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."
"How do you know if this is literal or figurative?"
Literal I reckon. c. 80,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars hitting the earth, no problem to account for that; there are some real big craters in Arizona, I hear. They go well with the flood-water holes under Florida in proving the Bible is literally true in every respect.
Is this statement what passes for clever in your world? ::::Shaking head:::::
Ahaa, so the serpent was not a snake or a serpent. Since the Bible proves that Gen 2 is figurative, we can discard the literal story and take it as a figurative spiritual lesson.
You can't have it both ways. The Noah story is the same. When something is obviously figurative, since the facts don't jive with reality, we can't insist someone believe it literally.
Neither creationists nor communists are Christian, generally. I think the statement is true.
For one thing, there are scientists who state that evolution during the Cambrian period occurred from the top down. That is, major new lifeforms appeared suddenly, with small changes occuring after that. They also indicate there are no precursor fossils to show that these major new lifeforms 'evolved slowly over time.'
"Can you provide links to credible sources claiming that these fossils are bogus?"
I gave you the name of a book to read earlier. If you are interested in seeing another point of view, read it. If you'd prefer to protect your worldview, then don't.
No, this could not be a history lesson. Such an event would leave evidence behind; evidence like the total destruction of our galaxy is it was hit by trillions of other galaxies.
Ah, so you are another who just prefers to protect his/her worldview. So be it.
Where did I ever state that the Cambrian period lasted less than many millions of years? Ah, I didn't. Thanks.
"Ah, so you are another who just prefers to protect his/her worldview. So be it."
I don't need to protect reality, unlike creationist literalist fairy tales.
Good, so presumably you also accept that the "explosion" actually occurred over millions of generations, so no suggestion of radical change from one generation to the next...
BTW The species without apparent precursors are usually microscopic. Their precursors were probably too small to have a significant chance of leaving a fossil that is detectable today.
"Literal I reckon. c. 80,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars hitting the earth, no problem to account for that; there are some real big craters in Arizona, I hear. They go well with the flood-water holes under Florida in proving the Bible is literally true in every respect."
Literal??? or maybe like the 'dragon', figurative. Stars of heaven, 'souls' or bodies in spirit rather than flesh bodies held to this earth by gravity.
No event such as this has been recorded during the short span than the flesh man walked upon the earth.
Something happened on this planet, and it was a long long time before 'flesh' man was placed upon this earth. There is fossil record, dino tracks, the surface of the earth jutting upward, craters, etc.
Indeed all the things you mention did happen on this planet, but it wasn't 1/3 of the stars in the sky falling on it.
"Indeed all the things you mention did happen on this planet, but it wasn't 1/3 of the stars in the sky falling on it."
Exactly, and that being the case, common sense, since we know the 'stars' did not fall literally, and there is no literal 'dragon' rather the word 'dragon' to describe the role that Satan, the devil has been, continues and will be allowed to play, tells us that we are not talking about literal stars.
So we have a figurative 'dragon' dragging with his tail one third of the 'stars of heaven', a figurative description of 'souls' or spirit bodies, angels, etc., and history, because it happened before man was created in the flesh.
Note we are told of this in Isaiah, 14:12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! (Morning star) how art thou cut down to the grounds which didst weaken the nations.
13 For thou hast said in thin heart, 'I will ascend into the heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of GOD: I will sit also upon the mount of congregation, in the sides of the north:
Ezekiel 28:14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so; thou was upon the holy mountain of God; thou has walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created,
till iniquity was found in thee.
Jeremiah 4:23 I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had not light.
24. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.
25. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.
This man is speaking about man in the flesh 'adam.
26. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by His fierce anger.
Jeremiah starts off this description of a flood, and it is not Noah's flood with this setting.
Jeremiah 4:22 For My people if foolish, they have not known ME; they are sottish (stupid) children, and they have none understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
Correction one of probably many typos 'if' should be is.
Jeremiah 4:22 For My people is foolish, they have not known ME; they are sottish (stupid) children, and they have none understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
But if you buy it, you have to paint it.
You are mistaken when you attribute your interpretation of stars falling to common sense. Common sense doesn't allow us to know that it wasn't 1/3 of the stars at all. Awareness that (a) stars are like our sun (b) very far away and (c) exist in large numbers are not derived from common sense. They are all comparatively modern fruits of science that have altered biblical interpretation.
To a medieval priest the belief that 1/3 of the stars in the sky could fall, perhaps creating small craters like meteorites, would have seemed perfectly reasonable. That priest would mock the "new" science of astronomy with its talk of countless stars like our sun and point out that his beliefs have scriptural authority (references to stars falling, references to the stars in heaven stopping in their tracks, geocentric view of universe). I contend that my hypothetical medieval priest mocking the notion of other suns is in exactly the same position as a modern pastor who rejects the evidence for an ancient universe and evolution.
Scientology?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.