Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

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jonperry
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Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by jonperry » Wed Jan 03, 2018 7:52 pm

Last week I went to see the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum. I knew that as an educator, much of what I would see would bother me, but I was surprised to find that some of what is taught might also bother Christians. They teach hyper evolution after the flood, for example, which I thought was strange. What are your thoughts on that place?

I recently heard the Southern Baptist Convention is supporting the Ark and this surprised me. I used to volunteer at a food bank with several Southern Baptist pastors. They were smart guys, I would have thought they would be more careful than to broadly promote the non-biblical doctrines of Ken Ham.

Here is my review video of the place in case you've never been: https://youtu.be/Fg2LGUSXFxk

Jon

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dwight92070
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by dwight92070 » Wed Jan 03, 2018 9:58 pm

Jon,

My wife and I and our 22 year old son visited the Ark Encounter this past summer. I grew up going to a Baptist church with my parent's and siblings, so I have always heard the story of Noah and the flood. When I was 21, I experienced being born again and began to follow Jesus. Prior to that, I had a lot of exposure to the Bible and Christianity, but nothing as life-changing as that experience. After that, I never returned to the Baptist church, but have always attended nondenominational churches, not seeing denominations in the Bible.

I am not a scientist, but I did not see anything at the Ark Encounter that specifically contradicted the Bible. Obviously, many things there were speculation on the part of Ken Ham, such as the possible methods of disposing sewage, air circulation, and methods of feeding the animals on the ark, etc. But, not believing in evolution, I don't see why dinosaurs could not have been aboard the ark. In fact, Biblically, they would have HAD to be on the ark. I see evolution as a bias, not a science. If evolution ever occurred, why is it not occurring now? If you tell me that it is occurring, then show me the living half-men and half-ape walking around. I suppose you have some supposedly well-thought out explanation for that.

I can see where you say that the Ark Encounter is presenting Hammism or did you say Hammonism? Your video and your interpretation could just as easily be called Perryism, could it not? I don't have a problem with that. If I had built the Ark Encounter, it would be Brownism. But I do believe that Ken Ham has come up with what appears to me to be a very sound and accurate interpretation of the Genesis account. Also, there are many scientists who are also Christians, who agree with him.

God bless you in 2018,

Dwight

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dwight92070
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by dwight92070 » Wed Jan 03, 2018 11:16 pm

I agree with Ken Ham when he says, in essence, that science must conform to the truths of the Bible. The Bible, on the other hand, does not need to conform to science. To attempt to get the Bible to "fit into" the "apparent truths" of science is a HUGE foundational error. It is similar to Jesus saying that if anyone hears His words and does not do what He says, he is like a man who built his house on the sand, and when the floods came, his house fell.

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jonperry
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by jonperry » Thu Jan 04, 2018 3:52 am

Dwight, if you don't believe in evolution than you certainly don't believe what Ken Ham is teaching at the Ark. He claims that from the few thousand species on the Ark, all the hundreds of thousands of species of land animals alive today quickly evolved. See the image here: https://twitter.com/StatedClearly/statu ... 5896183808

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jonperry
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by jonperry » Thu Jan 04, 2018 4:07 am

Dwight, on your question here:
If evolution ever occurred, why is it not occurring now? If you tell me that it is occurring, then show me the living half-men and half-ape walking around.
Chimps are our closest living relatives but many closer relatives (populations that split from us more recently and are more similar to us) can be found in the fossil record. Different populations died off for different reasons, some even seem to have died off via war with other human-like species.

Evolution happens on a population level and, unless an extremely strong selection pressure is modifying a population rapidly by cutting it down through natural selection, evolutionary change occurs extremely slowly from generation to generation. If you want to see large changes, you have to look at thousands of generations. To see large changes in humans, this means you need to look at the fossil record. Luckily, the Smithsonian has high resolution 3D scans of hominid skulls you can look at for free right here: http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/3d-collection

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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by mattrose » Thu Jan 04, 2018 3:18 pm

I am surprised that you were surprised that young earth creationists teach (what you are calling) hyper-evolution. I think it is pretty common knowledge that YEC's believe that variation within a 'kind' can happen quite rapidly. Mostly because that is something even we humans can manipulate over a short period of time through careful breeding.

