"There is a movie depicting the creation, the flood and the fall of man, which fast-forwards from a lush Garden of Eden to a New York City traffic jam."

Hey, Harry, I think I know how you might make a few extra bucks modelling.

I'm familiar with Kent Hovind, he's a real, genuine nutcase.

"...and a hectic lecture schedule...

Reading this line quickly, I thought it said a heretic lecture schedule.

I'm probably the only one here -- and one of few Darwinists anywhere -- who's ever attended a sermon by Henry Morris, the godfather of all this.

What was most interesting to me about it was the comment of the sponsoring minister afterward.

During Morris's sermon, there were many heartfelt amens and spontaneous outbursts of agreement. At the end, the minister summed up, "I'd just ask you, what are you going to do about it?"

The answer, it transpired, was, nothing.

The role of creationism and missionary lectures etc. as a substitute for secular forms of entertainment has never been studied thoroughly, as far as I know.

Harmless fun, for the most part.

I studied hydraulic engineering under Dr. Morris at Virginia Tech. As a professor of certain specialized aspects of fluid dynamics, he was (is?) the world's greatest authority.

He was an excellent teacher, and from him I received an education that was more than any junior civil engineering student had any right to expect. He was tough when we needed it, but he was also sympathetic and helpful.

When I went through a rough patch in graduate school he probably did as much as anyone to keep me in school.

I knew about his belief in the "Genesis flood" and his notion that the dinosaurs were the "leviathans" of the Old Testament. It is easy for outsiders to make fun of a man with a singular obsession with a particular aspect of the "truth". These sports are generally the realm of the more snarky and less educated denizens of the left wing.

Nonetheless, Dr. Morris was a good teacher, and an excellent educator.

I have come to the conclusion that these sorts
of "Natural History" questions are not all that
relevant to technological progress so all sorts
of lunacy can be accomodated.

When you get write down to it, one's success
as a physicist, chemist or biologist is not affected by ones beliefs on the origins of the
universe.

Earl, I appreciate your post. Go back and read mine.

There may be people who have made fun of Morris, but I wasn't among them, was I?

I agree with J.H., so long as we make it clear that the productive people are allowed to be productive, without interference from those who would shut down inquiry based on silly reliance on Scripture.

I don't ask the religion of the mechanic when I take my car to him for repairs.

This does NOT sound like a theme park. More like a "re-education camp" where you get lectured at over and over instead of having a good time.

If this is a "theme park", it belongs on The Simpsons or South Park. I think if you're hitting the theme-park circuit in Florida, I think you'd want to skip this one where all that happens is you'll get preached at. Even Ned Flanders would avoid this one.

I disagree. When I went Morris's sermon, it was obvious enough that nobody in the audience except me could have strung together two consecutive coherent sentences on the subject of speciation -- pro or con.

Will people pay good money and time to be told they're smarter, righter and holier than those evil Darwinists? The tickets couldn't possibly be price too high.

You don't need a theme park to know that you're smarter than a Darwinist.