Ken Ham
© AFP/File Jeff HaynesPETERSBURG, United States (AFP) - Designed by the creator of the King Kong and Jaws exhibits at the Universal Studios theme park, the stunning 60,000 square foot (5,400 square-metre) facility is built for a specific purpose: refuting evolution and expanding the flock of believers in a literal interpretation of the Bible.
"You'll get people into a place like this that you can't get into a church with a stick of dynamite," said founder Ken Ham from his office overlooking the museum's manicured grounds.
"Some will still sneer, some will say we'd like to hear you again and some will actually believe."
The potential audience is huge in a country divided over the origins of the universe and battling in the courts to bring creationism into classrooms.
At a recent debate among Republican presidential hopefuls, three candidates raised their hands when asked who did not believe in evolution.
Polls consistently show that nearly half of Americans believe God created humans in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. Only about 13 percent believe God played no part in the origin of human life.
-- Culture wars and a new Reformation --
----------------------------------------
Travis Wilson works on a horse at The Creation Museum
© AFP/File Jeff HaynesAn Australian who found "Young Earth" creationism while teaching science to school children in Brisbane, Ham, 55, came to the United States in 1987 to spread the word of Biblical truth.
His fundamentalist evangelical ministry -- Answers in Genesis -- publishes dozens of books, DVDs and curriculums every year teaching Christians how to defend their faith by refuting evolution.
These glossy publications offer what they call scientific proof that the Earth is just 6,000 years old; the Grand Canyon was formed when a natural dam burst under the weight of Noah's floodwaters 4,300 years ago; and that all animals -- including the Tyrannosaurus rex -- were vegetarian before the fall of Adam and Eve brought sin into the world.
Ham employs a roster of PhDs to legitimize what many academics refer to as pseudoscience.
An animatronic display sums up their argument: two paleontologists are examining the same dinosaur fossil. The evolutionist -- an Asian man -- comes to one conclusion while the creationist -- a white man who resembles Ham -- comes to another.
More than 600 academics have signed a petition warning parents and teachers that students who accept the arguments the Creation Museum presents as scientifically valid are "unlikely to succeed in science courses at the college level."
"What's wrong with the AIG museum is that it's presenting religious views as if they are science when they are not," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, which launched the petition.
"The science in the museum is so inaccurate it's really going to further undermine the public understanding of science in the United States."
Ham is concerned with much a larger threat: a culture war which began with the Enlightenment's worship of human reason.
He says he is at the head of a "new reformation."
"What this ministry is about is to challenge people to get back to the word of God -- just like Martin Luther," Ham said. "What we're doing, symbolically, is nailing Genesis 1 to 11 on the doors of churches and colleges."
Ham does not blame evolution per se for society's ills. He believes that sin has been around since Adam and Eve took their fateful bite of apple about 5,700 years before Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species."
But he says the theory of evolution has been used to undermine the validity of the literal truth of the Bible, heralding a dangerous age of moral relativism which can be blamed for everything from racism to the Holocaust.
"If you're going to say you can reinterpret things then everything is subjective ... and you end up with radical skepticism," he told AFP.
"When scripture is compromised in the church, it is abandoned in the home."
-- High Production Value --
---------------------------
Artist Laura Spence works painting next to a mechanical Utahraptor
© AFP/File Jeff HaynesWhile the content is debatable, there is no question as to the high production value and professionalism of the 27-million dollar (20-million euro) facility.
In a scene reminiscent of Jurassic Park, no expense was spared to create the "wow factor" of the main entrance hall.
An animatronic girl giggles and feeds a squirrel next to stream filled with live fish as two baby T-rexes play a few feet away.
To the left is a 500,000 dollar planetarium -- whose dome will show films proving that "the heavens declare God's Glory" -- and a bookstore and gift shop designed to look like a medieval castle, complete with a dragon.
To the right, is a special effects theater with shaking seats, thunder and mists of water for the flood scenes.
The "wows" continue as visitors pass through the Grand Canyon into the Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel and scenes from the life of Christ.
Located just outside of Cincinnati near the intersection of the states of Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, nearly two thirds of the population of the United States lives within a 650-mile (1,050-kilometer) drive of the Creation Museum.
It is expected to draw at least 250,000 people a year when it opens on May 28.
By comparison, the American Museum of Natural History, which recently organized a touring Darwin exhibit, draws millions of visitors every year -- including more than 400,000 school children -- to its 1.6 million square foot facility in New York.
©AFP