but I hope my name is on his list

Well, actually, I don't believe in prayer, but I sent a couple to the FSM to kill the ark park.

- banking on revenue for a creationism park.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I couldn't have cared less if he had payed for it himself or some crazed, lunatic zillionaire did
The state banked on a loser project
I do love how, once again, the uber amazing power of the Atheist community was somehow more omnipotent than God
The God they worship is pretty weak
The God I know, he'd have just caused some cars to breakdown near the exhibit and placed a free car fix-it shop for everyone with a ticket stub from the place
But then, the God I hang out with, isn't a vengeful, whiny, sniveling, weak-kneed snowflake who gets upset about every little thing either

an all-powerful God

... and thus the reason bad stuff happens there.

If you go the fundy route...

It's a failure because it's over an hour from Nashville, it's closest metropolitan!!! It's failing because they put fucking dinosaurs on the ark with Noah!! It's failing because it's in the middle of nowhere!! It's failing because most non-evangelical Christians are smart enough to recognize the allegory in the flood story, not accept it as "true". Fuck Ken Ham, his bullshit park, and the fact I have to see his dumb ass billboards in our area!!

That said . . .

A. Stop off in Cincinnati, go to a ball game, do some shopping, try a brewpub, check out the town.

B. Stop off in Lexington, go to a horse race, do some shopping, try some bourbon, check out the town.

C. Stop somewhere in between the two, check out a shitty theme park, wander the deserted streets of a dying small town.

They even run ads in the paper here for bus tours that will whisk you to Ark Encounter, and I live a good eight hours' drive away.

There's billboards here in Nashville advertising the "ark encounter"...I know there's church group trips up there regularly. Now my wife is trying to convince me to take the kids before it closes because of how outrageous it is!

right here in Tennessee! Did you know there used to be red pandas in Tennessee?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_Fossil_Site
"The Gray Site is a Miocene-epoch assemblage of fossils located near the unincorporated town of Gray, Tennessee in Washington County, and dates from 7 to 4.5 million years ago. The Gray Fossil Site was discovered by geologists in May 2000. They were investigating unusual clay deposits turned up during the course of a Tennessee Department of Transportation highway project to widen State Route 75 south of its intersection with Interstate 26.
.........

The current dig at the Gray Fossil Site was determined to have been the location of a semi-circular sinkhole that once harbored a pond environment over a long period of time and is now yielding the remains of the ancient plants and animals that lived, watered, and died within the then watery sinkhole. Among the many vertebrate fossils found at the Gray Fossil Site are those of frogs, snakes, turtles and tapirs and recovered fossil records represent finds from approximately one percent of the total area of the Gray Fossil Site that has been explored --- and future fossil recovery from the entire site is projected to continue on for one hundred years.

The Gray Fossil Site is also the world's largest tapir fossil find and is yielding new and rare discoveries such as the most complete skeleton of Teleoceras (an ancient rhinoceros) yet found in eastern North America, a new species of red panda that marks only the second record of this animal in North America (the first red panda fossils found in North America come from the state of Washington), and a newly identified species of an ancient plant-eating badger.

The Gray Fossil Museum, officially known as the East Tennessee State University and General Shale Brick Natural History Museum and Visitor Center, displays some of the fossil finds from the Gray Fossil Site. Fossils on exhibit include a saber-toothed cat, short-faced bear, ground sloth, rhinoceros, alligator, camel, shovel-tusked elephant, Eurasian badger, tapirs, and a red panda. The museum opened on August 31, 2007.[2]"
---------



https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g55075-d1526694-Reviews-Gray_Fossil_Museum-Gray_Tennessee.html

And, to clarify, my wife wants to go to the Ark for the laughs and giggles, not because she buys into that crap.

I recently looked at the website of the church I grew up going to on my original hometown in West Virginia. I was dismayed to see that the youth group was planning a trip to the Creation Museum. It really made me sad to think they were going to be indoctrinated by someone as disreputable and reprehensible at Ham.

... but I wouldn't want to give them a cent.

bus rides to the casinos at Tunica!

or some other heartland tourist Mecca. I'm afraid nobody goes to Cincy unless they have to for business or family stuff and Lexington draws people who are into horses, not religion.

It really is way off the beaten path so if the god Ken Ham believes in told him where to build it, that god was really putting him on.

At least Ham was smart enough to spend other people's money, including taxpayer money, on this wooden white elephant. Maybe next time the real estate mantra will dawn on him, "location, location, location!"

