ON August 7, P Z Myers, creator of the popular religion-crushing blog, Pharyngula, will be touring the multi-million dollar Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky.
P Z Myers
Myers has long mocked and ridiculed Ken Ham’s infamous, biblically-literal museum, but so far has not visited this “monument to scientific illiteracy”.
However, the Secular Student Alliance – as part of its 2009 conference – is sponsoring Myers to take a one-day, in-person tour of the museum. The group has even invited Ken Ham himself, the “brains” behind it, to give PZ a tour of the place.
The organisation hopes many others will join Myers for what could be a day of fun, saying:
We’d love to see a mob of quietly chortling, science-minded people packing the halls of the Creation Museum with PZ.
Last month, a group of paleontologists capped off a conference with a visit to the museum.
Ken Ham with one of his exhibits
But while there were a few laughs and some clowning for the camera most left more offended than amused by the frightening way in which evolution – and their life’s work – was attacked.
Said Jerry Lipps, professor of geology, paleontology and evolution at University of California, Berkeley:
It’s sort of a monument to scientific illiteracy, isn’t it? … 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.
The 27 million dollar, 70,000-square-foot (6,500-square-metre) museum which has been dubbed a “creationist Disneyland” has attracted 715,000 visitors since it opened in mid-2007 with a vow to “bring the pages of the Bible to life.”
Lisa Park of the University of Akron cried at one point as she walked a hallway full of flashing images of war, famine and natural disasters which 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. I think there’s a lot of focus on fear, and I don’t think that’s a very Christian message… I find it a malicious manipulation of the public.
Mad magazine's take on the Creation Museum
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
July 19th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
War, famine and natural disasters are blamed on belief in evolution? Are these people totally mental? There were wars, famines and natural disasters in the Old Testament, are they going to claim that there were people going around believing in evolution in Old Testament times? These people actually accuse atheists of being arrogant in claiming to be more intelligent than they are, Hell's effing bells.
July 19th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Maybe PZ will stop for a chat with Dr Georgia Purdom (PhD Molecular Genetics/Ohio State U.) who is a research scientist at the museum. He will be told that pathogenic organisms didn't exist before the "fall". Ken Ham is one thing; Purdom is chilling. See the interview with Michael Shermer available on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_CLIGJW6Ic
July 19th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Ok so this is off topic but has anyone seen http://thepiratebay.org/torren.....BC_Horiz... ?
It has a go at explaining some religious experience as an neurological & possibly experimentally repeatable phenomenon…it's got dawkins in it, but it didn't work on him!
July 20th, 2009 at 11:20 am
or if you don't go in for torrents you can watch it online here: http://fr.truveo.com/BBC-Horiz.....he-Brain...
July 20th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Oh, I did eventually get to looking at the AiG site's take on cosmology, there seem to be two favoured 'theories' on why if the universe is only 6000-10000 years old you can see stars in the sky that are more than 6000-10000 light years away.
1: the "in transit" theory: god created the light on it's way from space to earth with no physical object as it's originating point – 'cause he's god and he can. is you subscribe to this idea then there is no special reason to believe that distant objects in the sky actually exist at all, it's just a painting created by god for our amusement and wonderment at night.
2. the "C-Decay" theory: when the universe was created 6-10 thousand years ago the speed of light was *much* faster than it is today and has been slowing down ever since. it is not stated but surely must be implied that every other physical constant must have been manipulated in concert with this change of speed in order for matter to exist (god must have been kept busy by doing this); if this was not the case lighting a fire would have been a very dangerous proposition for Adam & Eve as a single spark could have over come atomic bond energies and caused the earth to fission out of existence in a big flash…. Also if this decay keeps happening at some point in the future moving about will be a lot harder, as one would be able to travel backwards in time by walking faster than the speed of light.
having had a look at http://www.truthinscience.org.uk as suggested by Tim_Danaher earlier I think they should have a stab at 'intelligent design' in physics and chemistry as well as biology… it would be good for a laugh!
July 20th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
" I think it’s very bad science and even worse theology – and the theology is far more offensive to me. I think there’s a lot of focus on fear, and I don’t think that’s a very Christian message… I find it a malicious manipulation of the public."
That quote is hilarious. The entire christian myth is predicated on fear. Believe in me or burn for all eternity.
July 20th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
A lot of the people with whom I used to associate seriously believed that God had created the Universe AS IF IT WERE BILLIONS OF YEARS OLD!! As in your first illustration above, everything on Earth came into being as though it had been there for millennia – rock strata, fossils, mineral deposits, and so on. I think this idea first saw the light of day when cosmology destroyed the last vestiges of respectability (if there were any in the first place) in the old explanation that everything that was observed could be explained by the effects of Noah`s Flood! (Why on earth God would want to play tricks like this I have no idea: it`s ludicrous.) The second theory you mention also had its parallel in the idea that the laying-down of deposits, soil erosion, and so on, have NOT occurred at a steady rate in the past, so that exptrapolations cannot be made from measurements made at the present time. There is no evidence for this, of course, but that`s no problem – it just must be so!!
July 20th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
(Cont) Obviously, when you are committed to believing that every word of your "holy book" is divinely inspired, then you have to come up with increasingly bizarre ways of accommodating scientific facts (or "theories" as they prefer to call them – hahaha!). The phrase "painting yourself into a corner" springs to mind!!
July 20th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
I`m so glad to see that Mad magazine`s still going strong, Barry! Boy, did we laugh at that when I was at school!!
July 20th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Strong-ish, Barrie. It has been forced to go quarterly in its 50th year, and by all accounts is a pale shadow of its former self. I adored Mad too, and credit it for teaching me everything I know about irreverance!
July 21st, 2009 at 6:22 pm
It's interesting that people also believe the Bible's promises that God/Jesus will cure their illnesses nevertheless have family doctors, and Christian after Christian end up in the obituary columns having suffered long painful battles with cancer. The Bible also promises that poison won't have any affect on believers, but none of them ever agree to test the theory. Even if poisoned accidently, they scoot off to the hospital. The arguments they use to support their beliefs are the same that are used to convince children that Santa Claus exists. Organized mental illness.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:08 am
I wrote up my visit here. Complete with point-by-point debunking, all with hits from the first page of Google search results!
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:57 am
Well, there are the snake-handler sects in Appalachia who do handle snakes and drink arsenic. But these folk are rightly considered weird and most Christians are embarrassed by them. Yet the snake handlers do take that part of the Bible far more literally than do the alleged literalist Christians of the more mainstream churches.