A Field Trip To the Creation Museum

Lillith writes "The anti-evolution Creation Museum opened last weekend and Ars took a field trip there and took lots of pictures. 'There were posters explaining just how coal could be formed in a few weeks as opposed to over millions of years, and how rapidly the biblical flood would cover the earth, drowning all but a handful of living creatures. The flood plays a big part in the museum's attempt to explain away what we see as millions of years of natural processes. There was also an explanation as to why, with only one progenitor family, it wasn't considered incest for Adam and Eve's children to marry each other.' (Myself, I liked the picture of the velociraptor grazing peacefully next to Eve, who is wearing some kind of dirndl, in the Garden of Eden.)" The reporter posted more photos from the museum on Flickr.

Factually inacurate

Eve was naked until she ate from the tree of knowledge, at which point she made herself a skirt with leaves.

They fail at bible accuracy, in a frikkin bible museum!

Re:Factually inacurate

Oh, the museum isn't all that inaccurate. For example, the exhibit showing the RIAA offering an apple to Eve is certainly correct. And the Stone-Age diorama showing Jack Thompson and Darl McBride hitting each other over the head with clubs was not only historically accurate, but desirable as well.

Re:Factually inacurate

The thing I never understood was that the fruit was meant to give 'knowledge of good and evil,' allowing them to choose between good and evil. Before eating the fruit, they were only capable of good, and yet were naked. After eating the fruit, they were still naked, but now they realised being naked was 'evil,' and so they must have been doing 'evil' while they were only capable of 'good.'

Re:Factually inacurate

Nope. That whole tree thing is mostly cribbed from Mesopotamian traditions, and in those men were naked to demonstrate their state of bestial ignorance; savage naked man acquired knowledge of right and wrong later from the gods when he became their servant and was taught the "Arts of Civilization" including how to spin wool and weave it and how to process plant fibers into cloth. An intriguing echo of this is in Ecclesiastes 3:16-21 (RSV):

"Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness...I said in my heart with regard to the sons of men that God is testing them TO SHOW THEM THAT THEY ARE BUT BEASTS..."

So it's not that man was doing evil, it's that man was a beast. By eating of the tree of knowledge, they become enlightened enough to be shamed by their evidence of bestiality and wish to become clothed, thus taking on a godly aspect. And God found this a threat, because God is a jealous little bitch. (Note that the First Commandment is not "Don't murder" or "Be Nice" or anything like that; no, it's "Me, God, I'm a jealous bitch, and you better not step out!" But I digress.) The Serpent in the Garden is man's benefactor, cluing in Eve that God is a liar -- God couldn't care less if she and Adam died, rather God's concern was that they would become like him, which just wouldn't do. Genesis 3:4-5:

"But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil..."

And just to hammer the point home, the narrator has God repeat back the Serpent's words in verse 22, thus confirming the Serpent's shrewd and penetrating analysis:

"Then the Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil..."

Anyhoo, all snickering at God's insecurities aside, the point here is that if you want to make any sense whatsoever out of Genesis, you need a firm grounding in Mesopotamian theology.

Re:Factually inacurate

It actually comes down to being about free will. The whole point of the story is to point out that humans are not fighting against good and evil, but either choosing God's path or not choosing our own path. It was suppossed to be a choice, and God does not punish us for not choosing him, its that without him we make decisions that hurt each other and ourselves. That's the actual theology of it, for any of you who are interested.

I agree that you can approach it different ways; two of those ways being thematically and literally. As a thematic interpretation, I've got no problem with that take on it (even though I don't share those beliefs)...but we're talking about a group who has claimed to interpret it literally.

As a literal read; God created the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Everlasting Life (yup, two trees, kids!), and told Adam not to eat the fruit or they would die. The snake told Eve that was BS and that God didn't want them to eat the fruit because they would become more like Him.

They ate it. God lied (having said the fruit would kill them), and the snake told the truth (they became more like God). God expelled them from the Garden of Eden (the implication in the text being that He didn't want them eating from the Tree of Everlasting Life) and cursed them to a hard life (that was their punishment).

That's what my Bible says; and I've never heard a creationist/literalist cop to that story.

So, thematically - a useful representation of why one should follow God's path. Literally - a cruel con job on two innocents by someone who owed them better.

