Dear Editor:

I don't mind that mainstream science is criticized or that the notion of evolution is questioned. My principal objection to this museum and the school of thought which it represents is how they come to their conclusions about creation. That their their underlying assumption is merely faith without any sort of rational basis to it: that the bible is the word of God and its accounts of the origins of the world are literally true and authoritative as an unundermindable given.

The theory of evolution may have some questionable elements to it and these questionable elements may or may not be understood better in the future via further research and possibly may be disproven. Nevertheless, the notion that the world was created in six days and is a mere 6.000 years old is a scientific non-starter. The notion that man lived with the dinosaurs is rediculous. There is no objective evidence to back up this museum's beliefs, which is exactly what their hypothesis is.

Interestingly enought, it should be noted for the record that nowhere in the Bible are dinosaurs mentioned, although quite a few other animals are catalogued. What I understand is that this museum is trying to find a way to align its beliefs with the fossil record which is another way of saying that since they assume that their belief in the biblical account of creation is literally true, they will engage in any and all sorts of dishonest intellectural mechanations to support this very faith-based vies.

That is not science at all. That is lunacy.

Sincerely yours,

Arthur C. Hurwitz

"On the other hand, he says, the Book of Genesis is true 'from the first word to the last.'"

By we, I mean Orthodox Jews.

We also hold by the Big Bang. How can that be? Well, there's a companion to the Written Torah called the Oral Tradition (a.k.a, then Oral Torah), which explains and elucidates the Written Torah.

The Written Torah can also be thought of as a memory aid for the Oral Tradition. We hold that they are two sides of the same coin, inseparable. It's clear from there that B'reishis (Genesis) fits in perfectly with the Big Bang.

Why are people who don't know the Hebrew alphabet, who couldn't tell the 10 Commandments from instructions on how to change a tire in Hebrew, who never even have heard of the Oral Tradition, why are they taken seriously?

Remember, if you read the Bible from left to right, you are reading it backwards.

is the 6 24 hour days. The rest can be taken as allegory and metaphor. Adam and Eve is single cell reproduction for dummies, etc... But the 24 hour day is just a flat out assumption with nothing at all to support it and no real reason to make it, unless you are an ancient Hebrew with no knowledge that anyplace else exists. I understand that the myth involves an omnipotent God who can do anything at all, but if God was standing on Earth when he created the universe - which they clearly assume that He was - why would Earth then need to be created?

Insisting that a story that is actually a fairly interesting way of explaining some complicated stuff to people who had never seen a telescope or microscope is absolute, word for word fact is just silly.

But where are Fred and Wilma?

There is a delicious irony in the Museum's CEO Ken Ham sharing a name with Noah's accursed son. It would be even more ironic if Mr. Ham were black, given the old argument that there was a biblical justification for slavery, in that the offspring of (biblical) Ham were presumed to be black, and condemned to servitude under the descendants of Noah's other sons. I suspect that gets no mention in the Creation Museum.

There is a delicious irony in the Museum's CEO Ken Ham sharing a name with Noah's accursed son. It would be even more ironic if Mr. Ham were black, given the old argument that there was a biblical justification for slavery, in that the offspring of (biblical) Ham were presumed to be black, and condemned to servitude under the descendants of Noah's other sons. I suspect that gets no mention in the Creation Museum.

I've kind off agreed with Stev(ph?)en J. Goulds idea of non-overlapping magesteria. Simply put, the mind of man can deduce that "how" of the universe. That is to say we can figure out "how" stars are born, "how" life changes over time, "how" radio active decay occurs. But when it comes to "why", we turn to the spiritual side of things and try to understand that which, IMHO, can't be known.

The problem here is that there are a large number of people that prefer to not do the labor of understanding "how" because it diminishes their place in the universe.

Think about it. What would you rather be told? Would you like to hear that you are merely the current manifestation of a natural process that has been going on for billions of years and will continue for billions of years after you're gone? Or would you rather be told that you are the lord's special creation, created in his image, with a divine purpose to your existence (sp?)?

If you look at the history of rational thought, the ideas that have caused the most angst are the one's that tell us we are not the, um, crown of creation. Remember that the church locked up Galileo for the last few years of his life because he could prove the earth (and by extension, man) was not the center of the universe.

There is a certain mind set that just can't accept our insignificance in the grand scheme of things. Why that mind set is so prevelant in MY country is beyond me. But it saddens and disappoints me.

not Ham, who was the son of Noach, not Noah (ch = the German ch).

FYI.

Reading all about the inconsistencies in the museum diplays mentioned here is great fun: Why were Adam and Eve white? Did the animals poo? What did they eat if not meat? (Hope I can make myself clear on this.)

Doesn't it strike these creationists that that is exactly how they read the bible too? This projection of how we know life nowadays is bound to have mistakes in it.

So who are they to say that the way they read the bible is true?