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[ss1]

I can understand places of worship being tax exempt. But this is a theme park. Surely tax exemption should not apply for a commercial operation even if it is religious in nature.

 

[Sojgat]

Posting the obligatory:

Dinosaurs attacked Noah's Ark (during an epic Angel battle)

This might be the best thing I've ever seen.

 

[Dan]

Funding for the project was initially sluggish, but things changed when Ham debated Bill Nye “the Science Guy” in 2014. The resulting exposure resulted in a sizable surge in donations for the ark park, including a local bond issuance that channeled tens of millions of dollars into the effort. (Later, Nye would say he was “heartbroken and sickened” by the turn of events).

*facepalm*

In another boost, a federal judge recently said the religious project could receive sales tax incentives worth up to $18 million, so long as strict religious tests were administered to employees. Critics say the judge’s decision is a violation of separation of church and state.

Wait, what the fuck is this?

 

[DedValve]

waste of space, time and money.



wait.. why were they on the Ark then?

Moses goofed and brought in two males.

 

[Shadybiz]

Do they have replicas of Noah's nailgun, circular saw, power drill, and forklift as well?

 

[Eumi]

Cool.

It's one of humanities oldest stories, pretty neat to see it made real.

 

[StrangeTaco]

Absolutely died laughing at the dinosaurs on the ark, oh wow. The lengths some people will go to to deceive themselves.

 

[The Technomancer]

and to stand as a proof that the stories in the Bible are true.

I don't

I don't think that's how this works guys

 

[Violet_0]

how serious did they take historical accuracy with this project? What I mean by that, of course, is if any of the dinosaurs have feathers

 

[Evil Monkey DTT]

Even if I play devil's advocate and say "sure I believe in the Bible" why the fuck would you want to prove it. If you do the Bible without magic then nothing about it feels special or impactful anymore.

 

[TalonJH]

GAF, I live about 1 1/2 hours from this place(It's near Cincinnati in Northern Kentucky). If you want I'll investigate and take pictures.

*facepalm*


Wait, what the fuck is this?

I've heard that you MUST be christian to work there. It's crazy.

 

[Bubba_Sparks]

Were the Romans capable of building ships on this scale? Is a wooden ship of this size even feasible with today's technology? Just curious as to where the inspiration of the Ark came from. Wondering if there were any contemporary large Roman ships it might have been inspired by?

 

[Link Man]

Imagine if it ever suffers flood damage.

 

[Mengy]

Why the FUCK didn't Aronofsky base his film on this!?

I know, it's practically a dream Hollywood summer blockbuster! Evil Angels with rampaging dinosaurs versus Heaven's Angels and one great human warrior in a desperate battle to save life on Earth during a global flood catastrophe where everything is destroyed, it would print money!!!

This might be the best thing I've ever seen.

The book is surprisingly well done from an art point of view, it's quite the little treasure:

I think that real life Ark needs more dinosaurs on it!

 

[Cyan]

I was wondering about the tax exemption thing too. Here's the story:

The tax break initially was approved by the Kentucky Tourism Development Finance Authority in 2014 under Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration, but it was later canceled after tourism officials learned that the theme park would hire only Christians. Bob Stewart, then secretary of the Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet, said the U.S. Constitution prohibited the state from assisting a religious endeavor.

Ark Encounter officials sued the state in federal court, saying the state’s decision to withhold the tax break violated its free speech. In January, U.S. District Judge Greg Van Tatenhove ruled that the theme park was eligible to receive the tax incentive, which has neutral requirements that can be met by religious and secular groups alike. Gov. Matt Bevin said the state would not appeal the decision.

The tax break allows approved tourism sites to recover as much as 25 percent of their investment through a rebate of state sales taxes paid by visitors.

Also this bit is hilarious:

Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, has said previously the project will hire only Christians but won’t discriminate among denominations.

 

[jambo]

The book is surprisingly well done from an art point of view, it's quite the little treasure:

I think that real life Ark needs more dinosaurs on it!

DIED

"ASTEROIDS"

 

[Not]

THE FAKE DINOSAURS BWAAAHAHA

 

[BladeoftheImmortal]

Adam and Eve isn't meant to be taken literally now?

In my Primary School it was taught in assembly as being pretty damn literal.

What is the non-literal version of Adam and Eve?

Adam and steve?

 

[adamsappel]

In January, U.S. District Judge Greg Van Tatenhove ruled that the theme park was eligible to receive the tax incentive, which has neutral requirements that can be met by religious and secular groups alike.

This is like Colbert's "I believe everyone has a right to their religion, be you Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior."

