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Post by pim on Apr 7, 2017 23:58:46 GMT 10
Slarti let's say, purely for argument's sake, that Occam takes you up on "evidence" and "proof" ... and fails to provide either. Where does that leave the issue that you've been trolling him about for as long as the Religion Board has been in existence? I mean objectively. If the issue is really about your silly "proof" and "evidence" and one individual ... in this case Occam ... can't deliver the "proof" and "evidence" goods then does that mean that the question of the existence of God has been settled now and forever amen? Does that mean that the world's media have their lead story for tomorrow's news: "Official! We live in a godless universe"?
Look mate, if you're so fired up about being an atheist then bully for you. Seriously! But here's the kicker: why are you so worried about it that you have to go on and on in relentless trolling of a guy who dares stick his head up on a dedicated Religion Board for Christ's sake and declare that he believes in God? So you don't believe in God. Bully for you. He does. Bully for him. If he trolled and stalked you for, I dunno, 5 years (?), I'd be on his case defending your right to be an atheist. But he hasn't done that has he. Instead I find myself defending his right to profess a religious faith on a dedicated Religion Board against trolls like you, like KTJ and also Phil.
Don't you think it's got way beyond you making your atheist point and Occam making his believer's point? Let's face it, it's not about that is it - if it ever was. This is personal. Occam is some sort of target and it's not about what Occam does or doesn't believe. This is about him as a person. Give it a rest. Does he post outside the Religion Board? If you really are an atheist then your intense obsessive "interest" in the Religion Board is bizarre. I would have thought a genuine atheist would be bored with talk of religion and would prefer to spend his time talking about other things. Ponto, for instance - and this is to his credit - tends to stay away from the Religion Board. So does Bender. It seems to me that they're not so much hostile to religious belief as indifferent. To be honest I don't know if either of them is an atheist because they've never said. And I wouldn't dream of asking! But if they are atheists in my view their indifference to religion would give their atheism a lot more credibility than your obsessive hostility ever could.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Apr 8, 2017 8:09:42 GMT 10
Time is relative. It doesn't run contrary to evidence at all. If your evidence runs opposite as you say; I would like to see your supposed evidence to the contrary. Love Putin's quote today: "If you don't produce the evidence, it doesn't exist." So how's your evidence that God exists going? Still nada? How are you making this about me, when it was you who made the 'proof' claim? As for Putin, while I question why you'd set your moral compass to the likes of a Russian dictator, I wonder how people of that same mindset would have thought about DNA and quarks 200 years ago. Obviously his quote misses the mark, because we have proof for that now, that simply didn't exist then. The same could be said for God. Suppose we don't have evidence, does that really mean we never will? I don't think it does.
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Post by KTJ on Apr 9, 2017 13:20:02 GMT 10
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Post by pim on Apr 9, 2017 14:53:09 GMT 10
Not bad!
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Post by slartibartfast on Apr 11, 2017 12:50:29 GMT 10
Slarti let's say, purely for argument's sake, that Occam takes you up on "evidence" and "proof" ... and fails to provide either. Where does that leave the issue that you've been trolling him about for as long as the Religion Board has been in existence? I mean objectively. If the issue is really about your silly "proof" and "evidence" and one individual ... in this case Occam ... can't deliver the "proof" and "evidence" goods then does that mean that the question of the existence of God has been settled now and forever amen? Does that mean that the world's media have their lead story for tomorrow's news: "Official! We live in a godless universe"? Look mate, if you're so fired up about being an atheist then bully for you. Seriously! But here's the kicker: why are you so worried about it that you have to go on and on in relentless trolling of a guy who dares stick his head up on a dedicated Religion Board for Christ's sake and declare that he believes in God? So you don't believe in God. Bully for you. He does. Bully for him. If he trolled and stalked you for, I dunno, 5 years (?), I'd be on his case defending your right to be an atheist. But he hasn't done that has he. Instead I find myself defending his right to profess a religious faith on a dedicated Religion Board against trolls like you, like KTJ and also Phil. Don't you think it's got way beyond you making your atheist point and Occam making his believer's point? Let's face it, it's not about that is it - if it ever was. This is personal. Occam is some sort of target and it's not about what Occam does or doesn't believe. This is about him as a person. Give it a rest. Does he post outside the Religion Board? If you really are an atheist then your intense obsessive "interest" in the Religion Board is bizarre. I would have thought a genuine atheist would be bored with talk of religion and would prefer to spend his time talking about other things. Ponto, for instance - and this is to his credit - tends to stay away from the Religion Board. So does Bender. It seems to me that they're not so much hostile to religious belief as indifferent. To be honest I don't know if either of them is an atheist because they've never said. And I wouldn't dream of asking! But if they are atheists in my view their indifference to religion would give their atheism a lot more credibility than your obsessive hostility ever could. Seriously, Pim? Firstly, look at the heading of this board. What does it say? You used to be an English teacher, but do you have some sort of comprehension problem when it clearly states and I quote: “Let the battles (between the religious devout & the non-believers) begin.”
