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."
"Wait, who are you really?"
Someone who doubts that God flooded the whole Earth and instructed one man and his immediate family to build an ark and gather two animals of every species, sail around for a time, come to ground at the top of a mountain and then repopulate the whole Earth with the variety of races, animals, plants, languages and cultures currently in evidence.
True, if you will take the word of 'the book' over the evidence of your own eyes and the implications of a applying a little thought to the matter then you will never have any doubts.
Who am I? My name is John Milken, and I am neither a Talmudic nor Biblical scholar. Goodness...your side would seem to want only one book to be studied in school, with no questions asked. A Theocratic America would really rock, eh?
"Craterism, a theory in crisis" placemarker
Are you saying, then, that you believe that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old?
No, I never said that nor was that implied. I simply stated that your analogy was flawed. With evolution - as opposed to witnessed, documented history - you must make many assumptions. Assumptions that you believe "fit" the model. Overall I believe that evolutionists force the data to fit the model, much like scientists did in Galileo's day.
I also think there is great value in the proper use of the scientific method. The explanation of which you often link these articles. I also remember seeing the term "straw man argument" in many of your posts, which also applies to your "meteor crater" analogy. Although it would be interesting to investigate whether or not the crater could have "evolved" from a bunch of random geological mutations over the course of a gazillion years because the earth "just knew" that it would evolve Arizonans who would benefit financially from it as a tourist attraction. </end sarcasm>
I can rationally defend why I believe what I believe about the "why". But I don't think you are interested.
My question about the "why" was directed at you, not at "science". Everyone has a lens with which the world is viewed. I'm interested in what you believe to be the "why" for this world. If the only way you can "make sense" of the world is through science, and only science, that's fine. I'm just really interested in why you believe what you believe - and like I've already mentioned, you've put forth more than enough about what you think is the "how". Tell me, whether you think it defensible or not, your "why". Everyone is a "theologian" in one way or another.
In order for my witness to be consistent with Scripture, Yes! If I tried to do the convolutions required to explain away the clear context and meaning of the Book of Genesis, I would have to admit intellectual dishonesty and call Jesus Christ clearly deceptive.
Sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ rarely requires a discussion about when God created the universe, rather it involves describing who the God that created the universe is and what He did for us.
I have no trouble personally believing that God instantaneously stretched the universe out like a scroll -- including the light waves that extend millions of light years. The scripture says this explicitly.
Isa 45:12 I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, [even] my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.
God also created man upon the earth, not a precursor to man. The language is far to explicit. God hurled the galaxies that are clocked at 200,000 miles per hour, not some theoretical reverse black hole. God caused a flood that makes the effacing Tsunami of South West Asia look like child's play. We cannot fathom the geologic implications of a world wide flood. But what we see could possibly be explained by one (see my freeper home page for illustrations).
In the process of creating the material for our universe, it is likely that the atomic "aging" was accelerated beyond the physical laws we are constrained to presently. When Jesus can enter and exit a room without using the door, as we believe He did, we realize that non-linear, supernatural events, have been witnessed by our fellow believer's. Phillips transportation to the desert to share with the Ethiopian Eunuch is another non-linearity that we acknowledge as a reality.
It is far more common sensical to believe God created the environment for life on this planet, and that He sent His Son to the only place in the universe that contained souls created in His image. Consider all of the fine tuned parameters that are critical to the sustenance of life. Also consider the ramifications of billions of years of catastrophes that easily would have crushed the environment that enables life. Planetary shifts, Comets, Meteors, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Atmospheric fluctuations...
Yes I believe God created the universe in the last 10,000 years.
Well, OK. You are free to believe whatever you want, but none of the verses that you have proffered prove that.
Adherence to that line of thinking (don't forget baby dinosaurs on Noah's ark, I heard that one once too) will pretty much erect a wall between the scientific and engineering community that I operate in and the Gospel of Christ that they need so desperately.
I'm seeing a great harmony between the Scriptures and geologic discoveries. The theory of a young Earth just doesn't stand up to honest observation.
That would seem to be the point. Creationists (and postmoderndeconstructionists and scientologists and various newagers, etc.) seem bent on overthrowing the idea that scientific inquiry is a legitmate method of gaining knowledge.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The problem is I have seen no evidence whatsoever for any of your claims aside from the fact that it's written in the book of Genesis. Well, there are hindu books which will tell you the true facts of the matter, that the earth is carried on the backs of four elephants on top of a turtle swimming in a sea of milk surrounded by a great snake. It makes just about as much sense.
Hoping to get scientific information or even simple logic from AIG is a doomed enterprise. The claim that a mutation can only remove information is an utterly bizarre one, since the same mutation in reverse would add the information using the new creature as its starting point. It is true that most mutations are neutral, some are very harmful, a small number are slightly harmful, and a small number are slightly beneficial. Mathematical analysis has shown that a low probability of beneficial mutation, combined with a low probability of beneficial mutations fixing in the genepool (due to the scattergun "luck" operation of natural selection) can still account for the observed DNA diversity.
I can only tell you and those I share with that I trust implicitly in Jesus Christ as my Savior. I believe that His claim to being the "I AM" is the truth that allows me to know that He can be the only doorway to eternal life.
Just as no one can explain what happened with time, space and matter initially after the so-called Big Bang, I can not explain scientifically how God instantly stretched light across millions of light years of space.
