$27 Million Evolution-Debunking Museum To Open

[Navaros]

Finally, some good news in the headlines.

I hope they make this into a huge nationwide chain of museums.

I bolded part of the article that shows - despite the many rhetoric-based postings that often appear on this site with fabricated, low and inaccurate numbers - many more Americans are smart enough to not believe in the nonsense that is "evolution" than are often given credit for.

I say 50% not believing in the evolution crap that is shoved down their throats constantly in public schools and the media is a pretty good number seeing as reality does not receive the same push of constant propaganda to infest their minds.

Very disturbing how they had to hire explosive-sniffing dogs and extra security to prepare against the atheist/secularist/humanist zealot terrorists who have threatened them.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Dinosaurs, humans coexist in U.S. creation museum By Andrea Hopkins

PETERSBURG, Kentucky (Reuters) - 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.

[Marshal Murat]

A very good idea. You aren't being forced to view it, its not federally funded.

Atheist will de-cry it, but any publicity is good publicity.

If it flies, it flies.
And Muslims can't blow it up because its from the Bible!

[Samurai Waki]

*titters and walks off to a corner*

[Kommodus]

Hey, I know one of the sculptors who's creating the exhibits for this museum! I was just visiting with him this evening, in fact. Great guy; probably very talented (haven't actually seen his work).

[Lemur]

If we could convince the Flat Earthers and the Faked Moon Landing guys to build their own museums next door, we could get a theme park going. It goes without saying we could attract some alien abductionists to the site.

We need to get them all in the same office park, you know, make it into a real destination. Then we could print money, and buy Sealand.

[edit]

Cool! There's an interactive walkthrough with mock-ups of the exhibits!

[Tribesman]

Finally, some good news in the headlines

Brilliant news .
I was soooo disappointed when the cretinist idiots got the knockback on building bible-world for saying brainless things about Jews .

[BigTex]

Wonderful way to spend 27 million dollars. People are starving, homeless are freezing, single mothers are suffering, yet churches see that this is far mor important. Calvanist hypocrits the lot of them.

Honestly 10,000 years? What does the museum say about dinosours? Guess they are merely mal-constructed elephants.

[Navaros]

If we could convince the Flat Earthers and the Faked Moon Landing guys to build their own museums next door, we could get a theme park going. It goes without saying we could attract some alien abductionists to the site.

Why are you comparing joke sites with this very serious museum. That doesn't really make any sense. The museum has no place near any non-serious, joke buildings like what you are suggesting seeing as the museum is 100% serious and based on hard science.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Why are you comparing joke sites with this very serious museum. That doesn't really make any sense. The museum has no place near any non-serious, joke buildings like what you are suggesting seeing as the museum is 100% serious and based on hard science.

Now let's not be dismissive of other people's beliefs. There is a lot of very good evidence that the earth is flat. How many of you have actually sailed round it yourselves? Seeing is the only proof. Look at those alleged "photos" from space - dead flat two-dimensional disk. Sure people say that's just the paper, but they don't understand hard science. Not to mention it's clear that the "space program" is all fake anyway - God did not give us rocket-powered vehicles at any point in the Bible (well, maybe Elijah).

No-one ever mentions the thousands of explorers that have actually dropped off the edge of the world - currently located near Petersburg, Kentucky, I believe.

[Navaros]

Now let's not be dismissive of other people's beliefs.

The operators of that site don't believe what they say. It is purposely a non-serious garbage nonsense site. Just look at what it says on the front page for obvious proof of that.

The Flat Earth Society is not in any way responsible for the failure of the French to repel the Germans at the Maginot Line during WWII. Nor is the Flat Earth Society responsible for the recent yeti sightings outside the Vatican, or for the unfortunate enslavement of the Nabisco Inc. factory employees by a rogue hamster insurrectionist group. Furthermore, we are not responsible for the loss of one or more of the following, which may possibly occur as the result of exposing one's self to the dogmatic and dangerously subversive statements made within: life, limb, vision, Francois Mitterand, hearing, taste, smell, touch, thumb, Aunt Mildred, citizenship, spleen, bedrock, cloves, I Love Lucy reruns, toaster, pine derby racer, toy duck, antelope, horseradish, prosthetic ankle, double-cheeseburger, tin foil, limestone, watermelon-scented air freshner, sanity, paprika, German to Pig Latin dictionary, dish towel, pet Chihuahua, pogo stick, Golf Digest subscription, floor tile, upper torso or halibut.