Can I ask what that means to you? You are the classic fence-sitter so you are the one that does not belong on this board yet you accuse those who clearly sit on one side of the fence of being trolls. All we do is express our views and try to argue with those on the other side for the reasons behind them having their views. If they do not answer or avoid a question, the natural thing to do is to follow them up. Do not blame KTJ, Donatello and myself for being three people with similar (not identical) views. It does not make us a pack of wolves like you have described us in the past, it just makes us three people who agree with most of what each other says. Also do not blame us for the fact the Occam appears to be by himself in defending religion. That just means that all the other religious folk like Matt and Skippy have left. Not our fault! And why do you constantly attack us? In your post about me, you make the following incorrect assumptions (and these are only some): “ trolling him about for as long as the Religion Board has been in existence” – excuse me? He has been hounding me, deleting my posts, deleting evidence when he is shown up for lying, abusing me, questioning my sexuality, Do you wear blinkers? All I have done is defend myself. And I expect you to allow me to defend myself against those who choose to abuse me, especially personally. Or do you not see his abuse and only my responses? “ fired up about being an atheist” – fired up? Where do you get this from? I get fired up if someone abuses me or threatens my freedom of speech. I do not go to Atheist Clubs or meetings or anything like that ever. I get fired up is someone posts lies, which I believe all Religions are based on. So sorry that you think my opinions are ‘fiery’. “ If he trolled and stalked you for, I dunno, 5 years (?), I'd be on his case defending your right to be an atheist” – You have never once defended me when he has abused me, offended me or deleted my posts. But you attack KTJ, Donatello and myself when we have a crack back at him. The word ‘hypocrite’ comes to mind. “ obsessive "interest" in the Religion Board is bizarre” – read the heading of the board AGAIN! “ obsessive hostility” – hostility? I am about the most mild-mannered person you could ever meet. But post lies about me and attack me and you will cop it with both barrels. I wish you’d face up to the obvious truth.
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Post by KTJ on Apr 11, 2017 13:01:31 GMT 10
I wrote that “Let the battles (between the religious devout & the non-believers) begin.” heading and inserted it into the group's DNA. Something I am very proud of!!
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Post by slartibartfast on Apr 11, 2017 13:25:42 GMT 10
I wrote that “Let the battles (between the religious devout & the non-believers) begin.” heading and inserted it into the group's DNA. Something I am very proud of!! Can you please point this out to Pim as he seems to be blissfully unaware of the group's mantra.
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Post by KTJ on Apr 11, 2017 14:11:56 GMT 10
Actually, I was trying to wind-up both Matty-boy and Altair (Skippy) when I inserted that heading.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a bite out of either of them, but it became part of the group's DNA when I handed over control to Jody after completing all the technical stuff behind the scenes in the group with the heading still there, because I liked it regardless.
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Post by pim on Apr 11, 2017 18:08:34 GMT 10
“Let the battles (between the religious devout & the non-believers) begin.” Thank you for bringing that up. I've mentioned it several times over several months and got no response. I suspected it was KTJs doing and I'm not surprised that he'd crow about it. He is after all just a troll who takes pride in his trolling. Yes I agree the use of "battles" sets the destructive theme of the board. The fact that KTJ brags about how he'd inserted that theme deliberately to troll Matt and Skippy just shows the malice and destructiveness that scumbag brings to a discussion board. For myself I'm not interested in discussing my agnosticism with you. Or with Phil. And certainly not with the third troll. But that doesn't mean I am uninterested in discussing it period. It's just that as I've observed you three take over the Religion Board and turn it into Troll City for Paleo Atheists it's become obvious that no discussion regarding matters of faith or scepticism is possible on this board. I don’t see why you're annoyed. You've succeeded! You three have driven everybody - people of good faith, or doubt or non-belief - away from the board and you've turned it into your own dung heap on which you can perch and flap your wings. Mission accomplished. I suppose you're right: with what you and Phil and that other troll have turned this board into I don't belong here. Pity, without you lot this Religion Board could have been something worthwhile.
