John Scalzi visits the Creation Museum.
Did you know, for example, that Adam is responsible not only for the fall of man, but also for the creation of venom? It didn't exist in the Garden of Eden, because, well. Why would it? Weeds? Adam's fault. Carnivorous animals (and, one assumes, the occasional carnivorous plant)? Adam again. Entropy? You guessed it: Adam. Think about that, won't you; eat one piece of fruit and suddenly you're responsible for the inevitable heat death of the universe. God's kind of mean.
I was away for the weekend, visiting the in-laws, so I haven't had time for blogging. But there's lots to enjoy in John's post, and pictures, too.
I'm probably being too polite in the post title-- shooting fish in a barrel would be more sporting than making mock of the Creation Museum. It's like shooting fish in a barrel, where the barrel in question is part of the gun. John's a funny guy, though, so he makes it work.
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But how did those fish get in that barrel, I ask you? How, Dammit? HOW!?
Obviously, GOD put them there.
I thought a more sane interpretation of the snake and apple tree fable was that it's possible to live in bliss if you're completely ignorant and blindly obedient, but as soon as you gain knowledge and attempt to further that knowledge by questioning, you realise that this bliss is a grotesque illusion and that you must deal with the world as it is, not how you want it to be.
Amazing how "scholars" of the bible come up with such garbage interpretations that are just completely bonkers. Clearly they have not eaten from the Tree of Knowledge!
Re: the $19.95 ticket price.
Entropy? You guessed it: Adam. Think about that, won't you; eat one piece of fruit and suddenly you're responsible for the inevitable heat death of the universe. God's kind of mean.
Proposal for a piece of short fiction: Two Creationist scientists, unburdened by the restrictive dogmas of materialist science, successfully build a time machine. They immediately mount an expedition to travel back together to the garden of Eden. They bring digital cameras, radiocarbon dating equipment, surveying tools; their intent is to document the first days of Creation and bring it back as objective proof of God's work.
Upon arriving they immediately find that none of their equipment any longer works, nor will the time machine activate. They quickly deduce that since they have traveled back before the Fall, there is not any such thing as entropy and thus none of their modern-day technology-- all of which is ultimately predicated on a set of physics which includes entropy-- can operate. Without a second law of thermodynamics there is no reason why, for example, electrons might tend to flow from the negative to the positive terminal of a battery. Not even pencils work. Worse, the creatonauts find that their bodies, degraded by 6000 years of the destructive process of evolution, are unable to obtain any degree of nutrition from the leaves which everything else in the Garden eats; and because there is no death in the Garden, nor can they subsist by hunting the animals there. There is nothing to eat which they can digest. They are starving to death.
Panicked, the creatonauts realize they cannot stay, but will be unable to leave until the Fall occurs. Their only hope is to find Adam and Eve. They locate Eve and, hiding in the bushes and whispering like serpents so as to disguise their location, entice her to approach the Tree of Knowledge, eat, and share. In short order Adam partakes of the Fruit. Death enters the world. Entropy churns into action. As Eden falls into bloody chaos as the animals fall on each other for the first time and angels with flaming swords appear looming hugely on the horizon and approaching fast, the creatonauts swiftly return to their time machine and escape.
So what do you think - Adam as schlemiel or Adam as schlemazel? The difference has tremendous bearing upon free will: Dominus et magister noster Iesus Christus dicendo "Poenitentiam agite adpropinquavit enim regnum caelorum" omnem vitam fidelium penitentiam esse voluit. Adam as schlemiel has infinite debt to reimburse. Adam as schlemazel can start the Protestant Reformation.