Jesus Christ is revealed to us through the Holy Spirit inspired and preserved Word of God. If the Holy Spirit failed at preserving the Word of God for our generation, then we cannot help but be believing in a potential lie.
There are passages of scripture which are confusing; many of which we become enlightened of by spiritual maturity, and some that elude us even with rigorous study and prayer. However, so much of scripture is very straightforward, and is not couched in obscure poetic language, that a good grasp of what a relationship with the Creator is about, can be discovered by a child.
My fear is that the wedge of "Scientism" associated with the exclusive teaching of Materialistic Evolution can only be seen as a wedge to deter an investigation of scripture. By painting the foundational passages of the Old Testament (not only Genesis), as mythologic stories, plays into the hands of the enemy of Christ.
Well, OK. You are free to believe whatever you want, but none of the verses that you have proffered prove that.
Science does not have the answers to origins, nor does it have the answers to speciation. These critical topics are covered in detail within the passages of scripture. The Bible reveals that God created our universe, our planet, and specifically details the special creation of man and all of the other living things. I cannot see how anyone who has read the Bible would say it does not describe these events. The clincher is that it is consistently presented throughout the Old and New Testaments as it is revealed in the book of Genesis.
Does that make it harder to share with a skeptic? You bet it does, because they disregard the supernatural! The virgin birth and the resurrection are easier to swallow if a person can afford the potential of an Almighty Intelligent Designer.
You can't live long enough to see the cumulative effect of tens of thousands of generations -- except in the case of bacteria.You:
I do? Where? I said (and this point you skipped over):
What you call macro-evolution is nothing more than the cumulative effect of numerous instances of micro-evolution, which I assume you accept. You accept micro-evolution because you can literally see it happening from one generation to the next. You can't live long enough to see the cumulative effect of tens of thousands of generations -- except in the case of bacteria.So, you insist that I drive the point home. Very well, here's the point: If you accept micro-evolution because of the evidence, and if macro-evidence is just a bunch of micro-evolution, what makes you say that there is no evidence? And why do these discussions so quickly arrive at the "Run, Spot, run" level of discourse?
Me:
But macro-evolution doesn't need to be experimentally reproducible, any more than the history of France does.You:
Ah, you have joined your colleagues of the OJ jury in embracing the "no eyewitness, therefore no possibility of knowledge" rationale for rejecting evolution (and only evolution). And you seem to have added a new wrinkle: "when there are eyewitnesses (as in the history of France) there are no differing interpretations." What is left for us to discuss? All I can do is try to explain things for the reasonably intelligent person. But can't devote my efforts to removing each new obstacle you throw in your own path.
I consider myself a creationist, and I do not consider myself to be anti-science. (I'm sure some would disagree simply because I acknowledge there are issues with the theory of evolution.)
"I believe in God as Creator, but am not so arrogant as to tell him how to do it."
Oh come on. No one is telling God how to do anything. What we've been discussing is varying beliefs in how He accomplished creation (and for some on the thread, I'm sure, whether there is a God to be involved in creating at all).
Thanks. I appreciate it.
Doomed? Not so. There are more than enough credentialed scientists affiliated with AiG. Because they don't interpret the evidence the same way you do does not mean they are illogical or non-scientific. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
The claim that a mutation can only remove information is an utterly bizarre one...
It doesn't appear to be very bizarre to me nor to a host of others. As far as AiG is concerned:
Answers in Genesis has always believed that ‘new information’ cannot arise by natural processes — It can only be explained by a Creator who pre-programmed specific traits in the genetic codes of all living things. See also Information: A modern scientific design argument. This particular skeptic believes that he has found an example of ‘new information’ arising by mutations and natural selection. Could he be correct? …
"I have multiple degrees, five professional ratings, taught at two different universities and have supervised multi-million dollar scientific research projects."
How did they turn out? ;-)
"Therefore, just to be crystal clear, the belief of yours with which I disagree is that the Bible is nonsensical."
I never said the Bible was nonsensical. I said the creationist interpretation is nonsense. Since you can't distinguish between the two concepts, that is troubling as to your participation in science, as well.
LD--"The history of France had eye witnesses who wrote about it contemporaneously. Macro-evolution has no such witnesses. There is only evidence which is subject to differing interpretations. "
He actually seems to think this was a substantive rebuttal!
He says he is a scientist but doesn't understand the simple concept of macroevolution!
Micro and Macro are the same process. We instruct them on this repeatedly and get repeatedly ignored. Sometimes this debate becomes more a wall talking to exercise.
The other issue with the Cambrian explosion is that 'evolution' appears to have occurred 'from the top down' so to speak. In other words, complex creatures suddenly appear with no fossil evidence of any transition from previously existing life forms. Then, after that, small changes occur in those complex creatures. (Evolutionary theory would claim a 'bottom to top' formation of life, i.e. that the small changes would result in complex creatures over millions of years.)
"There are no serious questions about evolution."
Sorry, but I've just listed one.
"Please list your serious "questions" for discussion"
As I mentioned earlier to a number of individuals on this thread, if you are truly interested, there's plenty of reading material available. "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel would be a start.
" (I have had a hard day and need a good laugh-thank you)"
Ah, so you really aren't interested. Don't want anyone to upset your preconceived notions, now do you?
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