Yeah we have them too!
http://www.omroepbrabant.nl/anp.aspx?id=290110213
via
http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_txt
I wouldn’t have expected the CU to be so publicly stupid, they try to keep their more fundamentalist positions out of the spotlight at least in national politics, but nothing the SGP can do would surprise me.
For those at you outside of the country, here are the Wiki pages for both parties:
And the page for Staphorst:
A clearer translation:
*
At the request of the Christian Union and the SGP, a report covering the valuable achaeological areas is to be changed. Both parties want the biblical version of the age and creation of the earth to be articulated in the report.
Cities are required by national law to create a map of archaeological items of value, showing locations where artifacts might be expected to be found. The report, created for the city government in compliance with this requirement, discusses the creation of sandbanks in the area millions of jears ago. “We, along with the majority of our citizens, believe in the young-earth theory. Why shouldn’t it be included in an official report?” said city council member Klaas Harke on Friday.*
It should be noted that it is illegal to take a picture in Staphorst, and it is also illegal to swear there. Visiting on a Sunday is unlikely to end well. It’s a sort of reservation for Calvinists. They undoubtedly consider the requirement to make a chart of archaeological formations a snub to their religous beliefs and are therefore thumbing their collective noses at their brethren.
Eh, at least the creationists in Staphorst don’t want to make all the other cities include the new-earth theory in their reports.
I don’t get it. What’s he asking for? Does he want the report to say, “These sandbanks are estimated to be around three million years old – which would be approximately 200 in Creationist Years.”?
Heh. I’m surrounded by (and descended from) dutch Calvinists who left the Netherlands for the US back in the mid 19th century, because they opposed the liberalization of the official Calvinist church there.
Sounds like they all didn’t leave the old country, though.
Something like that, yes: “Both parties want that the biblical interpretation of the age and the origin of the universe is spelled out [in the report including the sandbank]”.
Seems to me that they don’t want the given age be changed, but that their view that it’s wrong should be included.
What’s next?
“The speed limit is 80/kph, but we believe that Man wasn’t supposed to go that fast, so put a picture of a horse on the speed limit sign as well.” :rolleyes:
These sorts should never be catered to.
The Dutch, who love to research things, are making a map of the country with potential locations for archaeological digs noted. They are doing this by having each of the cities create a report of the formations and areas of interest within their jurisdiction. This will all be compiled one presumes and turned into a regional and a national map.
Staphorst went ahead and hired a company to make its report, by the numbers, cites whatever authorities geologists and so on cite. The city council will then add a part to the report which with a straight face states that the sandbanks in the area were, I dunno, placed by the hand of god during the great flood or some such, whatever it is that Creationsists think.
My best surmise is that the company making the report will then make some kind of complaint, whereupon the national authority of maps and busywork (or whomever) will get to make a decision. Which may go to the highest levels, where it will get a response something like this: “Staphorst. Yeah. sigh Whattaya gonna do?”.
The real question is whether the god story will be included on the final product, or whether it will be quietly excised for lack of room or something similar with the god story appended as, I dunno, Appendix 34632/FS/102.5, maintained as is required by law in the archives of the authority of maps and busywork.
They have been breaking their teeth on Calvinist hardheadedness for many centuries, after all and have devised their own methods over time. Beauracracy is in Holland something of a spectator sport.
And they make this request without even a hint of hiding a chuckle up their sleeve? I suppose that goes to the very foundation of Creationism in general, but it strikes me as the equivalent of asking “We would like, in addition to your very fine and doubtless thorough and well-established carbon dating of the material, to also include our own interpretation of your ‘facts’.”
Is there a conversion equation of Real-to-Creationist years? You know, like converting dog years into human?
So … it’s rather like watching CSPAN then?
Of course! See here