Unicorn Museum

If you don't like the museum, don't go. Kindly go protest freedom of religion somewhere else, like North Korea for example. They'd love you there.

I love it. Give these stupid fundies a taste of their own b.s.
Those idiots spent 27 million dollars on a fairy tale story about Adam and Eve riding dinosaurs. ROFLMAO
The Flintstones was not a documentary!

Hey Another Jake, how about we protest Freedom of Stupidity instead?
Because frankly, some of us are getting a little tired of hearing about differing cults arguing over who has the best imaginary friend...

Or people could just take the time to learn the truth about the use of the word in the KJV:

http://www.dtl.org/versions/article/unicorns.htm

Another Jake, freedom of religion doesn't trump freedom of speech, and just because someone has the right to believe in nonsense doesn't mean they have immunity from criticism.

I've no problem with anybody spending their own $ to make a museum (or billboard or website) promoting whatever they want -- that's what the First Amendment is all about.

If one was going to rag on Christians, though, there are probably better ways to do it than pick a mistranslated word from one of the many Bible translations in use by Christians. It just makes the billboarders look stupid and petty, IMHO.

The King James translators worked from the Latin Bible (itself a translation) which was the common use (that's what Vulgate means!) bible of the day. In Latin, the word for the rhinocerous is "unicornis" (literally "one horn"). When St. Jerome (from Africa, late 4th century) created the Vulgate, by translating ancient Hebrew texts into Latin, he used "unicornis" as a good translation for the Hebrew word for rhinocerous. The translation into Latin was accurate and everyone was happy.

Fastforward 1200 years... The KJV translators in Britain weren't too familiar with creatures such as rhinos and translated "unicornis" a little too directly, coming up with the false cognate "unicorn" (which also has 1 horn). An understandable error, and not a big deal, really. If you read the texts, you'll see they are not refering to white winged horses with horns in their heads.

I checked an e-text copy of Douay-Rheims (the English language Catholic Bible that actually predates KJV) and most of the "unicornis" references were translated as "rhinocerous" instead. There are a couple places in the Psalms that use "unicorn", though. It may be because the Psalms are very poetic and the translators weren't sure that a mythical unicorn wasn't intended. Douai-Rheims was also translated over time, with a number of people working on it. Some may have gone one way and some went the other. I dunno.

To be sure, there are folks out there that consider the KJV the "end-all" of bible translations, completely accurate and free of translation error. Among Christians, this is a pretty small sliver, though. So why rag on this single mistranslasted word in an enormous work to attack them or Christians as a whole?

Straight talk from Sid.

The only reason people have problems with the museum is that the ideas are starting to be pushed in schools as "science". Without such a push, I think people might be laughing, but they wouldn't be so critical.

BTW - my understanding is that "unicorn" was probably a type of single-horned ox or even boar. There's nothing magical in the references to Unicorns, it's just a case of the limited ancient hebrew language having multiple meanings/translations.

Never once heard of a unicorn mentioned in the Bible before this.

What's with the bellyaching, anyway? It just seems petty. Let them have their silly museum. Believing in pseudo-science may be dumb, but it's better than teaching your kids to strap on bombs and blow themselves up for religion.

Ted: are you inference is humorous (or should i say humourless), as if Christianity hasn't motivated the murder of millions of people as well. The point made here is that religion should not be passed off as reality or science, and that it is in fact as legitimate as fantasy in it's claims to miracles and giants and such: there is no proof of anything, there is proof of dinosaurs, yadda yadda, etc etc. The billboard was not effecting a literal counterargument to the scientific and factual rigors of the christianity museum, that's the whole point, there are none! And if you carry the message to it's logical conclusion - i.e. think it through - protesting the single biggest fraud perpetrated on western civilization (see: christian doctrine) and it's misuse and teaching little children to believe in things that aren't real, like leprechauns and parting the waters and such, and looking at how that shapes them as adults, it's impossible to find this a "petty" expression. Do you find telling children the truth about Santa Clause when they are "old enough" a petty disclosure? Teaching people lies is more injurious than you'd think. Look at current evangelical political influence.

