The Ark Encounter is a monument to ignorance, and will likely survive until the world runs out of stupid people. I really don't care what their attendance figures are, as I have little hope the human race will ever outgrow its love for myths from the infancy of human civilization. It is ever so much easier than thinking for yourself.
The stupid, gullible, fearful (i.e., the meek) shall inherit the earth. Probably the only thing mythical Jesus said (and probably not original) that's prophetically true.
What are your god's origins? Who created it? What evidence - aside from the "Bible" (and the thousands of its variants) - do you have to bolster your assertion?
Not sure why you keep blaming "God" for all this...heck, you don't even specify which of the 4000+ deities that humankind has created is the one you're yammering on about.
It's amusing seeing you telling me what I "believe" instead of having the good sense to perhaps *ask me* what my beliefs might be. I believe you're a bloody fucking stupid troll, based solely upon the evidence you've thus far presented.
It's all negatives. You can ask what if questions all day long, and even if you somehow proved evolution is not legitimate, that would NOT prove the biblical account of creation correct. You do not win by default. There is, in fact, ZERO physical evidence to support the Bible story. Believing your god created life doesn't make it true, and you're so logically challenged you can't seem to grasp that.
There are lots of places with interesting and entertaining stories and such. As a kid, I often enjoyed a family visit to The Enchanted Forest ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchanted_Forest_Water_Safari ). While the place has gone water park of late, they still have a big-ass Paul Bunyan and other fairy tale characters.
And unlike Ark Encounter, they're not pretending their fantasies are somehow real.
If you want science, there are actual museums (Smithsonian, for example). If you want bullshit, Ham's unseaworthy "boat" is the place for you. π
One of the most absurd comments I've ever read. There was no global flood. Noah never existed, and neither did his ark. Why couldn't your all powerful god simply fix the mistake he had to have known he was making, when he made it? Why kill almost every living thing on earth, including small children and pregnant women? No one 'believes' in atheism, as it is the absence of belief in gods, and nothing more. Do not pretend this monument to ignorance has any kind of scientific support, because it does not.
My JW husband and I saw Guardians of the Galaxy III the other day (don't waste your money!). There were some quite obvious comparisons between the antagonist and God. I wondered if hubs was going to walk out! :D
Why do you deny the superiority of Jhol, the God of the One Commandment? Someday you will die and I wouldnβt want to be you when Jhol takes notice of your impertinence. Meanwhile, atheists such as me are of no concern to Jhol and hence are assured of heaven.
Well... at least their Tower of Babel idea fits their theme of turning monstrous, genocidal acts by their goddything into family funtime. Next up, Sodom and Gomorrah, complete with a life-sized statue of the lady Gawd turned into salt for turning her head around!
Never say Yahweh doesn't have a sense of poetic justice. Lot prevented an assault o'pillars on the angels, so God turned his wife into a pillar o'salt.
"They now plan to build a makeshift Tower of Babel to bring in new visitors."
Wait, whatβ½ Didn't the monster Yahweh from the Abrahamic mythos tear down that tower? Are they trying to lure the tornadoes & derechos away from Iowa & pals?
(No doubt they'll blame the gayz when Yahweh starts a smitin'.....)
First, when you call something makeshift, I think temporary and slapdash. So is this going to be a temporary or poorly made tower exhibit, or just a supposed replica from the story?
Second, the story goes that God destroys the tower and creates many languages so the people canβt work together (a sign of a loving god, you know creates division for no good reason) to build another. Is Ham trying to bring down the wrath of god to create a new division on Earth so that we canβt work together? Since we have been able to learn other languages, and work together despite differences, is he hoping there will be a more drastic change? Like creating a new species that Ham can deny their humanity. It seems like they want conflict rather than peace.
I think you're giving this waaay more thought than they are. I expect the thought process was "quick, what other buildings were in the bible?! I don't know, I haven't read it either! Wait, there was that tower...".
The thought process was more likely "we aren't making enough money. What ride/entertainment thing can we slap a bible theme on?
