Reflections on a Trip to the Creation Museum
By: Patrick Julius
Patrick Julius (far right) and SSA Executive Director August Brunsman
Editor’s Note: Patrick Julius is the founder and President of the Secular Student Alliance chapter at the University of Michigan. Recently, Julius attended the national Secular Student Alliance (SSA) conference in Ohio. The convention included the opportunity to go to the Creation Museum in Kentucky. About 300 attendees went, and the following are Patrick’s reflections on the experience.
Recently I visited the Creation Museum in Kentucky. One exhibit above all hangs in my mind: A diagram showing the complex evolution of ape species, gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees; the diagram is largely correct from what I’ve read, though the scale at the side is off by a factor of almost a thousand. But then, beside it is a diagram of human evolution—or lack thereof: It is a straight line, with no change, no divergence. The citation given is for a Bible verse, Acts 17:26. (I looked it up, and even more remarkably it seems that they have abridged the verse significantly, and their translation is nonstandard. Read most literally, it seems to imply only that all humans share a common ancestor, presumably Adam.) This nicely encapsulates their whole worldview: Human beings are different from all other animals, and our reading of the Bible is more important than any amount of empirical evidence. The rest of the Museum is really only so much expounding upon this one point.
Another important exhibit, also characteristic of the Museum, is what my friend called “atheistland.” This exhibit is a short, winding alley sprayed with graffiti and plastered with news articles; the general sense seems to be that this world of crime, vandalism, suffering, moral relativism (and, the exhibit can’t help but add, gay rights, secularism and feminism) is the terrible result of people turning away from God and the Bible. In fact, crime and suffering have decreased in recent decades and centuries (Pinker talks at TED about why this might be so), moral relativism is ridiculous but usually harmless (since no one actually believes it; they just like tearing down other people’s morals), and gay rights, secularism, and feminism are among the best things ever to happen to the human race. But this is plainly not how Creationists see things.
And I must confess, I have difficulty sympathizing with these people. I just can’t wrap my mind around the idea that millions of otherwise normal people could believe the Earth is only 6,000 years old. I keep feeling that they must be lying, or miscommunicating, or something; they can’t possibly really believe what they say they do.
In fact, maybe they don’t. I don’t think anyone believes in Adam and Eve the way I believe the Earth is round. The way I believe the Earth is round is such a simple, obvious matter; look, it’s round. This is clearly not how people believe in Creationism; the world doesn’t look 6,000 years old. It’s not obvious that tyrannosaurs used to be herbivorous; nor do I think it could seem obvious to anyone. Belief in Creationism could be like the way I believe in quantum mechanics; it isn’t at all obvious—indeed, it’s quite counter-intuitive—but the evidence in its favor is too overwhelming to ignore. But really, I think people believe in Creationism the way I believe in justice, or the way I believe in morality. You can’t just look at the world and see without a doubt that justice is possible, or that morality is absolute; yet on a deep level I do hold to these propositions.
Yet even this isn’t quite right, since in believing in justice I don’t have to discount a massive body of scientific evidence; rather, it merely seems like the sort of thing that cannot be directly accessed through experiment and observation. But Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, and herbivorous tyrannosaurs—these are the sort of thing that ought to be accessible to empirical study; it’s just that under such study they fail miserably. Yet people continue to profess belief in these things.
The explanation for this may ultimately rest on Dennett’s concept of “belief in belief”: No one really believes in herbivorous tyrannosaurs, but they do in fact believe in morality (the same way I believe in morality), and furthermore believe that in order to sensibly believe in morality, one must profess a belief in herbivorous tyrannosaurs. Voltaire wrote, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” I agree; but I think Creationists believe quite the opposite, that in order to not commit atrocities, you must believe (or claim to believe) absurdities.
If this is correct, then no amount of scientific evidence for evolution will be persuasive to any Creationist; we must instead offer moral evidence, to show that herbivorous tyrannosaurs are not a necessary (or even beneficial) part of a sound human ethic. The answer will not be found in science, but in humanism.
I myself am big on Humanism, and love the little of this blog I’ve read so far. I do feel compelled to point out the following though:
1) The world being round is not what I would call obvious. Sure we figured it out a long time ago, but frankly if it was something as obvious as, say, people not being able to breath under water, there probably wouldn’t have been as much debate about the issue for those few hundred years. “The Earth is flat” would have been the logical conclusion based on available evidence throughout much of history.
2) There is great injustice in the world, all the time, and no matter what we do, evidence says this will always be the case. Even if all humans become loving vegans there will still be helpless kittens orphaned when their parents are killed by wolves who die a slow lingering starvation death. Their suffering isn’t any less because “thus is nature” and there can be no justice for that suffering. Personally I have been forced to come to terms with this knowledge or risk caving under my own empathy. In my opinion, your deep seated belief that there MUST be justice in the world is more key to explaining faith in the face of logic than anything else. We are not wired to accept pointless death, pain and suffering, but taking the completely secular humanist road is extremely difficult because it puts the responcibility for stopping these undesireable human blights onto OUR shoulders. And not only must the secular humanist realise that we are personally responcible for stopping most of our own suffering, but they must also somehow accept that they cannot control others who have no desire to help (or even the desire to harm) and that even if all humans magically became loving and just there would still be “acts of nature” beyond our control that cause pointless death, pain, and suffering.
I have seen people fall completely into nihilism or suddenly “gain faith” if only to stop the pain they feel when looking at needless suffering. It either doesn’t matter (nihilism) or becomes “all part of God’s plan…” or “will be paid for with karma”. Personally I try to do the best I can for the world and try to keep a logical grip on what is right and wrong and ease the suffering that I can because I don’t like suffering…however, there are many days where it would be nice to believe that the crack-addicted 27 week preemie in the NICU unit down the hall will be going to heaven, or that his mother will someday be punished with more than a slap on the wrist for the needless suffering she caused. My inability to ignore logic makes my life much more difficult emotionally.