Williamstown, Kentucky (AP) – as a giant replica of Noah’s Ark in the Bible Rising incongruity from the northern Kentucky countryside, Kenham gives him a presentation that is often repeated.
The Ark “has been extended for a long 1.5 soccer field, the world’s largest freestanding timber frame structure,” says Ham. It holds three giant decks with wooden cages, food storage bones, life-size animal models and other exhibits.
It is all designed to assert that Bible stories are literally true. Ancient Noah could have really built such a sophisticated ship. Noah and a handful of families could have really floated above a global flood that had supported thousands of animals for months and owned everyone else in the evil world.
“That’s something we wanted to do through a lot of exhibits to show the feasibility of the Ark,” says Ham, the organizer behind Ark Encounter’s theme park and associated attractions.
And he should promote his goal of asserting the entire book of the Bible in Genesis, and be interpreted as saying that man was created by God’s Fiat on the sixth day of creation on earth only six,000 years ago.
All of these Contrary to the overwhelming consensus Among modern scientists, the Earth has developed over billions of years in “deep time,” and humans and other organisms have evolved over millions of years from previous species.
But Ham wants to succeed where he believes William Jennings Bryan has failed.
Populist politician and fundamentalist champion Brian helped a famous prosecutor Scope Sal TrialIt was held in Dayton, Tennessee in July 100 years ago.
Brian’s side won in court – was found guilty of public school teacher John Scope for violating state laws for teaching human evolution. However, Brian is widely seen as suffering humiliating defeat by public opinion, and his sputtering attempts to explain the epic miracles and mysteries of the Bible.
The infamous failure of expert witnesses
For Ham, the issue of Brian was not that he defended the Bible. That means he didn’t follow it well, and interprets part of it not literally but rather in a phorical way.
“It has shown people all over the world that Christians don’t really believe in the Bible. They can’t answer questions to protect their Christian faith,” says Ham.
“We want you to know that there is an answer,” Ham adds, accenting his home country of Australia.
Ham is the founder and CEO of Genesis Answers, who opened the Ark Encounter in 2016. The Christian theme park features zoos, ziplines and other attractions surrounding the Ark.
Nearly a decade ago, Genesis’s response opened the Creation Museum in Petersburg, near Kentucky. There, he similarly asserts a literal interpretation of the biblical creation narrative. Visitors will be greeted by a diorama depicting children and dinosaurs interacting peacefully in the gardens of Eden.
The group also creates books, podcasts, videos and homeschooling curricula.
“The main message of both attractions is basically this: Bible history is true,” says Ham. “That’s why the history-based gospel message is true.”
Creationists’ beliefs are still common
If Ham is the most prominent torchbearer of creationism today, he is hardly alone.
Polls generally show that they hold beliefs consistent with the creationism of the young Earth, depending on how they ask questions. 2024 Gallup vote It turns out that 37% of American adults agreed that “God created humans in quite the present form at once within the last 10,000 years.”
That percentage has declined slightly from the mid-40s levels between the 1980s and 2012, but not dramatic. Prices are higher among religious and politically conservative respondents.
“The scope was lost, but the public sense was lost,” says William Vance Trollinger Jr., a professor of history and religion at Dayton University, Ohio.
But the scope of Genesis’ answer is, “a critical subset of Americans embraces the creationism of the young Earth,” says Professor Susan Trollinger, wife of the 2016 book “America Righting America at the Creation Museum,” and co-author Trollinger.
Major scientific institutions say it’s important to teach evolution and old Earth geology. Evolution is “one of the safest and most established scientific facts,” says the National Academy of Sciences. Similarly, the American Geological Association states: “The concept of direct connection between evolution and deep time is an important part of the science curriculum.”
This issue has been repeatedly legislative and litigated since the scope exam. Tennessee abolished the Anti-Evolution Act in 1967. The U.S. Supreme Court held that similar Arkansas laws in 1968 were an unconstitutional promotion of religion, and in 1987 it overturned Louisiana laws requiring creationism to be taught as evolution. A 2005 federal court similarly prohibited school districts in Pennsylvania from presenting “intelligent design.” This is another approach to creationism that argues that life is too complicated to evolve by chance.