Because yes, as "reading the words but missing the message" or bible idolatry or whatever you want to call it goes, it's hard to find a better example than Christians building a tower of Babel to attract people to come join them.
What were the attendance numbers for the other holy amusement park, you know, before it went under? What are the attendance numbers for other smaller amusement parks? Not Disney or Universal Studios or Six Flags, but Cedar Point, Valleyfair, or that level of attraction? Does the Ark Encounter even compare to those? And arenβt they seasonal, can we compare the summers?
Cedar Fair (who runs many of these smaller amusement parks) has three tiers for attendance numbers. Cedar Point gets over 3 million visitors a year (2011 numbers) and Valleyfair is in the lowest tier at ~1 million or less. But I know Valleyfair is seasonal, so their numbers are only a few months. They beat Ark Encounter by a long shot by being seasonal and still close to a million visitors a year, where Ark Encounter hasnβt really touched that number yet and is open all year.
Letβs look at my local zoo, itβs open all year round, has no parking lot to speak of, is free to enter and has real animals not wooden boxes with speakers to pretend there are animals. 2021 had an attendance of 725,000.
Maybe Iβm not finding the right places to compare, or Iβm not using the right years or whatever, but this attraction isnβt actually successful, it is getting money from somewhere else to pad its income.
I can't think of anything to do in Kentucky unless you're into horses and horse racing or hiking/camping in the mountains. I'm sure they have a state park or two worth checking out. That's about it. I've never been to any of the cities (Lexington, Louisville) so I don't know what they offer visitors.
We did a weeklong trip to Kentucky a few years ago. Touring Churchill Downs was cool even though Iβm not into horse racing. Also went to a thoroughbred ranch (where Secretariat is buried). It was interesting learning about the economics of it.
Mammoth Cave. Bourbon Trail. Louisville Slugger factory (I love watching stuff get made). Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. Breonna Taylor mural (both Lexington and Louisville have many large murals on sides of buildings.)
Thanks! That's more info about KY than I had before. So far I have just driven through it and admired the natural scenery. Went through there once in the fall, but so far never had a chance to stop and look.
I was about to ask the same thing. I remembered seeing a documentary on sinkholes and something about a sinkhole swallowing a car museum, just couldn't remember where it was.
I've been to a few. Mammoth Cave, Cumberland Gap. But the #1 reason for visiting is relatives in Teges, Kentucky. Don't bother looking for it on a map, I don't think it is there anymore.
That was the one I was thinking about. I didnβt see any attendance numbers on the wiki page. I doubt they were very large.
I expect that whatever money Ham is using to float this albatross will dry up soon. Perhaps the billionaire funding them will be caught in some corruption that canβt be ignored. Or the politicians lose their elections, and canβt cover for him anymore.
No property taxes, no revenue taxes, and they still couldn't make a go of it in uber-conservative Orlando. Was there any indication of mismanagement of funds, or were people just not that interested?
We're actually going down to do their annual Run to the Shrine fundraiser, which is even more uphill. I doubt there will be any actually running, but it sounds cool.
We did a family vacation to Colorado Springs when I was young. We had talked about going to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, but never made it (I was very upset). We took an atlas along and I could see Cheyenne WY on there, and for the longest time I thought the zoo was there. Odd that I end up living there and this is my first trip to the zoo. Ah, childhood fulfillment.
The singing bee restaurant is supposed to be good. But I think itβs pricey.
I didnβt do a whole lot of Colorado Springs entertainment when I was stationed there, we were locked down for a good chunk of our time there. Seven falls is nice, garden of the gods is too and the royal gorge bridge.
If Ham is in the market for ideas, I propose he build a Mt. Sinai and have an actor playing Moses receive the "10 Commandments." Of course, to make it authentic, Ham would have to make sure both "Moses" and his audience breathe in the smoke from the burning bush.
That would be an acacia bush. Burning acacia bushes and trees release DMT (dimethyltryptamine), one of the most potent hallucinogenics. That crowd would be as high as a kite (which would explain Moses' "encounter" with YHVH, were either real).
