Creation Museum

The Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky was irresistible to a couple of old skeptics like Nancy and me.  It turned out to be fascinating.  The exhibits were beautiful and presented their point of view very well.

Here is Nancy checking out the skeleton of a wooly mammoth.  Scientists say that the species evolved 400,000 years ago, but the museum sign claims that it was created about 6000 years ago, as was everything in the universe, including man and the Earth, according to the Bible.

A series of displays highlighted the differences between man's word and God's word.

A depiction of the Garden of Eden showed Adam interacting peacefully with various animal species.

I was rather looking forward to seeing Eve in her natural state .. but alas!  Apparently she was created with long hair that covered her good parts.

The museum's point of view is that at the time of creation 6000 years ago, the world was perfect.  No person and no animal died, and everyone lived in harmony.  And everything bad in the world today, including the immorality of young people, all disease, all wars, and all hatred, is the result of Adam and Eve's eating of the forbidden fruit.  What a faux pas that was!

I found it interesting that whoever was in charge of the design of this museum had a rather advanced view of evolution as compared with the more extreme versions of creationism.  Signs told us that they believe that natural selection does occur, and in fact can result in changes within species.  But the distinction, they write, is that the theory of evolution insists that all life developed from a single-celled ancestor (although I know that was not a part of Darwin's original theory), and they don't accept that.  I suspect that the museum's view is that evolution from one species to another does not occur, but that wasn't spelled out specifically.

Quite a few dinosaur skeletons and dinosaur sculptures were displayed.

So they accept that many species have gone extinct but do not believe that new species have sprung up.

Down the road is the Ark Museum (a sister to this Creation Museum), which we will be visiting in a few days, to complete our study of biblical history.  There a replica of the historical ark has been constructed, supposedly the exact size of the original, according to the dimensions specified in the Bible.  And that should be exciting to see.  But there was also a small section here concerning the building of the ark by Noah and his family.  I had always wondered how all the animals in the world, including elephants and dinosaurs, were supposed to fit on the ark, and their explanation is that Noah selected young animals, which were of course smaller.  I was also curious how Noah and his family dealt with the waste products of the menagerie aboard, but that answer will have to wait until we climb aboard the ark at the other museum.