I've gotta stop reading this thread. It's driving me nuts...

Nudity is not bad

That's what I say. I am naked even as I type this message.

Re:Factually inacurate

Being naked is not a sin. Looking upon the nakedness of others is considered taboo in the Bible. The Old Testament talks about special architectural requirements for towers so that others would not be able to "look up and see their nakedness". Jesus clarified the problem in the New Testament when he explained that lusting after someone you're not married to is a sin. (And one which I'm sure most men have fallen into at some point or another. That's why we have "Grace" per Jesus's death at the cross.)

So in short, Adam and Eve became self-conscious about their state of dress after eating the apple, because they were starting to understand the concept of sins and evil.

FWIW, both the museum and the story strike of flamebait. Not much good will come of this. In fact, this whole "war" between science and religion is doing horrendous things to both sides. Let science be science and let religion be religion. Don't try to make religion science and don't try to make science into religion. The former is bad because it misses the possible truths about God's universe. The latter is bad, because science can blind itself to its self-correcting design if those running the show dig their heels in too far. :-(

Confused

Ok, I'm confused. What does the great flood have to do with creationism? Is it "evidence" of creation?

This just seems to validate that it's more of a biblical museum than a creation museum.

Re:Confused

One of the problems creationism has is that animal/dinosaur bones are found buried MUCH deeper than any reasonable man can claim to have happened in just 40,000 years, without some kind of natural dissater that dumped a lot of dirt on them. And it happens consistently over the ENTIRE world.

As such, they need a natural/unnatural dissater that affects the entire world.

Hence they calim that Noah's flood moved tons of dirt, buring lots and lots of bones much deaper than happens normally.

This is supposedly why we find animals buried with millions and millions years worth of dirt on top of them, instead of just the 40,000 thosand years of dirt that one would think.

Re:Confused

Ask a Christian about carbon dating, and they'll say "it doesn't exist" or "its full of errors." You don't really ever have to ask a Christian to explain anything, since their answer will inevitably be the ultimate academic cop-out: "God did it."

Wait, wait, wait!!! Ask a Creationist, and they'll say that nonsense. I know plenty of Christians that are perfectly happy with evolution and science. Science and Christianity don't have to be diametrically apposed, as many absolutists would have you think. In fact, theology and science really occupy totally different parts of many people's lives.

Re:Confused

At the core of a creationist argument is that all of the Bible's stories are literally true.

The whole point of creationism and other philosophies like them is that they are a response to, and not a discovery of, new knowledge. The bible says that the flood happened. Therefore, when investigating the 'origins of life', that HAS TO BE accounted for. No option of how history happened can exclude that information. The entire museum takes all of the information in the bible and then attempts to map that information to a model which would allow the bible to be true. The bible is the yardstick to which all other information is measured.

Science, on the other hand, is progressing by asking questions, proposing models and ideas, and advancing those models and ideas through objective testing. If the model or idea is invalidated by the testing results, they are modified. The yardstick in this case is objective reality. If an idea is good enough, we can test its validity in the world.

I personally side with science/reality. I mean, I don't have much choice. Reality will continue to be what it is regardless of what I want to believe. :)

Velociraptors, huh?

Better be prepared! [xkcd.com]

Full of Blasphemous Lies!

This museum does not reflect the beliefs of all young earth creationists! It actually makes the absurd suggestion that Dinosaurs were allowed on Noah's Ark. If that were true, there would still be Dinosaurs today! Not to mention, it goes against the bible which clearly states that only 2 of every land vertibrate were allowed on the ark.

This museum was built by godless atheists who want to profit from true believers!

Belly button

I couldn't tell from their pics; did their Adam model have a belly button?

Imposing?

FTA:

Built at a cost of $27 million, it's an imposing building--not a particularly attractive one

Doesn't sound like it was very intelligently designed

buh-da-ching

wow

jesus christ! what an abomination.

Coal could be made in a few weeks

I read in an illustrated book how this big guy with an S on his shirt turned coal into a diamond by holding the coal and merely pressing his hands together. That took seconds. So maybe coal could be made in weeks. I think too in a similar book, there was this guy who lived with dinosaurs on a hidden island. So maybe man did, or does live with dinosaurs. I mean, I saw these things in print. they must be true.