Didn't that story illustrate how fearful YHVH was of a united people and how nothing would be impossible for them if they succeeded in completing that tower? He was so fearful of his creations succeeding (after all, if they could do this, who needs a god for anything?) that he deliberately destroyed their ability to speak a single language, thereby dividing them against each other.
Is that a message Ham wants to put out there? Makes his deity look really bad.
I experienced that for the first time today. I tried liking a post by Boreal and it refused to do it. So I refreshed the page and tried again. It took the second time.
IIRC, Christians swore up and down that the dinosaurs never existed at one time. It would be an admission that they were very, very wrong about the age of the Earth and how it came to be. They stubbornly refused to budge on their errant beliefs until the evidence for dinosaurs became so overwhelming that to deny the fact anymore simply made them look like out-of-touch-with-reality fools. So they begrudgingly admitted that the dinos were real and worked them into the xtian mythos. And they STILL got it wrong.
The Ark Encounter is a monument to ignorance, and will likely survive until the world runs out of stupid people. I really don't care what their attendance figures are, as I have little hope the human race will ever outgrow its love for myths from the infancy of human civilization. It is ever so much easier than thinking for yourself.
The stupid, gullible, fearful (i.e., the meek) shall inherit the earth. Probably the only thing mythical Jesus said (and probably not original) that's prophetically true.
Bertrand Russell said, "As near as I can remember, there is not a single word in the Bible praising inelligence."
Woody Allen in Take the Money and Run (1969): "This is a hold up. I have a gub."
Why do you keep posting the same silly PR nonsense over and over again?
Why do you keep posting the same silly PR nonsense over and over again?
Why do you keep posting the same silly PR nonsense over and over again?
Why do you keep posting the same silly PR nonsense over and over again?
https://content.artofmanliness.com/uploads//2015/01/spam3-e1421798911849.jpg
Are bats birds?
Spamming the same ridiculous copypasta does NOT make it true.
He's a fan of Joseph Goebbels. Another Christian who stated that you keep repeating a lie until it becomes the truth.
He and Joe were/are both wrong. A lie is a lie, no matter how many times it's uttered.
What are your god's origins? Who created it? What evidence - aside from the "Bible" (and the thousands of its variants) - do you have to bolster your assertion?
I finally blocked the stupid troll.
Know what the block function does? It blocks the blockee from liking your comment! I kid you not.
"Something must be eternal."
Prove it. Show your work.
Nothing must be "eternal", no reason for that.
Not sure why you keep blaming "God" for all this...heck, you don't even specify which of the 4000+ deities that humankind has created is the one you're yammering on about.
It's amusing seeing you telling me what I "believe" instead of having the good sense to perhaps *ask me* what my beliefs might be. I believe you're a bloody fucking stupid troll, based solely upon the evidence you've thus far presented.
Prove that, and go collect your Nobel Prize. Absolutely nothing in the life sciences makes any sense without evolution.
I've heard similar comments from the truly bloody fucking stupids...go figure.
***CITATION NEEDED***
Not sure where you came up with that, it's not accurate. It's also redundant....bloody fucking idiot keeps pasting nonsense, go figure.
I don't "Believe" there is no "God", I have yet to see any credible evidence of supernatural critters.
Here, maybe find someone capable of reading and understanding this and have them explain it to you using the big crayons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
Also, *YOU* are 137.45% accountable to the Invisible Pink Unicorn that lives in Russell's Teapot...Tak doesn't want anything to do with you.
It's all negatives. You can ask what if questions all day long, and even if you somehow proved evolution is not legitimate, that would NOT prove the biblical account of creation correct. You do not win by default. There is, in fact, ZERO physical evidence to support the Bible story. Believing your god created life doesn't make it true, and you're so logically challenged you can't seem to grasp that.
There are lots of places with interesting and entertaining stories and such. As a kid, I often enjoyed a family visit to The Enchanted Forest ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchanted_Forest_Water_Safari ). While the place has gone water park of late, they still have a big-ass Paul Bunyan and other fairy tale characters.
And unlike Ark Encounter, they're not pretending their fantasies are somehow real.
