When I proposed a trip up the Ohio River Valley towards Cincinnati, Stephanie suggested we go to the controversial Creation Museum - which turns out to be a mixed Bible history/natural history/cultural conservative politics museum with petting zoo - west of the Cincinnati airport (which is actually located in Kentucky) very near the Ohio River. We drove up midday Saturday, stopped for lunch at the Japanese restaurant in the Florence Mall (should have just eaten in the museum cafe), and then drove over on the Cincinnati beltway to the museum. The museum blends an interesting version of scientific creationism/intelligent design theory. Central to the museum's version of this theory is that the earth is just about 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs and people co-existed. The great flood is also central to the story - and, very recently, a mini-intraspecies version of Darwin's natural selection - and the idea that some 6,000 years ago God created people and a variety of other species that coexisted until dinosaurs eventually died off and some other species - internally evolved. (There's little direct confrontation with the idea that the Bible's 6,000 years could be treated as metaphor or that this could be a non-essential part of the Bible that reflected pre-scientific understandings of the time.) There is some conservative morality story included here, including a critique of social Darwinism and scientific racism. Images of the dinosaur-people coexistence jump out pretty quickly at the museum.
The figure below is of an actual scientific creationist archeologist, who was also speaking in a film projected in the same room. This man explicitly said he's out to prove the scientific creationist interpretation of the Bible. The exhibit on the whole conveys a rather relativist view of science, a view that some postmodernists would like. There's one theory (Darwin's evolution theory) and another theory (scientific creationism) - perhaps both plausible. It's not easy simply to test one versus the other. We must accept both as valid theories. It's just that only one of them is Biblically valid also.
Here's where they quickly get into contemporary history/cultural critique. There is a pro-scientific creationism take on the Scopes monkey trial, in which a TN science teacher was tried and convicted for teaching the theory of evolution in public schools. Even though the prosecution prevailed, the trial - popularized in the movie "Inherit the Wind," which the museum criticizes - discredited opponents of the theory of evolution in many circles.
The museum sends visitors through a gritty supposedly urban secular humanist wasteland/tunnel in which all truth is relative and moral decay sets in (though keep in mind the scientific relativism outlined before).
Stephanie and Vincent have always loved natural history museums. Stephanie knows plenty about just about everything except for U.S. history, and there's plenty about prehistory, anthropology, archeology, zoology, and geology in natural history museums to keep her occupied.
Stephanie snapped this picture of me "petting" one of the dinosaurs (really good dinosaur models, by the way.)
Below Stephanie was reaching for the apple - apparently from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (as in scripture).
Stephanie thought this model of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was a little risque (she said they were basically having sex). Interestingly, they don't have blond hair, but they're not black either. (And how does Adam have a trimmed beard?)
Here (below) is the snake lurking - about to lure Eve and Adam into trying that forbidden fruit.
Stephanie wanted me to take a picture of her posing with a Methusalah figure (below) because she ways she sometimes tells her students she's as old as Methusalah (the oldest figure in the Bible).
Stephanie also sat down in a model of the ark. I mentioned that the flood is very important to this version of the scientific creationist story. Apparently the existence of the flood and its effects helps explain many trends (like the creation of the Grand Canyon?) that otherwise we might need to explain by the passing of millions of years (which of course isn't an available explanation if you're trying to explain how the earth is only 6,000 plus years old).
A smaller ark model of just the exterior ark appears (below) in a diorama. (Later in the gift shop we bought a Noah's ark puzzle for one of Stephanie's students. Recall that one of the churches we have visited in Guatemala is the Arca de Noe church.)
This is apparently a new exhibit of the museum that touts a central part of Darwin's theory of evolution: natural selection - how species - well - "evolve" - at least within the species (apparently inter-species evolution - like other primates turning into people - is out - partly because God created certain species and they've only had 6,000 years to change anyway.) The example that I couldn't get a good picture was blind cave fish (but in the exhibit they were being exposed to light - how many generations before they might get their sight back?) No direct comment here on how - according to what I learned in college - the principle tenet of natural selection - the essential random quality of it - violates a central tenet of scientific creationism - that God is in control over everything, that everything has a purpose.
