: Don't go outside I-285 (Perimeter highway surrounding Atlanta) when visiting Atlanta. There is nothing but idiocy and traffic problems out there.

If there was a god, those people would learn how to drive!

[Tom McMahan]

Of course, the majority of Christians accept natural selection, even in the retro-US. Your fundamentalist and Pentacostal Protestant varieties mostly do not. Why? Well, they tend toward accepting a literal interpretation of the Bible. Not all of them, but even the ones that don't usually trend that way. And, to deny any part of the Bible as just flat wrong threatens their faith and, as a whole, we're talking about a very insecure bunch of people. I've lived among them most of my life, an agnostic swimming in a sea of religious dread and fear. I always enjoy springing my (lack of) belief on some new, unsuspecting person. It really knocks them for a loop that someone would flatly express a different opinion than theirs, openly and unafraid, and be happy with it. The first question I always get..."Aren't you afraid of what happens when you die?" or some variation, gives the lie to what really motivates them. Religion is their great "after-life insurance policy." A spiritual CYA, nothing more. When you live around these people, and you hear the occasional, unguarded comment they make toward their own or others faiths, you understand just how frightened they are. Also how intolerant they are. And the really scary thing is they themselves aren't consciously aware of it.

[Roland]

... remember these same idiots just voted bush in ... still think it's a joke?? .. sadder than sad ...

[Edward T. Babinski]

CREATIONIST THEME PARKS

144 Million Pound British Creationist Christian Theme Park to Be Built, called "HolyLand"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1544218,00.html

25 Million Dollar Creationist Christian Theme Park To Open in Kentucky
(Latest news is in the first link, with photos, titled, "Ministry Uses Dinosaurs to Dispute Evolution")
http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050522/NEWS01/505220367/-1/CINCI
http://www.answersingenesis.org/museum/docs/031215_antimuseum.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0205telegraph.asp

Far Less Expensive Creationist Christian Theme Park Already in Florida
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/arts/01DINO.html?ex=1398830400=d6d0a71f95c6901a=5007&partner;=USERLAND
Or if above link does not work...
http://www.wehaitians.com/darwin%20free%20fun%20for%20creationists.html
http://www.missouri.edu/~chemrg/current_news/Article_Theme_Parks.html

Satirical Comment About Such Parks
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,59-1546155,00.html

Fundamentalist "Biblical History Museum" near Orlando, Florida http://www.theholylandexperience.com/map/index.html

$750 Thousand Dollar Young-Earth Creationist "Museum of Earth History" just opened in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and they are listed in the state-published travel brochures. It wasfounded by someone who still believes that men and dinos walked together near the Paluxy River in Texas.
http://www.greatpassionplay.com/attractions/moeh.asp
Founder of the Park
http://www.creationtruth.com/content/foundertext.htm

Ark Now Ready For a Flood of Visitors:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/0,2106,3314713a6009,00.html

And in related stories...

The Grand Canyon National Park Bookstore, a state run institution, has begun selling a popular young-earth creationist book that explains away evidence of modern geology including the age of the Grand Canyon, advocating instead that it was formed "during Noah's flood."

An Assoc. Pastor at America's Most Powerful Megachurch is a creationist and is having a debate about evolution on the web: http://nonprophet.typepad.com/nonprophet/2005/05/darwin_debate.html
That same Megachurch is going to have some TV news stories run about it soon, because of it's growing influence. (So the pastor of the church sent out a letter to all members telling them how to talk and what not to do in front of the cameras: http://nonprophet.typepad.com/nonprophet/2005/05/ted_haggard_don.html)

"Creationist thugs in Turkey Allied With American Creationists"
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/168403.htm

TURKEY WITH CONSERVATIVE MUSLIM GRAVY

That reminds me, Just look at the most democratic westernized Muslim nation today, Turkey. It's going to fundamentalist hell in a handbasket:

