Monetizing Genesis
One of the larger ongoing non-Trump grifts in America is the “Ark Encounter” in Williamstown, Kentucky. It’s been open for nearly ten years. I don’t know whether or not it’s hit its evangelistic benchmarks, but it has never met the financial benchmarks promised to Kentucky taxpayers.
“When Creationist Ken Ham and his team at Answers in Genesis were looking for a location for their $100+ million attraction, they pitched it as a way to create jobs. One projection (from the state) said Ark Encounter was “expected to annually generate… a minimum of 3,000 new full-time equivalent jobs.”
*snip*
“Besides that, the city of Williamstown, which desperately wanted to be the home of the Ark, offered Ham’s team $62 million in junk bonds if they built the “Ark” in their backyard. Grant County, which Williamstown is in, gave Ham’s team 98 acres of land for $1.
“They also said that, over a 30-year period, 75% of Ark Encounter’s real estate taxes would go toward repayment of the interest-free loan. So instead of that money going to the city and the citizens, it would be used to repay those bonds.
“Also, 2% of all employees’ paychecks would go back to Ark Encounter to help them pay off the loans, so neither the government nor the employees were getting everything they deserved.
“Why would a city and county do all this? Because they hoped that the attraction would be so popular, it would increase tourism, liven up what was in many ways a dying town, create well-paying jobs, and be good for all surrounding businesses.
“The state of Kentucky even promised Ark Encounter a tax incentive worth up to $18.25 million over the next decade based on attendance and sales.”
And yet the money changers in the “Ark” temple never made budget.
“They assured everyone that they would bring in between 1.2 million and 2 million visitors in the first full year of business.
“Ken Ham openly bragged about this on the website for Ark Encounter at the time.
“That same report assumed a 4% increase in attendance every year over the next decade—a number that could rise to 10% after they expanded. By their math—and Creationists are truly numerical wizards—the money line would always be going up and to the right.”
And what happened with the involuntary tithes from Kentucky taxpayers?
“The attendance has never even come close to hitting that estimated average of 1.6 million visitors. Even when you factor out the year COVID shut these parks down, things have just gone downhill.”
*snip*
“Because they’re not hitting the projected attendance numbers, it means the city isn’t attracting tourists in the volume they had hoped, which is bad news for local stores, hotels, and even schools that rely on property taxes.”
Both the stories in Genesis and the money machine built around them turn out to be myths.
Ark Encounter grift update
It’s set back quite a ways from the interstate, which I think hurts it. You need eagle eyes to catch a glimpse of it. It’s not that people would see it and stop, but the awareness would improve the chances the next time through a family might target it. The food service was not convenient….two floors of seating and food available on the lower. So lots of people walking up steps with food. Also it was a free-for-all to secure seating. One parent trying to get the food for a whole family and the rest trying to outhustle 3 other families looking for a table. You just hope they get a table and send the older kids down to help carry food. Read they were dedicated to making improvements but it’s the kind of place you don’t revisit really. But the Ark itself was interesting. Kids liked it.
@Eric,
“. . . it’s the kind of place you don’t revisit really.”
And yet Disneyland, which is also based on cartoonish fiction, sees a lot of repeat business. Wonder why.
Having repeated problems with “Reply” comments. Cloudflare box is absent when I choose to reply. Original comments seem to work. Anyway, places like Disneyland have rides designed to produce sought after sensory experiences. It may be the same roller coaster as last week, but you can’t easily feel the roller coaster “effect” outside of the amusement park. Disneyland without rides would have a huge fall off of repeat visits. You walk around inside the Ark and look at things. To say the least, the story behind it is pretty stable after thousands of years, so little reason to think “Ark 2026” won’t be a lot like “Ark 2017”, or whenever it was I went. The Ark story itself seems to be at least a regional telling of some pretty epic events. Did it happen just as written? Probably not. Was there an awful lot of water sloshing around on hitherto dry land in the near east? Probably.
Eric:
Have you tried to clear your caches? “On a Web Browser (Chrome, Safari, Edge): Press Ctrl + F5 (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + R (Mac) to hard-refresh a single page. Alternatively, go into your browser’s history/privacy settings and select “Clear Cache”.
Cache may have an impact.
Eric:
I find the “comments” section below the post to be difficult. You have to be right on top of it. I will see if I can increase the size of it.
@Eric,
Flood myths are widespread among religions. Early human societies were established near water that occasionally flooded. These floods were attributed to gods and incorporated in mythologies. The Old Testament is just another example. Young earth creationism was discredited by science over 150 years ago. The notion that two of every living thing was on a wooden boat (Noah got marsupials . . . where?) and then after a few thousand years repopulated the entire planet with millions of separate species and 8 billion descendants of Noah is so silly it would make a dog laugh. Even more remarkable is that in the third decade of the 21st century people still believe such fables.
A privately funded entertainment facility based on the Genesis myths is fine. No worse than talking mice and ducks. But they shouldn’t get tax money or special government consideration.
I do think it were possible to fit petri dishes of dormant DNA for every living species from bugs to boat-builders on that boat
Every religion has myths of seeds of life crossing vast empty space
Not sayin’ that’s what happened but if a gale hadn’t been blowing across the bay I would have seen that meteorite …
@Ten,
“Every religion has myths of seeds of life crossing vast empty space.”
Which passages in the Bible and Torah are you referring to?
I can’t, of course, because the bible, torah etc are plagiarisms of an older history but I would argue a boat bearing the remnants of life adrift on an empty sea is a vast space
If you read it just so, the first week of genesis provides a pretty accurate description of everything that happened from the Big Bang to man. In the beginning there was no light, then Bang! …
@Ten,
LOL! That’s the thing about the Bible–a strong imagination, a healthy dollop of motivated reasoning, and voila–you can find whatever you’re looking for.
Gods are the universal avatars of human society. Man creates gods. It is unsurprising that most people use the Bible as a mirror.
Bill, clearing cache did not change the Reply situation, but thanks for the suggestion. I can now get to comments better, so no need to increase size. Not sure why, but if I hold on the small comments link for much longer than for any kind other kind of link (including other AB links) then I eventually get past the small ribbon ad into comments. I am using a handheld device most of the time using touch, not clicking. Odd that links in the actual text respond immediately but not comments, but it is working.
Eric:
Which is why I will bring this up with our systems guy. I believe the size has to do with it. If you do not get it exactly on comments in a partitular it will not work properly or at all.