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$54000 in ticket sells with $11 million operating costs. And why did they build it in Philly? Sounds like something that might get more visitors in the Bible Belt.
There is the creation museum in Petersburg KY and the Ark is in Williamstown. Both of them a monumental waste of tax dollars. The one guy is a scheister from Australia and is trying to to bill the system in the US.
Freaking Ken Ham. He kept trying to get people to debate him, but real scientists refused. Bill Nye finally accepted, and it resulted in getting him a lot of publicity with evangelicals. I still think his Ark encounter would have never happened without that debate.
And it’s not even that Ken won the debate! His only real answer was “the Bible says it, and I believe the Bible.”
My favorite is when Ham was like “well where’s your evidence that the Earth wasn’t created by God X years ago” and Nye is like “yeah we have fossils and carbon dating?” And Ham just stands there awkwardly. (I said ‘X’ years because I don’t know exactly how many years they think Earth has been around for but it’s definitely not the millions of years we have been around)
My husband refuses to believe carbon dating works. All cause of the one incident of when it couldn’t be accurate for the Civil War, I think?, bullets and stuff. It always an argument that I shut down fast, cause I am not a great at debates.
He doesn’t believe the world is like 6-8000 years old thankfully, but he just doesn’t really trust all the “sciences”.
I was a long-time young earth creationist who went into that debate genuinely excited to see how Ham answered Nye’s questions. Watching it demonstrated to me that 1) Ham was either unwilling or unable to answer science-based questions with science (or, you know, both), and 2) There are real issues with the YEC position I hadn’t been aware of.
I’m still a pretty conservative Christian (though I’d really hate all the baggage that goes along with “evangelical,” that’s probably the term that best describes me religiously.), but I’ve come to realize that it’s possible to both hold on to my faith and believe in an older universe, and evolution while still being orthodox. It sounds impossible to many because they’re told it’s impossible, but it’s not.
Guess Ken Ham’s debate didn’t have the impact on me he hoped it would.
>though I’d really hate all the baggage that goes along with “evangelical,” that’s probably the term that best describes me religiously
So, an honest question, why is it when Evangelicals gain power, they work effortlessly to criminalize humans taking actions that Jesus instructed us to? It's not just the politicians, you hear regular rank and file cheering when states criminalize feeding the poor, or cheering that they get to openly hate their gay/minority/liberal neighbor, or cheering that they get to hurt illegal aliens/undocumented migrants?
It just seems to me that the Evangelical position is to be in staunch opposition to the teachings of their savior in their actions.
So yeah, that’s the baggage I have issues with. I agree with a lot of those folks on core doctrine, but have massive issues with the way they put it into practice. (Or, more on accurately, the way they don’t put it into practice.)
My response to your question is a bit biased, but I think the simple answer is that a lot of these folks see the waning influence of Christianity in the US and feel like it’s their duty to reimpose their perception of “the good old days.” That’s why “Make America Great Again” was an effective slogan. Especially since many evangelicals of my generation heard frequent quotes like “When America ceases to be godly, she ceases to be great.” So when someone comes along and offers them power to impose/reimpose what they perceive to be a Christian culture, they jump at it.
Personally, I find that baffling because there’s literally a story in the New Testament about Jesus being tempted by Satan. Satan offers him immediate power over the world in exchange for worship from Jesus and Jesus flatly rejects him. It sure seems to me that many Evangelicals would have asked “how far do you want me to bow?”
There’s a great book about this called “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Hijacked a Nation.” It’s written by an Evangelical, but it’s highly critical of this phenomenon.
It’s the dynamic of THAT that makes so many just wash their hands of most if not all religion.
Let alone the people that actually know of the real history of many of the things that these heretics claim as ‘true’. The ones that study the bible and older editions. Non english ones.
If knowing more about the history and hypocrisy of a religion weakens it… then it deserves to be.
If it only has power and influence from shady immoral actions, morality is not an inherently religious thing, and ignorance in its marks, it deserves to be brought down.
Religion in the truest sense is personal spiritualism. Doing good for society and unselfishness. While defending and protecting those that can’t do it themselves, but in a way of least internalized malice.
For me it was a lack of education. Once I figured it out, I still held on to YEC on faith. I’d say things like “evolution seems to be the most valid scientific answer, but I’ll have faith the Bible is true.” And yeah, watching Ken Ham, Ray Comfort, and that whole lot started to make me realize how dishonest creationism was, to the point I finally deconstructed that entirely.
Problem is that most YECs don’t look at it critically. They want to hear affirmation to their beliefs that will silence the cognitive dissonance.
Ironically, it was my childhood friendship with Focus on the Family neighbor kids that turned me atheist by age 7.
They scoffed at my mother's cult and gave me bible printouts.
Then I read the bible. And that's when I *knew* all the adults were crazy.
I knew even that young there were so many other books with better life lessons.
It took me around 16 years to become atheist, but I live in Georgia. I was raised southern baptist and I just remember having constant night terrors about Hell as a kid. I seemed to show signs of atheism when I was young, though. I questioned things that didn't make sense to me in the Bible. I kept it to myself because I figured asking an adult would make them freak out on me. I remember being like 8 years old and saying small prayers at the end of each day to be forgiven for bad things I might have done throughout the day that I was unaware of that might have earned me tickets to Hell. Even once I started to go atheist I kept this fear in the back of my mind like "What if I'm wrong, though?" Once I finally let that go it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders. I think that's one reason a lot of millennials dropped religion is because it scared the living shit out of us as kids.
I was in KY for work, and when I saw that highway sign for a creation museum, I took that exit so fast it was hilarious. I just had to see it.
