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A news story out of Hebron, Kentucky today reported that a group is rebuilding Noah's Ark to biblical specifications. As usual, the atheist killjoys disguised as activists-who-are-only-looking-out-for-your-constitutional-rights have decided this is one more example of the "religious people" of the world attempting to completely dismantle the entire edifice of modern science, and send us all ignorantly and happily back to caves with flint-head spears and poor hygiene.
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_18710712 I've asked this question countless times in my mind, but now I'll ask it aloud of atheist activists, because it begs to be asked: "What are you so afraid of?" Answers in Genesis ministries is the group that has decided to take on such an ambitious project as rebuilding the mighty seafaring vessel which is supposed to have carried the majority of the world's existing land-dwelling species during a world-wide flood that covered the entire earth. This supposedly happened at a time when the skies rained for forty days and nights continuously, and the "fountains of the great deep" also sprang forth with apparently deluge-like flows. (This is according to the biblical account, specifically Genesis 7, verses 11 and 12, for those of you who are curious where these statistics come from). Nonsense? Well, the beauty of human subjectivity is you can believe what you wish. Make no mistake however; no one who was there back then is here to speak, so making assumptions about the past is a sucker's bet. However, I digress... so back to the focus of the essay. This time around, the atheists are using the separation of church and state as their angle of attack, due to the project being approved for $40 million in taxpayer-funded incentives. The ark is only part of an entire theme park, which is estimated to cost around $155 million (the article's picture caption says $170 million). The activists are squawking because they don't think public tax dollars should be used to fund a religious enterprise. This would have been a viable argument, except there's an extenuating circumstance that comes into play: 900 jobs. State officials approved the $40 million on the contingency that the park achieves its projected attendance (1.6 million visitors during its first year). There will be hundreds of people working on the ark project, including a team of Amish builders and Patrick Marsh, who helped construct various Universal Studios attractions. They're even building it the "old world" way, with wooden pegs instead of nails, and by straight-sawing the timber. They're going to include lots of animals in the finished ark; some live, but most will be stuffed or mechanical. The ark project manager is quoted in the article as saying, "There's a lot of doubt: 'Could Noah have built a boat this big, could he have put all the animals on the boat?' Those are questions people all over the country ask." He also said, "When you get to walk through the boat and see how big this thing really was, and how many cages were there, and how much room there was for food and water ... our hope is people start seeing that this is plausible, that the account could be believed." So, into all this visionary effort, walks the intellectually smug exclusionist, also known as the Talking Head Atheist. This time one of the more prominent players is one Mr. Edwin Kagin, a ex-Christian who now devotes his J.D. assignment to less jurisprudence and more activism. Some of his efforts are an anti-God printed gem called "Baubles of Blasphemy," and a camp for "protecting" the children of atheists from such horrendous summer activities as contemplating the glory of God's beautiful creation, also known as Nature. He's a longtime critic of the ark-building group, and he says the public attraction will convert people to creationism by challenging scientific findings about the world's history. Excuse me... but just how is building a huge boat, and demonstrating that it could carry and sustain many animals a challenge to science? I don't recall learning anything in science class about the impossibility of building a ship large enough to carry several thousand species of non-aquatic creatures. And if some former skeptics experience the ark for themselves, and come to the conclusion that the premise is at least possible, how does that produce the earth-shaking and science-destroying revolution he and his kind apparently fear? God will never leave the imaginations of human beings, and this so-called "debate" has been raging for millennia... it wasn't sprung on the human race suddenly by Darwin, as some would have you believe. Understand that fact and move on to other more fruitful activities... all the venom spewed by the vocally aggressive atheists is so much wasted energy and talent. They need to get lives and leave others to their own thoughts for a change. I digressed again, oops. Back to the essay proper. Another quote from Kagin (italics mine): "Many think that since creationism is so irrational and so unscientific that nobody really could believe it, but that's not so." He says that the new park will be "so slick and so well done, you can get people to believe in anything. Creationism, when you're ready to believe anything." Let us not ignore the deliberate use of the adjective "slick." I will take the high road and assume he meant the professional quality of work that's designed to lure tourists, and not the more petty possibility that he's attempting to make the visionaries involved in this project look like shysters out to hijack your independent thought with smoke and mirrors. The ark article also mentioned another gadfly atheist association, the Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU). This is an organization that has, since 1947, performed the prestidigitation of claiming to protect your religious freedom, while simultaneously making sure not one American student will ever be exposed to such an objectionable idea as the possible existence of a creator god. Again, a wonderfully productive expenditure of one's time and resources, similar to the "Abimelech Society." The AS "freethinkers" are those clever loose cannons that attempt to make the world a better place by tossing any bibles found in motel or hotel nightstands summarily into the trash. Regardless, the AU seems convinced the theme park will be beaten to a pulp by constitutional law. However, Kagin says the case would be a loser, due to the way tax incentives are structured for organizations that seek to increase tourism in Kentucky. In a chuckle-worthy moment of schoolyard logic, the AU actually said in a public statement: "Noah didn't get government help when he built the first ark, and the fundamentalist ministry behind the Kentucky replica shouldn't either." This essay has run on long enough, so I'll leave the easy job of ripping that last statement apart to you, reader. |