The Creation Museum serves as a theme park of "Disneyland" for visitors who want to believe in the literal word of the Christian Holy Bible . . .most of which was written thousands of years ago and was based in part of even older superstitious myths from other ancient faiths. Through the years many dedicated holy men have attempted to resolve its inconsistencies and contradictions through a variety of interpretations.

With this goal in mind no expense has been spared in the buildings, displays and grounds.  The result is sort of a marvelous fairy tale land based upon the beliefs held by many millions of fundamentalist Christians. As you will see in the following photos there are beautifully maintained grounds with ponds, bridges, lush vegetation, and zoo creatures.  The sprawling buildings contain a planetarium, auditorium and meeting rooms where quasi-scientific presentations are given. The displays contain life-size biblical scenarios with beautiful backgrounds and splendidly-dressed mannequins. There is a Noah's ark under construction by life-like  statues. To make all of this interesting for youngsters there are dinosaurs everywhere, complete with explanations for their rescue on the ark as well as explanations as to why there have never been fossils of man and dinosaurs found together in rock strata . . . and a belief that the rock strata containing their fossils was laid down after the great flood 4,000 years ago.

The museum's displays are built around these old beliefs and attempt to prove scientific research to be faulty wherever it cannot be made compatible with the words in the holy book. The displays claim as fact that the earth was created in six days only 6,000 years ago. This figure, by the way, has been disputed by every reputable scientist and scholar who make the analogy that such a measurement may be likened to crossing a New York city street while the actual distance would be more like walking from New York to Los Angeles.

The museum obviously speaks to a large portion of the populace. 51% of American respondents in a CNN public opinion poll discount Darwinian evolution entirely; another 34% accept the idea, but believe the process was directed by God. That's a total 85% of American people rejecting non-supernatural evolution.

The only alternate view to creationism that I found in the museum was a dark corner display that tried to lay some doubt on the beliefs of former super-evangelist, Canadian Charles Templeton. Photos and text of that display follow below.

TEMPLETON DENIES FAITH
Famed Christian Evangelist Accepts Evolution
Becomes Atheist Evangelist
(Transcribed from the accompanying photo taken in a museum display) Born in 1915, Charles Templeton was generally acknowledged to be the most versatile of the new young evangelists. Templeton soon rose to prominence, even surpassing another dynamic young preacher, Billy Graham. In 1946 he was listed among those best used of God by the National Association of Evangelicals.

As the pastor of the rapidly growing Avenue Road Church in Toronto, which he had started with only his family and a few friends, Tempelton also became one of three vice presidents of the newly formed Youth For Christ organization in 1945. He then nominated his good friend, Billy Graham, to be field evangelist for the new ministry. Templeton, Graham, and a few others regularly spoke to thousands, winning many to Christ both in America and in Europe.

Newspapers and magazines carried reports of his meetings informing readers he was winning 150 converts a night. In Evansville, Indiana, the total attendance over the two-week campaign was 91,000 out of a population of 128,000. Church attendance went up 17%.

However, despite his popularity and seeming success as an evangelist, all was not well with Charles Templeton. The more he read, the more he found he was beginning to question the essentials in the Christian faith because he could no longer believe God's Word beginning with Genesis. 

. . . Templeton, like Charles Darwin, had a big problem understanding how one could reconcile an earth full of death, disease, and suffering with the God of the Bible. 

Templeton states:
"Why does God's grand design require creatures with teeth designed to crush spines or rend flesh, claws fashioned to seize and tear, venom to paralyze, mouths to suck blood, coils to constrict and smother -- even expandable jaws so that prey may be swallowed whole and alive? . . . Nature is in Tennyson's vivid phrase, 'red in tooth and claw,' and life is a carnival of blood."

Templeton then concludes, "How could a loving and omnipotent God create such horrors as we have been contemplating?"

One can fully understand his dilemma considering he was indoctrinated to believe the earth was billions of years old. Since the fossil record would therefore represent billions of years of earth history, he would have to believe that the same death, disease, and suffering in the world around us has been going on for millions and millions of years and cannot be the result of sin, the Fall and the Curse. . . .

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From Bill Hillman's 
REASON vs. SUPERNATURAL SERIES 
A COMPENDIUM OF QUOTES BY FREE THINKERS THROUGHOUT HISTORY 
www.hillmanweb.com/reason
Charles Templeton (1915-2001) ~ Canadian journalist, novelist and politician. If God's love encompasses the whole world and if everyone who does not believe in him will perish, then surely this question needs to be asked: When, after two thousand years, does God's plan kick in for the billion people he "so loves" in China? Or for the 840 million in India? Or the millions in Japan, Afghanistan, Siberia, Egypt, Burma -- and on and on? . . . Should one continue to base one's life on a system of belief that -- for  all its occasional wisdom and frequent beauty -- is demonstrably untrue? 

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Charles Templeton entry in Wikipedia
Charles Templeton Obituary

Creation Museum Adds Zip Lines And Other Secular Fare, 
As Ticket Sales Decline The Huffington Post ~ June 5, 2014
Reports surfaced today of a vast, secular outdoor complex in the works at Kentucky's controversial Creation Museum. The network of 20 zip lines and 10 sky bridges opens June 20, and is set to be the largest of its kind in the Midwest. The hope is to attract “people who might not be interested in the [museum] but...have zip lines on their bucket lists,” the museum's vice president Mike Zovath told an ABC affiliate. . . . The museum aims to tell the story of creation according to biblical scripture rather than evolutionary or other scientific theory. When it opened in 2007, it drew upwards of 400,000 visitors in a year, around twice its expected yield. But for the past four years, fewer and fewer people have headed to Petersburg, Ky to sit on dinosaur models and watch Adam and Eve canoodle, culminating in a record 10 percent drop in attendance last year. . . . At stake is the fate of Ark Encounter, the museum’s planned theme park. As of this February, the park, and its “‘full-size’ replica of Noah’s ark,” looked unlikely to materialize, due to poor ticket sales and fundraising that has “slowed to a crawl,” according to Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern. >>>More>>>

JOIN US ON A VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE MUSEUM So, whether you are guided by faith or reason, I'm sure you will enjoy the images that we have displayed over the following pages. Most visitors seem to enjoy their visit on some level, although there is a strict code of behaviour and dress as noted on the entrance sign. The grounds and buildings are patrolled by very stern uniformed guards who enforce the dictates on the sign.

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