Hey folks, the mistress of missing updates is back at the blog writing helm. So far, the Spring of Dinosaur RPGs is kind of turning out to be a bust, so I may just have it extend into summer, and even then it may be sporadic. And as if that wasn’t enough, my laptop’s DVD/CD drive, meaning no reviews of Dinotopia: the Series until who-knows-when it’s fixed, because I’m sure as hell not spending any cash on some iTunes of it when I already wasted cash back when the DVD came out and I was too curious to see it for my own good. And then I started becoming more and more busy at work and home, had a virus outbreak on my computer, etc., etc. As such, I was more or less tempted to ramble on about a topic that was on my mind: this one. Warning, here be dragons by the name of Politics and Religion, so turn your ship back toward port if that offends or disinterests you.
A (Somewhat) Small Backstory
As you know, when I’m not focused on roleplaying games or writing, I work with animals and I have a fascination with animal life, extant or extinct. In part, this is due to growing up in a rural area, as well as that “dinosaur phase” that some people seem to think kids happen to have and are supposed to grow out of. It was also in part due to a chain of events that all started with a single book. This book was entitled The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible, a small hardcover title pushed out by one Paul S. Taylor (no relation to Gregory S. Paul), whose revised 1998 copy had found its way into my hands. While I had read plenty about dinosaurs in my youth before, now-defunct titles from both the ’80s and ’90s alike, this was the first book on the subject I vividly remember my parents shoving at me with enthusiasm rather than hesitant “don’t believe everything you read”s (thankfully, with both books and television, I was [ill] advised rather than tightly restricted, like some other Southern Baptists may have done). My then still fundamentalist Southern Baptism-clouded mind greedily consumed the contents, believing all of its statements to be true on the “virtue” of argumentum ad verecundiam. Still, in spite of now looking back on this book as what it is – mindless drivel, pushing an agenda rather than furthering any form of scientific argument – rather than what I had long ago thought it was, I cannot deny the simple fact that it was my gateway drug into biology. My fascination with dinosaurs was ever increased by this title, and it also introduced me to the concept of “cryptozoology”: the search for creatures known only in local folklore or through circumstantial evidence. Both the topics of dinosaurs and cryptozoology lead me to become the snarky dinophile I am today. Still, it wasn’t the only book that tied together cryptozoology, dinosaurs, and creationism that I ever read…oh no, not by far. And that’s what this blog post is going to be about: a quick look at various crypozoological and palaeontology-oriented creationists and Christian fiction that I have experienced in my lifetime, and how they connect to the story of myself.
When the Baugh Breaks
One of the most interesting of the crypto-palaeo-creationists out there is Carl Baugh, a Texan with big dreams for a little creation museum. Baugh runs the Creation Evidence “Museum” out of Glen Rose, Texas (one of the few references in Jurassic Park: Redemption that genuinely amused me), where he proudly displays “real” lake monster bodies made by creative taxidermy on fish, carvings claimed to be tracks from pre-Flood giant humans, and other miscellaneous kitsch. That is not what makes Baugh so interesting, though; no, what is most fascinating about this creationist sideshow man above all others is his attempts to bring back a live pterosaur from the jungles of Papua New Guinea. Now, while I deplore Baugh’s questionable methods, I must admit that the story of a dedicated legend hunter trekking through the jungles in search of a giant prehistoric monster is pretty badass; thankfully, if I truly want such a story, I can go read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. As for Baugh’s expeditions? He mounted two of them, and supposedly found a track belonging to one of his mystery creatures (known by the locals as Ropen, the “demon flyer”), but as far as I have read they were less adventure fodder and more self-reassurance missions. Still, I cannot deny that the allure of Baugh’s mostly publicity-fueled expeditions helped fuel something else: my imagination, and my love of urban fantasy (the monster hunter genre in particular).
Hamming it up With Hovind
Ken Ham and Kent Hovind. Nearly anyone familiar with the creationist movement will know these two names; the former is the creator of the website “Answers in Genesis”, which by proxy helped hone my snarking muscles (and shall not be discussed here in any more detail than that), and the latter is…whoo boy, that’s a strange story. Of all the creationists that have influenced my history, Kent Hovind is the only one I ever met in person. At the time, he definitely seemed to be less of a scientist and more of a P. T. Barnum-esque showman, an observation that helped lead me down the path of skepticism and rational thought. Even back in my Southern Baptist days, I could tell that something smelled fishy when I was told that the legendary man-beast of the saga of Beowulf, Grendel, was supposedly a Megalosaurus according to Hovind, and when he showed a slideshow image of a huge anaconda that had swallowed a tapir (or so the story goes; a capybara seems much more likely than a tapir) and somehow actually managed to tie this very proven creature into creationist propaganda for the crowd. Of course, this story has two happy endings; one, I’m no longer a gullible idiot thanks in part to Kent Hovind, and two, Hovind himself is now in prison for tax evasion.
