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."

[shubi]

The whole point is that evolution is both a fact and a theory. I guess there were too many words for you in it.

[BikerNYC]

Do you or do you not think that evolution is a fact?

Can I answer? I think it's both. We see it with our eyes when organisms evolve in petri dishes. But it is also a theory to explain how organisms have changed over a very long period of time.

[Just mythoughts]

"After the serpent beguiled Eve and Eve informed God that the serpent beguiled her, then God cursed the serpent, who formerly wasn't a belly crawler, to crawling on his belly and eating dust."


Aren't you leaving something else out of what God told the serpent????

[shubi]

Ahhhh! Maybe you meant sardonic;-)

[shubi]

A++ Very good glasshoppel LOL

[tx_eggman]

So, answer this one question so all the posters and lurkers can determine if you are being genuine:

Do you or do you not think that evolution is a fact?

I was going to say "as soon as you answer mine ... but I don't really expect you will.

So, my answer is: I'm not certain and I don't care

.

.

.

I don't need to seek God. I have known Him most of my life.

To quote from part of my previous post to you: The Link

Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. John 17:3

With your vast knowledge of the original language I believe you'll be able to confirm that the word "know" here has about the same meaning as the word used in Genesis whare it says "Adam knew Eve and she bore him a son

The heartbeat of Christian faith is not "get your theology and head knowledge correct" it is to be known by God.

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers. -Matt 7:21-23

and to know Him ... relationship, not a worthless crossing ot the T's and dotting of the I's of a man's theology.

What is God's heart towards, as you call them, the idolatrous creationuts ? Is he out to destroy them or save them

You say they deny God is the author of evolution. Shubi, God is the author of LIFE. ex nihilo .. neither your brain nor mine has a clue how he did it ... to claim otherwise speaks of an ego that is out of control.

[shubi]

Why are you on evolution threads if you don't care about it?

I am not going to reveal my personal relationship with my God to you. I have about 50 different Bibles and several hundred other commentaries, grammars etc. I don't need quotes from you. Thanks anyhow.

When you see a Sunday school thread, let me know.

[balrog666]

Science can study claims of miracles to the extent that evidence is available. The cases you mention have left no evidence other than the report.

Hey, dude! That reminds me that I saw Elvis last week!

[RightOnline]

"It would also be useful to learn what science is:..."

Sigh.......................gee, golly. Thanks.

[D Edmund Joaquin]

freeping while fried bump

[RightOnline]

Noah's Ark has long since been found on Mt. Ararat, Turkey. There have been several documentaries made on this (one of the better ones: "In Search of Noah's Ark"). Eyewitnesses. Military aerial photos. Satellite imagery. Models built upon all this.....tested in advanced labs for testing ships (was determined that the Ark was designed to do one thing, and one thing only: float. That, it did and exceptionally well; could take up to 90 degrees of roll without capsizing). Interviews with old folks who actually climbed onto and into it when they were kids. Records of French and Russian expeditions to it.

I personally know a missionary living in Turkey who has been to it and seen it with his own eyes.

Now ain't that a kick in the pants.........

[tx_eggman]

Why are you on evolution threads if you don't care about it?

As an observer of the human condidtion I am fascinated by people I see who are (pardon my quote here, I know you don't like geting them from me) straining and gnats and swallowing camels

The whole creation/evolution dustup fits this category for me so I wander in from time to time to see if I can learn anything. You've taught me a great deal.

Also, per your request: When you see a Sunday school thread, let me know

Here are a few to get you started:

Sunday School Link 1

Sunday School Link 2

Sunday School Link 3

Happy to oblige

[Oztrich Boy]

What do you think that "in his days, the earth was divided" means in this context?

Taking a wild intuitive leap based on the way an oral culture uses aide mémorie references in its folktales.

11:1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. ... and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth

[shubi]

"Here are a few to get you started:

Sunday School Link 1

Sunday School Link 2

Sunday School Link 3"

Thank you. The first one is a topic I am interested in, since I run a faith-based organization that is being discriminated against by government and secular entities.

[Central Scrutiniser]

Actually, that was a big hoax by a film company, go here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ark-hoax/jammal.html and read up, lots more websites about the hoax.

Like this one: http://skepdic.com/noahsark.html

Or this one: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/09/0920_040920_noahs_ark.html#main

You have been had, ain't that a kick in the pants.

[bondserv]

Aren't you leaving something else out of what God told the serpent????

School me.

[JTHomes]

I bet some day in the not too distant future the Church will revise the Noah story since it is probably the most obvious fairy tail that non-believers like to point a skeptical finger to. It really hurts the Church's credibility to strain our common sense with that one.

It reminds me of how the Church dealt with these strange dinosaur bone discoveries. At first they claimed the discoveries were a fraud. Or the work of the devil, yada yada yada. Now believers acknowledge dinosaurs existed, but claim they walked with Adam, like the Flintstones I guess. I can just picture Cain and Able working the gravel pit sitting on a brontosaurus crane. So some day they'll probably admit the Great Flood was just a local event, probably a tsumani or something.

And the universe only 6000 years old? That has human conceit written all over it. Since we can't imagine timeframes much larger that our own lifetime, 6000 years seems like a long time. Until you consider the time it takes for hydrogen spaning half a light year distance to contract and form a star. That puts things into perspective.

I wonder how well it would go over with the museum visitors if there was an exhibit explaining why it was alright for Adam's sons and daughters to have kids together?

[Just mythoughts]

"School me."

Genesis 3:14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, "Because thou had done this, thou are cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shall thou eat all the days of thy life:

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel."

First promise and prophecy.

Hebrews 2:14 Foreasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

Snakes do not eat dust, it is a figure of speech denoting humiliation.

[bondserv]

I agree that figurative language is describing a literal reality.

[Lucky Dog]

The whole point is that evolution is both a fact and a theory. I guess there were too many words for you in it.

[from a previous post by stremba] It IS a fact that the allele frequencies of the gene pools of populations of organisms change over time. That is the definition of the term evolution. Therefore evolution is a fact.

[my response] If one accepts your posit that the definition of evolution is only “change,” then I can hardly take exception to your assertion.

Is that your (shubi’s) definition of “evolution”… just change? If so, I cannot argue that it is fact. However, if this all there is to “evolution,” it explains nothing. It is the equivalent of saying “things change over time and therefore, things are different.” From this wonderful “theory” I can predict that “things” we find in the present will be different from “things” in the past and further that “things” that we may find in the future will different from “things” now. Any observer would come to same conclusion.

Facts are observations that are independent of the observer (ignoring the Heisenberg principle). Facts do not change. New facts may be discovered. However, if a “fact” supposedly changes, it wasn’t a fact to begin with.

Theories pose explanations for how facts came to exist as they are observed. Theories change. Each time a new fact is discovered, theories change to accommodate that fact. Each time a theory’s prediction is discovered to be incongruent with facts or less consistent than a competing theory’s predictions, the theory is changed or discarded.

So which is it? Is “evolution” a fact, and consequently, will never change? Alternately, is “evolution” a theory created to explain facts and will change as new facts are discovered or its predictions fail to align as well some potential, competing theory?

Unless you are playing games with semantics, it is one, or the other, not both.