Ken Ham poses with dinosaur models in his unfinished $25 million Answers in Genesis museum.
Posted on 05/23/2005 3:29:06 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Ken Ham has spent 11 years working on a museum that poses the big question - when and how did life begin? Ham hopes to soon offer an answer to that question in his still-unfinished Creation Museum in northern Kentucky.
The $25 million monument to creationism offers Ham's view that God created the world in six, 24-hour days on a planet just 6,000 years old. The largest museum of its kind in the world, it hopes to draw 600,000 people from the Midwest and beyond in its first year.
Ham, 53, isn't bothered that his literal interpretation of the Bible runs counter to accepted scientific theory, which says Earth and its life forms evolved over billions of years.
Ham said the museum is a way of reaching more people along with the Answers in Genesis Web site, which claims to get 10 million page views per month and his "Answers ... with Ken Ham" radio show, carried by more than 725 stations worldwide.
"People will get saved here," Ham said of the museum. "It's going to fire people up. If nothing else, it's going to get them to question their own position of what they believe."
Ham is ready for a fight over his beliefs - based on a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament.
"It's a foundational battle," said Ham, a native of Australia who still speaks with an accent. "You've got to get people believing the right history - and believing that you can trust the Bible."
Among Ham's beliefs are that the Earth is about 6,000 years old, a figure arrived at by tracing the biblical genealogies, and not 4.5 billion years, as mainstream scientists say; the Grand Canyon was formed not by erosion over millions of years, but by floodwaters in a matter of days or weeks and that dinosaurs and man once coexisted, and dozens of the creatures - including Tyrannosaurus Rex - were passengers on the ark built by Noah, who was a real man, not a myth.
Although the Creation Museum's full opening is still two years away, already a buzz is building.
"When that museum is finished, it's going to be Cincinnati's No. 1 tourist attraction," says the Rev. Jerry Falwell, nationally known Baptist evangelist and chancellor of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. "It's going to be a mini-Disney World."
Respected groups such as the National Science Board, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Science Teachers Association strongly support the theory of evolution. John Marburger, the Bush administration's science adviser, has said, "Evolution is a cornerstone of modern biology."
Many mainstream scientists worry that creationist theology masquerading as science will have an adverse effect on the public's science literacy.
"It's a giant step backward in science education," says Carolyn Chambers, chair of the biology department at Xavier University, which is operated by the Jesuit order of the Catholic church.
Glenn Storrs, curator of vertebrate paleontology for the Cincinnati Museum Center, leads dinosaur excavations in Montana each summer. He said the theory of dinosaurs and man coexisting is a "non-issue."
"And so, I believe, is the age of the Earth," Storrs said. "It's very clear the Earth is much older than 6,000 years."
The Rev. Mendle Adams, pastor of St. Peter's United Church of Christ in Pleasant Ridge, takes issue with Ham's views - and the man himself.
"He takes extraordinary liberties with Scripture and theology to prove his point," Adams said. "The bottom line is, he is anti-gay, and he uses that card all the time."
Ham says homosexual behavior is a sin. But he adds that he's careful to condemn the behavior, not the person.
Even detractors concede that Ham has appeal.
Ian Plimer, chair of geology at the University of Melbourne, became aware of Ham in the late 1980s, when Ham's creationist ministry in Australia was just a few years old.
"He is promoting the religion and science of 350 years ago," says Plimer. "He's a far better communicator than most mainstream scientists."
Despite his communication skills, Ham admits he doesn't always make a good first impression. But, that doesn't stop him from trying to spread his beliefs.
"He'd be speaking 20 hours a day if his body would let him," said Mike Zovath, vice president of museum operations.
Ham's wife of 32 years agrees. "He finds it difficult talking about things apart from the ministry," Mally Ham says. "He doesn't shut off."
Ham said he has no choice but to speak out about what he believes.
"The Lord gave me a fire in my bones," Ham says. "The Lord has put this burden in my heart: 'You've got to get this information out.'"
It isn't the radical left so much that bothers me. They'll never accept us. It's the great political middle, the one-time Reagan Democrats, the one-time Rockefeller Republicans, the one-time Perot voters, the not-yet-polarized people looking for someone to make sense. We can't be wearing a clown suit when we talk to the country.
The standard lazy reply from evos. Couldn't find anything more recent, or creative, eh?
