Re: Newspapers & **Dinosaurs** (posted for P. Willis)

[N.MacLeod@xxxxxxxxx (N. MacLeod)]

Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 09:20:09 +1000
X-Sender: pwillis@ozemail.com.au (Unverified)
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To: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk
From: pwillis@ozemail.com.au (Paul Willis)
Subject: Re: Newspapers & **Dinosaurs**
Status: O

>On Thu, 24 Aug 1995, Dr. Fred J. Gunther wrote:
>
>> Looks like reporters can't get anything right.  The following was printed
>> in **The Catholic Review** (Baltimore MD), on the travel page for Wednesday,
>> August 1995.
>(snip)
>> the second floor, the Fairview Mastodon is on display.  The
>> 11,600-year-old bones, ..., are now neatly arranged and labeled.
>> >>endquote
>>
>> Thus, in the popular press, a Mastodon is a dinosaur  (;^[)
>
>Actually, I'm VERY surprised that the "Catholic" church would
>consider 11,600 year old bones as "dinosaurs". Remember, the real
>fundamentalists have to deal with the fact that existence as we know it
>was not older than 4,400 B.C. Maybe the church is getting a bit lax and
>allowing a "few" more thousand years for evolution to have taken place. .
>
> ;)
>
>
>Neal Evenhuis

This and related posts show an amazing ignorance of the diversity of
opinions about earth history among the various churches. It smacks of
Christian = Creationist which is a disservice to most christians and an
oxymoron for creationists. In fact, the Pope has come out in favour of the
scientific interpretation of the origins of the universe and evolutionary
theory. Putting his money in his facial orifice, he has even sponsored
science conferences on the origins and history of the universe and gone so
far as to denounce the literal intepretation of creation (as espoused by
creationists) as theologically untenable. I understand that the Archbishop
of Canterbury has also made similar pronouncements. The creationist
nonsence that is alluded to in these posts is only held by a minority  (all
be it a very vocal one) of fundementalist christians most of who
demonstrate a distressing lack of theological understanding (and, what is
more, they seem extremely proud of this fact).

Before I am deluged with questions of my own beliefs and reasons for
defending non-creationist christians; 1, I am not a christian but 2, I
think it is unfair to kick all christians because of the reprehensible
behaviour of a few.

Cheers, Paul

pwillis@ozemail.com.au