God puts scientists out of work

For decades now, Christianity has left science to its own designs. Free of the constraints of church dogma, modern science has brought us miracles like the polio and smallpox vaccines, cyberspace, the human genome project and, of course, Segways. Faced with such heretical innovation, God is taking science back.

He seems to have grown tired of biologists, physicists, chemists and their faithless empirical cronies. Science and the church once played whimsically, trading insights and inhibitions. Then came the Enlightenment. Much to the dismay of apologists everywhere, Galileo, Charles Darwin and Bill Nye dealt deft blows to the Pope and his divinely inspired decrees.

Unwilling to let God fight those rational rebels alone, Evangelical America has come out swinging with a $27 million counterpunch. In a fit of pious posturing, Answers in Genesis-USA opened their very own museum on May 28. For the first time, the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky flung open its pearly gates to 4,000 Gospel-craving guests.

Our nation’s drift from reason grows vaster and deeper with every new year. Canada has its own Creation Museum. It cost $300,000. Ours cost $27 million. Canada’s Creation Museum is two hours north of Calgary, in a town of 308 people. Ours is right outside a major city. Their version sees minimal traffic. Ours will host a quarter of a million visitors this year.

Leaving empiricism to Smithsonian curators and Roswell conspiracy theorists, the good folks from Answers in Genesis chose to sink their tithe-taking teeth into the scientific teachings of scripture. Scientific may be the wrong word. Alas, it is the word they use.

“Where the Bible teaches on science,” says Answers in Genesis President Kenneth Ham, “we can trust it as the word of God.” This must be a comfort to our nation’s scientists. With the Old Testament explaining all phenomena, doctors and Nobel laureates can pack it in and live out their days in sunny Palm Springs.

Leave your pick-axes and microscopes at home and hop on down to Petersburg to see the “7 Cs of History:” Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Confusion, Christ, Cross and Consummation. It seems that history, like science, can be explained entirely by the Bible. Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas may not have existed at all.

While actual thought may be scarce, many titillating sideshows–disguised as genuine science–await your viewing pleasure.

Before even entering the exalted halls of the museum, you are greeted by a replica of the Earth, floating in a vast ocean. Our dear planet, by the way, is just 6,000 years old–a heartbeat in actual geologic time. If you are distressed by the departure from science or logic, the kind staff at the Creation Museum will gladly direct you to Jesus.

Jesus, the King of Kings, the pride of Nazareth, the Swingin’ Semite from Samaria. This great question mark of history is presented by Answers in Genesis as a pale white man! Not only that, so are Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, John the Baptist and Samuel L. Jackson. This confuses us, for while few things are certain about the Good Book, one thing is for sure: if these people existed, they were clearly not white. Try standing in Tel Aviv for an hour and see if you don’t get a tan. Now try living there.

We theorize that this was done to comfort staff and guests alike. But why? Please observe any and all photographs taken of people at the Creation Museum. We challenge you to find a single minority. Catholics don’t count. In truth, every single employee of this evangelical haven is white. Thou shalt not commit sin or have melanin. So sayeth Answers in Genesis.

Inside the hallowed halls of the Creation Museum, animatronics abound. You can converse with a life-size Paul and Mary as they explain the wonders of Jesus and espouse the Bible’s infallible truths.

These truths lead us back to the earth’s young age. At just six millennia, our world apparently never had the time to separate humans and dinosaurs. In a dazzling diorama, Tyrannosauruses Rex frolic with small children as kittens might play with balls of yarn. This is science, folks, in all its Godly glory.

Other truths from the Creation Museum reveal that the Grand Canyon was formed in a single, miraculous day of the Great Flood, that all dinosaurs were herbivores, that two of every Earthly animal fit onto a boat constructed by four Jews working with stone-age tools, that elephants floated to Africa on uprooted trees and that both pornography and abortion are based on a foolish belief in physics.

Why have we taken our time relating all this to our dear readers? Isn’t creationism just an intellectual sanctuary for a tiny piece of America? Afraid not, folks. According to a 2006 CBS News Poll, 51 percent of Americans believe that God created man and earth in their present form. Yes, you read correctly. More than half of our country believes the six-day story. A petrifying 15 percent of our citizens believe in evolution without God. According to Gallup, that’s five percent fewer than the number who believe the sun revolves around the Earth.

Every single, terrifying word of this is true. The rejection of logic began long before America’s foundation, yet for centuries we kept rationale in highest esteem. We once trusted nature, science and our fellow men. Not so today. What began in an explosion of thought and human passion now prostrates itself at an empty altar.

They who once held reason supreme now cower to a convenient God. Those who stood on the inestimable merit of their minds now lean on the easy shoulder of religion. How far we have fallen? The slope of human progress is treacherous and if we aren’t careful, our fellow countrymen could drag us back to darker times.