Terrapin Tables

A trip to the funniest museum around

Move over, Touchdown Jesus, there's another reason for fundamentalist Christians to visit the Cincinnati area: The Creation Museum.

This facility, which opened last May, is a "museum" devoted to teaching the Creationist view of world development, which follows the literal interpretation of the Bible. Because Beth lives so close to the museum (for the record, the museum is in Kentucky, about 15 miles south of Cincinnati/Ohio, so please don't lump her state into this), we decided it would be a good way to spend a Friday afternoon. Armed with a camera and a notebook (which served no purpose once I realized that taking pictures of the placards was much easier than writing down what they said), we headed off to Hebron, KY.

It should be noted that the views of this museum run completely counter to my own beliefs, and that the following is not meant to be some sort of objective review. I do have an agenda: to make fun of crazy people that believe the Grand Canyon was formed in a few days and that different languages exist because a bunch of people built a tall tower a few thousand years ago.

So, without further ado, let's begin the tour! (note all pictures are clickable if you want to see them at a higher resolution)

First, like any museum that wants to attract the attention of kids, dinosaurs are a big hit - they even have several bronze statues right at the entrance:

Beth and I discover it's $20 each for admission, but it's free for police and military. Because Beth didn't have her ID proving she was an officer, and I wanted to give the museum as little money as possible, I felt justified by pulling out my contractor ID and getting a military discount, which I really shouldn't do since I'm not in the military. So we got in for half price. We were hungry before we left for the museum, but I wanted to eat there, as I was sure there was going to be some food with a funky name. Our first stop in the museum was Noah's Café, where I enjoyed a Hot Dogasaurus. Awesome.

After lunch, we started the main exhibit. We first learn the 7 C's that make up the timeline of the world:

There's also an exhibit outlining the general premise: that God created every animal all at once, and that evolution is a lie. There was a very defensive tone in the beginning where the "Human Reason" was presented, alongside "God's Word". I'm glad they didn't call the first parts "What Darwinists Believe" or something stupid. The next room was devoted to such comparisons:

It was kind of funny, since I think a tall pile of books is more informational that a scroll. And what's with God talking in all caps? Isn't that bad netiquette? We then came upon a curious diagram:

It looks like the Creation Museum was supporting evolution - or at least some form of it. The diagram clearly shows new animals coming from an ancestor animal. Although this pseudo-evolution (explained later on in the tour, thankfully) is simply not available to humans:

Despite the first room appearing somewhat neutral, the exhibits begin a downward spiral from there. The very next room informs you of why you should believe in God's word over human reason. It says that the Bible is the truth and that scientists that try to discredit it are flat out wrong:

The next room shows the museum's tackiness and lack of credibility - rather than providing more 'evidence', it is simply a room that shows what happens when you don't follow the Bible. It was a dark room resembling an inner-city alley, complete with fake newspapers with such headlines as "Just Another Routine School Shooting". To further their mature approach to scientific discourse, there's eerie music in the background, and voices of people moaning. Touche, Creation Museum.

And it's a shame that so many people don't follow God, because according to the museum, the Christian church is all but dead in Britain:

After the tour through GloomyDeathLand, we come to the room that resembles the life you get when you follow God: a wonderful, open, serene place, complete with flat-screen TVs. I’m surprised they weren’t piping in lavender scents.

After that, we get to the good stuff: the Garden of Eden! Things look kind of cool at first:

Except, you know, there were dinosaurs hanging out in the forest as well. Oh, and apparently penguins also inhabit the forest:

After the Creation room, we come to the second “C”: Corruption. Stupid Adam though had to eat that fruit (the museum blames Adam, not Eve). Apparently the corruption has led to modern catastrophes such as genocide, nuclear war, and… wolves eating. I don’t know how this wolf – apparently upset that a photographer is interfering during dinner – is related to humans screwing something up, but whatever. This room serves the same purpose as the seedy alley – by not following God’s path, bad shit will happen.

So then we find out other things that are the result of Adam’s hunger pangs: the creation of such things as venom, weeds, and manual labor.

After that, we find ourselves in a room dominated by a bunch of wood with animatronic people working on some scaffolding. We have entered the Ark room:

It was kind of fun – it was supposedly a reproduction of one deck of one section of the Ark, representing 1% of the total volume. The picture show encompasses the entire room, so honestly, even if this was 1% of it, the Ark wasn’t that large. We are treated to a diorama of sorts in the next room:

So after that, the museum talks about the flood. Apparently, the flood was so orderly that it buried different forms of life in a specific order, which is why we have fossils at different layers in the earth today:

So after the flood, where lots of species were wiped off the Earth (apparently not “two of every animal” made it onto the Ark). The museum explains the variety in animals we see today because “God provided organisms with special tools to change rapidly” (hence the pseudo-evolution displays early on in the tour).

The next picture isn’t clear (I didn’t use the flash much), but it says the same thing: that modern animals arose from a smaller set that were on the Ark.

Note this contradicts the museum’s earlier claim that God created all animals in the beginning (I don’t have a picture of this placard though, it’s possible it said something similar that still somehow jives with this post-Flood evolution).

So there’s a few more rooms explaining Babel and the dispersion of different languages and races – nothing too humorous. Eventually we found ourselves at the end, by a small room dedicated to dinosaurs and the ‘myths’ scientists spread about them. Apparently legends of dragons is evidence of the Biblical account of dinosaurs:

So there were some fun claims (all dinosaurs were vegetarians until Adam bit that apple, despite their claws and teeth), but I found this one to be the funniest. They claim that the reason human bones have never been found with dinosaur bones simply because humans and dinosaurs don’t get buried together. I mean, we don’t share graves with crocodiles today, so why in the hell would humans do so with dinosaurs 4,000 years ago?

So with that, the walkthrough was over. There was a cool dinosaur at the end for kids to sit on. And by kids, I mean 30-year-old men.

Oh, and there are a couple of gems from the gift shop:

1) Dinosaur toys that come with humans tied to them so kids are sure to remember that instead of being separated by 65 million years, humans and dinosaurs lived in harmony at the same time.

2) Among home-school books and the “Truth” fish eating the “Darwin” fish, this was the most despicable item we found – a book discussing evolution’s “racist roots”:

Overall, it was fun, but still left me sad with life. Aside from the religously-attired and the mullet-equipped individuals, there were families there, reading the museum's claims to their children as if it were fact. I hope these kids don't want to be scientists when they grow up, because they're off to one hell of a bad start before they even get into public school. Which probably isn't all that great in Kentucky anyway.

The museum's patrons seemed mostly curious - not super die-hard fanatics. I honestly expected to see at least one other guy like me in there, but I don't think that's the case. I mean, it's hard to tell since non-religious people don't have some sort of secret nod or anything, but there were hardly any young people there (without kids at least), so I think Beth and I were pretty out of place. The parking lot also indicated a lot of Pro-Life, Christain visitors. It's probably a good thing I didn't have my car there - my FSM decalprobably would've been ripped off.

Posted by Rick at April 16, 2008 12:29 AM