Ark Encounter, Amazing Architecture!

The Ark Encounter (Kentucky), built on Biblical proportions, is a massive construction meant to wake people to the reality of what building and living in the ark for a year really entailed. Bible scholars, Christians and non-Christians go to visit the monolithic construction built out of wood. I have to say that although I read my Bible and was practically weened on the story of Noah and the Ark, walking through this ark and visualizing a home on the water with thousands of animals and only eight people to feed and water them and muck out their crap, I was stunned! 

For years my questions have been how did people live a whole year without the vitamin D from the sun? How did they deal with the stench of so many animals? Indeed, how did so many animals fit into the tiny ark, esp when so many animals are quite large and they were taken into the ark in pairs for the unclean animals and for the clean animals in groups of seven (or was it 14, discussion on this number confusion discussed)? How could the eight people prepare food without refrigeration for themselves, and get fresh vegetables for maintaining health? How did massive amounts of food fit into the ark when I've know for years that just a single elephant in captivity eats about 6 bales of hay a day, and no way could there be enough space on the ark for food for even one elephant for a year, let along two elephants, let alone a whole host of animals! How could enough food along with the thousands of animals fit onto the ark????

Well, there are no definite answers, and what is possibility and what is actual fact is clearly distinguished when any information (and there is a lot) is presented. Facts are clearly given and, if poetic license is used, e.g. naming Noah's wife or assigning roles to specific family members, the information is stated as a choice for envisioning family functions or for creating individuality and character in an otherwise detail-less story enactment. Excellent creation of what is thought to be period scenes, based on other archaeological discoveries (these points are discussed too in the creation of the scenes). I thought the research done in the building of the ark scenes was astounding! 

So here are some ideas about the layout of the ark ... these are SOME ideas. The ark was filled with innovative possible mechanisms and strategies for feeding, watering and maintaining the animals and the eight people who had faith that God would provide and care for them.

First and second floors dealt mainly with the logistics in constructing the ark, the research behind its construction, and the care and housing of the animals.

Amazing central architecture! This openness between the floors (poetic license) allowed for ventilation and air flow between the floors. It also allowed the lighting from the unfinished top area to filter lighting to even the lower level of the ark.

Wouldn't it make sense that only young animals would be taken on the ark? They wouldn't eat as much, they would be more resilient to the change of the earth afterwards, and have more time to reproduce and repopulate the earth after the cataclysmic destruction.

Parts of the second and third floors contained information regarding geology, Biblical interpretations, myths surrounding the Flood (over 200! collected throughout the world), and much much more.

The third floor was primarily dedicated to the living and working quarters of the family of eight. It held their kitchen and cooking and growing facilities, a blacksmith shop and woodworking shop (something is bound to always be breaking on a big boat in a violent sea!), it held a dedicated room for each of the four couples, and each room was decorated to show different personalities and different skills, what is thought to be a pretty display of the talents, arts and crafts of the time.

Impressive! Educational! Based on Biblical literature!

A very profound experience!

Neaderthals Like Humans?

Were Neanderthals like us?

“The long-held view that Neanderthals were inferior to Homo sapiens is changing as, one by one, capabilities thought unique to us have been linked to them,” says New Scientist. Recent discoveries indicate that Neanderthals built shelters and hearths, controlled fire, wore clothes, cooked food, made tools, and created glue to attach spear points to their shafts. There is also evidence that they cared for sick individuals, wore symbolic ornaments, and buried their dead. According to Erik Trinkaus, professor of physical anthropology at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA, “Neanderthals were people, and they probably had the same range of mental abilities we do.” [Awake!, a monthly magazine put out by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. November 2011 edition, p. 29.]

Dr. Seth Lerer in the DVD course History of the English Language, second edition, asked the question whether people deduce from data or induce from theory, and stated the method used was the difference between description and imagination. (see The Great Courses). His lecture was on structural linguistics; however, these approaches can be used for analyzing religions and religious beliefs, evolution and evolutionary beliefs, etc.

Since beliefs about evolution are woven in how people look at archeological artifacts, it is suitable to question the foundation theories, beliefs, etc of evolution. Were evolutionary beliefs founded from the systematic and careful study of data, or was a theory (or multiple theories) imagined/formed and from them beliefs extrapolated? Basically, is evolution a "hard" science or a "soft" science? My question is not how it is studied in schools, universities and other places, but how it measures up. It seems to me that evolution uses "hard" science-proven facts to support a soft science that is based on beliefs. Nobody was there at the creation of the world, at the Big Bang of the world, when bugs crawled out of nothing and over time man stretched his limbs and became intelligent. These things have never been proven, but hard facts of science have tried to prove them although unsuccessfully. And therefore the question remains, is evolution a science that is deduced or induced, a science that is based on facts or based on the imagination?

This is argumentative material, but I think that people need to critically think about their principles and study them out for themselves. Just because the masses follow something does not mean that it is correct. This is a materialistic world and people are becoming more and more interested in their material goods rather than sticking with their belief systems - e.g. principles, morals, religious beliefs... People should know their values and personal beliefs and not compromise them by alternative teaching, which may be popular but does not mean that it is correct.