Scott Trimble

This week, while on my 9th Annual New Years Eve Roadtrip (to Charleston, West Virginia, but I am passing through many other places as well), I went to Petersburg, Kentucky, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, to visit the controversial Creation Museum that opened just this last May.

I’ve been asked why, as a scientifically-minded atheist and skeptic, I would ever want to go there, but I think it’s important that we occasionally look at things from other points of view, if only to better understand other people.

Also, my degree at Cal was in Anthropology, and, really, this was certainly a unique opportunity to study another culture, that of devout Christians who actually believe that Earth is only around six thousand years old.

That aspect of the museum surprised me. I knew that it preached Creationism, but I wasn’t sure whether or not it specifically sided with young earth Creationism. In fact, the museum even went so far as to show that humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time up until shortly after Noah’s Ark and the great flood.

As I progressed through the very impressive displays (some of the people and creatures were actually audio-animatronic, just like at Disneyland), I was comforted at first by the fact that they seemed to be showing both sides: Human Understanding (i.e. science) vs. God’s Word (i.e. the Bible). Fair enough; let people make up their own minds.

That didn’t last long, though. They soon showed that our embracing of science has led us astray and that our abandoning of the scriptures has led to all that they perceive to be “bad” in the world. What a load of crap. The rest of the exhibits were purely in favor of the God’s Word side of things, taking the Bible as literal fact.

Overall, even though their “science” was not really science, and even though just about everything they showed was completely absurd, I didn’t really object all that much to the museum itself. I’m a Libertarian too, meaning that I feel that anybody can do whatever they want as long as they don’t harm anybody else. Thus, if somebody wants to spend $27 million on a stupid museum, that’s their right to do so. Nobody forced me to visit. Nobody forced me to believe.

The thing that did bother me was just how popular the museum appeared to be. Granted, that day might have had an unusual number of visitors, or maybe there were other “spies” like me (unlikely), but, surprisingly, the place was packed. Particularly distressing in that popularity were all the many children who gleefully absorbed all the exhibits. It reminded me of the recent documentary Jesus Camp. These kids were basically being indoctrinated (i.e. brainwashed) with all of these false ideas. They were being forced to believe — by their parents. And they represent the next generation of true believers, thus continuing the cycle.

Yes, it was slightly depressing seeing so many people buying into these fairy tales without using even a little bit of critical thinking. Although, I do also realize that human progress moves in waves (two steps forward, one step back) and that, to quote Richard Dawkins, the zeitgeist will still move, so I’m not too worried about it. There’s still so much religious mania in the world, but it’s nothing like a thousand years ago, so, a thousand years from now, maybe we will have mostly moved on from feebly clutching on to such ancient mythologies.

Anyway, I took lots of pictures, of course. Enjoy them, or not. And leave a comment, please. I’m curious how many of y’all think I’m going to burn in hell. Hah!

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