Posted on 01/14/2007 5:31:07 PM PST by Tim Long
PETERSBURG, Kentucky - Ken Ham's sprawling creation museum isn't even open yet, but an expansion is already underway in the state-of-the art lobby, where grunting dinosaurs and animatronic humans coexist in a Biblical paradise.
A crush of media attention and packed preview sessions have convinced Ham that nearly half a million people a year will come to Kentucky to see his Biblically correct version of history.
"I think we'll be surprised at how many people come," Ham said as he dodged dozens of designers working to finish exhibits in time for the May 28 opening.
The $27 million project, which also includes a planetarium, a special-effects theater, nature trails and a small lake, is privately funded by people who believe the Bible's first book, Genesis, is literally true.
For them, a museum showing Christian schoolchildren and skeptics alike how the earth, animals, dinosaurs and humans were created in a six-day period about 6,000 years ago -- not over millions of years, as evolutionary science says -- is long overdue.
While foreign media and science critics have mostly come to snigger at exhibits explaining how baby dinosaurs fit on Noah's Ark and Cain married his sister to people the earth, museum spokesman and vice-president Mark Looy said the coverage has done nothing but drum up more interest.
"Mocking publicity is free publicity," Looy said. Besides, U.S. media have been more respectful, mindful perhaps of a 2006 Gallup Poll showing almost half of Americans believe that humans did not evolve, but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years.
Looy said supporters of the museum include evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews and conservative Catholics, as well as the local Republican congressman, Geoff Davis (news, bio, voting record), and his family, who have toured the site.
FROM 'JAWS' TO EDEN
While the debate between creationists and mainstream scientists has bubbled up periodically in U.S. schools since before the Scopes "monkey trial" in nearby Tennessee 80 years ago, courts have repeatedly ruled that teaching religious theory in public schools is unconstitutional.
Ham, an Australian who moved to America 20 years ago, believes creationists could have presented a better case at the Scopes trail if they'd been better educated -- but he's not among those pushing for creation to be taught in school.
Rather than force skeptical teachers to debate creation, Ham wants kids to come to his museum, where impassioned experts can make their case that apparently ancient fossils and the Grand Canyon were created just a few thousand years ago in a great flood.
"It's not hitting them over the head with a Bible, it's just teaching that we can defend what it says," he said.
Ham, who also runs a Christian broadcasting and publishing venture, said the museum's Hollywood-quality exhibits set the project apart from the many quirky Creation museums sprinkled across America.
The museum's team of Christian designers include theme park art director Patrick Marsh, who designed the "Jaws" and "King Kong" attractions at Universal Studios in Florida, as well as dozens of young artists whose conviction drives their work.
"I think it shows (nonbelievers) the other side of things," said Carolyn Manto, 27, pausing in her work painting Ice Age figures for a display about caves in France.
"I don't think it's going to be forcing any viewpoint on them, but challenging them to think critically about their evolutionary views," said Manto, who studied classical sculpture before joining the museum.
Still, Looy is upfront about the museum's mission: to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with nonbelievers.
"I think a lot of people are going to come out of curiosity ... and we're going to present the Gospel. This is going to be an evangelistic center," Looy said. A chaplain has been hired for museum-goers in need of spiritual guidance.
The museum's rural location near the border of Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana places it well within America's mostly conservative and Christian heartland. But the setting has another strategic purpose: two-thirds of Americans are within a day's drive of the site, and Cincinnati's international airport is minutes away.
The project has not been without opposition. Zoning battles with environmentalists and groups opposed to the museum's message have delayed construction and the museum's opening day has been delayed repeatedly.
The museum has hired extra security and explosives-sniffing dogs to counter anonymous threats of damage to the building. "We've had some opposition," Looy said.
--you should really look deeper into the facts of creationism--
What facts?
Are you going to show us some science, or new-age claptrap about how God doesn't want us to use the brains He gave us?
--It is so much more fascinating to look at the complex dna code --
Studies of the DNA code support evolution.
Show me some facts, not just your just waggling your tounge.
Creationism is a belief based pseudoscience. If you want to teach it, then do it in a church where people can get up and leave, NOT in an elementary school.
Show me some proof, some facts. You mentioned "the facts of creationism", I want to see the facts. (mind you, real facts, peer reviewed, testable and following the scientific method, not just bible waving by the theocons)
I'm waiting.
--I'm waiting.--
I hope you have something worthwhile to do while waiting.
Coyoteman,
Did you ever see that shirt that explained why God was a bad scientist.
I don't remember them all but one had to do with God experiment, creating life, could not be duplicated by other scientist.
It was pretty funny.
Sure it is, now how about the link?
I got beer and nachos.
I figure I win the argument when one of them starts quoting the bible and praying for me.
**If it were up to the creationist luddites science wouldn't have gotten beyond the 1800's.**
Not so. There have been plenty of scientists that believe in their work, AND believed that God could do things that are impossible for man.
**And boy, Little House on the Prairie sure was a great way of life...**
Do I detect you looking down your nose at that way of life?
Tonight there are people still living that way in the US that are totally unaffected by the ice storm power outages. They are able to raise their own food, heat their houses, and thank God for it all. They have my respect.
The God-fearing people recognize that the world was made to function as it does. Does it seem old? Only to the natural man, who also doesn't believe that the little lad's lunch bypassed a sizable amount of time in food preparation. (Gosh! I coulda swore all those extra fish Jesus pulled out of that basket looked at least 2 years old!)