Re:Coal could be made in a few weeks

There's a documentary series about an island off of costa rica (I think) that has lots of dinosaurs. It was out before the whole penguin-documentary (i.e. happy feet, et. al.) craze, so you might have missed it. The first in the series was very informative, and very well done. They spared no expense - they even got John Williams to do the score.

How come no one can make money with Flood Geology?

Mainstream geology pays off. It helps people find oil, coal, minerals, natural gas, water, etc. etc. etc. How come "Flood Geology" doesn't make better predictions about such things if it's really a better, more accurate theory?

Why don't creationists take the $20+ million they spent on the museum, and use it to apply "Flood Geology" to finding valuable mineral deposits and such? They could open a bunch of museums with the profits, and provide solid evidence for their "theory" that would make those 'deluded geologists' take notice.

Funny how they never seem to want to actually try to apply what they say they believe...

Tourism Mecca?

How cool would it be if the Flat Earth Society opened a similar, though less expensive, attraction right next door. Even if somebody just put up a sign for it, it would be so poignant.

On the other side of their building, we could have a "global warming" museum..... Oh, crap. This is slashdot. I am about to get modded down into oblivion.

Problems

I've been thinking a lot about this ever since I first heard about the Creation Museum, and I find myself powerfully troubled and conflicted -- not over its content, which I know exactly where I stand on -- but over my intense desire to decry this "museum" as an utter abomination. I have always tried to endorse tolerance and understanding, and I've always let people believe whatever they want.

But I have a big, big problem when it comes to the public actions of those believers. How many thousands of children and impressionable adults will never even have the chance to learn basic tenets of logic, reason and science after being indoctrinated by a "museum" like this and the cooing, gentle voice of its proponents, telling children stories about dinosaurs living next to adam and eve and jesus?

I don't know what to do. I fully believe in Voltaire's classic quotation on freedom of speech and belief. But in this instance, I find myself thoroughly unwilling to defend the "Creation Museum's" right to make up whatever crazy "facts" they want. It's the first time I find myself wanting to "think of the children" who may very well grow up into the willfully ignorant bible beaters that are founding this "museum."

And yet there I am, suddenly the intolerant monster I have never been able to stand. Yet I tremble to imagine a future dark ages in America, where real science -- the search for the evidence of the reality of the universe -- is stoned in the streets and systematically rubbed out.

Please: before you mod me into oblivion, I want to hear everyone's thoughts on this subject.

Re:Problems

"Tolerance" isn't just some blanket value which lets everything go. It goes hand-in-hand with a kind of skepticism about dogmatic claims and the absence of a moral teleology (that is, the idea that there is one way people were "meant" to live.) It doesn't mean you have to accept absurd or contradictory ideas, or lifestyles that are actively hostile and dangerous to your own.

Re:Problems

How many thousands of children and impressionable adults will never even have the chance to learn basic tenets of logic, reason and science after being indoctrinated by a "museum" like this and the cooing, gentle voice of its proponents, telling children stories about dinosaurs living next to adam and eve and jesus?

It's, essentially, in the middle of no-where in Kentucky. The only people that are likely to visit the museum are people that already have their minds made up, or the children of those people. They'll already be indoctrinated.

If schools start mandatory field trips to the museum, we can talk. Until then, it's not likely to get visited by anybody who is "on the fence." People will either be going to take pictures and mock it, or they'll be going because it's a museum dedicated to what they already believe.

Re:Problems

If schools start mandatory field trips to the museum, we can talk.

Actually, this creation museum is ALREADY receiving TAXPAYER funding. It's COMPLETELY outrageous. The state and local government give them FREE police and fire protection, EXEMPTED it from paying its fair share of taxes (due to some BS "non-profit" status), provides it with FREE road maintenance for the surrounding area, REGISTERED it in public directories, and granted it a FREE permit to use the land.

Oh, sorry, I was just looking to rationalize my pre-existing bias that the government forces me to pay for anything I'm opposed to.

Re:Problems

I fully believe in Voltaire's classic quotation on freedom of speech and belief. But in this instance, I find myself thoroughly unwilling to defend the "Creation Museum's" right to make up whatever crazy "facts" they want.

