The Creationists Are Looking for Targets March 8, 2012

The Creationists Are Looking for Targets

By Hemant Mehta
March 8, 2012

It looks like Ken Ham and his acolytes at the Creation Museum are teaching children a new skill: Archery.

To me, providing such programs is a part of helping families to provide wholesome Christian-run programs for families and their friends, and at the same time, use it as a way of reaching others with the message of the truth of God’s Word and the gospel.

Nooooooooooooo! They’re going to shoot us with Jesus!

(I kid, I kid… but I’m still sleeping with an eye open tonight.)

It’s kind of ironic, really, when you consider that bows and arrows were invented before the Creationists believe humans even came into existence.

When I mentioned this story on Twitter last night, people were quick with responses:

Well, at least bows and arrows are a little less graphic than the weapon Ham’s Answers in Genesis used in a billboard a few years ago…

Just makes you wanna reach out and grab a Bible…

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What Are Your Thoughts?leave a comment

  • I particularly liked the tweet saying they’ve got an arrow-minded worldview.

  • Puffy

    I used to be a creationist, then I took an arrow to the knee.

  • Puffy

     wow, it played havoc with my formatting.

  • Michael

    It occurs to me that the Answers in Genesis photo probably threw away all notions of gun safety to take.

  • george.w

    Archery is a perfectly lovely sport. What will the creationists corrupt next, potluck dinners? Oh wait… 

  • P. J. Reed

    To be fair, modern compound bows are much more advanced that the bows they used back in the bronze age.

    And I’m sure if you asked them, the creationists would tell you that modern bows sprang into existence, perfectly formed, and did not evolve from previous archery technology.

  • asidity

    How much controversy did that billboard garner? I don’t recall hearing anything, but I could be wrong. On the other hand, when American Atheists want to put up a billboard saying god might not be real, there are people (who don’t own the billboard space, mind you) who refuse to let them put their billboard up. 
    Ooh this gets my blood boiling.

  • Anonymous

    Ahh you  beat me to it! As the owner of a compound bow, I couldn’t let it pass, petty as it is to correct a tweet. In any case I hope the angle is distorting the view, because from where I stand they seem to be WAY too close together for safe firing.

  • LutherW

     If god meant for men to use bows of compound materials then we would be born with compound arrows in our backs. And rocks would be natural arrowheads, growing on straight trees. Of course, anything is possible at the Creation Museum.

  • Nhills

    it’s basically saying that atheists will kill people without remorse because they don’t believe in god… right?

  • Bluebury

    HOLY COW I saw that billboard when was driving to Montana!  I was going to live there for 6 months, and that was one of the first things I saw once I entered the state, along with a really really graphic anti-abortion billboard.  At the same time, I was flipping through local radio stations and there were only gospel and country stations.  I swear I almost just turned around and drove back to Chicago.

  • Rrr

     I count at least nine ham-strings in that picture. Bow low for the lowd.

  •  Right… Who’s more scary, the dude who won’t kill you because he wouldn’t want somebody to kill him, or the dude who won’t kill you only because his invisible friend in the sky tells him not to.
    Invisible friend COULD change his mind, y’know…

  • Anonymous-Sam

     That’s what they’ve been saying all along, ignoring the consciousless behavior of their heroes in the Bible. Jacob remains my favorite – his sons kill everyone in a village right after making a peace treaty with them which involves self-inflicted mutilation. Jacob’s only complaint: “Now people will blame this all on me!”

  • Jeffret

    By the way, they’re all  using Genesis bows ( http://genesisbow.com/genbow/index.html ) . Isn’t that cute? Actually, it’s a great bow for the purpose.

    And yes, they’re too close together for safety in the photo, but clearly that’s just a posed photo.

    Seriously, though, there’s a lot to criticize Answers in Genesis for, but hosting archery programs probably isn’t the best. Getting kids out of the museum and onto the archery range is much better for them.

  • And Invisible Friend does change his mind quite frequently.

  • Tinker

    “If you don’t matter to God, then you don’t matter to anybody”? Sounds like a threat to me. Completely out of context I would have assumed the kid in the wife-beater was a brainwashed Christian.

  • Anonymous

    I like that they are teaching Archery. At least archery exists. It inadvertently teaches children a lot about physics and materials science.

    I loved archery as a child, I didn’t like church. Hopefully the archery paddock at the creationist park will give the children something worth remembering, and make forgetting the bullshit easier.

  • It occurs to ME that it’s much more likely the guy’s pointing the gun at what the god-voice in his head TOLD him to hate.

  • Cheepak Dopra

    *in

  • Edmond

    What are they DOING?  Those rainbow-colored bows are going to turn those kids gay!

  • Anonymous

     Such as telling the person to turn the gun the other way.

  • Anonymous

    I hate you.

  • Anonymous

    Atheists should do the same exact billboard as the one with a kid and a gun and change the text to “If unicorns don’t matter to him, do you?”

  • Anonymous

    I like his explanation on what archery has to do with teaching creationism.  Oh, wait, he didn’t.

  • TVG

    Especially the purple one!

  • TVG

    Indeed, an arrow-minded world view propelled along a narrow path by the pressure by manipulated tension.