Between 1983 and 1995, enrollment in Turkey's religious schools increased 105 percent. In 2005, experts expect 1,215,000 students to graduate after receiving on a religious curriculum. Turkey's religious schools have become hothouses for radicalism. Off-the-beaten track, in places like Cizre, Mardin, Kayseri, and even the Fatih, Bayrampasha, and Sultanbeyli districts of Istanbul, women increasingly not only wear headscarves but also the head-to-toe black hijab characteristic of Saudi Arabia. Bookstores around the Konya tomb of the prominent 13th century Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Rumi, a figure revered for preaching tolerance and love, now sell the teaching of the late 13th, early 14th century Islamic scholar Ahmad ibn Tamiya who laid the philosophical groundwork for the Islamic fundamentalism centuries later adopted by Saudi Arabia.

Symbolism is important in Turkey. On July 11, Erdogan's daughter married the son of the head of al-Bayrak holding. Al-Bayrak, one of Turkey's leading religious companies, owns Yeni Safak, a national Islamist daily close to the AKP. The bride — and the bride's mother — wore not the lose scarf characteristic of Anatolia for centuries, but a tight-fitting scarf with a rubber seal around the face that is symbolic of the Islamist movement in Turkey. The wedding pictures were the talk of Turkish pundits for more than a week following.

Turkish newspapers — 80 percent of which (by circulation) are held by the pro-government Dogan Holding group — have provided a platform for the AKP's augmentation of anti-U.S. and anti-Israel rhetoric. "Our constituents demand it," several AKP officials told me. Erdogan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul have sought to downgrade their relations with Israel. Turkey briefly withdrew its ambassador from Tel Aviv, and also forced a reinterpretation in security regulations that, in June, forced a halt in El Al flights between Tel Aviv and Istanbul. On June 25, 2004, the usually reliable Turkish daily Cumhurriyet identified Gul as the source for Seymour Hersh's story that dozens of Israeli Mossad agents were operating in northern Iraq; Hersh's allegations turned out to be false, but have taken hold in Arab media and among Iraqi insurgents. The result is a significant boost in anti-Americanism, not only in Turkey, but across the region.

[Whitebear]

Ridiculous Christians,
Everybody knows that Coyote made the earth a "long, long time ago."

[Grahame]

Thank God for stopping this horrible crime..imagine teaching evolution..what has the world come to? I KNOW that the Earth is about 50 years old..ans God put us here and...and gays suck..and yea, God should run everything.

[Christian Franco]

Does anyone know where I could get some of these "Just a Theory" stickers. I'm going Marietta this weekend to visit a few friends (they find all of this utterly ridiculous) and I wouldn't mind making a few stops at some churchs and christian book stores.

[Susan Jolly]

I don't know--I live in the next county over. Most Cobb County residents don't even think driving laws apply to them when they take their daily shortcuts through Fulton County. Stupid--maybe. Ridiculous? Absolutely.

Susan
Atlanta, GA

[Susan]

I don't know--I live in the next county over. Most Cobb County residents don't even think driving laws apply to them when they take their daily shortcuts through Fulton County. Stupid--maybe. Ridiculous? Absolutely.

Susan
Atlanta, GA

[Bill]

I want my own stickers that say "Just a story" that I can post on churches!

[Obnoxious Bastard]

Sounds like Atlanta needs a new sticker: A cross, a cartoon of a drooling idiot, and a caption that says "creationist" or perhaps "more than just a theory." :)

[Some Guy]

I can never remember whether it was 6 human days or 6 God days in which the earth was created. That also broaches the very idea of just how long a God day would be?

Come on people, evolution IS the hand of God moving in it's sure and methodical way.

Lastly, one cannot over emphasize the fact that the Bible as we know it was first translated and complied by the Romans. The same Roman society that was so debaucherous, so corrupt, and consequently whose laws doomed Jesus to pay the ultimate price. The arrogance of man to think that God would not know of the pride, bias and corruption in the hearts of men and inspire his message accordingly.

Ever wonder why there are discrepencies in the Bible? It's because man wrote it, but it is the repeating trends that are God's message to us. The rest is all just some human interjecting his humanity.

Ah well, and so it goes. Wage Peace!

