In the beginning . . . Adam walked with dinosaurs [Creationist Park]

Telegraph.co.uk ^ | 02 January 2005 | James Langton

[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."

[Guyin4Os]

I thought that God created Adam about 6,000 years ago. I was under the impression that the Earth/solar system/universe cold be much older. Does anyone have some insight on this?

I wasn't present when God created the heavens and earth, so I don't know for certain. However the Hebrew grammar in Genesis 1:1, 2 certainly does allow for creation in eternity past, and a long period to pass before He created life on the earth. I don't subscribe to the so-called "Gap" theory that relegates the pre-history of evolution to an unmentioned period of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. But the construction of the sentences does allow for much time to pass after the initial creation of the universe and before life was placed on the earth.

If anyone is interested, I can detail this.

[Marauder]

bump

[Central Scrutiniser]

Noah's ark? I would love to hear about how the animals made it back to their homes without any food, since the flood washed everything else away. Or how the sloth swam across the ocean back to S. America. Or how the koala's made it without eucalylptus leaves, or any other number of common sense questions that usually get angrily answered "It was a miracle"

[Just mythoughts]

"Sin (death, sickness, etc.) came into the world because of the Garden of Eve sin. Because of this, God sent his son, Jesus, to redeem the world (not only man, but earth)."


When was Lucifer created and when did he fall?

[Guyin4Os]

There is NO evidence that the Adam walked with the dinosaurs

Actually there is. A. human footprints and dinosaur footprints in the same geologic structure, B. human bones mixed with dinosaur bones, and C. references to large reptiles in ancient lore. These are all things you would expect to find if humans and dinosaurs had existed contemporaneously.

[Just mythoughts]

"Noah's ark? I would love to hear about how the animals made it back to their homes without any food, since the flood washed everything else away. Or how the sloth swam across the ocean back to S. America. Or how the koala's made it without eucalylptus leaves, or any other number of common sense questions that usually get angrily answered "It was a miracle""


First the reason for the flood, maybe the 'flood' did not encompass the whole planet just the whole known earth that the writer knew about.

[Just mythoughts]

Aw but where are the flesh man's bones?

[Central Scrutiniser]

Oh, another condition, never an actual answer.

OK, how did they build a boat large enough that would be structurally sound?

How many weeks would it take to fill the boat?

What did the animals eat after the flood was over?

Why didn't the lions eat the zebras?

etc etc etc...

[superskunk]

If anyone is interested, I can detail this.


It is interesting, but it's just a passing interest. I never felt the need to justify creation to an atheist, which is how such information would be used. I can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God, but I have seen ample evidence of his existence. That's more significant to me than when exactly Adam and the Earth was created.

[PatrickHenry]

... human footprints and dinosaur footprints in the same geologic structure ...

Not really. A Summary of the Paluxy "Man Track" Controversy .

[grizzly84]

I personally believe in God and evolution. Basically I don't see how evolution could not happen. Survival of the strong for instance, if certain characteristics in a species of animal enable them to survive, height, thicker fur, anything. Those without the trait slowly die, the survivors pass those traits on to the next generation, soon the whole species has that trait. That's my understanding of it anyway.

There are lots of possibilities. Maybe 6 days to God is a much longer period of time, after all how could there be an Earth day before the Earth existed? Isn't the theory that a lightning bolt hitting amino acid created life? Maybe it took 6 days to create that storm. If it was all a grand design to create Human civilization from that lightning bolt, and we gained sentience only some thousands of years ago, what's the difference? That probably drives athiests up the wall, and maybe guys like Falwell too.

[ddantas]

I thought that God created Adam about 6,000 years ago. I was under the impression that the Earth/solar system/universe cold be much older. Does anyone have some insight on this?

Well, as far as I understand it, there's quite a bit of evidence that the earth has been around for a long time. For a young earth theory to work, God would have had to create the earth 6000 years ago in an old-looking state. This violates the "simplest explanation is usually right" rule.

[Paloma_55]

--- When was Lucifer created and when did he fall? ---

Why do you assume Lucifer was male?

[elmer fudd]

There are a few other problems that I see as well. If you were to calculate the rainfall necessary to cover the highest mountains it would be enough to sink virtually any boat ever made. Also, how did the fresh water and salt water aquatic animals survive once the oceans, lakes and rivers had all been mixed together?

[aculeus]

Mr Ham is particularly proud of a planned reconstruction of the interior of Noah's Ark.

Can I book a cabin?

[Central Scrutiniser]

How did the reptiles survive the cold?

That poor little Koala couple, dogpaddling all the way to Australia.

One creationist said that Noah just had baby animals on the ark!

Amazing what contortions some will go to attempt to prove a story.

[safisoft]

The Bible does not say that, it says "In the BEGINNING." The Dinosaurs were long gone by the time Adam walked the earth. In fact Adam was not the first man, only the first of us.

The Bible gives eleborate genealogies which date the beginning to about 6,000 years ago.

The Bible does give a little glimpse into the gap between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2, but you have to look to the prophets to find it, not in Genesis.

Your Bible knowledge is lacking. I wish people who know nothing about the Bible would not criticize the positions of others as "unbiblical".

For people who refuse to understand the historocity of the Genesis literal creation account, they need to deal with this: The doctrines of Substitutionary Atonement, original sin, and the inerrancy of Scripture require it. All or nothing - unless you discount the very words of the Master Himself when referencing "the beginning" - You are arguing with the Messiah Himself. He said Adam was the first man. Argue with Him.

[Just mythoughts]

"Oh, another condition, never an actual answer."

Condition guess that would fit for reason for the flood. The flood was specific to a specific people. That lineage that the Christ was to come through was all but destroyed, Noah and his family were the only ones not polluted.


"OK, how did they build a boat large enough that would be structurally sound?"

You have no proof that the boat was otherwise.

"How many weeks would it take to fill the boat?"

Gen 7:4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth (ground)."

5-9 The boat was loaded.

10. And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

The waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

"What did the animals eat after the flood was over? "

Noah did not leave the ark until the 'dove' came back with an olive leaf, plus another 7 days. The ark floated and rested upon the mountains of Ararat. We are not told if the land on the other side of 'Ararat' was flooded as well.

We are told that God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged; once again took 150 days or 5 months.


Why didn't the lions eat the zebras?

We are not told that lions and zebras were among the animals only that every living thing of all flesh, by two.

I suppose rats, mice, rabbits etc. would procreate quickly enough to feed these.
We are not told what animals were loaded upon the ark, only that two of ALL flesh, that could mean other humans as well.

The animals that were clean for food 7 of each male and female. Fowls of the air by sevens to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

etc etc etc...

[DaGman]

"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."

...as well as make a few bucks on the side from the gullible. Somewhere P.T. Barnum is smiling!