Some nutter can rant all he wants about how he knows pi is rational. What he doesn't get to do is teach that in school.

i think of it this way

intolerance is evil

intolerance of intolerance is actually good

in fact, to meet a fundamentalist, and for them to call you intolerant, as in, hypocritically intolerant, is actually a badge of achievement

because you are not hypocritically intolerant if you are intolerant of them

because what they don't understand is that fundamentalism is true intolerance, and therefore to be intolerant of that is actually to strive in the direction of more tolerance

intolerant: "because you are not a true christian/ true muslim, i am better than you" =evil

intolerance of intolerance: "because you consider yourself better than me based on your religious bigotry, i am intolerant of you" =good

intolerance can be predicated on a number of characteristics of a person that is not intolerant in and of themselves: race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.

intolerance can also be predicated on someone else's intolerance: not tolerating their intolerance of someone because of race, religion, seuxla orientation, etc.

so you can judge any tolerance in question as to what it is opposed to. and if it is opposed to some inherently nonintolerant feature of a person, it is true intolerance. but if it is opposed to an intolerant feature of the person themselves, it is not intolerance, it is a form of tolerance, because it directed against real intolerance

The US is looking more and more like the taliban

It is sad but true. A very "renaissance" of obscurantism. The US looks more and more like Iran or the Taliban. No science, no reason, only stupidity. This is the beginning of the end of the US empire. No doubt about it.

Re:The US is looking more and more like the taliba

I'm definitely not a creationist, but don't think for a minute that psuedo- and anti-science is limited to religious zealots.

Look at all the things that people buy into today, particularly in Europe, such as homeopathy, reflexology, chiropractics, magnet therapy, colonics, yadda yadda. How many people believe that irradiated strawberries are radioactive? How many people sit around worrying about the "toxins" in the body? How many people belive that Feng Shui increases the positive "energy" in a room?

I try to console myself...

...by saying that somehow the benefits of democracy outweigh censoring even really dangerous, stupid shit like this museum.

At least we all get a good laugh out of this one.

And a good cry.

Looking at the schedule on their website....

I notice they're not closed for Jewish holidays. As a jewish person, I always find that interesting.

Now, how comes...

... That I went to a strict Catholic school, had Jesuits as science teachers, and Creation was relegated to Religion hour? In class, it was Darwin or bust, the Earth was some 5 billions years old, and nobody questioned evolution. Ever. And those who taught were priests.

I once asked my biology teacher (Jesuit) about the Bible's recount of the Creation. Answer: "The Bible was written by men, and inspired by God. Do you think He could have gone to some Bronze Age guys and told them about atoms, mass-energy equivalence, aminoacids and DNA? That was Abraham and company He was talking to, not Mr Spock."

You folks need some of these Jesuits types, methinks.

Re:In 5.. 4.. 3.. 2..

You know, it didn't HAVE to take 5 seconds to queue the comments... it could very easily be scientifically explained how the comments came about in only .5 seconds... you're so narrow-minded.

Re:In 5.. 4.. 3.. 2..

Why shouldn't we be anti-"religious", if "religion" means promoting falsehood? Why should we give anyone a free pass to go on and on about nonsense without criticism?

Re:In 5.. 4.. 3.. 2..

Because a more direct and effective route would be to skip right over religion and go straight to being be anti-falsehood promotion?

Re:In 5.. 4.. 3.. 2..

Just because someone hurt your feelings by attacking your precious religion, you don't need to come around appealing to people's emotions by crying that someone is "attacking your freedom". How lame is that?

I don't smack people around for believing in god, and I don't smack them around for smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day. I do, however, think both are without reason and terribly stupid things to do. I will probably spend the rest of my days criticizing both behaviors (my freedom, as it were), and doubt I will ever be bothered in the least about you crying into your pillow at night.

Religions promote falsehoods in that they foster environments of non-scientific thought, or more precisely, they foster lack of thought. This lack of thought is the antithesis of all human progress as we know it and we'd probably still sitting in our own shit if it prevailed. The same science that invented everything around you is the same science that shows the earth to be 4b years old, the universe to be upwards of 13+b years old, and so on. The foundations of the medicine you and your children take, the cancer treatments your mother takes, the emergency treatment given to your father when he got into an accident when he was 17, are of the science that show the bible to be wrong on many accounts.

