not Ham, who was the son of Noach, not Noah (ch = the German ch).

FYI.

I've kind off agreed with Stev(ph?)en J. Goulds idea of non-overlapping magesteria. Simply put, the mind of man can deduce that "how" of the universe. That is to say we can figure out "how" stars are born, "how" life changes over time, "how" radio active decay occurs. But when it comes to "why", we turn to the spiritual side of things and try to understand that which, IMHO, can't be known.

The problem here is that there are a large number of people that prefer to not do the labor of understanding "how" because it diminishes their place in the universe.

Think about it. What would you rather be told? Would you like to hear that you are merely the current manifestation of a natural process that has been going on for billions of years and will continue for billions of years after you're gone? Or would you rather be told that you are the lord's special creation, created in his image, with a divine purpose to your existence (sp?)?

If you look at the history of rational thought, the ideas that have caused the most angst are the one's that tell us we are not the, um, crown of creation. Remember that the church locked up Galileo for the last few years of his life because he could prove the earth (and by extension, man) was not the center of the universe.

There is a certain mind set that just can't accept our insignificance in the grand scheme of things. Why that mind set is so prevelant in MY country is beyond me. But it saddens and disappoints me.

There is a delicious irony in the Museum's CEO Ken Ham sharing a name with Noah's accursed son. It would be even more ironic if Mr. Ham were black, given the old argument that there was a biblical justification for slavery, in that the offspring of (biblical) Ham were presumed to be black, and condemned to servitude under the descendants of Noah's other sons. I suspect that gets no mention in the Creation Museum.

There is a delicious irony in the Museum's CEO Ken Ham sharing a name with Noah's accursed son. It would be even more ironic if Mr. Ham were black, given the old argument that there was a biblical justification for slavery, in that the offspring of (biblical) Ham were presumed to be black, and condemned to servitude under the descendants of Noah's other sons. I suspect that gets no mention in the Creation Museum.

But where are Fred and Wilma?

is the 6 24 hour days. The rest can be taken as allegory and metaphor. Adam and Eve is single cell reproduction for dummies, etc... But the 24 hour day is just a flat out assumption with nothing at all to support it and no real reason to make it, unless you are an ancient Hebrew with no knowledge that anyplace else exists. I understand that the myth involves an omnipotent God who can do anything at all, but if God was standing on Earth when he created the universe - which they clearly assume that He was - why would Earth then need to be created?

Insisting that a story that is actually a fairly interesting way of explaining some complicated stuff to people who had never seen a telescope or microscope is absolute, word for word fact is just silly.

"On the other hand, he says, the Book of Genesis is true 'from the first word to the last.'"

By we, I mean Orthodox Jews.

We also hold by the Big Bang. How can that be? Well, there's a companion to the Written Torah called the Oral Tradition (a.k.a, then Oral Torah), which explains and elucidates the Written Torah.

The Written Torah can also be thought of as a memory aid for the Oral Tradition. We hold that they are two sides of the same coin, inseparable. It's clear from there that B'reishis (Genesis) fits in perfectly with the Big Bang.

Why are people who don't know the Hebrew alphabet, who couldn't tell the 10 Commandments from instructions on how to change a tire in Hebrew, who never even have heard of the Oral Tradition, why are they taken seriously?

Remember, if you read the Bible from left to right, you are reading it backwards.

Dear Editor:

I don't mind that mainstream science is criticized or that the notion of evolution is questioned. My principal objection to this museum and the school of thought which it represents is how they come to their conclusions about creation. That their their underlying assumption is merely faith without any sort of rational basis to it: that the bible is the word of God and its accounts of the origins of the world are literally true and authoritative as an unundermindable given.

The theory of evolution may have some questionable elements to it and these questionable elements may or may not be understood better in the future via further research and possibly may be disproven. Nevertheless, the notion that the world was created in six days and is a mere 6.000 years old is a scientific non-starter. The notion that man lived with the dinosaurs is rediculous. There is no objective evidence to back up this museum's beliefs, which is exactly what their hypothesis is.

Interestingly enought, it should be noted for the record that nowhere in the Bible are dinosaurs mentioned, although quite a few other animals are catalogued. What I understand is that this museum is trying to find a way to align its beliefs with the fossil record which is another way of saying that since they assume that their belief in the biblical account of creation is literally true, they will engage in any and all sorts of dishonest intellectural mechanations to support this very faith-based vies.

That is not science at all. That is lunacy.

Sincerely yours,

Arthur C. Hurwitz

Let's not forget who "god-fathered" the English version of the bible that retains his name; that remains THE version to Fundamentalists (from Wikipedia):

Throughout his life James I had relationships with his male courtiers, beginning with his older relative Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox. The two became extremely close and it was said by an English observer that "from the time he was 14 years old and no more, that is, when the Lord Stuart came into Scotland… even then he began… to clasp some one in the embraces of his great love, above all others" and that James became "in such love with him as in the open sight of the people oftentimes he will clasp him about the neck with his arms and kiss him". Faced with an ultimatum from the Scottish nobility that he choose his Catholicism or James, Stuart chose James and converted to Calvinism. This was stil not enough, however, and Stuart was eventually driven out of Scotland to France, where he died.

A few years after the controversy over his relationship with Lennox faded away, James embarked on an affair with Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset. During the next two years, however, their relationship became troubled as Carr increasingly preferred his wife. In 1615 James fell out with Carr, and forced him to face trial after it was revealed that Carr's new wife had poisoned Sir Thomas Overbury, his best friend who had opposed the marriage. Although his wife was found guilty and Carr had threatened to expose their liason in court, James reprieved both of them and gave them a country estate, though after holding them in the tower for seven years.[106]

The last of James's three close male friends was George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, the son of a Leicestershire knight. They had met in 1614, around the same time that the situation with Carr was deteriorating. The King was blunt and unashamed in his avowal of love for Buckingham, saying "Christ had his John, and I my George". Contemporary commentators, such as the homosexual Théophile de Viau did not mince words in describing the king's relationship. In his poem, Au marquis du Boukinquan, de Viau writes: "Apollo with his songs / debauched young Hyacinthus, / And it is well known that the king of England / fucks the Duke of Buckingham."

Buckingham became good friends with James’s wife Anne, she addressed him in affectionate letters begging him to be "always true" to her husband. James in some letters addressed him as his spouse saying that "I desire only to live in this world for your sake... I had rather live banished in any part of the Earth with you than live a sorrowful widow's life without you... God bless you, my sweet child and wife, and grant that ye may ever be a comfort to your dear dad and husband".[107] A few years later James died with Buckingham at his side.