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Post by slartibartfast on Apr 11, 2017 20:27:38 GMT 10
You totally missed the point, Pim.
Why do you only see one side for their alleged aggressive behavior, when it takes two to tango and the other side have all the aces up their sleeve and uses them with complete bias.
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Post by KTJ on Apr 29, 2017 14:24:10 GMT 10
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Post by KTJ on May 25, 2017 13:16:34 GMT 10
This religious fundy-mental idiot is an Australian too!! from The Washington Post....A giant ark is just the start. These creationists have a bigger plan for recruiting new believers.Still to come: A Tower of Babel, a Noah-era village and a 10-plagues-of-Egypt thrill ride.By KAREN HELLER | 10:08AM EDT - Wednesday, May 24, 2017The $120 million Ark Encounter is five stories high and took 700 workers seven years to build in Williamstown, Kentuckyy. Noah worked seven decades on his ark, according to the founders' interpretation, and was 600 years old when the flood arrived. — Photograph: Luke Sharrett/The Washington Post.WILLIAMSTOWN, KENTUCKY — Ken Ham built an ark, a Noah-sized ark, in the verdant, landlocked hills of the American heartland.
At the sight of the wooden vessel, tourists — decidedly more than two-by-two, a caravan of buses surrounding the site — gasp in wonder. Christian school students storm the ramps, many completing science quizzes based on anti-evolutionary teachings. Admission is $40 for adults, $28 for students, but school groups often pay less.
The founder of Answers in Genesis, an online and publishing ministry with a strict creationist interpretation of the Bible, employed 700 workers to erect the $120 million Ark Encounter, which is five stories high and a football field and a half in length, and packs a powerful whoa punch. He had the massive boat designed by a veteran of amusement park attractions, commissioned an original soundtrack to enhance the experience, and stocked the interior with an animatronic (and freakishly real) talking Noah, along with lifelike models of Earth's manifold creatures. Including dinosaurs.
And he saw that it was good.
The ark opened last summer and is on target, Ham says, to attract more than a million visitors in the first year.
But Ham did not rest.
The 65-year-old Australian and his partners, Mike Zovath and Mark Looy, have launched an ambitious 10-to-12-year plan to re-create a walled city from the time of Noah and a 1st-century village from the time of Jesus.
Also, a Tower of Babel, concept snack shacks, a 3,200-seat amphitheater and a 10-plagues-of-Egypt thrill ride. Frogs! Fiery hail! Locusts!
Instead of building a church, Answers in Genesis is sharing its teachings through a controversial biblical theme park designed to attract believers and non-believers alike.
“How do you reach the general public in a bigger way?” Ham muses rhetorically, sitting in his expansive corner office at the Creation Museum, his first, more sober foray into the family entertainment business, which celebrates its 10th anniversary on Memorial Day. “Why not attractions that people will come to the way they go to Disney or Universal or the Smithsonian?”
Why not, indeed?
Answers in Genesis is certainly adopting a different approach from the Museum of the Bible, which is scheduled to open in November in Washington and aims to attract all religions. AiG wants to attract all tourists and introduce them to its specific brand of faith.
Ham and his brethren are creationists and Christian apologists who believe that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. (Contrary to scientists who say that it's more like 4.5 billion years — or older.) Apologetics is a branch of Christianity whose adherents actively defend their faith, and Ham is a robust debater.Ken Ham, founder of the creationist ministry Answers in Genesis, wants to attract both believers and non-believers to his family-friendly attractions. — Photograph: Luke Sharrett/The Washington Post.The author or co-author of 50 or 60 books — he's not sure, a rare instance of uncertainty — he argues that the Bible is a historical narrative and that “the whole gospel message is found in Genesis.” He believes that dinosaurs prowled the planet alongside humans and that the biblical flood created the Grand Canyon. One of his books is titled “The Lie: Evolution”. He maintains that Noah labored seven decades to construct his vessel and was 600 years old when the storm surged. (By comparison, the AiG team took only seven years to build the Kentucky ark.)
Ham — is it coincidence that his name is the same as one of Noah's sons'? — began his career as, of all things, a science teacher in a tiny Australian town. But evolution didn't sit right with him as the son of parents who subscribed to creationist beliefs.
“I took students to museums and saw that all the museums were totally from an evolutionary perspective,” he says. He began researching the creationist view of science, and ultimately began lecturing on the subject and was invited to speak at the Institute for Creation Research, then based outside San Diego.
