The World's Largest Coalition of Nontheists and Nontheist Communities!

Tracking Creation in Glen Rose

Here are some little gems for you:

One student recently told Thompson how she and her father reconciled evolution with the Genesis account. God created the sun and moon on the fourth day; before that, a “day,” the student reasoned, could have been millions of years long.

“How long was that week [described in Genesis]?” Lance wonders. “Until the seasons were established, we don’t know how time would have operated. If you believe in a superior being, he could manipulate time.”

“Yeah, I don’t believe in the Darwin deal,” he says. “The Bible says God created everything, you know.”

Astounding! Absolutely astounding! - Dallas

Tracking Creation in Glen Rose

In the beginning, God created dinosaurs and humans, and they walked together in Texas.

At least, according to many people in Glen Rose.

The small town about 40 miles southwest of Fort Worth is home to some of the best-preserved dinosaur tracks in the world; it’s also a heavily Christian community where many locals interpret the book of Genesis literally.

Their belief is bolstered by a phenomenon in the riverbed. Alongside the dinosaur tracks are what resident R.C. McFall and others call “man tracks”—tangible proof of biblical creation accounts and a refutation of the theory of evolution.

McFall walks along the Paluxy River, careful not to place his cowboy boot in a dinosaur track. Muddy water fills the fossilized footprints embedded in this rocky ledge.

“There’s a track right there,” he says in a deep Texas drawl, pointing. “That hole is where my dad dug one out.”

If the river weren’t up, McFall explains, we’d see man tracks just a few feet away, in the same strata of rock as the dinosaur tracks.

The 113-million-year-old dinosaur tracks, first discovered in 1909, are an important part of Glen Rose’s livelihood, bringing thousands of visitors a year to attractions like Dinosaur Valley State Park and Dinosaur World. The town’s tourist industry, accounting for $23 million in annual revenue, was built largely on the jaw-dropping fact that fossils this old are still present today. Visitors can park their trailers at the Jurassic RV Park (the tracks actually date to the Cretaceous period) or stay at the Glen Rose Inn & Suites, where the sign features a cartoon dinosaur.

“The dinosaurs are what drive us,” says Billy Huckaby, executive director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Glen Rose. “You can’t develop a town of 2,000 into this kind of tourism revenue unless you’ve got something really special to promote.”

Tourist literature describes the tracks as millions of years old, but not everyone buys the science.

“I believe in the Bible,” McFall says. “I don’t believe the world’s over 6,000 or 7,000 years old. Course, everybody’s got their own interpretation.” [continue]

Tags: Texas, biblical literalism, creationism, evolution, science, stubbornness, theology

0 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on April 20, 2012 at 1:24pm

Stupid is as stupid does.
-- Forrest Gump

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on April 20, 2012 at 2:51pm

Between the gullible, charlatans, acquiescent, dependent, passive, helpless, submissive, and externally motivated, it is hard to figure out ways to get them out and keep them out of government, school systems, policy making, and research.

Gardening, gourmet cooking and bird watching offers opportunities to relax and renew; however, the real thought and action is on speaking out with conviction, and as much compassion as I can muster.

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on April 20, 2012 at 3:18pm

Like sheep to the slaughter, dependent, passive, subordinate, acquiescent men and women remain loyal to the end, chewed up swallowed and passed as fertilizer.

Permalink Reply by Marc Draco on April 20, 2012 at 5:19pm

I wish I could say I was speechless... I'm just distraught.

Surely, America is getting worse, not better!

Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on April 20, 2012 at 10:50pm

The fruits of clannish behavior. You never get exposed to better ideas. Or reality for that matter.

Permalink Reply by myatheistlife on April 20, 2012 at 6:40pm

A fool and his money are soon parted .... Tusser

In my opinion, atheists should be opening up such displays of ignorance. Not because atheists should believe but because its such a sweet deal. Taking money from fools who will believe anything written before 1100 is just a good business plan. I've been searching my whole house for a shadow or water stain that looks like jebus so I can charge visitors to view it....

Quit face palming and get with the program. This is the wealth revival for smart non-believers. You don't have to like Mickey Mouse to be an executive at Disney World, nor do you have to like children to write children's books (Dr Suess). So, who's in?

Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on April 20, 2012 at 10:51pm

I'm in.

Permalink Reply by Dr. Terence Meaden on April 21, 2012 at 1:59am

Look at what I might have tried selling on eBay---but its not a goddidit revelation:

http://www.atheistnexus.org/group/originsuniverselifehumankindandda...

Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on April 21, 2012 at 4:52pm

Is that us in the upper left hand corner?

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on April 21, 2012 at 7:31am

Some time back, there was a Saturday Night Live skit featuring Steve Martin as a physician of the Middle Ages. He busily prescribed bleeding or leaches and other antiquated remedies for his patients, who naturally died off left and right, despite his best efforts. As the skit progressed, he noted to himself the inefficacy of his actions and began to muse to himself whether he should begin using methodology to determine his medical course of action, using observation, experiment, noting of results, retaining of successful techniques while rejecting those which simply didn’t work, building a reliable set of cures to bring to bear for his patents.

His conclusion to these meditations was inevitable: “NAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”, and of course, he went right back to doing what he had been.

This in large portion is what the believers have been doing. They’ve been confronted with the failure of their own current practices and with the efficacy of disciplines which practice the scientific method, yet they cannot bring themselves to reject something which clearly does not work. They have been told it MUST work and that they MUST believe in it or perish. Frightened little sheep that they are (as Joan observed), they are led to their fate.

It seems as though we have a thousand different variations on this same discussion. We observe and are revolted at the irrational behavior of believers and wonder what it will take to persuade them to our camp, while simultaneously noting that there is no meeting of the minds between rational and irrational mindsets. Somehow, by some internal mechanism, they have to realize for themselves that they are behaving as sheep, that they are sleep-walking through this particular facet of their lives and need to shake off the thought patterns and habits which give rise to this behavior. Yet indoctrination is as powerful as it is perverse, and very few such sheep will ever enjoy such an epiphany.

My $0.02 worth.

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on April 21, 2012 at 10:53am

Loren, your pithy little one liners hide this wise man with thoughts worth billions and billions of $. Written exactly as I would have written it if I had your ability with words. You make my day!

By the way, that Steve Martin story says it all! He, too, is a funny and wise man.