Thanks for the post on the Creation Museum Doug. Denise and I were thinking about taking a road trip up I-71 to Cincy to go to this museum. There was an interesting article in the Louisville Courier-Journal about this also. I had to chuckle when I read this as I did when I read the article in the Courier. I am absolutely for freedom of religion but the analytical side of me (being an accountant I guess that is an occupational hazard) has a hard time reconciling the two. Denise is a Reform Jew and is liberal about religious practice and I am a non practicing Christian so we get into few arguments about this issue but it is funny. I try to live by the Golden Rule, just treat others as you would like to be treated, but at the same time it is hard to discount science and this museum makes a mockery of what we know, among other things, the law of physics. (Just as an aside, I have seen several IGWT plates here in Metro Louisville, I haven’t seen any of the Amber Waves of Grain plates.) I miss the old plates with the 10,22,18,49,68,89,etc., i.e. Clark, Floyd, Delaware, Marion, Randolph, Wayne County monikers. Just a bit of Hoosier nostalgia I guess.
I don’t think there is anything particularly religious about the Golden Rule. It’s just a good, sensible moral rule for believers and nonbelievers alike. Belief in the Almighty doesn’t make it more or less applicable, in my opinion.
In any event, the scientific method is a human invention that has allowed us to make incredible advances. Ignoring the facts revealed through that method because it contradicts a book written by Bronze Age tribesmen doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
I can’t think offhand of anyone whose atheism provided justification for poor behavior. OK, maybe Stalin. But there are probably a million Christians in prison in this country for some pretty awful things. Yeah, the Golden Rule is nice, but I doubt that Christians live by it any more or less than atheists.
Speaking of nostalgia for the numbered Indiana plates… Doug and I were solicited for a donation on the outskirts of Las Vegas once by a guy with a nasty gash across his abdomen who had fled the hospital to avoid a date with law enforcement. He’d been in a knife fight in a bar or something. Anyway, he was from good ol’ Connersville, Indiana, and had seen my Wayne County (89) plate so he had introducted himself and started the “Hoosiers are so generous to those in need…” sales pitch. I headed in to pay for gas, and I think Doug gave him a candy bar or something and he split. So those old plates could start a conversation…
I’d completely forgotten about that guy. That was a fine, fine trip — Hoosier drifters notwithstanding. I must’ve been in a really good mood – giving away anything to someone from Connersville.
T, Sounds like you all were doing a “Good Samaritan” thing in Vegas. Glad it turned out well, I remember as a kid one time when I was on vacation somewhere with my parents being on an interstate in Pennsylvania and my parents seeing an Indiana plate and recognizing the locale from the numbered plates and wondering if they knew that person. It’s funny how childhood things like that come back to you, I remember two summers ago when I had to fly to Southern California on business and saw a plate on one of the freeways in L.A., (think it was either the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10) or the San Diego Freeway (I-405) near LAX) and seeing an Indiana plate with 68A license plates (Winchester) and wondering who that might be.
Thanks for the post on the Creation Museum Doug. Denise and I were thinking about taking a road trip up I-71 to Cincy to go to this museum. There was an interesting article in the Louisville Courier-Journal about this also. I had to chuckle when I read this as I did when I read the article in the Courier. I am absolutely for freedom of religion but the analytical side of me (being an accountant I guess that is an occupational hazard) has a hard time reconciling the two. Denise is a Reform Jew and is liberal about religious practice and I am a non practicing Christian so we get into few arguments about this issue but it is funny. I try to live by the Golden Rule, just treat others as you would like to be treated, but at the same time it is hard to discount science and this museum makes a mockery of what we know, among other things, the law of physics. (Just as an aside, I have seen several IGWT plates here in Metro Louisville, I haven’t seen any of the Amber Waves of Grain plates.) I miss the old plates with the 10,22,18,49,68,89,etc., i.e. Clark, Floyd, Delaware, Marion, Randolph, Wayne County monikers. Just a bit of Hoosier nostalgia I guess.
I don’t think there is anything particularly religious about the Golden Rule. It’s just a good, sensible moral rule for believers and nonbelievers alike. Belief in the Almighty doesn’t make it more or less applicable, in my opinion.
In any event, the scientific method is a human invention that has allowed us to make incredible advances. Ignoring the facts revealed through that method because it contradicts a book written by Bronze Age tribesmen doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
I can’t think offhand of anyone whose atheism provided justification for poor behavior. OK, maybe Stalin. But there are probably a million Christians in prison in this country for some pretty awful things. Yeah, the Golden Rule is nice, but I doubt that Christians live by it any more or less than atheists.
Speaking of nostalgia for the numbered Indiana plates… Doug and I were solicited for a donation on the outskirts of Las Vegas once by a guy with a nasty gash across his abdomen who had fled the hospital to avoid a date with law enforcement. He’d been in a knife fight in a bar or something. Anyway, he was from good ol’ Connersville, Indiana, and had seen my Wayne County (89) plate so he had introducted himself and started the “Hoosiers are so generous to those in need…” sales pitch. I headed in to pay for gas, and I think Doug gave him a candy bar or something and he split. So those old plates could start a conversation…
I’d completely forgotten about that guy. That was a fine, fine trip — Hoosier drifters notwithstanding. I must’ve been in a really good mood – giving away anything to someone from Connersville.
T, Sounds like you all were doing a “Good Samaritan” thing in Vegas. Glad it turned out well, I remember as a kid one time when I was on vacation somewhere with my parents being on an interstate in Pennsylvania and my parents seeing an Indiana plate and recognizing the locale from the numbered plates and wondering if they knew that person. It’s funny how childhood things like that come back to you, I remember two summers ago when I had to fly to Southern California on business and saw a plate on one of the freeways in L.A., (think it was either the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10) or the San Diego Freeway (I-405) near LAX) and seeing an Indiana plate with 68A license plates (Winchester) and wondering who that might be.