Creation Museum Creates Discomfort For Some Visitors

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Balstrome

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Kentucky's Creation Museum, a facility devoted to the belief that Earth and the universe are only 6,000 years old, is usually viewed in one of two ways: As a fun place where fundamentalist Christians can go to reaffirm their beliefs, or as the epicenter of a worldview ripe for mockery by scientists.

Now, a new analysis argues that for people already alienated by religious fundamentalism, the museum can be a painful reminder of discrimination and isolation.

The study, presented Sunday at the American Sociological Association meeting in Atlanta, took place over three in-depth visits to the museum over a year and a half. Bernadette Barton, a professor of sociology at Morehead State University in Kentucky, toured exhibits, attended museum lectures, observed museum guests and led a student field trip to the museum.

In her analysis, she argues that despite the museum's mission to reach out to believers and skeptics alike, the Creation Museum can be uncomfortable for non-fundamentalist visitors. [Discussion: Does science condemn God?]

A young Earth

Young Earth Creationism is the belief that everything in the Biblical book of Genesis is literally true: God created the universe in six 24-hour days 6,000 years ago; all mankind came from Adam and Eve; and the Garden of Eden is a lost paradise where humans and dinosaurs co-existed peacefully. Young Earth Creationists reject evolution, but may embrace a sort of short-term natural selection to explain biodiversity after Noah's Flood.

The Creation Museum, opened in 2007, puts its own brand of scientific explanations of creationism alongside exhibits of Adam and Eve, dinosaurs with humans, and Noah building his Ark. One exhibit, "Graffiti Alley," purports to show what happens when mankind abandons Young Earth Creationism. These consequences include the birth control pill, abortion, divorce, murder and gay marriage.

Though debates about creationism usually revolve around education, Barton visited the museum as part of a larger project on fundamentalist culture. She's particularly interested in why homophobia persists in the Bible Belt. This area spans the southern United States and parts of the Midwest and is marked by a high proportion of evangelical Protestants. In Kentucky, where the Creation Museum is located, 62 percent of residents describe themselves as fundamentalist.

"I was seeking to understand the fundamentalist framework," Barton told LiveScience. "I went there seeking to understand how people adhere to [a] set of beliefs that can, in my opinion, have sometimes destructive consequences."

Compulsory Christianity

Barton combined hours of observation and analysis of museum materials into an ethnography, a detailed narrative about a place and its culture that is often used in sociology. Unlike other research methods, the ethnography does not strive for impartiality; rather, the researchers recognize and reflect on their own reactions to what they see.

On her third trip to the museum, Barton took her undergraduate students, who found the visit unsettling. Several in the group were former fundamentalists who had since rejected that worldview. Several others were gay. In part because of these backgrounds, Barton said, the students were on edge at the museum. Particularly nerve-wracking were signs warning that guests could be asked to leave the premises at any time. The group's reservation confirmation also noted that museum staff reserved the right to kick the group off the property if they were not honest about the "purpose of [the] visit."

Because of these messages, Barton said, the students felt they might accidentally reveal themselves as nonbelievers and be asked to leave. This pressure is a form of "compulsory Christianity" that is common in a region known for its fundamentalism, Barton said. People who don't ascribe to fundamentalism often report the need to hide their thoughts for fear of being judged or snubbed.

At one point, Barton reported in her paper, a guard with a dog circled a student pointedly twice without saying anything. When he left, a museum patron approached the student and said, "The reason he did that is because of the way you're dressed. We know you're not religious; you just don't fit in." (The student was wearing leggings and a long shirt, Barton writes.)

The pressures were particularly tough for gay members of the group, thanks to exhibits discussing the sinfulness of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. A lesbian couple became paranoid about being near or touching one another, afraid they would be "found out," Barton writes. This "self-policing" is a common occurrence in same-sex relationships in the Bible Belt, Barton said.

Museum response

The museum does use guard dogs and employs strict warnings, said Jason Lisle, a speaker and astrophysics researcher at the Creation Museum. But, he said, the security is in response to death threats against museum organizers. The signs and warnings, he said, are because people will occasionally come to the museum to hand out anti-Creationist materials, disturbing other visitors.

"We know that the nature of the subject is controversial," Lisle said in a telephone interview. "It's just one of the things that we have to deal with in a fallen world."

Lisle defended the anti-gay messages in the museum as part of the museum's goal to stay true to Biblical teachings.

"I don't think we would kick them out for [holding hands in the museum]," he said. But, he added, he could understand why gay guests "might be uncomfortable."

"I would say, don't shoot the messenger," Lisle said.

Respect or repression?

Not every visitor to the museum comes away with the same feelings as Barton and her group. In 2007, University of South Dakota earth scientist Timothy Heaton visited the museum and described its portrayal of evolution as "respectful," if not accurate (though Heaton was offended by a video of angels mocking a science teacher).

Part of the reason behind the students' strong reactions may have been their close relationships with fundamentalist Christians. Seeing the museum's messages was a reminder of the disapproval the students felt from their own communities, Barton said.

"For my students that's like their moms and their dads and their aunts and their grandmothers and their neighbors and their church parishioners." she said.

Barton is combining the ethnography with interviews with gay and lesbian Bible Belt residents for a book to be published next year.
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yahoo news
 
What gets me, is not the anti-science, but the Nazi-Guard dogs they have on patrol in the place. You don't find that type of thing in proper real Museums.
 
Balstrome said:
What gets me, is not the anti-science, but the Nazi-Guard dogs they have on patrol in the place. You don't find that type of thing in proper real Museums.
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I remember an article where a bunch of rationalists went on a day trip there. Good read, I think it's on PZ Myer's site somewhere.
 
I wonder if those crazy @#!!$*s believe that "God Himself" is more than 6000 years old?