Which is more impossible:
water into wine?
Red Sea parting?
manna from heaven?
creating earth?
blood that can wash away sin?
Yes, I believe God made the world, turn-key, and ready for life very quickly, just like he made the multitudes lunch very quickly.
Now, go look in the mirror, eye to eye with yourself. See your systems at work; another one of countless video streams being recorded in your almost infinite storage site. Your sense of smell retrieves from those same storage files, a red flag: "It's time for a bath". Your hearing retrieves another flag: "Hurry up in there! I gotta go!" Your memory banks recall the sense of touch, as you jump into the shower and a significant other steps into the bathroom and flushes the toydee. (feel the warmth) ;)
And that, as they say, is just the tip of the iceberg.
I see you have a little problem understanding satire.
Let me guess: You believe the world is flat; the sun orbits the Earth, the moon landing was fake, Elvis is alive, etc.
Yeah, I look down at 1800's USA. Why? I live in Phoenix, I have a car, an air conditioning unit, I buy fresh food from the store, I have a computer and a TV.
If someone wants to freeze or bake, that is their deal, they may like it, but I think its pretty stupid, in this day and age.
As for the rest of your jive, its nice to read, but show me some proof? Why do you fear the fact that mankind is forever learning about his universe? Why did God give us the brain to think and reason with? Does God not want us to understand the secrets of the universe?
The theocons want us not to think, to blindly accept dogma and stop doing what comes natural to mankind, using our brain. Oddly, so do the muslims, they both fear us using our potential fully.
We are talking about science. You said creationism is based on years of scientific research. If that is true, then it would have appeared in a peer reviewed scientific journal. You are asked to produce the research and can't. Sounds like someone just got caught by the BS detector.
We are talking about science. You said creationism is based on years of scientific research. If that is true, then it would have appeared in a peer reviewed scientific journal. You are asked to produce the research and can't. Sounds like someone just got caught by the BS detector.
Science that is published must meet a standard for recognized methodology. Apparently their work doesn't meet this standard.
actually the facts I just posted about the amazing dna code very much supports creation theory. There are so many and I have presented others to you, I'm sure on previous threads. They are all there for you to look up authored by various scientists who don't fall in line with the evolution peers. I think you might enjoy science that shows an author alot more than poor science.
Your denial of creation science is your excuse for keeping it out of the public school system. We musn't give the wobbly evolution theory some critical competion...that just wouldn't do. Come on, why don't you be a little more curious instead of holding strongly to your teachings. They just might be wrong you know.
**I see you have a little problem understanding satire.**
No problem here. I understand satire (the use of derisive wit). The "Little House.." way of life WAS and IS a great way of life.
what's nonsense about them coyote? Mt. St Helens showing false readings, Lava flows also showing false readings- beyond a certain date carbon dating is useless.
http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v10i10f.htm
There's a more accurate dating methods from Zircons I beleive it is- Gah- i had all this info too- I can't remember if it is helium or some other element that escapes at a set rate-
Here's part of what I had- I did reformat and lost muich of what I'd found- but here's a short list I had saved- some are Christian some not- But despite some being Christian- is it an automatic discredit by you? Because what they present is fact:
Superposition
Not a valid dating method- too manyvariables must be taken into account- too many suppositions
http://www.fbinstitute.com/powell/evolutionexposed.htm
Stratigraphy
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/publications/bulletins/135/home.html
Dendrochronology
Up to 10000 years tops
Radiometric Dating Methods
problems with radiometic http://www.specialtyinterests.net/carbon14.html
Obsidian Hydration Dating
Many obsidians are crowded with microlites and crystallines (gobulites and trichites), and these form fission-track-like etch pits following etching with hydrofluoric acid. The etch pits of the microlites and crystallines are difficult to separate from real fission tracks formed from the spontaneous decay of 238U, and accordingly, calculated ages based on counts including the microlite and crystalline etch pits are not reliable.”
http://www.scientifictheology.com/STH/Pent3.html
Paleomagnetic/Archaeomagnetic
Very little info on this method
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/tecto.htm
Luminescence Dating Methods
http://karst.planetresources.net/Kimberley_Culture.htm
Amino Acid Racemization
http://www.creation-science-prophecy.com/amino/
Fission-track Dating
http://www.ao.jpn.org/kuroshio/86criticism.html
Ice Cores
Varves
At best- the two methods above are only accurate to about 11,000 years due to numerous conditions and environmental uncertainties
Pollens
Corals
Highly unreliable- you'd need constant temps to maintaIN reliable growth pattersn http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i1/coral_reef.asp
Cation Ratio
Fluorine Dating
http://www.present-truth.org/Creation/creation-not-evolution-13.htm
Patination
Known times only throuhg analysis of the patina
Oxidizable Carbon Ratio
Electron Spin Resonance
Cosmic-ray Exposure Dating
Closely related to the buggiest dating methods of Carbon dating
Bull fella- Much Creation science HAS been featured in peer-reviewed Magazines- saying it hasn't doesn't negate that fact- YOU can look it up just as well as any of have in the past- the 'if you can't produce it to my satiisfaction must mean that it doesn't exist' doesn't fly here.
I'm going to pop some popcorn. This is going to be good.
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