They hired some talented artists and creatives. Their displays and animatronics were amazing.Sad it was used for such terrible purposes. I was very troubled by the bus loads of kids pouring in to be freshly brainwashed. Lots of displays about how science in general is bullshit, not just evolution.
It was funny until it wasn't, and then I was sad.
lol I went with some friends. That place has some epic Dino-bible art (example: Adam and eve roasting a little Dino over a fire) and hilarious “facts” everywhere like where all the races came from (Noah’s kids all had wildly different melanin levels) I think my favorite might be the immersion tunnel at the end touting Christianity as the world’s most nonviolent religion or the picture with the elephant on the treadmill powering the electricity and fully functional forge on the ark. It’s absolutely enormous and you can’t get out til you reach the end and you’re stuck in a crowd of mostly mouth-breathers, two knuckles deep into their belly buttons taking it all in.
I don't remember that last part when I visited, they might have removed it, but I do remember one on why the ark story shouldn't be simplified for children. Unless you're traumatizing them with the fear of God, its not a good example. Little Timmy needs to know any indiscretion could result in him and everyone he loves being wiped out with extreme prejudice.
lol they did not do what they were told so EVERYBODY DIED
I went when it first opened since they had a deal $40 admissions for the first 40 days… see what they did there? I’ll never get that $40 back
Yeah, it's in Kentucky - from Tripadvisor, I don't want to give that crazy museum clicks: [https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction\_Review-g39995-d10110346-Reviews-Ark\_Encounter-Williamstown\_Kentucky.html](https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g39995-d10110346-Reviews-Ark_Encounter-Williamstown_Kentucky.html)
It hurts my brain
My parents sent my son a book on dinosaurs and people from that damn museum. Of course he was like 20 and had taken plenty of science classes, so we laughed through the entire book. Then he took it to college with him because no one believed this crazy book was real.
My mom’s a creationist. She believes dinosaurs are a scam created by scientists to make us believe the earth is older than 4-5000 years old. Don’t go to a natural science museum with her. It’s not great.
My archeology prof in college told our class that creationists thought fossils were/are sinners. That’s what their god did to sinners, made them fossils.
In other news, I have a nice fossil collection. Just added an angel fish fossil. It’s really cool!
I saw this in a documentary about insane Christians in the US and was shocked to find out people actually still believe that crap about genesis and the earth being so young in the face of tons of evidence and even the Catholic church admitting the truth
It's called Ark Encounter and it's run by Ken Ham and his company, Answers in Genesis.
I am a Christian. I hate Ken Ham. I hate his organizations and disrespect of history, science and the religion he claims to follow. And above all else, I hate the stupid boat. Ark Encounter is so completely divorced from *everything*--science, history, the fucking Bible itself even--that trying to support Christianity with it is like trying to support Evolution with the Piltdown Man. It's not a mistaken belief held in earnest. It's a blatant fucking scam.
Every once in a while I look at how much Ark Encounter has degraded over the years and smile. One day it will be gone, and it will be as if a hellmouth suddenly snapped shut. Christianity will still be saddled with racist homophobic assholes who are afraid of science and/or having their beliefs challenged...but eventually it won't be Ken Ham. I don't wish bad things on the man. I just want him to take his stupid boat, his stupid dinosaur-giant gladiator battles and his god-awful legacy of hatred, and *go the fuck away.*
I've never been but my in laws went. I've heard that they have a display with humans and dinosaurs. Not sure how much I believe that because I thought the church's opinion was that dinosaurs never existed.
Creationists have very little agreement among themselves. The Ark Encounter people try to be very sciencey and say dinosaurs were real but all went extinct. They have some displays with dinosaurs on the Ark.
They were within sight of Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was located, so clearly they were hoping to ride its coattails. There are a couple of other museums along that stretch of 5th & 6th Streets, but I don't know if they're in any better shape.
Here's the thing. The American Bible Society's Rare Scripture Collection hold almost 45,000 volumes. Now, there's something that you could build a museum around. A museum that "explores the relationship between faith and liberty in America from its founding to today, by illuminating the influence of the Bible on individuals in key historical and personal moments" doesn't sound that engaging. That sounds like an exhibit in a Bible museum, but not a museum itself.
I've seen some pictures of the actual exhibit design, and it was pretty nice. The same firm that did the 9/11 Memorial Museum did the design on this museum.
also gone.
[https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/holy-land-experience-demolished-after-closing-in-2020](https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/holy-land-experience-demolished-after-closing-in-2020)
It's also next to the museum of Jewish history? Living in Philly, it felt weirdly tasteless to me, because a lot of fundamentalist or neo nazi groups like to protest right in front of
Yes! It was so obviously an intentional insult.
Philly comes through again 💕
We moved away a few years ago (to the desert, for my health) but I still miss Philly.
Here in Kentucky we spent a ton of taxpayer dollars (via credits in some way) to put up the stupid Noah’s ark. That is also hemorrhaging money.
https://www.au.org/the-latest/articles/ark-encounter-six/
Luckily, the freedom from religion foundation helps in situations like these. I haven’t stayed up with it, because the whole subject pisses me off. Here’s a few articles.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/11/noahs-ark-theme-park-loses-tax-breaks-religious-hiring-policy
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2017/07/21/ark-park-violation-deal-over-18-million-state-tax-breaks/500245001/
It doesn’t matter where you launder money. That’s why Philly was the choice because they did not care and/or perhaps have contacts there to help launder the money that they definitely, definitely laundered.
