Posted on 01/02/2005 12:20:11 PM PST by PatrickHenry
With its towering dinosaurs and a model of the Grand Canyon, America's newest tourist attraction might look like the ideal destination for fans of the film Jurassic Park.
The new multi-million-dollar Museum of Creation, which will open this spring in Kentucky, will, however, be aimed not at film buffs, but at the growing ranks of fundamentalist Christians in the United States.
It aims to promote the view that man was created in his present shape by God, as the Bible states, rather than by a Darwinian process of evolution, as scientists insist.
The centrepiece of the museum is a series of huge model dinosaurs, built by the former head of design at Universal Studios, which are portrayed as existing alongside man, contrary to received scientific opinion that they lived millions of years apart.
Other exhibits include images of Adam and Eve, a model of Noah's Ark and a planetarium demonstrating how God made the Earth in six days.
The museum, which has cost a mighty $25 million (£13 million) will be the world's first significant natural history collection devoted to creationist theory. It has been set up by Ken Ham, an Australian evangelist, who runs Answers in Genesis, one of America's most prominent creationist organisations. He said that his aim was to use tourism, and the theme park's striking exhibits, to convert more people to the view that the world and its creatures, including dinosaurs, were created by God 6,000 years ago.
"We want people to be confronted by the dinosaurs," said Mr Ham. "It's going to be a first class experience. Visitors are going to be hit by the professionalism of this place. It is not going to be done in an amateurish way. We are making a statement."
The museum's main building was completed recently, and work on the entrance exhibit starts this week. The first phase of the museum, which lies on a 47-acre site 10 miles from Cincinatti on the border of Kentucky and Ohio, will open in the spring.
Market research companies hired by the museum are predicting at least 300,000 visitors in the first year, who will pay $10 (£5.80) each.
Among the projects still to be finished is a reconstruction of the Grand Canyon, purportedly formed by the swirling waters of the Great Flood – where visitors will "gape" at the bones of dinosaurs that "hint of a terrible catastrophe", according to the museum's publicity.
Mr Ham is particularly proud of a planned reconstruction of the interior of Noah's Ark. "You will hear the water lapping, feel the Ark rocking and perhaps even hear people outside screaming," he said.
More controversial exhibits deal with diseases and famine, which are portrayed not as random disasters, but as the result of mankind's sin. Mr Ham's Answers in Genesis movement blames the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, in which two teenagers killed 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves, on evolutionist teaching, claiming that the perpetrators believed in Darwin's survival of the fittest.
Other exhibits in the museum will blame homosexuals for Aids. In a "Bible Authority Room" visitors are warned: "Everyone who rejects his history – including six-day creation and Noah's flood – is `wilfully' ignorant.''
Elsewhere, animated figures will be used to recreate the Garden of Eden, while in another room, visitors will see a tyrannosaurus rex pursuing Adam and Eve after their fall from grace. "That's the real terror that Adam's sin unleashed," visitors will be warned.
A display showing ancient Babylon will deal with the Tower of Babel and "unravel the origin of so-called races'', while the final section will show the life of Christ, as an animated angel proclaims the coming of the Saviour and a 3D depiction of the crucifixion.
In keeping with modern museum trends, there will also be a cafe with a terrace to "breathe in the fresh air of God's creation'', and a shop "crammed'' with creationist souvenirs, including T-shirts and books such as A is for Adam and Dinky Dinosaur: Creation Days.
The museum's opening will reinforce the burgeoning creationist movement and evangelical Christianity in the US, which gained further strength with the re-election of President Bush in November.
Followers of creationism have been pushing for their theories to be reintegrated into American schoolroom teaching ever since the celebrated 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial", when US courts upheld the right of a teacher to use textbooks that included evolutionary theory.
In 1987, the US Supreme Court reinforced that position by banning the teaching of creationism in public schools on the grounds of laws that separate state and Church.
Since then, however, many schools – particularly in America's religious Deep South – have got around the ban by teaching the theory of "intelligent design", which claims that evolutionary ideas alone still leave large gaps in understanding.
"Since President Bush's re-election we have been getting more membership applications than we can handle,'' said Mr Ham, who expects not just the devout, but also the curious, to flock through the turnstiles. "The evolutionary elite will be getting a wake-up call."
Australian con-artists are among the best in the world.
Your post 25 mentions human and dino footprints that supposedly were laid down in the same place at the same time (or at least, during the same geological era).
