---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 1994 11:45:52 -0800
From: Rowan Fairgrove <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: CHAT: creationism museum
 
This appeared in a free newspaper in Davis, CA.
 
Rowan
 
------ Forwarded Message
 
Creationism Made Easy
By Marghe Covino
 
Nestled unsuspectingly in an industrial park fronting a freeway in
Santee near San Diego is the 17-year-old Museum of Creation and
Earth Science. The large, converted warehouse is the object of
devout pilgrimages from tourists and schoolchildren throughout the
state; true  believers who walk through the gallery listen to guides
debunk evolution, extol biblical lore and, thus, explain the origin of
the earth.
     I set out from Sacramento last winter on my own pilgrimage to
the museum--to find out how creationism is taught and what its
teachers are really advocating. See, I used to think the aim of
crestionism was straightforward: to get a new version of evolution
(like the earth is less than 10,000 years o1d) taught in America's
classrooms. But a walk through the museum indicated a deeper,
even more frightening goal. The aim involves proclaiming the truth
of creationist beliefs _globally_, linking the American right-wing
with other fundamentalist religions from around the world.
     Just after entering the museum comes a sign on the wall
proclaiming that most "other" religions are evolutionary and
therefore inferior at best and apostate at worst. Biblical passages
are quoted to demand that each visitor decide "where he stands on
this vital issue." One sign proclaims, "The Tree of Evolutionism
bears only corrupt fruits, Creadonism bears good fruits."
     Following that, one begins the tour, first strolling through
Genesis with its bright wall murals of space and planets. Presented,
among other things, there is "scientific evidence" debunking the
Big Bang theory and, moving on, the issue that God used 24-hour
days during the Creation, (no trying to get around it by saying that
the term "day" can be interpreted to mean millennium--you must
believe the absolute inerrant Word of God). And that's not all.
     Signs also announce the news that "many top astronorners are
abandoning the Big Bang theory." Raised concrete and bright paint
outline the earth and the cosmos as we move through the next
doorway (flanked by formed concrete trees and artificial greenery)
to the Garden of Eden. Much is made over God's directive that man
has "dominion" over the earth and its creaures. Indeed, the algae-
ridden fish tank, the little finches with scant food and water, the
tarantula with none, the mice climbing an endless wheel to escape
their cramped, airless cage, the poorly kept lizards and snakes were
there to prove dominion in no uncertain terms. "The billions of
fossils of both men or animals in the rocks of earth speak of sin
and death--not the evolution of life--they must ALL be dated
AFTER Adam's fall," a sign proclaims.
     The Flood exhibit is next, replete with theories about God
putting most of the large animals in a "hibernating state," a three-
dimensional mural of the inside of the ark; and "space
photographs" of the mountainous region in Ararat where the ark
was purported to have landed.
     Strobe lighting and water sounds then dumped us out into the
Ice Age. A guide intoned to the schoolchildren: "All of that water
had to go somewhere, so it probably was sent into making the
glacier in the Ice Age. The dinosaurs were in the ark and when the
Ice Age came they were caught in it and that's how come their
bones are found in various places, because they were left by the
glaciers."
     The Ice Age room was replete with concrete-formed blue-
painted stalactites and chilly temperatures. Everything leads to the
inescapable conclusion that this is a young universe. (Even director
Stephen Spielberg fell victim to this view when Orthodox rabbis in
Israel declared his movie, Jurassic Park, heretical because it
depicted evolution, which is contrary to the fundamentalist belief
of the earth's age.)
     Several sets of displays held odd collecdons that seemed
unrelated: monarch butterflies in one cage; a melted 45 rpm record,
a paintbrush, a rusty hook and a melted lab flask. Still another
display held a lengthy pictorial discourse on Mount St. Helens and
then moved on to the unreliability of radiometric dating. Still
another high-tech plastic sign gave "scientific" instructions like
"To determine the geological age of a fossil: Do NOT use depth
(where found); do NOT use type of rock; do NOT use radiometric
dating; do NOT use stage of evolution, DO use the Word of God."
     Cheap knock-off pottery and artifact displays--heavy on the
shekels and menorahs, oil lamps and widow's mites were in the
same location with Greek and Egyptian artifacts, human fossils and
something called "Post-Flood Man." Still another sign states:
"Cave men were not human, but weaker, probably degenerate
descendants of those migrating away from the Tower of Babel." Of
course, Babel was the hotbed of "evolutionary pantheism,
polytheistic idolatry, astrology and occult spiritism."
     The Egyptian, Sumerian and Greek civilizations were dismissed
as "man-centered, anti-Christian philosophies." Citing
Epicureanism (341-271 BC) and Zeno's Stoicism (336-264 BC) as
"opposing Paul's preaching," the Creation Museum blithely ignores
the fact that the theories were expounded prior to Paul's existence.
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are dismissed as "atheistic" or
"pantheistic." Meanwhile, animism is described as the basis for the
religions of "uncivilized tribes" and also the basis for Hindus,
Buddhists, Shintoists, Confucianists and Muslims.
     The Aztecs and Incas came in for more bashing about their
behavior--heathenism and human sacrifice--as we moved on to the
final display, what the guide called "our wall of infamy." On one
side of the hallway were the "Bible-believing scientists," while
evolutionists on the other side included Friedrich Nietzsche,
Andrew Carnegie, Karl Marx, John D. Rockefener and Charles
Darwin ... and his grandfather. Nazism, Communism and racism
were listed as "the fruits of evolution."
     The final display was called The Decadence of Pre-Columbian
Indian Societies. It was the culmination of the tour and featured the
opinion of former California Congressman William Dannemeyer
(that well-known pre-Columbian scholar) on the justification for
killing and enslaving the Indian peoples. It reads: "Homosexuality
was quite common in many pre-Columbian Indian societies.
Columbus discovered, with disgust and dismay, that both the
violent Caribs and relatively peaceful Arawaks practiced sodomy.
Cortez also found that sodomy was rampant among Indian tribes in
Mexico. The priestly caste of the Cempoallan tribe, for instance,
indulged in sodomy and homosexual prostitution was common
among the community.
     "Due to constant internecine warfare and ecological abuse the
Mayan civilization had already collapsed by the time the Spaniards
arrived. The residue left of that once-mighty culture was a people
that had retreated into abject barbarism.... It had become decadent
and self-indulgent. The pleasure-obsessed upper classes were
sacrificing human beings, indulging in orgies and practicing
sodomy without shame. The shocked Spaniards put the Mayans'
leaders to the sword."
     People, over 27,000 visitors have been through the museum
during the past year. I urge you to go experience it for yourselves.
Look. See the past and project the creationist future. It's mind-
blowing. It's free ... and worth every penny.
 
    Marghe Covino is a local free-lance writer and co-founder of
Project Tocsin, a Sacramento-based organization that monitors the
political activities of the religious right.
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