www.hillmanweb.com/reason/creation
A Flood Of Nonsense: Ken Ham’s False Dichotomy
Americans United: Jul 7, 2016 by Rob Boston in Wall of Separation
www.hillmanweb.com/reason/creation/ark1.htmlKen Ham’s $102 million Ark Encounter theme park in Williamstown, Ky., opens today. The official launch of this boat on dry land has led to a spate of media attention for the Australian creationist and would-be Noah. Ham’s “ark park” was the subject of a lengthy New York Times story recently, during which Ham admitted, yet again, that the entire project has one goal: converting people to his brand of fundamentalist Christianity. “The reason we are building the ark is not as an entertainment center,” Ham told The Times. “I mean it’s not like a Disney or Universal, just for anyone to go and have fun. It’s a religious purpose. It’s because we’re Christians and we want to get the Christian message out.” Ham has also been in the spotlight lately after reports surfaced that he is requiring park employees to sign statements promising that they will abstain from sex (if they’re single). 
Ken Ham's ark doesn't actually float.On June 30, Americans United Executive Director Barry W. Lynn appeared on WEKU, an NPR affiliate in Richmond, Ky., alongside Ham. Since Ham accused AU of distorting the facts surrounding the aid he will receive from the state of Kentucky, it’s time to set the record straight: Yes, Ham’s park is getting help from the government. Ham may not consider his park an entertainment venue, but Kentucky officials do. At such places, Kentucky charges a 6 percent sales tax on tickets, food and souvenirs. Venues like Ark Encounter collect the sales tax and forward it to the state. But once a year, the sales tax that Ark Encounter pays will be refunded to the park. Not only does the money not end up in the Kentucky treasury, it is turned over to Ark Encounter. Ham’s Answers in Genesis ministry estimates it will receive $18 million over 10 years through this incentive plan. Ham insists this is not a subsidy. Anyone with sense can see that it plainly is.But a recent story on the Christian Post website contains perhaps some of the strangest Ham musings yet. Here Ham decided to attack fellow Christians who believe in evolution, asserting that they embrace “a religion of death.” “Christians who accept millions of years are mixing the religion of death with the religion of life – death came after sin, Jesus conquered it,” Ham asserted on his Facebook page. “Evolution requires death over millions of years, death is a ‘friend’ that produces life and death ends it all.”
The Ham-fisted rant continues: “The Bible describes death as an enemy that will one day be destroyed – through Christ’s death and resurrection we are offered life with God. Creation is a religion of life – death is a result of sin, our Creator paid the penalty for sin and offers the free gift of salvation – it’s all about life. Christianity vs. secularism is really a battle between the religion of life and the religion of death.”
So, Ham’s new theme park highlights a Bible story in which God kills every living thing on the planet save for Noah, his family and the animals on the ark – yet evolution celebrates death? Plenty of sensible Christians understand that what Ham is offering here is a false choice. When people acknowledge the reality of evolution, they are not choosing death over life. Rather, they’re choosing education over ignorance.
The July-August issue of Church & State contains an interview with Tim Helble, one of the authors of a new book titled The Grand Canyon: Monument to an Ancient Earth – Can Noah’s Flood Explain the Grand Canyon? Eleven scientists collaborated to write this book, and several of them are evangelical Christians. Their dissection of the kind of “flood geology” offered by Ham and his fellow creationists is thorough and devastating. In their conclusion, the authors explain how the kind of biblical literalism championed by Ham actually undermines faith.
“Imagine the effect, during the four centuries since Galileo, if every new celestial observation was forced into an Earth-centered view based on the assumption that biblical verses like Psalm 104:5 (‘He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved’) was intended for instruction on the workings of nature?” they write. “Believers would understandably become increasingly suspicious not only of natural observations, but more importantly, of God’s role in creating and sustaining His creation. Many would eventually feel compelled to leave the faith altogether in the mistaken notion that science and the Bible are hopelessly at odds. Flood geology marches its adherents inexorably down this road. Science, as described in the pages of this book, does not.”