And he realized that America was the best location for getting his message out to the world. “It's the center of the business world, the center of the Christian world,” he says.
He acknowledges that his views aren't commonly shared.
“Obviously, we're in a minority,” he says in his pronounced Down Under accent. But “just because a majority believes in something doesn't mean it's right. People love darkness rather than light. If a majority believes something, I'm naturally suspicious because of the sin nature of man.”
Ham has twice debated evolution with television science star Bill Nye, at the Creation Museum in 2014 and two years later at the Ark Encounter, events that Answers in Genesis touts as akin to a modern-day Scopes trial — and that Ham believes he won. Otherwise, why sell the videos and book to believers in his museums' large gift shops? (Nye declined to comment.)
How did a former science teacher, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel (Zovath) and a former radio reporter (Looy), all based in Southern California and with zero tourism experience, come to build a museum and an enormous wooden boat to promote creationism in northern Kentucky?
The founders say they looked at multiple locations in several states and chose the region because of its proximity to the Cincinnati airport, once a Delta hub, and because it's within a day's drive of two-thirds of the nation's population. But the sites are also situated firmly in the Bible Belt, where there's less competition from other tourist attractions. Plus, AiG was able to negotiate attractive incentives to locate there.
Ham proudly points out that where many museums and attractions “are reliant on government subsidies or a few large donations,” the ark was funded by 42,000 small donors. “The average donation was $230,” he says, though there were several large gifts.
But the project's single largest source of funding was actually $62 million in junk bonds floated by the town of Willamstown, population less than 4,000, home to the Ark Encounter and the county seat of Grant County, which faced bankruptcy this spring.
“In terms of revenue for the county, we don't get too much from them,” says the county's chief executive, Stephen Wood. The Ark Encounter negotiated a vastly discounted 30-year rate on property taxes in 2013 under a previous administration. “I hate it, but that's the deal,” says Wood.Replica dinosaurs in a cage aboard the ark. Answers in Genesis, the group that built the Ark Encounter, believes dinosaurs co-existed with humans. — Photograph: Luke Sharrett/The Washington Post.Unsurprisingly, the Ark Encounter and Answers in Genesis have attracted a loud chorus of critics who question this financial backing.
“Why would the state indirectly subsidize a nonsensible alternative to evolution?” asks Barry Lynn, an ordained minister who is executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and a frequent critic. “It's not good science. It's not good anything. It ought to be unacceptable for a state at any level to treat this like one more bond-funded enterprise. Most Christians do not accept this as a literal or natural interpretation of the Bible.”
Ham argues that his organization received a tourist tax break while creating jobs in a region battered by the economy.
Kentucky residents “should be thankful we're here,” he says. “We're creating all these extra jobs in the community, which wouldn't be there if we weren't here.”
Perhaps, but a year after the ark opened, downtown Williamstown, about two miles from the tourist attraction, still isn't much more than a collection of resale and “antiques” shops and shuttered storefronts. At lunchtime on a spring weekday, Main Street was devoid of pedestrians, tour buses or open restaurants, except for a coffee shop with a tattoo parlor in the back.
Moreover, AiG limits who can fill its jobs, leading the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups to charge the organization with discriminatory hiring practices that should make it ineligible for state and local subsidies.
As a condition of employment, the museum and ark staff of 900, including 350 seasonal workers, must sign a statement of faith rejecting evolution and declaring that they regularly attend church and view homosexuality as a sin. So any non-Christians, believers in evolution, or members of the LGBT community — and their supporters — need not apply. (Although, due to less stringent hiring requirements for contractors, an actor who allegedly operated a gay porn site was hired to portray Adam in one of the Creation Museum's original videos.)
Beyond the boat itself, the Ark Encounter attracts visitors — read kids — with reproduction dinosaurs, a petting zoo (those would be live animals), an insect exhibit (very dead), camel rides, zip lines, and fudge stands.
The goal is for the ark to become “something on people's checklist when they're traveling, like seeing the biggest ball of twine,” says Zovath, who supervised the encounter's construction. “That gives us an opportunity for people who might never go to church to see something that is mind-blowing and get some information that could change their lives for the better and point them in the direction for a secure eternity.”
The partners are confident that they can achieve this soul-saving objective because, Zovath says, “God provided us with some incredibly talented people.”
Chief among these is Patrick Marsh, vice president of attractions design. A former Beverly Hills fashion designer, he helped create the opening ceremony at the 1984 Olympics, Universal Studios' King Kong and Jaws attractions, and a Hello Kitty theme park outside Tokyo.