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God." -- Jesus

[lindsay]

Oh they can...

and they do!

[Jeff]

I believe that the Creationists main objection to Evolution is that they can't accept the idea that Homo sapiens evolved from apes and are related to apes that continue to exist in the world. Every one of them I've ever talked to gets really hot around the collar about this idea.

They also seem to believe that if this one part of the Bible is shown to be not 100% true, then, somehow, the whole Bible is discredited.

Of course, this is a bit ironic, since Christ and The New Testament represent a new paradigm that supersedes the Old Testament... i.e. the rules have changed, and if you want to get into Heaven, then you have to play by the new rules (love Christ and accept him as your savior) and forget the old rules (cut off your foreskin like Abraham, don't eat things with cloven hooves or shell fish, etc.) Wouldn't that mean that we should discard the Old Testament? Which is mainly the story of the Jews and what they did prior to Jesus being born? I was never able to get a good explanation in Sunday school on how the Isrealites were God's Chosen People and dammed to Hell at the same time because they didn't accept Christ.

Perhaps the biggest irony is that Christ says to his followers that he has to explain things to them in parables (metaphors) because if he spoke the plain truth to them, they wouldn't understand. Isn't it possible that the story of the Creation is God speaking through Moses in a parable about how the world created? It seems perfectly reasonable and consistant with religious belief to believe that the creation of an infinite universe was a bit more detailed than "God Said and It Was."

Here's another question that Sunday School never managed to answer for me: Why was Adam the only mammal God created without a female counter part? Or did God create all species without sexual reproduction and then, latter on, steal all of their ribs to make them girlfriends?

But what the hell do I know? I'm an atheist.

[Ted]

This isn't a joke guys. I live in Atlanta, and this has been in the news recently.

Makes me ashamed that I could be associated with this sort of thinking based on where I live.

[Lori]

I have worked for the U.S. Postal Service for over ten years and the amount of the religious-based material that has come through our plant every day since Bush was "selected" is absolutely mindboggling. We process literally hundreds of thousands of mail pieces each day. These wingnuts feel that they have been given a green light to rabidly spew their insanity. Much of the propaganda covertly targets children for indoctrination with dvd's, coloring books, bible stories, and other assorted fantasy. The really irritating part is that they pay 40% less postage because of their non-profit status. We are a union organization and this past election, some of my coworkers put God ahead of their jobs and voted for Bush. I told them that in the event of downsizing I expected each and every one of them to leave the building first! Thanks for letting me vent.

[Anon]

There are some hard questions yet to be asked.

What are we to make of trees with rings that indicate ages from 9,000 to 12,000 years?

What about the Hindu civilization that was there 5,000 years before the first Hebrews were known?

[amussed]

Well, it is a common practice to take one group of people with a certain extreem view, usually in the minority, and lump them with everyone who holds any similar idea. Those who take a few irresponsible scientist as an example and condemn all science as evil, are not diferent than those who take this minority and claim or try to make it seem like all creationist hold the same absurd theories.

I for one find that Science and religion are really not at odds, when one examins facts, actual proof. But when either religionist or science get a pet idea and insist on it becoming THE universal truth, chaos ensues. Both religion and science have had their theories disputed. I'm in favor of letting students decide for them selves, and teaching them all the facts or arguments of all theories. To me they are ALL theories, 6000 year old earth is as much a theory as evolution. If you are familiar with quantum physics, particle physics and traditional physics, you know that evoluntion has not been disproven, neither has god been disproven. Einstain embraced the concept of god in his last years, and some scientist have said science has showed them god. Weather you believe in god or a cosmic conscience or a man from mud, it is your right to believe as you do, and not as your mother, pastor, teacher or government want you to. If this stickers are real, shame on them.

[thomas g]

Dang. I need to get me some of them stickers.

They'd look real purty on Bibles, hymnals, church signg, christian books in bookstores...

[Chris Church]

You darn Liberals.
The Earth is flat & that is final, because the Bible says so.
Why don't you Liberals go to the end of the Earth & fall off?