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."
Well you explain to us Jesus' statement I quoted above
LOL. My one wife said "stay off the computer..."
Ever read M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie?
See if you can recognize yourselves. Or just read Proverbs about mockers.
What a hoot.
A bit late, but:
What about insects?
How do you explain the other races of man surviving if only Noah and his clan were spared?
What did the animals eat when the Flood was over?
How exactly did they get two of every kind from all over the world? What about the Americas and Australia?
I recall a National Geographic article about how the biblical Flood was actually the result of the creation of the Black Sea, so there may have been a historical basis for it.
As far as the whole dinosaurs and humans thing goes, that is just pure nonsense. H.L. Mencken would have laughed in this clown's face.
To: Lurking Libertarian But its literally a snake, although they turn it into Satan which isn't literal, but they say it is, but its not,...does not compute, does not compute bzzzzzztttttt 573 posted on 01/04/2005 5:12:18 PM CST by shubi
Sympathy for the devil?
Why would you not have learned this in 6 years of seminary?
:"I am right and you are wrong, I pity you, and remember I am a minister."
"Well you explain to us Jesus' statement I quoted above"
Sure, Jesus was talking to the Jewish leaders who wanted to kill him. He said they were children of the devil.
You seem to have misquoted the passage a little. You said Jesus said, ""Your father was a liar from the beginning".
When in fact Jesus said, "He was a murderer from the beginning."
You have misappropriated the verse to call Lurking Libertarian a liar, which is against the rules of this site and against Christian principles. But how would you know that?
LOL Gotcha!!
That was attributed to me by a Bible thumper who I will not mention. I didn't actually say it. I put it on the page as a joke.
You know it is against tradition to cross post and carry on flame wars from one thread to another. What you are trying to do, and possible succeeding, is to distract from the fact of evolution to discredit me with ad hominem attack.
I pray that you will cease in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, who knew evolution was God's creative power from the beginning.
Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!!!!
I have sympathy for you, why not the Devil?
If I called LL which I did not, a liar, then I apologize
He was a murderer and a liar, from the beginning Explain that to us, wouldja please?
PS Trying to attack your opponent and change the subject is passe and just so.. Clintonesque
What about them?
How do you explain the other races of man surviving if only Noah and his clan were spared?
Think about it. If every variety of man is a race, then every breed of dog is a race. We don't talk about dog races, do we? There were only a few dog breeds 2000 years ago. Where did they all come from?
How exactly did they get two of every kind from all over the world? What about the Americas and Australia?
Check out the actual account in Genesis. It doesn't say that Noah rounded up two of every animal. It says (Genesis 7) that the animals went in.
There was likely no Australia or Americas before the flood. The water level was lower so that land masses like the UK weren't separated from the continent. It was also likely that there was a Pangea.
I recall a National Geographic article about how the biblical Flood was actually the result of the creation of the Black Sea, so there may have been a historical basis for it.
It's a compromise materialists can live with. What should get your gears cranking is the fact that National Geographic takes the time to debunk a supposed myth by looking for something to explain the fact that it is an even in our collective memory.
As far as the whole dinosaurs and humans thing goes, that is just pure nonsense. H.L. Mencken would have laughed in this clown's face.
Mencken laughed? Mencken's set of presuppositions led him to his conclusions. When one starts with certain illogical assumptions like "the universe is all there is and all there ever will be," then one ends up with invalid conclusions.
Thanks, I appreciate that. I don't expect an apology from Havoc.
lol. All I did was go to your homepage
But afterwards Noah made some pit stops dropping off various animals before parking on Ararat?
Maybe an avoirdupois ounce but it does not rise to the level of a troy ounce.
I see.. So "Evolution" is now on a par with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Just what denomination do you belong to again?
What about insects?
The insects on the Ark were given condoms.
How do you explain the other races of man surviving if only Noah and his clan were spared?
Noah had a PC culturally diverse family.
What did the animals eat when the Flood was over?
They did not eat. After being cooped up on the Ark, which did not have an adequate gym, they went on the Atkins Diet.
How exactly did they get two of every kind from all over the world? What about the Americas and Australia?
Since Noah did not know about America and Australia, he collected what he could around him and flew in animals from the New World on Comair, but their computer crashed and they didn't make it. Oh well. Unfortunately, their luggage went to Zanzibar.
I recall a National Geographic article about how the biblical Flood was actually the result of the creation of the Black Sea, so there may have been a historical basis for it.
Yes, and since the sea was black no one saw anything. There was no eyewitness; therefore, the event did not happen. Conclusion: There is no such thing as the Black Sea.
As far as the whole dinosaurs and humans thing goes, that is just pure nonsense. H.L. Mencken would have laughed in this clown's face.
As far as dinosaurs are concerned the dating methods are all inconclusive and the framistan is cludging into the blorg frudentsia rapclapper. Thus, humans and dinos held hands and danced around the maypole at Stonehenge.
No, evolution is God's creation. It is a very simple concept. Since evolution is a fact and God created everything, He must have created evolution.
When you despise God's creation, you despise God.
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