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Crackpot Christians target McDonald’s T-rex: ‘It’s blasphemy!’

Crackpot Christians target McDonald’s T-rex: ‘It’s blasphemy!’

Last updated on: September 6, 2020 at 7:17 pm by Barry Duke

Crackpot Christians target McDonald’s T-rex: ‘It’s blasphemy!’ 2020-09-06T19:17:10+02:00 Barry Duke

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A LANDMARK Tyrannosaurus rex that’s been outside a McDonald’s outlet in Tucson, Arizona, since 1994, has been declared ‘blasphemous’ by a member of a group called Christians Against Dinosaurs which has 19,000 members.

The outfit, in a recent post on its private Facebook page said:

Please help! This McDonald’s has this dinosaur and refuse to remove it! This is in Tucson, Arizona. Call the manager and demand the removal of this blasphemy!

But Lizzeth Alvarez, Area Supervisor for Dias Management Inc, which owns the bustling franchise is adamant the dinosaur is not going anywhere soon.

Absolutely not. People really seem to like it. It’s a landmark really.

One dumb member of CAD who appears to be leading the charge against the 18-foot-tall, 40-foot-long concrete dinosaur is Josh Brown who gave out the the address and phone number of the McDonald’s outlet.

He said he lives and works in Tucson, and he doesn’t see anything funny about:

Lying to our children. It seems to me that every dinosaur story and display or dinosaur themed event is furthering the myth that the Earth is much older than the Bible says it is. Yes, the dinosaur should go unless they’re willing to compromise with a plaque of some kind stating that it’s a fictional character.”

Most Facebook users responded to Brown’s call for a protest with jokes or messages of support for the dinosaur.

Brown is now claiming he’s being harassed and threatened online. He said someone even tried to hack into his personal Facebook account.

He said a lot of the comments directed his way have come from:

People who wanted to save the dinosaur or to message me personally and spew insults and threats.

In a later post to the CAD community, Brown blasted a different dinosaur, this one in front of the McDonald’s off I-10 in Benson. He called it:

A conduit of lies and dinoporn that are corrupting our children’s minds.

Dias Management owns 18 McDonald’s restaurants in Arizona, 15 of them in the Tucson area. Alvarez said staff members at the Tanque Verde location first found out about the anger over the dinosaur from a few customers who mentioned the post or called in to ask if it was for real.

Some employees wondered if there would be a protest of some kind in front of the restaurant, but Alvarez said she wasn’t aware of anyone even calling in to complain about the dinosaur so far, though several people on Facebook claimed they did.

The T-Rex dates to when the restaurant first opened in 1994 — part of an all-around dinosaur theme aimed squarely at kids and inspired by the wild success of the first Jurassic Park movie.

Alvarez said the restaurant’s owners have taken to dressing their dino up in different holiday costumes throughout the year. In early May, she said, the statue “got all this extra attention” when they covered its nose and mouth with a giant mask to promote pandemic safety.

Image via YouTube

Is CAD real or a prank aimed at making Christian fundies look stupid?

Apparently the former. In 2015, tech website CNET brought readers attention to the group. Writer Chris Matyszczy contacted CAD’s Twitter feed and asked who was its leader and was this all a joke. He received this reply: ‘We do not have a leader, we are a collective.” and he was told they is most definitely not a joke.

In the same year, a CAD supporter posted this message to parenting forum Mumsnet:

Shortly after, Mumsnet banned the woman who posted the message.

CAD itself insists on Facebook that it’s genuine in this extract from its Q&A:

• Q: This must be a joke page right?/ Is this satire?
A: No it isn’t. The Cadmins and the ones that genuinely follow this group all believe dinosaurs never existed. If that’s to hard to understand for you maybe this group isn’t the right group for you.
• Q: Do you guys ectually (sic) believe the earth is only 6000 years old?
A: Most of us do not believe this. We aren’t YECs. If you don’t know what a YEC is than maybe this group isn’t the right group for you
• Q: We have so much evidence dinosaurs are real, why don’t you show me some Jesus bones?
A: No you haven’t. Jesus died upon the cross, was buried and ressurected (sic). On Ascension Day he went to heaven. So there are no Jesus bones to show you. If you refuse to accept this than maybe this group isn’t the right group for you.

Meanwhile, Universal Life Church Ministries opened up a debate on the issue, asking “Does God hate dinosaurs?”

The answers make for amusing reading: Here are just two:

Dinosaurs would eat humans if they were still around therefore, we shouldn’t be celebrating them and all statues of dinosaurs should be torn down…

Damn it, Christians! Get your stories straight. The folks at the Creation Museum say that dinosaurs and humans coexisted. They have them on display at the Ark Encounter, so it must be true!

FYI: There’s a Facebook Group called Dinosaurs Against Christians Who Are Against Dinosaurs which has more than 45,000 members.

Note: People in Europe may not be able to access some links from Tucson.com unless they have a VPN.

• Please report any typos/errors to [email protected]

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