The Creation Museum

Yesterday, my friend Phyliss and I went on a road trip almost all the way through Kentucky to the town of Petersburg, so that we could visit the Creation Museum. Phyliss wanted to go, and asked on Facebook if any of her friends felt like a road trip, so I said, "Sure," but I want to get one thing out of the way first:

We did not go to make fun of people.

I was actually a little concerned about this, and discussed it with Phyliss before we went: "Why are we going? Because if it's just to make fun of people for their beliefs, that seems kind of mean, even if this particular belief is kind of stupid." I don't claim to be unbiased, but I felt like driving all that way just to walk around their museum and laugh at them was kind of cruel, and I try to avoid cruelty unless I think it's really necessary. Phyliss assured me that she wanted to go because she wanted a better understanding of why people believe in creationism, and that she really just wanted to get out of town for a day. That seemed innocent enough, so I agreed.

We went, we had a good time, and I learned some things and thought about some things. Before I get into what I learned, I want to get another thing out of the way: I didn't change my mind. I still disagree with their beliefs, I still think "Young Earth" theories of the planet being 6,000 years old or less are garbage, and I still think that "teaching the controversy" is a bunch of garbage, too.



Sorry, kids.

On to the things that I did learn:

1) Nobody there seemed overtly religious. I'll be honest: I expected to see a bunch of people praying, maybe some fundamentalist home-schoolers with a dozen kids and handmade extremely modest garments, and, honestly, way more Jesus, but for the most part the museum tries to present the idea of creationism in a serious sense, as if it is actually some form of legitimate science. The people lined up outside to get in looked like any people you might see waiting to get into a movie, or for school to open, or outside of in any line anywhere:







Granted, we only saw one family of color in the entire museum, so it was a pretty homogenous group of people, but they seemed incredibly normal for a crowd of irrational science rejecters. No one prayed, no one tried to convert us, there weren't any crucifixes in the gift shop, and really the only person who said anything religious to me all day was the lady who sold me my ticket:



and all she said was, "Have a blessed day." I hear that from people on campus all the time, and barely notice it. I only noticed yesterday because I was looking for it.

Seeing how normal everyone seemed was also a little disarming, though, like being in an episode of the "Twilight Zone" where everyone looks human but is actually an alien or a lizard person or an android inside.

2) I did see some things I expected to see. I saw cavemen and dinosaurs:



I saw displays proclaiming that "there's no ape in my family tree!":



and I saw books in the gift shop that confirmed that these people are, in fact, my enemy. That may sound a little harsh, but if they're going to sell books that explain that homosexuality is an abomination and that I'm going to hell for being one, then I'm not going to pretty up my language. They don't know me, but they hate me, so I feel justified in referring to them as enemies. They're definitely not my friends.

I also saw some religious displays. There's a whole section on Noah's Ark, including some adorably charming apocalyptic dioramas:



and we spent a lot of time walking through the "Garden of Eden"/Fall of Man display.

Things there started peacefully enough, with Adam frolicking in the bushes and naming the animals:



I tried really, really hard to see if naked Adam was anatomically correct, but was constantly thwarted by a well-placed penguin:



All of the animals lived happily together, and according to the signs they were also all vegetarian, which is why this dinosaur was clawing open a pineapple:



but then Eve came:



and fed Adam some berries:



and suffering was loosed upon the world:



And, also, weeds. Weeds exist because of Eve:



I also learned that Abel had no butt. Or pelvis. At least, that's my assumption based on the body:



but I guess I could just be interpreting that wrong.

3) Visiting the museum is like visiting a parallel universe where everything you know is wrong. The things that they present at the museum are packaged like science. There are displays that would be at home in any secular museum, like in the insect exhibit:







Some parts of it look very much like a legitimate secular institution of learning:



and that's how they make it so easy for people to believe in the irrational. The entire museum is founded on one idea, illustrated here:



It's the idea that the same evidence will lead you to the wrong conclusion if you start with the wrong assumption, and the museum spells out the difference between "man's word" (science) and "God's word" (the Bible) in almost every display. If you accept the idea that the Earth is only six thousand years old and was created exactly as described in the Bible, then all of the evidence in the world can be presented in a way that supports that. And if you don't believe it, all of the evidence in the world can be presented in a way that supports that view, too.

The museum and the people in it just feel bad for how misguided you are.

And I feel bad for the people in the museum.

Most Influential Book

On Day 18 of 30 Days of Blogging, I'm using up the last of Leo's three part question, but I'm pretty sure the answer is going to surprise her. Leo offered this topic:

most influential book

There are some books that have made a tremendous impact on me over the years, but the word "influential" really struck me when I was thinking about this and trying to narrow it down. My answer is a book that I've read cover to cover only once, although I've read pieces of it hundreds of times.

The book that has most influenced me is the Bible.

I live with the consequences of its influence every day, whether I want to or not.

This has been on my mind since spring break, because the week that we were there was also the week that the Supreme Court was hearing arguments for California's Proposition 8 case and for the challenge to part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. It's very strange to live in a country where your rights as a taxpaying citizen are a matter of debate, rather than actual rights. On some level this is the case for everyone, as recent votes and arguments over the right to health care, the right to keep and bear arms, and the ongoing battle that women face for the right to make health choices about what happens inside their own bodies have shown.

