I found this on another forum, and thought I would share it here.
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(by Robert Todd Carroll)
There are now several Bible-themed amusement parks, museums, family destinations or whatever they're called. But the ultimate Bible Land has yet to be built. The latest in this entrepreneurial effort at Biblical propaganda is the proposed Kentucky creationism park tentatively called "Ark Encounter." It will feature a large version of Noah's Ark complete with many animals, including a baby giraffe and fake dinosaurs. What it won't have is complete literal accuracy of the infallible word of the one called Yahweh or Jehovah or just plain God. Telling only part of the story is probably a sin of some sort, but perhaps we can rectify it by being true to the most important Biblical verses.
For example, our Bible Park will have a stoning area where families can watch what God wants to happen to adulterers. The stoning area will be just one section of an entire area based on the theme of punishment. We'll have a special section for "dashing little ones against a rock" (Psalms 137:9). In the "False Prophets" section we'll have a daily exhibition of somebody being "thrust through" by his parents (Zechariah 13:3). The crown jewel of the punishment section may be the diorama where various forests and crops will be digitally destroyed for not obeying some important command like not eating eagles or the delicious meat of the pig (Nahum 1:2-8; various places in Leviticus and Deuteronomy). A movie theater will run continuous depictions of the Ethiopians and the Assyrians being slaughtered and annihilated (Zephaniah 2:12-15), the people of Judah slaying a half million Israelites (2 Chronicles 13:15–18), Egyptian firstborns being slaughtered (Exodus 12:29), Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed, Lot's wife (forgot her name) being turned into salt (Genesis), and many more.
The adults only section will include several depictions of the divinely sanctioned rape of virgins and the dismemberment of unfaithful concubines (Judges 21:1–23; Judges 19:22–29). Nothing will top our faux daily sacrifice of a child. An actor playing Abraham will take a volunteer from the audience to play the role of Isaac. This promises to be one of our most favored exhibitions. What child wouldn't want to play the role of sacrificial lamb, knowing that in the end it will be some poor animal that will be slaughtered to please the Lord? We'll probably have a little more difficulty getting volunteers for the Jephthah exhibit (Judges 11:30-39).
Of course, we'll have a plague section to show what happens to complainers (Numbers 16:41–49). There will be so many displays and exhibitions in our punishment section that there will hardly be any room left for a restaurant or rest rooms. We won't bother with a pretty ark and some cute animals. We'll have an actual flood at the end of each day that wipes out all the staff and visitors. But before the daily destruction of the whole theme park, we'll have a fantastic display of the slaughter of 50,000 curious people who try to peek into the other ark (1 Samuel 6:19).
I'll leave it to the engineers to figure out how to get us up and running the next day after our daily self-destruction. I have every confidence that marketing will be able to craft some sort of diabolical message for our advertising campaign that will attract people even though they know they will be killed at the end of the day. I have great faith that if we build it, they will come.
But we won't rest on our laurels. I can't reveal all the details, but our next endeavor will involve building a theme park solely around the book of Revelation, complete with "horse-like locusts with human heads and scorpion tails who torture people for 5 months. Then some angels will kill a third of the earth's population." After our third performance, we'll call it quits, unless we can find a mathematician who can calculate how many times we'd have to repeat the destruction of a third of the population to reduce the number of people to two. Of course, even then it would be pure luck if the two remaining were a fertile female and sperm-packed male. Some things you just have to leave to chance. Anyway, if Abraham's god exists, he'll probably slaughter the two remaining people just for surviving.
*****
______________
(by Robert Todd Carroll)
There are now several Bible-themed amusement parks, museums, family destinations or whatever they're called. But the ultimate Bible Land has yet to be built. The latest in this entrepreneurial effort at Biblical propaganda is the proposed Kentucky creationism park tentatively called "Ark Encounter." It will feature a large version of Noah's Ark complete with many animals, including a baby giraffe and fake dinosaurs. What it won't have is complete literal accuracy of the infallible word of the one called Yahweh or Jehovah or just plain God. Telling only part of the story is probably a sin of some sort, but perhaps we can rectify it by being true to the most important Biblical verses.
For example, our Bible Park will have a stoning area where families can watch what God wants to happen to adulterers. The stoning area will be just one section of an entire area based on the theme of punishment. We'll have a special section for "dashing little ones against a rock" (Psalms 137:9). In the "False Prophets" section we'll have a daily exhibition of somebody being "thrust through" by his parents (Zechariah 13:3). The crown jewel of the punishment section may be the diorama where various forests and crops will be digitally destroyed for not obeying some important command like not eating eagles or the delicious meat of the pig (Nahum 1:2-8; various places in Leviticus and Deuteronomy). A movie theater will run continuous depictions of the Ethiopians and the Assyrians being slaughtered and annihilated (Zephaniah 2:12-15), the people of Judah slaying a half million Israelites (2 Chronicles 13:15–18), Egyptian firstborns being slaughtered (Exodus 12:29), Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed, Lot's wife (forgot her name) being turned into salt (Genesis), and many more.
The adults only section will include several depictions of the divinely sanctioned rape of virgins and the dismemberment of unfaithful concubines (Judges 21:1–23; Judges 19:22–29). Nothing will top our faux daily sacrifice of a child. An actor playing Abraham will take a volunteer from the audience to play the role of Isaac. This promises to be one of our most favored exhibitions. What child wouldn't want to play the role of sacrificial lamb, knowing that in the end it will be some poor animal that will be slaughtered to please the Lord? We'll probably have a little more difficulty getting volunteers for the Jephthah exhibit (Judges 11:30-39).
Of course, we'll have a plague section to show what happens to complainers (Numbers 16:41–49). There will be so many displays and exhibitions in our punishment section that there will hardly be any room left for a restaurant or rest rooms. We won't bother with a pretty ark and some cute animals. We'll have an actual flood at the end of each day that wipes out all the staff and visitors. But before the daily destruction of the whole theme park, we'll have a fantastic display of the slaughter of 50,000 curious people who try to peek into the other ark (1 Samuel 6:19).
I'll leave it to the engineers to figure out how to get us up and running the next day after our daily self-destruction. I have every confidence that marketing will be able to craft some sort of diabolical message for our advertising campaign that will attract people even though they know they will be killed at the end of the day. I have great faith that if we build it, they will come.
But we won't rest on our laurels. I can't reveal all the details, but our next endeavor will involve building a theme park solely around the book of Revelation, complete with "horse-like locusts with human heads and scorpion tails who torture people for 5 months. Then some angels will kill a third of the earth's population." After our third performance, we'll call it quits, unless we can find a mathematician who can calculate how many times we'd have to repeat the destruction of a third of the population to reduce the number of people to two. Of course, even then it would be pure luck if the two remaining were a fertile female and sperm-packed male. Some things you just have to leave to chance. Anyway, if Abraham's god exists, he'll probably slaughter the two remaining people just for surviving.
*****
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
