Religion
�Dr. Dino,� Merrill Keiser, Jr., and Thomas S. Monaghan: Religion goes well with ignorance, hate and pizza
By Mel Seesholtz, Ph.D.
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Mar 10, 2006, 00:34

�Dr. Dino� is Kent Hovind, whose claim to the �Dr.� and academic credentials is questionable, at best. Appropriately, he�s the founder of Florida-based Creation Science Evangelism, which, among its other quaint novelties, offers Dinosaur Adventure Land:

Since 2001 Dinosaur Adventure Land has been a place where families can come to learn about God�s Creation through science and the Bible. DAL is comprised of a 3-story Science Center, Creation Museum, and Theme Park, making it fun for all ages, and one of the lost amazing Creation Parks in the world. Our goal is to win souls to Christ, by giving everyone another choice. You can believe that you came from a rock, or you can believe that a loving God created you for a purpose. Plan your next family vacation, to come to DAL . . .

But if you can�t make it to DAL, their website offers �what really happened� cartoons featuring Danny the Dinosaur who tells kids that their boring science teacher is wrong: the earth is only 6,000 years old and �God� created the dinosaurs on the same day he created human beings (in their present form, of course). Danny offers as proof a photo of his �Grandpa David� posing with Noah whose ark saved all the creatures of earth including the dinosaurs -- biblical literalism and young earth creationism at their most ludicrous and most insidious.

�Dr. Dino� has a three-part plan of attack to overthrow science and revert to the Dark Ages. Could three parts have anything to do with the �the Doctrine of the Trinity� fabricated by Athanasius and the Council of Nicea in 325 c.e. to get themselves and their �monotheistic� religion out of the bind of having multiple gods, �Father� and �Son� and the �Holy Ghost?� The consubstantial-transubstantial debate was akin to how many angels could dance on the head of a pin and whether or not Adam�s procreative erection was a result of sinful lust for Eve. (See the appended Nota Bene for how the church resolved that dilemma.)

�Jesus lived in the Roman Empire and did not spend any time trying to change the Roman Empire. He just changed people, one at a time,� Hovind points out. �And I think the grassroots approach of changing people is bulletproof -- I mean, there�s nothing you can do to stop that.�

He continues, saying the �second level of attack� would involve changing teachers. �Get the teachers converted or at least knowledgeable on the topic, where they know what the truth is,� he suggests. �Then it doesn�t matter what the textbook says, because the teacher�s not going to teach it anyway -- or the teacher�s going to teach it and expose the error.�

Hovind says a third and more difficult plan of attack would be to change existing textbook requirements at the state level. . . .

Part I: grassroots. In other words, if �Dr. Dino� and Young Earth Creationists can convince enough people that Genesis is literal history, that should negate science. It�s a neat idea. Next time your medical doctor gives you a diagnosis you don�t like, take a vote among your friends. If they say the doctor was wrong, then he was, and the disease will magically disappear.

Part II: convert the teachers. In other words, encourage teachers to ignore their academic discipline and professional responsibilities, and teach their personal religious beliefs instead. No doubt David Horowitz would support that idea and call it �academic freedom.� Mr. Horowitz�s version of �academic freedom� is very much like Danny the Dinosaur�s lessons in the DAL cartoons and �Dr. Dino�s� view of textbooks.

Part III: change the textbooks. Who needs facts in textbook anyway? Kansas showed us the way: �Kansas has become a world capital of redefinition. In November [2005], the state school board redefined �science� to make Kansas schools safe for intelligent design and allow (or coerce?) teachers to teach ID. Science, in Kansas at least, no longer is limited to the study of natural phenomena� [links added]. Not surprisingly, �Kansas ranks last in science.�

The March 6 Agape Press article about �Dr. Dino� concluded with this notice: �Later this month, Hovind will be holding a two-day seminar at the Pennsylvania high school a federal judge recently barred from mentioning intelligent design in biology class.� That seminar is being sponsored by Michael Marcavage�s Repent America: �The two-day seminar will be held in the auditorium of the Dover Area High School on Friday, March 17 at 6:30 p.m. and Saturday, March 18 at 10:30 a.m. The event is open to the public and admission is free.�

According to Doron Taussig�s City Paper cover story about the Repent America leader, �Marcavage�s full-time job is running Repent America (his income, he says, comes from �donations from individuals and churches�).� Given the wide variety of Repent America�s activities and sponsored events, �donations� must be good these days.

Despite his rejoinder to the City Paper article --

Response from Mr. Marcavage . . .
 

