Faith's leap of logic

I recently read another article about the increasingly-popular Creation Museum, located just on the other side of the Kentucky border. In scale and appearance, the place looks impressive, and by all accounts gives a very thorough and detailed explanation of Biblical history, particularly the Book of Genesis. But there are a few points that really seem to require more willing suspension of disbelief that your average Looney Tunes cartoon -- and not only by atheists and agnostics, but also by millions of people who consider themselves at least somewhat religious, myself included.

However, there is a growing population of people who are ardent believers in Creationism to the point of completely ignoring and dismissing scientific fact. With that belief comes the contention that the Earth is a mere 6,000 years old, as opposed to the 4.5 billion years old unanimously accepted by those who have actually studied the planet. Now, that difference is not exactly what you'd call splitting hairs -- more like splitting mountain ranges. I can't even do the math on what percent 6,000 is of 4.5 billion, and my calculator doesn't have enough places past the decimal. So I guess my first question is how do you completely negate 4.5 billion years of history and blankly state it just didn't happen?

Imagine if a given religion was successful in convincing its followers that the past 500 years never happened and that North and South America had never been discovered. And to those of us who said, "But we've been living in North America for 500 years!" members of this religion simply replied, "No, we're not, it doesn't exist, and we know we're right because our bible does not mention any place called America." End of story, no arguments please.

How is that any different than Christians today baldly dismissing the existence of anything on this planet earlier than 4,000 B.C. and simply stating, with no qualification, that science is lying when it carbon dates pottery, bones, fossils, artwork, human remains, and so much else to centuries and millennia before 4,000 B.C. Talk about relativism!

Even more astounding than the belief that the Greeks, Babylonians, and Sumerians weren't palling around with Adam and Eve is the belief that dinosaurs and humans co-existed. The "theory" would be laughable if so many people didn't seriously believe it. That makes it dangerous. And this belief exists despite the complete absence of dinosaurs from the Bible. Now, one would think that had dinosaurs been here 6,000 years ago, there would be SOMETHING in the Bible about giant reptiles tromping all over the place! A psalm, a letter from Paul warning the Corinthians, a destroyed village, something, anything. But of course there isn't because they had been extinct for a few hundred million years and Biblical humans had no concept of the Earth's history, which is why they created a story that fit their limited understanding of life to answer their questions about its origins.

I think the worst part about this movement to make Creationism work in a time and place in which science has just about proven it impossible, is that it leaves out so many wonderful possibilities for people to blend "what was" with "what is." For all those who insist on recreating modern reality to fit the world-view of people who had neither the technology or experience know better, there are millions more who know that science and religion need not be mutually exclusive. Carelessly inventing facts on the modern side of the issue ignores the possibility that the creation story was meant to be interpreted and perhaps even revised through the centuries to account for humans' progress and intelligence. In what reality is it easier to believe dinosaurs existed 6,000 years ago than the possibility that Genesis was written for the limited world-view of Biblical humans, and perhaps even intended to be broadened to accommodate civilization's advancements?

The longer we allow this proud and unapologetic disregard for empirical fact to go unchallenged -- and therefore gain credibility -- the closer we get to establishing a relative theocracy whereby anyone can claim anything so long as they believe it and can convince others that it is Biblically based. I am far from being opposed to religion; however, it is critical that what we believe is adapted to accommodate that which we know -- not the other way around. Anything less places us in a position to disregard all fact in the name of belief with no accountability.

Societies that operated under a belief in their divine right to rule according to God's law have been among the most violent, restrictive, and corrupt societies in history. While the United States is not ruled by Christian dogma, the number of people who are so eagerly willing to cast aside fact for faith is a dangerous indication of how far they would be willing to go in the name of religion. I shudder to think of where such an unchecked crusade could take us.