Although he’s one of the most infamous characters in fiction, Cain is still a relatively obscure figure. The Bible seems to make him out as a whiner, jealous and petty, so unworthy of any love that he’s blamed for making crops so damn hard to grow. Once he’s given the infamous “mark” for having committed the first murder, he’s told that he will become a nomad, and like any bad-boy, he does exactly the opposite and settles down in the land of Nod (which is about as real a place as that sounds).

The story doesn’t technically end there, depending on who you ask. There are tons of stories outside the bible that attempt to describe Cain and Abel’s relationship in more detail. This kind of material is called pseudepigrapha, texts which are regarded as false or unverifiable works. It’s basically the first century equivalent of fan-fiction. One of these books is called The Book of Jubilees, sometimes referred to as “Lesser Genesis”. It further elaborates on the sexual relationships between Cain and his sister Awan, and between Seth and his sister Azura. It sounds as enjoyable to read as the many erotic adventures of Kirk and Spock

The story of Cain doesn’t end there. Mormons believe that he made a secret pact with the devil to kill Abel. In the Book of Moses, they form a secret alliance, which helps explain why Genesis specifically mentions Cain’s son Lamech murdering one of his enemies (I just think the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree).

Regardless of which particular fairy tale you subscribe to (if you tend to favor this nonsense), Cain’s limited choice of mating partners isn’t a subject most people are comfortable talking about. Incest has largely fallen out of favor, and defending this particular aspect of the dogma is a thankless job. Luckily, Answers in Genesis is always happy to fight the good fight, and they aren’t afraid to try and inject some science in there!

Now it is true that children produced in a union between brother and sister have a greater chance to be deformed. As a matter of fact, the closer the couple are in relationship, the more likely it is that any offspring will be deformed. It is very easy to understand this without going into all the technical details.

Yeah, it’s a good thing they try to avoid the “technical details”, since a gene pool consisting of only two organisms is on the fast track to Extinction-Ville (with a stop-over at Mongoloid-Bay). Don’t let that bother you too much though, since you can always claim some magical mumbo-jumbo helped.

Speaking of mumbo-jumbo, you might like they way they try and explain how these first humans survived the first onslaught of genetic catastrophe: It’s all about sin, you see:

When the first two people were created, they were perfect. Everything God made was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). That means their genes were perfect—no mistakes. But when sin entered the world because of Adam (Genesis 3:6), God cursed the world so that the perfect creation then began to degenerate, that is, suffer death and decay (Romans 8:22). Over a long period of time, this degeneration would have resulted in all sorts of mistakes occurring in the genetic material of living things.

By long they mean around 2,500 years (or about 125 generations), a tiny blip in evolutionary time for such a complex species. Still, you have to admire their attempt to try and maintain their idiotic beliefs in the light of modern genetic evidence. They are sticking with their incest guns, and they are proud of it. “Hell yes, Cain fucked his sister! Didn’t you know that was the thing to do at the time?”

As for all this business about sin being a mechanism of evolutionary pressure, it sounds like a testable theory to me. Under this model of genetic, the more you sin, the crappier your genes. Hey, I wonder what kind of fucked up experimental conditions you would need to test this moronic idea out. I’m laughing just thinking about ’em.

The creation museum is apparently only the tip of the iceberg for Answers in Genesis, which is partnering with Ark Encounters LLC to create a gargantuan 500 foot “replica” of Noah’s Ark which will contain live animals, as well as a Tower of Babel, and a Middle Eastern village.

The for-profit company wants to receive a tax incentive from the state, and it sounds to me like they have good changes of getting it. If they do, it means taxpayers will be shelling out almost 40 million dollars worth of incentives to these morons.

They claim the theme park will generate roughly 250 million dollars worth of revenue, and create 900 jobs. Considering how well the Creation Museum has been doing, they might not actually be off the mark on this (ignorant rednecks still have a bit of money left it seems). Kentucky will have the distinction of having not one, but two ghastly locations where humans and animals are living in “Flintstones-like” harmony.

The folks behind this play-land of ignorance want to try and build the most authentic ark possible. I have to imagine once they actually start trying to fill it with live animals, it might be hard for people to ignore the fact it’ll be significantly overcrowded with just a few species in there. Odds are if they try to make it authentic, it won’t be very well ventilated, and it’s sure to stink like shit after just a few hours.

So nicely done, Kentucky, and for working so diligently, I award you the title of “most embarrassing state in America”. Competition is fierce, I know, but you always manage to find some way to outshine them. Congratulations!

Here’s Answers in Genesis douche Ken Ham doing his best to misinform children about objective reality. We’re all aware of his refusal to accept Evolution, and he’s quite clear about exactly why: he thinks the idea was invented in an effort to undermine God. That’s what’s so great about it. Ken, unlike his more “moderate” counterparts, understands correctly the conclusion we are to draw from Evolutionary Theory; there is no master plan to life, and it arises simply as a function of natural laws. By admitting this, he shows the simple truth all deeply religious people often try to deny; there are fundamental incompatibilities between religious dogma and scientific facts. The only difference is he’s open about what he’s doing, while people like Ben Stein and his creationist ilk masquerade their theism as science. I ask you, which one do you find more contemptuous and subversive?

