thirteen ways

The Phot and I had looked forward to this day with great excitement since we first learned of Kentucky’s Creation Museum last year. 

According to its website, the Museum

brings the pages of the Bible to life, casting its characters and animals in dynamic form and placing them in familiar settings. Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers. The serpent coils cunningly in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Majestic murals, great masterpieces brimming with pulsating colors and details, provide a backdrop for many of the settings.

Below, the flute-playing Aussie poses next to one of the Garden of Eden’s dinosaurs:

You might well say: “Dinosaurs! In the Garden of Eden!?” Well, that is just because of your racist, Darwin-loving, “the infidel Voltaire”-worshipping naivete. The Creation Museum is here to set you straight:

So, why is there NO scientific evidence of dinosaurs existing with humans?

And why doesn’t the word “dinosaur” appear in the bible? Why, that’s easy! Because it wasn’t invented until the 19th century.

Below, the incredibly un-human-looking Adam and Eve hangin’ in the Garden. Now they LOOK naked, but on closer inspection neither the Phot or I could find Eve’s nipples or Adam’s penis:

Apparently it is “human reason,” not millennia of religious/political conflicts that is responsible for genocide and racism:

Even though admission was $22 and a “state-of-the-art” facility was promised, much of the Museum looked incredibly cheap and tacky: painted backdrops in Eden, unconvincing plaster human models, outdated animatronic dinosaurs, amateurish videos depicting “a world without morals.”

What was most illuminating about our visit was the light it cast on what creationists actually believe: Apparently everything is centered around the great flood. 

Here are a pair of stegosauruses being loaded onto Noah’s ark:

Here are some more dinosaurs inside the “life-sized” model of the ark:

As well as explaining fossils (turbulence caused layers upon layers of dead animals to be compacted together) and even coal (the tempest caused trees to sink to the bottom of the ocean and generated enough pressure that, hey presto, the trees turned to coal), the flood also explains the shifting of land masses around the earth. Apparently Rodinia (fascinatingly, scientific terminology is used to explain creationist theories throughout the museum), transformed into Pangea within just a few years of the beginning of the flood.

Actually, the best part of the museum were the Hollywood-style, sensationalist films scattered throughout the museum. Early on we were shown blockbuster-preview-style version of the 6 days of creation, complete with an impossibly deep, resonant voice intoning, “And on the first day…” The flood film was essentially The Day After Tomorrow with Noah instead of Jake Gyllennhaal.

Below: The Museum’s explanation for the spread of animal species around the globe at the end of the flood. Called “rafting,” it resulted when animals unknowingly stepped on logs (which were left floating across the oceans after the flood), which transported them across the great oceans of the world…

I have to admit that I was a little afraid of being “found out” by the god-botherers who were genuinely there to “learn” something. But everyone was so busy smiling and being good-natured that us heathen impostors managed to get out without raising the atheist alarm. Fundamentalist christians really seem to be happy people, except it is a bit too much like being stuck in the Stepford Wives for my liking.

Granted it was a Saturday morning, but the Phot and I were shocked to discover that the museum was pretty much packed full of people. With the exception of a few Asians, the patrons were all pasty white (I even saw a few Amish-looking folks in overalls and olde fashioned hats).

While shopping for Creation Museum memorabilia in the gift shop, a lady standing next to me turned to her friend and remarked about the DVD she was holding: “Ooh, Betsy, it says that it is appropriate for ages 8-14. That means I can show it to my elementary school class!”

Below: Creation-Museum-walking-induced, sandal-inflicted wound? Or stigmata? You decide:

The most shocking discovery that I made? Ken Ham, “president and founder of Answers in Genesis-U.S. and the highly acclaimed Creation Museum,” and a truly scary looking bloke, is a native-born Australian! Let me, as a card-carrying Aussie, take this opportunity to claim responsibility for Ken and the pain he has brought on a generation of evolutionary theorists. My sincerest apologies.

More Creation Museum photos here.