Daniel Phelps has been tracking attendance at Ken Ham’s roadside attraction for many years, and as you might expect, it’s a highly variable number, but in general it’s had a slight downward trend. This is unsurprising, because it’s not a particularly interesting place, since it’s promoting a tired old set of myths and there are no dramatic changes to get the people’s attention. There can’t be — the whole point of Answers in Genesis is that the facts have all been laid out in a centuries-old Bible, and anything mere men might propose as novel is wrong. They have to keep churning out pointless new attractions to keep their audience satisfied.
The decline has become so noticeable that even Ken Ham is compelled to acknowledge it.
As you have likely seen, travel and tourism have been down across the nation this year due to previous years’ economic impact. And as the Bible reminds us, “It is the same for all. There is one fate for the righteous and for the wicked; for the good, for the clean and for the unclean; for the man who offers a sacrifice and for the one who does not sacrifice. As the good man is, so is the sinner; as the swearer is, so is the one who is afraid to swear. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one fate for all.” (Ecclesiastes 9:2–3 LSB)
And so yes, the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum have been affected too. Because summer is our peak season, we use that time to put away funds to enable us to get through the slower times of winter (January–April). But this year, we weren’t able to do that to the degree we have in the past. Now, the good news is many experts are predicting things will get back closer to “normal” next year, and we are seeing improvements as we approach the end of the year.
Oh, gosh, the downturn in attendance is Biden’s fault, which is pure nonsense. The tourism industry will tell you that the election of Trump was a real shock to their business. I wouldn’t expect it to bounce back next year — I think we’re sliding into a pit of failure that can’t improve as long as the demented idiot at the top is batting the economy back and forth.
AiG is making changes in response. They’re selling off a quarter share in their company jet. We’re all tightening our belts! They’re also begging even harder for donations, with a $20 million fundraising goal. There are still plenty of gullible people in the country, and maybe his hope is that when Trump demolishes the educational system our population of morons, his people, will rise.
They will always have an excuse.
Trump’s 51st State talk(thankfully currently on hiatus) and more general worries about border crossing trouble have led to a major drop in Canadian tourism to the US. It would be interesting to know if Ark Encounter has been effected. There are people who believe in that nonsense in Canada, but even they probably aren’t interested in making a special trip to Kentucky.
@!
Why travel internationally when they could visit the Big Valley Creation Museum in Alberta, or the Creation Research Museum of Ontario, or other equally scientific institutions?
Reginald Selkirk @#2
Does either have ziplines? Checkmate Canadians.
I have a few inklings as to why the Ark Encounter’s attendance is declining (aside from the obvious; “It’s crap”):
Evangelical churches, just like every other organization that relies on expendable income of its members, ‘belt-tightening’ and the busload field trips to Kentucky are expensive
Everyone who cared has already gone – what is the point in going again?
the ‘new shiny’ is new and shiny, the Ark isn’t (the new church of Charlie Kirk is)
the Ark encounter ISN’T a tourist attraction, it is a ministry prop, and it failed. It didn’t convert anyone, or successfully evangelize as intended (at least not to anyone who wasn’t already in the fold) the only thing it was ‘good’ at was tax evasion
the economy, right?? Thanks Obama!!
In that first paragraph, Ham says his tourist-trap has fewer paying customers than before — and then goes right to a Bible verse that says people who don’t “sacrifice” go to Hell. Is he actually trying to imply that people who don’t pay for his tourist-trap will go to Hell?
I bet his pseudo-museum are as just as pointless as his wooden oil tanker. Just outdated dinosaur models, a desecrated 150 million year old Allosaurus skeleton, and placards that endorses incest in a veil matter in one placard while others make false comparisons between “Human opinion” (Real Science based on credible evidence) and “God’s Word” (Dumb Idiot Ham’s warped, toxic interpretations of the Bible he fragments, twists, and shoehorns irrelevant content inside the pages to focus on selective passage that suits him while ignoring the rest that don’t).
I’d have thought that April, famous for having Easter in it, wouldn’t be a slow time of year for Christian tourism. Or maybe Ham thinks that anything new testament-y is a bit suss.
I think you’re seeing what you expect to see, not what’s there. In the quoted text, Hell is not mentioned. And the quote from Ecclesiastes is perhaps the most atheistic passage in the Bible: it says the same fate* awaits you whether you are good or evil, sacrifice or don’t… IOW, there’s no evidence of a god in what happens to people.
*Implicitly, death – and remember that the Jews at the time it was written (sometime between 450 BCE and 180 BCE) probably didn’t believe in an afterlife.
“They’re selling off a quarter share in their company jet. ”
I’ll take the left wing, please.
@8 EigenSprocketUK
Most people who travel to the Creation Museum probably have children, and travel by car. A long weekend isn’t enough, they probably wait for summer. Also, in parts of the USA, weather is iffy in April.
If they do have children and brings them to the “museum” I hope they shield from seeing the gory display of Adam and Eve sacrificing two lambs to God, which was never told in the Bible. Rather it was told from a Jewish rabbi.
*they shield them from.
they might get a lot more visitors if they added things like Genesis 19:30-36
Interesting that tiny snippet of Ecclesiastes. Cherry picked as per usual. After all, what would his believers have to say if they kept reading? But they all like having it read to them, and the only thing the Protestants protest about is if you do keep reading.
@tytalus
and
17 The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded
than the shouts of a ruler of fools.
The anti-humor in that
advertisementnewspaper “funnies” clipping makes my brain hurt.