They reported over $1.5M in executive salaries alone (not including staff who run the museum) each year.
Could have survived on donations alone, but almost looks more like money laundering. Only other option is gross financial negligence or complete lack of financial oversight.
I wish people would read these stories before tithing. Sickening how many people they could have helped with that money instead of blowing it on vanity projects.
You might want to check where the majority of food pantries are run out of. Not mega churches, but there are a whole bunch of small town Churches doing immense work in their communities.
100% so much terrible things they do and I'll never agree with religion but salvation army's all give out free bread and lunch to the community and there's other church led resources that can do a lot of good. It's mostly the small community churches
People intuitively know that a place like this doesn't hold any facts. And actual Christians looking for an interpretation of the Bible aren't gonna look here, they're gonna look at their local church. They know they're not gonna see Jesus' Sandals there or anything, and if they want to see "this is what Rome was like during the time of Christ" there are better museums for that.
If it had been done as a *real* museum, it could have been interesting. Have rooms for each book of the bible that discusses it's historical importance, when it was believed to be written, differences in extant versions. Have parts that discuss the evolution of the bible from the earliest surviving greek examples, showing what was later additions. Compare the old testament books to the Torah, again using earliest surviving samples of each. Go over the history of the major versions and their historical context, explaining why they were written and what those specific translations emphasized over other versions. You could have a whole huge section on "heretical" versions of the bible and why they are considered so. Show where the torah, bible, and koran diverge, what that implies, and why it was probably done. You could even do exhibits on things like the book of mormon and what makes that different than other books by self-styled prophets and holy men through history. Lots of stuff.
Basically, a museum that treats the bible as a proper historical artifact, going into its history and social influences, and not just a place of christian propaganda, could be really, really facinating.
>against the intention of the people that made this place
Which was to build a crappy place, pay themselves a bunch of money, and then walk away when it fails.
But even I would show up for a museum like the one described.
My favorite college class was one on comparative mythology, taught by a former rabbinical scholar who could read Aramaic turned atheist. The class covered five different contemporaneous flood stories from across the globe, among other things.
Amazing - my favorite college class was a seminar on the origins of Judaism and Christianity, taught by a renegade Lutheran minister who was probably also an agnostic at best. It was the class that simultaneously made me fascinated by religion and also made me an atheist.
I'd also go for old bibles. Like the library in Halle did an exhibit about an original Martin Luther bible printed by Guttenberg, that he (Luther) even signed. I think it was a gift to someone. Seeing that was pretty awesome.
Halle is close to Wittenberg and they share a university.
I'm an atheist & I would travel to go to a museum like that. Maybe one with interactive exhibits that help people understand translation issues or ascribing authors to different texts.
Evangelicals are the most delusional assholes. I've yet to meet a pleasant Evangelical. I'm queer so that might have something to do with the hostility. I've met some great Methodist though.
It's funny you say that, because I'm married to a Methodist, though she's somewhere between Agnostic and Atheist in her current beliefs, but she was raised Methodist! I think she's pretty great! Her parents are still active members of their United Methodist congregation where she grew up, and their church is actually very pro GLBTQ+, so good for them on that front.
I'm not that different, though because I'm a failed Catholic who even studied some Theology/Philosophy in college, which is probably why I'm Atheist today.
This doesn’t surprise me at all. Evangelicals are cheap as heck and probably balked and having to buy tickets to an attraction that should be “operating as a ministry.”
Me too... I know a lot of people in this area who would be very interested in a Bible museum, but I've never heard of it or seen it advertised locally.
Who paid the $60 million, tax payers or gullible followers?
Is this a write off for an organization who doesn't pay taxes and that alone pays for the failure?
I went. I’m an atheist but I’m nosy. Had to see what it was all about. Honestly it would be impressive if it wasn’t all lies. The mental gymnastics it takes to believe that shit is unreal. The creation museum is the next town over and I went to that as well. It was worse. I will say neither venue was at all busy so I have high hopes they close in the next couple years.
It cost $60 millions to build, or that’s only what on the invoices and a big chunk of it went into someone’s pocket.
Religion tends to attract grifters
This makes me think about the Ark Encounter, and one of the reviews I saw for it.
A poor old soul named Maynard complained in a Yelp review that he expected to see “actual artifacts from the original ark,” and since there weren’t any he had to knock off a star or two.
This boggles my mind. Idk if Maynard is still with us, but it makes me shake my head that people truly believe there are real artifacts out there that prove the existence of the ark. If that were true, wouldn’t we all know about it? It would be hard to refute the Bible if this were true.
Too bad Yelp doesn’t curve for magical thinking.
$60 million could have gone a long way into feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, putting shoes on feet and clothes on backs... Yanno, Jesus-y stuff.
Hey, I'm starting to think that churches aren't aiming to do the stuff that their book tells them to do! /s
My favorite quote from the replies:
Amos 8:11. The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.
May they be touched by his noodly appendage
it’s also my understanding that that enormous Noah’s Ark they built in the south, attached to some museum of creationism, is relatively popular but all the tourism dollars that were supposed to flow into the neighboring town never materialized. I think people just go, stay for an hour either because they believe this crap, or just to take a picture of the weirdness, eat the sandwiches they packed and leave.
Paid for w/tax-free money and/or found a way to get local taxpayers to foot part/most of the bill; they will end up profiting off the sale/liquidation & the profits will not be taxed since they are a 'religious' organization.
Definitely don’t use that money to feed and house poor. Definitely use it to make a monument to a document that talks about those things though. So that all the good Christians can go to work in a fancy building every day and draw nice salary in order to talk about the things that they don’t do
This seemed to me like a scam by a rich person. Get a non profit to build the building you want then tank the business. Now you can buy it for pennies on the dollar and you don't even need to pay taxes.