If you want science, there are actual museums (Smithsonian, for example). If you want bullshit, Ham's unseaworthy "boat" is the place for you. π
One of the most absurd comments I've ever read. There was no global flood. Noah never existed, and neither did his ark. Why couldn't your all powerful god simply fix the mistake he had to have known he was making, when he made it? Why kill almost every living thing on earth, including small children and pregnant women? No one 'believes' in atheism, as it is the absence of belief in gods, and nothing more. Do not pretend this monument to ignorance has any kind of scientific support, because it does not.
My JW husband and I saw Guardians of the Galaxy III the other day (don't waste your money!). There were some quite obvious comparisons between the antagonist and God. I wondered if hubs was going to walk out! :D
Why do you deny the superiority of Jhol, the God of the One Commandment? Someday you will die and I wouldnβt want to be you when Jhol takes notice of your impertinence. Meanwhile, atheists such as me are of no concern to Jhol and hence are assured of heaven.
Tak. Tak is the one you're looking for. π
Cthulu is gonna be so pissed at all of you.
Crom too.
Dude, pray for better grammar, punctuation, vocabulary and sentence construction skills. Let us know when it works.
Or not...
Well... at least their Tower of Babel idea fits their theme of turning monstrous, genocidal acts by their goddything into family funtime. Next up, Sodom and Gomorrah, complete with a life-sized statue of the lady Gawd turned into salt for turning her head around!
Her lot was not much.
She, however, was the salt of the earth.
Pillar of the community.
I can't help but wonder, how much would Morton have paid for her.
I liked the way she looked.
Little known fact: she was posthumously thrown out of the garden club for killing the roadside flowers.
Horticulture joke. A+
Never say Yahweh doesn't have a sense of poetic justice. Lot prevented an assault o'pillars on the angels, so God turned his wife into a pillar o'salt.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/33e00e05adba84fda837420581c73d57874ec1cc3e8b047e5eb71e85bc94f7a4.jpg
WOW. That was brilliantly written! π
I was thinking the same thing.
"They now plan to build a makeshift Tower of Babel to bring in new visitors."
Wait, whatβ½ Didn't the monster Yahweh from the Abrahamic mythos tear down that tower? Are they trying to lure the tornadoes & derechos away from Iowa & pals?
(No doubt they'll blame the gayz when Yahweh starts a smitin'.....)
First, when you call something makeshift, I think temporary and slapdash. So is this going to be a temporary or poorly made tower exhibit, or just a supposed replica from the story?
Second, the story goes that God destroys the tower and creates many languages so the people canβt work together (a sign of a loving god, you know creates division for no good reason) to build another. Is Ham trying to bring down the wrath of god to create a new division on Earth so that we canβt work together? Since we have been able to learn other languages, and work together despite differences, is he hoping there will be a more drastic change? Like creating a new species that Ham can deny their humanity. It seems like they want conflict rather than peace.
I think you're giving this waaay more thought than they are. I expect the thought process was "quick, what other buildings were in the bible?! I don't know, I haven't read it either! Wait, there was that tower...".
The thought process was more likely "we aren't making enough money. What ride/entertainment thing can we slap a bible theme on?
Because yes, as "reading the words but missing the message" or bible idolatry or whatever you want to call it goes, it's hard to find a better example than Christians building a tower of Babel to attract people to come join them.
Maybe a recreated village of Sodom. With live actors!
ETA: Read a little further and saw that Joan beat me to it!
It's been done. Check PornHub.
Would I get to play the woman/girl who was to be offered to the villagers ? π
The Eiffel Tower is temporary since 1889.
By the way, DM once managed to find a pharmacy and a doctor for my vaccines in the Netherlands without speaking a word of Dutch.
Not to worry, he's bringing in his good bros, Shem and Japheth, to help oversee the entire project.
What were the attendance numbers for the other holy amusement park, you know, before it went under? What are the attendance numbers for other smaller amusement parks? Not Disney or Universal Studios or Six Flags, but Cedar Point, Valleyfair, or that level of attraction? Does the Ark Encounter even compare to those? And arenβt they seasonal, can we compare the summers?
