This appeared in *Sacramento News and Review*, a weekly 
publication in Sacramento, CA. March 24, 1994. Marghe Covino 
works for "Project Tocsin", an organization that monitors the 
religious right.

Creationism Made Easy
By Marghe Covino

Nestled unsuspectingly in an industrial park fronting a freeway 
in Santee near San Diego is the 17-year-old Museum of Creation 
and Earth Science. The large, converted warehouse is the object 
of devout pilgrimages from tourists and schoolchildren 
throughout the state; true believers who walk through the 
gallery listen to guides "debunk" evolution, extol biblical 
lore and, thus, explain the origin of the earth.

I set out from Sacramento last winter on my own pilgrimage to 
the museum-- to find out how creationism is taught and what its 
teachers are really advocating. See, I used to think the aim of 
creationism was straightforward: to get a new version of 
evolution (like the earth is less than 10,000 years o1d) taught 
in America's classrooms. But a walk through the museum 
indicated a deeper, even more frightening goal. The aim 
involves proclaiming the "truth" of creationist beliefs 
_globally_, linking the American right-wing with other 
fundamentalist religions from around the world.

Just after entering the museum comes a sign on the wall 
proclaiming that most "other" religions are evolutionary and 
therefore inferior at best and apostate at worst. Biblical 
passages are quoted to demand that each visitor decide "where 
he stands on this vital issue." One sign proclaims, "The Tree 
of Evolutionism bears only corrupt fruits, Creationism bears 
good fruits."

Following that, one begins the tour, first strolling through 
Genesis with its bright wall murals of space and planets. 
Presented, among other things, there is "scientific evidence" 
debunking the Big Bang theory and, moving on, the issue that 
God used 24-hour days during the Creation, (no trying to get 
around it by saying that the term "day" can be interpreted to 
mean millennium--you must believe the absolute inerrant Word of 
God). And that's not all.

Signs also announce the news that "many top astronomers are 
abandoning the Big Bang theory." Raised concrete and bright 
paint outline the earth and the cosmos as we move through the 
next doorway (flanked by formed concrete trees and artificial 
greenery) to the Garden of Eden. Much is made over God's 
directive that man has "dominion" over the earth and its 
creaures. Indeed, the algae- ridden fish tank, the little 
finches with scant food and water, the tarantula with none, the 
mice climbing an endless wheel to escape their cramped, airless 
cage, the poorly kept lizards and snakes were there to prove 
dominion in no uncertain terms. "The billions of fossils of 
both men and animals in the rocks of earth speak of sin and 
death-- not the evolution of life-- they must ALL be dated
AFTER Adam's fall," a sign proclaims.

The Flood exhibit is next, replete with theories about God 
putting most of the large animals in a "hibernating state," a 
three-dimensional mural of the inside of the ark; and "space 
photographs" of the mountainous region in Ararat where the ark 
was purported to have landed.

Strobe lighting and water sounds then dumped us out into the 
Ice Age. A guide intoned to the schoolchildren: "All of that 
water had to go somewhere, so it probably was sent into making 
the glacier in the Ice Age. The dinosaurs were in the ark and 
when the Ice Age came they were caught in it and that's how 
come their bones are found in various places, because they were 
left by the glaciers."

The Ice Age room was replete with concrete-formed blue-painted 
stalactites and chilly temperatures. Everything leads to the 
inescapable conclusion that this is a young universe. (Even 
director Stephen Spielberg fell victim to this view when 
Orthodox rabbis in Israel declared his movie, Jurassic Park, 
heretical because it depicted evolution, which is contrary to 
the fundamentalist belief of the earth's age.)

Several sets of displays held odd collections that seemed 
unrelated: monarch butterflies in one cage; a melted 45 rpm 
record, a paintbrush, a rusty hook and a melted lab flask. 
Still another display held a lengthy pictorial discourse on 
Mount St. Helens and then moved on to the unreliability of 
radiometric dating. Still another high-tech plastic sign gave 
"scientific" instructions like "To determine the geological age 
of a fossil: Do NOT use depth (where found); do NOT use type of 
rock; do NOT use radiometric dating; do NOT use stage of 
evolution, DO use the Word of God."

Cheap knock-off pottery and artifact displays-- heavy on the 
shekels and menorahs, oil lamps and widow's mites were in the 
same location with Greek and Egyptian artifacts, human fossils 
and something called "Post-Flood Man." Still another sign 
states: "Cave men were not human, but weaker, probably 
degenerate descendants of those migrating away from the Tower 
of Babel." Of course, Babel was the hotbed of "evolutionary 
pantheism, polytheistic idolatry, astrology and occult 
spiritism."

The Egyptian, Sumerian and Greek civilizations were dismissed 
as "man-centered, anti-Christian philosophies." Citing 
Epicureanism (341-271 BC) and Zeno's Stoicism (336-264 BC) as 
"opposing Paul's preaching," the Creation Museum blithely 
ignores the fact that the theories were expounded prior to 
Paul's existence. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are dismissed 
as "atheistic" or "pantheistic." Meanwhile, animism is 
described as the basis for the religions of "uncivilized 
tribes" and also the basis for Hindus, Buddhists, Shintoists, 
Confucianists and Muslims.

The Aztecs and Incas came in for more bashing about their 
behavior-- heathenism and human sacrifice-- as we moved on to 
the final display, what the guide called "our wall of infamy." 
On one side of the hallway were the "Bible-believing 
scientists," while evolutionists on the other side included 
Friedrich Nietzsche, Andrew Carnegie, Karl Marx, John D. 
Rockefener and Charles Darwin ... and his grandfather. Nazism, 
Communism and racism were listed as "the fruits of evolution."

The final display was called The Decadence of Pre-Columbian 
Indian Societies. It was the culmination of the tour and 
featured the opinion of former California Congressman William 
Dannemeyer (that well-known pre-Columbian scholar) on the 
justification for killing and enslaving the Indian peoples. It 
reads: "Homosexuality was quite common in many pre-Columbian 
Indian societies. Columbus discovered, with disgust and dismay, 
that both the violent Caribs and relatively peaceful Arawaks 
practiced sodomy. Cortez also found that sodomy was rampant 
among Indian tribes in Mexico. The priestly caste of the 
Cempoallan tribe, for instance, indulged in sodomy and 
homosexual prostitution was common among the community.

"Due to constant internecine warfare and ecological abuse the 
Mayan civilization had already collapsed by the time the 
Spaniards arrived. The residue left of that once-mighty culture 
was a people that had retreated into abject barbarism.... It 
had become decadent and self-indulgent. The pleasure-obsessed 
upper classes were sacrificing human beings, indulging in 
orgies and practicing sodomy without shame. The shocked 
Spaniards put the Mayans' leaders to the sword."

People, over 27,000 visitors have been through this "museum"
during the past year. I urge you to go experience it for 
yourselves. Look. See the past and project the creationist 
future. It's mind- blowing. It's free ... and worth every
penny.