Excellent analysis of the Creation “Museum”

[marmar]

from Pharyngula:



Excellent analysis of the Creation “Museum”
Posted on: July 13, 2010 2:40 PM, by PZ Myers


People are still going to the ghastly Creation "Museum" in Kentucky — it's actually doing a bang-up business. Fortunately, some of the people going are critics who can see its troubling flaws.

When I went, what leapt out at me was the intellectual dishonesty of the place; it mimics a museum, but it isn't, and it pretends to understand evolution when it doesn't. I walked through it with a little alarm bell in my head going "wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong" nonstop.

Ideas Man picks up on another aspect of the "museum": it's a temple to fear. Everywhere you go, it portrays violence and bloody conflict, not just as the legacy of our past, but something to prepare for right now. I pointed out the raving paranoia of Ken Ham earlier, and honestly, the museum is the product of a mind convinced that it is persecuted, that there shall be redemption in blood, and that mass murder really is justifiable if God says so.

The whole flood exhibit is particularly appalling. Look at the loving detail in this diorama; those are the sinners suffering and dying in God's global punishment. There was a very cold video being shown there, portraying children playing innocently in a small village when the awful wave of the coming deluge rises on the horizon…and all are killed. It's very weird that on the one hand, they portray secular life as depravity and drugs and sex and crime, but on the other, their god is an unholy monster who slaughters children — and that's OK!

What the "museum" actually is is an effective exhibit of intellectual terrorism — you will accept its worldview, or you will die horribly. And if you already accept that view, you can smugly wallow in the certainty that all those elitist jerks who think they're smarter than you will suffer.

Let's ask ourselves, once again, what the museum actually does. If it in fact does something very well and if the thing that it does it does as a function of its central narrative, we ought to assume that that is its primary ideological function. It is from this perspective that we'll understand the Museum as a work of art, an ideological work of art, art for the sake of ideology or, perhaps, better, ideology for the sake of ideology.

What exactly did the museum do?

It scared. It scared us because it's scary. And it's scary because it's supposed to be scary.

So why is it supposed to be scary? How does its fear function? Let's see if we can hear anything from the horse's mouth:

One of the things that Ken Hamm told us when he was was giving his presentation was along the following lines: "you know, a lot of people ask me why we have such a realistic scene of Adam sacrificing an animal right when you walk into the Corruption room, but actually that's one of my favorite exhibits because it shows the importance of sacrifice. It shows that we need to sacrifice to live after the Fall."

Did you notice the weird shift that happened there?

Sacrifice is an important theme in Christianity, right? Well, of course. After the Fall, we are all mortal and our morality means suffering. Our suffering means loss. Loss means economy and sacrifice. On the traditional account, Christ "pays the infinite debt for us." In other words on the traditional account, self-sacrifice is the redemption of suffering.

That's not exactly how it works in the Creation Museum's logic: there, sacrifice is demanded because the world is a bloody place. We don't see Adam suffering: we see Adam sacrificing. Christ's death isn't taken to redeem the suffering of Adam, it's a grotesque mimicry of the sacrifice we saw him doing. Suffering is passive. Sacrifice is active.

It's a violent world. The message of the "museum" is to revel in that violence, because it is God's will. And you can help!


http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/excellent_analysis_of_the_crea.php

[Scurrilous]

1. K & R

:thumbsup:

[tanyev]

2. A 3-D Hieronymous Bosch painting for modern eyes.

[branders seine]

3. most of what theists believe is laughably ridiculous nonsense,

but even if it weren't, I want nothing to do with them or their sadistic "god."

[burnsei sensei]

4. Here is my answer to the Creation Museum:

:puke:

[EstimatedProphet]

5. Well, there's that, and the fact that they're wrong and batshit-crazy delusional...

[Warren DeMontague]

6. I have to believe that a good chunk of their business is hipsters who get high in the parking lot

first.

If I were a 20something in Kentucky with not much to do on the weekend, that would probably cross my mind.

[Taitertots]

9. I think the laughter would be a problem

I know if I got baked and tried to watch something that stupid the laughter would be so uproarious and nonstop that it would draw attention from the staff.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. What are they gonna do?

"Hey- I paid my ten bucks. No one said I couldn't laugh."

[Taitertots]

16. They could kick me out

Even if I got my $10 refunded I'd still be out an afternoon, gas money, and a doobie.

[MisterP]

7. John Scalzi said it best:

Imagine, if you will, a load of horseshit. And we’re not talking just your average load of horseshit; no, we’re talking colossal load of horsehit. An epic load of horseshit. The kind of load of horseshit that has accreted over decades and has developed its own sort of ecosystem, from the flyblown chunks at the perimeter, down into the heated and decomposing center, generating explosive levels of methane as bacteria feast merrily on vintage, liquified crap. This is a Herculean load of horseshit, friends, the likes of which has not been seen since the days of Augeas.

...

And so this guy who loves this load of horseshit decides that he’s going to do something; he’s going to give it a home. And not just any home, because as this is no ordinary load of horseshit, so must its home be no ordinary repository for horseshit. And so the fellow builds a temple for his load of horseshit. The finest architects scope this temple’s dimensions; the most excellent builders hoist columns around the load of horseshit and cap them with a cunning and elegant dome; and every surface of the temple is clad in fine-grained Italian marble by the most competent masons in a three-state radius. The load of horseshit is surrounded by comfortable seats, the better for people to gaze upon it; docents are hired to expertly describe its history and features; multimedia events are designed to explain its superior nature, relative not only to other loads of horseshit which may compete in loadosity or horseshittery, but to other, completely unrelated things which may or may not be loads of anything, much less loads of horseshit.

The guy who built the temple, satisfied that it truly represents his beloved load of horseshit in the best possible light, then opens the temple to the public, to attract not only the already-established horseshit enthusiasts, but possibly to entice new people to come and gaze on the horseshit, and to, well, who knows, admire its moundyness, or the way it piles just so, to nod in appreciation of the rationalizations for its excellence or to clap in delight and take pictures when an escaping swell of methane causes the load of horseshit to sigh a moist and pungent sigh.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2007/11/12/your-creation-museum-report/

for full disclosure, I think very little of both Myers and Ham; Ham, after all, is for eating

[underpants]

8. We were in Cinci and the beginning of June and wanted to find a "dinosaur museum" for Josie

everyone we asked threw in a "well there the creation museum in..." at which point I interrupted with "No we aren't going there". This was usually followed by a laugh.

We went to the old train station. Lots of dinosaur reconstructions for Josie to enjoy.

[Odin2005]

11. These people are fucked up in the head.

[Angry Dragon]

12. The museum is in Kentucky

is that where rand paul gets all his facts??

[Initech]

13. It looks like the whole idea of Intelligent Design was derived from the Flintstones.

I mean this picture ALONE proves it's complete horseshit.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Is that guy wearing a Members Only jacket?

Shit, now Dinosaurs weren't just around in Biblical times, they were around in the 80s, too? :shrug:

[voteearlyvoteoften]

15. sunday rec