Creation Museum - Pt. 1 - The Actual Museum

"Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear."

- Thomas Jefferson

It's a muggy, gloomy, summer morning in Petersburg, Kentucky. Somewhere outside of my car, it's independence day. In honor of that, I've just finished playing Credence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son" as the car glides down curvy road after curvy road. I and a few friends are heading for The Creation Museum, a haven for fundamentalist Christians who believe that their faith is under constant attack by scientists who refuse to give any respect to theories that claim the Earth is only 6000 years old.

We came because we thought it would be fun. Having once been a member of one of these fundamentalist churches, I remember some of the outlandish ways science was discounted. The faithful told us everything from "Fossils were placed where they are by God, who wants to test our faith," to "Carbon dating is not trustworthy at all, so there's no reason to believe that the Earth is over 4 billion years old." Having been removed from that for the last 10 odd years, I've grown up obsessed with the dissonance in the minds of seemingly rational people who hold beliefs completely opposed to scientific thought. So, why not visit this new institution dedicated to helping these people support those ideas. Besides, rumor had it that they had an exhibit where dinosaurs watched two children play together. It sounded like comedy gold.

When we first entered, all looked okay. The lobby featured what we'd expect to see throughout the museum - the true age of the Earth as described by Biblical timelines , dinosaurs and humans living together, and mockery of evolutionary thought. Oh yeah, there was also a dinosaur with a saddle on it. Good stuff all around. We balked a little at the $14.95 price of admission (it's actually $19.95 but you get $5 off if you give them your name and address) which didn't include tickets to the planetarium. However, since I can't imagine anything young Earth creationists have to say about cosmology would be informative, we stayed away the planetarium.

Having purchased our tickets and taken our required photo ops, we stood in line for Men in White, the piece of video that hopes to get you into the mood to visit the rest of the museum. The video starts every 15 minutes, so it wasn't a terribly long wait before we were settled into a very comfortable auditorium with three giant video screens and an animatronic woman posed in front of them. The seats were covered in soft leather and had enough padding to put you to sleep.

It was the last time we were comfortable for the entire 3 hour visit.

The video featured the animatronic girl looking at the sky and asking "Are we all really just mistakes?" No sooner does she voice her pathetically trite question, the presentation turns into a full frontal assault on your senses. The theater becomes a storm of strobe lights as two "angels" show up and snarkily accuse the woman not being open minded about creation.

"I don't want people to think I'm dumb," she tells the screen. The angels proceed to tell her that she doesn't have to turn her back on science, she just needs to see the right science. To illustrate their point, they show a number of stereotypical science teachers forcing their beliefs about evolution and origin on to impressionable students. Never once in this production does the author show legitimate views held by evolutionists. Instead, the video sticks to caricatures and misrepresentation.

This is to be expected though since its refutation of evolution is limited to making very basic statements without backing them up any further than saying "the Bible says so". As an example, when "discussing" the age of the Earth, one angel - in character as Matthew Lillard apparently - tells a science teacher "that'd be great if we didn't find these rocks with helium in them" and then acts as if he's just won the argument.

This wouldn't be so terrible if it didn't include the truly evil portion of the video. In order to show the truth about the creation of the world, the video gives the Genesis (well, one of the Genesis accounts) of the creation of the world. When it does it, your seats rumble and shake, strobes go off everywhere, wind blows by you, and when they get to the great flood, water squirts in your face.

I'm not making that up.

By the time the thing's over you're tired and exhausted at the brutal manhandling your senses have just taken. Which is pretty much how they need you. Now that you're too tired to think critically (like, why is light around on day 1 when the sun didn't arrive until day 4?) you're ready to walk through the museum and hear the same message over and over. These are brainwashing tactics right out of A Clockwork Orange.

It becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that this is not the type of museum where you'll be allowed to casually walk around and see what you want, especially if it's crowded. Once you enter the first exhibit, it's more like you're on a ride. Everything is very linear in nature. The crowd around you keeps you from skipping anything or backing up to far. It's nearly impossible to get out of the exhibits from anywhere other than the official end of the line. And, best of all, there's no one to answer questions about the museum or its exhibits. Questioning would be bad and they don't want to give you the opportunity.

So there you walk among exhibits that show the scientific evidence that the biblical accounts of creation are accurate. This scientific evidence ranges from "Well, science is wrong about this one thing, so the Bible wins," to "God says so." Loudspeakers blare over head to let you hear the true message of creation. At some point though, you realize that this is why so many people laugh at the U.S. and you stop being annoyed or amused...you get pissed.