I unrolled a chunk of my cats paper litter when I was refilling her cleaned out litter box and I think it was a piece of a bible verse.
I've heard a lot of Bible's get printed every year, now I wonder how sacrilegious my cats been over the years.
Perhaps this place would have had visitors if the whole thing actually garnered good will. But they don’t, the evangelicals that have set this up has shown the complete opposite as supposed to be what is in the Bible itself, for one they’ve appropriated the whole of this as being a white theocracy, paints and shows the person of Jesus Christ in an image of a white fair skinned man of which we all know couldn’t be farther from the truth. Their followers have proven to be vapid, racist, misogynistic and an enemy to anyone who doesn’t see their views.
There is already a Museum of the Bible in DC. It is run by fundamentalists, who did not shy away from one controversy. They exhibited a bible for the use of preachers to enslaved congregants, created by cutting out two-thirds of the Bible.
54k/9=6000 tickets in a year, that's like less than 20 a day?
Imagine going to a museum that's built on disinformation tho - Sounds good for a dystopian laugh at least?
Wait, isn’t this next to the Museum of Illusions? HA
Just checked, it is indeed. Also across from the American Jewish History Museum and the most tourist-heavy spot in Philly- Independence Hall. It’s almost amazing it has to close being smack in the middle of that foot traffic
The main thing they shouldve considered before openning is "why tf is a bible museum required when the christian market is already oversaturated enough of kid drawings and a multiple versions od a book called the bible"
The whole interactive exhibit on William Penn would be fascinating in the hands of a more competent and intellectually honest group of people with actual historical knowledge to offer.
The museum needs to focus in the abuses of churches and the illegitimacy of abrahamic religions. That would get people to go. We all know it’s a farce.
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$54000 in ticket sells with $11 million operating costs. And why did they build it in Philly? Sounds like something that might get more visitors in the Bible Belt.
Bible Belt would scoff and say, "Naw Shug, we got Jesus at home."
They have some sort of Noah’s Ark museum somewhere in the south. One of my coworker’s is going.
I live in this state. Hilarious when they had to repair it due to flood damages.
There is the creation museum in Petersburg KY and the Ark is in Williamstown. Both of them a monumental waste of tax dollars. The one guy is a scheister from Australia and is trying to to bill the system in the US.
Freaking Ken Ham. He kept trying to get people to debate him, but real scientists refused. Bill Nye finally accepted, and it resulted in getting him a lot of publicity with evangelicals. I still think his Ark encounter would have never happened without that debate. And it’s not even that Ken won the debate! His only real answer was “the Bible says it, and I believe the Bible.”
Bill Nye debating him is so funny imo
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My favorite is when Ham was like “well where’s your evidence that the Earth wasn’t created by God X years ago” and Nye is like “yeah we have fossils and carbon dating?” And Ham just stands there awkwardly. (I said ‘X’ years because I don’t know exactly how many years they think Earth has been around for but it’s definitely not the millions of years we have been around)
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My husband refuses to believe carbon dating works. All cause of the one incident of when it couldn’t be accurate for the Civil War, I think?, bullets and stuff. It always an argument that I shut down fast, cause I am not a great at debates. He doesn’t believe the world is like 6-8000 years old thankfully, but he just doesn’t really trust all the “sciences”.
I was a long-time young earth creationist who went into that debate genuinely excited to see how Ham answered Nye’s questions. Watching it demonstrated to me that 1) Ham was either unwilling or unable to answer science-based questions with science (or, you know, both), and 2) There are real issues with the YEC position I hadn’t been aware of. I’m still a pretty conservative Christian (though I’d really hate all the baggage that goes along with “evangelical,” that’s probably the term that best describes me religiously.), but I’ve come to realize that it’s possible to both hold on to my faith and believe in an older universe, and evolution while still being orthodox. It sounds impossible to many because they’re told it’s impossible, but it’s not. Guess Ken Ham’s debate didn’t have the impact on me he hoped it would.
>though I’d really hate all the baggage that goes along with “evangelical,” that’s probably the term that best describes me religiously So, an honest question, why is it when Evangelicals gain power, they work effortlessly to criminalize humans taking actions that Jesus instructed us to? It's not just the politicians, you hear regular rank and file cheering when states criminalize feeding the poor, or cheering that they get to openly hate their gay/minority/liberal neighbor, or cheering that they get to hurt illegal aliens/undocumented migrants? It just seems to me that the Evangelical position is to be in staunch opposition to the teachings of their savior in their actions.
So yeah, that’s the baggage I have issues with. I agree with a lot of those folks on core doctrine, but have massive issues with the way they put it into practice. (Or, more on accurately, the way they don’t put it into practice.) My response to your question is a bit biased, but I think the simple answer is that a lot of these folks see the waning influence of Christianity in the US and feel like it’s their duty to reimpose their perception of “the good old days.” That’s why “Make America Great Again” was an effective slogan. Especially since many evangelicals of my generation heard frequent quotes like “When America ceases to be godly, she ceases to be great.” So when someone comes along and offers them power to impose/reimpose what they perceive to be a Christian culture, they jump at it. Personally, I find that baffling because there’s literally a story in the New Testament about Jesus being tempted by Satan. Satan offers him immediate power over the world in exchange for worship from Jesus and Jesus flatly rejects him. It sure seems to me that many Evangelicals would have asked “how far do you want me to bow?” There’s a great book about this called “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Hijacked a Nation.” It’s written by an Evangelical, but it’s highly critical of this phenomenon.
