Paleontologists visiting the Creation Museum at the conclusion of a convention got more than they bargained for when they found their life’s work under attack.
After having a few laughs and taking some pictures, most were surprised and offended to see the way in which evolution was being ridiculed by the museum, which some call a “creationist Disneyland”.
“It’s sort of a monument to scientific illiteracy, isn’t it?” Jerry Lipps, professor of geology, paleontology and evolution at University of California, Berkeley, told the AFP news agency. “Like Sunday school with statues… this is a special brand of religion here. I don’t think even most mainstream Christians would believe in this interpretation of Earth’s history.”
Some 715,000 patrons have visited the $27 million museum since it opened in mid-2007 to “bring the pages of the Bible to life.” The 70,000 square-foot facility presents a literal interpretation of the Bible, and suggests that disbelief of this view leads to moral relativism and the breakdown of social values.
University of Akron paleontology professor Lisa Park was moved to tears as she walked down a hallway displaying flashing images of war, famine and natural disasters that the museum blames on belief in evolution.
“I think it’s very bad science and even worse theology — and the theology is far more offensive to me,” Park told the AFP news agency.
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Howard University anatomy professor Daryl Domning shook his head several times throughout his tour of the museum. “This bothers me as a scientist and as a Christian, because it’s just as much a distortion and misrepresentation of Christianity as it is of science,” he told the AFP. “It’s not your old-time religion by any means.”
Here’s a more in-depth report on the visit, plus an interesting fact (if you can use that word about the museum) one gets from the displays.
Most of the people who defend every word of the Bible are virtually ignorant of the process by which the Church chose its contents. So it should be no great surprise that such gullible people easily believe misrepresentations of scientific theories, especially when uttered by an authority figure. In the isolated and protected environment of a Sunday morning church service, lies can easily roll off the pastor’s lips and go unchallenged by the congregation.
One of their recent lies is that top scientists are abandoning evolutionary theory in droves as they finally realize the mistake of believing this “junk science.”
Alfred, you prove my point.
It’s a myth that scientists are switching to creationism. I’ve seen it repeated by Christians as fact, it’s on bunches of websites, but as usual, there is no evidence.
Alfred: reading it, saying it, and repeating it doesn’t make it true.
#13
I suppose, when a person is breathtakingly stupid, it is not surprising such a person can be proud to be being breathtakingly stupid.
Pride is a sin, isn’t it? On the other hand, stupidity is not a sin. I guess nobodaddy missed that one.
#22…to your first point
19 jccalhoun
“…that isn’t any evidence that creationism is right.”
That’s why they have “faith”, isn’t it? No need to have facts.
No need to have facts is entirely correct.
It’s sad that people are being brought up in ways that make this something they would pay to go to. Yikes.
Parents of these people should be charged with child abuse and the owner of this idiotic scam should be outed as one preying on them only for money.
I’m sure Alfred would be very much at home there as delusions are very much a part of his everyday life.
#24 Named
Nail, head, hit.
I have no problems with people of honest faith. I have no need of it but it positively enriches many people’s lives.
Bible science, and the politics therein, is a crock of mule crap.
Uncle Dave,
Not only are you a dip you’re a moron. The museum offers a different conclusion to that which the paleontologist might come to and they use the bible to guide them. That no different that all the Demoncrats saying that they will lower health care costs, eliminate services and yet improve health care, which by their diffinition is simply killing everyone they have scientifically decided their time come. I can prove just in the same way that the only good Demoncrat is a Dead Commie.
Just in case you missed my meaning f*!? you.
Whatever……….
Traaxx
27 Traaxx,
You ALMOST outdid AlfredENewman. Keep trying.
23 Olo Baggins of Bywater said,
#22…to your first point
LOL and crying at the same time.
J/P=?
#23
Thanks for the link.
I’m sure Jay borrowed that idea from the Canadian Rick Mercer, who sometimes Talks to Americans!
#27
If I was Uncle Dave, I’d be damned proud you said that to me.
Just for clarification and my own peace of mind, you are blogging from the inside of a locked, well-guarded institution, right?
Re#27 Traaxx…
What exactly did Uncle Dave say that you were lambasting him for?
Traaxx: Scientists use physical, hold-in-your-hand, measurable, repeatable, observable and so on, data to draw conclusions and generate hypotheses that get adjusted and deepened and occasionally thrown out as new data is discovered. All of the highly complex, interrelated disciplines that go into developing an overall understanding of how we got here are based solely on that process. Evolution (the real process, not what Creationists reduce and twist it to) is one, tiny part.
Creationists use words written and manipulated over generations for political (ie, Christians were originally anti-Roman rule activists), not spiritual (that was a means to an end that worked on the masses), ends by people in a time when it was thought demons caused illness. Creationists discard inconvenient things when convenient and replace them with stories that if rewritten slightly and made into a serious book or movie would be laughed out by them as ridiculous. (Scientology as religion, anyone?)
BTW, nice try, like Alf, at diverting real discussion into a completely, unrelated topic and devolve into namecalling. Hey, that’s just like the creationists when presented with facts they can’t refute!
Whatever…….
“…facility presents a literal interpretation of the Bible, and suggests that disbelief of this view leads to moral relativism and the breakdown of social values.”
“…a hallway displaying flashing images of war, famine and natural disasters that the museum blames on belief in evolution.”
And there was no war, famine, and natural disasters before the theory of evolution was postulated? My mind reels at this “fact”.
Uncle Dave,
re Traaxx. I didn’t Americans drank so early on July 4th.
“[The]facility presents a literal interpretation of the Bible, and suggests that disbelief of this view leads to moral relativism and the breakdown of social values.”
Here is an interesting thought for your Bible literalists:
Let us assume for the moment that God made Adam and Eve, who mated to produce the second generation. Has anyone ever stopped to consider where the third generation came from? It takes no more than a few seconds to conclude that the third and subsequent generations of humans can only have resulted from some form of incest.
So much for “moral relativism and the breakdown of social values” !!!
fred, fred, fred
Stop thinking for yourself. Thinking leads to fear; fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering.
#36, qb
That would explain the ” ‘suffer’ little children to come unto me”. I must be entering my second childhood.
If I recall this is also the place that said that not only did dinosaurs live alongside people but that all animals were vegetarian before the fall of man. (check out the section on “What Did Dinosaurs Eat and How Did They Behave?”) That explains why the dinosaurs didn’t just eat Adam and Eve.
I wonder why they don’t encourage people becoming vegetarians if that is why God made us?
Haaang on a sec.
# 13 Alfred1
Just the other day you wanted science to prove the ark of the covenant was real, presumably by dating the object. This is the same science that says the earth is much much older than supposed creation.
Also, comparing the shortcomings of evolution with those of Obama is just plain idiocy.
But y’all knew that, right?