Posted on 01/14/2007 5:31:07 PM PST by Tim Long
PETERSBURG, Kentucky - Ken Ham's sprawling creation museum isn't even open yet, but an expansion is already underway in the state-of-the art lobby, where grunting dinosaurs and animatronic humans coexist in a Biblical paradise.
A crush of media attention and packed preview sessions have convinced Ham that nearly half a million people a year will come to Kentucky to see his Biblically correct version of history.
"I think we'll be surprised at how many people come," Ham said as he dodged dozens of designers working to finish exhibits in time for the May 28 opening.
The $27 million project, which also includes a planetarium, a special-effects theater, nature trails and a small lake, is privately funded by people who believe the Bible's first book, Genesis, is literally true.
For them, a museum showing Christian schoolchildren and skeptics alike how the earth, animals, dinosaurs and humans were created in a six-day period about 6,000 years ago -- not over millions of years, as evolutionary science says -- is long overdue.
While foreign media and science critics have mostly come to snigger at exhibits explaining how baby dinosaurs fit on Noah's Ark and Cain married his sister to people the earth, museum spokesman and vice-president Mark Looy said the coverage has done nothing but drum up more interest.
"Mocking publicity is free publicity," Looy said. Besides, U.S. media have been more respectful, mindful perhaps of a 2006 Gallup Poll showing almost half of Americans believe that humans did not evolve, but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years.
Looy said supporters of the museum include evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews and conservative Catholics, as well as the local Republican congressman, Geoff Davis (news, bio, voting record), and his family, who have toured the site.
FROM 'JAWS' TO EDEN
While the debate between creationists and mainstream scientists has bubbled up periodically in U.S. schools since before the Scopes "monkey trial" in nearby Tennessee 80 years ago, courts have repeatedly ruled that teaching religious theory in public schools is unconstitutional.
Ham, an Australian who moved to America 20 years ago, believes creationists could have presented a better case at the Scopes trail if they'd been better educated -- but he's not among those pushing for creation to be taught in school.
Rather than force skeptical teachers to debate creation, Ham wants kids to come to his museum, where impassioned experts can make their case that apparently ancient fossils and the Grand Canyon were created just a few thousand years ago in a great flood.
"It's not hitting them over the head with a Bible, it's just teaching that we can defend what it says," he said.
Ham, who also runs a Christian broadcasting and publishing venture, said the museum's Hollywood-quality exhibits set the project apart from the many quirky Creation museums sprinkled across America.
The museum's team of Christian designers include theme park art director Patrick Marsh, who designed the "Jaws" and "King Kong" attractions at Universal Studios in Florida, as well as dozens of young artists whose conviction drives their work.
"I think it shows (nonbelievers) the other side of things," said Carolyn Manto, 27, pausing in her work painting Ice Age figures for a display about caves in France.
"I don't think it's going to be forcing any viewpoint on them, but challenging them to think critically about their evolutionary views," said Manto, who studied classical sculpture before joining the museum.
Still, Looy is upfront about the museum's mission: to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with nonbelievers.
"I think a lot of people are going to come out of curiosity ... and we're going to present the Gospel. This is going to be an evangelistic center," Looy said. A chaplain has been hired for museum-goers in need of spiritual guidance.
The museum's rural location near the border of Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana places it well within America's mostly conservative and Christian heartland. But the setting has another strategic purpose: two-thirds of Americans are within a day's drive of the site, and Cincinnati's international airport is minutes away.
The project has not been without opposition. Zoning battles with environmentalists and groups opposed to the museum's message have delayed construction and the museum's opening day has been delayed repeatedly.
The museum has hired extra security and explosives-sniffing dogs to counter anonymous threats of damage to the building. "We've had some opposition," Looy said.
Starring "Fred Flintstone" ???
Scientific evidence says it is.
In the seventeenth century, Archbishop James Ussher of the Church of Ireland calculated that the earth was created on October 23, 4004 BC at 9:00 AM--and I assume it was Pacific Daylight Time.
'fraid not. BS inventions used to back up the left's religion say it is.
I asked you to support your contention and you have not. You have only repeated oft-refuted talking points from creationist websites.
I challenge you to show me any accepted scientific dating method that disproves radiocarbon dating to the extent that the earth is on the close order of 6000 years rather than >50,000 years (the upper limit of the radiocarbon method).
In the meantime, here are some excellent links that will provide you with real information about radiocarbon dating, not the distortions, fabrications, and wishful thinking found on creationist websites:
ReligiousTolerance.org Carbon-14 Dating (C-14): Beliefs of New-Earth CreationistsThe American Scientific Affiliation: Science in Christian Perspective Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective by Dr. Roger C. Wiens.
This site, BiblicalChronologist.org has a series of good articles on radiocarbon dating.
Are tree-ring chronologies reliable? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
Tree Ring and C14 DatingHow does the radiocarbon dating method work? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
How precise is radiocarbon dating?
Is radiocarbon dating based on assumptions?
Has radiocarbon dating been invalidated by unreasonable results?
Radiocarbon WEB-info Radiocarbon Laboratory, University of Waikato, New Zealand.
That reminds of how probably every Wikipedia page that mentions Creationism adds "(Creationism is considered pseudoscience by the scientific community)," which is a bandwagon fallacy.
Not to mention we have modern examples of instant pertification that when tested show falsly long dates. but oh well-
Mt. St. Helens comes to mind.
-and we all know how 'accurate' carbon dating is- Heck there are any number of different dating methods that are more accurate and disprove carbon dating.--
Put your facts where your mouth is.
It's really not a bad approach. Is it?
I'm a Christian believer in evolution, but I don't have a problem with this guy's approach, as the article presents him.
That wasn't funny the first thousand times people who don't understand science said it.
Why don't you just put your hands over your ears and yell, "I can't hear you."
What are you going to do when you find out that Creationists - not atheist scientists who think natural history "proves" that God doesn't exist, but Creationists -- are tools of the same devil the bible warns is an expert at disguising himself as goodness? And in retrospect, a disguise you should have spotted because he dealt in falseness and denial in order to appeal to your pride?
When are you going to notice that neither evolution nor the age of the earth negates or challenges the Ten Commandments or the Seven Deadly Sins? Indeed, evolution confirms them because societies that basically attempt to abide by just those 17 items, have thrived and multiplied, while others that don't have dwindled and even become extinct?
God's plan has always worked and always will work no matter how He put us here or where He's taking us regardless of paleontological truths.
Thank you for posting this. My kids can't wait to go!
Didn't one of the guys who ran one of these places go to prison for tax evasion?
Learn to use verbs properly?
Bah! Ignore those silly godless heathen Darwinists and their nonsense ideas. Every good Christian knows the world was created precisely on October 23, 4004 B.C., at 10:00 a.m. Any "evidence" to the contrary is the work of satanic Marxists trying to undermine the bible. Next they'll be telling us about their "theory" of an invisible force called "gravity" that binds us to the earth, of course only the galieoists have evidence of, naturally. And perhaps one of the most deranged ideas, that there also tiny invisible creatures known as "germs" that cause disease, when we have known for ages that disease is called by demonic forces, misalignment of the stars, and evil trolls that live underground.
If you really want to annoy the Darwinists, do what I do and take part in weekly blood lettings. The fools don't know what benefits they're missing out on!
Owned.
Six Days Ping List
Calling in reinforcements. And I thought the Darwos had left.
The only place dinos and people were together at the same time is in works of fiction.
Draw your own conclusions from that.
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.