So, your evidence, if true, shows that humans and dinosaurs existed in the same place at the same time.
What do you think the average lifespan would be for humans living in a world populated by numerous multi-ton predators?
The Bible also mentions the Fountains of the Deep opening up.
An interesting speculation is that Earthquakes cracked the crust, releasing extensive water deposits under tremendous pressure. This accounted for most of the flood. The forces that released these underground reservoirs also pushed the continents about at much higher speeds than we observe today (miles per hour instead of inches per year), causing additional earthquakes, volcanism, mountain-building, etc.
It's an interesting thought to ponder.
Oh man, it would be worth the price of admission just to see this.
It's a pretty simple rule of logic- the person who proposes that X happened has the burden of providing evidence that X did, in fact, happen.
"Only people reaching for a theory read it that way. Anyone familiar with Semitic languages and story-telling can see quite clearly that Adam was created the sixth day. Not only that, the references back to the literal six days are mentioned as the the memorial for the defining sign of God's people: the Sabbath. Deny the literal six day creation account and the fall of man, and you need to start ripping whole pages from the Bible. The people who have preserved the Scriptures as the Word of G-d have read this each Sabbath for millenia."
Wow, you said you were fluent in Hebrew. The six day man, yes is Adam, however, there was no man to till the ground after the 7th Day. Then 'the' Adam was formed, like a potter forms his clay, total different word usage used.
Man has indeed ripped whole pages, and books from what instruction was given, and they have even changed the meanings of words. We were warned that this would happen.
Call it a theory, if it makes you feel superior, however, I stopped listening to man's traditions long ago.
"LOL! You are the one who keeps bring up the "original" and you don't know what is said in those verses? Pick up a copy of the Talmud and read what those closest to the event think was the "minor offense". Yes, the "original" as you put it, tells the story, but like many who have grasped at that straw for too long, their preconceived ideas evade the account in the "original" language. Just a suggestion: put down your "Strongs" and learn the language before you start speaking of things you do not understand."
Remember he who laughs last laughs longest!
So tell us you of 'supreme' knowledge what does the original say.
Why spend money visiting a theme park, when for much less you can buy the comic books:
Big Daddy?
Apes, Lies and Ms. Henn.
In The Beginning.
Read Genesis again dude. Man ("H'Adam") and woman are created on the 6th day. God then rests on the 7th.
So, how should the concept of "slavery" be otherwise expressed? or was slavery a moral act immediately post-deluge? Or do some offences morally justify slavery?
"Read Genesis again dude. Man ("H'Adam") and woman are created on the 6th day. God then rests on the 7th."
Read it again dude, and the "H'Adam" does not apply until after the 7th day. You know the farmer/gardner/ to till the ground.
Those are quite entertaining, but I really want to hear the people screaming outside Noah's Ark. That would be special.
I always wondered about this. A flood seems like a terribly innefficient way to kill sinners. Why not just zap them, like Zeus used to do?
Furthermore, the Flood was supposed to remove the taint of evil from the world. That didn't seem to work very well.
It is certainly an interesting thought to ponder, but there is not the slightest hint of such an event in the geological record. The energy released by such a rapid event would assuredly destroy the earth's atmosphere and kill everyone on the ark (like Krakatoa simultaneously occuring everywhere on the earth) and the question is then begged; where did the water go afterwards?
If you wish to propose such an extraordinary event, then you need to show some evidence for it.
And of course a flood is just the kind of disaster story an early river civilisation would have. A once-a-millenium flood would be an appalling disaster for such a civilisation, killing virtually everyone in some areas.
Likewise tsunamis can be seen to be relevant in supplying such stories from oceanic civilisations (we can sadly see all too easily today)
"Furthermore, the Flood was supposed to remove the taint of evil from the world. That didn't seem to work very well."
Really what "evil"? What was going on that the Heavenly Father repented that he made man in the flesh?
Christ says that this will be repeated yet again, wonder what kind of 'ark' will be supplied to the ones who do not participate?
So the Park will have fossilized dinosaurs walking around??
I thought they were just "funny-shaped rocks"?
The Flood story might be based on the creation of the Black Sea when the Mediterranean eroded through what are today the Straights of Bosporus. When the Med. finally broke through, it would have created a massive waterfall and huge amounts of water would have deluged what was then a plain. Any humans living there would have been drowned or forced to flee for their lives.
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