@C-dub: You're right of course. Protests are fine. I would prefer they protest in a way that is not so rude and obnoxious.

@Munky: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, and "Freedom of Stupidity" go hand in hand. You can't really have one without all. Anyway, you're right that some cults believe some loony-toons things, but Christianity is not a cult... and no, most of us don't believe in unicorns. See above explanation by Sid (thanks btw).

Some people believe the Earth is 6000 years old... That's fine with me if you can explain the ton of evidence that contradicts that. If you think you can, go for it! That's what science is. Discussion, argument and skepticism. If you don't allow all three (in ANY discussion), then you're not doing science; you're doing politics.

Blurby, you're assuming that the foundation of Christianity isn't true. If it is, as many people of many levels of education and many backgrounds believe it is, then NOT teaching it to your children is a grave irresponsibility. You may believe it is false, but that doesn't make it false. In my opinion, "the single biggest fraud perpetrated on western civilization" is atheist humanism.

And the thought that all intelligent, educated, thinking people believe it to be false is also simply untrue.

In addition, the "proof" you refer to is dependent on philosophical (not to mention scientific) assumptions (read: beliefs) we're all [hopefully] taught in philosophy 101. So which beliefs are ok and which aren't? Apparently yours are the only ones that are allowed.

Did anyone read Sid's post? The unicorn thing is pointless. Anyone who bothers to make fun of it (especially to the extent of those guys with tbe "billboard") is a fool.

Sid, thanks for taking the time to research and write that...I found it fascinating.

To Sid Morrison: Have fun in HELL, blasphemer. The Bible is infallible. (While you're there, say 'hi' to your buddy bin Laden for me.)

XuYu... I'm pretty sure you're joshing me, but I'll play along. OK, WHICH bible version is infallible? There are dozens of English translations (hundreds in all languages) and they are all a little different. KJV happens to be a translation of a translation (the Latin Vulgate Bible). If KJV is infallible, than the Vulgate upon which it came from is infallible as well, right? You do know that the Vulgate is the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church to this day, right? Does that stress you? Do you smell a popish plot?

And exactly what was I blaspheming about? I only said that KJV may have a couple minor translation errors. Among Protestant Bibles, it still has the best, most beautiful language and beats the more modern (often dumbed down) tranlations hands down. Whether one is a believer or not, KJV has a strong presence in our Anglo-American culture and (IMO) should be read on at least that basis. Plus, it's in the public domain :-)

The creation exhibit and the billboard are legitimate expressions, both. But the unicorn folks (in reality, a science group) take the argument.

Sid, your post is very informative and interesting, and you are right about this one word, but the larger argument is that the entire huge text is open to that kind of inquiry and dissection. Over the centuries, those books have passed through several languages, and untold original authors, hands, countries, ecumenical committees, scholars, translators and who knows what else, even before they were wrangled by Tisdale and all the others for the English KJV (not to mention the scores of translations that followed). That's a big wild imprecise process, solidified in print.

Yet there are apparently a lot of people who take these words very literally, and are convinced this is the end of knowledge. No logic, observations or reasoning will sway them. They want it taught in schools. We live in a marketplace of competing ideas, and that type of reactionary thinking has to be opposed.

Respectfully submitted by a Christian (and daily reader of KJV) who believes God wants us to use the brains He gave us. -- Jack

Sid & Jack: You guys make NO SENSE! I'm not talking about some hippie translation -- I"M TALKING ABOUT ***THE BIBLE***.

OK, let's break it down:

Big thunder lizard no kill man. Big lizard killed by falling rock, many moons ago.

Man read big Bible book. Man happy, give Bible book to next man.

Next man read Bible book, afraid. He elect leader to protect him, who thinks big lizards killed men.

Leader who thinks big lizards killed men reads Bible book, confused. He kill first man for his own good.

Next man blame first man for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Big Bible book gets passed to next man's children. To be continued...

if u have a problem with unicorns its ok no one cares but face it its all just bout money nd like another jake said just don't Go so simple ppl.duh