Burying the "Jesus Horses" Myth

The BBQ Pit
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[QUOTE=Wendell Wagner]

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.
[/QUOTE]

But the fact that the triceratops at the Creation Museum has a saddle on it suggests that, even if that group of people doesn’t call them “Jesus horses”, they believe that dinosaurs were ridden around on.

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[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
But the fact that the triceratops at the Creation Museum has a saddle on it suggests that, even if that group of people doesn’t call them “Jesus horses”, they believe that dinosaurs were ridden around on.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know about that. It might just be that they want to make the place more attractive to kids. How many legitimate museums are there where you can “ride” a dino?

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[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
So, are dead Jesus horses made into Jesus glue?
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No, Jesus Brand Dog Food.

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[QUOTE=Zoe]
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.”
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Is your argument that most people in the Deep South aren’t ignorant at all, or that they’re not as ignorant as New Yorkers make them out to be?

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[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
I don’t know about that. It might just be that they want to make the place more attractive to kids. How many legitimate museums are there where you can “ride” a dino?
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, but how many legitimate museums also say that dinosaurs and humans coexisted?

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[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
Yeah, but how many legitimate museums also say that dinosaurs and humans coexisted?
[/QUOTE]

None that I’m aware of, however, if they make it a more interesting place for kids than legitimate museums, then what they’re saying will stick in the kids minds more firmly. They’ll remember the Creationist Museum as the place where they got to ride the dinosaur (which is a pretty cool thing if you’re a kid), while they remember the legitimate museum as a place where they were bored to tears.

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[QUOTE=Lamar Mundane]
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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Seems to me that the “coloring book” is, in reality, the work of an artist (Derek Chatwood ). Who also depicted Jesus and Darwin fighting each other). (And the kid riding the dinosaur is part of the creationist museum, depicted at arstechnica if I recall that bit correctly)

It seems to me that this board isn’t the only source of that particular myth.

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[QUOTE=DiggitCamara]
Seems to me that the “coloring book” is, in reality, the work of an artist (Derek Chatwood ). Who also depicted Jesus and Darwin fighting each other). (And the kid riding the dinosaur is part of the creationist museum, depicted at arstechnica if I recall that bit correctly)

It seems to me that this board isn’t the only source of that particular myth.
[/QUOTE]

As has been pointed out, it’s been used on SNL and IIRC, Jon Stewart said it on TDS as well.

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[QUOTE=Zoe]

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

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So much for fighting ignorance. What we are really about is making fun of ignorance and the more ignorance we can come up whether real or perceived the merrier. Well some of us anyway.

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[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
Actually, many, though not all of them, think that fossils are a trick by Satan to lead us astray.
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Don’t they think the same about the neocortex, or do they merely believe it is made out of apple?

No, wait, that was a joke. They actually believe women are meant to be subservient to men and children must be beaten. Some of them believe all Muslims should be killed and the King James Version is more accurate than the Biblical texts in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

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[QUOTE=FriarTed]
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…
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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Oh, when you put it that way it doesn’t sound ignorant (it sounds fricking nuts!).

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[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
As has been pointed out, it’s been used on SNL and IIRC, Jon Stewart said it on TDS as well.
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I got that. However the post I was responding to

contained a link to a post by someone who was “furious” because he thought the picture was actually taken from a coloring book. I thought Lamar was in the mistaken belief that that was true. Which it doesn’t seem to be.

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Of truths that Darwin tries to gyp us–
The OP seems not to realize that the joke was an effect of, not the cause of, people’s desire to ridicule ignorant fundamentalist beliefs. If someone says that, say, flat-earth geography is a product of cement-headed ignorance, and the flat-earthers counter with absolute incontrovertible proof that (on average) their heads contain little cement, the FE enthusiasts may celebrate their victory far into the night: impartial observers will sense that a point has been missed.

From fundamental rights to strip us–

I’ve seen no indication that anyone ever seriously accused creationists of using the term Jesus Horse. If the pro-knowledge side wishes to use the phrase as a handy catch-all for “stupid things creationists believe about natural history,” well, it’s not very nice, but all they’re guilty of is failing to treat with respect a point of view which deserves little. For anyone to treat it as a serious accusation rather than a mere insult is just another symptom of a brain which insists on treating texts literally rather than metaphorically, which is what caused the trouble in the first place.

