Wha What Do Baby Dinosaur Look Like in Ark
WILLIAMSTOWN, Kentucky (AP) — A 510-foot-long, $100 million Noah's ark attraction built by Christians who say the biblical story really happened is ready to open up in Kentucky this calendar week.
Since its announcement in 2010, the ark project has rankled opponents who say the attraction will exist detrimental to science pedagogy and shouldn't have won land tax incentives.
"I believe this is going to be one of the greatest Christian outreaches of this era in history," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, the ministry building that built the ark.
Ham said the massive ark, based on the tale of a man who got an stop-of-the-world alarm from God most a massive flood, volition stand up every bit proof that the stories of the Bible are true. The group invited media and thousands of supporters for a preview Tuesday, the get-go glimpse inside the giant, mostly wood construction.
"People are going to come up from all over the world," Ham said to thousands of people in forepart of the ark.
The ark will open to the public Thursday and Ham'south grouping has estimated it will draw two million visitors in its kickoff year, putting it on par with some of the big-ticket attractions in nearby Cincinnati.
Children look into a cage containing model baby dinosaurs within a replica Noah's Ark at the Ark Encounter theme park during a media preview day on July 5, 2016, in Williamstown, Ky. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
The group says the ark is built based on dimensions in the Bible. Within are museum-style exhibits: displays of Noah'southward family along with rows of cages containing animal replicas, including dinosaurs.
The group believes that God created everything about half-dozen,000 years ago — man, dinosaur and everything else — so dinosaurs still would've been effectually at the time of Noah's inundation. Scientists say dinosaurs died out most 65 meg years earlier man appeared.
An ark opponent who leads an atheist group called the Tri-State Freethinkers said the religious theme park will be unlike whatever other in the nation because of its rejection of science.
"Basically, this boat is a church building raising scientifically illiterate children and lying to them well-nigh science," said Jim Helton, who lives about a half-hour from the ark.
Answers in Genesis CEO and founder Ken Ham speaks at a ribbon cutting at Ark Encounter July 5, 2016 in Williamstown, Kentucky. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images/AFP)
Ham said the total cost of the ark surpassed $100 million, a far weep from a few years ago, when fundraising for the gunkhole was sluggish and much larger theme park plans had to be scaled back.
Millions of people first learned nigh plans for the ark during a contend on evolution between TV's Bill Nye "the Science Guy" and Ham in early 2014.
A few weeks later, a local bail issuance infused tens of millions of dollars into struggling fundraising efforts. And before this year, a federal guess ruled the ark could receive a Kentucky sales tax incentive worth up to $eighteen million while giving a strict religious test to its employees.
Months later, the taxation incentive ruling still has some opponents of the boat scratching their heads.
"It'south a clear violation of separation of church and country. What they're doing is utterly ridiculous and anywhere else, I don't think information technology would be immune," Helton said.
Visitors tour the interior of the Ark Encounter July 5, 2016 in Williamstown, Kentucky. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images/AFP)
The court ruled in Jan that Kentucky officials could not impose requirements on the ark that were not applied to other applicants for the revenue enhancement incentive, which rebates a portion of the sales tax collected by the ark. That cleared the way for the group to seek out just Christians to fill its labor force. New applicants will be required to sign a statement saying they're Christian and "profess Christ every bit their savior."
Philip Steele, one of the thousands who got an early preview of the ark Tuesday, echoed Ham's often repeated annotate that the sales tax generated past the ark wouldn't exist if the ark was never congenital.
"I just don't recall they empathize it," Steele said of the ark's critics. "They'll be able to keep a portion of (the sales tax) to further their ministry, only and so be it."
When Ham was asked virtually the tax incentive at the Tuesday upshot, he drew loud cheers when he proclaimed no taxpayer coin was used to the build the ark.
Visitors tour the interior of the Ark See July v, 2016 in Williamstown, Kentucky. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images/AFP)
As much of a boon as the $xviii 1000000 tax interruption would be, Pecker Nye's like-minded to contend Ham may have helped plough the tide of years of sluggish fundraising.
Nye, a high-contour science advocate and former TV personality, debated Ham on evolution and drew a huge online audience. Nye later said he didn't realize the attention information technology would draw and said he was "heartbroken and sickened for the Commonwealth of Kentucky."
The video of the debate posted by Answers in Genesis on YouTube has 5.4 meg views.
Well-nigh three weeks after the debate, Ham announced that a bond offering from the city of Williamstown had raised $62 1000000 for the project, and a few months later on Answers in Genesis was breaking ground at the site of the ark.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.
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