Of course, the worst part is that now many people are starting to move from "literal" interpretations of the bible to more "story" based, or metaphorically based. This is the only thing that _could_ happen when underlying texts of a religion start failing, because had it not happened the religion would have vanished. (Sort of like the anthropic principle for religions?).

Re:Faith is a poison upon mankind.

It turns man against man, because of different ancient social mores and savagely ignorant beliefs about the workings of the universe.

Because basic human greed won't turn man against man, amiright? I'll grant you that religion has been a smokescreen used many times to cover up human greed (whether it be for power, money, what have you), but in the absence of religion "might makes right" has stepped up to the plate on more than one occasion throughout human history.

Re:Faith is a poison upon mankind.

I think it is better to argue that human corruption of faith is the underpinnings behind such misadventures. Furthermore, I would argue that in these instances, faith was the vehicle, the gullible nature of humans was the road and the corrupted "leaders" were the drivers.

Science COULD have the same effect on making people do seemingly illogical things. See the Milgram Experiments for reference. I would argue that if everyone ditched religion for science, it is inevitable that someone would use science in the same way to corrupt people into achieving their agenda.

Re:Faith is a poison upon mankind.

Belief in something with no scientific proof is the foundation of just about every failed adventure in human-kind.

Paraphrasing Contact [imdb.com]:

Palmer: Did you love your father?

Ellie: Yes.

Palmer: Prove it.

We know all sorts of things. Our knowledge is vast, but compared to the infinity of space, insignificant. If nothing else, quantum physics teaches us that there are many gray areas, where things are not as cut-and-dried as they seem. Belief and/or faith in something without scientific proof is not the death of Mankind -- belief and/or faith in something when the evidence before contradicts that belief/faith is where the madness lies.

Re:Faith is a poison upon mankind.

Not arguing for religion here, but where do you think scientific proof comes from? Many times scientists take a belief they have and then set out to 'prove' it.

A hypothesis is not the same thing as a belief. The difference is just as you said: when a scientist has a hypothesis, he does everything in his power to try and prove that his hypothesis is wrong (i.e he "tests it"). Compare that to when a religious person has a belief, and he does everything in his power to prevent people from proving it wrong.

but don't think believing something w/o proof is wrong in any way

It is if you refuse to reconcile your beliefs with the facts. Ask any Christian Scientist whose child died for lack of a blood transfusion.

Re:Faith is a poison upon mankind.

He didn't say Christian, he said Christian Science [wikipedia.org]. Christian Science really does discourage the use of most modern medicine, including blood transfusions. They believe illness can be cured by prayer and growing closer to God, and intervening with conventional medicine will counteract or contradict that process.

Re:Faith is a poison upon mankind.

A "hypothesis" that cannot be proved wrong also cannot be proved correct, and therefore isn't a hypothesis. See Merriam-Webster [m-w.com], definition 2.

Re:Faith is a poison upon mankind.

I can't believe this was modified "insightful" and I also can't believe I'm bothering to reply, but here goes.

These people aren't trying to disprove their theories, they're trying to find explanations that fit them. They therefore ignore all the data that supports the opposing view and weasel their way into a contorted version of reality where it's possible for these things to be the case. The science is based on (at best) invalid assumptions and (at worst) deliberate lies.

Re:Faith is a poison upon mankind.

For one thing, it ignores the fact that a lot of progress happened by accident. Columbus set out to prove that there was a route to India by sailing west. He ignored a lot of evidence that the Earth was sufficiently large that he would run out of supplies about half way there. Fortunately, he found a continent in the middle where he could take on food. A lot of scientific discoveries have been made in a similar way; by people trying to prove things that we now think of as silly, and discovering some interesting contradictory evidence.

Re:Faith is a poison upon mankind.

That being said, I like how the TFA author tried to imply an association between Creationism and anti-Semitism. I quit reading right there.

Your snark aside, he didn't make that up [about.com].
Opened in 2001, Dinosaur Adventure Land sprung from Hovind's Creation Science Evangelism ministry, which began to evolve in the late '80s. CSE sells videos and audiotapes of Hovind's lectures and his debates with evolutionary scientists, along with books on "Evolution and the New World Order." (At least one of them, Fourth Reich of the Rich, alleges a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world.)