Serving the King

A recent statement published in City Paper, in a tabloid-like fashion, quoted me in suggesting that my desire is to have homosexuals and other sinners put to death. In regards to the accuracy of the quotation, it is clear that it was not published in its entirety and was my response to a theological question, which was off the record. Sadly, this has led others to promote the quotation in a false light. So, on the record, I want to make it clear, as it was even included in that printed quotation, that I do not desire that homosexuals be put to death but rather proclaim what the Scripture says in Romans 6:23, �For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.�

I believe that homosexual behavior is sin and cannot force any person to accept this message, but can only warn. I confessed in the City Paper quotation, as I do so now, that I am guilty of violating God�s law but have repented and accepted the payment for sin, Jesus Christ.

Furthermore, I do not act in hatred toward any person, including the homosexual, but I go to those willing to listen with the same love that was extended to me. If I did not love, I would stay in a church building.

Michael Marcavage
Director, Repent America

Ed: City Paper stands by the veracity of Taussig�s article and reporting.

-- some of Mr. Marcavage�s theologically-phrased �views� find more forthright expression in those of a �Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Ohio [who] wants to make homosexual behavior a capital crime punishable by the death penalty.� The World New Daily article went on to describe the political agenda of Merrill Keiser, Jr.,:

�Just like we have laws against murder, we have laws against stealing, we have laws against taking drugs -- we should have laws against immoral conduct,� Keiser told WTOL-TV in Toledo . . .
 

�I believe that the United States has been moved in a Godless direction by the courts,� he told the Sandusky Register . . .
 

Keiser told the Register the United States should make conversion to Christianity part of the war on terror to teach Muslims the error of their choice in religion.

The candidate also decries evolution, saying it is contrary to the Declaration of Independence.

�The teaching of evolution works against the liberties we have in the United States,� he told the paper. If a person believe[s] in evolution, he or she �has no rights,� he�s quoted saying.

No doubt Mr. Keiser was displeased with the Ohio Board of Education that voted 11 to 4 on February 14 "to toss out a mandate that 10th-grade biology classes include critical analysis of evolution and an accompanying model lesson plan, dealing the intelligent design movement its second serious defeat in two months.

"The board, which became the first in the nation to single out evolution for special scrutiny under the academic standards it adopted in 2002, stripped the language from the curriculum partly out of fear of a lawsuit in the wake of a December ruling by a federal judge that teaching intelligent design in the Dover, Pa., public schools was unconstitutional". [link added]

But the Ohio candidate can rest assured. His state amended its constitution to legalize discrimination against gay and lesbian citizens, and is generally quite mean-spirited when it comes to homosexuals and their well-being: �An Ohio legislator is asking a court to declare Miami University is violating the state Constitution by providing benefits to the same-sex partners of faculty and staff.�

�Dr. Dino� wants people to stop thinking and believe the Earth is 6,000 years old and dinosaurs went on a cruise with Noah. Merrill Keiser, Jr., wants gay and lesbian Americans killed ad majorem gloriam Dei. Ignorance, religion and politics are indeed a familiar �trinity,� and they sell pizzas too:

Notoriously-homophobic Domino�s Pizza founder Thomas S. Monaghan is making plans to build his own city [Ave Maria] in central Florida, basing his government on the principles of the Roman Catholic Church . .
.

No adult bookstores will be allowed, pharmacies will not carry condoms or birth control pills, and cable television will have no X-rated channels, to create a better living environment for people. If Monaghan wants to help people live a better life, we suggest he stop selling people his boxed heart-attack kits which he refers to as �pizza,� and instead sell people actual food. Actual pizza would even be acceptable. [italics added]

Monaghan has backtracked a bit -- �I would say I just misspoke� -- but is also having his lawyers review �legal issues surrounding his original ideas� that included banning gays and lesbians from his city.

And speaking of the �principles� of the Roman Catholic Church upon which Monaghan wants to base his city�s government:

The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Dublin published a report Wednesday that says 102 of its priests -- more than 3.5 percent of the total -- are suspected of sexually or physically abusing at least 350 children since 1940, the biggest such admission to date in Ireland.

The office of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said it was publishing its findings ahead of the expected formation later this month of a government-appointed commission to investigate the history and handling of such abuse throughout Ireland. This predominantly Catholic nation has been rocked by waves of church sex-abuse scandals since 1994.

The Boston archdioceses was among the worst in America for covering-up child abuse perpetrated by priests, yet Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney -- who�s got designs on the White House -- is determined to find a way to exempt Catholic Charities from placing children with same-sex parents who are already forced to go through hell even to qualify as adoptive parents. The exemption was requested by the state�s Catholic bishops. Their �reasoning� was that the law violates their �religious freedom� and is contrary to Catholic principles. One has to wonder where those principles were when Catholic bishops in Massachusetts and across the country were illegally covering up decades of child abuse and pedophilia perpetrated by priests and the bishops kept shifting them from diocese to diocese, enabling them to continue their abuses.

Instead of eyeing the White House, Mitt Romney should set his sights on becoming mayor of Monaghan�s city. Merrill Keiser, Jr., would be an excellent attorney for the city, and �Dr. Dino� could serve as its superintendent of schools.