Freethinkers take the moral high ground on Ark Encounter

The month has flown by quickly since the launch of our Genocide & Incest Billboard Campaign. Many opinion articles have been written both in support of and criticizing our efforts to raise awareness about the unethical nature of the up and coming Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky this July.  Our organization never imagined such a welcoming, and supportive, response from our community, and our gratitude cannot be expressed enough for their generosity. But with the supporters come detractors, and we would like to respond specifically to a few questions and claims made by Ken Ham and the local Christian community regarding our activism and organization’s members. 

Genesis 6: 5-8 “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”

So, let’s start with what our beef is with regards to a theme park based on Noah’s story. Ham has claimed we are “…just using the Ark project as a way of shaking their fist at God.”

Plain and simply put: It’s immoral.  It hypocritically celebrates the story of Noah’s faith in God being rewarded and conveniently leaves out the part about God killing everyone. One might think this is an exaggeration of what is being promoted at the religiously based theme park. Many take offense to the billboard pointing out that their mythology celebrates genocide and incest.

By definition, the word genocide refers to the deliberate killing of a large group of people, particularly those belonging to specific nations or cultures.  It is considered to be one of the most heinous crimes that someone can commit or take part in as it inflicts such devastating losses upon humanity. 

In Genesis 6, God is quoted saying that he will wipe the human race from the earth. Every man, woman, and child had been judged as being wicked (with the exception of Noah), and were condemned to a violent and dramatic destruction by drowning in a flood, leaving the earth to be repopulated by incest  for the second time. This is mathematically impossible to accomplish when considering you only had a handful of people left to do all the multiplying. Read more about this from a mathematical point of view here.

As far as archaeological evidence, according to Ham there were dinosaurs and humans side by side and that the flood waters covered the entire globe. So, where are the human bones mixed in the same layer as dinosaur bones? There aren’t, because the global flood never happened.

“It’s interesting that atheists, who have no foundation for moral absolutes except their own opinion, are accusing the holy and just God—who as Creator has every right to punish sin—of being immoral. But how do they define immoral? Well, the only way to do. that is to appeal to moral absolutes—which are found in God’s Word.” – Ken Ham – April, 2016

Ham says atheists have no basis for absolute standards and that is correct. By absolute standard, Ham is referring to dogma, or a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true. As atheists and freethinkers, we find dogma to be a dangerous source of ethics, as it leaves no room for discussion or improvement. We choose instead to look to philosophical principles, reason, and empathy. Utilitarianism holds that we should take actions that do the most good for the most people. Reason gives us the tools to see through things like superstition and cognitive biases when making ethical decisions. Empathy strengthens relationships by allowing us to see things from the perspective of another.

Following the Bible as an absolute standard for society would be an incredibly difficult task, and sometimes we meet Christians that tend to pick and choose which parts they wish to follow as absolute. We see no protests being held outside of Red Lobster for eating shellfish (Leviticus 11:12), nor burning piles of shirts made from a polyester blend (Leviticus 19:19), and we thankfully do not require slaves to obey their masters (Ephesians 6:5) or stone to death disobedient children (Deuteronomy 21:18-21).

Ham, who inaccurately tells the story of Noah’s Ark to show how faith is rewarded, decides to rationalize away the part where God kills everyone, even the unborn in their mothers’ wombs. Justifying mass genocide because God can do whatever he wants, including acting like a petulant child who quits playing because no one is playing by the rules that he never clearly made publicly known.   And to question the irrational, and oddly human like qualities of this being, is sinful and wicked?

What Ken Ham does not understand is that this type of inflexibility causes stagnation within society. It also halts exploration of authority.  Ham makes the statement that :

“By exhibiting their intolerance of the Ark Encounter this time, this group highlights the open hostility and growing aggressiveness of atheists in attacking the Bible and the God who revealed Himself through its historical accounts. This particularly highlights the intolerance for the Bible, which itself was the moral framework and foundation of Western political philosophy of liberty and equality”. – Ken Ham March, 2016 

This is not growing aggressiveness. This is not intolerance for the Bible. This is a group of concerned citizens beseeching the general public to truly analyze the information being presented to them as fact when going to this facility for a family fun day. Ham confuses criticism for intolerance. As freethinkers, we believe that nothing should be above examination and critique, even a religious theme park.

If Ham’s claim of absolute standards of morality are truly the best way to make moral decisions, you would expect to see a higher standard of morality among the most religious societies. The United States is one of the most religious of the western nations and yet has the highest rates of murder, imprisonment, rape, and poverty. And since our country is majority Christian, you can deduce the majority of the perpetrators of crimes are Christian.  In contrast, more secular societies such as France, Germany, Sweden, and Japan have some of the lowest rates of crime. 

Our organization repeatedly stated that Ken Ham, along with all other theists, have every right to celebrate and express their mythology. We will fight for their first amendment right. As a non-profit organization, we have made it part of our mission to  fight for equal rights and educate the public regarding violations of the separation of church and state. We will unflinchingly call to the carpet those who seek to violate these values.

We will draw attention when theists try to inject religion into our public schools when passing out bibles, promoting sexual education based on religious dogma, and ignoring basic tenets of science. We will hold our elected officials accountable in their decision-making in regards to the civil rights of others, and the use of tax dollars to further religious agendas.

We do this because we are responsible citizens. We do this because we love our nation and all its diversity.

 

 

There is still time to support the campaign. Please visit our indiegogo page!