Marsh oversees a 65,000-square-foot warehouse that is part design studio — his team was busy finishing 10 biblical steles for the ark's lake and the bus arrival area — and part Ikea warehouse stuffed to the rafters with building materials.
When the founders first suggested building a Noah-sized ark, Marsh told them, “If you want to attract people here, you need to do it at a Disney level. Kids are so used to high-quality things.”To attract younger visitors, the ark includes an exhibit about the Bible that's presented in graphic novel form. — Photograph: Luke Sharrett/The Washington Post.The ship includes 55 elaborate exhibits in 120 bays, including the recent “Why the Bible is True” done as an art installation in the style of a graphic novel, and two theaters with separate Noah movies. The first is set in Noah's time, the other in the present, featuring professional actors, including one who portrays an incredulous female reporter who undergoes a conversion experience in both films.
Marsh is proudest of the ark's intricate family living quarters, which resemble a wealthy Middle Eastern retreat. The exhibit panels note that Answers in Genesis took “creative license” in developing backstories for Noah and his family. Noah's daughters-in-law, unnamed in the Bible, are each assigned a different race to explain the varying physiognomy of the world's inhabitants.
By comparison, the Creation Museum, 45 miles away, seems modest and antiquated. It features a buff Adam, a comely Eve, dragons — Answers in Genesis views dragons as a variation on dinosaurs — and more dinosaurs. Ham acknowledges that its visitors are mostly creationists. Recently, the facility was packed with church and Christian school groups, retirement communities and a German group meeting with Looy to discuss building its own creation museum.
The Ark Encounter doesn't get public school groups, either, “though there are some that come under the radar,” says Ham. “They get threatened by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the ACLU or Americans United.”
But Ham thinks that more than a third of the ark's visitors do not share his beliefs. “It's not unusual to meet someone who says, ‘I'm not a Christian’, or ‘I'm an atheist’, or whatever, but the comment that we get over and over again is, ‘You really present your message very tastefully’.”
The ark is not completed. Still to open is an 800-seat restaurant on the top deck, where guests will be entertained by Noah-era re-enactors, a Bible-inspired dinner theater.
The biblical theme park, ultimately featuring 80 structures, will be built gradually. The founders hope to open a new attraction every year. Next up is a 2,500-seat auditorium for events at the Ark Encounter, scheduled to open next spring. The Noah-era walled city comes after that. “Picture Disney Main Street with lots of shops, food and fun things to see,” says Zovath.
Then the plans are to build a village set in the time of Jesus, who is currently a lesser player in the Answers in Genesis sites, rooted as they are in the Old Testament.
When he looks around at his progress, Ken Ham sees that it is good.
A full summer of tourists awaits. The ark, he thinks, will attract twice as many visitors in its second year of operation. That will help fund future projects.
“You've got to be risk-takers to do something like this,” Ham says. “But I see it as stepping out in faith. There are people you couldn't blow into church with a stick of dynamite that will come and visit an ark.”
And, quite possibly, embrace the Word.• Karen Heller is national general features writer at The Washington Post for Style. She was previously a metro columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, where she also reported on popular culture, politics and social issues.__________________________________________________________________________ Related to this story:
• PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: Explore the life-size replica of Noah's Ark and a Creation Museum in Kentucky
• A Museum of the Bible meant to appeal to all religionswww.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-giant-ark-is-just-the-start-these-creationists-have-a-bigger-plan-for-recruiting-new-believers/2017/05/24/b497bd14-2920-11e7-be51-b3fc6ff7faee_story.html
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Post by pim on May 26, 2017 13:17:11 GMT 10
Therapods, must have bought them from the set of the movie Jurassic Park. Seems to me that Australian guy went to the US with a brilliant business model and cleaned up. Business entrepreneurship and evangelical happy clapping can and frequently do make a very good fit.
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Post by KTJ on May 26, 2017 15:44:17 GMT 10
If one were to visit this ark, then double-over pissing one's self with laughter at the dark-ages stupidity on display, I wonder if the inevitable security guards would evict one from the fundy-mental happy-clappy premises?
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Post by pim on May 26, 2017 21:43:32 GMT 10
In your case it would be more than deserved and I trust they wouldn't give you a refund. So go ahead. Spend your money.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Jun 2, 2017 10:28:36 GMT 10
(Read the comics, Ignored the rest.) Tl;dr
Not sure how any of these arguments further the cause of anti-theism.
