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."
"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."
Fine believe whatever you choose, really gives me neither a negative or a positive, what others choose to believe.
For clarity I would say, the scripture consistently uses the figurative language "serpent" when referring to Lucifer/Satan/Devil. The context of the passage allows one to discern whether a literal serpent/snake is being described or if a figurative theme is being described.
js1138 - How do you know if this is literal or figurative?
All a person needs to do in order to determine if figurative/symbolic language refers to literal things/entities is compare scripture with scripture i.e.:
Isa 28:10 For precept [must be] upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, [and] there a little:
If one stumbles on a figurative idea which is presented in the same way throughout a document, an attentive reader bridges the concept to add meaning to the theme of the piece. A stubborn refusal to acknowledge the most obvious figurative/literal bridges, can only limit a readers depth of understanding. The less frequent figurative references have less impact on the theme and naturally should be weighted when comparing plot lines.
Insisting on doctrine based on one figurative reference can be tenuous, and should be weighted against more established themes to gain incite into the intended significance.
js1138 if you do a "Words/Phrase to Search" at http://www.blueletterbible.org/ on the word "serpent", you will be able to easily discern the figurative vs. literal usage. Again, figurative usages can be referring to a literal thing/entity. Children's stories do these things all the time, so we learn to discern these things at an immature age.
Hey I am not the one claiming that a literal serpent/snake beguiled (holy seduced) Eve.
Fine believe whatever you choose, really gives me neither a negative or a positive, what others choose to believe.
What you are calling common sense (the nature of the firmament) is actually modern scientific knowledge. I can understand you disliking this, because it damages the logic and coherence of your position. I note that you didn't address the rest of my post, which explains my first sentence. If you wish to dispute my logic you need to do more than just reject the opening sentence.
Common sense is understanding, the word dragon used, is not literally speaking of a fire breathing dragon. Thus, common sense says if we are not talking about a literal dragon then we are not talking about literal "stars" being dragged by a figurative dragon.
That is allllllll I am specifically speaking about in using the phrase 'common sense'.
You keep ignoring my question. How do you know whether the stars were cast to earth, or whether this is a figure of speech, or a metaphor?
By the way look at the people in this nation today, we have 1/3 liberal, 1/3 that sit upon the fence, I mean independent, and 1/3 on the right. Seeeeee a pattern?????
Out of interest, what do think is being referred to by the highly specific referrence to 1/3 of the stars?
Got you.
The language describes Satan taking on the form of a literal walking "Serpentman" -- speaking, beautiful, walking... -- which caused formerly walking serpents to be forever stripped of their legs to be belly crawlers.
What we have here is a double-entendre.
Being that cherubs/angels take on the form of things, the dragon/serpent seems to be Satans form of preference.
Good catch. So true.
I missed J.M.'s implications. Biblically, Cain was clearly the son of Adam and Eve.
I am not perfect like the eggman lol
Tell me, please, what I've done to convince you of that.
Truth be known, I don't come as close as you might think.
I'll sell them the paint too, cash in advance please.
Given what else we are told, planted throughout the Word, they are the ones, Sons of God, who followed Lucifer when he decided he would take the place of God. Long long before man in the flesh was created.
The reason why man was created in the flesh with the memory of what took placed removed, and the opportunity for each to be born of woman, and not all were or will be.
LEARN the parable of the FIG TREE! Christ's words not mine!
"I missed J.M.'s implications. Biblically, Cain was clearly the son of Adam and Eve."
IMPLICATIONS??????? Why then is Cain not listed in The Adam's genealogy????? You really need a lesson in what the original says.
Christ did tell us "LEARN ye the Parable of the FIG TREE".
"You know very well "IF" in fact that you can read 'HEBREW' that the snake and or the serpent of Genesis is NOT a literal physical snake."
I take the whole Adam and Eve segment figuratively as a spiritual lesson. But I don't think it is all that clear from the text that the serpent isn't a serpent, unless you take evolution as a fact and know that snakes did not have their legs cut off all of a sudden, but it was a more gradual evolutionary process. The evidence for this is that some snakes still have vestigial leg bones.
You know if you are going to call me a liar all the time, it is not much fun to talk to you. I speak, read, and used to be able to write Hebrew, but am out of practice at writing now.
No, but you should like scientology, it is another cult.
Note the lol. It means I don't really think you are perfect. ;-)
Do you know any biology at all?
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