Americans United members come in all varieties when it comes to religion – Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, humanists, agnostics, Pagans, etc. For those who are Christian, one thing should be clear: You can have an authentic and real faith even as you acknowledge that Ham’s tales are all wet.
A Noah’s Ark in Kentucky, Dinosaurs Included
An enormous model of Noah’s ark is rising in Kentucky.
Ken Ham, the man behind it, wants to use the boat
to promote his belief in "young earth" creationism.
New York Times ~ June 26, 2016 by Laurie GoodsteinVideo
A Biblical Ark for the Secular AgeWILLIAMSTOWN, Ky. — In the beginning, Ken Ham made the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky. And he saw that it was good at spreading his belief that the Bible is a book of history, the universe is only 6,000 years old, and evolution is wrong and is leading to our moral downfall. And Mr. Ham said, let us build a gargantuan Noah’s ark only 45 minutes away to draw millions more visitors. And let it be constructed by Amish woodworkers, and financed with donations, junk bonds and tax rebates from the state of Kentucky. And let it hold an animatronic Noah and lifelike models of some of the creatures that came on board two-by-two, such as bears, short-necked giraffes — and juvenile Tyrannosaurus rexes. And it was so.
Mr. Ham’s “Ark Encounter,” built at a cost of more than $102 million, is scheduled to open on July 7 in Williamstown, Ky. Mr. Ham and his crew have succeeded in erecting a colossal landmark and an ambitious promotional vehicle for their particular brand of Christian fundamentalism, known as “young earth” or “young universe” creationism.
Ken Ham, the president and founder of Answers in Genesis.
Credit Kyle Grillot for The New York TimesBut it was hardly smooth sailing. The state tried to revoke the tax rebates after learning that Mr. Ham would require employees to sign a “statement of faith” that would exclude people who were gay or did not accept his particular Christian creed. Mr. Ham went to court and in January, he won.
On a recent afternoon, the Australian-born Mr. Ham looked out on the workers in hard hats affixing pine planking to cover the Tyvek plastic wrap still visible on the stern. The ark stretches one-and-a-half football fields long, rises as high as a seven-story building and is said to be the largest timber-frame building in the world. Mr. Ham is betting it will become an international pilgrimage site, as well as a draw for the curious, the seculars and even the skeptics. “The reason we are building the ark is not as an entertainment center,” Mr. Ham said in an interview in a cabin overlooking the construction site. “I mean it’s not like a Disney or Universal, just for anyone to go and have fun. It’s a religious purpose. It’s because we’re Christians and we want to get the Christian message out.”
The ark is also intended to serve as a vivid warning that, according to the Bible, God sent a flood in Noah’s time to wipe out a depraved people, and God will deliver a fiery end to those who reject the Bible and accept modern-day evils like abortion, atheism and same-sex marriage. “We’re becoming more like the days of Noah in that we see increasing secularization in the culture,” Mr. Ham said.
The Creation Museum, which offers an unscientific view of natural history.Yet his interpretation of what he calls “the Christian message” is derided by most scientists and educators, and resented even by some Christians who consider it indefensible and even embarrassing. Young earthers believe that God created the universe in six 24-hour days, and since all of history is only 6,000 years, humans coexisted with dinosaurs. An exhibit at the Creation Museum shows two smiling children playing in a lush garden next to two petite Tyrannosaurus rexes.
Bill Nye, best known as “the science guy” on television and in books, said in a telephone interview, “Humans and ancient dinosaurs did not live at the same time. It’s completely unreasonable.” Science has established that the earth is billions of years old, and no worldwide flood occurred in the last 6,000 years. “We’re going to raise a generation of kids who are scientifically illiterate,” said Mr. Nye, who debated Mr. Ham at the Creation Museum in 2014, a matchup watched online by millions.
A group of local atheist activists, the Tri-State Freethinkers, recently tried to put up billboards on the highway approaching the ark, calling it the “Genocide and Incest Park,” but no billboard company would agree, said the Freethinker’s founder and president, Jim G. Helton, so they plan to protest at the ark’s grand opening. “The moral of the flood story is horrible,” Mr. Helton said. “We’re not saying he can’t build his park. But we don’t think it’s appropriate for a family fun day.”
