So yeah. It was an impulse trip. I had a week of vacation coming, and I had made plans but found them unexpectedly changed. I read about this museum opening and decided to make the trek out to take a look. I felt a bit weird about giving money to support this venture, but it certainly was interesting.

I do not have anything against Creationists per se. The real bottom line for me is not what you believe, but how you behave, and I have no reason to believe that people who believe in Creationism are likely to be drug addicts or criminals.

But anyway, the museum. They had a few security guards. I'm guessing they were expecting some people like me to show up, but I didn't see any protest outside. Nice big stone building, with a lot of landscaping underway in the back. The interior had a city museum look to it, with dark tiling and concrete walls. There was a ticket line, and a book store, and a little cafeteria.

My first stop after getting a ticket was the bookstore. Among the "Creationism pop-up" kiddie type books were also "scientific" books describing everything from how the glaciers were formed to why radioactive dating is wrong. I looked briefly at a book on the glaciers. It was full of lots of complicated equations and was written by someone with a PhD.

The theme in the museum was pretty much summarized by a set of three displays. The first laid out the "secular" version of existence, going from the big bang to the formation of the earth to the evolution of species. The second laid out the creationist version, from the 7 days, to the flood, to the tower of Babel. Then the third laid out five questions: "Why are we here?" "Are we alone?" "Is it safe?" "Is there hope?" and "What happens to us we die?" The Bible, the display said, had answers to those questions, while the secular version had nothing. So you see, we have our scientists who say that the evidence backs up creation, and they have their scientists who back up evolution, but we have this other stuff too that they don't. We have hope and community and a place you go when you die.

And that was pretty much the tone of the displays. Yes, they have their explanations, but we have ours. Creationism, they said, is a valid scientific alternative to evolution. We have people with PhDs who support it. Here's how it works. Here's the history of the world as we see it. And here is the end game. Accept our version and you get eternal salvation in the mix.

(I have one more entry planned later in the week.)