Cedar Fair (who runs many of these smaller amusement parks) has three tiers for attendance numbers. Cedar Point gets over 3 million visitors a year (2011 numbers) and Valleyfair is in the lowest tier at ~1 million or less. But I know Valleyfair is seasonal, so their numbers are only a few months. They beat Ark Encounter by a long shot by being seasonal and still close to a million visitors a year, where Ark Encounter hasnβt really touched that number yet and is open all year.
Letβs look at my local zoo, itβs open all year round, has no parking lot to speak of, is free to enter and has real animals not wooden boxes with speakers to pretend there are animals. 2021 had an attendance of 725,000.
Maybe Iβm not finding the right places to compare, or Iβm not using the right years or whatever, but this attraction isnβt actually successful, it is getting money from somewhere else to pad its income.
ETA link to zoo numbers.
https://www.henryvilaszoo.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021-Annual-Report.pdf
Hey, it's the 15th best thing to do in Kentucky.
https://www.planetware.com/tourist-attractions/kentucky-usky.htm
Right after meth?
:-D
There is so many as 15 things to do ?
The first three are different ways of fornicating.
Only three?
The others are probably not biblical.
There are more throughout, itβs just that the first three are grouped together.
Under the Big Top, as it were?
Three? I thought it depends on how many siblings you have.
Cousins count too.
I can't think of anything to do in Kentucky unless you're into horses and horse racing or hiking/camping in the mountains. I'm sure they have a state park or two worth checking out. That's about it. I've never been to any of the cities (Lexington, Louisville) so I don't know what they offer visitors.
Both cities are solid blue, but if one is stuck in the hinterlands, drinking Kentucky Bourbon might help.
"Drinking" or chugging?
Intraveinous injection.
Both?
We did a weeklong trip to Kentucky a few years ago. Touring Churchill Downs was cool even though Iβm not into horse racing. Also went to a thoroughbred ranch (where Secretariat is buried). It was interesting learning about the economics of it.
Mammoth Cave. Bourbon Trail. Louisville Slugger factory (I love watching stuff get made). Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. Breonna Taylor mural (both Lexington and Louisville have many large murals on sides of buildings.)
Thanks! That's more info about KY than I had before. So far I have just driven through it and admired the natural scenery. Went through there once in the fall, but so far never had a chance to stop and look.
The Corvette Museum was nice, actually. Not more than a few hours of afternoon diversion, but nice; the other half enjoyed it more than I did.
I would point out that the other half is the person I ask when I have a question about a car, I don't even bother to google it.
Did you go before or after the sinkhole?
https://www.corvettemuseum.org/corvette-cave-in-exhibit/
Before. I remember hearing about the sinkhole, though.
I was about to ask the same thing. I remembered seeing a documentary on sinkholes and something about a sinkhole swallowing a car museum, just couldn't remember where it was.
I've been to a few. Mammoth Cave, Cumberland Gap. But the #1 reason for visiting is relatives in Teges, Kentucky. Don't bother looking for it on a map, I don't think it is there anymore.
From what I can tell, it is in Clay County, just down Highway 11 from Trixie and Felty.
ππ¨π₯π² πππ§π ππ±π©ππ«π’ππ§ππ
The Holy Land Experience (HLE) π¬ππ¨ a Christian theme park in Orlando, Florida and registered non-profit corporation . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Land_Experience
That was the one I was thinking about. I didnβt see any attendance numbers on the wiki page. I doubt they were very large.
I expect that whatever money Ham is using to float this albatross will dry up soon. Perhaps the billionaire funding them will be caught in some corruption that canβt be ignored. Or the politicians lose their elections, and canβt cover for him anymore.
The TBT reported on it. I don't feel like digging into the archives for the info.
130 million dollars down the drain!
How much more effective would that money have been had it gone to the needy?
Isn't helping the poor something that Christians are supposed to do?
No property taxes, no revenue taxes, and they still couldn't make a go of it in uber-conservative Orlando. Was there any indication of mismanagement of funds, or were people just not that interested?
See my reply to Ms. Uptuous.
A Colosseum replica as a church. My Doggess...
