In Petersburg, Kentucky back in 2007, a group called Answers in Genesis opened Creation Museum. Depicting a literal translation of the origins of the earth according to the bible, they made stunning life like displays showing the world being created 6000 years ago.
I know what you’re about to say: but Lorraine? What about that report I read last week where scientists had to do a mea culpa and reveal new geological information pushes the dinosaur extinction from 65 million years ago to 66 million years ago? I’d reply I find it fascinating science continues to test and change and discover this awesome world of ours, and all the things on it, in it, and around it. The very nature of learning is that you are never done.
Answers in Genesis wastes no time on such postulations. At the Creation Museum, they stuck some dinosaurs running around with cavemen. When you don’t have tens of millions of years to work with, you have to take some short cuts. Though it was funded through private donors and visitors (who no doubt herded their children quickly past the one room devoted to Charles Darwin), before it broke ground 800 scientists from the three closest surrounding states issued this statement:
“We, the undersigned scientists at universities and colleges in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, are concerned about scientifically inaccurate materials at the Answers in Genesis museum. Students who accept this material as scientifically valid are unlikely to succeed in science courses at the college level. These students will need remedial instruction in the nature of science, as well as in the specific areas of science misrepresented by Answers in Genesis.”
So best Kentucky leave the biblical parks to the devoted, no? No. Now, the same group is building a full scale of Noah’s Ark – Ark Encounter – and they’re eligible for tax breaks of up to $43 million over ten years. It’ll be a designated tourist attraction, like Disneyworld, though the most pressing dilemma at Disneyworld is why an anthropomorphized male duck doesn’t wear pants.
Seemingly only getting warmed up on the Museum, Answers in Genesis literally found all their answers in Genesis, and are doing a reno, 2013-style for Noah. They’re agonized over the details, and had to wing it a few times according to a recent article in The Atlantic. Nobody knows what Gopher wood is; Noah worked in cubits, roughly the length of your forearm. Probably. Doesn’t matter. They’re building this hulking great mass (155 metres long) and filling it as Noah did, with two of everything. They need just 2,000 – 4,000 ‘kinds’, because that’s what Noah used. Things mutated and changed into the millions of ‘kinds’ we now have. Wait. Didn’t Darwin explain how that happens?
The Atlantic probed some logistics of their arrangement. How would just Noah and his family mucked stalls for thousands of animals? The group said conveyor belts, which I found to be a fantastic answer; I can’t even get my kids to scoop the litter box. Food? Food pellets. I guess like kibble for 4,000. How did they stop the T Rexes from eating the bunnies? God would smack them , and they all knew there would be a stop along the way at the Grand Canyon if they behaved, so they did, because who doesn’t want to see the Grand Canyon?
I respect religious beliefs when they aren’t wiping out science programs, eradicating health services and undermining government agencies. That taxpayer dollars pour into this type of project is mindboggling.
“We don’t want anyone to think we’re just making things up,” said the Ark Encounter’s design director.”
Of course not.
Look at you, using anthropormorphized in reference to Donald Duck. Nice going. And Gopher wood, isn’t that what happens when gophers get excited. Sorry I couldn’t help my self.
I have a place in the forest, and every time I walk the trails nearby, I’m pretty sure I’m witnessing some of God’s work. But Arks, and the world being created in 6 days? Most educated people know that religious texts are illustrative, not an account of actual events.
Taking the bible literally is a fundamentalist delusion, in my opinion. Nice column.
Thank you.
Hello
Does anyone understand the meaning of the word metaphor?
No one in the 1990′s forecasted the power of cell phone, or the Internet, absolutely no one, none of the long foreheads who were paid millions each year to run and manage this stuff. So maybe there is some truth in the Bible. Who knows?
Cell phones and the internet pre-date the 1990s (anyone remember ‘bitnet?’). Just because the general population wasn’t aware of the potential doesn’t mean it wasn’t being analysed in universities and research facilities all over the world. The technologies that land on our laps today have been in development for decades – just not in the public eye or consciousness.
Apart from that, I’m not sure I see the connection between being able to forecast the power of the internet and finding truth in the bible. In one sentence you infer that the bible was meant as metaphor; in the next you seem to be saying that its truths might be literal. I’m confused: which is it? I’ve never heard of a ‘literal metaphor.’
Please clarify?
Yeah, Mitch, I’m with Zena here. I did a project on computers when I was in grade 6. I was 10. Even then, we were discussing basic networks. 39 years ago. And another student did a project on fibre optics.
But that’s not the point. My respect for your beliefs extends exactly the same distance your respect extends for mine. I’ve studied the bible. I’ve studied a lot of religions. I studied books to get my degree. You are free to interpret the bible any way you like, but at some point you’re going to have to accept that more of us don’t view it as much more than a book.
And no religion has any place in governance or education, except as another area of study.
I’n a court of law, you’d be better off asking me to swear on a copy of Aesop’s Fables. At least those make sense to me.
You see Noah was a carpenter and he was in his rec-room sawing away, making a few things for the home there. Vhoooba, Vhoooba, Vhoooba, Vhoooba…
‘Noah!’
Vhoooba, Vhoooba, Vhoooba, Vhoooba…
‘Noah! ‘
‘Who is that? ‘
‘It’s the Lord, Noah.’
‘Right. Where are ya? What you want? I’ve been good.’
‘I want you to build an Ark.’
‘Right. What’s an Ark?’
‘Go out into the woods, collect all of the animals in the world by two and make the Ark out of cubits. Eighty cubits, forty cubits, thirty cubits.’
‘Right. What’s a cubit?’
(Thank you, Mr. Cosby…)
I thought that was Bill Cosby ! And , I was right , lol . Bill makes more sense than the religious zealots Zena .
Do they have a crock pot on the ark?
Yep. With a really, really, really long extension cord.
I mean, they had to cook the unicorn somehow (you didn’t actually believe that old song about him just getting ‘left behind’ now, did you?!).
Actually, there are some who would argue that the entire ark was a ‘crock.’
As it was explained to me from a learned soul at Trent University, The Bible is a history of the development of the spiritual world. Earth’s history comes from the scientists and historians. Don’t mention crock Zena in the event we get another crockpot story.
Wouldn’t that be ‘crackpot’ story…?
Small (but important) correction: the Bible is a history of the development of the Western/Christian spiritual world. Globalisation has forced us to recognise that although spirituality itself is a global phenomenon, there is no single global spiritual expression, in spite of what many in the world would like to believe (and force others to believe).
” If there was no God , man would create one out of his innate need to believe in something more powerful than himself . ” I don’t remember where I read that quote but it is interesting .
Voltaire, I think.