Because of distance and three adorable and energetic kids, my best friend and I rarely have the luxury of spending time alone. But last Friday, we had the pleasure of spending an entire afternoon together. After lunch, we found ourselves at the Cincinnati Art Museum, and after wandering the galleries for about a half-hour, I asked an innocent question about other museums in the area. With a mischievous grin, my friend informed me that the Creation Museum was just a short drive over the state line into Kentucky.

It took us less than a second to decide to ditch the art museum and head south. I suggested that we might want to sin as much as possible before we got there, going so far as to ask if she wanted to make out. She thought that because there was unlikely to be a confessional or a Catholic priest at a fundamentalist museum, committing sins was kind of pointless.  So, we didn't make out. But I swore a lot on the way, just in case.

As we drove the half-hour distance, we laid out some ground rules. We know ourselves very well, my friend and I, and we laugh a lot--especially over the ridiculous and the unintentionally ironic. The last thing we wanted to be was openly rude and disrespectful. There could be absolutely no eye contact or talking during the visit.

At a quick stop for gas, I was horrified to realize that they would know immediately that we weren't members of their clan. I'd forgotten about my Obama bumper sticker. We spent some time discussing whether it would be necessary to park down the road and walk, but as we neared the museum site, we realized that wouldn't be possible. The Creation Museum is located on a sizeable campus in the middle of nowhere, complete with the 70,000 square foot museum as well as a petting zoo and botanical gardens that I'm sure are lovely in the spring, summer, and fall.

Plan B was to sneak the car into the parking lot and find a spot I could back into so as to hide my bumper. Unfortunately, there was a traffic guard, and he directed us down an aisle where he had full view of my allegiance. I still backed into a spot because I didn't want to take any chances but all my worry was for nothing. The traffic guard was absolutely lovely to us as we walked by him and into the museum. I would have preferred if he hadn't offered the "God bless you, ladies," but when in Rome, right?

Upon entrance, we were greeted, or more like accosted, by a docent-type, who was also lovely, if a little earnest. He talked to us for five minutes that felt like twenty, but he was kind. He tried his best to convince us that we should hang up our coats, since it was a long walk through the warm museum and we'd end up carrying them. But I was wearing my "Blasphemy is a victimless crime" t-shirt, so I demurred. Just kidding. I was freezing. He tried really hard though, so I felt bad.

It was a slow day at the museum, so the docent stayed with us all the way down the entrance hall from the coat check to the ticket counter where we dropped $46.00 for two tickets. He let us know, helpfully, that if we decided to purchase an annual membership, the price of the tickets would be applied to the membership fee. You might be thinking at this point that $23.00 per person is sort of expensive. And I suppose if you're looking at it from the position that you're paying to visit a place that is unmoored from reality, you might have a point. But from my perspective, we were paying for an anthropological experience, so to me, it was worth every penny. Plus, my friend paid.

After purchasing our tickets, we were directed to stand in front of a green screen, look up at some dinosaurs above us, and give the photographer our best frightened face. Had I known then that the reason dinosaurs are extinct is that people killed them to show off, I would have put on my best badass face instead. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The entrance to the Dragon Hall Bookstore was off to the left of the beginning of the exhibit hall. I wondered for a second at a Christian museum perpetuating what I thought was a pagan myth, but my questions would be answered later. See if you can guess how.

Before I get in to the actual content of the museum, let me say that the exhibit itself is very well done. It has the feel of a natural history museum and makes effective use of multimedia and animatronics to tell its story. It's the kind of place where kids won't be bored to tears, and it tells its story in about two hours, which for me is a sort of museum witching hour. After two hours in a museum, I'd better be getting a nap or some coffee or I'm going to get cranky.

After we entered the exhibit hall, we were pretty much left alone to our wandering, encountering only three or four other groups of people. So we were safe to look and read and listen as we were led through the book of Genesis. We carefully examined everything except the evidence against global warming. It was toward the end and at that point, our capacity to be intellectually indulgent was waning.