Science educators were wary
Some lawmakers have recently revived the issue. This year, the North Dakota Senate has broken a bill that allows public schools to teach intelligent design. new West Virginia Law In a vague way, teachers can answer student questions about “scientific theories of how the universe and life came to exist.”
Scope Trial set up a template for today’s cultural combat battles to expand and introduce vouchers for private school attendees, including Creatism, which teaches Christian schools. Bible-infused lessons and The Ten Commandments Displayed in public schools.
This kind of approach is loved by science educators. Bill NyeTV “Science Guy” has been billed for a 2014 discussion with Ham as “Scopes II,” creating millions of video views online.
“It’s this wonderful sense of community that makes you step out of religion, as I understand it,” Nye says. “Communities are a large part of the human experience. But the planet is not four,000 years old. It’s about teaching children who support that idea. For example, these amazing ideas that humans have no connection to chimpanzees or bonobos – breathtaking.
Nye says the evidence is overwhelming, from the fossil layers to the distribution of species. “There are trees that are older than Mr. Ham thinks the world is,” he adds.
Religious views on origin vary
On the 1st of March, visitors milled about the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum, attracting an estimated 1.5 million visits per year (including duplicate visits).
“We are going to church and we are Christians who believe in the Bible,” says Louise Van Niekerk of Ontario, Ontario, Canada. She is concerned that her four children face a public school curriculum that has permeated evolution.
Van Niekerk of the Creation Museum “encourages a robust alternative worldview because of what they are taught,” she says.
However, many religious groups are responding to evolution.
Gallup’s research found that Americans who believe in evolution say that it happened without it with God’s guidance (34%) (24%). The Catholic Pope claims that the human soul is God’s creation, while showing openness to evolution. Many liberal Protestants and even some evangelicals have at least embraced some of the theory of evolution.
But among many evangelicals, creationists’ beliefs are strong.
The Southern Baptist Treaty, the nation’s largest evangelical organization, promoted creationist beliefs in its publications. God’s assembly claims that Adam and Eve are historic peoples. Several evangelical schools, such as the university of the same name in Tennessee, Brian, have affirmed the creationist beliefs in their doctrinal statements.
Critics say there is a bigger problem here,
Just as Ham says that the story of creation is important to defend the greater truth about the Christian gospel, critics say it is at a greater crisis than merely a story of human origin.
Trollingers writes that Genesis Enterprise’s answer is “weapons of culture wars.” They say it coincides with Christian nationalism, promotes conservative views on the role of theology, family and gender, and raises questions other areas of scientific consensus, such as human climate change.
Nye also says the message fits into a more common and ominous anti-science movement. “No one is talking about climate change right now,” he lamented.
The exhibit promotes “vengeful and violent” gods, says Susan Trollinger. I’m paying attention to the cross on the big door of the Ark.
And there are even more similarities in 1925.
Brian said, “How can teachers come from monkeys and tell students that they don’t expect to behave like monkeys?” The Creation Museum, depicting violence, drugs and other social illnesses caused by beliefs about evolution, is “Brian’s Social Message on Steroids,” and in the later 2020 Edward Larson wrote in his Pulitzer Prize-winning description of the scope exam, “Summer for the Gods.”
More attractions are planned
The protests that initially greeted the museum and ark project from a group of secularists who thought about embarrassment towards Kentucky have declined.
The federal court overturned the ruling when the state initially refused to refund tourism taxes for the Ark encounter due to its religious nature. Representative of Ham’s group was a Louisiana lawyer named Mike Johnson. He is currently the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
Despite these blips, Ham’s massive ministry moves forward. Next, AIG attractions are planned in Pigaon Forge, Tennessee and Branson, Missouri. Both increase opportunities for tourist hubs to promote creationism in the masses.
Todd Bigelow, who visited the Ark Meeting from Mesa, Arizona, says the exhibit vividly evoked the safety that Noah and his family must have felt. It says he “hopefully gives him the opportunity to live the life we have, hopefully making good choices and repent when necessary.”
“I think,” adds Bigelow, “God and science can go hand in hand.”
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Associated Press writer Dylan Rovan contributed.
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Associated Press Religious Reporting is supported through the Associated Press collaboration With funding from Lilly Endowment Inc., the AP is in a conversation by taking sole responsibility for this content.
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