Creation Museum

We are having a great time here in Ohio, although it has been HOT and humid. Schools are actually closed today because the heat index is so high, and most of the buildings don't have air conditioning.

On Wednesday we took a trip to the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum. It's on the Kentucky side of Cincinati, close to the airport, and it took a little over an hour to get there. It was pricy, but it was very well-done, and we were quite impressed. Adults are $19.95 (there was a $2 off coupon though), and kids 5-12 were $9.95. Bob got in free because he was active-duty military (yay!).

The framework of the museum is the "7 C's": Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Confusion, Christ, Cross, Consummation. When you first walk in, you see a pool with fish and turtles in it, and above you, there are animated models of dinosaurs alongside children. Jonathan was pretty impressed by the moving dinosaurs, LOL.

The first exhibit deals with differing worldviews, and it shows 2 paleontologists owrking on a dinosaur dig. A video shows the 2 men talking. One man is a creationist, and he explains that he and his colleague have the same facts in front of them, but they just interpret those facts differently because they begin with idfferent assumptions. The evolutionist gives his take on the dinosaur fossils--several million years old, died of starvation maybe, laid there for awhile and became fossilized, etc. Then the creationist gives his interpretation--several thousabd years old, was caught in a flood and fossiled, and so on. There is no condemnation of the evolutionistic viewpoint, just a pointing out that it is not based on the Bible. It was very well-done. The next part of the museum contrasts man's view with what the Bible says on various issues, like how man came about, and how animal diversity happened.

Then you wind around through an exhibit on God's word, and how it came to us. Then there is a part on the Scopes trial, which is where evolution was really introduced into our society. The consequences of that are in the next part, Graffitti Alley, where it is dark and trashy, like a New York back alley. On the walls are newspaper headlines about gay rights, abortion, horrible crimes, and other bad things in modern life. Around the corner is how the church has bought into the evolutionary culture, compromising the truth of theBible so that people really don't have a strong foundation for their faith and leading to problems within the church just like outside of it.

Then you go into a theater where you go back to the beginning by watching a video on the 6 days of creation. The next room has many beautiful pictures and videos running simultaneously on things like common design features in creation, the similarities of DNA and language, and the solar system. Then you walk through a large room that is a big representation of the Garden of Eden. There are many plants, realistic animal models, and Adam and Eve in various scenarios (naming the animals, Adam receiving Eve, them both in a waterfall with a big serpant in a tree overhead). There is next a series of dioramas detailing the Fall, and more scenes from after the Fall showing the effects, like Cain's murder of Abel.

The next big part is a room showing Noah building the ark. The display on the ark was so interesting, with small models of what the ark might have looked like, and plaques detailing early middle-eastern shipbuilding techniques that Noah might have used. After walking through what looked like the inside of the ark, with several video presentations, the next room includes information on how small-scale catastrophes, such a floods and volcanic eruptions, have caused small-scale geographic disturbances in brief amounts of time, like canyons and rock stratas. This room had lots of videos as well, and they all were very well-done and informative.

There was an exhibit on the confusion that followed the Flood, including the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel. The tour ended up with a mive called "The Last Adam", which finished the last 3 "C's", Christ, Cross, and Consummation. This was a very powerful video where "Mary" talks about how when she was growing up, her father made her whole family watch the lamb be sacrificed because he wanted them all to know what a heavy price sin required. She ends by saying that another name for her son was"the Lamb". The centurion who watched over Jesus' crucificion also told what he saw in the video. It was very moving.

There was also a "Hall of Dinosaurs", where they had lots of dinosaur skeletons displayed, but I was nursing and didn't go in there. I did watch an interesting video on dragons and other mythical beasts while nursing, LOL. There was a planetarium where we would have loved to see a show, but again, it was too hard with all the little ones. Outside they have a botanical garden, but it was so hot we had absolutely no inclination to walk around there at all! Obviously we'll have to go back again when all the kids are older, and when it's not so hot.

Nathan and luke really got a lot out of the museum, so it was well worth it for them. I think it really connected the dots about why Jesus really had to come in a very visual way. Caleb and Jonathan definitely enjoyed the Garden of Eden room, as well as all the moving dinosaur models the best.

I was worried that the museum would be chintzy and not very professionally done, but that was not the case at all. All the exhibits were not only very thought-provoking, but also well-constructed. I definitely recommend spending a day there!