Adam & Eve and the T-Rex
(That'd make a fun bedtime story, wouldn't it?)
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the latest assault on reason: The Creation Museum, in Petersburg, Ky. Cost: $27M. [I will not link to it directly... you can go find it on your own.]
Salon.com has a great article about the museum, which was built by a non-profit organization called Answers in Genesis -- to "undo the damage done 82 years ago when Clarence Darrow put William Jennings Bryan on the stand in the famous Scopes trial in Dayton, Tenn." (Inherit the Wind is one of my favorite books! My brother is named after one of the protagonists...) Undo the damage? These are the same people that want to teach about the Bible in public (state-funded) schools -- that would certainly "undo the damage," if it weren't for this little thing called the CONSTITUTION!! Separation of church and state? Hello?
Ahem. And apparently, until Adam took a bite of the forbidden fruit, all of the animals were vegetarians! One exhibit depicts "grizzly bears, wildcats, zebras, kangaroos, an iguanodon and several other dinosaurs [in] the same little chunk of primeval Eden." So, dinosaurs and man walked the earth at the same time, not 60 million years apart... Oh, right, since G-d created everything in the same week, he had to make the dinosaurs and man on the same day - it says so in the Bible! Hunh. I don't know about you, but I don't remember the word "dinosaur" in any version of the Old or New Testament I ever read.
As the WaPo notes, "For the biblical account to be accurate and the world to be so young, several hundred years of research in geology, physics, biology, paleontology, and astronomy would need to be very, very wrong." I believe that people are entitled to their opinions and their religious beliefs ... just so long as my tax dollars aren't paying for this museum, and I never have to go there!
I leave you with a quote from a high school student visiting the museum:
Oy vey.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the latest assault on reason: The Creation Museum, in Petersburg, Ky. Cost: $27M. [I will not link to it directly... you can go find it on your own.]
Salon.com has a great article about the museum, which was built by a non-profit organization called Answers in Genesis -- to "undo the damage done 82 years ago when Clarence Darrow put William Jennings Bryan on the stand in the famous Scopes trial in Dayton, Tenn." (Inherit the Wind is one of my favorite books! My brother is named after one of the protagonists...) Undo the damage? These are the same people that want to teach about the Bible in public (state-funded) schools -- that would certainly "undo the damage," if it weren't for this little thing called the CONSTITUTION!! Separation of church and state? Hello?
Ahem. And apparently, until Adam took a bite of the forbidden fruit, all of the animals were vegetarians! One exhibit depicts "grizzly bears, wildcats, zebras, kangaroos, an iguanodon and several other dinosaurs [in] the same little chunk of primeval Eden." So, dinosaurs and man walked the earth at the same time, not 60 million years apart... Oh, right, since G-d created everything in the same week, he had to make the dinosaurs and man on the same day - it says so in the Bible! Hunh. I don't know about you, but I don't remember the word "dinosaur" in any version of the Old or New Testament I ever read.
As the WaPo notes, "For the biblical account to be accurate and the world to be so young, several hundred years of research in geology, physics, biology, paleontology, and astronomy would need to be very, very wrong." I believe that people are entitled to their opinions and their religious beliefs ... just so long as my tax dollars aren't paying for this museum, and I never have to go there!
I leave you with a quote from a high school student visiting the museum:
"I don't care how long it took to make the Grand Canyon," .... "It's not how old it is that matters to me. What matters is being right with God. Darwin's theory has no God. It can't be right. I don't know if this story is truer than Darwin's theory, but I do know it's better."
Oy vey.
Comments
Even better is the flickr album from that trip-
here
Truly mind-boggling.
When I was in 6th grade, I actually went to a creation "museum" in Glen Rose as part of my research for my history fair project on the evolution/creation debate.
(previous comments deleted cause I didn't do the links right)