If so, what did "He" do for all those years before "He" decided to create little slaves for "Himself"? Did "He" sit and twiddle "His" thumbs (or some other part of "His" anatomy), or what?

Just curious.
 
adrianx said:
I wonder if those crazy @#!!$*s believe that "God Himself" is more than 6000 years old?

If so, what did "He" do for all those years before "He" decided to create little slaves for "Himself"? Did "He" sit and twiddle "His" thumbs (or some other part of "His" anatomy), or what?

Just curious.
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I believe he only invented time at that point, so it's a nonsensical question. :p
 
today i switched on my TV... but instead of working because of just about every single physical and chemical principle that governs the universe, i found out there's actually a little green alien inside, that warped space time, and created this giant billion year illusion of deductive reasoning, so I could watch a movie.
 
For me, the warnings and threats in the museum about being kicked out etc etc... are the true indicators that even the management of the Museum don't believe the message they're portraying...
 
ToxicBunny said:
For me, the warnings and threats in the museum about being kicked out etc etc... are the true indicators that even the management of the Museum don't believe the message they're portraying...
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They believe in the politics and the money, looong before anything else, no doubt.
 
adrianx said:
Hmm, OK, but I thought we invented time. Jeez, God gets credit for everything..... it's unfair! :mad:

:p
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lol, god did no such thing, we invented time. sorry copa but that is absurd. :D




A Quick thing I noticed though - let me put it in a scenario for you guys ;)

Visitor: I see you have dinosaurs on display here - how do you know there were dinosaurs?
Guide: Our Religion tells us so. Trust me, dinosaurs lived 2000-6000 years ago
Visitor: Does the Bible say there were Dinosaurs?
Guide: No, not really a lot about dinosaurs in the bible... only Mammals like whales, camels and such.
Visitor: So how do you know for a fact then?
Guide: Ok kid, we heard about the existence of dinosaurs from scientists and Archeologists, okay - they proved it.......but they are somehow wrong about when they lived, as the universe is only 6000 years old!
Visitor: But how do you know that?
Guide: The bible, written by men who lived 2000 or so years ago, said so.
Visitor: but they didn't even know about T-Rexes or Velociraptors?
Guide: no, they were there - people just didn't write about them
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And there you have it. :o
 
Keeper said:
lol, god did no such thing, we invented time. sorry copa but that is absurd. :D
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We invented time? Now that is news to me, I thought time is a fixed parameter of the universe, we just learned to make use of it (invented devices that can measure it etc.)
I am a Christian, but do not share the views of these fundamentalists that tend to interpret a lot more from the Bible than what I see in it. I simply don't see the relevance of this topic in the Natural Science section, as it seems to be deprived of any scientific value.

On the guard dogs remark. Having been to the US recently, I have seen these dogs in quite a lot of buildings (shopping malls, airports and at some other public areas).
 
werries2 said:
We invented time? Now that is news to me, I thought time is a fixed parameter of the universe
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Time is fixed eh?

And I thought it was all relative....



so tell me - does mars also have 24 hour days? do they also have 365 days in a year?
 
Keeper said:
Time is fixed eh?

And I thought it was all relative....



so tell me - does mars also have 24 hour days? do they also have 365 days in a year?
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Time is relative but fixed for a specific space.

As for the dumb question of time on Mars. An hour on Mars is equal to an hour on Earth if you use earth time. If time was measured on Mars (not earth time) and they decided that it is "also" a good idea to devide the day into 24 increments and call it hours, then Mars would also have a 24 hour day... (in fact the mars day is just slightly over 24 hours earth time). A year on Mars is almost double that of an earth year.

Again Time was not invented by us it was there already, we just found a way to measure it.
 
Time = Movement. that is all it is. we are just measuring movement when when measure time.

Measuring of this movement and calling it Time - was all us.
Same thing with speed. yep - it was always there (the law of speed) - but we invented it.







if we didn't invent it - then you are saying we didn't invent electricity either, as electricity was always there, too.




But basically what i'm saying is - there is no such thing as "time", if you can understand what i'm saying - all there is, is movement. we are just measuring movement, and calling it time.
time is a man-made thing!
 
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Keeper said:
Time = Movement. that is all it is. we are just measuring movement when when measure time.

Measuring of this movement and calling it Time - was all us.
Same thing with speed. yep - it was always there (the law of speed) - but we invented it.







if we didn't invent it - then you are saying we didn't invent electricity either, as electricity was always there, too.




But basically what i'm saying is - there is no such thing as "time", if you can understand what i'm saying - all there is, is movement. we are just measuring movement, and calling it time.
time is a man-made thing!
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Time is NOT a man made thing! In your example it is a man made concept but still it was there long before we have put a name to it. When the Neanderthals were still making animal sounds to communicate your "movement" was already there. We did not simply decide from now on we will have something like time?

I don't really like the description of time as measured movement, but if it helps you to understand it so be it.


Oh, Earth time was introduced by us humans to measure the duration of a day/week/month/year etc. The duration of a day (time) were there before we conceptualized it.
 
Of course it is!

a Day is measured by the rotation of the earth - Movement.
a Year is measured by the rotation of the earth AROUND the sun - movement.

That's all it is - measuring Movement!

read the first google result you get on "What is time"
http://www.timephysics.com/




Before man, the earth also rotated - sure - but that's just rotation / movement
it was US that measured it, and said OK we will split up 1 earth rotation into 24 hours, and split that up into 60 minutes.
 
besides - if we didn't invent time.............

why are there so many forms of it? why do the mayans/etc have different calanders? it's because we invented the concept of Time
 
A measurement is not an invention... Finding a way to measure something that was already there is hardly man-made.
 
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