I mean, if atheist are trying to imply they are better people, then why are they poking fun at Christ's philosophy of caring for the sick, and helping the poor?
Why not instead, encourage by setting the standard?
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Post by Occam's Spork on Jun 2, 2017 10:46:26 GMT 10
If the atheists on this board want to argue they are more rational; then I challenge them to argue rationally. I will no longer read, nor respond to troll posts. My time is valuable, don't waste it trying to get an emotional response from me. These days I have a limited amount of fucks (plural french for 'seals'), to give.
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Post by KTJ on Jun 2, 2017 11:35:48 GMT 10
This religious fundy-mental idiot is an Australian too!! from The Washington Post....A giant ark is just the start. These creationists have a bigger plan for recruiting new believers.Still to come: A Tower of Babel, a Noah-era village and a 10-plagues-of-Egypt thrill ride.By KAREN HELLER | 10:08AM EDT - Wednesday, May 24, 2017The $120 million Ark Encounter is five stories high and took 700 workers seven years to build in Williamstown, Kentuckyy. Noah worked seven decades on his ark, according to the founders' interpretation, and was 600 years old when the flood arrived. — Photograph: Luke Sharrett/The Washington Post.WILLIAMSTOWN, KENTUCKY — Ken Ham built an ark, a Noah-sized ark, in the verdant, landlocked hills of the American heartland.
At the sight of the wooden vessel, tourists — decidedly more than two-by-two, a caravan of buses surrounding the site — gasp in wonder. Christian school students storm the ramps, many completing science quizzes based on anti-evolutionary teachings. Admission is $40 for adults, $28 for students, but school groups often pay less.
The founder of Answers in Genesis, an online and publishing ministry with a strict creationist interpretation of the Bible, employed 700 workers to erect the $120 million Ark Encounter, which is five stories high and a football field and a half in length, and packs a powerful whoa punch. He had the massive boat designed by a veteran of amusement park attractions, commissioned an original soundtrack to enhance the experience, and stocked the interior with an animatronic (and freakishly real) talking Noah, along with lifelike models of Earth's manifold creatures. Including dinosaurs.
And he saw that it was good.
The ark opened last summer and is on target, Ham says, to attract more than a million visitors in the first year.
But Ham did not rest.
The 65-year-old Australian and his partners, Mike Zovath and Mark Looy, have launched an ambitious 10-to-12-year plan to re-create a walled city from the time of Noah and a 1st-century village from the time of Jesus.
Also, a Tower of Babel, concept snack shacks, a 3,200-seat amphitheater and a 10-plagues-of-Egypt thrill ride. Frogs! Fiery hail! Locusts!
Instead of building a church, Answers in Genesis is sharing its teachings through a controversial biblical theme park designed to attract believers and non-believers alike.
“How do you reach the general public in a bigger way?” Ham muses rhetorically, sitting in his expansive corner office at the Creation Museum, his first, more sober foray into the family entertainment business, which celebrates its 10th anniversary on Memorial Day. “Why not attractions that people will come to the way they go to Disney or Universal or the Smithsonian?”
Why not, indeed?
Answers in Genesis is certainly adopting a different approach from the Museum of the Bible, which is scheduled to open in November in Washington and aims to attract all religions. AiG wants to attract all tourists and introduce them to its specific brand of faith.
Ham and his brethren are creationists and Christian apologists who believe that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. (Contrary to scientists who say that it's more like 4.5 billion years — or older.) Apologetics is a branch of Christianity whose adherents actively defend their faith, and Ham is a robust debater.Ken Ham, founder of the creationist ministry Answers in Genesis, wants to attract both believers and non-believers to his family-friendly attractions. — Photograph: Luke Sharrett/The Washington Post.The author or co-author of 50 or 60 books — he's not sure, a rare instance of uncertainty — he argues that the Bible is a historical narrative and that “the whole gospel message is found in Genesis.” He believes that dinosaurs prowled the planet alongside humans and that the biblical flood created the Grand Canyon. One of his books is titled “The Lie: Evolution”. He maintains that Noah labored seven decades to construct his vessel and was 600 years old when the storm surged. (By comparison, the AiG team took only seven years to build the Kentucky ark.)
Ham — is it coincidence that his name is the same as one of Noah's sons'? — began his career as, of all things, a science teacher in a tiny Australian town. But evolution didn't sit right with him as the son of parents who subscribed to creationist beliefs.
