The new Visitor Centre at the Giant’s Causeway was opened to the public on Tuesday, 3 July 2012.
At a cost of £18.5m, the state-of-the-art complex has taken 18 months to complete and includes exhibition spaces, a cafe and shops.
Max Bryant of the National Trust was obviously enthusiastic. He said the centre was, “a whole new experience for visitors. They can go through and enjoy the active interpretation area, before picking up the free audio guide, voiced by local actor Conleth Hill, and take that to the stones.”
What he had not braced himself for was the fact that a bludgeoning amalgam of secular humanists, atheists and evolutionists, on account of some few lines in an exhibit within this Centre, were about to take up more than a few verbal stones and throw them with ferocity in the direction of his organisation, the National Trust.
A transcript from an audio exhibit in the new Causeway Visitor Centre, Northern Ireland, reads:
“Like many natural phenomena around the world, the Giant's Causeway has raised questions and prompted debate about how it was formed.
This debate has ebbed and flowed since the discovery of the Causeway to science and, historically, the Causeway became part of a global debate about how the earth's rocks were formed.
This debate continues today for some people, who have an understanding of the formation of the earth which is different from that of current mainstream science.
Young Earth Creationists believe that the earth was created some 6000 years ago. This is based on a specific interpretation of the Bible and in particular the account of creation in the book of Genesis.
Some people around the world, and specifically here in Northern Ireland, share this perspective.
Young Earth Creationists continue to debate questions about the age of the earth.”
Though these few modest sentences amount to nothing more than a simple acknowledgement of the fact that some people believe that there is an alternative opinion to the explanation provided by evolution for the formation of the famous Causeway stones, they have been enough to unleash a firestorm of vicious opposition from secular humanists, atheists and evolutionists.
- The National Secular Society is encouraging people to lobby the National Trust, campaigning for the removal of all references to the Creationist viewpoint;
- a Petition to the National Trust has been set up via “Change.org” – ‘Remove Creationist Exhibit From the Giants Causeway Visitors Centre’;
- an Open Group has appeared on Facebook where the Creationist viewpoint, God and the Bible are regularly trashed, often in a most vulgar manner – ‘Remove Creationist Display From Giants Causeway Visitor Centre.’
- Richard Dawkins has ‘checked into town’ by means of a radio interview and has used his trademark tactic of presenting little or no valid scientific analysis, just an ignorant rubbishing of Christians in general and the Creationist perspective in particular. According to him, those who hold to the Christian and Biblical view on the formation of the Giant’s Causeway are “intellectual baboons.”
Evidently, it does not satisfy these opponents that:
- their evolutionary view of rock formation at the Causeway is given priority promotion in the Visitors Centre;
- the National Trust have identified themselves with this view by categorically insisting, “The National Trust fully supports the scientific explanation for the creation of the stones 60 million years ago”;
- in response to letters of opposition to the meagre airing of the Creationist viewpoint, the National Trust has once again reiterated its belief in and support for the evolutionary stance.
None of this, however, has assuaged the tide of vitriol that has cascaded down upon the National Trust in recent days.
The Trust has received numerous aggressive threats of withdrawal of membership and finance, together with the stated intention of carrying a protest all the way to the AGM of the same body where a demand will be tabled to obliterate from the record this acknowledgment of the Creationist viewpoint.
Accommodating? No. Intolerant? Certainly.
BENDING UNDER PRESSURE
The National Trust, apparently overwhelmed by the ire directed against it by (in the main) a succession of nasty people, on 18 July issued a statement saying:
"There is clearly no scientific debate about the age of the earth or how the Causeway stones were formed. The National Trust does not endorse or promote any other view … . To ensure that no further misunderstanding or misrepresentation of this exhibit can occur, we have decided to review the interpretive materials in this section’.”
Since early August I have been heavily involved in maintaining a presence on Facebook in support of the mention of Creationism in this National Trust Centre. Please join us in this effort, tell your friends about it, as we lobby the National Trust to retain this section among their exhibits.
http://www.facebook.com/groups/204392869686865
