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."
The fact is the DNA does not support a limited number of people like Noah's family producing the whole human race in just 5000 years.
We have too many alleles in particular loci to go back to only a few people.
And, no creationist can ever explain why apes and humans share the vitamin C gene defect if they are not related by common descent.
Yes, I have read it. It is quite good, but creationism is still nonsense.
I believe God created life and that evolution was the process he used.
"The article we are discussing is about Ken Ham the owner of the creationist museum. It might behoove you to read the article and find out the background of the people behind this nonsense."
Excuse me, I read the article before I ever posted word one.
The subject has changed so many times and after all one of Noah's sons was called 'Ham', and that was recently the topic of discussion, Interesting what?
If you don't believe what I do, an alien from space will kidnap you.
Its a threat. Its not going to happen and it is stupid to threaten in such a way. That is my point. Thank you for making it.
It would be wonderful if both if Ken Ham was as ephemeral as Noah's son.
"If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437
"Christians should look on evolution simply as the method by which God works." Rev. James McCosh, theologian and President of Princeton, 1890
"The fact is the DNA does not support a limited number of people like Noah's family producing the whole human race in just 5000 years.
We have too many alleles in particular loci to go back to only a few people.
And, no creationist can ever explain why apes and humans share the vitamin C gene defect if they are not related by common descent."
This applies to all peoples coming from one man and one woman from the Days of creation.
" In such a case, those “evolutionists” who make this claim are rejecting the term “random” and substituting God’s will/guidance and Providential hand in determining the changes rather than “random.” "
Not true at all. Unless you admit that we can not tell the difference between God's intervention and evolution, your statement is completely false.
Evolution is not completely random because it depends on rules of chemistry, physics etc. If you believe God created them, you still can't tell the difference between God's intervention and evolution.
"The fact is the DNA does not support a limited number of people like Noah's family producing the whole human race in just 5000 years.
We have too many alleles in particular loci to go back to only a few people.
And, no creationist can ever explain why apes and humans share the vitamin C gene defect if they are not related by common descent."
Just-This applies to all peoples coming from one man and one woman from the Days of creation.
Only if creation was many hundreds of million years ago and Man was formed about 2 or three million years ago.
"I think you may be overstating your case quite a bit."
Pot Kettle. LOL
Just-This applies to all peoples coming from one man and one woman from the Days of creation.
"Only if creation was many hundreds of million years ago and Man was formed about 2 or three million years ago."
No so, why is it objectional that there were two days of creation. The 6th day wherein all races were created, given duties and it was GOOD!
After the 7th day there was no man to til the ground. HELLO.
If memory serves me, PH is a lawyer. Couple that with his rabid anti-Christian stance, his condescending remarks and his apparent self-importance and you get the rough equivalent of Hillary trying to make believe she is religious.
"why is it objectional that there were two days of creation"
If day is millions of years, hardly any. If you are arguing for special creation or young earth, alleles falsify that argument.
I really have trouble understanding your syntax. Are you doing that to be purposely confusing like a life insurance salesman or is English your second or third language?
Your statement is proof positive that you are not, and never have been a "Christian minister." Well, that statement and your malapropism, "isogesis."
There is no one so puffed up and self important as one who goes around denouncing others as heretics.
"I hope your homework in other areas is more thorough. I gave you the reference for my quote (Post #84) which, in turn, gave the original reference."
I hope your obfuscation will cease. You did not even write post 84.
I can see further debate is useless, but don't think your debating tactics are new to creationists, who want to avoid a real discussion of biology at all costs.
Yet you call creationism apostasy and don't know what eisegesis is? No insult intended, but your statement is not credible. You, being one who goes where the evidence leads (right?) should have no problem with those of us who think there is not enought evidence to support your claim.
Perhaps you spent 6 years as a custodian or you lived on campus with your parents?
With a T-Rex after them they wouldn't have to sweat the serpent, would they?
Liar liar pants on fire is not an effective debating tactic.
I may have mistyped the spelling but the beginning eis or is is acceptable alternate spellings.
The fact is evolution is a fact and the Theory of Evolution explains that fact. Creation is not in the Theory.
I am a minister and if I trusted you I would tell you where I serve, but since I don't and never will I won't. You seem to be stalking me and proof texting my posts. I am not scared of you, but I do hope you will be a little less creepy.
Rise and shine, JS! That's exactly what Shubi did. Or did you just respond without reading?
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