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."
Apparently you know a "Ham" that I am unaware of.
Been watching Ham since he was Lay Evangelist #3 for the Creation Science Foundation (Now has his very own ministry - "eeh, has'na he done well"). That's exactly what he has alway done.
My reading and understanding of the scriptures leads me to believe Adam was created far earlier than the concept we know as "time" began. I believe the proclaimation "..for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" refers to mankind's fallen state in which "time" as we know it began when God cast out the man from the garden. Clearly "day" refers to an age, or a period of time much longer than 24 hours. God placed cheribums with flaming swords to guard the way back to paradise. These, I believe, are the angels of death. Therefore the earth and creation can be many ages "old", before man's life began to age or commence the race to death.
Also in Genesis 2:4, it states; "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens," - again referring to periods of time greater than a mere 24 hours.
I hope that makes some sense.
Yes, he is a multimillionaire now. Mrs. Ham's little boy is quite comfortable now. LOL
"Also in Genesis 2:4, it states; "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens," - again referring to periods of time greater than a mere 24 hours."
Hallelujah!!! This is the key verse to understanding the creation "yoms". Any one with an open mind and the ability to read for comprehension would come to the same conclusion as we have.
I love ya man!!! ;-)
Good post. Thanks!
"Why start asking for that now? You don't care what it says."
I suppose this is your way of saying there is no scripture supporting your claim.
As a theological argument, I would respond by first saying that I do not see the mathematical laws of probability and statistics, as purely naturalistic mechanisms, being binding on God, who is by definition supernatural.
I would also assert this: one thing that I have always found fascinating about randomness, philosophically speaking, is that it is only fully uncertain from one direction in time's arrow. Before an event takes place, any number of different outcomes are possible. But after the event takes place, only one outcome has transpired. But simply because we know what the outcome is, does it change the odds of it occurring in the first place? No. The odds of a coin landing on heads is 50-50, regardless of whether you are talking about a coin that has been flipped or one that has yet to be flipped.
But what would a string of random coin flips look like to an entity which exists above or outside of time. It would not be a series of historical events, because that is only looking back in time. Nor would it appear to be a series of unresolved potentiality's, as that would be merely looking ahead in time. I would speculate that it is somehow both, that such an entity sees both the uncertainties and the certainties, equally real and equally full.
Now, picture an extra-temporal Entity that can not only view this seeming paradox, but create the very randomness itself. He would both create, simultaneously, uncertainty and certainty, but both being equally real and equally true and complete.
Let's assume that a random process led to the evolution of humanity (not an accurate assumption, because evolution by natural selection is not wholly random, but useful for our purposes...). We know, however, looking backward in time, that regardless of the potentiality each step of the way, there was only one specific outcome; that one path was taken at each step.
Now a supra-temporal entity could see both the potentiality and what occurred. However, our supra-temporal CREATIVE Entity would CREATE both - create the uncertainty and the certainty, both the randomness and the certain conclusion. The creation would be equally uncertain and equally certain.
But here's the strange part. I'm not talking about the clock-work God theory, or the belief that God guids every twist and turn in evolutionary history. I'm saying that God created the very randomness (as well as the other natural phenomenon) that resulted in humanity's existance. To further confuse the issue, I am saying that maybe God not only created a random process that did exactly what He wanted, but also if it could be run again (which obviously it can't) it would result in a different outcome because of the randomness element which He put in it.
I would be the first, to say, however, that I have no idea how this works. It is a mystery, pure and simple. A paradox.
Now, to me, this answers the questions you posed: without direct intervention by God in directing sperm to egg, could He have known us before we were born? Yes, absolutely. To Him, being outside of time, "before" or "after" has none of the meaning it has for us. He could have known us in the same way that he knows everything about all time. To him it is both potential and established, past, present and future.
(I like the New American Bible's Ex.3:14 "I am who am" because it seems to be an attempt to impose non-temporality on a very temporal thing, like language grammar.)
But does that bind God and prevent Him from interfering in human events? That's a more interesting question. I would say it would not. I'd like to divide this answer into two tracts: the unlikely and the impossible.
God can work and answer prayer (or, conversely punish the wicked) in two ways: by making the unlikely come about or by making the impossible happen.
First, it may be that the remission of a cancer, for instance, is highly unlikely, so when it occurs in "response" to prayer, it is called a miracle. But God didn't change that person's future, the remission occurred because the unlikelihood occurred. God created the unlikelihood. (I put "response" in quotes because it necessarily implies a temporal causality. However, that would be an inappropriate way to desribe the actions of an Entity which exists outside of time.)
For the impossible: God, being God, I suppose could simply change or suspend the natural law. As I have said, I don't see how the by-definition supernatural creator of the natural world could be bound to it. I don't have much to say on this, except to note I don't think you will find non-testimonial evidence of the occurrence of these impossible events, because such evidence would be the result of a natural process, and such miracles would be in derogation of the natural law.
Well, I've gone way too far afield of the discussion. I will simply close by reiterating my point that simply because one believes in a naturalistic element to existence and the history of life does not mean that one is eliminating God from the act of creation.
Impressive reasoning. Good post.
theoretical and factual placemarker
Jesus must have been wrong when speaking on Adam and Eve.
Mat 19:4-5
4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made [them] at the beginning made them male and female,
5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
In case anyone wonders the passages Jesus is quoting:
Gen 1:27
27 So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And:
Gen 2:24
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
For the intellectually honest, you will also note that Jesus added the qualifying words "at the beginning" to avoid any potential misrepresentation.
I'm curious if you accept any history prior to your own existence as factual. After all, it can't be repeated. So tell me, did the American Revolution really happen? By your standards, the answer must be that you don't know if it happened or not.
On the other hand, if you are willing to accept studied observation of present-day evidence that the Revolution happened, then ... [gasp!] ... you have a way of knowing facts that aren't experimentally repeatable.
So which is it? Is the standard you proposed the only one you'll accept?
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.
Religious language. Interesting.
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