Christian Fiction and Cryptozoology
The strange topic of “Christian fiction” has always simultaneously baffled me and piqued my curiousity. “Why,” I always though, “are these cross stickers on books in the library? Why are there no other stickers for other symbols?” In hindsight, this is an even more important question; after all, if “Christian fiction” gets its own special sticker, why does Jewish/Muslim/Hindu/Animist/Pastafarian fiction not get its own stamp? Besides the obvious answer of the majority rule, of course. This also leads into a secondary question: why is Christian fiction so rife with cryptozoology-themed stories? Well, the answer lies in the strange belief that a rediscovered “extinct” creature or a new species will somehow disprove evolution. Never mind the “rediscoveries” (for what measure of accuracy that term holds) of species such as the Banggai crow, hairy-nosed otter, or – to use the popular poster child of cryptozoology – the West Indian coelacanth. Of course, that’s not even counting new species tallies, which I won’t even attempt to number. As far as I can tell from experience, the basis behind their thinking is either “see, see?! Scientist don’t know everything!” or “how can there be evolution when there are still monkeys dinosaurs?” First off, no, of course science doesn’t know everything; science is about seeking answers, not coming pre-packaged with them like some sort of cosmic bundle deal. Second, no, non-avian dinosaurs still existing wouldn’t disprove evolution, as Darren Naish expertly parodied in his April Fool’s post framing the creationist mindset on the legendary Mokele-Mbembe. Note the term “phylotardation” and spamming of the coelacanth’s name.
One example of Christian fiction involving cryptids and prehistoric life…sort of…is Monster, by Frank Peretti. Brian Switek mentions some of the major talking points in his old review of it here, but I want to go a bit further into my personal experience with the book. A lot of the prose in Peretti’s Monster (referred to as such to avoid insulting any other stories entitled Monster out there) is very reminiscent of that of another Christian fiction author, or should I say authors? I should, because the author duo I refer to is that of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, who wrote the (in)famous and odious Left Behind series. Like LaHaye and Jenkins (or “Ellenjay” as they are referred to by the conglomerate of religious and nonreligious snarkers, theologians, and political writers of the Slacktiverse), Peretti uses height and weight as the brunt of his description of people (typically 6 feet or more for the alpha male protagonist), plays the “Christians are a persecuted majority in America” blame game, and portrays evolutionary biologists as accidental villains at best and crazed eugenicists at worst. What differentiates the two, however, is the fact that Peretti set out to have Sasquatch frame part of his story. Why? Hell if I know, because they aren’t the ultimate villain, and they aren’t exactly good evidence for the story’s “evolution is a lie!” screed. The closest I can surmise is going back to (ugh) Kent Hovind once again. I cannot remember the exact quote, and I don’t want to crawl around to find my copy of his silly book, but one of the claims of Hovind (or another like him) was that Sasquatch is a joke on “evolutionists”, to specifically show that creatures such as Australopithecus sp. are simply animals/bring up the “but [thing] is still alive, so how could it be our ancestor?” canard. Yes, we are supposed to believe that God is purposefully trolling us…which would be an interesting premise for a Good Omens-style story, I must admit.
Odds and Ends
Finally, here are a couple of (duh) odds and ends on the subject at hand, as a parting note on this rambling stream of thought.
Zuiyo Maru and a Whale (Shark) of a Tale: During one of the intermittent periods in which I was inducted for a year of high school into a Baptist private school, I noticed that the biology textbook had a page on a creature called “the Zuiyo Maru carcass”. Also found in The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible and many other creationist crypto-texts, this creature is a good lesson in how death can reshape a usually familiar animal. This carcass, dredged up near New Zealand by the Japanese trawler Zuiyo Maru in 1977, was almost immediately touted as evidence of a living plesiosaur. Of course, those that know better can tell you that this seemingly baffling creature is the jawless rotted carcass of a basking shark. This taught me two things: further critical analysis, and the fact that sharks look really damn weird when they’ve decomposed.
Neanderphilim: Some of you may have seen a Canadian-produced television show by the name of the Naked Archaeologist. Shown here in the States on the History International channel, the show followed the exploits of controversial – no, not because he actually did any nudist activities, you silly literalists – journalist Simcha Jacobovici on a roving romp across the Holy Land to find perceived evidence of Biblical tales. What does this have to do with cryptids and prehistoric life? Well, in the episode “The Giants of Genesis” (which focused on the Nephilim, the oft-mentioned “giants in those days” and spawn of breeding between “sons of god” and “daughters of men”), there was this odd hypothesis put forth: mainly, the statement that late surviving Neanderthals were the origin of the Nephilim tales. Now, while it is true that Neanderthal fossils have been found in Israel, the aren’t really that tall (typically being of pretty average human heights), and certainly nowhere near 8+ feet in height. Still, it did inspire a bit of a spark in me about wanting to write Neanderthals into urban fantasy fiction, as well as a desire to combat many of the stereotypes of Neanderthals as dim-witted “cavemen” that still exist in the popular consciousness to this day.
So, that’s that. Hopefully, this was insightful into both my origins and why I think the way I think and do what I do. Until next time, Rappy out.
