Midtopia

Midtopia

Monday, May 28, 2007

A small step backward

It's open!

The Creation Museum I wrote about back in August is finally opening its doors.

The Christian creators of the sprawling museum, unveiled on Saturday, hope to draw as many as half a million people each year to their state-of-the-art project, which depicts the Bible's first book, Genesis, as literal truth.

While the $27 million museum near Cincinnati has drawn snickers from media and condemnation from U.S. scientists, those who believe God created the heavens and the Earth in six days about 6,000 years ago say their views are finally being represented.

The funny thing is that their views have always been represented -- they just lose, because not only is there zero evidence to support a 6,000-year-old Earth, but there's mounds of evidence to refute it.

People are free to believe in anything they like. But it's not too smart to believe in easily disprovable things.

I personally think opponents are overreacting:

Scientists, secularists and moderate Christians have pledged to protest the museum's public opening on Monday. An airplane trailing a "Thou Shalt Not Lie" banner buzzed overhead during the museum's opening news conference.

This is like getting worked up about flat-earth theorists. It's just not worth the effort.

Then again:

A Gallup poll last year showed almost half of Americans believe that humans did not evolve but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years.

Three of 10 Republican presidential candidates said in a recent debate that they did not believe in evolution.

We can only hope that the museum loses its shirt, or exists as little more than a kitschy oddity.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why would you "hope" that it loses it's shirt? What scares you about this private museum?

I've personally always believed that many things in the Bible didn't actually happen as told---but are simply stories that dipict faith and what it can do for people. (And I was raised in church) For instance, I doubt very seriously if Jesus turned the seas into wine. I doubt that Jonah was swallowed whole by a whale. But each story places emphasis on belief and faith. Both are important, IMHO, as they help us live a better life here on earth---knowing that this isn't the end. My Mother, Dad and sister are all gone. And yet, I STILL feel their presence.

I also believe that evolution and creationism can and do coincide. Just because there is evolution---does not mean there wasn't a higher being that started the whole process.

JP5

Sean Aqui said...

Why would you "hope" that it loses it's shirt? What scares you about this private museum?

Nothing "scares" me about it. I would just like to live in a world where the public (and the market) rejects rank stupidity.

Your definition of creationism -- that there was some higher being that set the evolutionary process in motion -- is perfectly logical. But that's not what this museum is presenting. It's a museum of "classic" Creationism -- the world is 6,000 years old, dinosaurs were on the Ark with Noah, that kind of nonsense.

Anonymous said...

Nothing "scares" me about it. I would just like to live in a world where the public (and the market) rejects rank stupidity.


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