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The impressive facility was completed three years ago at the cost of $40 million and was visited by 400,000 people in its first year. The 70,000 square foot facility consists of a large museum, a planetarium, three theaters, lecture rooms, and four cafes. There are also botanical gardens and a petting zoo. The facility has been so successful that Answers in Genesis is in the process of expanding it with a new 600-seat auditorium and other things.
The Creation Museum is the center for serious education. In addition to the museum itself, there are ongoing lectures, seminars, and courses for adults and children. The museum also operates a large bookstore stocked with hundreds of books and DVDs.
We heard a powerful lecture by Dr. David Menton on “The Science of Darwin’s Evolution.” Menton, who has a Ph.D. in cell biology from Brown University, critiqued Darwin’s book The Origin of the Species. He shows that evolution cannot explain the complexity of life and quoted scientist Paul Davies as follows: “How did stupid atoms spontaneously write their own software, and where did the very peculiar form of information needed to get the first living cell up and running come from? Nobody knows” (New Scientist, September 18, 1999, volume 163, page 2204).
Dr. Menton referred to the fact that many scientists have doubts about evolution. He mentioned the web page “A Scientific Dissent from Darwin,” which features the following statement:
“We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”
This has been signed so far by roughly 800 scientists, including at least 500 doctorates. Signers hold Ph.D.s in genetics, astrophysics, astronomy, geology, mathematics, biochemistry, microbiology, engineering, astrophysics, biology, marine geology, molecular biology, physics, biomedical engineering, organic chemistry, geophysics, space physics, cell biology, mechanical engineering, biochemical engineering, aerospace engineering, nuclear chemistry, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, geophysics, applied mathematics, nuclear engineering, neurophysiology, experimental particle physics, and many other fields.
Signers represent practically every state university in America as well as the following organizations, among others: The National Academy of Sciences in America, Russia, Hungary, Brazil, Harvard University, American Physical Society, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Duke University, Texas A&M University, British Museum of Natural History, Oxford University, Cambridge University, MIT, Princeton University, University of Chicago, University of British Columbia, Cornell University, Purdue University, U.S. Naval Academy, University of Leeds, University of Hong Kong, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Cornell University, Yale University, and Rutgers University.
SAME EVIDENCE, DIFFERENT WORLDVIEWS
The museum presents a wealth of scientific evidence supporting the Bible’s authenticity.
One section of the museum shows that the same evidence (biological, geological, etc.) is interpreted according to one’s worldview. The argument is not over the evidence itself, but it is over the interpretation of the evidence. Evolutionists believe in blind chance operating over a period of millions of years, whereas Bible Biblicists believe in a six-day creation by Almighty God.
Consider the dinosaurs. Evolutionists believe they lived millions of years ago before man, whereas Biblicists believe they lived during the early centuries of man’s history before the Flood. The Creation Museum contains a two-story, life-sized dinosaur exhibit with a biblical explanation of these amazing creatures. The exhibit features are real fossils as well as sculptures created by paleoartist Buddy Davis. There are models of 16 different dinosaurs, including the Protoceratops, Triceratops, and Tyrannosaurus rex. Five of the models are animatronic so that they move and make noises. There is also a fossilized clutch of dinosaur eggs.
Consider the fossil beds that exist all over the world. Evolutionists believe that these formed gradually over vast periods, whereas Biblicists believe that they formed quickly during the Flood when plants and animals were buried suddenly by the massive hydrological activity.
Consider the coal and oil deposits. Evolutionists believe that these formed over millions of years, whereas Biblicists believe they were fashioned relatively quickly during the Flood.
Consider the Grand Canyon. Evolutionists say that it was formed by a small amount of water over a long period, whereas Biblicists say that it was formed by a massive amount of water over a short period.
THE BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW IS SCIENTIFICALLY ACCURATE
Biblicists believe that the biblical worldview best explains the world in which we live. It is scientific in that it fits the facts of observation.
The account of creation in Genesis 1-2 explains why all plant and animal life reproduce after their own kind. It also explains why man is so dramatically different from the animals and what is the purpose of human life. Man was made in God’s image and his purpose is to fellowship with God.
The account of man’s fall in Genesis 3 explains why men are so unrighteous and why there is such great pain and sorrow in life. According to the Bible, God made the first man and woman and put them in an earthly paradise called the Garden of Eden. He gave them only one law, but they broke that law. As a result, man’s heart became sinful and the earth became filled with trouble. Genesis 3 also explains why man dies; it is God’s punishment for sin.