As a person who hears their validity as a human being debated on the nightly news, I have to tell you that sometimes it hurts. Sometimes I feel bad when I hear myself referred to as a pervert. Or a deviant. Or a threat to families or family values or the traditions that our society is built on. As I've said before, whenever the media discusses "LGBT people" or even just "the gays", I mentally insert myself into the sentence, and a lot of times that sentence ends up bothering me. I find out that people who don't know me hate me, and think horrible things about me, and that in our society this is considered a valid argument. Whether or not I should be able to enter into a legal contract to join my household to that of another consenting adult is not a given, because the other consenting adult and I both have a penis.

Why am I off on this tangent?

Because every time someone has told me that I am sick and wrong, it has been because of their religion. And in almost every case, that religion was based on the Bible. God made Adam and Eve, you know, not Adam and Steve. Thou shalt not lie with man as with woman. Sodom and Gomorrah.

Etc.

This is not to say that all religious people have hurt me, or that everyone influenced by the Bible has been negatively influenced. I'm just saying that the book that most influences me on a regular basis is that one. I feel it from October to January every year, when every store I go into reminds me that Christmas exists. I feel it every spring, when I get Good Friday off from work. I feel it at least once a week when someone reminds me that Tennessee is "the buckle of the Bible Belt".

The influence is pervasive and often unnoticed, but here where I live it is always present.

Your Baby Can Sleep on the Fifty Yard Line

Last week I wrote a little bit about Tennessee football and tried to explain why I like being a part of it, but I left out something important: the carnival sideshow atmosphere of people watching that comes with it. Yesterday was a banner day for football related oddities, which I got to see because I got there early for a tailgate:



That's probably not the best photo of my coworker, Josh, but it shows the huge volume of hot dogs that were coming off the grill. When six residence halls of students are invited to your tailgate, you need a lot of food. You also need festive entertainment, so they booked a band:



I didn't catch their name, but they seemed like great guys.

Right after the band left (they had another gig at a moonshine factory in Gatlinburg), a roving group of girls handed us our first oddity of the day:



Stadium cribs.

As posted at the bottom of the flyer, your baby can fall asleep every night on the fifty yard line of the replica Neyland Stadium that you install in their nursery. It's a Clown Bed for the new millennium. (A word that I can spell without looking it up thanks to the Backstreet Boys.) I can see being a football fan, but I can't decide if making your baby sleep in a fake stadium is adorable or creepy. On the one hand, you could decorate a really awesome nursery with a stadium crib as a centerpiece, but on the other hand, what if your baby doesn't like football? Or (God forbid) likes some other school?

Curious about how much this could cost if they were offering a $50 coupon, my friend Melissa looked it up on her iPhone. (I don't have a phone with internet, and we all know why.) Imagine our surprise when we discovered that for $400, the crib is not included.

It's $400 worth of bedding, specifically a dust ruffle, a fitted sheet, and a foam bumper. Amazon has informed me that similar sets are available at significantly lower prices, but those people who are content to let their babies fall asleep among frolicking teddy bears or smiling clouds and grinning suns are obviously not true Volunteer football fans.

You know, like Jesus was, according to this pamphlet I received yesterday:



That's General Neyland on the front. Our stadium is named after him, and, according to the pamphlet, "General Robert Neyland epitomized what it means to be a volunteer." He served in World War II and was an actual brigadier general, but he's better known as a former coach of our football team, who produced four national championships for the Volunteers during his tenure.

The pamphlet highlights this, but then goes on to remind us that, "despite all the greatness of General Neyland, he must bow the knee to a greater general and volunteer".

By which the pamphlet means, "Jesus."

I know that people say that football is a religion down here, but this pamphlet is the first thing I've seen that openly twists the two together, and it actually seems a little crazy. For every good point about General Neyland, the pamphlet one-ups him with Jesus:

Just as General Neyland left his home to serve his country, the Lord Jesus Christ laid aside His glory and left the praises of heaven to come to our rescue.

General Neyland left his home to fight for the liberties of his countrymen, but the Lord Jesus left His home to fight for a greater freedom.

General Neyland did not have to die for his country, but the Lord volunteered to lay down His life for sinners.

Unlike the great General Neyland, the Lord came to die for those who were and are his enemies.

I had no idea that General Neyland and Jesus were such competitive rivals, on and off the field. Eventually, though, Jesus brought home the championship:

The Lord Jesus Christ has done something for us that General Neyland could never do.

And then Mary tucked him into his Neyland Stadium crib, away in the manger, and all was right with the world.

Go Vols.

Where Dinosaurs Came From

A friend and I got into a minor squabble today about evolution, because we were talking about the recent passage of House Bill 368 here in Tennessee. It hasn't passed the senate or been signed by the governor, so it's not a law yet, but if it becomes one then the general interpretation of it is that teachers can feel free to teach intelligent design as a facet of the "scientific controversy" over evolution. My friend and I disagree over whether there is any controversy, since I believe in science, and evolution is science. My friend believes in intelligent design, and claims that it is also science.

