Ken Ham Thinks a New “Tower of Babel” Attraction Will Help Defeat Racism

Wednesday marked the fifth anniversary of the opening of Ark Encounter, the money-sucking Noah’s Ark replica in Kentucky that receives taxpayer money because it’s a tourism draw. Creationist Ken Ham marked the occasion by announcing a new exhibit he plans to open within a few years: A giant Tower of Babel.

In the Bible, the myth is meant to explain why people speak different languages. In an attempt to reach Heaven, the human race (all of whom spoke the same language) planned to build this giant tower, but God screwed with their speech until they spoke different languages and couldn’t communicate with each other. Then God scattered them everywhere.

(Does that explain how certain languages evolved and have similar roots? Does it explain why, earlier in the Bible, we’re told there are already different languages? Does it explain why other civilizations had their own versions of this myth long before the Bible writers put together their own version? Of course not.)

But Ham believes the tower literally existed and he wants to recreate a version of it — something he’s been talking about for years.

The Ark Encounter said Wednesday that it would take about three years to research, plan and build a “Tower of Babel” attraction on the park’s grounds in Northern Kentucky.

A release from the Ark Encounter park said the new attraction will “tackle the racism issue” by helping visitors “understand how genetics research and the Bible confirm the origin of all people groups around the world.” No other details were given on the Babel attraction or what it might look like.

Great. Racial healing is going to come via fundamentalist Christians living in Kentucky…

By the way, that’s the only time you’ll ever hear “Ark Encounter” and “research” in the same sentence.

Actually, Ken Ham is something of a broken record on this topic and not necessarily in a bad way. He’s said for years that racism is wrong — correct! — but only because we all descended from Adam and are therefore the same race. In other words, his solution to racism is to pretend it doesn’t exist. He doesn’t see racism as any different from any other sin — and he thinks if we just ignore race and embrace Jesus, then race problems will disappear.

This guy isn’t the hero anyone is looking for. He never acknowledges how the Bible has been used as a tool to perpetuate slavery and bigotry for centuries (as well as a tool to fight it, though that came much later). He also thinks the cure for racism is to stop teaching evolution… which just goes to show you how little he understands the issues.

And, not surprisingly, he has no problem adopting the rhetoric of political conservatives who enact policies that bolster white supremacy without saying those exact words.

So, no, the Tower of Babel Part 2 won’t help anyone understand racism because the people making the damn tower don’t understand the first thing about the topic.

Ham should just be honest about his intentions here: He needs a new gimmick to get people to visit the Ark. The zip lines and tiny zoo aren’t doing the job. The Ark itself is never going to change because it’s not science; there are only so many ways to polish bullshit. He needs new Genesis-themed attractions and a tower is probably the most cost-effective way to make something new in limited space. The goal isn’t to educate. It’s to grab headlines.

If you think you’re going to learn anything useful by looking at this exhibit, you’ve got bigger problems to deal with.

(Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to @ignored_the for the link)