Before you flip your lid and worry Ken is causing irreparable damage to their minds, I’d rather you focus on the fact there’s really little way to reach these children with the facts “out there” anyway. As schools across the country continue to try and throw evolutionary science out the window, the ability to counter programs like the one in the video is starting to look impossible.

It’s not the 39% of the US population who refuse to believe in evolution that scares me, it’s the fact that 36% of them just “aren’t sure”. You’ll always have crusty die hard God peddlers like Ham pushing their idiot stories down all of our throats, and there’ll always be a large percentage of the population who just wants to bury their head in the sands and wait for the Rapture. You won’t convince them of anything they didn’t rigidly decide to believe long ago, and there’s really no point in trying. The evidence is out there, and if they want to accept reality, they are free to do so at any time. But the fact that a third of the country “isn’t sure” about a fundamental theory of science is the result of the subversive efforts of the religious right to undermine its teaching on a local levels. Let’s face it; if there is something religious people are good at doing it is ORGANIZING themselves. They tend to do that pretty well, surprisingly enough. It’s also the reason these people generally have any fucking power to begin with.

So the solution to this kind of problem requires a little bit more than shitting on easy targets like Ken, we can’t forget the more pressing issue these dogmatic robots are good at something it seems non-believers are not: getting organized. Fail at that, and you get fucked by the people who are.

About 3 years late, the people over at Vanity Fair decided it was time to visit this mausoleum of ignorance, a testament to the strong desire of the faithfully ignorant to have their beliefs strengthened by any means necessary. The pictures in the article, strangely enough, were taken by actor Paul Bettany, the atheist actor who portrayed Charles Darwin in the movie “Creation”. Watching it is on my to-do list, but finding a copy hasn’t exactly been easy, thanks largely to the fact it struggled mightily to find a distributor. That, of course, is it’s own story.

The article in question provides a good overview for those of us disinclined to give Ken Ham and his ilk our hard earned money. He’s not pulling any punches here; he considers the “museum” to be complete and utter cheese. To the author, this gigantic effort to marry the literal interpretation of the Bible into a messy and childish science seems utter insanity, but it may be because he has so little experience actually interacting with these people. If he did, he wouldn’t be so confused; rather he would be horrified with what Ham and Answers in Genesis are doing to young minds curious about ancient things like dinosaurs. The Museum is nothing more than a poisonous mix of ignorance and supreme arrogance; in thinking myth should be translated into reality, they may appeal to their sheep-like and uneducated base, but for the rest of the world they remain a 27 million dollar embarrassment to America.

Anyways, it’s an entertaining read, and if you have some time to kill I strongly urge you to check it out!

I’ve written extensively about the Creation Museum because it represents the ‘peak’ of creation ‘science’. Here is a museum that takes a serious stance as to the value of scientific understanding; which is to say they see little to no value in the principle. It’s ironic, of course, that the museum uses the latest in robotics and animatronics technology (itself a product of our scientific endeavors) to support their literal interpretation of the Bible.

Modern creationists don’t even realize the debt they owe to science. During the time when the Bible was written, simple infections that are routinely treated today would have been deadly. The child mortality rate was about 300 deaths for every 1,000 births, meaning that the odds were good that if you had three kids, one of them would not live past the age of 5. Modern germ theory has given us the tools to bring the number of child death down to a tiny 6 every thousand, making child mortality a rare (though still tragic) occurrence.

You cannot fully grasp modern germ theory without first understanding the process of evolution. Deadly pathogens, bacteria and other small invaders evolve far more rapidly than any other organism due to their speed of reproduction. Luckily, as we learn more, we create potent vaccines that prepare our bodies for the onslaught of these tiny intruders. In developing countries, measles, a disease which can be eradicated with a successful vaccination campaign, still kills an estimated 500,000 people a year, many of them children.

The very fact modern Christians have the luxury to teach nonsense to their own children is due entirely to the tireless efforts of scientists to improve our understanding of the natural world, which in turn allows us to develop new and better ways to protect ourselves from its onslaught. Nature may be cruel, but as our scientific understanding grows, we have increasingly softened it.

Atheist PZ Myers is planning a visit to the museum with his posse, and in response, director Ken Ham says he has a surprise for them; a supposedly irrefutable argument that supports their literal interpretation of the Bible. It’s a chestnut we’ve heard often from Ken, and it’s always met with dismal failure. Why would this time be any different? Ken and his ilk don’t understand the first thing about science; they don’t realize that the cars they drive to work, the tap water they drink, and the tools they used to build their temple to ignorance are only possible because of our growing scientific sophistication and understanding. They prefer to live in the bliss of their own ignorance, and their aim is to drag us all down to their level. I like the view from up here just fine, Ken.