Eejit.

They would have made a mint!

I understand Pigeon Forge now has something for everyone. Last time I was through there was 25 years ago, and it already featrued a huge outllet shopping area with all sorts of higher priced designers opening stores in addition to all the stuff advertised at Dollywood. It was big then, it sould be enormous now.

Ham's just another dumb guy with supreme self confidence who was too proud to ask for advice.

I seriously doubt any holy roller gets their ark park visiting advice from an atheist.

Right wingers do not know how to accept blame for their fuck-ups, which are plentiful, obvious and oh-so-delightful to witness.

On edit: And shouldn't God have protected His investment better than this?

Lets the believers pony up, then walks away with the cash, and whatever else, when the bill comes due.

They're usually okay with this. Ken Ham should be more grateful.

when it comes to telling other people what to do...
but when they fuckup, these same phonies are very
quick to castigate, smear and blame it on their neighbors.
Christians, my ass.

Not my thing, but I can see the appeal.

Somewhere a super villain would set up shop if they were closer to a population hub.

Right after the rapture.

he will never accept responsibility for anything.

Oh, I don't know...could it be......SATAN!

Long island.)

and reality is why it fails. It is bullcrap.

Not even good fiction either.

... a reflection of themselves.

the price of admission tickets. Gawd is sending customers -- you just don't have the faith to demand more money.

If anybody's got reason to be pissed off, it ain't Ken Ham.

Oh, and btw, to the God-fearing folks of Grant County, Y'ALL GOT FUCKING PUNKED YOU FUCKING RUBES.

When Ham and his team at Answers in Genesis were looking for a location for their $100 million attraction, they pitched it as a way to create jobs. One projection (from the state) said Ark Encounter was “expected to annually generate… a minimum of 3,000 new full-time equivalent jobs.”

Unfortunately, those jobs turned out to be available only for people who agreed to Answers in Genesis’ fundamentalist Christian worldview. Even wannabe janitors had to agree the Earth was only 6,000 years old and gay marriage was an abomination.

Besides that, the city of Williamstown, which desperately wanted to be the home of the Ark, offered Ham’s team $62 million in junk bonds if they build the ship in their backyard. Grant County (which Williamstown is in) gave Ham’s team 98 acres of land for $1. (That’s not a typo. Just a single dollar.) And 2% of all employees’ paychecks were going back to Ark Encounter to help them pay off the loans, so neither the government nor the employees were getting everything they deserved.

Why would a city and county do all this? Because they hoped that the attraction would be so popular, it would increase tourism, liven up what was in many ways a dying town, create well-paying jobs, and be good for all surrounding businesses.

The state of Kentucky even promised Ark Encounter a tax incentive worth up to $18.25 million over the next decade based on attendance and sales. (Lawsuits to stop that, due to the discriminatory hiring, were unsuccessful.)

EDIT

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/05/24/ark-encounter-has-been-bad-news-for-the-people-of-williamstown-kentucky/

This God spewing con man has robbed Kentucky blind because of his holy bullshit. I didn't think there would be enough homeschool repeat business to pay off. No one has the damned guts to say no to some crook who claims he represents God though.

Wild lascivious dancing by half-nekkid beauties before your very eyeballs!

I'd buy that for a dollar!

In addition to the fun animals and dinos (?), did he get all the nasty bugs, micro-organisms and other stuff? Did he include food for all the creation for not only the forty days but the next year until the new crops came in? Did he have seeds and stuff for the next crops. It takes lots for man to recreate creation. I doubt if this guy had all the steps down.

"A Neanderthal, a Fundamentalist Christian, and a tyrannosaurus rex walk into a bar..."

Apparently, they also had baseball 6,000 years ago.

Yes, rational people are ruining your little venture. We're not throwing money at it.

Too bad you had to build that failure on the back of tax payers.

that would be great.....

when he isn't hauling the wife and 7 kids through that stupid museum. A water park, a "Six Flags" attraction, etc. will be needed as well to have any hope of getting the money back.

Last edited Wed Jun 14, 2017, 11:13 AM - Edit history (1)

that the failure wasn't God's will?

All things are possible, or so I hear .. .

believe it, with every fiber of their being they would be lined up for miles.

The main animals going into it today are sheep.

