When we first heard about the Creation Museum back in 2007, my friend Rosa and I knew we would have to make a special trip. The museum hardly catered to our personal belief systems, and that is why we were so intrigued. We could not imagine what kind of exhibits such a museum would have.

Located in Northern Kentucky, it is impossible to find an exact address on its Web site. From what I gather, it’s located in Petersburg, Ky., a town just outside of Cincinnati. The drive took six hours, and we arrived at the museum to find a large crowd of people congregated around its large doors.

Right away, a museum curator found us. I can imagine we stuck out; two 20-somethings among hoards and hoards of wholesome families, eagerly awaiting their enlightenment.

“Can we interest you all in a year-long pass to the museum?” he inquired.

“No, this is sort of a one-time thing. Cleveland is really far drive,” we said cordially.

“Oh, once you’ve seen it, no drive is too far,” he said emphatically. “I am here every day, and it never stops amazing me.”

To remain as respectful as possible, we bought notebooks to jot down our sarcastic comments instead of saying them aloud. We figured we should stretch the museum’s utility as far as possible; we were already kind of salty about paying admission to further fund their agenda.

After the first movie, our plan fell apart. We were so enraged by the misinformation flying around the room we could hardly contain ourselves. Earth is only a few thousand years old? Radioactive dating is all a sham? Fossils were put on our planet to test our faith?

We’d heard the tales of creation at our respective Hebrew schools, but we’d taken them into our brains and filed them under folklore. It had never occurred to us that we were expected to take those tales as absolute fact.

We continued to view the rest of the 70,000-square-foot museum in disbelief. Seeing life-sized displays of humans and animatronic dinosaurs playfully interacting was comical until we realized there were children in attendance, believing everything they saw. The anti-evolution agenda was at work in front of our own eyes, and we were terrified.

My friends and I were afraid to open our mouths for fear of what might come out. We didn’t want to offend serious museum patrons so we kept our mouths shut, only opening them to release the most sickly sweet sarcastic remarks.

Farther along the museum’s path was a graffiti-covered hall exhibiting various headlines that were indicative of the “modern world’s abandon of the Bible.”

“The Battle Over Gay Teens,” “The Crusade Against Religion,” and “The Battle Over Stem Cells,” for example.

As it seemed, they were just as afraid of us as we were of them. We didn’t go to the museum to make fun of believers. To this day, I am still not sure what possessed us to go through with our visit. We were both attracted to and repulsed by the religious aspect of the museum, evident by our internal drive to seek ideas we didn’t want to understand.

As disgusted as I thought I could be, I managed to suppress it. This museum would never convince anyone to believe in creationism. The Creation Museum preached to the converted, and no sane non-believer would ever be crazy enough to confront it.

We remained silent almost until we reached the car, pausing only to nab a pro-life magnet from a gas-guzzling SUV. I turned the key in the ignition, and we burst into laughter.

In the end, the joke was on me. The museum cop stopped me on the way out – my tire was flat. Maybe it was a sign that I should take this God stuff a bit more seriously and not actively poke fun at things many people believe in so strongly.

Or maybe I drove over a nail.

Sarah James is a sophomore public relations major and columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact her at [email protected].