Myths Revered and Myths Exposed

Two very different museum exhibits have hit the news recently (5/26/07).

First the bad news: "Creation Museum juxtaposes dinosaurs, Noah's Ark"
This monument to stupidity in Petersburg, Kentucky was erected under the direction of Ken Ham. He's the expatriate Queenslander who founded the oxymoronically-titled Answers in Genesis ministry. Ham's "non-profit" organization came up with $27 million to build a 60,000-square-foot museum devoted to biblical literacy and creation mythology.

Says Ham, "The Bible doesn't talk about fossils, but it gives you a basis for understanding why there are fossils around the world."

Understanding? Ham is not interested in understanding, Ham is interested in promoting nonsensical insistence that Genesis is not allegorical. Of course the Bible doesn't mention fossils – the ancient tribesmen of Israel who invented the Genesis-creation-myth knew nothing of fossils.

"Christians across this nation see this place as a rallying point," Ham said. They "recognize that we live in a culture that no longer believes the Bible is true."

Misleading! Only some Christians are so deluded that they believe that the Bible is literal, though I suppose that religious dogmatists are spread across America. The museum is actually a rallying point only for those Christians who are so ignorant as to insist upon Special Creation. The only good news is Ham's admission that most of the "culture" no longer takes the Bible literally.

Ham said the museum received three gifts topping $1 million, which only goes to demonstrate that the deluded may become rich. On the other hand, perhaps chimpanzees have funded this inanity in order to divorce themselves from the deluded amongst their cousins.

Ham has filled the museum not with dioramas but with lie-oramas, displays that lie about paleontology. The dinosaurs disappeared some 65 million years ago, when the only evidence of mammalian ancestors comprised tiny insectivores. Hominids did not evolve until the Miocene.

Why dinosaurs in such an exhibit? Children love dinosaurs, and if you wish to inculcate creation myths into another generation you must con the kiddies.

To demonstrate that two can play at the game of deceptive imagery, I have created the Ham-headed-dinosaur to illustrate "Different Views of Dinosaurs".

Some good news is that Ham's lie-oramas have excited well-deserved criticism and that protests are planned.

The other exhibit deals with the phenomenon of myth building in a realistic way:
Dragons and other mythic creatures featured in NYC museum exhibit

"What's going on? Has one of the pre-eminent science museums in the world made a find that would show these creatures are real? No, no, the exhibit actually looks at how people have come up with all kinds of myths and stories to account for things they didn't understand.

The exhibit shows how cultures around the world came up with such strange, mysterious creatures. Dragons, for instance, can be found both in the East and West, although they're considerably more benevolent in Chinese culture than they are in Europe. "

That's more like it – display that consititutes an acknowledment that ignorance promoted fantasy.

More mutterings about the stupidity that is creationism:
ɷ Creationism only flourishes amidst Ignorance
ɷ un-designed intelligences
ɷ Judge Jones Rules
ɷ The Wedge Document

Quo Vadis?
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