"Missionary Lizards": Interstate 10's Dinosaur Sculptures Found Religion

April 22, 2007 8:38 PM

Claude Bell's giant Cabazon Dinosaurs sculptures have been bought by a Christian developer, Answers in Genesis. The LA Times (archived copy) discusses.
posted by lilithim (33 comments total)

There goes that First Blue joy. Those that grew up with those Dinosaurs as a weird landmark in the desert might get a kick out of it.
I certainly did.
posted by lilithim at 8:41 PM on April 22, 2007

.
posted by ikkyu2 at 9:11 PM on April 22, 2007

Kids flock to the huge statues. "And it's not like they're crying, 'Oh, mommy, take me out, I'm scared.' They're drawn to it," Chiles said. "There's something in their DNA that knows man walked with these creatures on Earth."
Heavens to Murgatroyd.
posted by tellurian at 9:11 PM on April 22, 2007

Huh, so the dinosaurs from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure were made by creationist wackos. Learn something new every day.
posted by puke & cry at 9:14 PM on April 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

Ah, what a pity.

I'm a former Marine, and I can't tell you how many times I drove a humvee past Cabazon on the way to 29 Palms for training ops. Whenever possible, the Marines from my unit would arrange with the OIC to have the convoy stop for lunch at the dinosaurs. I don't know what's more American than eating lukewarm Burger King fries on top of a humvee hood in the shadow of a big fiberglass (?) T-rex.

So long, dinos. I hope those home-schooled christian kids have fun with them (and see through the BS that they're getting taught).
posted by CRM114 at 9:47 PM on April 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

oh man, I completely misread that. Bought, not made. That's even more depressing.
posted by puke & cry at 9:51 PM on April 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

MetaFilter: By Design, Not By Chance.
posted by mach at 10:10 PM on April 22, 2007

Wasn't there a prominent Vatican Cardinal a while ago who was at least somewhat outspoken against the creationist bible interpretations? Surely most catholic/christian clergy aren't in agreement with all this 6000 years ago nonsense - I encourage them all to engage in creationist smackdowns.
*crickets*
posted by peacay at 10:10 PM on April 22, 2007

Previously (see the "fundie dinos" link).
posted by jonson at 10:11 PM on April 22, 2007

So this 18-month-old story, it resonates?
posted by allen.spaulding at 10:18 PM on April 22, 2007

Are these the same dinos from the end of The Wizard, where the kid freaks out while muttering "California...California" until the family pulls the car over?

That scene's been floating around in my head for nearly 20 years. That, and how much I wanted a Nintendo PowerGlove.
posted by Hadroed at 10:43 PM on April 22, 2007

What, no Red Dragon sculpture?
posted by homunculus at 10:50 PM on April 22, 2007

T. rex tasted like chicken.
posted by rob511 at 11:08 PM on April 22, 2007

Nevermind, says so right here in the Wikipedia article for the Cabazon Dinosaurs.

I didn't grow up with these, but for some stupid reason they've been a powerful image from my childhood because of that movie. And that's what I'm going to remember about them, not this revisionist stuff.
posted by Hadroed at 11:16 PM on April 22, 2007

'By design, not by chance.' Anyone who thinks those concepts are in opposition doesn't really understand either one of them as well as they think they do.
posted by Soulfather at 11:44 PM on April 22, 2007 [3 favorites]

Wasn't there a prominent Vatican Cardinal a while ago who was at least somewhat outspoken against the creationist bible interpretations?

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn wrote a prominent op-ed in the NYT two years ago that seemed to many to endorse intelligent design. A subsequent article on the article confirmed that the cardinal is close to both Benedict and the Discovery Institute.
posted by gsteff at 12:00 AM on April 23, 2007

These fools really have to stretch in order to fit all this into the same timeline, don't they? So, they honestly believe that 65 million years worth of geological evidence accumulated around dinosaur fossils in just 4000 years? To me, that sort of metaphysical retcon takes more of a leap of faith than believing that a mythical Bronze Age superbeing impregnated an underage Jewish girl.
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:37 AM on April 23, 2007

What Did Dinosaurs Eat? The Bible teaches (in Genesis 1:29-30) that the original animals (and the first humans) were commanded to be vegetarian. There were no meat eaters in the original creation. Furthermore, there was no death. It was an unblemished world, with Adam and Eve and animals (including dinosaurs) living in perfect harmony, eating only plants.

Hoookay.

I grew up with those dinosaurs. Been inside of them on more than a few occasions, usually while sipping a date shake of course. Feels like poor Dinny the Dinosaur's been taken hostage or something. Sniffle.
posted by miss lynnster at 1:38 AM on April 23, 2007

puke & cry wrote: oh man, I completely misread that. Bought, not made. That's even more depressing.

