Broken Thinking

If you have never heard of creationism before then don't bother looking into it. You have far better things to do.

My post today is regarding the creation "museum" in Kentucky US. It's a place the gives an alternate (see wrong) view of history based on a literal interpretation of the Bible. And it seems that it's actually attracting visitors. Really!?
Who is going to see this crap? I admit that I may go if I was in the area. But I have anecdotal evidence that there are armed guards on site that will eject you if you start pointing and laughing. Could it be that this is only an attraction to people as a sort of bizarre and ridiculous side show? Or is there really a subset of the religious population in America that will consider this bile legitimate science? According to a recent article in the Huffington Post. More than 1.2 million people have gone through the door since this place opened in 2007.

I feel that I shouldn't even bother to point out why it's a complete load of crap. But I just can't resist.
Among the many, many, many, uncountable lies that are on display in this place are the following gems.
*Humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time.
*Noah's arc was actually built and used for it's purported purpose.
*The great flood of the biblical tale happened and caused a mass extinction and created basically all the major geological formations on the earth. Things like caves, the grand canyon ect.
*Species that were alive in the past but are not anymore. Are extinct either because Noah was a dick and choose not to take them on his arc. Or because Noah was a dick and threw them overboard during the flood for some reason.
*The earth is 6000 years old.

And so it goes. On and on. This "museum" is worthy (sort of) of ridicule because it is possibly one of the most awesome and visible examples of what happens when ideology is allowed to replace rational thinking in a human mind. Here we have a prime example of "look at this evidence".
"That evidence doesn't fit with my interpretation of my holy book that I have arbitrarily chosen to be the indispensable word of my god".
"What?"
"Exactly! I therefore reject the truth that is supported by the evidence and embrace the alternative truth that I create for myself".

This kind of severely broken thinking is all over the place in the biblical literalism literature. It has to be. If you subscribe to a literal view of the bible and think that it is the irrefutable word of god. Then your thinking must get further and further from reality as scientific progress is made. Here are a few choice examples of this broken thinking from Answers In Genesis.

"We affirm that the 66 books of the Bible are the written Word of God. The Bible is divinely inspired and inerrant throughout. Its assertions are factually true in all the original autographs. It is the supreme authority, not only in all matters of faith and conduct, but in everything that it teaches."

"We deny that the Bible’s authority is limited to spiritual, religious or redemptive themes and we deny the exclusion of its authority from its assertions related to such fields as history and science."

"We affirm that no apparent, perceived, or claimed evidence in any field, including history, archeology and science, can be considered valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record."   

I don't recommend that you spend too much time at answers in genesis if you value your sanity.
The point I'm trying to make here is that your world view and what you consider to be true should always be informed by the facts. The bible is not a source of facts any more than green eggs and ham. When the kind of broken thinking that results in things like the creation "museum" is allowed to take root in someones mind. It grows increasingly divorced from reality and becomes harder to correct over time. These sorts or places diminish the public understanding of science and lower the collective IQ. This particular monstrosity is in the US. So while it's far away at the moment. It's still useful to understand how these things happen so that we can guard against it. Both in ourselves and in our society.