4 more fictional events exposed by
the Institute for Creation Research
Sponsored link.
Below are listed four more the Christian urban legends
exposed as false by the Institute for Creation Research in
their Science, Scripture and Salvation radio program on 1999-APR-17: 1
The Hell Hole:
TThe story seems to have been broadcast on
three episodes of a Trinity Broadcasting Network program in the early
1990s. Trinity also published an article on their Internet mailing list. It
was allegedly translated from the original Finnish newspaper Ammennusastia.
The story involves a team of geologists in Siberia who
were drilling a well 14.4 kilometers (9 miles) into the earth to study the makeup of the earth's crust.
They
allegedly lowered microphones into the hole and were stunned to hear the screams of people suffering
in horrible agony. They could only assume that they had reached Hell and were listening to
the suffering of countless billions of people being tortured without any hope of relief or
mercy.
Project leader Dr. Azzacov allegedly said:
"The deep center
of the earth is hollow!... Temperatures of 1,100 degrees C (2,000 degrees F)
were reported...we could hear thousands, perhaps millions, in the
background, of suffering souls screaming. The information we
are gathering is so surprising, that we are sincerely afraid of what we
might find down there."
Half of the scientists allegedly refused to continue drilling.
A newspaper article in Finland picked up the story and added more details: A luminous gas shot up
from the drill hole. A brilliant being with bat wings then coalesced, with
the words in Russian: "I have conquered" visible against
the sky. 2
The Ship of Fools website personnel
traced the story back through a series of letters to editors and various
Christian newsletters. The originator of the "bat out of hell"
addition admitted that it was a fabrication, intended as a joke to prove how
some religious folk will accept a totally outrageous story without checking it out.
The Biblical Archaeology Review printed a story about the Well to Hell story, intending it to be humorous. They figured that the story was so
outrageous that nobody would treat it seriously. But many of their readers
did.
Of course, there was no deep well to Hell, and no sounds of the damned.
However, you can hear an online recording that is claimed to contain
the screams of the inhabitants of Hell. 3
The story has been picked up by several individuals and groups who have created short videos and added them to You Tube. This is one of them. It received over a third of a million views between 2007-AUG and 2011-AUG -- almost a hundred thousand a year:
7
The discovery of Noah's Ark:
If the Bible story of the flood is true then
the ark touched down on one of the mountains of Ararat. One would expect some remains of
the ark could be found by simply inspecting the mountains and locating the wreckage. The
climate in the vicinity is dry. Some wood would survive
intact. Many people have claimed to see the ark; some have even brought back wood samples.
But strange things have happened: everyone's camera seems to have broken down after they
found the evidence. Nobody seems able to recall exactly where the remains were found.
There is, in fact, no hard evidence that the ark has been found. Perhaps,
someday, someone will bring along a GPS location device when they find
the ark. Then they could record precisely where it is within a few
meters, and easily return to the site.
Radio-carbon testing:
This is a reverse CUL; it is a rumor that is
anti-conservative Christian in nature. Rather than support the estimates by
many Christian and Jewish conservatives that the
earth is between 5 and 10 millennia old, this legend says that radio-carbon dating has determined that the
age of the earth is about 4.5 billion years. This is not true. Radio-carbon dating loses
accuracy as you go farther back into the past. Beyond about 50,000 BCE, it is useless.
Scientists compute older dates by using longer lived radio isotopes, like potassium-argon or
iridium-lead.
TheP & G logo
was originally a cross within a circle - a symbol used on one of their 19th century products: star candles. Over time, the cross evolved into a star, then the single
star became 13 stars - one for each of the 13 American colonies. A man in the moon was
added around the end of the 19th century; this was a widespread image at the
time - something like the "smiley face" is today. The
present logo design was created in 1930.
Rumors started to circulate in 1980 that P & G had been brought out by the Unification Church. The legend then took an sudden, interesting twist. The
logo was said to be a Satanic symbol. The novel Michelle
Remembers had been published about this time. It was presented as a documentary of Satanic Ritual Abuse, and triggered a Satanic panic throughout North
America. The P & G story expanded to include an allegation that the
company was
supporting Satanic cults with 10% of their profits. Then, an executive of the company was
said to have admitted that "due to the openness of our society,"
he was announcing his company's connection with Satanism on a TV talk show. No one was
quite able to specify exactly which show or which episode was involved.
It was said that you could connect the
13 stars with lines that would spell out 666, the number associated with the Antichrist in
the biblical Book of Revelation. Looking at the beard of the old man with a mirror, the
number 666 is said to be visible. The chairman of the board of P & G was supposed to
have sold his soul to the Devil.
"Proctor & Gamble worked very hard to
counteract the rumors, issuing press releases, instigating legal action and even
soliciting the support of leading Christian fundamentalists who announced their faith in
the purity of the company." 2
By early 1991, the company had answered over 150,000 telephone calls and letters concerning the myth. In the
early 1990's a couple in Kansas was found to have spread the rumor; P & G was awarded
$75,000 in damages. They have filed at least 15 lawsuits against individual
rumor mongers.
A trial began on 1999-MAY-3 in which Procter & Gamble are suing Amway distributors
for allegedly reviving the Satanic rumors in 1995. 4 P & G
spokesperson Elaine Plummer commented: "It's a malicious lie that erodes the
trust of customers and has cost us millions of dollars in sales."
Defense
attorney Charles Babcock replied: "This rumor was started in churches...and Amway
didn't have a thing to do with it. A few Amway independent distributors talked about the
rumor - not in a mean-spirited way but in an informational way.''
The latest rumor is that the head of P&G appeared on the Sally Jesse
Raphael Show on 1998-MAR-1. He allegedly repeated the 1980 comments: that his
company was associated with the Church of Satan, that a large portion of their
profits are donated to that Church. When asked whether this openness would
cause economic consequences, he allegedly replied "There are not
enough Christians in the United States to make a difference." The executive producer of "Sally"
has issued a statement saying that no
executive from P&G has eve appeared on the show.
Variations of this rumor involve Ray Kroc of McDonalds, and an executive
from Liz Clairborn; both are alleged to have Satanic connections. Merv
Griffin, 60 Minutes, and Oprah Winfrey are other shows where P&G
interviews are alleged to have occurred. Every element of the rumor is completely baseless. 5,6
References used:
The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above
essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.
The Institute of Creation Research (ICR) is a Fundamentalist
Christian organization which promotes creation science: the belief that God
created the earth, its life forms and the rest of the universe about six to
ten thousand years ago. Their radio program,Science, Scripture and Salvation
is heard on hundreds of conservative religious radio stations in the U.S.
The episode on 1999-APR-17 dealt with what they called "Christian Urban
Legends." Their web site is at: http://www.icr.org
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