Jack Chick insanity, Part Two

[hoagiegal1970]

Numbuh 0xFF linked me to Pharyngula some time ago. It's very enlightening reading, even though I don't agree with everything he says (mostly concerning spirituality, since I'm a practicing Catholic. The evolution/creation argument, no disagreeing there).

While reading it last night, I stumbled upon this brand-new sparkling gem from Jack Chick (written this year!), who figured so prominently in the "Creation Museum--Codswallop!" thread of a couple of months ago. Anyway, here's some more deranged ramblings from the man who says that everyone except evangelical Christians--who don't even have to stop SINNING as long as they accept Jesus into their lives (um, that's not how it works?)--is going Down There.

There Go The Dinosaurs

[thesuki]

...

*faceplant*

And for the record, a comet is only a theory. Scientists freely admit that they don't actually know what killed the dinosaurs.

[hoagiegal1970]

They don't. But dinosaurs definitely weren't wiped out by a flood that also happened to destroy humans. 1--It was a localized flood; and 2--obviously, duh, dinosaurs and humans weren't created together.

At first, I thought this had to be a Jack Chick parody, because it's too insane to be a real tract, but nope, it's a real tract.

It's STILL hard for me to believe that people are stupid enough to buy into this crap. Is shutting off the brain a prerequisite for becoming a fundamentalist Christian?

[♥Comet..Adie♥]

thesuki said:

...

*faceplant*

And for the record, a comet is only a theory.

I am not a theory! I'm a person.

*bad joke*

[The J.A.M., a.k.a. Numbuh i]

It's a pity Mr. Chick is just talking and talking and talking, without any obvious inspiration from Above.
"The letter kills, but the Spirit brings to life."

[Numbuh 0xFF]

Well we do know that something fairly large smacked into the Earth some 65 000 000 years ago. The iridium[1] deposit on the K/T[2] boundary is downright conclusive.

Sure there is a theory that it was deposited by a global surge of volcanism -- which isn't all that stupid. We know Earth occasionally goes trough a bout of supervolcanism -- the Deccan traps alone contain enough magma to bathe all of Eurasia in molten rock. I won't even go into the whole Yellowstone bit. And the mantle is significantly more rich in heavy stuff than the puny crust -- though tests of igneous rock show far less iridium than we find on the K/T boundary. Mostly 'cause iridium is a siderophile, i.e. it sinks together with iron and forms the core of Earth.

Thing is, a massive rock smacking the Earth will seriously mess up the day of any dominant species. So we know that IF there was an impact at that time it could have easily spelled doom in large friendly letter for the poor dinos[3].

Second of all we can see quite a lot of scars on Earth where Big Bad Things From Space struck. Some (say Chicxulub) even date from the correct era.

And finally, intellectual parsimony favors the asteroid hypothesis -- an asteroid impact is nothing special. Par for the course as far as any body in the solar system goes.

Note, mind, that despite all this evidence the asteroid hypothesis only barely rates as a theory. It could be overturned. Really, it could. Some other hypothesis could prove to have more evidence on its side. I don't give it a very high probability, but if anything is certain it's that the Universe has an almost limitless capacity to surprise us.

That being said, ol' Jack's idea is, ah, how shall I put this, bunkum of the very highest degree. But, then again, this is the same fellow who claims that playing D&D will teach you to cast honest-to-goodness real spells[5].

[1] Heavy metal (*headbangs*) akin to platinum. Rare on Earth common (well, comparatively) on meteoroids or asteroids.
[2] Stratum that separates the Cretaceous and the Tertiary geological strata. Called the K/T boundary 'cause Cretaceous is spelled with a K in German.
[3] And the pterosaurs, plesiosaurs and such. Everyone always thinks of the dinosaurs but forgets the rest. For shame.
[4] Remember, people, 'just a theory' is an odd thing to say. The highest thing to which you can aspire in science is a 'theory'. That means 'supported by tons of evidence' and not 'a promising guess'. The latter is called a hypothesis.
[5] I've been a 26th level mage. I've slain Balor armies on the vast plains of the Abyss. I have struck down demon lords of enviable powers. And, yet, can't cast anything. You'd think that the Secret Evil Cabal of Satanic D&D would teach a cantrip or two.

[hoagiegal1970]

I was wondering why Jack Chick brought up 1841, as in dinosaurs weren't named "dinosaurs" until 1841.

He's known to throw around "facts" without ever naming sources, so I did some Google-fooing.

I took this from a 1993 article from Time (click this to read the entire article), because most of what I found on that date were referenced on wacky Creation apologist sites. So:

The British anatomist Richard Owen first coined the term dinosaur (from the ancient Greek deinos, "terrible," and sauros, "lizard") in 1841 to characterize gigantic fossilized bones found several decades earlier. Dinosaur bones and footprints had actually been known for centuries, but were ascribed to dragons or extinct lizards or even giant ravens. Owen realized that these enormous bones belonged to a previously unknown and long-extinct group of animals related to but different from lizards. Dinosaurs became an immediate rage in London. An 1854 exhibition at Hyde Park's Crystal Palace featured a number of life-size dinosaur models that drew throngs of admirers.

So my point is, even of dinosaurs were called "dragons" before 1841, that STILL doesn't prove that humans came into contact with them, as the wackos claim.

[thesuki]

I always found it interesting that just about every culture had some version of the Dragon. Makes you wonder why so many were thought to have been able to fly and/or exhale things that are not air or carbon dioxide.

[Numbuh 0xFF]

There's probably a good psychological reason for it. Though I'm loathe to babble more on that in that particular vein since I'm not really well-read in psychology.

Mind, once you give it a thought 'dragons' as imagined don't really look like dinosaurs. I mean, yes, they got the whole 'giant lizard' thing going on but they aren't the right shape (T-rex looks like a chicken for crying out loud not a demonic serpent) don't fly (pterosaurs do fly but look as non-draconic as you can reasonably get) and certainly don't breathe fire. The creature closest to the dragon that I know of would be the Komodo dragon. It's a ten foot lizard which is scary enough and it also has a breath which is, though not fiery,exceedingly unpleasant. We're talking about a creature with lethal halitosis.

Some other good contenders would be various quite scary maritime beasties such as giant sea-snakes.

[agentarizonan]

I remember when I watched a video on Google Video of a creation scientist giving a lecture about dinosaurs and in it, he mentions that reptiles, especially snakes, never stop growing while they're alive and that there are anacondas that are over 100 feet long.

If reptiles never actually stop growing while they're alive, then I've certainly never learned that before.

video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8823918226368447784&q=dinosaurs+bible&total=270&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=4

I stumbled upon it while I was at another forum.

[hoagiegal1970]

Dr. Kent Hovind is a crackpot.

I couldn't even sit through 10 minutes of that nonsense. I don't have 2 hours (that's how long the video is) to listen to nonsense. Got kids to take care of, and I don't want my soul to be saved by him.

[agentarizonan]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mni-SRtG7xY

Here's a video showing the importance of hyperbaric oxygen if you don't mind sifting through all the biblical stuff.