My friend Graham posted something on FB the other day about the Creation Museum, a vast expensive building and education center to spread the truth about Creationism and the heresy of evolution.

There are some photographs here that give you a rather tongue in cheek take on some of the exhibits.

For those of you who thought that Creationism of this kind is a fringe, even lunatic belief- think again. The museum is huge, must have cost a fortune, and is the centre of a thriving industry of teaching materials (mostly home schooling) for the religious right in the USA.

They teach that the world is 6 thousand years old. All evidence to the contrary (which can not be true or the Bible would have said something different) is debunked, countered with sometimes bizarre logic. Dinosaurs died in the flood- which also explains fossils. Eroded gorges like the grand canyon were made because of the receding flood waters. It must be true because it has been declared to be so by creation ‘scientists’.

If you want to know more about what Creationist would have us know about science, and the truth that can be found in the Biblical account, then check out this debate. It is rather long, so skip about a bit;

Does this matter? Michaela contends that it does not- she does not care how old the earth is, or what people chose to believe about it. In one sense I agree with her. The American mid west with its enclosed rigid enculturised religion stands for so much that I find problematic, so I should not be surprised that they put up multi million dollar museums to tell us that the world is flat (to be fair I am not sure they do think the world is flat- which is interesting in itself, as they seem to have ignored that part of the Bible’s description of how things are.)

On another level it does matter however- it relates to Bible-worship. If you elevate the words of a book (or your interpretation of the words of a book) above everything else – above science, above good sense, above grace, above what we know about the way Jesus behaved – then you will end up with this;

Image from here.

Of course it is, because the Bible is full of dinosaurs…

For the record, I believe that the world was created. How this happened, and how it still is being worked out in expanding creativity is the business of science.

The meaning of it all is the business of faith.

Because science can tell us an amazing story, but can never tell us why. It can never tell us about supernovas and the thousands of years their light takes to reach us, but it can not tell us much about why, out of all the million eyes watching, ours are the only ones (we know of) that are able to consciously reflect on the beauty of what we are seeing.