Let ID “science” try to slip us–

Actually, creationism was originally neither scientifically nor theologically based. It was a naked power play (one of several) by a relatively new and somewhat heretical movement within Protestantism – Biblical Literalism – to gain influence and respectability by pretending to be more in keeping with the ancient traditions of Christianity than older, more thoughtful offshoots of the faith. As for what made such literalism attractive, there are various possibilities, some less repugnant than others, but a fascination with geology and cosmology isn’t among them.

Into classrooms to equip us–

And so, ID devotees, beware: you’ve been enlisted temporarily because straight creationism got its hat handed to it by science in the courts and evolution is still the primary enemy.

With sophistry that will not trip us–

But you’re not counted as one of them, because unlike creationism, ID doesn’t proclaim the Bible to be literally true – you don’t fit in with their long-term plans. The compromise you seek to strike with your opponents will not be offered you by your “friends.”

Like, Jesus riding Eohippus?

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I can’t say if anyone’s ever sincerely claimed people used to travel around on dinosaurs. But I can say that based on this picture, it’s a short ride to that conclusion. So to speak.

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The King of Soup writes:

> . . . all they’re guilty of is failing to treat with respect a point of view which
> deserves little . . .

All points of view deserve respect, even those which are mostly nonsense. By accusing someone (even if they are thoroughly confused) of a wrong view that they don’t hold, you don’t make your argument better. If anything, you make it worse. When they discover that you’ve artificially pumped up your argument by accusing them of something they don’t believe, you make it harder to convince them of anything. If they discover that you add false statements to your arguments, they will be more likely to ignore anything else you say. The point of argumentation is to convince your opponents, not to make yourself feel better by treating your opponents like dirt. And it’s not true that everyone understood that the “Jesus horse” claim was just a joke. Several people who’ve posted to this thread have said that they thought that it was for real.

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[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
Actually, many, though not all of them, think that fossils are a trick by Satan to lead us astray.
[/QUOTE]

Mind-boggling. Why does He even need science? God could have made a much better case for Himself by having us be a bunch of animated Gumbys.

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[QUOTE=Don’t fight the hypothetical]
Mind-boggling. Why does He even need science? God could have made a much better case for Himself by having us be a bunch of animated Gumbys.
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Well, that would prove He existed, and without faith, He is nothing, and Gumbiods (Gumbians?) would remove all doubt and thus cause Him to cease to exist.

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Is the jesus horse concept really so far-fetched, compared to what most of the world’s christians actually believe? Why would anyone be bothered by the insult of the jesus horse when the christians have already offered up such classics as virgin birth, resurrection, ascension into heaven (or for that matter, heaven itself!) miracles, magic underwear, damnation into lakes of fire, and the rest?

Okay, okay! I don’t believe most christians believe in jesus horses (though I believe a sizeable number of them probably do). Am I allowed to laugh at the rest of it?

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Kalhoun writes:

> I don’t believe most christians believe in jesus horses (though I believe a
> sizeable number of them probably do).

No, the point of the OP is that nobody actually ever used the term “Jesus horse” except as a joke. Your statement is a little odd anyway. Of course most Christians never used the term “Jesus horse.” Most Christians aren’t creationists.

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[QUOTE=Wendell Wagner]
Kalhoun writes:

> I don’t believe most christians believe in jesus horses (though I believe a
> sizeable number of them probably do).

No, the point of the OP is that nobody actually ever used the term “Jesus horse” except as a joke. Your statement is a little odd anyway. Of course most Christians never used the term “Jesus horse.” Most Christians aren’t creationists.
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Seems like you can break the Christians into 3 groups for this particular discussions.

  1. Christians that are faithful but not literal. They accept evolution as the best current understanding from where we came.
  2. The Creationist that at least don’t believe the Earth is only 6 to 10 thousand years old
  3. The nut jobs that believe, teach their children and try to teach others that the earth is only 6000 to 10000 years old. (I think Young Earthers is a common name for these.)

My beef is principally with category 3, though I have little tolerance for cat 2 that
try to push their belief into schools and fight to keep their kids ignorant of evolutionary theory.

#1 I generally have no problem with and I see no real reason to have a problem with them. Live and let live. I am even fine with Divine Spark, a clever idea that could be correct as it can be neither proved nor disproved. I don’t believe it, but I sympathize with it and I think I would like to be able to believe it.

Jim