Bless the Light That Reason Lends

 we have returned from our travels and are grateful for the natural beauty we enjoyed on our journey, as well as for our safe arrival back home.  one of the last stops we made was at the "ark encounter," which bills itself as an authentic replica of noah's ark that is described in the book of genesis.  this ark is a gigantic wooden structure, claiming to be the largest timber frame building in the world.  if an ancient israelite, such as noah, had built such a boat, it would never have been seaworthy, resulting in the end of all creatures on the earth, if the genesis story is to be believed as literal truth.

the kentucky ark is a boondoggle in many ways:

• it is obviously a money-making scheme for its creator, ken ham.  everywhere one turns, there is an opportunity to spend more money.  there are zip-line and virtual reality adventures, along with multiple gift shops and concession stands.  it costs ten dollars to park your car, on top of the fee for entering the ark.  as seniors we paid a discounted rate of about forty dollars per person for admission; a regular adult ticket costs fifty dollars.
• the ark displays teach that the bible is literally true in every detail.
• there are displays that insist that dinosaurs and humans lived on the earth at the same time.  "baby" dinosaurs, including tyrannosaurus rex, are portrayed as some of the inhabitants of noah's ark.
• one of the presentations tells us that all humankind is descended from noah's three sons and their wives.  one pair parented all inhabitants of africa, another all europeans and asians, and the third all people of middle-eastern descent.
• the ark's creator insists that the earth is only six thousand or so years old and that the universe was created in six days, as the book of genesis tells us.  he presents a timeline that purports to explain how all of earth's history fits a literal interpretation of the biblical account.
• though the pairs of animals in the ark encounter are limited to only a few species, (between 60 and 70, if i remember correctly), ham insists that all animals that exist today are descended from this limited animal population.  using his reasoning, every type of bovine on earth now descended from the one pair of this "type," as ham describes each pair, so that we are to believe that bison and oxen, as well as every other bovine, are descendants of the single pair of cattle on the ark.

this list could go on and on.  ham has built a "creation museum" about an hour away from the ark encounter that reinforces and expands on the presentations in the ark encounter.  fortunately, we did not have an opportunity to invest more money in his denials of science.  we went to the ark encounter because some close relatives who met us in kentucky as we were returning home sincerely believe in what ham teaches.  we didn't want to cause pain to these relatives or engage in a debate with them about their beliefs, so we went through the ark with them and refrained from discussing what we saw while we were with them.

we think that a great deal of harm flows from ham and others like him who insist that credible scientists in many fields are wrong about the history of the universe.  this denial of scientific evidence is the source of a mindset that leads people to refuse vaccines that are safe and effective, to believe in racist points of view based on misunderstanding about the contents of the bible, and a refusal to associate with diverse groups of people who are different from them in many ways.  the "young earth creationist" philosophy distorts the teachings of the bible and turns the bible into something that it is not: a collection of valid historical writings.  when one insists on a literal reading of the contents of the bible, the more profound truths that underlie many of the stories in the bible are lost.  for instance, what are we to make of the two visions of God presented in the noah story?  are we to believe in a vengeful god that would destroy all living beings because of the sins of many, in a god that would select the members of one family for survival while all others are destroyed, or in a God that values life and vows never to cause such destruction again?  it seems to me that the latter vision of God is the understanding that ought to be valid for followers of jesus, rather than the legalistic god that is so often portrayed in the writings of the old testament and continues to be seen in versions of christianity that focus on humans as corrupt and depraved.

may we use our brains to ferret out the truth, rather than succumbing to superstition.  may we not confuse religion and science, making of each something it was never intended to be.  if we believe in a god, may that god be a God of love and mercy.  shalom.