Yeah, they wanted to own them so they could, erm, prove um... something.

Oh, THIS;

Darwin "came at just the right time to be the catalyst for a revival of ancient paganism" and that evolution birthed Communism, racism and Nazism

Is it time to yell GODWIN?

Not that they have an axe to grind, or anything. As if little kids [their stated target demo] are going understand what they fuck they're talking about...
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:42 AM on April 23, 2007

miss lynnster wrote:

There were no meat eaters in the original creation. Furthermore, there was no death. It was an unblemished world, with Adam and Eve and animals (including dinosaurs) living in perfect harmony, eating only plants.

Hoookay.

My thoughts, precisely. The points they're trying to make seem so fucking random. I mean, does the fossil record offend them so much that they have to jump to these sorts of hiiiiiilarious conclusions?

Show me a self-respecting kid (who grew up watching every dinosaur movie ever made) isn't DIE LAUGHING when they see these sham explanations?

There is a dinosaur park in Wales that had to do a major update/renovation after hundreds of children complained about inaccuracies in their sculptures...
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:48 AM on April 23, 2007

Thanks gsteff. Schönborn isn't the official voice of the Vatican however. See here -

Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or Science, Theology and Ontological Quest, reaffirmed John Paul's 1996 statement that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis.'

"A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false,' he said. "(Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof.'

The debate, she still simmers.
posted by peacay at 2:10 AM on April 23, 2007

@chuckdarwin:

The fossils did not occur naturally. God salted the earth with fossils to minimize the number of intelligent people who make it to heaven.
posted by lastobelus at 2:22 AM on April 23, 2007

Huh. I thought this had been that way for a while. I visited these guys in February, and me and my terrorist giggled at the video they play inside the gift shop, and the posters, and the one scripture that seems to form the entire basis of their argument for dinosaurs' existence with man.

I thought it was strange that the guy made two huge dinosaurs... and then a little freakin' turtle. WTF?

In any case, they're still worth seeing - the comedy value alone of the stuff they show inside Bertie or Dinnie or whatever they call him is well worth the visit.

And Peacay, there was a prominent leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who denounced polygamy quite a while back. Hasn't stopped a few wackjobs in central Utah calling themselves Mormons and raping 14-year-olds. I would expect no less of any other doctrine.
posted by po at 2:47 AM on April 23, 2007

Brevets! New name, I see.
posted by notsnot at 3:00 AM on April 23, 2007

Yeah, that story resulted in probably one of the most pro-Catholic threads in mefi history. The best summary I've seen on Benedict's views is this article, which suggests that he's scientifically misinformed, but uninterested in having the Church question it as a scientific theory. The essay he contributed to a book on evolution published this month seems to confirm this (I haven't read it, and am just going from news summaries); he evidently claims that the existence of macro-evolution is still uncertain, since we can't replicate 10,000 generations in the laboratory. The more worrisome revelation in that story is that Schönborn was one of the speakers he invited to the evolution-retreat that the essay was taken from.

But anyway, this thread isn't about the RCC.
posted by gsteff at 3:09 AM on April 23, 2007

Metafilter - not all our threads are about the RCC; we promise.
posted by chuckdarwin at 3:23 AM on April 23, 2007

lolxians < - dinosaur-sized./em>

(What more is there to say about this?)
posted by maxwelton at 4:15 AM on April 23, 2007

Dur. Might as well put me in the gift shop, I guess. Damn Jurassic tags...
posted by maxwelton at 4:16 AM on April 23, 2007

Possible to take them under cover of night...?
posted by parmanparman at 6:05 AM on April 23, 2007

"We're putting evolutionists on notice: We're taking the dinosaurs back," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a Christian group building a $25-million creationist museum in Petersburg, Ky., that's already overrun with model sauropods and velociraptors.

In a recent statement, Ken Ham suggested that he had evidence that primitive man (h. Bedrocki) played stone records by using the bill of a toucan as a stylus.
posted by Mister_A at 6:47 AM on April 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

Kids flock to the huge statues. "And it's not like they're crying, 'Oh, mommy, take me out, I'm scared.' They're drawn to it," Chiles said. "There's something in their DNA that knows man walked with these creatures on Earth."

Why do they pick and choose what science they believe in? DNA and gravity are ok, but not evolution. I'm certain they refuse all medical interventions as well, since those were arrived at by science.
posted by agregoli at 7:13 AM on April 23, 2007

I look forwards to their renovations.
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:26 AM on April 23, 2007

@allen.spaulding, po et al: You're right, it isn't quite breaking news. However, it was heelarious enough to bring about again.

The best of the web: making you laugh and cry at the same time.
posted by lilithim at 8:28 AM on April 23, 2007