We were also fairly proud of ourselves to have mostly kept to our "no eye contact, no talking" rule, with only a couple of slip ups and snickers. There was just one time when we had to move to separate corners of a room until we were able to stop ourselves from shaking with silent laughter. To be fair, it was my friend's fault. A video explained that tectonic plates were basically riding on top of the oceans and that, just like when ice cubes are dropped into a glass of water, external stimuli (i.e., the great flood) could cause the plates to shift. The premise prompted my friend to wonder out loud if everybody in Australia jumped up and down at the same time, whether the island would bob. 

Speaking of Australia, I was very concerned how, without evolution as an explanation, the kangaroos got to the island after getting off of Noah's ark. The museum did address it, but it was the only answer that didn't fit well into their framework of logic. In case you're wondering, to me, that framework boiled down to the following:

1. I used to have a bike.
2. I don't have a bike anymore.
3. Therefore, I am a fish.

But inside the museum, the framework was fairly consistent. Everyone has the same facts, we were told, but we don't all have the same starting point. From the Biblical starting point, it is supposed to make perfect sense that dinosaurs and penguins lived alongside Adam and Eve, and every other creature that has ever existed, in the Garden of Eden.

The genius of the museum is that at every point where doubt started to creep in, the doubt was addressed. For example, just after I wondered about how kangaroos got to Australia, my question was answered, in the framework of the Biblical starting point. My friend wondered about how the tectonic plates shifted and a few minutes later, there was the explanation. It happened again and again during the course of two hours. Whenever you started to wonder, your doubt would (purportedly) be erased.

Doubt is clearly an enemy, as it usually is when trying to disseminate a belief that is contrary to human experience. Another enemy is reason. Frequently in the museum, we came upon comparisons of human reason vs. God's truth.

• Human reason says the Grand Canyon was carved out over millions of years of slow erosion as the Colorado river wound its way through. God's truth says it created in a few weeks by the force of water during the great flood.
• Human reason says that Homo Sapiens evolved from Homo Erectus, and before them Neanderthals, and before them Apes. God's truth says that all creatures were created on the sixth day and there is no such thing as evolution. (But, as a neat aside, there is such a thing as change, which species undergo to meet changing conditions in their environments. But it's not evolution, so please don't call it that.)
• Human reason says that dinosaurs became extinct over 65 million years ago. God's truth leads us to conclude that they were actually on the ark and later (when they were called dragons), they were driven to extinction  by people who killed them because dragons were scary. Or alternatively to show off.
• Human reason says that the world is millions of years old. God's truth says that it is 6,000 years old. And please don't bring up the footprint they just found and dated to be 1.5 million years old, because that is not a fact, but a conclusion reached by starting at a different starting point.

The heartbreaking genius of the argument is that there is no place for any evolution, even of thought. There is an answer for every "what if" and absolutely no room for unanswered questions. Unanswered questions lead to thinking and thinking is bad. Knowing is good and we know God's truth. Going around in that circle for two hours hurt my head a bit.

There are so many fallacies in the museum's logic that it is impossible to address them all. I encourage everyone to visit, if only to gain a greater understanding of how far some people will go to delude themselves. Also, if you love irony like I do, you can visit the bookstore to lay your eyes on a copy of the book The Fallacy Detective: 36 Lessons on How to Recognize Bad Reasoning. 

The good news is that, at the museum, I got a "get into heaven" card. All I have to do is sign the back and I've got my ticket. To my friends: I would have picked up cards for everyone, but there was a sign that said I could only take one. Sorry. I'm sure you'll meet nice people in that other place.

And finally, I leave you with the hopeful news that at least some of the museum creators and curators have a sense of humor. In one still empty space a sign was posted, "This space still evolving."

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Cross posted at Dagblog.com, where whether to legalize pot is a recent topic of conversation. Dinosaurs on Noah's Ark and pot. Hmmmm.