BOISE – A Christian group in Idaho has unveiled plans for a new creation museum that would display scientific evidence for the Bible’s creation account and expose weaknesses in the evolutionary theory.
Northwest Science Museum is an organization headquartered in Boise that aspires to construct a large natural history museum with exhibits detailing the earth’s history according to the biblical worldview. If built, the museum would likely be located on Interstate 84, somewhere between Boise and Nampa.
“We want to show a lot of science that’s being censored and not presented to the public,” Doug Bennett, the museum’s executive director, told the Idaho Statesman.
Currently, the group is operating a small “Vision Center” in Boise that houses various scientific specimens and artifacts, including fossils, petrified relics, and ancient dinosaur eggs. Eventually, the museum team hopes to display these and many other exhibits in the full museum.
“Providing relevant and current creation science information to the public is what Northwest Science Museum is all about,” Bennett told Christian News Network. “The museum will create permanent exhibits that will educate people of all ages about the most exciting emerging creation science in an accessible and interactive manner.”
The museum’s board of directors hopes to show Christians that science, correctly understood, corroborates the Bible’s accounts.
“They need to know that there is true science that backs up creation,” Bennett asserted. “The church as a whole has shied away from this issue. Our goal is to help pastors and lay teachers understand the overwhelming evidence for creation from a scientific point of view, and that we don’t need to be afraid to talk about origins.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, plans for the Northwest Science Museum call for a $150 million, 350,000-square-foot facility, as well as a full-sized replica of Noah’s Ark. The museum would showcase various pieces of scientific evidence, along with explanations of the evidence from both the creation and evolution perspectives.
Bennett, who has a background in geology, believes the exhibits would help museum-goers recognize the validity of the Bible’s historical and scientific records.
“I think that most people say that creation is religion and evolution is science,” he explained. “That couldn’t be farther from the truth. True science is observable, testable, and repeatable. Evolution has never been observed, is not testable and has never been repeated, so it is outside the realm of true science as defined by the scientific method.”
“However, so is creation science,” he continued. “It also has never been repeated and was not observed. So both are theories about the past, trying to explain how things that exist in the present got here. … The difference is that Christians have someone who knows everything, who doesn’t lie, and who was there at the beginning and he told us in the Bible how it happened.”
Stan Lutz, the museum’s cofounder, told Christian News Network that the creation vs. evolution discussion is important, because belief in evolutionism can lead to hopelessness and violence.
“If you will recall the Columbine shooting spree, those young men were taught they came from slime, which evolved into things that eventually evolved into an ape, then to you,” Lutz said. “We have allowed the schools and evolutionism to steal away all their hope. We then wonder how this could happen. They only acted out what they have been taught by the evolutionism paradigm.”
That is why the Northwest Science Museum’s biblical message is important, say Bennett and Lutz. When visitors understand the soundness of the Scriptures and the emptiness of evolutionism, they can come to know Jesus as their savior.
“One of the most philosophical questions that individuals (and even society as a whole) asks is, ‘How did I get here, and what is my purpose in life?’” Bennett said. “You have to understand your origins to understand your purpose in life. There is only one faith that explains origins, and why there is death, sin and suffering in this world, and why there is a need for a creator and a redeemer.”
“You see,” he added, “all Christian doctrine is based in Genesis and most within the first 11 chapters of Genesis. So it’s extremely important to understand origins. Understanding origins leads one to have to make a decision about God as a creator, and if God created you, then He makes the rules and you are accountable to Him; and if you are accountable, then you have to either accept Jesus as Lord and savior or reject Him. That’s one of the goals of the Northwest Science Museum: to bring people to the point where they have to make a decision about God.”
Photo: NorthwestScienceMuseum.com
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