 

[Aurongel]

Also this bit is hilarious:

Religous freedom*

 

[Zissou]

Yo what if they actually build a Tower of Babel and then get smote.

I'd always assumed the tower of babel was "god smote fools for being arrogant and/or sinning" kind of thing, but I checked out the wikipedia article:

1.Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

2.They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

3 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

4 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.

5 And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.

6 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

7 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.

8 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

so people were getting along/accomplishing too much, so god fucked with them? Am I reading this correctly?

 

[Dalek]

I'd always assumed the tower of babel was "god smote fools for being arrogant and/or sinning" kind of thing, but I checked out the wikipedia article:



so people were getting along/accomplishing too much, so god fucked with them? Am I reading this correctly?

He's "mysterious".

 

[User 463088]

The Christian bible and the Catholic bible have some small but significant differences. As a kid who went to catholic school all through high school I can 100% confirm we were never told to take the bible verbatim word for word literally. Otherwise reading the book of the Apocalypse could make a man go mad.

I knew from an early age Adam and Eve were a story made up to explain creation, not to be taken as a history class. And shit like evolution or global warming was never even for a second doubted.

And yes. The Catholic Pope would disagree with you.

Ya, but Christian fundamentalists like Ken Ham are not Catholic.. In fact, the Catholic churches refusal to accept a literal interpretation of the Bible is one of the reasons Evangelicals have issue with them. (And, in fact, some Evangelicals argue that Catholics aren't even Christian.) Protestants, especially your KJV-1611, independent, fundamental pre-Millennial evangelicals don't care what the Pope says about anything at all. Their entire worldview is centered around the fact that the Bible is infallibly and literally the 100% "god-breathed" truth. The only things that can be taken non-literally are the things that the Bible specifically says are parables.

And, a lot Evangelicals do believe in a literal reading of Revelations.

 

[TAJ]

...actualy thinking about this church ....

MAYBE we are on "theme park" levels =P

They made it look like a(n enormous) bank branch. Score one for truth in advertising.

 

[Dai101]

I'd always assumed the tower of babel was "god smote fools for being arrogant and/or sinning" kind of thing, but I checked out the wikipedia article:



so people were getting along/accomplishing too much, so god fucked with them? Am I reading this correctly?

Well, it is known that god is a dick.

 

[Dryk]

Yeah, fun fact: Bulbous bows are only useful when you have forward speed. The Ark has no propulsion.

They also weren't invented for another 5000 years.

 

[Mario]

Taking everything in the Bible literally is a fundamentalist thing.

Adam and Eve has to be literal for Christianity to "work". Without it being literal there is no Original Sin, and Original Sin needs to exist if the sacrifice of Jesus is supposed to mean anything.

Adam and Eve then is the point where evolution and Christianity fall into conflict. The closest you can get to resolving that is if you accept there were souless humans around, and then God injected souls into two of them which then allows you to extract a literal Adam and Eve story. Though that does throw up questions around why those two and not others etc.

 

[Evolved1]

My favorite part of the flood story is that the fish drowned, apparently.

They would die though. Not that many could withstand the salinity change. Freshwater fishes would be killed by the mixing with ocean water, and similarly saltwater fishes by the fresh water. It's a narrow band that can survive in brackish water, via osmoregulation, all others would die very quickly.

It's ironic how people ignore the fishes in the flood story. Apparently Noah had an aquarium on board the Ark as well? Otherwise only the estuarian fishes would have survived.

All the fishes survived though. It follows then... Noah invented and perfected Aquaculture.

He should've left some notes for us on how to keep great whites alive in captivity. We still can't do it.

 

[DiscoJer]

We used to have a Noah's Ark restaurant here in St. Louis. I'm not sure it was quite as big as this, but it was quite large and in shape of the ark. You entered it via a ramp and you could go on the roof.

Their drinks used to have giraffe swizzle sticks

Been out of business for like 20 years, but the building is still there, decaying.

 

[ScatheZombie]

At least they had the decency to call it a 'theme park' instead of a museum.

 

[Aureon]

Adam and Eve has to be literal for Christianity to "work". Without it being literal there is no Original Sin, and Original Sin needs to exist if the sacrifice of Jesus is supposed to mean anything.

Adam and Eve then is the point where evolution and Christianity fall into conflict. The closest you can get to resolving that is if you accept there were souless humans around, and then God injected souls into two of them which then allows you to extract a literal Adam and Eve story. Though that does throw up questions around why those two and not others etc.

In Roman Catholicism, "Original Sin" simply refers to the general condition of human beings as sinners, in the sense that they will commit sins if left to their own desires and devices.
The reference to Adam's fall is only allegorical, and absolutely never taken literally by anyone serious in the church.
In general, no portion of the Genesis is taken literally by the Roman Catholic Church.

