Norwegian Paper Takes Swipe at the Creation Museum

Across the North Sea and only a few hundred miles away from where I am right now (I’m in Scotland on a speaking tour of the UK), the creation/evolution question has been getting some press—in Norway.

Here is the English translation (supplied by a friend of the ministry who lives in Montana—but who often spends chunks of time in Norway) of an article that appeared last month in one of the daily newspapers of Oslo, Norway, called “Dagsavisen” (meaning “Daily Paper”). www.dagsavisen.no/kultur/article396704.ece

The writer of the piece apparently came to the museum without identifying himself as a reporter (his name and paper affiliation were not in our media logs). While that is not mandatory, it is the usual protocol for a media rep. to follow (we even received an apology recently from a British newspaper reporter who came to the museum without calling ahead, and he indicated that he was sorry).

This article apparently was printed in the newspaper as well as posted to the paper’s website. Here are some excerpts with a few comments from me:

“Charles Darwin still has enemies, 200 years after his birth and 150 years after he revolutionized the way people see themselves and nature.”

COMMENT: The real enemy is the one who does not want people knowing the truth of God’s Word—this one is the deceiver, the Bible calls ‘the father of lies!’

“A living dinosaur of the plant-eating type swings its long neck from side to side. A child sits beside a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The scene is not from the film Jurassic Park, but from The Creation Museum outside the small town of Petersburg, Kentucky, in the U.S.A.'s Bible belt.”

COMMENT: I certainly wouldn’t call this area the “Bible belt.” The Bible belt is to the south of us.

“Here the fringe of Darwin's bicentennial celebration have their own 6,300 square meter playroom. But they are not playing around. Ken Ham, the man behind the museum, would rather turn back the lie of evolutionary theory, as it is termed in the slick book the museum sells.

COMMENT: Hmmm—why call this publication a ‘slick book?’ All AiG and Master Book publications are produced very professionally—just as the secular world does. But when a Christian produces something professional, the word ‘slick’ is used –- obviously to denigrate us.

“He and other conservative Christians want to promote creationism, a mindset that reads the Bible literally, claims the earth is 6,000 years old and believes that God created all life on it. With these they want to retake natural history from Charles Darwin.”

COMMENT: Actually, we take the Bible “naturally”—which means we read it according to the type of literature, etc.

“The 12th of February it will be 200 years after his birth, and this autumn it will be 150 years since publication of On the Origin of Species, one of the world history's most important books. In it is presented the idea of natural selection, the core of the theory of evolution, which tells that diverse life forms developed over long periods of time and were pushed forward by variations in types, overpopulation and environmental compatibility. Thankfully in Norway the idea is not controversial.”

COMMENT: Natural selection is not controversial as far as creationists are concerned, as it can be observed. The point is, natural selection is NOT a mechanism for molecules-to-man evolution. That’s where Darwin got it wrong! See www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/is-natural-selection-evolution

“Ken Ham does not see it that way. When he was a teacher in Australia and took students to secular museums, he saw a father and son in front of a display of an ape. This is one of your ancestors,said the father to the son. Ken Ham was grieved in his believing heart. He is hardly alone. According to an opinion poll from Gallup 45% of Americans believe that man was created as we appear today less than 10,000 years ago.

“The Darwin celebration has already begun, with NRK P2s [state media, channel 2] Darwin Day at the House of Literature, a great documentary series that is being shown on television and innumerable articles in press. Two book releases and a week of special events at the University of Oslo are also around the corner.

“As long as criticism of the theory of evolution is well away from Norway, this is just shadow boxing. But one need go no further than Great Britain before the legendary nature film maker David Attenborough recently could say that he had gotten hate mail from people because he had not given God honor for His work of creation. And in 2007, his documentaries were edited by a Dutch Christian television station such that promotion of evolution was eliminated.”

COMMENT: Sounds like we need some good creation speakers in Norway to open the eyes of the indoctrinated public!

“So it is disturbing that creationists on the offensive give their pathetic arguments an enticing, yes even apparently scientific form. The museum in Kentucky is an extreme, but a telling example. Here one finds that a literal understanding of the text and a much freer interpretation of natural science go hand in hand. And here most things are explained away by pointing to the police radar pair of Fall and Deluge, whether it be the Grand Canyon or that the world is not quite so close to perfect as man might like.”

COMMENT: As is usual, such articles mock creationists, but they rarely give scientific evidence of their own, and they rarely give an academic critique—often just name calling.

“The way the displays show it are, for example, pain, sickness, and hunger entered into the world through the Fall. And to top everything, it was the source of carnivory! Even lions supposedly ate grass before Adam ate of the Tree of Knowledge.

“A whole section is selected evidences that Noah's Ark could have actually been built with technology man had several thousand years ago and that it would have had room enough for all the animals. It is perhaps comical. But the Deluge itself is presented with a dramatic taste only a curator who was previously with Universal Studios can boast. One only wonders why the fish died. That must have been an oversight. Everything else can be explained. Apparently. The power of persuasion doesn't go very far with this congregation, which in this case is called Answers in Genesis.”

COMMENT: It’s a shame the reporter didn’t identify himself to us as is the usual protocol for the media, and then we could have answered his questions—but I guess he came to mock, not to be challenged.

“Interestingly enough, the museum has chosen a style that is not directly confrontational. A creationist scientist and a researcher who take as their starting point evolution theory are continuing figures in the display. They have apparently made peace with themselves that they differ in their interpretations of the finds they make together. The refrain is, Evidence is in the present, but what actually happened in the past? Or, The same facts, but different perspectives. Why? Followed up with a wall chart where fossilization is supported by Bible citations on one side, and caracatures of natural science on the other.

“Ken Ham believes himself that the museum in Kentucky is God’s gift to a humanity on the wrong track, and that nature's fantastic complexity cannot be a result of what he calls accidents. This is not the only thing that has been twisted, since Darwin's method was to clarify a logic in the way types of organisms evolved. One could also ask, What about the appendix? Or one could do as David Attenborough and point out that the little worm that can live on the inside of a person's eyeball is hardly what creationists think when they talk about intelligent design and a world in God's image.”

COMMENT: Well we could have given the reporter a copy of articles from the AiG website on the appendix. This reporter, like many, sadly has put his faith and trust in outdated ideas (such as the appendix, once believed to be a left over vestige with no functions— we now know many of the functions of the appendix). We could have explained natural selection and speciation and given the reporter a basic course in genetics, to show him Darwinian evolution in the molecules-to-man sense is impossible. But then again, I doubt this reporter came to learn or listen. Articles like this are often written before they come—they just fill in the information about the Museum to complete their mocking of those who believe in the biblical creation account.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying

Ken