The Creation Museum: More about the founder’s fears than their faith

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Savannah Cox, writing in Salon about the Creation Museum Petersburg KY:

A closer look at the Petersburg attraction reveals that the questions raised in the museum are deeply existential, and ones which are steeped in — and troubled by — an atheistic logic: If it is indeed true that Adam and Eve did not literally exist, as science says, then there is no original sin. If there is no original sin, then Jesus did not have to die for it. If Jesus did die, but not for our sins, then why is he our savior? If he is not our savior, then what is he? What are we?

Viewed this way, the Creation Museum becomes less of a clearly demarcated home for the irrational, but rather a metaphysical space for individuals deeply troubled by emerging forms of authoritative rationality. The museum complex, which sprawls over dozens of acres, is less of an amusement park for fanatics and more of a fortress for the vanishing fearful. It is a space where the likeminded can physically enter a mindset that they know, and that they worry — if science has anything to say about it — might one day become unknown. Questions of social justice, evolution and humankind’s place in the universe are answered here — and usually in 150 pages or less. Indeed, the Creation Museum offers itself as a vital, life-affirming buffer against the spiritually weathering effects, and warnings, of coming worlds.

Source: My Creation Museum quest: A skeptic’s genuine search for faith, science and humanity in a most unlikely place – Salon.com

Cox concludes: “If only the museum’s founders believed enough in their own faith to see them through it.”

The Author

Episcopal bishop, dad, astronomer, erstwhile dancer...