"As long as Creationists (i.e.; flat earthers) continue to spew their uneducated views among conservatives, we will continue to be perceived by the left as uneducated bumpkins."
Considering the fact that you live in an unpopulated, rural portion of California, and not LA, NY, or Boston, you ARE an uneducated bumpkin, even as an atheistic evolutionist.
What made you think you weren't a conservative bumpkin? Have you been living on another planet... oh, that's right, it's California.
100.
What's the most ever recorded in FR history for an evo-creation post?
A creation museum devoted to telling us that the earth is 6000 years old.
How did this country get so damned STUPID?
The talking mice at Disneyland are more scientifically valid than this religious wasteland.
Sorry not to be more exciting, but that is how science works.
Not quite true. The Bible-reading community of Kansas did spend taxpayer money to bring their spiritualsoulmate, Mustafa Akyol, from Bilim Arastirma Vakfi to support their cause.
a majority of posters do not participate in these threads. This indicates a lack of controversiality.
I disagree. Its entirely from a lack of civility. The majority of the Freepmail I get from other creationsist reflects their disgust at getting involved with these threads. For their own sake they would rather "walk away" than continue the unedifying discussion.
No, because scripture is not science. The Hebrew Bible (and Christian Bible, too) does not speak to scientific issues
Realize this, that yes, sure the Bible is not a scientific textbook, it is silent on acids, but to simply reject the Bible as not having any value to science is not the extreme I'd go to. In fact Gods word should be seen as the author of science and his Creation was the beginning of science.
That'll be a disagreement we'll have over our worldviews but again realize thats where I am coming from as a Creationist.
If there's anything that drives people away from faith, it is not science but hypocrisy on the part of the faithful.
I see this all the time as an excuse. God does not allow it. Since when does everyone give up this aspect of their life to others to decide for them? You (All) are in charge of your life and you will have to answer for it when you meet God.
But people though, when they want to, can find insult in anything.
I agree. People are different, Christians are different. Everyone will have their own comfort zone and sensitivities.
I still have yet to get a rational answer (one not answered by claiming a miracle) from any creationist about how all the animals such as the sloth and the koala got to the ark, and how they got home when there was no food for them after the flood.
Forget the logistics of a boat so big it could carry all the animals and still be seaworthy, or the sheer notion that any of the fable could be true.
And when all the animals were let go, none of the tigers decided on zebra steak? LOL
How bout this: anyone who thinks that a handful of fraudulent dating claims are indicative of a vast, evil conspiracy involving thousands of falsely dated artifacts is a freakin moron.
"We can't be wearing a clown suit when we talk to the country."
So you think wearing Clarence Darrow masks is going to play well to red states? Blue states are already beginning to swing red. Will being adamantly pro-evo help that movement, any more than being pro-abortion, or anti-gun.
Must rethink our premises.
I think the honor thing is now clear: between a person and God, not a public matter at all.
I'm sorry if my comparison about the misrepresentation on creationist sites disturbs you, but I have to stick by it. It disturbs me no end and I don't understand it.
That is why you can't debate science with a creationist, whenever asked for any proof about anything, they just throw out the whole miracle thing. How fair of an argument is that? Why even pretend to call it a science?
"Sorry not to be more exciting, but that is how science works."
Hasn't got anything to do with being more exciting. It does have everything to do with avoiding the responsibility of explaining Mr. Fraud Protsch. This sweeping under the rug of "well, isn't it nice that science showed that science was wrong" is awfully convenient.
Sort of like saying that Christians discovered that Jim Bakker was running a shell game, but weren't we good for knowing that he was a fraud?
If you're going to call Christians to task for the Ken Ham's of the world, you've got to answer for the Prof. Protsch's.
That's how the game is played in the real world.
Thank you.
A political shift, the very thing I want to keep going. This is not people who accept science suddenly checking their brains at the door and deciding that Ken Ham has the real science. That isn't going to happen and if the conservative movement lets the loonies have the wheel, blue states aren't going to keep turning red. Quite the opposite.
Your nonsense has been mostly flying under the radar of real science and other news until recent years. That is changing with the movement to undermine science education around the US in one school boardroom after another. People with any brains and any interest in living in an educated society will not stand for this foolishness.
Read your own link; he's being called to task.
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.