What could be more absurd than believing that the Biblical version of the creation of the universe is the literal truth?

How about a group of right-wing Christian “geologists” who think that the earth is only 8,000 years old and are using their knowledge of science to try and prove it? According to the New York Times, there’s now enough of the Bible-thumping rock collectors with degrees from major universities to actually hold a gathering of their own. Convened in July, it was the world’s first-ever “Conference on Creation Geology.”

It’s all part of a major shift that’s happening among fundamentalists with college degrees. Forget old-school town hall revival meetings or those very lucrative TV ministries, though unfortunately those things aren’t disappearing from the planet anytime soon.

The descendants of the people who went after Galileo, Copernicus and Darwin are now promoting their own forms of pseudo science in order to give more credibility to their far-flung, and long ago disproven theories of the origins of the species and the universe.

One of those theories, “Creationism,” proposes that the Biblical story of Genesis is the way humans came into being on this planet. With absolutely no scientific methodology behind them, the proponents of this fairy tale believe that only two humans (one male, one female) were created by their deity to populate the entire earth. No doubt this patriarch in the sky believed in the adage “incest is best.” After the Great Flood, the Earth was repopulated in the same manner by Noah’s family.

Creationists aren’t looking for scientific logic; just a way to justify believing in a book that was culled together from various unrelated writings centuries ago. They’re certainly not discouraged by the fact that the Chinese have a written history that’s 4,000 years old, and a civilization that goes back at least 5,000-8,000 years. Maybe Adam and Eve were Chinese.

Another popular fundamentalist theory, “intelligent design,” explains the origins of everything by stating that an intelligent designer, i.e., the Christian God, made everything the way it appears now: “Okay, let’s see what’s on my to-do list today? Oh, I have to plant those bones over in that cave so it looks like primitive men lived there when actually they didn’t.”

It’s all very funny.

It’s not that science has all the answers to the mysteries of life. It doesn’t. I believe it will in time unravel enough of them to make sense of our human existence. Creationism, Intelligent Design or whatever name right-wing proponents of the Bible want to call their made-up science never will be more than a sham.

It’s worse than a desperate politician wrapping himself in the flag or kissing every baby within a 50-mile radius. Especially considering that conservative Christians have always tried to eradicate science and reason.

Samuel Johnson was wrong. Fundamentalist Christianity will always be “the last refuge of scoundrels.”

Tommi Avicolli Mecca is a radical, Italian, queer atheist with a website: www.avicollimecca.com