[BigTex]

The operators of that site don't believe what they say. It is purposely a non-serious garbage nonsense site. Just look at what it says on the front page for obvious proof of that.

For some reason you believe the filthy rich leaders of those large multi million dollar Mega Churches believe what they say?

Why are you comparing joke sites with this very serious museum. That doesn't really make any sense. The museum has no place near any non-serious, joke buildings like what you are suggesting seeing as the museum is 100% serious and based on hard science.

Hard science does not use faith. It does not believe what it cannot prove. This museum is not based on science, it's sole idiot purpose is to be an annoyance to real scientists. Honestly this is a stain on the surface of the earth. They've spent millions building an idiotic museum, millions more to keep it running. When they could have been proving their faith, showing their faith by helping the communities they were in.

Instead they've shown their greed and ignorance by building a stain on this earth. Their faith alone wasnt even enough to convince others of their truth. So they dressed it up a bit and called it hard science, disgusting. Why is there a sudden need to prove your faith to others. I would assume your good deeds as a christian would be witness enough to convince others.

[Banquo's Ghost]

The operators of that site don't believe what they say. It is purposely a non-serious garbage nonsense site. Just look at what it says on the front page for obvious proof of that.

Even if that were true (I suspect the Flat Earth Society are as tired as other non-mainstream thinkers of being accused of crackpots so they get their retaliation in first) there are people who believe the earth is flat.

My science provides evidence that they are incorrect, as it indicates your creationism to be incorrect. I have no idea what your "hard science" would provide, because I don't understand its method, but I imagine there's scope for a flat earth, as the Bible appears to be geocentric. Is the earth the centre of the universe according to your view?

BTW, I have no objection to this museum at all. I have more anxiety about the fantasy peddled by Disneyworld.

[Xiahou]

$27 Million Evolution-Debunking Museum To Open

Well.... good for them.... I guess....

[Ronin]

If that´s $27 Million less dollars to help child molesting priests re-locate....or $27 Million less dollars worth of people knocking on my door on sunday morning (I swear i´m gonna start answering the door naked)....then I have to say this is a good thing!

if people want to spend $27 Million of their own money in a building full of malarkey....hey...more power to them........I don´t think I´ll go there...well...maybe if I REALLY need a laugh one day.

[Navaros]

For some reason you believe the filthy rich leaders of those large multi million dollar Mega Churches believe what they say?



Hard science does not use faith. It does not believe what it cannot prove. This museum is not based on science, it's sole idiot purpose is to be an annoyance to real scientists. Honestly this is a stain on the surface of the earth. They've spent millions building an idiotic museum, millions more to keep it running. When they could have been proving their faith, showing their faith by helping the communities they were in.

Instead they've shown their greed and ignorance by building a stain on this earth. Their faith alone wasnt even enough to convince others of their truth. So they dressed it up a bit and called it hard science, disgusting. Why is there a sudden need to prove your faith to others. I would assume your good deeds as a christian would be witness enough to convince others.

In general I've learned to not support Mega Church leaders because they are either motivational speakers who take the Christ out of Christianity or seed-faith scammers who should be locked up for scamming the stupid or elderly.

The "science" taught in public schools and that evolutionists use requires faith o'plenty. They are speculating based on faith about most of their wild claims which there is no actual proof for, or for which the "proof" is dependant upon their faith in the accuracy of their own flawed human interpretation of something.

This Museum will definitely help the community it's in and the US population at large. Finally the 40% (I recall a Poll posted on this board months ago that listed 60% of Americans do not believe in evolution) or 50% who don't get that evolution is a fraud, will have a great Museum to help them see the light.

This Museum has the potential to put millions of citizens on the right path in life. More than can be said for most other Museums that exist.

[Sjakihata]

The "science" taught in public schools and that evolutionists use requires faith o'plenty. They are speculating based on faith about most of their wild claims which there is no actual proof for, or for which the "proof" is dependant upon their faith in the accuracy of their own flawed human interpretation of something.

The evolutionists at least uses a scientific approach, called the hypothetical-deductive method. You could call it speculation if you like, however, it is still a valid method as a scientific base. The opposite is of course the inductive method. Scientists is also using the abductive method, however, the one in question is the hypo-deductive one.

