Ken Ham’s Impossible and Incompatible Claims About the Effects of Noah’s Flood
An article by Joel Edmund Anderson. It highlights a claim you will often see–that all this amazing, superior technology of the pre-flood world was somehow totally obliterated by the flood of Noah.
I wonder if Ken will ever claim that space aliens visited the earth to help rebuild the pyramids of Egypt after the flood. It would make a great addition to his theme park. (please don’t take this seriously)
I’ve heard of Christians who believe the Great Pyramid of Giza is an example of superior technology before the flood.
Whenever Ken Ham is asked about obstacles to Noah building the ark, he claims that pre-flood humans had advanced technologies and Noah was sure to utilize them. Yet, the Ark Encounter is filled with very primitive “technologies” and doesn’t even reflect the metal-working and forging skills which he claims existed long before the flood. For example, Ham’s exhibits show very inefficient storage of liquids and foods in pottery jars instead of large vats and tanks. Why? Indeed, the exhibit don’t even touch upon quantifying storage needs and ark capacities. He has an entire exhibit criticizing (and even mocking) traditional Sunday School materials and children’s books for their unsophisticated representations of the ark, yet his entire tourist attraction is filled with primitive depictions which contradict his own claims. Why wouldn’t a metal-working society at least have simple pipes for delivering water and flushing waste? And considering that Ham claims that Noah used sophisticated machinery for building the ark, why isn’t there the simplest motor or even lever and pulley systems depicted in Ark Encounter exhibits? I get the impression that the “advanced technology wild card” is something he keeps in his pocket as a last resort when answering obvious questions—but otherwise he wants to match the average Christian’s expectations of familiar Sunday School images, even if they risk looking like a Flintstones version of the ancient world. (Ham claims that animals provided the power for various problem-solving contraptions within the ark.)
Of course, all of this probably explains why the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum are not known for informative docents ready and willing to answer a lot of obvious questions. Even a child from a typical farm background will notice that a floating barge of the size of the Ark Encounter that is filled with so many animals is going to have huge ventilation and sanitation problems. The wasted-splattered wooden floors would immediately begin to rot and provide growth media for countless fungi and bacteria. The acidic stench alone would be intolerable to humans—and inescapable in every room. Slimes, molds, and various mushrooms would cover every wooden surface by the end of the first week. Surely there are plenty of Ark Encounter and Creation Museum visitors who vocalize these questions, despite stern rules prohibiting their expression within earshot of other guests. (Posting such questions on AiG Facebook pages leads to deletion within minutes. Repeated postings get the questioner banned. That happened to me.) The original layout for the Ark Encounter included a petting zoo on the second deck. Ham & Co. soon discovered that health regulations make such a plan virtually impossible. Yet, I’m surprised AIG doesn’t simply claim that God suspended the usual biological phenomena and kept all surfaces germ free and the animals supernaturally vaccinated against all possible infections. Perhaps feeding and waste elimination were also suspended. (If I recall correctly, Morris and Whitcomb in The Genesis Flood suggested that all animals went into a efficient hibernation state.) Frankly, I would find those explanations far more satisfactory than Flintstones types of solution and I think most ark visitors would agree.
I guess this “superior technology” issue is off-topic but whenever I see “Ken Ham’s Impossible and Incompatible Claims”, it is hard to draw a boundary line. It scares me what the Ark Encounter communicates to the general public about what it means to be a Christ-follower and one who trusts in the Bible.
Yes, it’s a wild card. When you get desperate, pull something out of your behind and call people heretics if they don’t believe you.
That’s a rather awkward position to take since the sandstone blocks the Pyramids are made out of were supposedly laid down by the flood.
Good point. But Ken Ham is like Felix the Cat: “Whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks”
I’ve definitely heard it suggested that the people who lived before the flood were very technologically advanced… and yet (according to the general YEC views I’ve encountered) there’s absolutely no possible way they could ever have found fossils and based their dragon legends off them. Ancient paleontology would simply have been too difficult for these advanced societies with their metalworking equipment, which means the only possible explanation is that they saw live dinosaurs. Still can’t quite figure that one out.
Courtesy of Potholer54, this is a nice summary of fitting YEC history into a small box.
Or in other words, the awkwardness of forcing 13.8 billion years worth of stuff in 6,000 years:
A local cave around here has a “caving experience” tour every friday evening where you can tour the mile long cave with flashlights but no other lighting. Fun for the kids. Maybe the Ark Experience could do something similar and give the kids oil lamps and turn out the lights and A/C for an evening tour for a more authentic experience.
Good idea!, But you would also need the scent of body odor, poop, pee, vomit, infected hooves and cries from terrified animals to make the experience complete.
It would not take long to have everything but the infected hooves.
I almost forgot the anal glands! The anal glands of dogs and skunks way up there in the stink-a-thon.
#maybedrowningwouldbebetter
You know… that’s an angle I had never thought about! What if we could find a fossil in the stones used in some of Egypt’s oldest constructions? That would be delicious!
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