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In Which Chris Rock Pees in the Right Wing Punchbowl on the Fourth of July

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Eclectic Cyborg7/05/2012 2:11:10 pm PDT

Perhaps God is angry about something?

Noah’s Ark theme park plans hit troubled waters

The group initially announced that it expected to break ground on the park in 2011, before eventually pushing that date back to 2014. But in June, in an interview in the Creation Museum’s “Noah’s Cafe,” Ark Encounter vice president Michael Zovath told Yahoo News that the group no longer has a date in mind for the construction to begin. It has been unable to raise sufficient amounts of money, despite pleas to the Creation Museum’s visitors to donate to the project.

“Fundraising is really tough,” Zovath said, blaming the recession. “It’s not moving so fast as we hoped.” The private LLC that is building the park would need to raise another $20 million before it can break ground, he said. So far, it’s taken in $5.6 million in donations and $17 million in private investments.

To add to the bad news, the Creation Museum is having its lowest attendance year yet. Last fiscal year, 280,000 people visited, compared to 404,000 the first year it opened in 2007. Zovath thinks that potential visitors have been less willing to travel to the museum because of the poor economy.

If the attraction does get built, it’s unclear if it will be as controversial as the Creation Museum itself. The museum has draw criticism from atheists, scientists, educators (including the National Center for Science Education, which says kids who visit the museum will do worse in science classes), and fellow Christians who subscribe to a less literal, or “old Earth” view of Genesis, where the six days described in God’s creation actually represent six long epochs. The museum strives to convince all visitors that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, instead of the 4.5 billion years that scientists endorse. (The museum motto: “Prepare to Believe.”)

The Supreme Court has ruled that it’s illegal for creationism to be taught in public schools, as a violation of the separation of church and state, so public school field trips are out.

But the museum still draws in plenty of school-age kids as visitors, in part by focusing on dinosaurs and savvy marketing campaigns. The museum has more than 100 billboards up around the country featuring cartoon dinosaurs urging drivers to make the trip.

“It’s a way to get kids to come to the museum, that’s the whole purpose of advertising,” Zovath says of the ads. “The common response is, well, you’re trying to attract children to your museum so you can teach them something we don’t believe in. That’s probably true,” he concedes. “But secular museums and most natural history museums, when they run a dinosaur exhibit it’s to promote attendance, and they’re trying to teach kids things we don’t believe in.”

He added: “We have a message we want people to see, and the only way they’ll see it is if they come to the museum.”

Yep, I’m sure the only reason people aren’t showing up is because of the recession.

Those financial numbers are huge. The article states $22.6 million has already been raised but an ADDITIONAL $20 million is needed. This means the total cost of the project is nearly $43 million.

Now here’s the thing. I’m a Christian and when I see numbers like that I wonder how many mouths could $43 million feed? How many backs could it clothe? How many poor could it shelter? How many sick could it help?

That’s what I wonder, not “hey I think we should take all this money and build a theme park!”