Righting America at the Creation Museum (Medicine Science and Religion in Historical Context)

About this book

What does the popularity of the Creation Museum tell us about the appeal of the Christian right? On May 28 2007 the Creation Museum opened in Petersburg Kentucky. Aimed at scientifically demonstrating that the universe was created less than ten thousand years ago by a Judeo-Christian god the museum is hugely popular attracting millions of visitors over the past eight years. Surrounded by themed topiary gardens and a petting zoo with camel rides the site conjures up images of a religious Disneyland. Inside visitors are met by dinosaurs at every turn and by a replica of the Garden of Eden that features the Tree of Life the serpent and Adam and Eve. In Righting America at the Creation Museum Susan L. Trollinger and William Vance Trollinger Jr. take readers on a fascinating tour of the museum. The Trollingers vividly describe and analyze its vast array of exhibits placards dioramas and videos from the Culture in Crisis Room where videos depict sinful characters watching pornography or considering abortion to the Natural Selection Room where placards argue that natural selection doesnt lead to evolution. The book also traces the rise of creationism and the history of fundamentalism in America. This compelling book reveals that the Creation Museum is a remarkably complex phenomenon at once a natural history museum at odds with contemporary science an extended brief for the Bible as the literally true and errorless word of God and a powerful and unflinching argument on behalf of the Christian right.