Scalzi has to go to the Creation Mausoleum!

Everyone did good: they met Scalzi's challenge and then some, so now he has to go spend $20 and tour the horrid little place.

This will chap Ken Ham's buns, too. Sure, he'll have to buy a ticket, but he also raised $5,118.36 all of which will be donated to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. Good deal!

More like this

John Scalzi lives right near the Creation "Museum," and he refuses to go. Good for him, I say — we're going to have to start starving Ken Ham soon. On the other hand, if anyone could mock Ham's Folly effectively, it's Scalzi … it's also so much fun to torment him. So his readers are teaming up to…
Last June, we goaded science-fiction author, blogger, and professional wise-ass John Scalzi into promising to visit Ken Ham's Creation "Museum" (actually we bought his attendance by sending him money, which he turned around and donated to Americans United for Separation of Church and State). Well…
He seems a bit peevish. He now has a blog post up complaining about me and my "inaccuracies". His complaints are amusingly petty. I object to the lies at the very heart of his "museum", and he thinks he is rebutting me by whining over petty details. For instance, he quotes me as regarding the idea…
My baby sister (she was in her thirties and had two kids of her own, but she'll always be my little sis) died a few years ago of one of those sudden, massive infections—the kind of unexpected reminder of bacterial dominance that killed Jim Henson. When I attended the funeral, I was reminded of…

I wonder if Ken Ham knows about any of this. I'd love to see his face at the revelation that Scalzi managed to offset his trip by donating 256 times the admission price of Ham's Folly to Americans United to the Separation of Church and State.

Amazing, really.

I predict he will banned from tasting of Ham's Folly.

Woo hoo! What a great sport Scalzi is.

On the one tentacle, it's tempting to alert Mr. Hamm of the upcoming visit, to make him cringe.

OTOT, there's the risk of Hamm barring Scalzi from the place on some "security" pretext, which would deny us the pleasure of the field trip report.

My first thought on reading this was that he should pay in bills with various quotes written on them. So that later when they were used to give back change...

Wouldn't denying Scalzi entrance into the Fauxseum be considered denying him the supposed word of god? And therefore also a sin against Hamm? Oh, I love irony.

Denying him access would be the best thing we could hope for. It would probably multiply be 100 the number of people that know that he is even going, and garner all kinds of bad press for the museum.

Can we send Scalzi to PBS?

Apparently, they're going to do a show called "Wall of Separation" this month.

It's a production of Boulevard Pictures.

Via Americans United for the Separation of Curch and State, some info on the film company's president:

We at Americans United did a little research on Boulevard Pictures, and here's what we found. Although the Web site for the film company mentions no religious or political agenda, its president is Jack Hafer, an evangelical Christian who told one interviewer that Christians have an obligation to "shape the culture" and "spread the faith." He urged Christian young people to go into the arts as "kingdom-spreaders" and as "a form of missionary service."

http://blog.au.org/2007/06/08/pbs-revelation-networks-wall-of-separatio…

If you are looking for some hardcore religious bias later this month, you know where to go.

Atheism bad!

By CalGeorge (not verified) on 17 Jun 2007 #permalink

Discrimination suits against churches for excluding people? That'll be quite a surprise. Vocal American religious groups have been encouraging discrimination in public policy against minority groups, much less ideologically opposed individuals. I've yet to hear of these churches being taken to court for it.

Sure, the Creation Museum may be billing itself as an institution of (pseudo)science rather than a church, but creationists are always ready to hide behind religious privilege when it's convenient.

Besides, they can probably find rock-solid grounds to exclude Scalzi, since for all we know he may well have Ammonite or Moabite ancestry.

The show's writer is Brian Godawa.

He's a Christian film writer and critic.

Working on a film called Monkey Trial.

By CalGeorge (not verified) on 17 Jun 2007 #permalink

Always good to see unguided evolutionists making so much publicity for the Creatiom Museum. Free of cost!

Keep up the good job.

Godawa called Brokeback Mountain a "brilliant piece of subversive homosexual propaganda."

And he has said:

"Society SHOULD suppress immoral behavior and it does so on many fronts. So if homosexualism is immoral, then yes, it should be suppressed, just like child molesting, its ugly step-brother hidden in the closet, just like adultery, just like promiscuity."

He said of Passion Christ: "Don't go by yourself, get a group of friends. And don't go just once, go twice."

Sources for the quotes: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.education/browse_thread/thread/51fd4…

By CalGeorge (not verified) on 17 Jun 2007 #permalink

This will chap Ken Ham's buns, too.

Since Ham was able to scam desperate Flintstones fans for $27M, I don't think he'll be impressed that Scalzi came up with $5K. However, now we know that the Board of Directors of the Flintstone Museum are syphoning off that capital through exorbitant salaries, Ham is probably bugged that he won't be able to get his hands on the Scalzi's donations.

If they banned him without reason, would there not be grounds for a discrimination suit against the church?

The museum is - correct me if I'm wrong on this - a private one, even if it's run by a church. It can ban and exclude whatever private individuals it wishes. If they're including it as part of a church (doubtful, but maybe the law really is that dumb) then they probably need to give the public access for a certain amount of time per unit time, but I'm sure they could easily come up with a pretext to keep him out.

Freedom: it's not just for the people you agree with.

By Caledonian (not verified) on 17 Jun 2007 #permalink

since for all we know he may well have Ammonite [...] ancestry.

A cephalopod! A cephalopod!

By David Marjanović (not verified) on 17 Jun 2007 #permalink

Always good to see unguided evolutionists making so much publicity for the Creatiom Museum. Free of cost!

Sure. We love to share a good joke.

By David Marjanović (not verified) on 17 Jun 2007 #permalink

Always good to see unguided evolutionists making so much publicity for the Creatiom Museum. Free of cost!

Keep up the good job.

Posted by: Mats

Poor Mats. You'll take anything as a compliment won't you? It's like calling a dog a useless, turd-eating putz, and so long as you speak in a soothing voice and rattle some treats, its tail will wag, and it will feel happy and loved.

I enjoy the menancing large theropod foot that smashes down in their "commercial", I suppose it's intended to be post-Fall of Man. I do hope someone sneaks a video camera, I'd love to make the trip myself, but the cost of travelling versus more useful wastes of money and necessary expenses would have it that I must deny myself the pleasure.

Did the Moabites also originate during the Late Silurian to Early Devonian?

By JohnnieCanuck, FCD (not verified) on 17 Jun 2007 #permalink

#16:

Godawa called Brokeback Mountain a "brilliant piece of subversive homosexual propaganda."

I called it "hot. Oh, and it had a good story."

But I'm a teenage girl, so what would I know?

By Chinchillazilla (not verified) on 17 Jun 2007 #permalink

Always good to see unguided evolutionists making so much publicity for the Creatiom Museum.

You mean Scalzi's not being given a guided tour? I'm outraged!

Apparently *every* tour is guided.... but only for the brainwashed IDiots who believe...

Skeptics need to find their own way (SOP)

In case anyone cares, I visited the creation museum a couple of weeks ago, and took a bunch of pictures, starting here. I haven't had a chance to do a proper write-up yet.

since for all we know he may well have Ammonite [...] ancestry.

A cephalopod! A cephalopod!

By David Marjanović (not verified) on 17 Jun 2007 #permalink

Always good to see unguided evolutionists making so much publicity for the Creatiom Museum. Free of cost!

Sure. We love to share a good joke.

By David Marjanović (not verified) on 17 Jun 2007 #permalink