Basically, it was the same method used by Kopernikus. A scientist has a qualified guess about something in the universe, he cannot know for sure. He arrives at his guess through tradition, his own genius or a sudden realization. After you establish such a hypothesis you go about doing you empirical surveys (digging, measurements, etc.) and find if it was a valid guess or not. As it is now, there is plenty of evidence to support a theory of evolution, however, there are still anomalies. Scientists or pro-evolutionists do not hide these, actually they try to arrive either a better version of the theory (with part hypothesis to support the main hypothesis) or discard the theory and come up with another one.

Contrary to this, believers claim universal truth and do not go about changing their views, as soon as something better comes up. Scientists do change they theory according to relevant data. And as it is now, evolution better explains the biological development of this earth than creationism does. That is a scientific fact. To claim otherwise is simply not accurate, no matter how much pseudo-science you come up with.

[Redleg]

the muesem can not possiblity debunk evolution. The last 400 years of domestic animal husbandry demonstrates that as a theory natural selection is possible since man has been using artifical selection to change different species to breed certain traits into the animal.

[Marshal Murat]

Alert to all people who complain about this 27 mil. going to a museum.
Its a mega church group, not Catholics/Methodists/Baptists/etc. all building one building.

If he wants to build a 'museum' on God's Creation, then I would ask about the necessity of 'museum' since museums are learning centers, knowledge spots if you will. The Bible and Genesis is highly speculative.

However, he is expressing his Freedom of Speech right, by building this 'museum' so that people can get educated about the creationist point of view.
No one is forcing anyone of you to go there, and if you thought that the museum was silly then I hate to tell you to not post, because any Orgah of good Backroom standing 'any publicity is good publicity.'
Britiney Spears anyone?

[Husar]

Is the earth the centre of the universe according to your view?

That's relative, in a subjective POV yes, it's the centre of the universe just as I am the centre of the universe.
In an objective POV, well, first find someone/something who/which has an objective POV...
And what you see is not the truth/reality in any way, what about people who are blind? Think of the matrix and that everything you see is just the interpretation of your brain of the signals sent to it by your eyes, created by incoming light waves/particles as far as we can tell.

How dare you say that what you see is reality, can you trust your senses?
I'm pretty sure that you are only a creation of the matrix I live in anyway.

[Watchman]

The cretinists apparently like preaching to the choir. Because judging by the online walk-through the museum - which seems to spend rather more space and time on yet again ruminating assorted bits of the Bible that haven't a jack to do with the whole creation/evolution topic - the only people who're not already Believers it can convince are ones with a very severe shortage of information and source critique.

Nevermind now the aftertaste of outright naïve infantilism. "T. rex—the real king of the beasts. That’s the terror that Adam’s sin unleashed!" ? "Repulsive. The world after Eden is disturbing. It makes sense only if you believe God’s Word from the beginning. God made everything ‘very good’—but rebellion against God’s Word brought death into paradise." besides a drawing of two vultures munching on a dead antelope (and the artist obviously didn't have a clue what vultures look like anyway...) ?

Who writes that stuff, elementary school kids who think kittens are cute but are horrified at the sight of mommy cat bringing them a bleeding little rodent to eat ?
Geh. Even without the categorical silliness of the whole Creationist thing this so-called museum is an offense to intellect and good taste.

[Productivity]

What a waste of money... but if that pleases them well whatever. Paris Hilton blows it on fashion, others blow it on fast cars, these guys blow it on annoying others...

Well whatever, it's their money.

[Navaros]

Who writes that stuff, elementary school kids who think kittens are cute but are horrified at the sight of mommy cat bringing them a bleeding little rodent to eat ?
Geh. Even without the categorical silliness of the whole Creationist thing this so-called museum is an offense to intellect and good taste.

I don't get how you can say that it is "good taste" to not take offense at a world in which brutally butchering lower sentient life forms for food is "normal." Indeed it is good taste to be horrified by that, and rather disturbingly poor taste to not care.

[Redleg]

I don't get how you can say that it is "good taste" to not take offense at a world in which brutally butchering lower sentient life forms for food is "normal." Indeed it is good taste to be horrified by that, and rather disturbingly poor taste to not care.

People who are not grounded in reality.

How is a cat killing a rodent, a brutal butchering of a lower sentient life form?

