The eternal themepark of the creationist mind

At the Guardian, Stephen Bates reports on his tour of the first partially completed sections of The Creation Museum - motto: 'Prepare to Believe! - which is being built in Ohio. It's well worth reading, since it reveals two important aspects of creationism. First, its power. Two, its jaw-dropping stupidity.

As to the power bit, this 'museum' (which deserves the quotes since, as far as I can tell, it is not actually displaying anything factually true) will cost about $25 million, of which all but $3 million have already been raised. Aside from access to funds, there seems to be a lot of technical know-how behind it - at least with regard to animatronics if not to biology. Finally, the institution seems almost inevitably to have at its disposal the requisite few people with science degrees who wigged out somewhere along the line and decided to let Jesus into their hearts. This wouldn't be so bad in itself, though it seems that in the process he's gone and re-booted their minds as well.

Finally, as the article points out, there may be 50 million Americans who believe in literal versions of creationism. To them should be added the many more with less strident beliefs whose world view tends more toward a squishy mish-mash of half-facts, convenient fictions and lots and lots of angels.

This is, in short, a much bigger story than some strip-mall church adding a few velociraptors to their Winterval nativity scene.

Patrick Marsh, the 'museum's' designer, used to work for Universal Studios before being reborn and committing his life, apparently, to spreading a version of the Good News which seems to go something like this:

"The Bible is the only thing that gives you the full picture," he says. "Other religions don't have that [oh, Patrick, they do, they do...], and, as for scientists, so much of what they believe is pretty fuzzy about life and its origins ..."

('Pretty fuzzy' about life. Er, yes: science has really made so little progress over the past few centuries, I fully agree. And in the meantime there have been all those remarkable breakthroughs in faith healing....)

Whether Bates managed to keep a straight face during this interview is not explained; nevertheless, he gamely throws out some questions in the ultimately vain hope of getting a rational answer.

Predictably, as befits a product of fanaticism, there is nothing fuzzy about the 'museum's' view of life and its origins. The Earth, as any decent Sunday school can teach you, is about 6,000 years old (give or take a few months...) and everything was created by God as explained in Genesis.

(Some of you may wish to object that there are two different and contradictory versions of that story, but please don't be so obtuse and disrespectful...remember, 'mysterious ways' and all that...)

So, nothing 'fuzzy' about this perspective, even if there may be a need for some very soft focus camera-work in the end:

We pass the site where one day an animatronic Adam will squat beside the Tree. With this commitment to authenticity, I find myself asking what they are doing about the fig leaf. Marsh considers this gravely and replies: "He is appropriately positioned, so he can be modest. There will be a lamb or something there next to him. We are very careful about that: some of our donors are scared to death about nudity."

So: they can spend millions on a farcical delusion and make complete asses of themselves in public without batting an eyelash, but the thought of the devil's organs unwrapped scares them 'to death'. This spurs two thoughts. First, I think we may have the makings of a new and devastating weapon in the war on irrationality. Second, I am surprised that christian nudists - who are also busy building this year - have yet to protest this shameful concealment of creation's own, erm, pinnacle. I hope they'll get around to it soon enough.

Disappointingly, there is no word in the article about whether Adam and Eve will come equipped with navels.

The 'museum's' 'research scientist' is biologist - oops, sorry, astrophysicist - Dr. Jason Lisle. Dr. Lisle - who seems to have a great admiration of breathless non-sequiters such as "Amazing! God has a name for each star" and "The sun's distance from earth did not happen by chance" - appears to make an interesting - and revealing - distinction between what he knows and what he believes:

And how did he pass the exams? "I never lied, but if I was asked a question about the age of the universe, I answered from my knowledge of the topic, not my beliefs."

As I always say: never let a little knowledge stand in the way of belief.

There is, sadly, nothing new about all of this, I know. Still, it throws me into fits of hair-pulling fury that it is necessary to discuss such things.

What never ceases to amaze me is the thoroughly brazen flippancy with which creationists will refer to science. Statements along the lines as 'There is no evidence of evolution', for example, whereas, of course, there are vast libraries and museums and laboratories across the world where nearly 150 years of post-Darwinian biology are being created, reported, archived and updated.

No, just say it and it is so.

In the face of such overwhelming masses of evidence, plainly inaccurate comments (cited in the Guardian piece) by creationist nut-job Ken Ham such as 'The Bible makes sense and is overwhelmingly confirmed by observable science' or 'nothing contradicts the Bible's account of the origins' are pathetically insignificant (though no less annoying for all that).

Ham, after all, has stated: 'No apparent, perceived, or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record', so his alleged interest in scientific proof and, above all, his predictable and disingenuous recitation of the mantra we just want to show both sides of the story is just part of selling the pretence of a more reasonable version of creationism than actually exists.

There is nothing new under the creationist sun, of course. The 'museum' is just the latest episode in their charlatans' efforts to argue for the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs. (A very fine debunking of one of the more insistent of these claims is available here, via Talk.Origins.)

However, I think articles like the one Bates has written are useful in contradicting the (plainly loopy) argument that the primary force driving fundamentalist religion is the uncompromising and dismissive rejection by atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett or Sam Harris of faith. This view was recently given another airing in an infinitely frustrating article by Gary Wolf in Wired which essentially concludes that the arguments of 'New Atheism' just don't offer enough spiritualist brain candy, naive respect for irrationality and blood-quickening madness as he would prefer. Creationists, predictably, love this argument about 'atheist extremism'; however, as Bates's article shows, the real extremists in this story can find enough fuel for their insane little crusade in their own distorted worldviews.

This article is beginning to make inroads on the optimism I'd developed over the last few days, and despite the joys of the recent election results, I am here reminded of something Christopher Hitchens wrote not long ago.

These days I spend a good deal of my time defending my adopted country from what I have to call anti-American attitudes, many of them based on what seem to me a mixture of envy and ignorance. But, yes, I tell the BBC man when he finally calls back, there is quite a lot of argument this fall about whether or not American schoolchildren should be exposed to the ideas first promulgated by Charles Darwin in the mid-Victorian epoch. Indeed, the subject has begun to open a split in the Republican Party, as well as between it and its critics. There is a brief silence on the line.

A silence which, in the end, I can only echo.