The worldwide Flood described in Genesis 6-9 explains the geological features found on earth. Because the world became filled with violence and wickedness, God destroyed it with a flood that covered the mountains over four millennia ago. All men and beasts perished in this ancient flood except for Noah, his three sons and their wives. They survived in an ark, which was a large boat that Noah built over a period of 120 years according to God’s instructions. The boat contained a breeding pair of all of the various types of animals. The Flood explains why we find fossilized ammonites, which are sea creatures, on the world’s highest mountains, the Himalayan. The Creation Museum’s Ark exhibit shows how such a vessel could have been built and how that it could have contained all of the animals as described in the Bible. The Museum’s exhibit shows the interlocking engineering that has been found on other ancient wooden ships and that could have been used by Noah. It consisted of three interlocking layers on the ship’s hull that made it very strong.
The Bible’s account of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 explains the variety that we find among men and why there is a profusion of languages. The Bible teaches that all men descended from one common set of parents and are of “one blood.” After the Flood, men determined to build a Tower in Babel. (This location later became the capitol of the Babylonian Empire and exists in Iraq today.) Its purpose was to promote idolatry and rebellion against the Creator, but God confounded the project by multiplying man’s languages and thus dividing them into separate groups so they could not work together. As men divided into separate groups according to language and moved to various parts of the earth, the “racial” characteristics developed. Actually there is only one race of men, and the differences are superficial, which is what the Bible teaches.
THE PLANETARIUM
The Creation Museum has a 78-seat planetarium called the Stargazers Room which features a full-color Digistar digital projection system. The programs are projected onto a 30-foot hemispherical dome. Astrophysicist Jason Lisle designed the “The Created Cosmos,” which shows the overwhelming size and complexity of the universe and the awesome power of God. The program “takes us from the earth, to Orion’s Belt, past solar planets, into a globular star cluster, and then beyond the Milky Way to the extreme limit of the known universe.”
INTERVIEW WITH DR. TERRY MORTENSON
We interviewed Dr. Terry Mortenson, who has a Ph.D. in the History of Geology from Coventry University in England. He has lectured and debated in universities. He is the author of The Great Turning Point: The Church’s Catastrophic Mistake on Geology. He also contributed to the book Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth.
He said: “I got a math degree from the University of Minnesota. Then I was a missionary for many years in Eastern Europe. I went back to school and got a Masters of Divinity in theological studies. Then from there I went on and got my Ph.D. in the History of Geology, looking at the origins of this idea of millions of years of earth history. As I became a Christian, as a math major, I was interested in science and one of the first questions I had was, ‘What do I do with evolution?’ because that was what I had been taught in school. The more I read, I could see that evolution is one of the greatest myths ever foisted on the minds of men.”
We asked him if there are many scientists that believe the Bible, and he replied:
“There are literally thousands around the world. I personally know a geneticist in Hungary, a geophysicist and a geologist in the Ukraine and in Russia. There is an organization in the United States with 700 scientists who have a Masters or Ph.D. in the hard sciences. The largest creation organization is not in the United States. It is in Korea, with over 2,500 scientists, over 250, the last I heard, with Ph.Ds. So this is a growing movement, and there are many people who are not Bible believers, but they have become skeptics of evolution purely on scientific grounds.”
We also asked him if he knows of any scientific facts that contradict the Bible. He replied:
“I have studied a lot of arguments from evolutionists; I have had seven formal debates with evolutionary professors at universities, and I have never read or heard any scientific fact that contradicts what the Bible says. There are evolutionist’s interpretations of the facts, but the facts themselves are not contrary to Scripture.”
The Bible is true in every detail and is the only religious book in the world that gives us a scientifically accurate description of what happened in the very first days of earth’s existence. The book of Genesis is not contradicted by science but rather gives us insight into where we came from and where we are going.
The Bible, which consists of 66 books, was written over a period of 1,600 years by 40 different authors, but it speaks with one voice and has one main message, and that is the message of redemption from sin through Jesus Christ. The Old Testament portion of the Bible, consisting of its first 39 books, points to the coming of Jesus and prepares the way for His coming through types and prophecies. The New Testament portion of the Bible, consisting of its final 27 books, describes how that Jesus, the eternal Son of God, the Creator, came into this world through the womb of a virgin, lived a sinless life, and suffered and died on the cross to redeem man from his fallen condition. Jesus died, was buried, and rose from the dead the third day. He then instructed His followers to go into all the world and preach the gospel of redemption. Those who believe are forgiven of their sin, are brought back into relationship with God, and are given eternal life. The main theme of the Bible is stated in a nutshell in John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Biblical faith is not blind faith, but in the end there is no salvation apart from faith. The Bible says, “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
The Bible also warns that in the end times men there will be many scoffers:
“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:3-7).
This describes spiritual blindness that comes through willful rejection of God and His Word.
copyright 2013, Way of Life Literature
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