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.'"
"That's like being called ugly by a frog."
-- Bert Lance
Of course not. But how many people do? Or, to put it another way, have you searched out, tested, and personally verified every scientific proposition placed into your hearing? Do you know anyone who does?
I am not saying what one must "do" in order to have any certitude over common facts. I am saying that commonly accepted facts are often taken on the faith that the reporter is honest. If it isn't your own reason and senses taking the measurement and doing the experiment, then you are relying upon the research of someone else. I reckon in most cases that research has been properly done.
But when someone posits a billion year old earth as a "scientific fact", I must ask, how many untestable assumptions were made before coming to that conclusion? When they insist their version of history is the only one worthy of acceptation in the classroom I must ask, "Who died and made you God?"
It has become clear to me over the past few years: Dogmatic evolutionists do not like questions.
To: VadeRetroThat keeps this thread from getting too big.I would much rather see a FReepers own thoughts and let them excercise their God-given intellect than click on a link and read someone else's stuff. Sorry.
354 posted on 05/23/2005 9:47:09 PM EDT by Fester ChugabrewTo: RadioAstronomerHow about never.You forgot the citation.
359 posted on 05/23/2005 9:50:53 PM EDT by Fester Chugabrew
No, Fester, it is you who is incapable of thinking critically for yourself, or accepting concepts, lofty or otherwise, that don't fit in with your peculiar understanding of what you imagine God wants you to do. Maybe it's a fear of rebuke.
The best way to get someone "dethroned from the science classroom" -- interesting word choice there -- is to show how the data are misinterpreted or the science is wrong. Sitting back and demanding "equal time" for the unscientific won't impress anyone but the choir, and only a few of them.
Whatever it is, it ain't science.
Great! Do tell. The working scientists on these threads would give worlds to know where they're getting it wrong.
I can hardly wait for Fester's list of Nobel Prize winners who have disproved evolution.
I can hardly wait for Fester's list of Nobel Prize winners who have disproved evolution.
It didn't get any funnier the second time.
You didn't like my parody?
It has become clear to me over the past few years: Dogmatic evolutionists do not like questions.
For your consideration, I propose that it is not legitimate questions that evolutionists do not like. It appears from the record that what evolutionists do not like are questions that are answerable and to which the answers are verifiable, and that have been answered, over and over again, but keep getting asked despite the fact that the answers already exist and are verifiable. Like this one for instance:
But when someone posits a billion year old earth as a "scientific fact", I must ask, how many untestable assumptions were made before coming to that conclusion?
As noted prior...the answers to this question are out there for you to find, if you are fact truly interested in the answer. I'm sure that one of the more scientifically educated among the posters could provide you with links and citations to studies and papers showing the evidence for an old earth (which you will promptly ignore, I know). But really, refusing to examine the evidence does not mean that it does not exist.
I know you took this suggesting poorly before, but really, why not take a couple classes in astronomy or geology if you are truly interested in determining what the evidence is?
That tree was already in your head, Fred. Your teachers put it there for you, along with a few parrots. You inherited and watered a tree based on the assumption that like things necessarily have common substance and history, while no one was available to test and observe whether the relationships from leaf to branch to trunk to root have basis in reality.
Please keep up your good work in chemistry so the rest of us can enjoy the benefits of your sweat, and keep your hopeful renditions of history as an imaginary tale of rich proportion. For one who is ready to deny intelligent design as an agent of your creation you sure make good use of the same.
IOW, if I did enough research, I could determine how many untestable assumptions were made in determining a billion-year-old earth. How about we just deal with a simple untestable assumption, namely that intelligent design is not an agent in the processes currently under observation by science?
Whereas anything you know is the real actual unvarnished TRUTH!
How convenient for you.
Your response appears to be another demonstration of the incapacity to interpret and apply evidence. Par for the course.
"IOW, if I did enough research, I could determine how many untestable assumptions were made in determining a billion-year-old earth."
Not exactly what I meant. I should have phrased it better. I assumed that by your original question you meant whether the assumptions made in determining an old earth (I think the figure is something other than 1 billion) were in fact untestable, and I meant that you could find that out for yourself if you did the research.
Bated breath...............
No more research needed there, then. Looks like you cleared that up.
I was WRONG!
Quasar it was!
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