“I took students to museums and saw that all the museums were totally from an evolutionary perspective,” he says. He began researching the creationist view of science, and ultimately began lecturing on the subject and was invited to speak at the Institute for Creation Research, then based outside San Diego.
And he realized that America was the best location for getting his message out to the world. “It's the center of the business world, the center of the Christian world,” he says.
He acknowledges that his views aren't commonly shared.
“Obviously, we're in a minority,” he says in his pronounced Down Under accent. But “just because a majority believes in something doesn't mean it's right. People love darkness rather than light. If a majority believes something, I'm naturally suspicious because of the sin nature of man.”
Ham has twice debated evolution with television science star Bill Nye, at the Creation Museum in 2014 and two years later at the Ark Encounter, events that Answers in Genesis touts as akin to a modern-day Scopes trial — and that Ham believes he won. Otherwise, why sell the videos and book to believers in his museums' large gift shops? (Nye declined to comment.)
How did a former science teacher, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel (Zovath) and a former radio reporter (Looy), all based in Southern California and with zero tourism experience, come to build a museum and an enormous wooden boat to promote creationism in northern Kentucky?
The founders say they looked at multiple locations in several states and chose the region because of its proximity to the Cincinnati airport, once a Delta hub, and because it's within a day's drive of two-thirds of the nation's population. But the sites are also situated firmly in the Bible Belt, where there's less competition from other tourist attractions. Plus, AiG was able to negotiate attractive incentives to locate there.
Ham proudly points out that where many museums and attractions “are reliant on government subsidies or a few large donations,” the ark was funded by 42,000 small donors. “The average donation was $230,” he says, though there were several large gifts.
But the project's single largest source of funding was actually $62 million in junk bonds floated by the town of Willamstown, population less than 4,000, home to the Ark Encounter and the county seat of Grant County, which faced bankruptcy this spring.
“In terms of revenue for the county, we don't get too much from them,” says the county's chief executive, Stephen Wood. The Ark Encounter negotiated a vastly discounted 30-year rate on property taxes in 2013 under a previous administration. “I hate it, but that's the deal,” says Wood.Replica dinosaurs in a cage aboard the ark. Answers in Genesis, the group that built the Ark Encounter, believes dinosaurs co-existed with humans. — Photograph: Luke Sharrett/The Washington Post.Unsurprisingly, the Ark Encounter and Answers in Genesis have attracted a loud chorus of critics who question this financial backing.
“Why would the state indirectly subsidize a nonsensible alternative to evolution?” asks Barry Lynn, an ordained minister who is executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and a frequent critic. “It's not good science. It's not good anything. It ought to be unacceptable for a state at any level to treat this like one more bond-funded enterprise. Most Christians do not accept this as a literal or natural interpretation of the Bible.”
Ham argues that his organization received a tourist tax break while creating jobs in a region battered by the economy.
Kentucky residents “should be thankful we're here,” he says. “We're creating all these extra jobs in the community, which wouldn't be there if we weren't here.”
Perhaps, but a year after the ark opened, downtown Williamstown, about two miles from the tourist attraction, still isn't much more than a collection of resale and “antiques” shops and shuttered storefronts. At lunchtime on a spring weekday, Main Street was devoid of pedestrians, tour buses or open restaurants, except for a coffee shop with a tattoo parlor in the back.
Moreover, AiG limits who can fill its jobs, leading the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups to charge the organization with discriminatory hiring practices that should make it ineligible for state and local subsidies.
As a condition of employment, the museum and ark staff of 900, including 350 seasonal workers, must sign a statement of faith rejecting evolution and declaring that they regularly attend church and view homosexuality as a sin. So any non-Christians, believers in evolution, or members of the LGBT community — and their supporters — need not apply. (Although, due to less stringent hiring requirements for contractors, an actor who allegedly operated a gay porn site was hired to portray Adam in one of the Creation Museum's original videos.)
Beyond the boat itself, the Ark Encounter attracts visitors — read kids — with reproduction dinosaurs, a petting zoo (those would be live animals), an insect exhibit (very dead), camel rides, zip lines, and fudge stands.
The goal is for the ark to become “something on people's checklist when they're traveling, like seeing the biggest ball of twine,” says Zovath, who supervised the encounter's construction. “That gives us an opportunity for people who might never go to church to see something that is mind-blowing and get some information that could change their lives for the better and point them in the direction for a secure eternity.”
The partners are confident that they can achieve this soul-saving objective because, Zovath says, “God provided us with some incredibly talented people.”