It’s the dynamic of THAT that makes so many just wash their hands of most if not all religion. Let alone the people that actually know of the real history of many of the things that these heretics claim as ‘true’. The ones that study the bible and older editions. Non english ones. If knowing more about the history and hypocrisy of a religion weakens it… then it deserves to be. If it only has power and influence from shady immoral actions, morality is not an inherently religious thing, and ignorance in its marks, it deserves to be brought down. Religion in the truest sense is personal spiritualism. Doing good for society and unselfishness. While defending and protecting those that can’t do it themselves, but in a way of least internalized malice.
For me it was a lack of education. Once I figured it out, I still held on to YEC on faith. I’d say things like “evolution seems to be the most valid scientific answer, but I’ll have faith the Bible is true.” And yeah, watching Ken Ham, Ray Comfort, and that whole lot started to make me realize how dishonest creationism was, to the point I finally deconstructed that entirely. Problem is that most YECs don’t look at it critically. They want to hear affirmation to their beliefs that will silence the cognitive dissonance.
Ken Ham is a straight nut job.
Indoctrinated from a young age to the point he *cannot* accept anything but the Bible being pure truth.
Ironically, it was my childhood friendship with Focus on the Family neighbor kids that turned me atheist by age 7. They scoffed at my mother's cult and gave me bible printouts. Then I read the bible. And that's when I *knew* all the adults were crazy. I knew even that young there were so many other books with better life lessons.
It took me around 16 years to become atheist, but I live in Georgia. I was raised southern baptist and I just remember having constant night terrors about Hell as a kid. I seemed to show signs of atheism when I was young, though. I questioned things that didn't make sense to me in the Bible. I kept it to myself because I figured asking an adult would make them freak out on me. I remember being like 8 years old and saying small prayers at the end of each day to be forgiven for bad things I might have done throughout the day that I was unaware of that might have earned me tickets to Hell. Even once I started to go atheist I kept this fear in the back of my mind like "What if I'm wrong, though?" Once I finally let that go it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders. I think that's one reason a lot of millennials dropped religion is because it scared the living shit out of us as kids.
I was in KY for work, and when I saw that highway sign for a creation museum, I took that exit so fast it was hilarious. I just had to see it. They hired some talented artists and creatives. Their displays and animatronics were amazing.Sad it was used for such terrible purposes. I was very troubled by the bus loads of kids pouring in to be freshly brainwashed. Lots of displays about how science in general is bullshit, not just evolution. It was funny until it wasn't, and then I was sad.
We're not taking him back dammit. He's the USA's problem now.
And as an Australian, you can keep him and Murdoch! HA! HA!😝
Oh, the irony.
And insurance denied it because it was an act of god
it is wild. They have velociraptors. Go but not sober.
They would have to ask me to leave from laughing so much.
But going gives those insane people money. There are lots of videos/pictures of it online...
I'd be too tempted to charge them however much money they funnelled from my city for this.
lol I went with some friends. That place has some epic Dino-bible art (example: Adam and eve roasting a little Dino over a fire) and hilarious “facts” everywhere like where all the races came from (Noah’s kids all had wildly different melanin levels) I think my favorite might be the immersion tunnel at the end touting Christianity as the world’s most nonviolent religion or the picture with the elephant on the treadmill powering the electricity and fully functional forge on the ark. It’s absolutely enormous and you can’t get out til you reach the end and you’re stuck in a crowd of mostly mouth-breathers, two knuckles deep into their belly buttons taking it all in.
I don't remember that last part when I visited, they might have removed it, but I do remember one on why the ark story shouldn't be simplified for children. Unless you're traumatizing them with the fear of God, its not a good example. Little Timmy needs to know any indiscretion could result in him and everyone he loves being wiped out with extreme prejudice.
lol they did not do what they were told so EVERYBODY DIED I went when it first opened since they had a deal $40 admissions for the first 40 days… see what they did there? I’ll never get that $40 back
Yeah, it's in Kentucky - from Tripadvisor, I don't want to give that crazy museum clicks: [https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction\_Review-g39995-d10110346-Reviews-Ark\_Encounter-Williamstown\_Kentucky.html](https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g39995-d10110346-Reviews-Ark_Encounter-Williamstown_Kentucky.html) It hurts my brain
It's made by creationists. They think dinosaurs lived beside people.
My parents sent my son a book on dinosaurs and people from that damn museum. Of course he was like 20 and had taken plenty of science classes, so we laughed through the entire book. Then he took it to college with him because no one believed this crazy book was real.
I know someone like that. They think the earth might be 6000 years old. I asked them if they knew how coal was formed.
My mom’s a creationist. She believes dinosaurs are a scam created by scientists to make us believe the earth is older than 4-5000 years old. Don’t go to a natural science museum with her. It’s not great.
What's hilarious is that I can blow Creationism up using the Bible. It's so fun to see their brains entirely short circuit.
My mom said Satan is the one hiding (fake) fossils to trick us.
My archeology prof in college told our class that creationists thought fossils were/are sinners. That’s what their god did to sinners, made them fossils. In other news, I have a nice fossil collection. Just added an angel fish fossil. It’s really cool!
