The Creation Museum, a venue aimed at educating people from a biblical creationist viewpoint of history, is in financial trouble and struggling to make ends meet. With declining attendance, the museum has begun to veer into new ventures such as ziplines and sky bridge attractions in order to draw crowds. The biblically themed museum has also taken up a new exhibit dedicated to asking the question of whether dinosaurs were actually dragons. When asked what dragons and ziplines have to do with the museums mission, Mike Zovath the co-founder and vice-president claims that they are irrelevant.Irrelevant? If they are irrelevant to the mission of the museum, then what are they doing there? An attempt to try to explain one of the prevailing mysteries in the Genesis account: the absence of dinosaurs, and it is deemed irrelevant? What happened to the "behemoth" explanation, anyway?
One of the local news teams did a story on this development:
One of the byproducts of the struggles of the Creation Museum is that the Ark Encounter construction has been brought to a standstill. As Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu of the Jewish Press noted a few weeks back:
The Creation Museum in nearby Petersburg was opened six years ago and was supposed to be the source of funds for the Noah’s Ark project, but it got hit by the recession. Since then, visitors have been staying away in droves, denying the proposed new park the funds that were supposed to finance the project that will cost nearly $150 million. If the Noah’s Ark project is not completed by next May, it will forfeit tax incentives and leave a further gaping financial hole. The backers are a part of the same Bible thumping ministry that built the Creation Museum, which sticks to a literal view of the Creation. It is headed by Ken Ham, who is at war with Darwin and scientists who claim the world is older than almost 6,000 years.You will recall that, a bit back, Ken Ham took great pains to portray the Ark Encounter as a separate endeavor from the Creation Museum. If the people that support the Creation Museum are the same people that support the Ark Encounter and they have fallen on hard times, however, then the ark will not be built.
On the other hand, if it is built it will, apparently, feature a new ride modeled on the theme of the ten plagues of Egypt. Won't that be fun!! Riding along while locusts swirl about your head or having frogs drop out of the sky. And what about when we get to the tenth plague? Will there be corpses strewn around the landscape? No, evidently not:
Mike Zovath, senior vice president and co-founder of the Ark Encounter, told The Christian Post on Monday. "The ride is not a thrill ride, it's a seven to 11 minute ride through the nation of Israel, where visitors will see the plagues portrayed."Sort of like the "Its a Small World, After All," ride in Disney World but without the happy feel to it.
Ken Ham and Mike Zovath have done more to damage the reputation of Christianity than anyone else I can think of. This is a travesty. One can only hope that this ersatz, Ellen White-inspired monument to flat-earth Christianity will, itself, become irrelevant.
$150 million could help so many widows and orphans. You know, something the Bible actually tells us to do.
ReplyDelete"Sort of like the "Its a Small World, After All," ride in Disney World but without the happy feel to it."
LOL!
Jim: You wrote that there may be "financial struggles" at the Creation Museum. Museum staff, contrary to the second- and third-hand reports you and I have read, say revenue is virtually unchanged year to year, except for the first year when attendance was the highest (as is the situation for new attractions). These are pretty good figures in a nasty economy and high gasoline prices when even the great Field Museum is having big financial problems. Also, how can it possibly be struggling financially when it actually continues to grow? (I have visited often, and every few months the museum somehow manages to come up with the funds to open impressive new high-tech exhibits.) Museums like the one in Kentucky that are constantly expanding and spending a lot of money on promotion (like a major billboard campaign right now) are strong ones. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Tony Breeden
DefGen.org
I didn't say it was struggling financially. Austin Peterson said it was struggling financially. I have not spoken to museum staff so can only report what I see in the news. If you know better, then I am glad to have you point it out to me.
ReplyDelete