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dwight92070
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by dwight92070 » Thu Jan 04, 2018 9:15 pm

[quote="jonperry"]Dwight, if you don't believe in evolution than you certainly don't believe what Ken Ham is teaching at the Ark.

Dwight: On the contrary, I don't believe in evolution and yes, I do believe in what Ken Ham is teaching.

He claims that from the few thousand species on the Ark, all the hundreds of thousands of species of land animals alive today quickly evolved.

Dwight: You're saying that Ken Ham teaches that a few thousand species on the ark "evolved" into all the hundreds of thousands of species alive today? That's strange, so now you're telling me that Ken Ham teaches evolution too? Not only that, but you're saying that he teaches that one species actually evolves into another species and that this turned a few thousand species into the current hundreds of thousands of species? Can you give me the quotes of Ken Ham teaching these things? As far as the image that you refer to, I notice the words "Hyper evolution after the flood" under it are YOUR words, NOT Ken Ham's. Ken Ham does not teach evolution, except for what he calls micro evolution, or variations withins kinds of animals. I would refer you to the following article: https://answersingenesis.org/natural-se ... evolution/

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dwight92070
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by dwight92070 » Fri Jan 05, 2018 7:52 am

So we're supposed to look at composite pictures of skulls from the Smithsonian and conclude that these were various forms of humans/animals? How scientific! Not! Also, you want us to believe that in thousands of generations, chimps will become humans? Well, since the creation there has been ample time for thousands of generations to evolve. So where are the half-chimp, half-humans? There should also be 1/4 chimp, 3/4 humans running around, and the 1/8 chimp, 7/8 humans, and the 1/16 chimp, 15/16 humans. Where are they? Or do all chimps evolve at exactly the same time, worldwide? How convenient. But not very scientific. If evolution ever happened, then it should be happening today in VARYING degrees in all the animals. But, in fact, we don't observe that. Isn't observation part of the scientific method? We do not observe any part animal, and part human creatures today, which we should if, in fact, evolution is happening today. If it is not happening today, it is at least a strong possibility that it never happened. Then we read the Bible, which clearly tells us that God created all creatures on the 5th and 6th days of creation and we can put the final nail in the coffin of the THEORY of evolution.

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Homer
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by Homer » Fri Jan 05, 2018 11:09 am

The problem with evolution of humans is that man (& woman) has immensely greater ability than that necessary for survival. Humans are born and have existed for a very long time in situations that require minimal brainpower, such as the primitive in the jungle. Yet if you take one of their babies and raise the child in the home of a pair of Harvard professors the child has the ability to far exceed that which is necessary for survival, such as calculus, composition of music, write novels, find cures for diseases, and even produce materials promoting evolution. :?

It would seem obvious that the gradual theory of evolution has no explanation for how humans evolved so far beyond what is necessary to survive and multiply. Yet those who spend their time investigating such things are greatly excited when the see some animal use a stick to get some insects to eat. Look, he is using a tool! He is almost like us, he is our ancestor!

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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by Si » Fri Jan 05, 2018 11:54 am

Dwight,

Ken Ham teaches that the Ark, with a few thousand "kinds" of animals, have since branched off into the hundreds of thousands of species we have today. Because he only allows for a few thousand years for this to occur, he in fact suggests a much faster rate of genetic mutation and branching out than any evolutionist would believe in. This model was created to explain that Noah didn't need hundreds of thousands of animals on the ark, but only a few thousand. This necessitates that hundreds of thousands of new species have come into being in the last few thousand years.

There are not chimp/human hybrids because chimps only mate with chimps, and humans only mate with humans. Nor does evolution teach that humans evolved from chimps, but that they share a common ancestor. Evolution teaches that new species form when two groups of one species become genetically isolated from one another and successively adapt to their new environments over many generations. Eventually, the groups diverge to the point where, even if they did come back in contact, they could not have viable offspring. When members of a species breed with one another, it creates a shared set of features among the population. No individual members of a species can evolve in isolation because they are inextricably linked to the gene pool of their species.

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