ALLEY OOP LIVES, SEE GENESIS CHPTRS 1-11

I was raised on Alley Oop. It appeared every day back in the 1940s and 50s in the daily newspaper that we subscribed to in Southwestern Oklahoma. I was raised in a very conservative Southern Baptist church out in the countryside. It maybe had 60 members, tops. Probably all of them would tell you that they believed that God created the world in seven days and did it six thousand years ago. But if you pressed them with the question did people and dinosaurs exist at the same time like in Alley Oop, they would hedge their bet and say, well no. Probably the answer I got most of the time was, "well I just don't think so". These people may have been Baptist but as farmers that dealt with reality on a daily basis they weren't stupid.

So now we have a duffass from Australia that is opening a museum in Kentucky to prove that the Bible is LITERALLY true and that dinosaurs lived at the same time as men sometime within the last 6000 years. Just like Alley Oop. He is banking (actually banking $27 million) on the poll results that says that 60% of Americans say they believed that God created the earth in six days six thousand years ago. Well why not? Heck three of the Republican candidates for President of the United States read the same poll and thus stated in a recent debate that they did not believe in evolution. Hell, the President we have today doesn't even believe in Science for Christ's sake.

Well here is the deal. We all may be true believers but we ain't stupid!
Alley Oop riding a dinosaur down the street of Moo? You got to be kidding.

Well this guy isn't. He believes it happened.

Dinosaurs frolic with Adam and Eve at creationism museum
by Mira Oberman Sun May 20, 6:29 PM ET

PETERSBURG, United States (AFP)
- Dinosaurs frolic with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and an animatronic Noah directs work on his Ark in a multimillion dollar creationism museum set to open next week in Kentucky.
Designed by the creator of the King Kong and Jaws exhibits at the Universal Studios theme park, the stunning 60,000 square foot (5,400 square-metre) facility is built for a specific purpose: refuting evolution and expanding the flock of believers in a literal interpretation of the Bible.
"You'll get people into a place like this that you can't get into a church with a stick of dynamite," said founder Ken Ham from his office overlooking the museum's manicured grounds.
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The potential audience is huge in a country divided over the origins of the universe and battling in the courts to bring creationism into classrooms.
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Polls consistently show that nearly half of Americans believe God created humans in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. Only about 13 percent believe God played no part in the origin of human life.
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An Australian who found "Young Earth" creationism while teaching science to school children in Brisbane, Ham, 55, came to the United States in 1987 to spread the word of Biblical truth.
His fundamentalist evangelical ministry -- Answers in Genesis -- publishes dozens of books, DVDs and curriculums every year teaching Christians how to defend their faith by refuting evolution.
These glossy publications offer what they call scientific proof that the Earth is just 6,000 years old; the Grand Canyon was formed when a natural dam burst under the weight of Noah's floodwaters (4,300 years ago; and that all animals -- including the Tyrannosaurus rex -- were vegetarian.....

Ham employs a roster of PhDs to legitimize what many academics refer to as pseudoscience.
An animatronic display sums up their argument: two paleontologists are examining the same dinosaur fossil. The evolutionist -- an Asian man -- comes to one conclusion while the creationist -- a white man who resembles Ham -- comes to another.
More than 600 academics have signed a petition warning parents and teachers that students who accept the arguments the Creation Museum presents as scientifically valid are "unlikely to succeed in science courses at the college level."
"What's wrong with the AIG museum is that it's presenting religious views as if they are science when they are not," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, which launched the petition.
"The science in the museum is so inaccurate it's really going to further undermine the public understanding of science in the United States."
Ham is concerned with much a larger threat: a culture war which began with the Enlightenment's worship of human reason.
He says he is at the head of a "new reformation."
"What this ministry is about is to challenge people to get back to the word of God -- just like Martin Luther," Ham said. "What we're doing, symbolically, is nailing Genesis 1 to 11 on the doors of churches and colleges."
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While the content is debatable, there is no question as to the high production value and professionalism of the 27-million dollar (20-million euro) facility.
In a scene reminiscent of Jurassic Park, no expense was spared to create the "wow factor" of the main entrance hall.
An animatronic girl giggles and feeds a squirrel next to stream filled with live fish as two baby T-rexes play a few feet away.
To the left is a 500,000 dollar planetarium -- whose dome will show films proving that "the heavens declare God's Glory" -- and a bookstore and gift shop designed to look like a medieval castle, complete with a dragon.
To the right, is a special effects theater with shaking seats, thunder and mists of water for the flood scenes.
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Located just outside of Cincinnati near the intersection of the states of Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, nearly two thirds of the population of the United States lives within a 650-mile (1,050-kilometer) drive of the Creation Museum.
It is expected to draw at least 250,000 people a year when it opens on May 28.
By comparison, the American Museum of Natural History, which recently organized a touring Darwin exhibit, draws millions of visitors every year -- including more than 400,000 school children -- to its 1.6 million square foot facility in New York.
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And to think I always thought old Alley Oop was just a comic strip in my local paper. One thing for certain, Gilgamesh is turning over in his grave about now.

The full news story about the museum can be read at:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070520/ts_alt_afp/uspoliticsreligion_070520222942

Alley Oop Comics which are still currently syndicated, and are still a good read, may be seen at:
http://www.comics.com/comics/alleyoop/index.html