What came next (and below) was a fascinating sociological analysis of - among other things - racism that tied - somewhat correctly - the appearance of Darwin's theory of evolution with the subsequent rise of social Darwinism (individuals and families that are more fit rise to the top of the economic ladder in a Darwin-esque survival of the fittest competition (a set of ideas that justified new wealth in the Gilded Age)) and of the scientific racism that followed (evident in the justification for the 1920/21 U.S. immigration quotas and Nazism). Creation Museum founder Ken Ham (who I've heard talk somewhere on TV or in person) apparently had more to say about this in a book we saw in the bookstore that apparently also defends interracial marriage (we're all God's children, all created from Adam and Eve). Left out from this exhibit are concern for religious discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination and a recognition that oppression long predates the release of Darwin's "Origin of the Species."
I snuck on ahead to a pretty cool dinosaur exhibit, presenting a lot of the images and information that any brand-new natural history museum would present - plus the claim that dinosaurs and people co-existed and dinosaurs lived until a few thousand years ago (but why does God permit extinction, if everything God created was perfect?).
Back in the earlier exhibits was a somewhat confusing argument about horses and how (interspecies?) evolution couldn't possibly proceed quickly enough to work (at least not in 6,000 years?).
The text of the sign below suggests that the museum folks believe in some forms of evolution.
Back to the dinosaur exhibits below.
Two films helped punctuate the tail end of the main set of exhibits (we missed several extra-fee presentations.) One film highlighted aspects of Jesus' life and made an altar call-type pitch. Stephanie compared the young woman who shepherded us into the film and talked a little before and after to the young Mormon woman who beckoned us into the house in Carthage, IL, where Joseph Smith was killed and then finished off by making the pro-Mormon pitch. A striking thing about the museum's understanding of world history and theology is the stress on sin, punishment, sacrifice, and atonement. Our pastor says she's not even sure about the theory of atonement, and our theology of graces puts somewhat different emphasis on things. But the museum really stresses Adam and Eve's original sin, ongoing sin, and the need for sacrifice to atone for this (first the sacrifice by Jewish people of gentle lambs, which I found it was odd the Christian museum was essentially talking up), and then Jesus' sacrifice on the cross (along with - implicitly - the sacrifice of Christian martyrs throughout the centuries - like the sacrifice of the Korean Christians whose sacrifices my father is helping chronicle.) While Stephanie awaited her chai at one of the cafes, I watched part of film that started out talking about St. George and the dragon and went on to argue that various historical and modern-day sightings of dragons (and even Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and UFOs?) may be evidence of at least the historic co-existence of people and dinosaurs, just as scientific creationists argue should be the case.
There were also peacocks (below).
Stephanie had great fun feeding the most assertive of the goats and a camel. Both of them could scarf up the food faster than Stepanie could get out another quarter.
The camel (below) freaked Stephanie out somewhat because its lips were not only separated top and bottom but also right and left. With four different parts to its lips, the lips felt almost opposable, like fingers/hand.
Afterwards - all the more so with the "swine flu" circulating and those odd-feeling camel lips, Stephanie made sure to wash her hands (below).
Below is also a video clip of one of the first dinosaur exhibits we came across in the museum.
Stephanie snapped this picture of me "petting" one of the dinosaurs (really good dinosaur models, by the way.)
Below Stephanie was reaching for the apple - apparently from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (as in scripture).
Stephanie thought this model of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was a little risque (she said they were basically having sex). Interestingly, they don't have blond hair, but they're not black either. (And how does Adam have a trimmed beard?)
Here (below) is the snake lurking - about to lure Eve and Adam into trying that forbidden fruit.
Stephanie wanted me to take a picture of her posing with a Methusalah figure (below) because she ways she sometimes tells her students she's as old as Methusalah (the oldest figure in the Bible).
Stephanie also sat down in a model of the ark. I mentioned that the flood is very important to this version of the scientific creationist story. Apparently the existence of the flood and its effects helps explain many trends (like the creation of the Grand Canyon?) that otherwise we might need to explain by the passing of millions of years (which of course isn't an available explanation if you're trying to explain how the earth is only 6,000 plus years old).