How is a cat killing a rodent for food something to be horrified over? How is butchering a cow for its beef something to be horrified over?


Its part of the natural cycle - something that God himself put in place.

[yesdachi]

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.

Just because Americans believe it doesn’t make it true. How many things are there that Americans believe, that are as wrong as the day is long? A promotional museum equals fact like the National Enquirer equals truth.

[Kralizec]

It's not my money, so I couldn't care less.

*proceeds to preach heresy*

[Banquo's Ghost]

I don't get how you can say that it is "good taste" to not take offense at a world in which brutally butchering lower sentient life forms for food is "normal." Indeed it is good taste to be horrified by that, and rather disturbingly poor taste to not care.

Marvellous.

So why did Jesus give those people fish to eat? After all, however miraculous the bounty, the first five were fished out of the lake.

[Watchman]

I'm pretty sure cats and mice aren't too different in their degrees of sentience and sapience anyway. One is however a carnivore and the other one of the things it feeds on (although as numerous accounts by soldiers on assorted "nightmare fronts" who've had their toes chewed off by rodents point out, mice are quite happy to munch on other animals if the opportunity presents itself as well).

Things eat things to survive. Fact of the world. If you don't like it, file a complaint with the Creator and/or the elementary laws of physics and biology according to personal preference. I can quarantee neither will give a hoot.

I don't get how you can say that it is "good taste" to not take offense at a world in which brutally butchering lower sentient life forms for food is "normal." Indeed it is good taste to be horrified by that, and rather disturbingly poor taste to not care.

I fail to perceive anything abnormal about it. To say it is not "normal" for the cat to do so is to fundamentally fail to cope with reality, which tends to be rather uncaring and harsh. Indeed, the descriptor "brutal" is entirely inappropriate in the context of nonsentient beings anyway - those are fundamentally incapable of any sort of moral choice, consideration or decision by default. Such adjectives are but naive anthropomorphization.

I find that whole way of thinking downright offensively ignorant, self-centered and outright delusional. It amounts to the statement of "I do not like this aspect of the world because it makes me queasy, therefore it must be somehow unnatural" which is reality-denial and hubris par excellence. As if the world existed for our convenience.

Stinks of an infantile longing after some rosy fantasy world where, as it were, the lion and the lamb sleep side by side - which would beg the question why the lion and its highly sophisticated arsenal for killing and eating the lamb existed in the first place anyway - which is pure escapism.

[Banquo's Ghost]

I find that whole way of thinking downright offensively ignorant, self-centered and outright delusional. It amounts to the statement of "I do not like this aspect of the world because it makes me queasy, therefore it must be somehow unnatural" which is reality-denial and hubris par excellence. As if the world existed for our convenience.

Stinks of an infantile longing after some rosy fantasy world where, as it were, the lion and the lamb sleep side by side - which would beg the question why the lion and its highly sophisticated arsenal for killing and eating the lamb existed in the first place anyway - which is pure escapism.

Let's be careful please that we don't stumble into personal attacks.

Navaros has a perfect right to promulgate his beliefs, as we have to question them and seek clarification.

However, they are his beliefs and they are shared by many people. Calling those beliefs "infantile" is stepping just a little over the line.

[Pannonian]

Stinks of an infantile longing after some rosy fantasy world where, as it were, the lion and the lamb sleep side by side - which would beg the question why the lion and its highly sophisticated arsenal for killing and eating the lamb existed in the first place anyway - which is pure escapism.

Your knowledge of history is evidently as deficient as your knowledge of science. The answer is, of course, that the Devil put it there. Cats are the Devil's spawn, and the sooner we return to burning them in wicker baskets the better.

[Goes to get his pitchfork]

[Watchman]

I can use "naive" instead of course. But I actually think "infantile" is the proper word in the specific instance I used it in - it seems to me that the as such quite understandable longing for a world without death and pain is in fact a longing for the warm comfortable darkness of the womb before birth.

The desire for a "pure land" free of need and suffering is a very recurring theme in messianic peasant revolts brought about by intolerable socioeconomical circumstances for example, and abounds in many very widespread depictions of afterlife (not a few add the threat of an eternity of agony for good measure, but that's beside the point here). I'd say that suggests it to be a rather fundamental human longing - but also primitive and atavistic, as many such impulses are.