 

[SpaceWolf]

ZOOM IN ON THE KIDS FACE

A glimpse of the foretold Second Jurassic Age where dinosaur kind begins their glorious reign over primitive mankind.

 

[Trojita]

The dinosaurs.


I just can't.

 

[fixedpoint]

Lets not be ridiculous here.

You can be a very successful and mentally well adjusted while believing in YEC.

You've conspicuously left out 'well educated'.

 

[Doc_Drop]

Hahahaha, there's even dinosaurs! Thanks, I needed a chuckle

 

[evilromero]

So dinosaurs were wiped out by a different flood that occurred after this Noah's ark nonsense? Or did Noah end up eating the dinos onboard? Was this the scene where Russell Crowe's nemesis ate some poor species?

 

[JMizzlin]

Why wasn't it built by just one dude and his family?

 

[LiquidSword]

Don't know if this has been posted in the thread but NPR did a story about this the other day and the small town across the highway is like pinning their hopes on this thing. Also the state took away the tax incentives because they refused to not discriminate by religion when hiring staff. They got those back after suing in federal court.

http://www.npr.org/2016/07/05/484756640/life-size-noahs-ark-to-open-amid-a-flood-of-skepticism

 

[Nozem]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dalebus...-builder-ken-ham-tempts-a-storm/#56a305c7152b

“Nobody’s ever attempted anything like this before,” Ham maintained, “because God never has brought all of these kinds of people — literally thousands of people — together to make it happen, until now.”

Shut up Ken, you're late to the Ark building party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan's_Ark

And those Arks actually float.

 

[Woz]

All my friends are dead.

 

[AndyD]

They had an interesting interview on NPR with the locals and they said they were expecting hotels, restaurants and business to be built around it and none of it happened, as they are afraid it's going to be a fad that fades fast. Also, the mayor of the town which gave them the bonds, said they have no backup plan if the exhibit fails to draw in tourists. In other words they just gave the money away and have no real expectation of ever recovering it. "Mayor Skinner says there is no contingency plan. They're putting all their eggs in one basket — kind of like Noah."

Ahh, I see it linked above.

 

[Yoshi]

What is always amazing to me and I have had this same "talk" with my mom is that .. lets for a minute buy what they think. That the earth is 6000 years old or whatever... and was created by a God. Ok cool.. if I were them I would simply say well if it was able to create a world why not a mature world with a history of millions of years.

They never go down that route.. and it always baffles me but whatever.

What? They do! My cousin is a creationist and he told me that the earth was created 6000 years ago and anything that dates back further was created with that age attached to it by god.

 

[mclem]

(Answers in Genesis, like many fundamentalist Christians, believe that dinosaurs existed 6,000 years ago but were wiped out in the Great Flood.)

...then why put one on the Ark?

 

[mclem]

This is a backfire. Hey people, here's this thing we built to bible spec that's clearly not seaworthy and cannot fit half the animals you'll find in an average zoo.

Well done.

That's okay, though, because they'd just need a few animals that share mitochondrial roots with the modern-day menagerie and the rest would appear through evoluti... oh.

 

[SirClinksAlot]

We used to have a Noah's Ark restaurant here in St. Louis. I'm not sure it was quite as big as this, but it was quite large and in shape of the ark. You entered it via a ramp and you could go on the roof.

Their drinks used to have giraffe swizzle sticks

Been out of business for like 20 years, but the building is still there, decaying.

Shit, go get a loan, get some tax breaks and fix that place up. Start a competing creationist museum and get rich!

 

[Servbot24]

Umm it just sounds like a cool attraction to visit? Doesn't matter if you're Creationist or not.

 

[DrArchon]

What? They do! My cousin is a creationist and he told me that the earth was created 6000 years ago and anything that dates back further was created with that age attached to it by god.

I've heard that reasoning before, and it always confuses me. Why would God bother to create rocks that are millions and billions of years old when the universe is only a couple of thousand years old? Just to be a dick to scientists?

"Haha, screw you guys that are just trying to seek knowledge of the natural world!"

 

[Pantaghana]

...then why put one on the Ark?

You're expecting creationists to make sense?

 

[Trojita]

Umm it just sounds like a cool attraction to visit? Doesn't matter if you're Creationist or not.

At least at Disney World they aren't trying to tell me Mickey Mouse is real.

Also they are getting tax exceptions.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Bonus: it also has the Coffindaffer's Crosses

One of those installations in Southern Maryland is the only way I recognize what turn to make going to my grandparents. "Turn at the school, turn at the baptist church, turn at the crosses, turn at the bar..."