A smaller ark model of just the exterior ark appears (below) in a diorama. (Later in the gift shop we bought a Noah's ark puzzle for one of Stephanie's students. Recall that one of the churches we have visited in Guatemala is the Arca de Noe church.)
This is apparently a new exhibit of the museum that touts a central part of Darwin's theory of evolution: natural selection - how species - well - "evolve" - at least within the species (apparently inter-species evolution - like other primates turning into people - is out - partly because God created certain species and they've only had 6,000 years to change anyway.) The example that I couldn't get a good picture was blind cave fish (but in the exhibit they were being exposed to light - how many generations before they might get their sight back?) No direct comment here on how - according to what I learned in college - the principle tenet of natural selection - the essential random quality of it - violates a central tenet of scientific creationism - that God is in control over everything, that everything has a purpose.
What came next (and below) was a fascinating sociological analysis of - among other things - racism that tied - somewhat correctly - the appearance of Darwin's theory of evolution with the subsequent rise of social Darwinism (individuals and families that are more fit rise to the top of the economic ladder in a Darwin-esque survival of the fittest competition (a set of ideas that justified new wealth in the Gilded Age)) and of the scientific racism that followed (evident in the justification for the 1920/21 U.S. immigration quotas and Nazism). Creation Museum founder Ken Ham (who I've heard talk somewhere on TV or in person) apparently had more to say about this in a book we saw in the bookstore that apparently also defends interracial marriage (we're all God's children, all created from Adam and Eve). Left out from this exhibit are concern for religious discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination and a recognition that oppression long predates the release of Darwin's "Origin of the Species."
I snuck on ahead to a pretty cool dinosaur exhibit, presenting a lot of the images and information that any brand-new natural history museum would present - plus the claim that dinosaurs and people co-existed and dinosaurs lived until a few thousand years ago (but why does God permit extinction, if everything God created was perfect?).
Back in the earlier exhibits was a somewhat confusing argument about horses and how (interspecies?) evolution couldn't possibly proceed quickly enough to work (at least not in 6,000 years?).
The text of the sign below suggests that the museum folks believe in some forms of evolution.
Back to the dinosaur exhibits below.
Two films helped punctuate the tail end of the main set of exhibits (we missed several extra-fee presentations.) One film highlighted aspects of Jesus' life and made an altar call-type pitch. Stephanie compared the young woman who shepherded us into the film and talked a little before and after to the young Mormon woman who beckoned us into the house in Carthage, IL, where Joseph Smith was killed and then finished off by making the pro-Mormon pitch. A striking thing about the museum's understanding of world history and theology is the stress on sin, punishment, sacrifice, and atonement. Our pastor says she's not even sure about the theory of atonement, and our theology of graces puts somewhat different emphasis on things. But the museum really stresses Adam and Eve's original sin, ongoing sin, and the need for sacrifice to atone for this (first the sacrifice by Jewish people of gentle lambs, which I found it was odd the Christian museum was essentially talking up), and then Jesus' sacrifice on the cross (along with - implicitly - the sacrifice of Christian martyrs throughout the centuries - like the sacrifice of the Korean Christians whose sacrifices my father is helping chronicle.) While Stephanie awaited her chai at one of the cafes, I watched part of film that started out talking about St. George and the dragon and went on to argue that various historical and modern-day sightings of dragons (and even Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and UFOs?) may be evidence of at least the historic co-existence of people and dinosaurs, just as scientific creationists argue should be the case.
No dinosaurs were visible in the petting zoo we went to as we left the inside museum and ventured around the pond on the way to a kind of nature area. But there were some pretty neat mammals and marsupials. Below is an Australian animal.
There were also peacocks (below).
Stephanie had great fun feeding the most assertive of the goats and a camel. Both of them could scarf up the food faster than Stepanie could get out another quarter.
The camel (below) freaked Stephanie out somewhat because its lips were not only separated top and bottom but also right and left. With four different parts to its lips, the lips felt almost opposable, like fingers/hand.
Afterwards - all the more so with the "swine flu" circulating and those odd-feeling camel lips, Stephanie made sure to wash her hands (below).
Below is also a video clip of one of the first dinosaur exhibits we came across in the museum.
-- Perry
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