Re:In 5.. 4.. 3.. 2..

I look at it this way:

It's generally frowned upon to brand idiots. However, if you can encourage them to brand themselves, then it makes it easy for the rest of us to avoid them. In this spirit, I'd encourage anyone who visits this museum to buy the t-shirt, and wear it proudly...

Re:In 5.. 4.. 3.. 2..

Well, only in USA could could a creation museum be created. Why? Because if how religious this country is and how dumb most people are.

Well, that and in this country we value freedom of speech. Let's face it: you and I might think these folks are first class loonies, but it does absolutely no good to denigrate their belief, because they have developed a system whereby there is no challenge to their faith that they cannot nullify. No amount of inconsistency in their world view is going to sway them. That's because belief is a core function, based on the rational part of our mind. We have to "believe" that the world around us is the way it is in order to function in it. We have taken that mechanism and applied it to things we cannot see or experience and that's where the trouble lies, because we can convince ourselves that things we cannot see are more real than things right before our eyes.

Let them be. They are only fooling themselves. I think it's safe to say that they are truly a minority group, and this is their chance to have a moment in the sun. The rest of us know better and can safely ignore them, unless they intend to force us to see things their way. Then the gloves come off.

Re:One Word

Speaking as a Frenchman, that such a museum has been conceived and built is mind-boggling, in a bad way. It reflects poorly on the american educational system. It shows how far fundamentalists can go to counter Reason in a way that hasn't been seen in France for centuries.

Re:the more we advance in science

The more I think we seriously need to consider "weeding out the population" of all the dumb shits too stupid to accept...

Yes! Death to everyone whose theological beliefs don't agree with your own. That will show the religious extremists!

Re:It's funny. . .

you did catch the "current incarnation" bit right?

I am also an atheist, and while not refusing to recite the pledge, i do leave the god part out. That part by definition excludes me, and as such i feel no need to include it. I don't really care when other people continue to leave it in, since it really just serves to prove the point that much of what people do with, and believe about, religion is truly bullshit. Most believers, and to be fair some unbelievers as well, would have no idea what the original pledge was, why it was written, or when and why the "under god" bit was added.

sadly, and getting back to the main point of this article, faith in magical sky wizzards if in this day and age not so much a statement of faith as it is of ignorance. Believers that i talk to have no sense of the history of their own religion, or even of any other religions. I can think of one christian in the last year that i have talked to who had even heard of the council of Nicaea. They don't know how or why their bible was put together the way it was, or their quran, or whatever 'sacred' book they happen to believe in. And as far as science goes, most people also don't have a clue, how else to explain the penetration that intelligent design has made into our society. I was watching The View a few days ago, don't ask, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck was happily promoting ID to the millions of people watching the show, that in my mind is simply a failure of people to grasp the very concepts of science, and the scientific process. And this was after she said "Look at the constitution, god is written all over the constitution." I have no idea what their real viewership is, but it scares me that there are people out there that now think that is fact.

I don't know if it is a good thing or not that there is not a creation museum, on the one hand it keeps all the nut jobs in one place, with their own made up versions of history, science, geology, cosmology, anthropology, and biology. On the other hand, we are letting them indoctrinate their children with lies and half truths. All so they will unquestioningly believe a myth. Many will never question it, or even bother to learn about it, or any of the other myths out there. They will just go through life with irrational beliefs that etiquette says we are not to question, which helps to keep the whole thing going.

Religion played a roll in our development as a society, but then again so did slavery. It is time to let religion go as well. My only fear is that in the end that will leave a gap in peoples lives that will still be taken advantage of frauds and con men, with scams like scientology and raelienism. But those at lease we feel less of a need to grant pardons to in the free exchange of ideas. And while they may be sue happy, no one has any problem pointing out that they are bat sh*t crazy. Although really, is it any sillier than the idea that a god sent 1/3 of himself to earth, to be born of a virgin, so that he could sacrifice himself to himself to pardon all of humanity for something he was punishing them for in the first place?

Okay, ranted long enough.

Re:Exclusiveness

If I understood the article correctly, this museum was built by an Australian.