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The Interior Department is facing a lawsuit from a Christian geologist who claims he was not allowed to collect rocks from Grand Canyon National Park because of his creationist beliefs.
In the suit filed earlier this month, the Australian geologist, Andrew Snelling, says that religious discrimination was behind the National Park Service's (NRS's) decision to deny him a permit to gather samples from four locations in the park.
Snelling had hoped to gather the rocks to support the creationist belief that a global flood about 4,300 years ago was responsible for rock layers and fossil deposits around the world.
NPS's actions "demonstrate animus towards the religious viewpoints of Dr. Snelling," the complaint alleges, "and violate Dr. Snelling's free exercise rights by imposing inappropriate and unnecessary religious tests to his access to the park."
The lawsuit was filed May 9 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. NPS has yet to respond to the allegations.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday May 28 2017, @08:33PM (3 children)
By the way, its odd you chose to rant on this subject after choosing a Nom-du-Soylent of a guy who was was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works, most notably in the fields of comparative religion, geology, and medicine.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Sunday May 28 2017, @09:32PM (1 child)
The majority of (western) science was funded and conducted by the Catholic church in those days... Science was viewed as a way to better understand God by better understanding of Creation. The crazy reality-denial is a relatively new thing in Christianity, and still nowhere near mainstream.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday May 28 2017, @10:24PM
I have to disagree there. While the most recent Gallup poll [gallup.com] shows a decline, 38% of Americans still agree with the statement that: "God created humans in present form within the last 10,000 years."
It's definitely a mainstream view. That's why stuff like this matters -- because "Creation science" promoting the "Young Earth" theory is something a significant portion of the public believes in, even if 99% of scientists think it's mostly nonsense.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday May 28 2017, @10:14PM
You're really barking up the wrong tree here. It was barely a week ago on this site that I vigorously defended [soylentnews.org] the possibility of doing science and religion at the same time, particularly historically. I even came to the defense of my 17th-century Jesuit colleagues. In the present case, though, this guy stopped doing science about 25 years ago and only wants to do religion, while pretending it's science.