Alienation

Kevin Roose is an American teenager who had an utterly brilliant idea (although he's not actually a teenager any more. Just).


He was studying at Brown University -- a nice Quaker boy from a liberal family -- and it came to that time when he had to decide what to do to broaden his mind in the gap semester: study art in Florence, live with tribal peoples in the Orinoco, that kind of thing.


Roose decided that the most alien people he could imagine were rabid right-wing evangelical Christians in his own country, so he enrolled for a term in the "Reverend" Jerry Fallwell's Liberty "University".


His subsequent book, Unlikely Disciple, has been a big seller. It's a nice piece of (very) extended journalism, not badly balanced and not overly self-obsessed. I enjoyed it.


It described a world that felt extremely alien to me but, fortunately, it was all comfortably far, far away.


Or so I thought, until I read this news story this morning:

"Northern Ireland's born-again Christian culture minister has called on the Ulster Museum to put on exhibits reflecting the view that the world was made by God only several thousand years ago.


"Nelson McCausland, who believes that Ulster Protestants are one of the lost tribes of Israel, has written to the museum's board of trustees urging them to reflect creationist and intelligent design theories of the universe's origins.


"The Democratic Unionist minister said the inclusion of anti-Darwinian theories in the museum was 'a human rights issue'.


"McCausland ... claimed that around one third of Northern Ireland's population believed either in intelligent design or the creationist view that the universe was created about 6,000 years ago.


"... in his letter to the museum's trustees McCausland said he had 'a common desire to ensure that museums are reflective of the views, beliefs and cultural traditions that make up society in Northern Ireland'.


"McCausland's party colleague and North Antrim assembly member Mervyn Storey ... who has chaired the Northern Ireland assembly's education committee, has denied that man descended from apes. ...


"Last year Storey raised objections to notices at the Giant's Causeway informing the public that the unique rock formation was about 550m years old. Storey believes in the literal truth of the Bible and that the earth was created only several thousand years before Christ's birth.


"The belief that the Earth was divinely created in 4004 BC originates with the writings of another Ulster-based Protestant, Archbishop of Armagh James Ussher, in 1654. Ussher calculated the date based on textual clues in the Old Testament, even settling on a date and time for the moment of creation: in the early hours of 23 October."

I think dragons are real (although they are all gay, actually -- something related to their immortality).


Do you think I should petition the British Museum to reflect my views, beliefs and cultural traditions?

Actually, seriousness aside, I do have a problem with these bible colleges: whenever I see anything about them I can only think of David DeCoteau's appalling soft porn film Voodoo Academy.


It's thoroughly recommended if you like to see lots of hot totty writhing about in only their Y-fronts (for "reasons" that I can't even begin to remember).


And yes, I know that image was from The Brotherhood rather than Voodoo Academy, but all of DeCoteau's films are essentially the same and, frankly, interchangeable.