So, the Creation Museum, still so new to the world, is already getting embroiled in a sex scandal. An actor who appeared as Adam in a video the museum uses to help tell their story of how the universe was created, also had a little risqué website on the side. The site shows some rather graphic photos and promotes a ‘free love’ attitude. The horror. This, of course, has gotten the officials at the Museum all hot and bothered, and not in a way their wives will appreciate. They’ve announced an investigation and have noted on their website that the actor’s actions do not match the morals or values they wish to communicate with the museum. They’ve also taken down the video.

Certainly, the museum has every right to be a little shocked at the behaviour of the actor. They have the right to openly criticize the man and the website he appears on. What doesn’t make sense is why they took down the video. Mr. Linden didn’t promote or make mention of the site in it. Indeed, he is a professional actor who played the role he was offered. The actor freely admits that while he isn’t Adam off-screen, that has nothing to do with how he performs in the video itself.

So what is the problem for the Museum? It seems they cannot fathom the idea the man they hired to play Adam was not of the highest moral caliber. What’s more, they’ve made issues of something that has nothing to do with the Museum itself or Creationism in general (from their so-called scientific perspective). What the actor did outside of his performance in the video is really not the concern of the Museum or their leadership. What they are doing is publicly questioning his morals and values, deeming them less than satisfactory for public decency. That is unfair and hypocritical. He has done nothing wrong.

A quick visit to Eric Linden’s site (aka Adam), reveals that rather than being upset by the museum’s decision, he accuses left wing pressure groups of trying to shut down the Creation Museum by ‘outing’ him. He claims “people such as Julie Carr Smyth, feel it’s necessary to attack the Creation Museum in any way possible. Why? Maybe because they are right? I was hired as a actor, not a spokesperson!”

The Museum operators have created a scandal where none existed. That such a tenuous link between a small website and the museum has been blown up into such a controversy is rather shameful. The man’s actions outside of his performance in the video have done nothing to harm the museum. The museum and its operators should be ashamed for casting public scrutiny on a man who has done nothing aside from behaving and acting how he wished, which is the right of everyone.

If you’re unfamiliar with Ken Ham, the relatively famous (or is it infamous) creationist, you will know him soon enough. Ham is part creator and director of a new Mecca for young earth creationists, a 27 million dollar facility designed by Patrick Marsh, whose visual flair helped engineer the Jaws and King Kong attractions at Universal theme park. The museum hopes to attract a quarter million visitors each year, and the sophistication and glitz of the place promises to attract droves of the faithful to witness the serene and strange sights of animatronic humans gleefully living side by side with lumbering, fresh faced dinosaurs. The site is a testament to the unyielding efforts of creationists to spread the notion that the Bible is THE authoritative book on everything, including ancient history, cosmology, and (as this museum tries to show) pre-history. But the museum does more than simply assert the age of the earth as a paltry 6000 years; as visitors take a tour of the history of mankind, from its fall from Eden, to Noah’s flood, they finally come upon the modern age, displayed as a decadent secular world that has abandoned the values of God and church. The final image is of a young man leering over his computer, supposedly looking at pornography (the ultimate decadence it seems if one is Christian).

What strikes one as odd is the dichotomous nature of the museum, which seems to be both disdainful of science and progress while simultaneously passing itself off as scientific. Alternative explanations to evolution are everywhere: the chameleon does not change color as a function of natural selection; instead, it does so to apparently communicate with others, and to show off its mood. The museum even endorses its own highly specific version of evolution, arguing that animals are evolutionary offshoots of the animals rescued in Noah’s flood.

But the museum’s sometimes dazzling displays and sophistication gloss over the shallow and highly misleading interpretation of historical events by creationists. Gone are the rigors of scientific inquiry in favor of biblical pandering. Unlike a real museum, which houses researchers espoused to uncovering the truths about the natural world, this new Biblical literalist ‘Mecca’ ensconces religious propagandists intent on dismantling history and science as we know it.

There has been a great deal of protest in the US over the opening of the museum, which has somewhat delayed the previous scheduled opening. Alas, the effort is both in vain and counter-productive; regardless of the protestations of scientists and secularists, creationists simply refuse to accept any theory that undermines their religious convictions. Strong opposition only enforces the idea that they are being unfairly prosecuted by intellectual ‘fascism’. The museum is not the cause of scientific ignorance in America; rather it is a symptom of it. Attempting to shut it down is tantamount to putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.

As creationists further remove themselves from the inconveniences of reality, they will continue to build whatever institutions they can to house their antiquated beliefs. A museum is perhaps only the start for them. Their ambitions extend far further. But the intellectual havoc they create is not impossible to combat, nor is it necessarily permanent. The will of the general American public has to push strongly for scientific education. Sadly, the average citizen is interested less in the pursuit of truth and more in the pursuit of happiness, which the museum undoubtedly fulfills for some. The way to fight this museum will therefore come not from protest, or even boycott, but from a campaign on the part of secularists of equal and greater vigor to ensure we do not become complacent and uncaring about the importance of science and reason, lest it become hijacked by those concerned less with the truth of the natural world, but rather by Bronze Age myths.