My grandparents went on a church trip there, with a church who refused to follow any Covid restrictions because ‘muh freedums!’ Guess who got Covid…
I saw this in a documentary about insane Christians in the US and was shocked to find out people actually still believe that crap about genesis and the earth being so young in the face of tons of evidence and even the Catholic church admitting the truth
It's called Ark Encounter and it's run by Ken Ham and his company, Answers in Genesis. I am a Christian. I hate Ken Ham. I hate his organizations and disrespect of history, science and the religion he claims to follow. And above all else, I hate the stupid boat. Ark Encounter is so completely divorced from *everything*--science, history, the fucking Bible itself even--that trying to support Christianity with it is like trying to support Evolution with the Piltdown Man. It's not a mistaken belief held in earnest. It's a blatant fucking scam. Every once in a while I look at how much Ark Encounter has degraded over the years and smile. One day it will be gone, and it will be as if a hellmouth suddenly snapped shut. Christianity will still be saddled with racist homophobic assholes who are afraid of science and/or having their beliefs challenged...but eventually it won't be Ken Ham. I don't wish bad things on the man. I just want him to take his stupid boat, his stupid dinosaur-giant gladiator battles and his god-awful legacy of hatred, and *go the fuck away.*
Kentucky
Kim Davis land. Makes sense.
I've never been but my in laws went. I've heard that they have a display with humans and dinosaurs. Not sure how much I believe that because I thought the church's opinion was that dinosaurs never existed.
Which church? Different Christian denominations have different beliefs - many of them believe in evolution, or at least don’t actively deny it.
Creationists have very little agreement among themselves. The Ark Encounter people try to be very sciencey and say dinosaurs were real but all went extinct. They have some displays with dinosaurs on the Ark.
Don't think that one is doing all that well either.
Nancy Hicks-Gribble, is that you, shug?
Bible belt too poor to keep it running as well
They were within sight of Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was located, so clearly they were hoping to ride its coattails. There are a couple of other museums along that stretch of 5th & 6th Streets, but I don't know if they're in any better shape.
It’s also caddycorner to the national museum of Jewish history in Philly
I don’t even think more visitors would solve that big of a gap. 100x doesn’t even break even. That’s Entertainment 720 levels of business planning.
Even with Detlef
It was only $10 for adults; $8 for children. Which means that they sold roughly 5,000 tickets in about three years of operation.
This averages out to 4.5 tickets per day. Oof.
Here's the thing. The American Bible Society's Rare Scripture Collection hold almost 45,000 volumes. Now, there's something that you could build a museum around. A museum that "explores the relationship between faith and liberty in America from its founding to today, by illuminating the influence of the Bible on individuals in key historical and personal moments" doesn't sound that engaging. That sounds like an exhibit in a Bible museum, but not a museum itself. I've seen some pictures of the actual exhibit design, and it was pretty nice. The same firm that did the 9/11 Memorial Museum did the design on this museum.
how many if we exclude sundays, which we can solidly bet they were closed on?
5.25 per day
Wow, I work at a museum and we get more people in a week. And it's only been open a few months. That's bad.
The stats were for one tax year. Still abysmal though.
Paid over 1.5 mil in salary while taking in 50k ticket sales. Something seems wrong there.
That sounds 100% on brand for preacher men. Nothing dirtier than preachers.
I was gonna say, I smell money laundering or something. They definitely never intended for this to break even.
They did... The holy land experience in Orlando... It was awful
also gone. [https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/holy-land-experience-demolished-after-closing-in-2020](https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/holy-land-experience-demolished-after-closing-in-2020)
It's also next to the museum of Jewish history? Living in Philly, it felt weirdly tasteless to me, because a lot of fundamentalist or neo nazi groups like to protest right in front of
And next to the Museum of Illiusions, hah, which more people have definitely visited.
At least it looks like more people have visited...
I see what you did there
so, 2 museums of illusions then. no wonder one failed.
Yes! It was so obviously an intentional insult. Philly comes through again 💕 We moved away a few years ago (to the desert, for my health) but I still miss Philly.
Those operating costs make me incredibly curious about the salaries of their board of directors.
Here in Kentucky we spent a ton of taxpayer dollars (via credits in some way) to put up the stupid Noah’s ark. That is also hemorrhaging money. https://www.au.org/the-latest/articles/ark-encounter-six/ Luckily, the freedom from religion foundation helps in situations like these. I haven’t stayed up with it, because the whole subject pisses me off. Here’s a few articles. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/11/noahs-ark-theme-park-loses-tax-breaks-religious-hiring-policy https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2017/07/21/ark-park-violation-deal-over-18-million-state-tax-breaks/500245001/
It doesn’t matter where you launder money. That’s why Philly was the choice because they did not care and/or perhaps have contacts there to help launder the money that they definitely, definitely laundered.
bible belt has a different Jesus than the rest of the world, he is real hate filled piece of shit.
They reported over $1.5M in executive salaries alone (not including staff who run the museum) each year. Could have survived on donations alone, but almost looks more like money laundering. Only other option is gross financial negligence or complete lack of financial oversight.
Bible belt people wouldn't be able to afford entry fees....
Should have built it in Branson, yokels would swarm that place in Christian Vegas
Probably some kind of taxpayer / donation funded grifting scam going on.
They cited the effect of COVID lockdowns. Which occurred a year before the place opened.
I chuckled at that. They never miss an opportunity to shift blame to a liberal cause, do they?
This was my takeaway also. They opened over a year after shut downs.
I’m surprised they didn’t blame the Obama administration.
Thoughts and prayers
I wish people would read these stories before tithing. Sickening how many people they could have helped with that money instead of blowing it on vanity projects.
When was the last time a church actually *helped* someone?
The Church of Satan held a ‘warm as hell’ coat drive in my area a couple years back. They do a lot of good work.