IF (BIG IF), they came every year for their vacations, but even creationist boneheads like to switch it up. Neither the Creationist Museum or the Ark Encounter can, ironically, evolve. There are no new discoveries in Creationist "Science" that they can build a new exhibit around (not that they could afford it), and while there are other creationist museums (usually sheet metal buildings off the main highway in southern states), they don't have exhibits worthy enough of being loaned out like real museums. They put in a ropes course at the Creationist Museum, because that's what museums do, to help bring in new and repeat business, and apparently that ain't workin' either.

TlalocW

Let people stay overnight and charge by the hour

everyone was washed away in the flood
No one to come and see it

God killed millions in the bible. The devil only 10.

They'd have done better if they'd put it in a place named Aardvark. Then you could have had the Aardvark Ark Park, and things would have went swimmingly.

Two rhymes bad, three rhymes good. Three is a powerful number, yah?

If I were closer I'd go to it. Kings Island is SOOOO expensive now, and Indiana Beach is a shadow of it's former glory. Wait, I vaguely remember there was once a Kentucky Kingdom, I wonder if it's still around.

it worked for trump.

They were all washed away in the flood

That's not the athiests fault darling.

Not good enough at all. Sorry to say KY fell for this charlatan with a lot of KyGOP big buck rewards that tax payers will now cover.

Ask them if they can spell incest.

Then they have the gall to change it to Adam and Steve. Fuck you!

I believe most atheists simply ignored this place. We don't go around thinking Biblical stuff all day.

.

"The state tried to revoke the tax rebates after learning that Mr. Ham would require employees to sign a “statement of faith” that would exclude people who were gay or did not accept his particular Christian creed. Mr. Ham went to court and in January, he won.
The ark is also intended to serve as a vivid warning that, according to the Bible, God sent a flood in Noah’s time to wipe out a depraved people, and God will deliver a fiery end to those who reject the Bible and accept modern-day evils like abortion, atheism and same-sex marriage. “We’re becoming more like the days of Noah in that we see increasing secularization in the culture,” Mr. Ham said.
A group of local atheist activists, the Tri-State Freethinkers, recently tried to put up billboards on the highway approaching the ark, calling it the “Genocide and Incest Park,” but no billboard company would agree, ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/us/noahs-ark-creationism-ken-ham.html?_r=0

than blaming his fellow Christians for having the idea that Noah's Ark was just an allegorical story meant to illustrate a precept than as literal truth.

No, seriously. Hear me out, Ken. Lobby the gov't of Kentucky to make recreational marijuana legal. A longshot, to be sure, but maybe you could even luck out and have a dispensary in the shadow of your big, honkin', costly, in hock and leveraged up the yin-yang, historically absurd "ark".

As a business model, buddy, the ONLY way you're gonna break even is to somehow make it cool for high Millennials to visit the thing ironically, as the gent in the video is sort of doing. Get good, pricey snacks and maybe some interesting light shows. Change the decor in the cafeteria from Cracker barrel chic to midwest hipster psychedelic. Maybe some rides- ride the "Dinos with Jesus", take a dunk in the "Flood tank", spin around until you barf on the "Bad Logical Fallacy"

They'll stay all day, laughing their ass off..... but spending their cold green CASH!

Ken Ham preaches to the choir.

Ham believes in the doctrine of Young Earth Creationism - the theory that God as Ken Ham knows him created the universe and everything in it, plus everything on the Earth, in a 144-hour timeframe only 6,000 years ago. He doesn't try to convert anyone to his way of thinking; to him, you either embrace Ham's complete belief system or you go straight to hell.

The only people who could really enjoy either the Creation Museum or the Ark Museum are in the choir. There's nothing subtle about Ham's presentation. He's a bit like Sam Kinison's history professor in "Back to School"..."the Earth was created in six days. SAY IT!"

Ham's problem is very simple: the choir is so small as to be practically nonexistent. A very small number of Christians subscribe to young-earth creationism. Far fewer non-Christians do. For Ham to turn a profit he needs every young-earth creationist in the entire world to visit his theme parks several times per year.

And that, my young friends, is doing him in. There aren't enough people who believe as strongly as Ham does, who live close enough to visit many times a year, who have enough money to visit that frequently and who really want to go over and over to keep him afloat. It costs $40 to visit either place for one day. If you want to do both parks it's $60. (By comparison, my Iron Maiden ticket cost me $39.50 and Steve Harris' theology is far cleaner and stronger than Ham's.)

You can only milk the dim bulbs so many times.

I mean, seriously...can't we just call this guy a mentally unstable jackass??

How about a "leading con artist"?

as guillaumeb has so eloquently explained to me!

🎻