Burying the "Jesus Horses" Myth

The BBQ Pit
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This isn’t intended as a pitting of any one person. Long ago someone made a poor decision about a thread title and a mod made a poor decision about changing it. My demons weren’t their demons and ignorance is still the result.

As I understand it, Jimmy Fallon made a joke on SNL about Christian fundamentalists calling dinosaurs “Jesus Horses.” It was a joke. It wasn’t true.

Fear Itself claimed that it was true in the Georgia school system when this thread title appeared:

Georgia Schools: Dinosaurs Now Called ‘Jesus Horses’

Fear Itself followed that up with an immediate explanation of the real source, but the damage had been done by the title. Careless readers and people who just glanced at the title had yet another reason to put down Southern fundamentalists.

I responded with this post in the thread. Here’s part of it:

(That chip on my shoulder gets heavier every year, but this is one issue that seems to be getting worse and not better.

As I had been told to do, I contacted Tuba Diva about the misleading title. My plea fell on deaf ears.

Soon there were two more threads supposedly about “Jesus Horses.”

Jesus Horses, part II: Volcano film pulled because it might offend creationists

The Creationist(sic) Ride Again – On Jesus Horses

That was over a year ago, but the myth that was perpetuated by those three posts was repeated as fact in the last day or so in this thread:

What did/would it take for you to reject religion?

So here’s your freakin’ break. The part about Jesus Horses isn’t true. And as far as I know, most Creationists believe the Earth is 6,000 years old. That’s not much consolation, but at least the Supreme Court says that can’t do that in public schools.

This particular load of bullshit never existed. This section of the populace does not live in total ignorance. Our minds are not the problem. You have an image in your mind which is not accurate. You should not trust your own mind as long as you continue to allow such stereotypes to exist there. We didn’t call them “Jesus Horses;” people in New York City called them “Jesus Horses.”

Shall we now pronounce these horses dead?

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Please excuse me for having been inadequately informed.

3

But they look so good on t-shirts!

4

fishbicycle, did you read the whole thread, the OP or just the title? Do you remember if that first thread is where you got your misinformation?

Tuckerfan, I would think that particular T-shirt might scare the little baby that it’s mean for! Whatever happened to Lambchop?

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A lethal combination of uterine cancer and pneumonia, it seems. :frowning:

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THANK YOU! I was gonna snark on that last night, but the rest of fishbicycle’s post was so sad (an abusive dad & a corrupt Salvation Army post) that I gave him a pass.

Just to clarify- there are many Creationists (I think “most” but I don’t know for sure) who do hold to a much older Earth & Universe. Those like me hold to the Creation Days either as geological epochs or literary devices. Others hold to this being the second Creation after the first one, the prehistoric world of dinosaurs, mammoths & eventually cavemen was destroyed in the Angelic Rebellion. PLUS,
ID does not necessarily equal Creationism to the exclusion of evolution.

And in full disclosure, I waver between Old-Earth Creationism and Theistic Evolution. I do lean to a 6,000 year old Adamic humanity that were chosen/created out of a more ancient humanity.

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This is a nice report on the Creationists museum. They have dioramas with Eve hanging out with a velocoraptor. And have a dinosaur with a saddle on for the kids to ride. Seems enough evidence to me to confirm that these people are idiots.

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Zoe, it was in one or both of those threads where I read about the horses thing. I didn’t know it originated on SNL; I haven’t watched it in years. And I don’t read all the religious threads here, those just caught my eye because the ideas were so ludicrous. Mix that with the Creationist Museum and those loonies, which I also read about here, and it’s possible to get the wrong impression. Please consider my ignorance on the matter fought.

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They’re also suing each other, and I can’t find a cite, but one of the founders of the museum is currently serving time for failing to pay taxes. (Seems he didn’t think that it was what God wanted him to do. :rolleyes: )

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Oh, poor poor Zoe, her ignorant friends are being laughed at for their foolish and misguided beliefs in creationism. Whah!

One poster made a mistake, the bulk of the world understands it was a joke, made with good reason. The 6000 year or 10000 year creationists are jokes. Sad and pathetic jokes. They need to stop corrupting their children and spreading extreme ignorance.

As to the other creationist that at least attempt to reconcile the World’s age and scientific knowledge, they don’t seem as bad. This would appear to include the official RCC position with the clever concept that God provided the “Divine Spark”. A good concept, neither provable nor refutable. It goes well with the concept of faith and does not run into scientific theory head on.

Jim

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What Exit? writes:

> One poster made a mistake, the bulk of the world understands it was a joke,
> made with good reason. The 6000 year or 10000 year creationists are jokes.
> Sad and pathetic jokes. They need to stop corrupting their children and
> spreading extreme ignorance.

The point is that just because you think a particular group of people are wrong about many things doesn’t give you the right to constantly proclaim that they’re wrong about other things, especially when you make up some nonsense and then accuse that group of believing it despite the fact that none of them ever believed it. It would be like, for instance, constantly proclaiming that you’re smarter than people were in the Middle Ages because you don’t think that the Earth is flat, unlike them. (In fact, people in the Middle Ages knew that the Earth is round.)

Here at the SDBM we’re supposed to be fighting ignorance, not showing off how smart we are by treating people we disagree with like dirt. Creationists are already wrong about plenty of things. You don’t have to invent something new that they are wrong about. And it’s not true that everyone understood that the “Jesus horse” thing is a joke. Besides, that’s a pretty standard trick in arguing. You accuse someone of believing in some obvious piece of nonsense, and then when it’s pointed out that they don’t believe it, you say, “Well, I was joking.” Zoe’s OP is correct. It’s time to kill off this story that anyone ever referred to dinosaurs as Jesus horses.

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Excuse me, it’s the SDMB, not the SDBM.

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Wow. I don’t know if I participated in any of those threads, but I never knew “Jesus Horses” was made up as a joke. Ignorance fought!

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I’ve always known it was a joke (how could you not?), but these images don’t help the “We’re not stupid” defense at all.

Jesus Horses

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Whatever happened to “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,” etc?

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That’s the new testament God. The old testament God is not pro taxation.

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This individual goes for a literal interpretation, right? So that would mean that “Caesar” refers only to ancient Roman rulers, not the U.S. government or any other authority. :wink:

18

Probably the same thing that happened to “Love thy neighbor.” :wink:

So, are dead Jesus horses made into Jesus glue?

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I didn’t realize that it was a joke but really isn’t the point that most Creationists think that Dinos and humans once existed at the same time? The point of joke/no joke is moot.

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Actually, many, though not all of them, think that fossils are a trick by Satan to lead us astray.