In the beginning . . . Adam walked with dinosaurs By James Langton in New York (Filed: 02/01/2005)
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."
_________________ cirlces they grow and they swallow people whole half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul and so it goes
Post subject: Re: Adam walked with the dinosaurs???
Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 10:49 pm
Yeah Yeah Yeah
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:36 am Posts: 3556 Location: Twin Ports
genxgirl wrote:
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.
This, actually, was the funniest part.
Anyhoo, I don't recall dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible which would lead me to believe that the folks responsible for writing such material did not know that they existed. In the face of carbon dating and fossil remains of such creatures, an evangelist would like us to believe that the folks who wrote the bible just omitted that out of coincidence.
Maybe next he'll tell us that Able was eaten by a T.Rex and not killed by Cain.
HOO boy!
Doesn't this remind you of Fletch Lives Bible Land?
People seem to not want to accept that you can believe in God AND believe in science as well.
_________________ Rising and falling at force ten
We twist the world
And ride the wind
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:52 pm Posts: 1727 Location: Earth Gender: Male
Quote:
In the face of carbon dating and fossile remains of such creatures, an evangelist would like us to believe that the folks who wrote the bible just omitted that out of coincidence.
That's what I was thinking when I read this.
_________________ "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." -Noam Chomsky
I would like to be the first person from KY to denounce this horseshit and try to distance Kentucky's name from this. 1st of all anything 10 miles away from Cincinnati is basically Ohio; people on both sides of the river would attest to this. Also the fucktard who is masterminding this thing is Australian. So don't drag Kentucky into this travesty.
Also:
genxgirl wrote:
"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."
"
Yes, yes you are making a statement; and that statement is "We are painfully, head crushingly, fucking stupid"
Anyone want to start a pool on how long before this thing closes its doors?
1st of all anything 10 miles away from Cincinnati is basically Ohio; people on both sides of the river would attest to this.
That's funny, because I heard that people on the Ohio side say that anything ten miles away from Cincinnati is basically Kentucky.
--PunkDavid
Same here. But it usually goes that anything south of Columbus is basically Kentucky.
The south of Columbus thing, that's new to me. But really how can anyone from Columbus talk shit about other citys or locales.
On the 10 miles from Cincy thing though, seriously, anyone 10 miles from Cincy on the KY side, more than likely works, shops, plays etc., etc., in Cincy. And Newport is just a rich suburb of Cincy where people go to bar hop after Reds and Bengals games. And yes I am way too sensitive about the whole issue, I'm just sick of these creationist D-bags further degrading the already questionable rep that KY has.
I would like to be the first person from KY to denounce this horseshit and try to distance Kentucky's name from this. 1st of all anything 10 miles away from Cincinnati is basically Ohio; people on both sides of the river would attest to this. Also the fucktard who is masterminding this thing is Australian. So don't drag Kentucky into this travesty.
Also:
genxgirl wrote:
"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."
"
Yes, yes you are making a statement; and that statement is "We are painfully, head crushingly, fucking stupid"
Anyone want to start a pool on how long before this thing closes its doors?
Actually, you are the third...my sister and her partner live in Kentucky, and they sent me this article. I don't have to tell you they are having a very difficult time in their neighborhood...they are moving as soon as their house is sold.
A recreation of Noah's ark? Who was "there" to see it to recontruct such a foolish thing? A reconstruction of Eden? Again, how many records exist on this?
Baffled by all this shit...
_________________ cirlces they grow and they swallow people whole half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul and so it goes
I would like to be the first person from KY to denounce this horseshit and try to distance Kentucky's name from this. 1st of all anything 10 miles away from Cincinnati is basically Ohio; people on both sides of the river would attest to this. Also the fucktard who is masterminding this thing is Australian. So don't drag Kentucky into this travesty.
Also:
genxgirl wrote:
"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."
"
Yes, yes you are making a statement; and that statement is "We are painfully, head crushingly, fucking stupid"
Anyone want to start a pool on how long before this thing closes its doors?
Actually, you are the third...my sister and her partner live in Kentucky, and they sent me this article. I don't have to tell you they are having a very difficult time in their neighborhood...they are moving as soon as their house is sold.
A recreation of Noah's ark? Who was "there" to see it to recontruct such a foolish thing? A reconstruction of Eden? Again, how many records exist on this?
Post subject: Re: Adam walked with the dinosaurs???
Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 11:42 pm
Got Some
Joined: Wed Dec 08, 2004 8:58 pm Posts: 1148 Location: Green Bay
Quote:
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.
6000 years? That's the part I find most hilarious. Does it actually say this in the bible? And if so, how can they realistically believe it?
Quote:
"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."
Maybe because the theory can't stand on its own?
Quote:
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.
Quote:
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.''
Oh the irony.
_________________ When the last living thing Has died on account of us, How poetical it would be If Earth could say, In a voice floating up Perhaps From the floor Of the Grand Canyon, "It is done. People did not like it here.''
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:14 am Posts: 37778 Location: OmaGOD!!! Gender: Male
Did anyone else find it funny that the guy's name was "Mr. Ham" and he was all into Noah's Ark? I wonder if he works with Mr. Shem and Mr. Japheth as well.
--PunkDavid
_________________ Unfortunately, at the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Flower Children jerked off and went back to sleep.
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