Semi-related OT, did you ever go to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo while you were out here? We're headed down this weekend.
We did once. Itβs is a good hike and can be pretty steep at times, but it was beautiful. Just be prepared for a bunch of uphill walking.
We're actually going down to do their annual Run to the Shrine fundraiser, which is even more uphill. I doubt there will be any actually running, but it sounds cool.
We did a family vacation to Colorado Springs when I was young. We had talked about going to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, but never made it (I was very upset). We took an atlas along and I could see Cheyenne WY on there, and for the longest time I thought the zoo was there. Odd that I end up living there and this is my first trip to the zoo. Ah, childhood fulfillment.
The singing bee restaurant is supposed to be good. But I think itβs pricey.
I didnβt do a whole lot of Colorado Springs entertainment when I was stationed there, we were locked down for a good chunk of our time there. Seven falls is nice, garden of the gods is too and the royal gorge bridge.
I love going to Garden of the Gods. I also see that Space Force HQ is nearby, might have to check that out.
The Futuroscope near Poitiers France had about 1.9 M visitors in 2022 https://www.futuroscope.com/en/
If Ham is in the market for ideas, I propose he build a Mt. Sinai and have an actor playing Moses receive the "10 Commandments." Of course, to make it authentic, Ham would have to make sure both "Moses" and his audience breathe in the smoke from the burning bush.
That would be an acacia bush. Burning acacia bushes and trees release DMT (dimethyltryptamine), one of the most potent hallucinogenics. That crowd would be as high as a kite (which would explain Moses' "encounter" with YHVH, were either real).
Wheeeee!
Participants will also have to relinquish their gold jewelry to make a golden calf.
Nice touch.
Midas touch.
Now they want to put up a Tower of Babel?
Didn't that story illustrate how fearful YHVH was of a united people and how nothing would be impossible for them if they succeeded in completing that tower? He was so fearful of his creations succeeding (after all, if they could do this, who needs a god for anything?) that he deliberately destroyed their ability to speak a single language, thereby dividing them against each other.
Is that a message Ham wants to put out there? Makes his deity look really bad.
Hambone's god made him talk gibberish, all the time.
When you get the time, check out Seth Andrew's "Christianity Made Me Talk Like an Idiot."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URr0O9aHW38
βBirds born in a cage think flying is an illness.ββ Alejandro Jodorowsky
From the talk β nice.
Now another one I am blocked from liking? WTF is with this place?
I experienced that for the first time today. I tried liking a post by Boreal and it refused to do it. So I refreshed the page and tried again. It took the second time.
OT- "Preventing the spread of a deadly virus is tyranny," says man who got first crack at the life-saving vaccine, and whose healthcare expenses are fully paid for by the government... unlike nearly all of the people who died during the pandemic: https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-justice-covid-emergency-restrictions-85401feb29bea6db2f2ea4ac61cdeff2
What is it, Ballscratch? Were you getting out-douchebagged by Beerpong and Ofdon, and just π©π’π₯ to put your two cents in to remind everyone that you were Chump's π§πͺπ³π΄π΅ pick? Don't worry- we haven't forgotten that you're a horrible little shitstain too.
Facist state of FloriDAAAAAAAA
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2023/05/17/orlando-police-investigating-homophobic-threat-posted-on-digital-traffic-sign/
If they're looking for the real guilty party, they need look no farther than their genocidal fuck of a governor.
And how.
Ham's park utilizes dinos.
IIRC, Christians swore up and down that the dinosaurs never existed at one time. It would be an admission that they were very, very wrong about the age of the Earth and how it came to be. They stubbornly refused to budge on their errant beliefs until the evidence for dinosaurs became so overwhelming that to deny the fact anymore simply made them look like out-of-touch-with-reality fools. So they begrudgingly admitted that the dinos were real and worked them into the xtian mythos. And they STILL got it wrong.
I really need some sleep. I read dildos π
You don't read dildos. They're for something else. : )
You read the arrows when you need to change the batteries π
Mine is powered by a hamster.
It's interesting but not vegan π
The hamster is vegan.
Eta: : )