Creation Museum

Eve (L) Adam (R)

I met up with Brian (“BB” over at Coudal and lover of scooters) along with a group of folks to check out the Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky.

Tucked away between exits for fireworks and gambling on a rural notch of highway that loops through Cincinnati, Indiana and Kentucky—it costs adults 20 bucks a head to get inside the 60,000 square foot structure.

The museum’s angle is all about the origins of life, the book of Genesis, and dinosaurs.

Lots of dinosaurs.

Photos24 photos from the day, some of dinosaurs

Continue reading for my thoughts on the museum.

Dinosaurs line the entrance from the parking lot to the ticketing area. Plaster casts of their bones and complete jerky animatronic ones live inside. And yes, there’s even a dinosaur with a saddle you can ride for photo opps (here’s me!) right before you hit the gift store (stuffed with more plush dinosaurs.)

My beef isn’t with the dinos though. It’s not with a message that disagrees with scientists, or slights being gay.

The greatest offense of this museum is that it is boring.

For a while there I thought it might be scary for kids, but I looked at their faces. They weren’t scared—they were bored too.

I should mention, I am tainted, having been lucky to visit some incredible museums.

The Oklahoma City National Memorial — powerful in storytelling and illuminating lives lost. I could revisit this journal entry from my trip in 2003, but I don’t need to… I remember every step.

I’ll even say the opening for the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati left an impression I can’t shake—a feeling that art is wildly diverse and unexpected. There was this room with a circle of speakers—each with a different voice singing. You stood in the middle and heard a whole choir.

There was a passageway with a blast of air from a large fan.

Art took new life. It was suddenly everywhere. Even in the wind. Amazing, really.

But the Creation Museum was not this. It was stale: Follow the path and read the backlit paragraphs describing the diorama before you. Hope for something animated. Pine for a water fountain around the corner.

I went in with an open mind, and left with it.

Everything I needed to know was outside.

Comments

  1. Excellently timed. I was so tempted recently to visit, and you’ve just saved me lots of money (would’ve had several kids in tow).
    D’oh. I’m perpetually disappointed with how obvious, linear, and/or unimaginative are the executions of some religious apologist propaganda. I don’t want to be proselytized, but I respect viewpoints held earnestly and communicated passionately. Consider sonspring.com and godbit.com, which mesh their faiths with design and aesthetics lovingly.
    Oh well.

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