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Monday, August 10, 2009

Canadian Gets Booted Out of the Creation Museum

 
Derek Rogers is a computer science student at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canada). I met him in Washington last April. He has been active in the atheist bus campaign and other events promoting a nonreligious point of view.

Derek was at the Secular Student Alliance meeting in Ohio and went along with the group that visited the creation museum. He was asked to leave. Here's the video of him explaining what happened to PZ Myers, Seanna and Steve Watson, and others who had just toured the museum.





[Hat Tip: Friendly Atheist]

19 comments :

Chris Caprette said...

That explains it! It wasn't his open expression of atheism that so offended them. It was that he was Canadian! Well, their behavior is completely understandable now /eye roll.

Unknown said...

We are a pretty offensive lot. I mean, according to Rick Mercer

"We're bigger, and we're on top. If this was prison, they would be our bitch."

This country must scare them.

Timothy V Reeves said...

All rather bizarre and surreal!

I'm sure somebody out there could make good comedy spoof out this sort of event.

The picture of PZ on the Triceratops was priceless. (I've got a copy of it!)

Unknown said...

I have a nice photo of PZ riding that triceratops as my desktop wallpaper right now. It makes me smile every time I minimize everything.

Mark Looy said...

Sorry, but he was not expelled from our museum. He was told that if he acted up once more (there were two prior incidents), he would be asked to leave. He was told (by me) that this was his last warning.

The proof he wasn't expelled? When we tell someone to leave for being disruptive (which is rare), our procedure is to have them escorted out by a security officer, and this student wasn't (which videotape would show) and he remained on the grounds. Now, argue if you wish about our museum's message and our policies (BTW: this young man signed a statement composed by his own group leader, indicating that he would follow our policies and instructions and not disturb our guests, yet he reneged), but get the facts right please. Mark

PZ Myers said...

The two prior incidents were cases of him 1) wearing a t-shirt that said "There's probably no god, so stop worrying about it", and 2) creationists overhearing him criticizing the "museum". 3) was being overheard saying the gift store was cheesy and that he wasn't going to be buying anything. Since one of the photographers was escorted out for doing nothing but taking pictures of the incident, Looy is being rather disingenuous here.

The ABC news story on this sure gave a lot of space to quotes from those Canadians. Who knew you were such a rowdy and savage bunch, with your wearing of t-shirts and talking.

Veronica Abbass said...

There are two versions of what Derek's t shirt said:

"There's probably no god, so stop worrying about it"

and

“There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

Which slogan was on Derek's t shirt?

Anonymous said...

It was this tshirt:
http://www.cafepress.com/GodlessClothes.381180664

Unknown said...

PZ has just provided us with a completely accurate characterization of the events that unfolded, and I'm sorry Mark, but the way you chose to arbitrarily blow the tshirt incident (which consisted entirely of my *complying* with the instructions of your security personell) out of proportion by inventing additional baseless "infractions" really makes you look like an opportunistic scumbag who was frustrated by the fact that you didn't have any naughty atheists to wrap over the knuckles. So you picked one at random, and it happened to be me. Your suggestion was for me to leave the museum, and you gestured towards the door. Needless to say, most reasonable people would consider this "being kicked out."

My tshirt said "There's probably no God. Now stop Worrying and enjoy your life."

I am contiuously astonished at how often people get this simple slogan completely wrong, from the reporter who covered the event to the museum employees themselves, who chose to arbitrarily zero in on the specific two words "no god."

It's a positive message, and I've often said that it's so inoffensive that it's practically apologizing for itself.

Veronica Abbass said...

To read Ken Ham's version, enter "Ken Ham Mark Looy" into Google to read

"The Day 285 Atheists/Agnostics Visited the Creation Museum"

Please note that Ham refers to Looy as "Mark Looy of our staff," but a search on the Answers in Genesis site says Mark Looy, "is a co-founder with Ken Ham of
the fast-growing (275 staff) apologetics ministry of Answers
in Genesis and its new high-tech, well-reviewed 70,000-square-foot Creation Museum near Cincinnati..."

Mark Looy said...

So is PZ now retracting his blog item that we had tossed out the student and he is now attempting to find another expulsion example? To be clear about the student: when I gave the student his final warning after a few incidents inside the museum, he told us he was leaving any way and I said fine. Problem solved. That's not throwing him out.