Chief among these is Patrick Marsh, vice president of attractions design. A former Beverly Hills fashion designer, he helped create the opening ceremony at the 1984 Olympics, Universal Studios' King Kong and Jaws attractions, and a Hello Kitty theme park outside Tokyo.
Marsh oversees a 65,000-square-foot warehouse that is part design studio — his team was busy finishing 10 biblical steles for the ark's lake and the bus arrival area — and part Ikea warehouse stuffed to the rafters with building materials.
When the founders first suggested building a Noah-sized ark, Marsh told them, “If you want to attract people here, you need to do it at a Disney level. Kids are so used to high-quality things.”To attract younger visitors, the ark includes an exhibit about the Bible that's presented in graphic novel form. — Photograph: Luke Sharrett/The Washington Post.The ship includes 55 elaborate exhibits in 120 bays, including the recent “Why the Bible is True” done as an art installation in the style of a graphic novel, and two theaters with separate Noah movies. The first is set in Noah's time, the other in the present, featuring professional actors, including one who portrays an incredulous female reporter who undergoes a conversion experience in both films.
Marsh is proudest of the ark's intricate family living quarters, which resemble a wealthy Middle Eastern retreat. The exhibit panels note that Answers in Genesis took “creative license” in developing backstories for Noah and his family. Noah's daughters-in-law, unnamed in the Bible, are each assigned a different race to explain the varying physiognomy of the world's inhabitants.
By comparison, the Creation Museum, 45 miles away, seems modest and antiquated. It features a buff Adam, a comely Eve, dragons — Answers in Genesis views dragons as a variation on dinosaurs — and more dinosaurs. Ham acknowledges that its visitors are mostly creationists. Recently, the facility was packed with church and Christian school groups, retirement communities and a German group meeting with Looy to discuss building its own creation museum.
The Ark Encounter doesn't get public school groups, either, “though there are some that come under the radar,” says Ham. “They get threatened by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the ACLU or Americans United.”
But Ham thinks that more than a third of the ark's visitors do not share his beliefs. “It's not unusual to meet someone who says, ‘I'm not a Christian’, or ‘I'm an atheist’, or whatever, but the comment that we get over and over again is, ‘You really present your message very tastefully’.”
The ark is not completed. Still to open is an 800-seat restaurant on the top deck, where guests will be entertained by Noah-era re-enactors, a Bible-inspired dinner theater.
The biblical theme park, ultimately featuring 80 structures, will be built gradually. The founders hope to open a new attraction every year. Next up is a 2,500-seat auditorium for events at the Ark Encounter, scheduled to open next spring. The Noah-era walled city comes after that. “Picture Disney Main Street with lots of shops, food and fun things to see,” says Zovath.
Then the plans are to build a village set in the time of Jesus, who is currently a lesser player in the Answers in Genesis sites, rooted as they are in the Old Testament.
When he looks around at his progress, Ken Ham sees that it is good.
A full summer of tourists awaits. The ark, he thinks, will attract twice as many visitors in its second year of operation. That will help fund future projects.
“You've got to be risk-takers to do something like this,” Ham says. “But I see it as stepping out in faith. There are people you couldn't blow into church with a stick of dynamite that will come and visit an ark.”
And, quite possibly, embrace the Word.• Karen Heller is national general features writer at The Washington Post for Style. She was previously a metro columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, where she also reported on popular culture, politics and social issues.__________________________________________________________________________ Related to this story:
• PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: Explore the life-size replica of Noah's Ark and a Creation Museum in Kentucky
• A Museum of the Bible meant to appeal to all religionswww.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-giant-ark-is-just-the-start-these-creationists-have-a-bigger-plan-for-recruiting-new-believers/2017/05/24/b497bd14-2920-11e7-be51-b3fc6ff7faee_story.html
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Post by pim on Jun 2, 2017 13:43:51 GMT 10
Troll post
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Post by pim on Jun 2, 2017 13:44:19 GMT 10
Troll thread!
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Post by KTJ on Jun 2, 2017 14:38:17 GMT 10
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Post by pim on Jun 2, 2017 16:59:10 GMT 10
R-i-g-h-t. Thank you for sharing ...
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Post by pim on Jun 8, 2017 8:49:31 GMT 10
The trolls are back.
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Post by pim on Jun 8, 2017 8:56:52 GMT 10
You trolla da Religion Board, I calla you out! hai capito?
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Post by pim on Jun 8, 2017 9:00:41 GMT 10
There goes the neighbourhood! Oh well, it was a troll thread anyway. No loss!
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