I disagree.

To me, intelligent design is just creationism in a pseudoscientific package. Once you start trying to define the "intelligence" behind intelligent design, it starts sounding an awful lot like God, and God and science don't exactly go hand in hand. My friend disagrees, and then went on to say that, "Evolution is just a theory, anyway. Why not teach more than one theory?"

Rather than argue that my friend validates the theory of evolution every year by insisting on a new flu shot, I've decided instead that they're right: why not teach more than one theory? My friend Justin, who is pretty smart (I used to be smart, but I spent my twenties drowning my intellect in fried cheese and fruity drinks in gigantic glasses; now I'm sometimes confused by mirrors and often think that prime numbers have something to do with cuts of beef), explained this once by pointing out that in the same way that you should not bake muffins in gym class you should not discuss religion in science class because they have nothing to do with each other. I tend to agree, but where's the fun in that?

Instead, I want Tennessee to fully embrace this law by teaching multiple theories of evolution and the origin of life. I want the Darwinian model, of course, but would also like for them to cover intelligent design, spontaneous generation, Prometheus fashioning men from clay, twin brother hero-gods crafting the first men from maize and chili peppers, the Flying Spaghetti Monster touching Earth with his Noodly Appendage, the Great Egg splitting open and spilling forth All That Is Known, Earth-Woman falling from the sky to land on the back of a giant turtle, and Adventure Comics #333:



Our story opens with Superboy visiting his friends, the Legion of Superheroes, in their native time period of 30th Century Earth. There aren't any Sun Eaters or sentient buildings that need attention, so the Legion is working on an archeology project when they make a shocking discovery:



A strange metal tablet, you say? Let's check it out, with some science!



Radio carbon dating is real, adding further validity to this story. Anyway, the team decides to use their time bubbles to investigate this mysterious war between Krypton and Earth, so half of them go to ancient Krypton while the other half goes to ancient Earth.

Team Krypton runs into a little trouble, in that Krypton is a primitive planet with no scientists around, which makes it a little difficult to commit interstellar war. Saturn Girl may have a solution, though:



Superboy, by the way, is a total dick here.

"That's impossible, but even though you're probably wrong we'll go ahead and check out your lead, anyway."

At least he doesn't add that they're just humoring her because she's a girl. It wouldn't be at all surprising, given how rough women had it in Silver Age comics, but instead Superboy's reasons for being a dick in this particular case go unspoken. So does his apology for doubting her when they actually do run into a scientist:



It turns out that Krypton hates scientists because they accidentally obliterated a city through a nuclear accident, so the government banned all science in response, adhering to their campaign slogan of "Babies Shouldn't Be In Bathwater, Anyway!" The scientists are slowly constructing a space ark, so that they can go colonize prehistoric Earth, so the Legion decides to help:



Wait, did he just say they were bringing giant lizards?



Yeah, he did.

Meanwhile, back on prehistoric Earth, Brainiac 5's team makes a shocking discovery:



They found Atlantis:



They also found Leta Lal, complaining about the air quality.

Now, for those who don't know Silver Age comics, this girl might as well have a sign over her head that says "love interest", because you just know Superboy is going to fall for her. Superboy, and later Superman, continuously and consistently falls for the LL combo: Lana Lang, Lois Lane, Lori Lemaris, Luma Lynai, Lyla Lerrol, Lola-La, Lex Luthor... wait, that last one only happened in my imagination while I was watching "Smallville". Anyway, sure enough, the minute they set eyes on each other, sparks fly:



Unfortunately, Saturn Girl and Brainiac 5 immediately start bickering:



Two important things about that panel:

1) Superboy looks so irritated. "Guys, I'm trying to, you know, hit on this prehistoric alien chick over here. Could you keep it down?" Given that this is a Silver Age comic, they're lucky he didn't turn them into hags or force them both to marry Jimmy Olson just to teach them a lesson.

2) The Legion just started the war that they came back in time to investigate. By the end of the story, one of them will probably end up being their own grandfather.

There are several pages of fighting as the Kryptonian scientists battle the Vruunian colonists, aided by the Legionnaire instigators who, instead of being heroic, instead allow the hostilities to escalate to the point that the Kryptonians, who have been shunned on their own world for unleashing nuclear armageddon, decide that the best course of action is to unleash nuclear armageddon:



Saturn Girl, recognizing that the Kryptonian missle launch behind her is more important than the Kryptonian missle that Superboy's trying to launch over in Atlantis with Leta Lal, heads off disaster, and then Brainiac 5 makes a shocking discovery:



and suggests an even more shocking solution:





So, to sum things up, the Legion brings dinosaurs to Earth, starts a war, helps a bunch of people kill each other, stops the war that wouldn't have happened in the first place, and then invents Atlantis. As for those Kryptonian scientists, well:



It turns out that they got Jurassic Park-ed by their allegedly tame helper lizards.

So, what's the moral of the story?

Who cares? Morality has no place in high school Biology, where I'm going to lobby my local school board to be sure that "Adventure Comics" #333 is taught.