Now PZ moves the goal posts and glosses over his sloppy reporting by stating that we removed someone else. As (I trust) PZ is now pulling his false blog report (an act to be expected from a person who claims to hold high standards of accuracy in all his research efforts), I must point out where PZ is totally wrong (but consistent) once again with his new attempt to present an expulsion example. This time he is right about someone being led off (a videographer), but he conveniently omits the fact that the videographer was told by our museum director to stop filming a private conversation that I was having with a family and the Canadian student in question (where the student, to his credit, apologized to the family for possibly disrupting their visit). The videographer merely moved a few feet away and resumed filming us. That's what got him tossed. And PZ claims the man was not doing anything wrong? Who is being disingenuous? Here is a Ph.D. who simply can't get his facts straight.

JasonB said...

A creationist claiming someone does not have their facts straight? My irony meter just exploded!

A. Vargas said...

"the videographer was told by our museum director to stop filming a private conversation that I was having with a family and the Canadian student in question (where the student, to his credit, apologized to the family for possibly disrupting their visit). The videographer merely moved a few feet away and resumed filming us. That's what got him tossed. And PZ claims the man was not doing anything wrong?"

Oooo!! Bad, bad videographer!!!

What on earth bothered you so much about your "private conversation" being filmed? *perhaps* because it documented the absurdity of your behavior?

If you ask a videographer to stop filming and he does not comply, that does not make him "bad". It all depends on what's going on. I'd say he's "good", in the sense of good journalism, and you are "bad" you obviously must have been doing something not entirely appropiate. Sure, you are entitles can expell anyone from YOUR museum, but it does not make you less of a DICK.

Billy13 said...

So the two prior incidents were actually 3 incidents even though Mark says he was in fact not kicked out? Logic. Fail. Which I believe is the opposite of what the gentlemen in black (in the video) has written on his shirt.

Original quote from PZ

""PZ Myers said...

The two prior incidents were cases of him 1) wearing a t-shirt that said "There's probably no god, so stop worrying about it", and 2) creationists overhearing him criticizing the "museum". 3) was being overheard saying the gift store was cheesy and that he wasn't going to be buying anything. Since one of the photographers was escorted out for doing nothing but taking pictures of the incident, Looy is being rather disingenuous here.""


This group of Atheists have made the transition to a religion. They congregate and have a wide following and act, quite frankly, like fundamentalists and radicals.

Now I have always stood up for freedom of speech, expression and religion, so I stand by the Atheists religious rights. But you should probably change your name because what you are doing is not very Atheist.

Trying to inflame others, draw attention to yourselves and meaningless protest is not being Atheist, you're merely hiding under that guise. What you really want is your 15 minutes. Mission Accomplished.

William K said...

"So the two prior incidents were actually 3 incidents even though Mark says he was in fact not kicked out? Logic. Fail."

"Prior" rather strongly implies that those two incidents were not the same as the one in which he was shown the door. One incident plus two prior incidents equals three incidents. It is YOUR logic that has failed.

Billy13 said...

He was never escorted out. Mark said he never received the 3rd warning. Security was not present in the video as per museum policy verifying Mark's claim that he was not removed. So why are people making this up?

Unknown said...

The fact that Mark did not have Derek "escorted out" is pretty much a technicality at best. To me, it's obvious that Derek, being a reasonable fellow, left the museum after being approached for a third time by Mark. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he was probably quietly asked to leave, and simply complied to avoid a scene. If he had not, Mark would likely have had him removed. Simple as that. Unless Mark tells us the explicit truth of his intentions here, we can't know for sure, but that appears to be the logical conclusion.

PZ Myers said...

Correct. He was quietly asked to leave, and Looy and the security there had striven to make his stay as uncomfortable as possible -- they were very poor hosts.

Kicking out the videographer was simply ridiculous. It was a very funny sight: Looy had pulled Rodgers off to the side, and there was a whole semicircle of atheists who instantly brought up their cameras and were taking pictures like mad. The poor guy who was singled out was only guilty of having the biggest camera of the bunch.

No, I'm not retracting anything. Looy was trying to intimidate a student and asked him to leave. He did not have him escorted out the door (nor did I claim he had) because Rodgers was being as obliging as we had asked all the atheists to be, and had told him he was leaving.

Valhar2000 said...

Trying to inflame others, draw attention to yourselves and meaningless protest is not being Atheist, you're merely hiding under that guise.

Wait a minute! I thought that an atheist is a person who does not beleive the proposition that gods exist. When did the definition of the word change to "whatever Billy happens to think atheists should be doing"?