Young earth creationism gained currency only about 60 years ago, and has remained a marginal creed within Christianity. Even many Bible-believers and evangelicals accept the science showing that the universe is billions of years old — some reasoning that each of the six “days” of creation in the Book of Genesis may have lasted millions of years, not 24 hours. And of course, many Christians accept evolution. But now the young earthers are having a heyday, thanks largely to Mr. Ham and his supporters. Their ministry, Answers in Genesis, produces books, magazines, videos and curriculums used by thousands of churches and home schoolers. The Creation Museum — which sells these materials in its gift shops — claims 2.7 million visitors have come in the nine years since it opened. But about half of those visitors came to the Creation Museum in the first three years, suggesting that interest may have dropped off. The ark could change that. Mr. Ham projects that the ark will attract 1.4 to 2.2 million visitors in the first year, and will double the attendance at the Creation Museum.
Inside a cavernous warehouse in an office park in Hebron, a few miles from the museum, about 50 artists, designers, carpenters, sculptors and volunteers have been working six-day weeks to prepare the exhibits for the ark. A sculptor inserted stiff gray-brown hairs one at a time into the chin of what looked like a wild boar. Another wiped off the black dye on a bear’s chest to make it look less like a contemporary black bear. A giraffe with a short neck was being baked in a large oven to set the dye on its fur.
Answers in Genesis chose a “medium-brown” for Noah and his family.Tim Chaffey, a content manager and writer for the Answers in Genesis ministry, explained that most of the models do not resemble animals the way they look today, but extinct species. According to young earth creationists, the ark carried up to 1,400 kinds of creatures that gradually evolved into the animals we know today. Young earthers accept the notion that nature makes small adaptations over time — but do not accept that humans and chimpanzees descended from a common ancestor.
The ark designers had to scale back their initial ambition to have live animals living on board to demonstrate the truth of the Noah story, said Mr. Chaffey, a graduate of Liberty University, a Christian college in Virginia founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. And there will be only about 30 pairs of stuffed animals on the Ark Encounter because there just isn’t enough space. “We have to have dozens and dozens of bathrooms for visitors. Noah didn’t have to have that,” Mr. Chaffey said.
Drawings of Noah and his seven family members hung on a wall. Their skin is “middle brown” and their faces are a blend of racial features because, as the only survivors of the biblical flood, all the races and ethnicities on earth would have descended from these eight people, Mr. Chaffey said. But in some of the displays in the warehouse, there were indications of the ministry’s dark vision of humanity. An artist, Stephanie Fazekas, stood at a computer drawing figurines of women in togas. They were prostitutes for a diorama portraying the morally decadent society that the Bible says was wiped out in a flood.
The site of the ark under construction in Williamstown, Ky.William Trollinger, a professor of history at the University of Dayton, has been studying Mr. Ham’s museum, website and blogs for a new book “Righting America at the Creation Museum,” written with his wife, Susan L. Trollinger, a professor of English also at University of Dayton. “He calls on Christians to participate in a culture war,” Mr. Trollinger said, of Mr. Ham. “He says, if you’re really going to be a Christian, you’re in this war against the atheistic, humanistic enemy.”
In an interview, Mr. Ham railed against atheist groups for trying to prevent his project from receiving tax incentives from the state of Kentucky. Answers in Genesis claimed that the state’s denial of those tax credits violated the group’s First Amendment rights. Judge Greg Van Tatenhove of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky agreed, writing in his January decision that tourist attractions — even those that advance religion — meet the neutral criteria for the tax incentives.
The ark is now in calmer waters. The workers, standing on hydraulic lifts, have covered over the Tyvek, and just in time. The Tyvek was printed all over with the slogan of its maker, Dupont: “The Miracles of Science.”
WAS NOAH'S ARK POSSIBLE?
https://www.hillmanweb.com/reason/inspiration/noah.html
www.hillmanweb.com/reason/creation
Photos by Bill and Sue-On Hillman - ©Copyright 2009/2016
Bill and Sue-On Hillman
BACK TO THE HILLMAN ECLECTIC STUDIO