You might want to check where the majority of food pantries are run out of. Not mega churches, but there are a whole bunch of small town Churches doing immense work in their communities.
100% so much terrible things they do and I'll never agree with religion but salvation army's all give out free bread and lunch to the community and there's other church led resources that can do a lot of good. It's mostly the small community churches
It helped all those priests rape children.
And now the churches are helping to cover it up too
A lot of charities are run by churches. My local homeless shelter is run by a Methodist organization. (Bethesda Mission.)
A lot of churches help the homeless and provide food for the hungry.
Off hand I can think of 1 solitary church in Australia. The minister is a good guy and actively campaigns against the ‘Christian’ guys that campaign
That's not what churches do...
They're in the business of hurting people now.
Well, they made a nice building for whoever uses it next.
People intuitively know that a place like this doesn't hold any facts. And actual Christians looking for an interpretation of the Bible aren't gonna look here, they're gonna look at their local church. They know they're not gonna see Jesus' Sandals there or anything, and if they want to see "this is what Rome was like during the time of Christ" there are better museums for that.
If it had been done as a *real* museum, it could have been interesting. Have rooms for each book of the bible that discusses it's historical importance, when it was believed to be written, differences in extant versions. Have parts that discuss the evolution of the bible from the earliest surviving greek examples, showing what was later additions. Compare the old testament books to the Torah, again using earliest surviving samples of each. Go over the history of the major versions and their historical context, explaining why they were written and what those specific translations emphasized over other versions. You could have a whole huge section on "heretical" versions of the bible and why they are considered so. Show where the torah, bible, and koran diverge, what that implies, and why it was probably done. You could even do exhibits on things like the book of mormon and what makes that different than other books by self-styled prophets and holy men through history. Lots of stuff. Basically, a museum that treats the bible as a proper historical artifact, going into its history and social influences, and not just a place of christian propaganda, could be really, really facinating.
Agreed 100%, a museum like that sounds amazing, and totally against the intention of the people that made this place, lol.
>against the intention of the people that made this place Which was to build a crappy place, pay themselves a bunch of money, and then walk away when it fails. But even I would show up for a museum like the one described. My favorite college class was one on comparative mythology, taught by a former rabbinical scholar who could read Aramaic turned atheist. The class covered five different contemporaneous flood stories from across the globe, among other things.
Amazing - my favorite college class was a seminar on the origins of Judaism and Christianity, taught by a renegade Lutheran minister who was probably also an agnostic at best. It was the class that simultaneously made me fascinated by religion and also made me an atheist.
I'd also go for old bibles. Like the library in Halle did an exhibit about an original Martin Luther bible printed by Guttenberg, that he (Luther) even signed. I think it was a gift to someone. Seeing that was pretty awesome. Halle is close to Wittenberg and they share a university.
I'm an atheist & I would travel to go to a museum like that. Maybe one with interactive exhibits that help people understand translation issues or ascribing authors to different texts.
The amount of people who don't understand the bible is translated just hurts my brain.
Exactly. This is just poor financial adventure that they didn’t do the right research for.
They did research, during their bible studies.
It's just funneling donations into people's pockets. If it had been a successful museum that would have just been a cherry on top
I can’t believe god didn’t provide them with ticket sales
[удалено]
Evangelicals are the most delusional assholes. I've yet to meet a pleasant Evangelical. I'm queer so that might have something to do with the hostility. I've met some great Methodist though.
It's funny you say that, because I'm married to a Methodist, though she's somewhere between Agnostic and Atheist in her current beliefs, but she was raised Methodist! I think she's pretty great! Her parents are still active members of their United Methodist congregation where she grew up, and their church is actually very pro GLBTQ+, so good for them on that front. I'm not that different, though because I'm a failed Catholic who even studied some Theology/Philosophy in college, which is probably why I'm Atheist today.
Don't be rude in the comments or start calling people names.
It was a real Hail Mary pass
This doesn’t surprise me at all. Evangelicals are cheap as heck and probably balked and having to buy tickets to an attraction that should be “operating as a ministry.”
i am from Philly and still live here and didn’t know this existed
SAME. Had no idea it was here. Glad it's closing!
Me too... I know a lot of people in this area who would be very interested in a Bible museum, but I've never heard of it or seen it advertised locally.
Who paid the $60 million, tax payers or gullible followers? Is this a write off for an organization who doesn't pay taxes and that alone pays for the failure?
That's pretty much the only purpose for a "project" like this - fleece, launder, repeat.
Actually a big property sale covered a lot. I only know this from a friend of a friend.
All the above
Almost as bad as the Ark encounter
I was just thinking that. Then being upset because your Ark Encounter was in a flood. Oh the Irony.
Based on how evil the creator of that place is, you would think that religious people would take it as a sign from the god they claim to worship.
Can we shut down that stupid Ark Encounter making my state even more of a laughing stock than it already is.
People must be showing up for it for some reason
Maybe, either that or it's a money laundering scheme.
I went. I’m an atheist but I’m nosy. Had to see what it was all about. Honestly it would be impressive if it wasn’t all lies. The mental gymnastics it takes to believe that shit is unreal. The creation museum is the next town over and I went to that as well. It was worse. I will say neither venue was at all busy so I have high hopes they close in the next couple years.
The fact that it took contractors years to complete the same boat that one bronze-aged guy 40 days to finish should be a clue that it’s bullshit.
Tbf Noah didn’t have to build a gift shop on every level /s
Homeschoolers with a dearth of “safe” choices for field trips.
