No dinosaurs described in the Bible? No problem, according to creationism proponent Ken Ham, who recently argued that despite popular opinion, dinosaurs and Biblical characters did co-exist -- in fact, they traveled together on Noah's Ark.
Ham, the president/CEO and founder of Answers in Genesis-U.S. and the Creation Museum, made the unconventional claims during a new 60-second radio ad for the museum released this week.
Titled "What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs?" the ad explains that while evolution proponents have used dinosaurs to “indoctrinate children,” the scaly beasts actually back up a more Biblical creation story.
"Evolution has claimed dinosaurs evolved over 200 million years ago, that nobody ever lived with them," Ham says in the ad. "But the Bible gives a different history. God tells us that he created all land animals the same day he created man, about 6,000 years ago. What's more, there are even dinosaurs on Noah's Ark because God told Noah to take pairs of every land animal."
In this way, "dinosaurs are no mystery at all," Ham concludes, as long as you believe in a literal interpretation of the Biblical creation story.
This is not the first time that Ham has made an attempt to "reclaim dinosaurs" for the creationism movement. The Creation Museum at one point sold a "We’re taking dinosaurs back!” bumper sticker, according to Slate.
Ham's Answers in Genesis organization also offers an illustrated children's primer called "Dinosaurs of Eden: A Biblical Journey Through Time," which features dinosaurs frolicking around the "beginning of time" in the Garden of Eden.
However despite Ham's best efforts, it appears his creationism package is becoming harder to swallow for Americans -- or at the very least, harder to profit from. After raising millions to open the museum in Kentucky in 2007, museum attendance has been dropping for several years, with an all-time low of 280,000 total visitors last year, according to Yahoo!
In an effort to pump up attendance, this June the museum debuted a new zip line course "designed to attract a broader range of people to the Creation Museum and to enhance the museum itself," Ham told Cincinnati.com.
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