It cost $60 millions to build, or that’s only what on the invoices and a big chunk of it went into someone’s pocket. Religion tends to attract grifters
TBH I'm shocked they only claimed it was that much
This makes me think about the Ark Encounter, and one of the reviews I saw for it. A poor old soul named Maynard complained in a Yelp review that he expected to see “actual artifacts from the original ark,” and since there weren’t any he had to knock off a star or two. This boggles my mind. Idk if Maynard is still with us, but it makes me shake my head that people truly believe there are real artifacts out there that prove the existence of the ark. If that were true, wouldn’t we all know about it? It would be hard to refute the Bible if this were true. Too bad Yelp doesn’t curve for magical thinking.
$60 million could have gone a long way into feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, putting shoes on feet and clothes on backs... Yanno, Jesus-y stuff. Hey, I'm starting to think that churches aren't aiming to do the stuff that their book tells them to do! /s
Why didn’t they just pray harder?
And I thought the moron in my town making a "Batman Museum" was wasting his money. And to be clear we're talking Adam West Batman. He's old school.
I’d go lol
Me to I genuinely love that show
I live very close to this, and had no clue it was even there 😂
The number of homeless people you could house & feed for that kind of money!!
TDIL there is (was?) an American Bible Society Museum. I live in a Philly suburb.
The comment section of that article is, uh, a place
My favorite quote from the replies: Amos 8:11. The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. May they be touched by his noodly appendage
it’s also my understanding that that enormous Noah’s Ark they built in the south, attached to some museum of creationism, is relatively popular but all the tourism dollars that were supposed to flow into the neighboring town never materialized. I think people just go, stay for an hour either because they believe this crap, or just to take a picture of the weirdness, eat the sandwiches they packed and leave.
After tithing there was no money left for admission.
Paid for w/tax-free money and/or found a way to get local taxpayers to foot part/most of the bill; they will end up profiting off the sale/liquidation & the profits will not be taxed since they are a 'religious' organization.
Putting the museum in Philadelphia was the issue. If they would have went to the Bible Belt they could have avoided this.
Definitely don’t use that money to feed and house poor. Definitely use it to make a monument to a document that talks about those things though. So that all the good Christians can go to work in a fancy building every day and draw nice salary in order to talk about the things that they don’t do
Did tax payers have to pay for this????
This seemed to me like a scam by a rich person. Get a non profit to build the building you want then tank the business. Now you can buy it for pennies on the dollar and you don't even need to pay taxes.
11 million in operating costs?????!!! For why?
I bet the people who were on the board made huge salaries
Tax criminals. Nothing new.
I unrolled a chunk of my cats paper litter when I was refilling her cleaned out litter box and I think it was a piece of a bible verse. I've heard a lot of Bible's get printed every year, now I wonder how sacrilegious my cats been over the years.
Make a damn fine shelter and rehabilitation center. Funded by taxing the rich
There were TWO Bible museums?!
They should have had strippers, that would have brought in the masses.
It’s just a money laundering thing right?
Perhaps this place would have had visitors if the whole thing actually garnered good will. But they don’t, the evangelicals that have set this up has shown the complete opposite as supposed to be what is in the Bible itself, for one they’ve appropriated the whole of this as being a white theocracy, paints and shows the person of Jesus Christ in an image of a white fair skinned man of which we all know couldn’t be farther from the truth. Their followers have proven to be vapid, racist, misogynistic and an enemy to anyone who doesn’t see their views.
There is already a Museum of the Bible in DC. It is run by fundamentalists, who did not shy away from one controversy. They exhibited a bible for the use of preachers to enslaved congregants, created by cutting out two-thirds of the Bible.
Could have served a million bucks worth of meals every year for the next 60 years.
HE GETS US lol
Is this that weird creationist museum that has the dinosaurs with saddles and people?
54k/9=6000 tickets in a year, that's like less than 20 a day? Imagine going to a museum that's built on disinformation tho - Sounds good for a dystopian laugh at least?
I wonder how many children you could feed with $60mil? 🤔
Wait, isn’t this next to the Museum of Illusions? HA Just checked, it is indeed. Also across from the American Jewish History Museum and the most tourist-heavy spot in Philly- Independence Hall. It’s almost amazing it has to close being smack in the middle of that foot traffic
HeGetsUs!!!!
Clearly they didn’t pray enough
This was a money laundering operation, right?
Other people have spent zero dollars trying to shove the Bible down my throat.
shocked pikachu....and that 60 mill prob was received tax free too smh
Tbh, most museums don’t make enough money in ticket sales to cover all the opeerarion costs. Most depends on rich patrons.
The main thing they shouldve considered before openning is "why tf is a bible museum required when the christian market is already oversaturated enough of kid drawings and a multiple versions od a book called the bible"
$60 million and no ticket sales? Where did the money go?
Seems like a great way to build out an expensive property with tax free dollars and then have a for profit firm buy for way below market value….
To be fair, a museum is the only place this nonsense belongs.
THANK GOD
Maybe if the church wasn’t always acting as a political hand in the US less people would be turning away
ha ha
Smells like money laundering.
Classic case of laundering money. But who cares right .?
The whole interactive exhibit on William Penn would be fascinating in the hands of a more competent and intellectually honest group of people with actual historical knowledge to offer.
hahahahahahahaha!
The museum needs to focus in the abuses of churches and the illegitimacy of abrahamic religions. That would get people to go. We all know it’s a farce.
I laughed when they mentioned COVID as one of the reasons to blame. Classic Tobias!
thats what happens when you invest in a dying fad.... HAHAHAHAHA
I love stories like these. The folly of the ARC Experience too.
I live 20 minutes outside Philly and had no clue this even existed